Environmental Correlates of Physical Activity Among African-American Adults

The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to identify perceived environmental correlates of meeting physical activity guidelines among African-American adults living in Southern Nevada. Trained interviewers phoned potential participants who lived in the 12 zip codes of Clark County, Nevada with the highest proportions of African-American residents. Respondents (n=237) answered 52 health-related and demographic questions. Slightly less than 50% of participants met physical activity guidelines. A factor analysis procedure produced two environmental variables, neighborhood safety and environmental supports for physical activity. Age, gender and educational attainment (p\u3c.05) predicted the meeting of those guidelines (R2=.214), while neighborhood support for physical activity, neighborhood safety, and BMI failed to do so. This finding suggests that environmental factors are not strong predictors of physical activity among African- American adults, although environmental supports for physical activity approached significance. Future studies should consider assessing additional aspects of the built environment as an influence on physical activity

On the Higgs spectra of the 3-3-1 model

The minimal scalar sector of the 3-3-1 model is composed by the SU(3)$_L$ triplet scalars $\eta$, $\rho$, $\chi$ and its potential allows the trilinear term $\frac{f}{\sqrt{2}}\chi \eta \rho$. Since $f$ is an energy scale associated to the explicit violation of Peccei-Quinn global symmetry, it is natural to consider in what energy scale such symmetry is broken and its consequences in the spectrum of scalars of the model. here, We show that $f$ determines the spectrum of scalars of the model. Hence, we develop the scalar sector considering $f$ belonging to four energy regimes, namely $f \ll \langle \eta \rangle_0$, $\langle \rho \rangle_0$; $f= \langle \eta \rangle_0$, $\langle \rho \rangle_0$; $f=\langle \chi \rangle_0$ and $f \gg \langle \chi \rangle_0$ and obtain the spectrum of scalars for each case. In the first and second cases the spectrum of scalars presents a set of new scalars belonging to the electroweak scale, while in the third case all new scalars belong to the 3-3-1 scale and the fourth case all the new scalars have masses lying at $f$ scale. All cases have a neutral CP-even scalar mimicking the standard Higgs

Lepton Flavor Violation and Collider Searches in a Type I + II Seesaw Model

Neutrino are massless in the Standard Model. The most popular mechanism to generate neutrino masses are the type I and type II seesaw, where right-handed neutrinos and a scalar triplet are augmented to the Standard Model, respectively. In this work, we discuss a model where a type I + II seesaw mechanism naturally arises via spontaneous symmetry breaking of an enlarged gauge group. Lepton flavor violation is a common feature in such setup and for this reason, we compute the model contribution to the $\mu \rightarrow e\gamma$ and $\mu \rightarrow 3e$ decays. Moreover, we explore the connection between the neutrino mass ordering and lepton flavor violation in perspective with the LHC, HL-LHC and HE-LHC sensitivities to the doubly charged scalar stemming from the Higgs triplet. Our results explicitly show the importance of searching for signs of lepton flavor violation in collider and muon decays. The conclusion about which probe yields stronger bounds depends strongly on the mass ordering adopted, the absolute neutrino masses and which much decay one considers. In the 1-5 TeV mass region of the doubly charged scalar, lepton flavor violation experiments and colliders offer orthogonal and complementary probes. Thus if a signal is observed in one of the two new physics searches, the other will be able to assess whether it stems from a seesaw framework.Comment: 41 pages, 1 figure, 2 table

Desenvolvimento e avaliação das características psicométricas do inventário de avaliação das percepções dos professores acerca das necessidades ao nível da promoção de competências sociais e emocionais

The objective of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of an assessment instrument on teachers' perceptions regarding the development of socio-emotional skills. Results revealed a consistent four-factor structure (School/teachers' needs for socio-emotional skills promotion; Needs regarding teaching-learning process; Difficulties in dealing with students' socio-emotional deficits, Socio-emotional needs related to teacher's initial training) with internal consistency values above .79. Confirmatory analyses revealed a good fit of the model to the data. Teachers reported having more needs at the school/ teachers conditions for the promotion of social and emotional needs, and less needs at the level of their Teachers' initial training. The instrument also showed to be sensitive in capturing teachers' perception of schooling social and emotional needs in terms of teachers' gender, pedagogic group and school level.O objectivo deste estudo foi avaliar as características psicométricas de um instrumento de avaliação das percepções dos professores acerca das suas necessidades na promoção das competências sociais e emocionais. Os resultados revelaram uma estrutura de quatro factores (Necessidades ao nível da escola/professor, necessidades ao nível do processo de ensino-aprendizagem, Dificuldades em lidar com défices sócio-emocionais dos alunos e Necessidades ao nível da formação inicial), com valores de consistência interna acima de 0,79. As análises confirmatórias revelaram bom ajustamento do modelo aos dados. Os professores revelaram sentir maiores dificuldades ao nível das condições da escola/ professores e menores ao nível da formação inicial. O instrumento revelou-se também sensível às diferenças de percepções em termos do género, grupo pedagógico, e nível de ensino

