Reliability and validity of the transport and physical activity questionnaire (TPAQ) for assessing physical activity behaviour

No current validated survey instrument allows a comprehensive assessment of both physical activity and travel behaviours for use in interdisciplinary research on walking and cycling. This study reports on the test-retest reliability and validity of physical activity measures in the transport and physical activity questionnaire (TPAQ)

Production Costs Recognition: Time-Based Methodologies

This analysis presents a review of time-based costing methodologies: Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing (TDABC), Duration-Based Costing (DBC) and Program Accounting Costing (PAC). Cost accounting systems are crucial for businesses to allocate costs to make informed business decisions. TDABC, DBC and PAC are approaches in this domain, offering unique advantages and applications. The concepts, methodologies, advantages, and limitations of each approach are explored to provide insights into their suitability for different industries and organizational contexts. The analysis finds comparing Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing, Duration Based Costing and Program Accounting Costing are analogous methodologies with different applications relating to timing cost recognition and are like comparing triples wearing the same but different colored outfits

Acute respiratory failure induced by bleomycin and hyperoxia

Bleomycin, a chemotherapeutic agent, and oxygen at concentrations greater than 20%, induce acute pulmonary damage separately and when administered together. The interaction of 5 U/kg intratracheal bleomycin and 24 hours of exposure to 80% oxygen in hamsters produces delayed onset acute respiratory distress syndrome three days after treatment. As little as 12 hours of 80% O2 exposure, after intratracheal bleomycin, induces severe pulmonary damage. Lung lesions are characterized as diffuse alveolar damage. Significant pulmonary edema, measured by iodine-125-bovine serum albumin and technetium-99m-diethylenetriaminepentaacetate, occurs 72 hours after treat-ment. Lesions progress from focal mild alveolar interstitial and air-space macrophage and granulocyte infiltrates at 24 hours to marked infiltrates and severe interstitial and air-space edema with hemorrhages and hyaline membranes at 96 hours. Significant changes measured by electron microscopy morphometry are increases in volume fractions of neutrophils, alveolar tissue and mononuclear leukocytes. Morphological changes in alveolar capillary endothelial cells detected by electron microscopy are focal attenuations, overlapping cell junctions, gaps between cells or in cell cytoplasm, and focal segmental cell necrosis. Surfactant assay of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid shows a marked decrease in the lecithin/sphingomyelin ratio at 72 hours. Proposed mechanisms of bleomycin and hyperoxia synergism include enhanced production of superoxide radicals either directly or indirectly by increasing neutrophil activity or numbers, or by alteration of cell mediators. The pulmonary edema, without evidence of severe morphological changes, may be secondary to alterations of transalveolar transport mechanisms

Lean Accounting: A Decision-Making Tool

Lean accounting is a management decision-making tool available to companies involving streamlining a company’s competitive internal management strategy to minimize waste, such as excess inventory, to maximize profits. This exploration of lean accounting processes looks at how companies can maximize continuous improvement using reporting and accounting methods. Barriers to lean accounting implementation are identified together with means for their resolution. The basic understanding of lean accounting is it targets waste and non-value-adding activities especially those that do not benefit the internal or external stakeholder in the manufacturing or service setting. Lean accounting offers specific styled reports, performance measures

Greenhouse Gas Emission – A Perspective

Climate change is an ongoing discussion especially concerning greenhouse gases and their emission. Greenhouse gases and emission are terms used in newspapers, television and much of today’s common press often without an explanation of the terms’ definition or meaning. Discussing these terms classifies their genesis together with greenhouse emission sources and creation. Concerns and consequences of greenhouse gas emissions, together with current reporting guidelines, are summarized to provide an understanding of the enormity of the issues. A sample of corporations’ existing goals, aims, and projects illustrate how the entities plan to meet their net-zero greenhouse gas emission promises illustrate efforts underway to harness environmental contamination

Evaluation of Living Streets’ Fitter for Walking project

Evaluation of Living Streets’ Fitter for Walking projec

Use of Virtual Games for Interactive Learning in a Pharmacy Curriculum

Background and purpose: To evaluate student pharmacists’ attitudes and satisfaction toward playing educational virtual games in the classroom. Educational activity and setting: The study setting was playing virtual games in the classroom setting. First year student pharmacists participated in two Mimycx quests in the Healthcare Communication and the Psychiatry/Neurology courses. Students were randomly assigned into teams and worked together to complete the assigned quest games. Completion of the pre- and post-quest questionnaires via Qualtrics was voluntary. Findings: A total of 79 student pharmacists played the Mimycx quests. Only 66 students completed both pre- and post-quest questionnaires. Students indicated their familiarity with game concepts related to the virtual environment and avatars used in the study. The change in their attitudes and satisfaction about the Mimycx virtual learning experience was significant between the two learning time points. Discussion and summary: The use of virtual gaming technology could enhance student pharmacists’ learning and engagement in the classroom. Students benefitted from increased familiarity with virtual, educational gaming concepts in their experiences with Mimycx although no statistically significant differences were found regarding their attitudes toward communication and teamwork

