Changes from 1986 to 2006 in reasons for liking leisure-time physical activity among adolescents

Reasons for participating in physical activity (PA) may have changed in accordance with the general modernization of society. The aim is to examine changes in self-reported reasons for liking leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) and their association with self-reported LTPA over a 20-year period. Data were collected among nationally representative samples of 13-year-olds in Finland, Norway, and Wales in 1986 and 2006 (N = 9252) as part of the WHO cross-national Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study. Univariate ANOVAs to establish differences according to gender, year, and country were conducted. In all countries, 13-year-olds in 2006 tended to report higher importance in terms of achievement and social reasons than their counterparts in 1986, while changes in health reasons were minor. These reasons were associated with LTPA in a similar way at both time points. Health reasons for liking LTPA were considered most important, and were the strongest predictor of LTPA. The findings seem robust as they were consistent across countries and genders. Health education constitutes the most viable strategy for promoting adolescents' motivation for PA, and interventions and educational efforts could be improved by an increased focus on LTPA and sport as a social activity

canSAR: update to the cancer translational research and drug discovery knowledgebase.

canSAR (http://cansar.icr.ac.uk) is a public, freely available, integrative translational research and drug discovery knowlegebase. canSAR informs researchers to help solve key bottlenecks in cancer translation and drug discovery. It integrates genomic, protein, pharmacological, drug and chemical data with structural biology, protein networks and unique, comprehensive and orthogonal 'druggability' assessments. canSAR is widely used internationally by academia and industry. Here we describe major enhancements to canSAR including new and expanded data. We also describe the first components of canSARblack-an advanced, responsive, multi-device compatible redesign of canSAR with a question-led interface

Socioeconomic differences in adolescents’ smoking: a comparison between Finland and Beijing, China

Background: Various studies have demonstrated the associations between socioeconomic status (SES) and health and health behaviour among adolescents. However, few studies have compared the socioeconomic difference in adolescent smoking between countries with different stage of smoking. The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and adolescent smoking in Beijing, China and Finland through the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study. Methods: The data used in this study were derived from the Chinese HBSC linked project survey 2008 in Beijing and the Finnish HBSC survey 2006. The final sample included 2005 Chinese and 1685 Finnish 15-year-old schoolchildren. The associations between Family Affluence Scale (FAS), as the SES measure, and adolescents’ smoking behaviour, including ever smoked, weekly smoking and the early onset of smoking were examined separately in two countries through binary logistic regression. Results: Compared to students from the high FAS group, Chinese boys from the low FAS group were more likely to report having ever smoked (OR = 2.12, 95 % CI = 1.49–3.01) and being early onset of smoking (OR = 2.17, 95 % CI = 1. 44–3.26). Finnish girls from the low FAS group were more likely to report being weekly smokers (OR = 1.68, 95 % CI = 1. 07–2.65). No significant difference was found for Chinese girls and Finnish boys. Conclusions: This study indicated different patterns of socioeconomic difference in smoking between Chinese and Finnish adolescents by gender and by smoking behaviour, which suggests that socioeconomic inequalities in smoking are different among adolescents in countries with different stage of smoking. Country specific policies and interventions for different target groups should be encouraged and designed for reducing the prevalence of adolescents’ smoking.peerReviewe

Test-retest reliability of selected items of Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey questionnaire in Beijing, China

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Children's health and health behaviour are essential for their development and it is important to obtain abundant and accurate information to understand young people's health and health behaviour. The Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study is among the first large-scale international surveys on adolescent health through self-report questionnaires. So far, more than 40 countries in Europe and North America have been involved in the HBSC study. The purpose of this study is to assess the test-retest reliability of selected items in the Chinese version of the HBSC survey questionnaire in a sample of adolescents in Beijing, China.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A sample of 95 male and female students aged 11 or 15 years old participated in a test and retest with a three weeks interval. Student Identity numbers of respondents were utilized to permit matching of test-retest questionnaires. 23 items concerning physical activity, sedentary behaviour, sleep and substance use were evaluated by using the percentage of response shifts and the single measure Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICC) with 95% confidence interval (CI) for all respondents and stratified by gender and age. Items on substance use were only evaluated for school children aged 15 years old.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The percentage of no response shift between test and retest varied from 32% for the item on computer use at weekends to 92% for the three items on smoking. Of all the 23 items evaluated, 6 items (26%) showed a moderate reliability, 12 items (52%) displayed a substantial reliability and 4 items (17%) indicated almost perfect reliability. No gender and age group difference of the test-retest reliability was found except for a few items on sedentary behaviour.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The overall findings of this study suggest that most selected indicators in the HBSC survey questionnaire have satisfactory test-retest reliability for the students in Beijing. Further test-retest studies in a large and diverse sample, as well as validity studies, should be considered for the future Chinese HBSC study.</p

Association between biliary complications and technique of hilar division (extrahepatic vs. intrahepatic) in major liver resections

