Multi-stakeholder perspectives of factors that influence contact centre call agent’s workplace physical activity and sedentary behaviour

Contact centre call agents are highly sedentary at work, which can negatively affect cardio-metabolic health. This qualitative cross-sectional study explored factors influencing call agents’ workplace physical activity (PA) and sedentary behaviour (SB), and perspectives on strategies to help agents move more and sit less at work. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups with call agents (n = 20), team leaders (n = 11) and senior staff (n = 12) across four contact centres were guided by the socio-ecological model and analysed thematically. Agents offered insights into the impact of high occupational sitting and low PA on their physical and mental health, and factors influencing their motivation to move more and sit less at work. Team leaders, although pivotal in influencing behaviours, identified their own workload, and agents’ requirement to meet targets, as factors influencing their ability to promote agents to move more and sit less at work. Further, senior team leaders offered a broad organisational perspective on influential factors, including business needs and the importance of return on investment from PA and SB interventions. Unique factors, including continuous monitoring of productivity metrics and personal time, a physical connection to their workstation, and low autonomy over their working practices, seemed to limit call agents’ opportunity to move more and sit less at work. Proposed strategies included acknowledgement of PA and SB within policy and job roles, height-adjustable workstations, education and training sessions and greater interpersonal support. Additionally, measuring the impact of interventions was perceived to be key for developing a business case and enhancing organisational buy-in. Multi-level interventions embedded into current working practices appear important for the multiple stakeholders, while addressing concerns regarding productivity

Synchronized dynamics of cortical neurons with time-delay feedback

The dynamics of three mutually coupled cortical neurons with time delays in the coupling are explored numerically and analytically. The neurons are coupled in a line, with the middle neuron sending a somewhat stronger projection to the outer neurons than the feedback it receives, to model for instance the relay of a signal from primary to higher cortical areas. For a given coupling architecture, the delays introduce correlations in the time series at the time-scale of the delay. It was found that the middle neuron leads the outer ones by the delay time, while the outer neurons are synchronized with zero lag times. Synchronization is found to be highly dependent on the synaptic time constant, with faster synapses increasing both the degree of synchronization and the firing rate. Analysis shows that presynaptic input during the interspike interval stabilizes the synchronous state, even for arbitrarily weak coupling, and independent of the initial phase. The finding may be of significance to synchronization of large groups of cells in the cortex that are spatially distanced from each other.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figure

Social marketing and healthy eating : Findings from young people in Greece

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12208-013-0112-xGreece has high rates of obesity and non-communicable diseases owing to poor dietary choices. This research provides lessons for social marketing to tackle the severe nutrition-related problems in this country by obtaining insight into the eating behaviour of young adults aged 18–23. Also, the main behavioural theories used to inform the research are critically discussed. The research was conducted in Athens. Nine focus groups with young adults from eight educational institutions were conducted and fifty-nine participants’ views towards eating habits, healthy eating and the factors that affect their food choices were explored. The study found that the participants adopted unhealthier nutritional habits after enrolment. Motivations for healthy eating were good health, appearance and psychological consequences, while barriers included lack of time, fast-food availability and taste, peer pressure, lack of knowledge and lack of family support. Participants reported lack of supportive environments when deciding on food choices. Based on the findings, recommendations about the development of the basic 4Ps of the marketing mix, as well as of a fifth P, for Policy are proposedPeer reviewe

Sensory Measurements: Coordination and Standardization

Do sensory measurements deserve the label of “measurement”? We argue that they do. They fit with an epistemological view of measurement held in current philosophy of science, and they face the same kinds of epistemological challenges as physical measurements do: the problem of coordination and the problem of standardization. These problems are addressed through the process of “epistemic iteration,” for all measurements. We also argue for distinguishing the problem of standardization from the problem of coordination. To exemplify our claims, we draw on olfactory performance tests, especially studies linking olfactory decline to neurodegenerative disorders

Hit Improves Aerobic Capacity Without a Detrimental Decline in Blood Glucose in People with Type 1 Diabetes.

AIMS: To investigate whether 1) six weeks of high-intensity interval training (HIT) induces similar improvements in cardio-metabolic health markers as moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT) in people with type 1 diabetes, and 2) whether HIT abolishes acute reductions in plasma glucose observed following MICT sessions. METHODS: Fourteen sedentary individuals with type 1 diabetes (n=7 per group) completed six weeks of HIT or MICT 3 times per week. Pre- and post-training measurements were made of 24h interstitial glucose profiles (using continuous glucose monitors (CGMS)) and cardio-metabolic health markers (V˙O2peak, blood lipid profile and aortic pulse wave velocity; aPWV). Capillary blood glucose concentrations were assessed before and after exercise sessions throughout the training programme to investigate changes in blood glucose during exercise in the fed state. RESULTS: Six weeks of HIT or MICT increased V˙O2peak by 14% and 15%, respectively (P0.05). In the fed state, the mean change in capillary blood glucose concentration during the HIT sessions was -0.2±0.5 mmol/L, whereas blood glucose change was -5.5±0.4 mmol/L during MICT. CONCLUSIONS: Six weeks of HIT improved V˙O2peak and aortic PWV to a similar extent as MICT. The finding that blood glucose remained stable during HIT in the fed state, but consistently fell during MICT, suggests that HIT may be the preferred training mode for some people with type 1 diabetes

Fasted High-Intensity Interval and Moderate-Intensity Exercise do not Lead to Detrimental 24-Hour Blood Glucose Profiles.