White Paper: Certification, Credentials, and Credentialing in Pharmacy

The rapid evolution of the health care system has provided the pharmacy profession with opportunities to expand existing and develop new direct patient care roles. Two critical challenges that the pharmacy profession must contend with to ensure the continued expansion and acceptance of pharmacists in advanced practice roles (e.g. direct patient care roles) are: (1) To develop and implement a credible, systematic, standards-based, and profession-wide plan that includes a system for identifying the types of pharmacists\u27 practices requiring credentials, a validated certification process, and a computerized credentialing process that is current, comprehensive, and easily accessible; (2) To establish the credibility of these advanced practice credentials and the certification and credentialing processes with other health care providers, the public, employers and payers (government and commercial)

Reliability and validity of the transport and physical activity questionnaire (TPAQ) for assessing physical activity behaviour

Background: No current validated survey instrument allows a comprehensive assessment of both physical activity and travel behaviours for use in interdisciplinary research on walking and cycling. This study reports on the test-retest reliability and validity of physical activity measures in the transport and physical activity questionnaire (TPAQ). Methods: The TPAQ assesses time spent in different domains of physical activity and using different modes of transport for five journey purposes. Test-retest reliability of eight physical activity summary variables was assessed using intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) and Kappa scores for continuous and categorical variables respectively. In a separate study, the validity of three survey-reported physical activity summary variables was assessed by computing Spearman correlation coefficients using accelerometer-derived reference measures. The Bland-Altman technique was used to determine the absolute validity of survey-reported time spent in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Results: In the reliability study, ICC for time spent in different domains of physical activity ranged from fair to substantial for walking for transport (ICC = 0.59), cycling for transport (ICC = 0.61), walking for recreation (ICC = 0.48), cycling for recreation (ICC = 0.35), moderate leisure-time physical activity (ICC = 0.47), vigorous leisure-time physical activity (ICC = 0.63), and total physical activity (ICC = 0.56). The proportion of participants estimated to meet physical activity guidelines showed acceptable reliability (k = 0.60). In the validity study, comparison of survey-reported and accelerometer-derived time spent in physical activity showed strong agreement for vigorous physical activity (r = 0.72, p,0.001), fair but non-significant agreement for moderate physical activity (r = 0.24, p = 0.09) and fair agreement for MVPA (r = 0.27, p = 0.05). Bland-Altman analysis showed a mean overestimation of MVPA of 87.6 min/week (p = 0.02) (95% limits of agreement 2447.1 to +622.3 min/week). Conclusion: The TPAQ provides a more comprehensive assessment of physical activity and travel behaviours and may be suitable for wider use. Its physical activity summary measures have comparable reliability and validity to those of similar existing questionnaires

Cytosolic Phospholipase A2α–deficient Mice Are Resistant to Collagen-induced Arthritis

Pathogenic mechanisms relevant to rheumatoid arthritis occur in the mouse model of collagen-induced arthritis (CIA). Cytosolic phospholipase A2α (cPLA2α) releases arachidonic acid from cell membranes to initiate the production of prostaglandins and leukotrienes. These inflammatory mediators have been implicated in the development of CIA. To test the hypothesis that cPLA2α plays a key role in the development of CIA, we backcrossed cPLA2α-deficient mice on the DBA/1LacJ background that is susceptible to CIA. The disease severity scores and the incidence of disease were markedly reduced in cPLA2α-deficient mice compared with wild-type littermates. At completion of the study, >90% of the wild-type mice had developed disease whereas none of the cPLA2α-deficient mice had more than one digit inflamed. Furthermore, visual disease scores correlated with severity of disease determined histologically. Pannus formation, articular fibrillation, and ankylosis were all dramatically reduced in the cPLA2α-deficient mice. Although the disease scores differed significantly between cPLA2α mutant and wild-type mice, anti-collagen antibody levels were similar in the wild-type mice and mutant littermates. These data demonstrate the critical role of cPLA2α in the pathogenesis of CIA