Sensitivity to change of the Beach Questionnaire to behaviour, attitudes and knowledge related to sun exposure: quasi-experimental before-after study

Background: Health questionnaires must present accredited measurement properties such as validity, reliability and sensitivity to change, the latter being essential for interventions to be planned and for evaluating their effectiveness. The aim of this study was to evaluate the sensitivity to change of a Beach Questionnaire.Methods: Quasi-experimental before-after study carried out in 2011, for a study population of adolescents attending schools in the Costa del Sol. First, the questionnaire was administered to the adolescents, after which a multicomponent educational intervention was carried out; finally, three months later, the same questionnaire was re-administered to the same adolescents. Changes were assessed in the categories of each item, using the McNemar test, and the changes in the scores, standardised to a range of 0–100, using the Student t test for paired samples, and including the mean of the differences and the 95% confidence interval. The level of statistical significance was set at p < 0.05.Results: 228 adolescents, aged 14–17 years, and 55.3% were girls. Statistically significant changes were observed in sunburn experiences, exposure to the sun at mid-day and attitudes to sun exposure and suncreams. For the seven items related to knowledge about sun exposure, a higher rate of correct answers was observed. The analysis of changes, within the standardised range, revealed a significant improvement in the scores for sun exposure habits (MD 4.33; CI 95% 2.2-6.5), attitudes to sun exposure (MD 2.22; CI 95% 1.2-3.2) and knowledge (MD 9.10; CI 95% 7.1-11.1), but not in those for sun-protection practices (MD 0.23; CI 95% -1.2-1.7).Conclusions: The Beach Questionnaire on behaviour, attitudes and knowledge related to sun exposure is the first such instrument in Spanish language to provide sufficient sensitivity to change. It constitutes a useful tool for epidemiologic research into photoprotection and for skin cancer prevention programmes.The authors would like to acknowledge support from the Research Department of the Costa del Sol Hospital

A multilinear tongue model derived from speech related MRI data of the human vocal tract

We present a multilinear statistical model of the human tongue that captures anatomical and tongue pose related shape variations separately. The model is derived from 3D magnetic resonance imaging data of 11 speakers sustaining speech related vocal tract configurations. The extraction is performed by using a minimally supervised method that uses as basis an image segmentation approach and a template fitting technique. Furthermore, it uses image denoising to deal with possibly corrupt data, palate surface information reconstruction to handle palatal tongue contacts, and a bootstrap strategy to refine the obtained shapes. Our evaluation concludes that limiting the degrees of freedom for the anatomical and speech related variations to 5 and 4, respectively, produces a model that can reliably register unknown data while avoiding overfitting effects. Furthermore, we show that it can be used to generate a plausible tongue animation by tracking sparse motion capture data

Enhanced relaxation of porcine coronary arteries after acute exposure to a physiological level of 17β-estradiol involves non-genomic mechanisms and the cyclic AMP cascade

1. The present study extends our previous finding that the endothelium-independent relaxation in porcine coronary artery rings is enhanced after short-term (20 min) exposure to a physiological concentration (1 nM) of 17β-estradiol and demonstrates that this effect may be attributable to activation of the cyclic AMP pathway. 2. Isometric tension was recorded in isolated rings of porcine coronary arteries. 3. Relaxation by levcromakalim and sodium nitroprusside, but not bradykinin and calcium ionophore A23187, were significantly potentiated following 20 min treatment with 1 nM 17β-estradiol. This enhancing effect was insensitive to the transcriptional and translational inhibitors, actinomycin D and cycloheximide respectively and absent following repeated washing of the rings prior to construction of relaxation-response curves. 4. The potentiating actions of 1 nM 17β-estradiol on endothelium-independent relaxation were mimicked by the cyclic AMP analogue 8-Bromo-cyclic AMP and the protein kinase A activator Sp-cyclic AMPS but not by the cyclic GMP analogue 8-Bromo-cyclic GMP. The modulatory effect of 17β-estradiol was increased in the presence of the phosphodiesterase inhibitor 3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine. 5. The cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase A inhibitor Rp-cyclic AMPS, but not the cyclic GMP antagonist Rp-8-Bromo-cyclic GMPS, effectively inhibited the enhancing effects 1 M 17β-estradiol had on the relaxation responses of levcromakalim and sodium nitroprusside. 6. These data support our earlier findings that physiologically relevant concentrations of 17β-estradiol can acutely modify vasorelaxation in vitro. Furthermore, we report that this short-term effect of 17β-estradiol on vasorelaxation appears to be mediated via non-genomic pathways and involves the cyclic AMP cascade