Exercise Is Medicine: The Exercise Habits and Attitudes Towards Exercise Counseling of Medical Practitioners

The purpose of this research was to examine the exercise habits of practicing physicians, physician assistants (PA), and nurse practitioners (NP) in Illinois to better understand their attitudes towards counseling their patients on exercise, and to analyze the frequency that these health care providers incorporate exercise counseling into their practices. Current data has revealed the exercise habits of physicians and how it has influenced the physicians\u27 exercise counseling behaviors. But PAs and NPs have not been included in research collectively as a medical team on the topic using exercise counseling and prescription for patient care and treatment. The research was conducted at a Midwestern hospital where physicians, PAs, and NPs employed in Illinois were invited to participate in the survey. There were 25 participants who answered up to 49 questions through the online survey program, Qualtrics. SPSS software was used to analyze the 25 responses on their exercise activity and attitudes towards exercise counseling to evaluate if the subjects were meeting the ACSM\u27s recommendations for aerobic and muscular fitness and how their exercise habits might influence their exercise counseling practices. The participants\u27 responses did yield a mean indicating that the medical care providers had a favorable attitude towards exercise counseling and its importance in patient care and treatment. Therefore, recommendations have been made that could guide future research on the health and practices of physicians, PAs, and NPs regarding exercise and exercise counseling

Influence of Fault System Geometry and Slip Rates on the Relative Role of Coseismic and Interseismic Stresses on Earthquake Triggering and Recurrence Variability

We model Coulomb stress transfer (CST) due to 30 strong earthquakes occurring on normal faults since 1509 CE in Calabria, Italy, including the influence of interseismic loading, and compare the results to existing studies of stress interaction from the Central and Southern Apennines, Italy. The three normal fault systems have different geometries and long‐term slip‐rates. We investigate the extent to which stress transfer can influence the occurrence of future earthquakes and what factors may govern the variability in earthquake recurrence in different fault systems. The Calabrian, Central Apennines, and Southern Apennines fault systems have 91%, 73%, and 70% of faults with mean positive cumulative CST in the time considered; this is due to fewer faults across strike, more across strike stress reductions, and greater along‐strike spacing in the three regions respectively. In regions with close along strike spacing or few faults across strike, such as Calabria and Southern Apennines, the stress loading history is mostly dominated by interseismic loading and most faults are positively stressed before an earthquake occur on them (96% of all faults that ruptured in Calabria; 94% of faults in Southern Apennines), and some of the strongest earthquakes occur on faults with the highest mean cumulative stress of all faults prior to the earthquake. In the Central Apennines, where across strike interactions are the predominant process, 79% of earthquakes occur on faults positively stressed. The results highlight that fault system geometry plays a central role in characterizing the stress evolution associated with earthquake recurrence

Mass infection is not an option: we must do more to protect our young.

Funder: Medical Research CouncilFunder: Wellcome Trus

Surface faulting earthquake clustering controlled by fault and shear-zone interactions

Surface faulting earthquakes are known to cluster in time from historical and palaeoseismic studies, but the mechanism(s) responsible for clustering, such as fault interaction, strain-storage, and evolving dynamic topography, are poorly quantified, and hence not well understood. We present a quantified replication of observed earthquake clustering in central Italy. Six active normal faults are studied using 36Cl cosmogenic dating, revealing out-of-phase periods of high or low surface slip-rate on neighboring structures that we interpret as earthquake clusters and anticlusters. Our calculations link stress transfer caused by slip averaged over clusters and anti-clusters on coupled fault/shear-zone structures to viscous flow laws. We show that (1) differential stress fluctuates during fault/shear-zone interactions, and (2) these fluctuations are of sufficient magnitude to produce changes in strain-rate on viscous shear zones that explain slip-rate changes on their overlying brittle faults. These results suggest that fault/shear-zone interactions are a plausible explanation for clustering, opening the path towards process-led seismic hazard assessments

Effectiveness of a nurse-led intensive home-visitation programme for first-time teenage mothers (Building Blocks):a pragmatic randomised controlled trial