BACKGROUND: Division of major vascular and biliary structures during major hepatectomies can be carried out either extrahepatically at the porta hepatic or intrahepatically during the parenchymal transection. In this retrospective study we test the hypothesis that the intrahepatic technique is associated with less early biliary complications. METHODS: 150 patients who underwent major hepatectomies were retrospectively allocated into an intrahepatic group (n = 100) and an extrahepatic group (n = 50) based on the technique of hilar division. The two groups were operated by two different surgical teams, each one favoring one of the two approaches for hilar dissection. Operative data (warm ischemic time, operative time, blood loss), biliary complications, morbidity and mortality rates were analyzed. RESULTS: In extrahepatic patients, operative time was longer (245 ± 50 vs 214 ± 38 min, p < 0.05) while the overall complication rate (55% vs 52%), hospital stay (13 ± 7 vs 12 ± 4 days), bile leak rate (22% vs 20%) and mortality (2% vs 2%) were similar compared to intrahepatic patients. However, most (57%) bile leaks in extrahepatic patients were grade II (leaks that required non-operative interventional treatment, while most (70%) leaks in the intrahepatic group were grade I (leaks that resolved and presented two injuries (4%) of the remaining bile ducts (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Intrahepatic hilar division is as safe as extrahepatic hilar division in terms of intraoperative blood requirements, morbidity and mortality. The extrahepatic technique is associated with more severe bile leaks and biliary injuries

Effects of hospital facilities on patient outcomes after cancer surgery: an international, prospective, observational study

Background Early death after cancer surgery is higher in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) compared with in high-income countries, yet the impact of facility characteristics on early postoperative outcomes is unknown. The aim of this study was to examine the association between hospital infrastructure, resource availability, and processes on early outcomes after cancer surgery worldwide.Methods A multimethods analysis was performed as part of the GlobalSurg 3 study-a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study of patients who had surgery for breast, colorectal, or gastric cancer. The primary outcomes were 30-day mortality and 30-day major complication rates. Potentially beneficial hospital facilities were identified by variable selection to select those associated with 30-day mortality. Adjusted outcomes were determined using generalised estimating equations to account for patient characteristics and country-income group, with population stratification by hospital.Findings Between April 1, 2018, and April 23, 2019, facility-level data were collected for 9685 patients across 238 hospitals in 66 countries (91 hospitals in 20 high-income countries; 57 hospitals in 19 upper-middle-income countries; and 90 hospitals in 27 low-income to lower-middle-income countries). The availability of five hospital facilities was inversely associated with mortality: ultrasound, CT scanner, critical care unit, opioid analgesia, and oncologist. After adjustment for case-mix and country income group, hospitals with three or fewer of these facilities (62 hospitals, 1294 patients) had higher mortality compared with those with four or five (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 3.85 [95% CI 2.58-5.75]; p&lt;0.0001), with excess mortality predominantly explained by a limited capacity to rescue following the development of major complications (63.0% vs 82.7%; OR 0.35 [0.23-0.53]; p&lt;0.0001). Across LMICs, improvements in hospital facilities would prevent one to three deaths for every 100 patients undergoing surgery for cancer.Interpretation Hospitals with higher levels of infrastructure and resources have better outcomes after cancer surgery, independent of country income. Without urgent strengthening of hospital infrastructure and resources, the reductions in cancer-associated mortality associated with improved access will not be realised

Multi-objective optimization methods in de novo drug design

De-novo drug design (DND) is a complex procedure, requiring the satisfaction of many pharmaceutically important objectives. Several computational methodologies employing various optimization approaches have been developed to search for satisfactory solutions to this multi-objective problem varying from composite methods, which transform the problem to a single objective one to Pareto methods searching for numerous solutions compromising the objectives. In this review we initially focus on the DND problem and the challenges it poses to computational methods, followed by an examination of the reported methodologies and specific applications. Emphasis is placed on the multiobjective nature of the problem, related considerations and the solutions proposed by the drug discovery community

Chemistry Central Journal Poster presentation Knowledge-driven multi-objective de novo drug design

© 2009 Nicolaou et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. Drug discovery is an inherently multi-objective process since drugs need to satisfy not only activity requirements but also a range of other properties such as selectivity and toxicity. However, drug discovery process practices, including both experimental and computational methods, commonly ignore this fact and focus on a single pharmaceutical objective at a time. De novo design, the branch of chemoinformatics addressing the in silico design of ligands from scratch, follows a similar approach typically focusing on a single objective, such as an interaction score to a target receptor or similarity to a known drug [1]. Recently, methods have appeared in the literature that attempt to design molecules satisfying multiple predefined objectives [2]. Motivated from the initial success o

Changes from 1986 to 2006 in reasons for liking leisure-time physical activity among adolescents

Reasons for participating in physical activity (PA) may have changed in accordance with the general modernization of society. The aim is to examine changes in self-reported reasons for liking leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) and their association with self-reported LTPA over a 20-year period. Data were collected among nationally representative samples of 13-year-olds in Finland, Norway, and Wales in 1986 and 2006 (N = 9252) as part of the WHO cross-national Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study. Univariate ANOVAs to establish differences according to gender, year, and country were conducted. In all countries, 13-year-olds in 2006 tended to report higher importance in terms of achievement and social reasons than their counterparts in 1986, while changes in health reasons were minor. These reasons were associated with LTPA in a similar way at both time points. Health reasons for liking LTPA were considered most important, and were the strongest predictor of LTPA. The findings seem robust as they were consistent across countries and genders. Health education constitutes the most viable strategy for promoting adolescents' motivation for PA, and interventions and educational efforts could be improved by an increased focus on LTPA and sport as a social activity