The role of peer physical activity champions in the workplace: a qualitative study

Aims: Peer health champions are suggested as an important component of multilevel workplace interventions to promote healthy behaviours such as physical activity. There is accumulating quantitative evidence of their effectiveness but as yet little exploration of why and how champions influence the behaviour of their peers. The current study explores the role of peer physical activity champions (PPACs) in influencing colleagues’ physical activity behaviour from the perspectives of both champions and colleagues. Methods: Seven months after the introduction of a workplace physical activity programme in 17 small and medium sized enterprices (SMEs) two focus groups were held with PPACs and four with programme participants. Focus groups were semi-structured and topics covered included: the influence of PPACs and other colleagues on their physical activity, characteristics of an effective PPAC and feelings about the PPAC role. Data were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Results: Three overarching themes emerged: how PPACs encourage physical activity; valuable PPAC characteristics; and sustaining motivation for the PPAC role. Both direct encouragement from PPACs and facilitation of wider physical activity supportive social networks within the workplace encouraged behaviour change. Physical activity behaviour change is a delicate subject and it was important that PPACs provided enthusiastic and persistent encouragement without seeming judgemental. Being a physical activity role model was also a valuable characteristic. The PPACs found it satisfying to see positive changes in their colleagues who had become more active. However, colleagues often did not engage in suggested activities and PPACs required resilience to maintain personal motivation for the role despite this. Conclusions: The results indicate that it is feasible to incorporate PPACs into SME based physical activity interventions. Given the importance that participants attached to feeling part of a group of individuals with a common aim of increasing their physical activity, it is recommended that PPAC training includes suggestions for facilitating social connections between colleagues. Sensitivity is required when initiating and engaging in conversations with colleagues about increasing their physical activity and therefore brief motivational interviewing training may be helpful for PPACs. Programmes should ensure PPACs themselves are provided with social support, especially from others in the same role, to help sustain motivation for their role. These findings will be useful to health-promotion professionals developing workplace health programmes. Future research should explore the processes by which peer health champions facilitate changes in a range of health behaviours to identify common and behaviour specific recommendations

Breast cancer risk factor knowledge among nurses in teaching hospitals of Karachi, Pakistan: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in both the developed and the developing world. The incidence of breast cancer in Karachi, Pakistan is 69.1 per 100,000 with breast cancer presentation in stages III and IV being common (≥ 50%). The most pragmatic solution to early detection lies in breast cancer education of women. Nurses constitute a special group having characteristics most suited for disseminating breast cancer information to the women. We assessed the level of knowledge of breast cancer risk factors among registered female nurses in teaching hospitals of Karachi. We also identified whether selected factors among nurses were associated with their knowledge of breast cancer risk factors, so that relevant measures to improve knowledge of nurses could be implemented. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in seven teaching hospitals of Karachi using stratified random sampling with proportional allocation. A total of 609 registered female nurses were interviewed using a structured questionnaire adapted from the Stager's Comprehensive Breast Cancer Knowledge Test. Knowledge of breast cancer risk factors was categorized into good, fair and poor categories. Ordinal regression was used to identify factors associated with risk knowledge among nurses. RESULTS: Thirty five percent of nurses had good knowledge of risk factors. Graduates from private nursing schools (aOR = 4.23, 95% CI: 2.93, 6.10), nurses who had cared for breast cancer patients (aOR = 1.41, 95% CI: 1.00, 1.99), those having received a breast examination themselves (aOR = 1.56, 95% CI: 1.08, 2.26) or those who ever examined a patient's breast (aOR = 1.87, 95% CI: 1.34, 2.61) were more likely to have good knowledge. CONCLUSION: A relatively small proportion of the nursing population had good level of knowledge of the breast cancer risk factors. This knowledge is associated with nursing school status, professional breast cancer exposure and self history of clinical breast examination. Since only about one-third of the nurses had good knowledge about risk factors, there is a need to introduce breast cancer education in nursing schools particularly in the public sector. Continuing nursing education at the workplace can be of additional benefit

Observation of a J^PC = 1-+ exotic resonance in diffractive dissociation of 190 GeV/c pi- into pi- pi- pi+

The COMPASS experiment at the CERN SPS has studied the diffractive dissociation of negative pions into the pi- pi- pi+ final state using a 190 GeV/c pion beam hitting a lead target. A partial wave analysis has been performed on a sample of 420000 events taken at values of the squared 4-momentum transfer t' between 0.1 and 1 GeV^2/c^2. The well-known resonances a1(1260), a2(1320), and pi2(1670) are clearly observed. In addition, the data show a significant natural parity exchange production of a resonance with spin-exotic quantum numbers J^PC = 1-+ at 1.66 GeV/c^2 decaying to rho pi. The resonant nature of this wave is evident from the mass-dependent phase differences to the J^PC = 2-+ and 1++ waves. From a mass-dependent fit a resonance mass of 1660 +- 10+0-64 MeV/c^2 and a width of 269+-21+42-64 MeV/c^2 is deduced.Comment: 7 page, 3 figures; version 2 gives some more details, data unchanged; version 3 updated authors, text shortened, data unchange

EFEITO DE DIFERENTES PROPORÃÃES DE ADUBAÃÃO ORGÃNICA SOB O DESENVOLVIMENTO DE MUDAS DE AÃOITA-CAVALO (Luehea divaricata)

A falta de vegetação em áreas de preservação permanente provoca inúmeros impactos ao ecossistema e, uma das alternativas para reduzir os custos de execução de projetos de revegetação é buscar fontes alternativas para produção de mudas de espécies arbóreas. O presente estudo teve por objetivo produzir mudas repicadas de açoita-cavalo (Luehea divaricata Martius et Zuccarini) em diferentes proporções de adubação orgânica de forma a reduzir o custo de produção. O experimento foi instalado em casa de vegetação, utilizando-se um delineamento inteiramente casualizado com quatro parcelas e três repetições cada. Foram avaliadas as seguintes características: altura da planta, diâmetro de colo, massa verde e seca, aos 30 e 60 dias após a repicagem. O tratamento testemunha aos 30 dias foi numericamente maior em todas as avaliações que os compostos de esterco bovino, porém, aos 60 dias o substrato composto de 25% foi superior aos demais numericamente, seguido de 50% para altura e diâmetro de colo, e 75% para massas verde e seca. Concluiu-se que o tratamento que proporcionou maior desenvolvimento, embora não representado estatisticamente, mas numericamente é o composto por 25% de esterco bovino. Palavras-chave: mudas nativas; esterco bovino; substratos orgânicos ABSTRACT The lack of vegetation in areas of permanent preservation causes many impacts to the ecosystem, and an alternative to reduce implementation costs of revegetation projects is to seek alternative sources for production of tree seedlings. This study aimed to produce seedlings transplanted lashes-horse (Luehea divaricata Martius et Zuccarini) in different proportions of organic fertilizer to reduce the cost of production. The experiment was conducted in greenhouse, using a completely randomized design with four plots and three replications. We evaluated the following characteristics: plant height, stem diameter, fresh and dry mass at 30 and 60 days after transplanting. The control treatment at day 30 was numerically greater in all the tests that the compounds of manure, however, after 60 days, the substrate composed of 25% was numerically superior to the others, followed by 50% for height and diameter, and 75 % for fresh and dry pasta. It was concluded that the treatment provided further development, although not shown statistically, but numerically is composed of 25% of cattle manure. Keywords: native plants, manure, organic substrates</div

Epidemiological applications of long-term stress in daily life.

The gluon polarisation in the nucleon has been determined by detecting charm production via D0 meson decay to charged K and \u3c0 in polarised muon scattering off a longitudinally polarised deuteron target. The data were taken by the COMPASS Collaboration at CERN between 2002 and 2006 and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 2.8 fb 121. The dominant underlying process of charm production is the photon\u2013gluon fusion to a_(c barc) pair. A leading order QCD approach gives an average gluon polarisation of _x= 120.49\ub10.27(stat)\ub10.11(syst) at a scale \u3bc^2 4813 (GeV/c)^2 and at an average gluon momentum fraction 480.11. The longitudinal cross-section asymmetry for D0 production is presented in bins of the transverse momentum and the energy of the D0 meson

A New QCD facility at the M2 beam line of the CERN SPS: COMPASS++/AMBER

In this Letter of Intent, we propose a broad experimental programme for the ``New QCD facility at the M2 beam line of the CERN SPS''. This unrivalled installation will provide the site for a great variety of measurements to address fundamental issues of Quantum Chromodynamics, which are expected to lead to significant improvements in the understanding of QCD as our present theory of strong interactions. The proposed measurements cover the range from lowest-$Q^2$ physics as the determination of the proton radius by elastic muon-proton scattering, over average-$Q^2$-reactions to study hadron spectroscopy, to high-$Q^2$ hadron-structure investigations using the Drell-Yan process and Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering

Development of the CMS detector for the CERN LHC Run 3

International audienceSince the initial data taking of the CERN LHC, the CMS experiment has undergone substantial upgrades and improvements. This paper discusses the CMS detector as it is configured for the third data-taking period of the CERN LHC, Run 3, which started in 2022. The entire silicon pixel tracking detector was replaced. A new powering system for the superconducting solenoid was installed. The electronics of the hadron calorimeter was upgraded. All the muon electronic systems were upgraded, and new muon detector stations were added, including a gas electron multiplier detector. The precision proton spectrometer was upgraded. The dedicated luminosity detectors and the beam loss monitor were refurbished. Substantial improvements to the trigger, data acquisition, software, and computing systems were also implemented, including a new hybrid CPU/GPU farm for the high-level trigger