Aims: To compare the effect of a bout of high-intensity interval training (HIT) with a bout of moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT) on glucose concentrations over the subsequent 24h period. METHODS: Fourteen people with type 1 diabetes (duration of type 1 diabetes 8.2±1.4 years), all on basal-bolus regimen, completed a randomised, counterbalanced, crossover study. Continuous glucose monitoring was used to assess glycaemic control following a single bout of HIT (6 x 1min intervals) and 30 mins of moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT) on separate days, compared to a non-exercise control day (CON). Exercise was undertaken following an overnight fast with omission of short-acting insulin. Capillary blood glucose samples were recorded pre and post-exercise to assess the acute changes in glycaemia during HIT and MICT. RESULTS: There was no difference in the incidence of or percentage time spent in hypoglycaemia, hyperglycaemia or target glucose range over the 24h and nocturnal period (24:00-06:00h) between CON, HIT and MICT (P>0.05). Blood glucose concentrations were not significantly (P=0.49) different from pre to post-exercise with HIT (+0.39±0.42 mmol/L) or MICT (-0.39±0.66 mmol/L), with no difference between exercise modes (P=1.00). CONCLUSIONS: HIT or 30 mins of MICT can be carried out after an overnight fast with no increased risk of hypoglycaemia or hyperglycaemia, and provided the pre-exercise glucose concentration is 7-14 mmol/L, no additional carbohydrate ingestion is necessary to undertake these exercises. As HIT is a time-efficient form of exercise, the efficacy and safety of long-term HIT should now be explored

Screening and brief interventions for hazardous and harmful alcohol use in primary care: a cluster randomised controlled trial protocol

A large number of randomised controlled trials in health settings have consistently reported positive effects of brief intervention in terms of reductions in alcohol use. However,although alcohol misuse is common amongst offenders, there is limited evidence of alcohol brief interventions in the criminal justice field. This factorial pragmatic cluster randomised controlledtrial with Offender Managers (OMs) as the unit of randomisation will evaluate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of different models of screening to identify hazardous and harmful drinkers in probation and different intensities of brief intervention to reduce excessive drinking in probation clients. Ninety-six OMs from 9 probation areas across 3 English regions (the NorthEast Region (n = 4) and London and the South East Regions (n = 5)) will be recruited. OMs will berandomly allocated to one of three intervention conditions: a client information leaflet control condition (n = 32 OMs); 5-minute simple structured advice (n = 32 OMs) and 20-minute brieflifestyle counselling delivered by an Alcohol Health Worker (n = 32 OMs). Randomisation will be stratified by probation area. To test the relative effectiveness of different screening methods all OMs will be randomised to either the Modified Single Item Screening Questionnaire (M-SASQ) orthe Fast Alcohol Screening Test (FAST). There will be a minimum of 480 clients recruited into the trial. There will be an intention to treat analysis of study outcomes at 6 and 12 months postintervention. Analysis will include client measures (screening result, weekly alcohol consumption,alcohol-related problems, re-offending, public service use and quality of life) and implementation measures from OMs (the extent of screening and brief intervention beyond the minimum recruitment threshold will provide data on acceptability and feasibility of different models of brief intervention). We will also examine the practitioner and organisational factors associated with successful implementation.The trial will evaluate the impact of screening and brief alcohol intervention in routine probation work and therefore its findings will be highly relevant to probation teams and thus the criminal justice system in the UK

Walking ability during daily life in patients with osteoarthritis of the knee or the hip and lumbar spinal stenosis: a cross sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Degenerative musculoskeletal disorders are among the most frequent diseases occurring in adulthood, often impairing patients' functional mobility and physical activity. The aim of the present study was to investigate and compare the impact of three frequent degenerative musculoskeletal disorders -- knee osteoarthritis (knee OA), hip osteoarthritis (hip OA) and lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) -- on patients' walking ability.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study included 120 participants, with 30 in each patient group and 30 healthy control individuals. A uniaxial accelerometer, the StepWatch™ Activity Monitor (Orthocare Innovations, Seattle, Washington, USA), was used to determine the volume (number of gait cycles per day) and intensity (gait cycles per minute) of walking ability. Non-parametric testing was used for all statistical analyses.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Both the volume and the intensity of walking ability were significantly lower among the patients in comparison with the healthy control individuals (p < 0.001). Patients with LSS spent 0.4 (IQR 2.8) min/day doing moderately intense walking (>50 gait cycles/min), which was significantly lower in comparison with patients with knee and hip OA at 2.5 (IQR 4.4) and 3.4 (IQR 16.1) min/day, respectively (p < 0.001). No correlations between demographic or anthropometric data and walking ability were found. No technical problems or measuring errors occurred with any of the measurements.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Patients with degenerative musculoskeletal disorders suffer limitations in their walking ability. Objective assessment of walking ability appeared to be an easy and feasible tool for measuring such limitations as it provides baseline data and objective information that are more precise than the patients' own subjective estimates. In everyday practice, objective activity assessment can provide feedback for clinicians regarding patients' performance during everyday life and the extent to which this confirms the results of clinical investigations. The method can also be used as a way of encouraging patients to develop a more active lifestyle.</p

Corrigendum to: Cohort profile: Extended Cohort for E-health, Environment and DNA (EXCEED)

This is a correction to: International Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 48, Issue 3, June 2019, Pages 678–679j, https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyz07