Do television and electronic games predict children's psychosocial adjustment? Longitudinal research using the UK Millennium Cohort Study

Background: Screen entertainment for young children has been associated with several aspects of psychosocial adjustment. Most research is from North America and focuses on television. Few longitudinal studies have compared the effects of TV and electronic games, or have investigated gender differences. Purpose: To explore how time watching TV and playing electronic games at age 5 years each predicts change in psychosocial adjustment in a representative sample of 7 year-olds from the UK. Methods: Typical daily hours viewing television and playing electronic games at age 5 years were reported by mothers of 11 014 children from the UK Millennium Cohort Study. Conduct problems, emotional symptoms, peer relationship problems, hyperactivity/inattention and prosocial behaviour were reported by mothers using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Change in adjustment from age 5 years to 7 years was regressed on screen exposures; adjusting for family characteristics and functioning, and child characteristics. Results: Watching TV for 3 h or more at 5 years predicted a 0.13 point increase (95% CI 0.03 to 0.24) in conduct problems by 7 years, compared with watching for under an hour, but playing electronic games was not associated with conduct problems. No associations were found between either type of screen time and emotional symptoms, hyperactivity/inattention, peer relationship problems or prosocial behaviour. There was no evidence of gender differences in the effect of screen time. Conclusions: TV but not electronic games predicted a small increase in conduct problems. Screen time did not predict other aspects of psychosocial adjustment. Further work is required to establish causal mechanisms

The UoSAT Spacecraft Programme

Spacecraft-designed, built and operated by traditional means-have proved extremely costly, thus limiting access to space to large organizations work within enormous budgets. The Amateur Satellite Service, over a period of 20 years, has demonstrated that small spacecraft can be built very inexpensively, and as a low-cost stimulus to technology. The UoSAT Programme at the University of Surrey (UK) has developed highly sophisticated yet inexpensive small satellites through adopting imaginative, cost effective spacecraft engineering techniques. Two UoSAT spacecraft, UoSAT 1 & 2, have been in orbit since 1981 and 1984 respectively supporting active space engineering research, space science and space education programmes associated with the amateur radio, educational and professional aerospace community worldwide

Initial Mission Status Analysis of 3-Axis Stable Tsinghua-1 Microsatellite

The 50kg 3-axis stable Tsinghua-1 microsatellite, the first Chinese university Microsatellite will be launched in Russia by COSMOS rocket before June of 2000. This paper is planning to report the initial mission status of Tsinghua-1 microsatellite. Tsinghua-1 Microsatellite, which is developed by Tsinghua Space Center (TSC) and Surrey Space Center (SSC), is new generational 3-axis stable Microsatellite in 50 Kg region. It is used as technical demonstration of Microsatellite constellation for globe disaster forecast net. The main Payloads include Multi-Spectral Earth Image System (MEIS) which have a 40 meters ground resolution and the cameras will be mounted 19 degrees off Z-axis of the satellite to meet the 400 kilometre ground swath requirement, Date Transmit Experiment payload which is used to survey the radio frequencies interference and GPS receiver for orbit determining . This paper will describe the Tsinghua-1’s design in detail,. Specially for the 3-axis stable controlling technology , the image payload and it’s targeting technology . After it be launched, the Initial Mission Status, such as initial attitude capture, 3-axis precision control of the satellite platform and the initial images form image payloads will be published in this paper firstly

How robust is the evidence of an emerging or increasing female excess in physical morbidity between childhood and adolescence? Results of a systematic literature review and meta-analyses

For asthma and psychological morbidity, it is well established that higher prevalence among males in childhood is replaced by higher prevalence among females by adolescence. This review investigates whether there is evidence for a similar emerging female ‘excess’ in relation to a broad range of physical morbidity measures. Establishing whether this pattern is generalised or health outcome-specific will further understandings of the aetiology of gender differences in health. Databases (Medline; Embase; CINAHL; PsycINFO; ERIC) were searched for English language studies (published 1992–2010) presenting physical morbidity prevalence data for males and females, for at least two age-bands within the age-range 4–17 years. A three-stage screening process (initial sifting; detailed inspection; extraction of full papers), was followed by study quality appraisals. Of 11 245 identified studies, 41 met the inclusion criteria. Most (n = 31) presented self-report survey data (five longitudinal, 26 cross-sectional); 10 presented routinely collected data (GP/hospital statistics). Extracted data, supplemented by additional data obtained from authors of the included studies, were used to calculate odds ratios of a female excess, or female:male incident rate ratios as appropriate. To test whether these changed with age, the values were logged and regressed on age in random effects meta-regressions. These showed strongest evidence of an emerging/increasing female excess for self-reported measures of headache, abdominal pain, tiredness, migraine and self-assessed health. Type 1 diabetes and epilepsy, based on routinely collected data, did not show a significant emerging/increasing female excess. For most physical morbidity measures reviewed, the evidence broadly points towards an emerging/increasing female excess during the transition to adolescence, although results varied by morbidity measure and study design, and suggest that this may occur at a younger age than previously thought

Tsinghua Micro/Nanosatellite Research and Its Application

With the development of Micro-lNano-technology, Micro-lNano-satellite are paid great attention and developed rapidly. Tsinghua Space Research Center( TSRC) has planed to develop their Microsatellite and Nanosatellite with the cooperation of Surrey Space Center (SSC). The Tsinghua-l Microsatellite is new generation 3-axis stabile Microsatellite in 50 Kg. It is used as technical demonstration of Microsatellite constellation for globe disaster forecast net. The main Payloads include Multi-Spectral Earth Image System (MEIS) which have a 50 meters ground resolution and the cameras will be mounted 15 degrees off Z-axis of the satellite to meet the 400 kilometre ground swath requirement, Date Transmit Experiment payload which is used to survey the radio frequencies interference and GPS receiver. The THNS-l is a Nanosatellite in 5Kg. One micro magnetometer, three micro 2-d sun sensor, a micro GPS receiver and MIMU is employed to determine the attitude of Nanosatellite. A small gravity-gradient boom is used as basic stabilization of satellite. The main payload is a micro Multi-Spectral Earth Imaging system (MEIS). Three on chip CMOS CCD Cameras providing 250 meter ground sampling in 3 spectral bands with an 75 kIn field of view capable of providing detailed information on Earth resources, land use and environmental haze pollution and etc. The other Micro-Mechanical-Electric-system (MEMS) devices are as experimental payloads also

Patient reactions to a web-based cardiovascular risk calculator in type 2 diabetes: a qualitative study in primary care.

Use of risk calculators for specific diseases is increasing, with an underlying assumption that they promote risk reduction as users become better informed and motivated to take preventive action. Empirical data to support this are, however, sparse and contradictory

National Evaluation of the Capacity Building Programme in English Local Government: Evaluation of the National Programmes: Annex 2: Evaluation of the National Programmes

The report is one of a series of outputs from the national evaluation of the CBP, being undertaken by a team of researchers at the Policy Research Institute (PRI) at Leeds Metropolitan University and the Cities Research Unit at the University of West of England. The Capacity Building Programme for local government was launched in 2003 as a joint Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) / Local Government Association (LGA) initiative to support capacity building and improvement activities within local authorities in England. The evaluation of the Capacity Building Programme has been underway since late 2004. A scoping phase was conducted until May 2005, including a short evaluation of the Pilot Programmes. The main phase of the evaluation commenced in September 2005 and encompassed four main phases (see Section 1.3: p10)

AplusB: A Web Application for Investigating A + B Designs for Phase I Cancer Clinical Trials.

In phase I cancer clinical trials, the maximum tolerated dose of a new drug is often found by a dose-escalation method known as the A + B design. We have developed an interactive web application, AplusB, which computes and returns exact operating characteristics of A + B trial designs. The application has a graphical user interface (GUI), requires no programming knowledge and is free to access and use on any device that can open an internet browser. A customised report is available for download for each design that contains tabulated operating characteristics and informative plots, which can then be compared with other dose-escalation methods. We present a step-by-step guide on how to use this application and provide several illustrative examples of its capabilities.GMW and APM are supported by the UK Medical Research Council (www.mrc.ac.uk; grant number G0800860). MJS is supported by a European Research Council Advanced Investigator Award: EPIC-Heart (https://erc.europa.eu; grant number 268834), the UK Medical Research Council (grant number MR/L003120/1), the British Heart Foundation (www.bhf.org.uk), and the Cambridge National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre (http://www.cambridge-brc.org.uk). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from PLOS at http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0159026