Effects of built environment on walking among Hong Kong older adults

 Key Messages1. Reliable and valid intervieweradministered questionnaires were developed to investigate associations of perceived neighbourhood attributes of Hong Kong older adults with their walking for transportation and recreation.2. Access to and availability of different types of services and destinations, provision offacilities for resting/sitting in the neighbourhood, and easy access to/from residentialbuildings may help maintain an active lifestyle by facilitating walking for transport in the neighbourhood.3. Access to services, indoor places for walking, environmental aesthetics, low traffic, and absence of physical barriers may promote recreational walking

Thermostatistics of deformed bosons and fermions

Based on the q-deformed oscillator algebra, we study the behavior of the mean occupation number and its analogies with intermediate statistics and we obtain an expression in terms of an infinite continued fraction, thus clarifying successive approximations. In this framework, we study the thermostatistics of q-deformed bosons and fermions and show that thermodynamics can be built on the formalism of q-calculus. The entire structure of thermodynamics is preserved if ordinary derivatives are replaced by the use of an appropriate Jackson derivative and q-integral. Moreover, we derive the most important thermodynamic functions and we study the q-boson and q-fermion ideal gas in the thermodynamic limit.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figure

Functional consequences of mutations in the MODY4 gene (IPF1) and coexistence with MODY3 mutations

Aims/hypothesis. The aim of this study was to examine the putative role of mutations in the insulin promoter 1 (IPF1) gene in early-onset diabetes. Methods. We carried out mutation screening of the IPF1 gene in 115 Scandinavian families with at least two members with onset of diabetes younger than 40 years. The allele frequencies were also tested in 183 unrelated patients with late-onset Type II (noninsulin-dependent) diabetes mellitus and in 92 nondiabetic control subjects. Results. Two novel IPF1 variants (G212R and P239Q) and one previously reported (D76N) IPF1 variant were identified in the 115 families (3.5%). The D76N variant was found in one MODY3 family (S315fsinsA of HNF1 alpha) and also in two families with late-onset Type II diabetes. The P239Q variant was identified in two families with early-onset diabetes including one with MODY3 (R272C of HNF1 alpha) and in three families with late-onset Type II diabetes. Despite the fact that the variants did not segregate completely with diabetes, the non-diabetic carriers of the IPF1 variants had increased blood glucose concentrations (p < 0.05) and reduced insulin:glucose ratios (p < 0.05) during an oral glucose tolerance test compared with non-diabetic family members without these variants. In addition, when the G212R and P239Q variants were expressed in cells without IPF1 i.e.. Nes2y cells, both variants showed about a 50% reduction in their ability to activate insulin gene transcription compared to wild-type IPF1, as measured by reporter gene assay. Conclusion/interpretation. Although mutations in the IPF-1 gene are rare in early- (3.5%) and late-onset (2.7%) Type II diabetes, they are functionally important and occur also in families with other MODY mutations