SummaryBackgroundMany countries now offer support to teenage mothers to help them to achieve long-term socioeconomic stability and to give a successful start to their children. The Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) is a licensed intensive home-visiting intervention developed in the USA and introduced into practice in England that involves up to 64 structured home visits from early pregnancy until the child's second birthday by specially recruited and trained family nurses. We aimed to assess the effectiveness of giving the programme to teenage first-time mothers on infant and maternal outcomes up to 24 months after birth.MethodsWe did a pragmatic, non-blinded, randomised controlled, parallel-group trial in community midwifery settings at 18 partnerships between local authorities and primary and secondary care organisations in England. Eligible participants were nulliparous and aged 19 years or younger, and were recruited at less than 25 weeks' gestation. Field-based researchers randomly allocated mothers (1:1) via remote randomisation (telephone and web) to FNP plus usual care (publicly funded health and social care) or to usual care alone. Allocation was stratified by site and minimised by gestation (<16 weeks vs ≥16 weeks), smoking status (yes vs no), and preferred language of data collection (English vs non-English). Mothers and assessors (local researchers at baseline and 24 months' follow-up) were not masked to group allocation, but telephone interviewers were blinded. Primary endpoints were biomarker-calibrated self-reported tobacco use by the mother at late pregnancy, birthweight of the baby, the proportion of women with a second pregnancy within 24 months post-partum, and emergency attendances and hospital admissions for the child within 24 months post-partum. Analyses were by intention to treat. This trial is registered with ISRCTN, number ISRCTN23019866.FindingsBetween June 16, 2009, and July 28, 2010, we screened 3251 women. After enrolment, 823 women were randomly assigned to receive FNP and 822 to usual care. All follow-up data were retrieved by April 25, 2014. 304 (56%) of 547 women assigned to FNP and 306 (56%) of 545 assigned to usual care smoked at late pregnancy (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 0·90, 97·5% CI 0·64–1·28). Mean birthweight of 742 babies with mothers assigned to FNP was 3217·4 g (SD 618·0), whereas birthweight of 768 babies assigned to usual care was 3197·5 g (SD 581·5; adjusted mean difference 20·75 g, 97·5% CI −47·73 to 89·23. 587 (81%) of 725 assessed children with mothers assigned to FNP and 577 (77%) of 753 assessed children assigned to usual care attended an emergency department or were admitted to hospital at least once before their second birthday (AOR 1·32, 97·5% CI 0·99–1·76). 426 (66%) of 643 assessed women assigned to FNP and 427 (66%) 646 assigned to usual care had a second pregnancy within 2 years (AOR 1·01, 0·77–1·33). At least one serious adverse event (mainly clinical events associated with pregnancy and infancy period) was reported for 310 (38%) of 808 participants (mother–child) in the usual care group and 357 (44%) of 810 in the FNP group, none of which were considered related to the intervention.InterpretationAdding FNP to the usually provided health and social care provided no additional short-term benefit to our primary outcomes. Programme continuation is not justified on the basis of available evidence, but could be reconsidered should supportive longer-term evidence emerge.FundingDepartment of Health Policy Research Programme

Verbal working memory and functional large-scale networks in schizophrenia

The aim of this study was to test whether bilinear and nonlinear effective connectivity (EC) measures of working memory fMRI data can differentiate between patients with schizophrenia (SZ) and healthy controls (HC). We applied bilinear and nonlinear Dynamic Causal Modeling (DCM) for the analysis of verbal working memory in 16 SZ and 21 HC. The connection strengths with nonlinear modulation between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the ventral tegmental area/substantia nigra (VTA/SN) were evaluated. We used Bayesian Model Selection at the group and family levels to compare the optimal bilinear and nonlinear models. Bayesian Model Averaging was used to assess the connection strengths with nonlinear modulation. The DCM analyses revealed that SZ and HC used different bilinear networks despite comparable behavioral performance. In addition, the connection strengths with nonlinear modulation between the DLPFC and the VTA/SN area showed differences between SZ and HC. The adoption of different functional networks in SZ and HC indicated neurobiological alterations underlying working memory performance, including different connection strengths with nonlinear modulation between the DLPFC and the VTA/SN area. These novel findings may increase our understanding of connectivity in working memory in schizophrenia

Lineage-Specific Biology Revealed by a Finished Genome Assembly of the Mouse

A finished clone-based assembly of the mouse genome reveals extensive recent sequence duplication during recent evolution and rodent-specific expansion of certain gene families. Newly assembled duplications contain protein-coding genes that are mostly involved in reproductive function

A many-analysts approach to the relation between religiosity and well-being

The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset (N=10,535 participants from 24 countries). We recruited 120 analysis teams to investigate (1) whether religious people self-report higher well-being, and (2) whether the relation between religiosity and self-reported well-being depends on perceived cultural norms of religion (i.e., whether it is considered normal and desirable to be religious in a given country). In a two-stage procedure, the teams first created an analysis plan and then executed their planned analysis on the data. For the first research question, all but 3 teams reported positive effect sizes with credible/confidence intervals excluding zero (median reported β=0.120). For the second research question, this was the case for 65% of the teams (median reported β=0.039). While most teams applied (multilevel) linear regression models, there was considerable variability in the choice of items used to construct the independent variables, the dependent variable, and the included covariates

A Many-analysts Approach to the Relation Between Religiosity and Well-being

The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset (N = 10, 535 participants from 24 countries). We recruited 120 analysis teams to investigate (1) whether religious people self-report higher well-being, and (2) whether the relation between religiosity and self-reported well-being depends on perceived cultural norms of religion (i.e., whether it is considered normal and desirable to be religious in a given country). In a two-stage procedure, the teams first created an analysis plan and then executed their planned analysis on the data. For the first research question, all but 3 teams reported positive effect sizes with credible/confidence intervals excluding zero (median reported β = 0.120). For the second research question, this was the case for 65% of the teams (median reported β = 0.039). While most teams applied (multilevel) linear regression models, there was considerable variability in the choice of items used to construct the independent variables, the dependent variable, and the included covariates