Investigating the binding heterogeneity of trace metal cations with SiO2 nanoparticles using full wave analysis of stripping chronopotentiometry at scanned deposition potential

Silica oxides nano- and microparticles, as well as silica-based materials, are very abundant in nature and industrial processes. Trace metal cation binding with these bulk materials is generally not considered significant in speciation studies in environmental systems. Nonetheless, this might change for nanoparticulate systems as observed in a previous study of Pb(II) with a very small SiO2 particle (7.5 nm diameter). Besides, metal binding by those nanoparticles is surprisingly characterized by a heterogeneity that increases with the decrease of metal-to-particle ratio. Therefore, it is interesting to extend this study to investigate different trace metals and the influence of the nanoparticle size on the cation binding heterogeneity. Consequently, the Cd(II), Pb(II), and Zn(II) binding by two different sized SiO2 nanoparticles (Ludox LS30 and TM40) in aqueous dispersion was studied for a range of pH and ionic strength conditions, using the combination of the electroanalytical techniques Scanned Stripping ChronoPotentiometry and Absence of Gradients and Nernstian Equilibrium Stripping. The coupling of these techniques provides the free metal concentration in the bulk (AGNES) and information of the free and complex concentration at the electrode surface for each Stripping Chronopotentiometry at Scanned deposition Potential (SSCP). A recent mathematical treatment allows the reconstruction of a portion of the metal to ligand binding isotherm with the included heterogeneity information using the full SSCP wave analysis. In this work, we observed that the Zn(II) binding is homogeneous, Cd(II) is slightly heterogeneous, and Pb(II) is moderately heterogeneous, whereas the results obtained with the 7.5 nm diameter nanoparticle are slightly more heterogeneous than those obtained with the one of 17 nm. These findings suggest that the Zn(II) binding is electrostatic in nature, and for both Cd(II) and Pb(II), there should be a significant chemical binding contribution.FCT-ANR/AAG-MAA/0065/2012info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Entropy and Poincar\'e recurrence from a geometrical viewpoint

We study Poincar\'e recurrence from a purely geometrical viewpoint. We prove that the metric entropy is given by the exponential growth rate of return times to dynamical balls. This is the geometrical counterpart of Ornstein-Weiss theorem. Moreover, we show that minimal return times to dynamical balls grow linearly with respect to its length. Finally, some interesting relations between recurrence, dimension, entropy and Lyapunov exponents of ergodic measures are given.Comment: 11 pages, revised versio

Activation of neuropeptide Y receptors is neuroprotective against excitotoxicity in organotypic hippocampal slice cultures

Glutamate and NPY have been implicated in hippocampal neuropathology in temporal lobe epilepsy. Thus, we investigated the involvement of NPY receptors in mediating neuroprotection against excitotoxic insults in organotypic cultures of rat hippocampal slices. Exposure of hippocampal slice cultures to 2 μM AMPA (α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-isoxazole-4- propionate) induced neuronal degeneration, monitored by propidium iodide uptake, of granule cells and CA1 pyramidal cells. For dentate granule cells, selective activation of Y1, Y2, or Y5 receptors with 1 μM [Leu31,Pro34]NPY, 300 nM NPY13–36 or 1 μM 500 nM NPY(19–23)- 1 3 4 6 31 32 34 (Gly ,Ser ,Gln ,Thr ,Ala ,Aib ,Gln )-PP, respectively, had a neuroprotective effect against AMPA, whereas only the activation of Y2 receptors was effective for CA1 pyramidal cells. When the slice cultures were exposed to 6 μM kainate, the CA3 pyramidal cells displayed significant degeneration, and in this case the activation of Y1, Y2, and Y5 receptors was neuroprotective. For the kainic acid-induced degeneration of CA1 pyramidal cells, it was again found that only the Y2 receptor activation was effective. Based on the present findings, it was concluded that Y1, Y2, and Y5 receptors effectively can modify glutamate receptor-mediated neurodegeneration in the hippocampu