Relationship Between College Students’ Knowledge of the Risk Factors for Type 2 Diabetes and Health Behaviors

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is one of the leading causes of death worldwide and its prevalence is growing across the United States in all populations. The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact knowledge regarding T2D has on health behaviors, specifically, behaviors related to physical activity and sugar and fat consumption. A questionnaire was distributed through email to 500 undergraduate students at one specific campus of the State University of New York college system. Fifty-one of these subjects met the eligibility criteria and were used as part of this study. The questionnaire instrument consisted of four self-report areas: (a) demographics, (b) current knowledge of T2D risk factors, (c) physical activity behavior, and (d) dietary behavior. The researcher found the average T2D knowledge score was 33.7, physical activity score was 3.5 sessions per week, sugar consumption frequency score was 25.2, fat consumption 3.6, and junk food consumption was 28.8. The researcher failed to support the hypotheses that knowledge was significantly correlated with health behaviors. However, the effect size for each of these relationships was small to medium, indicating that with a larger sample we would expect to see a significant correlation. Overall, the researcher concluded that the college student population is overweight and most students do not practice positive health behaviors to prevent chronic disease, such as T2D. It is recommended that colleges and universities consider promoting healthier lifestyles for their students by offering more opportunities for physical activity, good nutrition, and health education/support groups

Demand Driven Innovation and Uncertainty: Evidence from diffusion of flat panel TV (Japanese)

In a case-study, we show that developing new goods is constrained by demand uncertainty. It was believed that knowing "needs" would be critical for R&D investment decisions, and thus developing new goods. However, although the need for flat panel televisions was known for many years, they were not developed for a long time. It was not a limitation of technology but demand uncertainty that prevented the innovation. The implication of this case study is that reducing uncertainty is effective in promoting innovation.

Discover Wellness: A Worksite Wellness Program for Higher Education

Sixty percent of adults in the United States suffer from chronic disease. Worksite wellness programs that target at-risk populations have positive health benefits. Discover Wellness: Find a Healthier You (DW) is a worksite wellness program intended to improve the higher education employee health by providing an opportunity for participants to learn and practice healthy behaviors. The purpose of this study was to evaluate DW program impact on employee behavior change to reduce chronic disease risk. This study employed a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design that assessed self-efficacy and health behaviors of employees of a state university in the northeast United States. Participants experienced significant improvement in stress (t23 = -31.602, p < 0.001), nutrition (t21 = -36.313, p < 0.001), physical activity (t22 = -34.380, p < 0.001), and sleep (t23 = -18.450, p < 0.001). Additionally, anecdotes from participants revealed themes of comradery and reflection on health behaviors

HEALTH AND SKILLS RELATED FITNESS INDICATORS IN ALBANIAN CHILDREN – REFERENCE VALUES FROM A COUNTRY IN TRANSITION

The aims of this study were to analyze age and gender differences for health-related fitness, physical activity and gross motor coordination level in Albanian children. Data consisted of a cross-sectional study of 1176 children between first and fourth grade elementary school (618 boys and 558 girls) aged 7-10 years old). Anthropometrics (body mass and height, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, % body fat), level of gross motor coordination (Korperkoordinationstest fur Kinder, KTK) and physical activity by questionnaire (PAQ-C) were assessed. Gross motor coordination and physical activity level increased until 9 years of age and then declined. Significant gender differences (P ≤ 0.05) were found for body mass, BMI and waist circumference where boys were heavier, had higher BMI scores and had greater values in waist circumference measurement then girls. Data obtained from this study showed that boys and girls in all age group fell into the normal level of physical activity. The results from this investigation study reveal strong evidence that children in Albania show motor difficulties in everyday skills (moderate motor disorder-31.2% and severe motor disorder-8%.   Article visualizations

The Impact of Deregulation in the Retail Sector: Implications for the aging society (Japanese)

In this paper we consider the implications for Japan's aging society and low birth-rate with respect to the enhancement of efficiency in the retail sector. While it is, in general, difficult to measure the productivity of the retail sector, we made it possible, using a deregulation as a natural experiment, to evaluate the impact of the enhancement of efficiency on economic welfare. The efficiency of the retail sector plays an important role in an aging society from two perspectives. First, there is the perspective of the achievement of innovation. The second perspective is that for elderly people and women in employment, the burden of purchasing behavior itself is heavy, and determines quality of life. Specifically, in this paper we analyze an aspect of the deregulation implemented in March 1999 that had a particularly large impact, namely the effective liberalization of the sale of medicinal drinks, so as to analyze the effect of the enhancement of the efficiency of the retail sector. As a result of deregulation it became possible for almost all supermarkets to sell medicinal drinks, and their sales volume increased abruptly. We show that, on the other hand, prices did not fall commensurately, and the effects of deregulation impacted consumers through non-price factors. In addition, the very fact that the number of outlets selling the drinks increased may have made it more convenient for consumers, and so we build a model to decompose the price-lowering effect of deregulation and the non-price effect in the form of the enhancement of convenience. According to our estimations, the deregulation has had an economic welfare improvement effect equivalent to �15.1 billion income increase, assessed by using compensating variation. We also find that at least 90% of this effect is not attributable to price-lowering effect but to a non-price factor, namely the enhancement of convenience. Our study thus demonstrates that the enhancement of the efficiency of the retail sector is an important means of innovation, and that through convenience it has the effect of enhancing the quality of life.

Numerical Modelling of Polycrystalline Diamond device for Advanced Sensor Design

Abstract Technology Computer Aided Design (TCAD) simulation tools are routinely adopted within the design flow of semiconductor devices to simulate their electrical characteristics. However, the device level simulation of diamond is not straightforward within the state-of-the-art TCAD tools. Physical models have to be specifically formulated and tuned for single-crystal CVD (scCVD) and polycrystalline (pcCVD) diamond in order to account for, among others, incomplete ionization, intrinsic carrier free material, dependences of carrier transport on doping and temperature, impact ionization, traps and recombination centers effects. In this work, we propose the development and the application of a numerical model to simulate the electrical characteristics of polycrystalline diamond conceived for sensors fabrication. The model is based on the introduction of an articulated, yet physically based, picture of deep-level defects acting as recombination centers and/or trap states. This approach fosters the exploration and optimization of innovative semiconductor devices conjugating the capabilities of CMOS electronics devices and the properties of diamond substrates, e.g. for biological sensor applications or single particle detectors for High Energy Physics experiments

Consumption Behavior of Elderly Households and Price Index (Japanese)

This paper constructs a price index for elderly households in which differences in expenditure share and points of purchase are explicitly taken into account. Elderly households spend more on food and medical care, while younger households spend more on education, transportation, and communications. As for points of purchase, in general, elderly households spend less in discount stores. These differences result in an underestimation of the inflation rate for elderly households by 2%, of which, 1.5% is due to differences in expenditure share and 0.5% is due to differences in points of purchase. However, even after taking such differences into account, the inflation rate for the elderly is less than that derived from the official CPI, which does not take into account points of purchase. Accordingly, the existing price indexation of pension benefits likely results in higher-than-appropriate benefit levels.

Timing Performances and Radiation Hardness of 3D Diamond Detectors

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