Goal conflict, goal facilitation, and health professionals' provision of physical activity advice in primary care : An exploratory prospective study

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Multiple goals and time constraints : perceived impact on physicians' performance of evidence-based behaviours

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A qualitative study in rural and urban areas on whether - and how - to consult during routine and out of hours

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Securing tropical forest carbon: the contribution of protected areas to REDD

Forest loss and degradation in the tropics contribute 6-17% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Protected areas cover 217.2 million ha (19.6%) of the world's humid tropical forests and contain c. 70.3 petagrams of carbon (Pg C) in biomass and soil to 1 m depth. Between 2000 and 2005, we estimate that 1.75 million ha of forest were lost from protected areas in humid tropical forests, causing the emission of 0.25-0.33 Pg C. Protected areas lost about half as much carbon as the same area of unprotected forest. We estimate that the reduction of these carbon emissions from ongoing deforestation in protected sites in humid tropical forests could be valued at USD 6,200-7,400 million depending on the land use after clearance. This is >1.5 times the estimated spending on protected area management in these regions. Improving management of protected areas to retain forest cover better may be an important, although certainly not sufficient, component of an overall strategy for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD

Designing and evaluating complex interventions to improve health care

Complex interventions are “built up from a number of components, which may act both independently and interdependently.”1 2 Many health service activities should be considered as complex. Evaluating complex interventions can pose a considerable challenge and requires a substantial investment of time. Unless the trials illuminate processes and mechanisms they often fail to provide useful information. If the result is negative, we are left wondering whether the intervention is inherently ineffective (either because the intervention was inadequately developed or because all similar interventions are ineffective), whether it was inadequately applied or applied in an inappropriate context, or whether the trial used an inappropriate design, comparison groups or outcomes. If there is a positive effect, it can be hard to judge how the results of the trial might be applied to a different context (box 1)

Derivation of screening benchmarks for dietary methylmercury exposure for the common loon ( Gavia immer ): Rationale for use in ecological risk assessment

The current understanding of methylmercury (MeHg) toxicity to avian species has improved considerably in recent years and indicates that exposure to environmentally relevant concentrations of MeHg through the diet can adversely affect various aspects of avian health, reproduction, and survival. Because fish‐eating birds are at particular risk for elevated MeHg exposure, the authors surveyed the available primary and secondary literature to summarize the effects of dietary MeHg on the common loon ( Gavia immer ) and to derive ecologically relevant toxic thresholds for dietary exposure to MeHg in fish prey. After considering the available data, the authors propose three screening benchmarks of 0.1, 0.18, and 0.4 µg g −1 wet weight MeHg in prey fish. The lowest benchmark (0.1 µg g −1 wet wt) is the threshold for adverse behavioral impacts in adult loons and is close to the empirically determined no observed adverse effects level for subclinical effects observed in captive loon chicks. The remaining benchmarks (0.18 and 0.4 µg g −1 wet wt) correspond to MeHg levels in prey fish associated with significant reproductive impairment and reproductive failure in wild adult loons. Overall, these benchmarks incorporate recent findings and reviews of MeHg toxicity in aquatic fish‐eating birds and provide the basis for a national ecological risk assessment for Hg and loons in Canada. Environ. Toxicol. Chem. 2012; 31: 2399–2407. © 2012 SETACPeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/93756/1/1971_ftp.pd

Do health behaviours change after colonoscopy? A prospective cohort study on diet, alcohol, physical activity and smoking among patients and their partners

Objectives: To describe diet, alcohol, physical activity and tobacco use prospectively, that is, before and 10 months after colonoscopy for patients and their partners. Design: Prospective cohort study of health behaviour change in patients and partners. Comparison groups are patients receiving a normal result notification (NRN) versus patients receiving an abnormal result notification (ARN). Patients and partners (controls) are also compared. Setting: 5 Scottish hospitals. Participants: Of 5798 colonoscopy registrations, 2577 (44%) patients met the eligibility criteria of whom 565 (22%) were recruited; 460 partners were also recruited. Measures: International Physical Activity Questionnaire, Scottish Collaborative Group Food Frequency Questionnaire (includes alcohol), smoking status, sociodemographic characteristics, body mass index, medical conditions, colonoscopy result, Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale, behaviour-specific self-efficacy scales. Results: 57% of patients were men, with a mean age of 60.8 years (SE 0.5) and 43% were from more affluent areas. 72% (n=387) of patients received an ARN and 28% (n=149) received an NRN. Response rate of the second questionnaire was 68.9%. Overall, 27% of patients consumed < 5 measures of fruit and vegetables/day, 20% exceeded alcohol limits, 50% had low levels of physical activity and 21% were obese. At 10-month follow-up, a 5% reduction in excessive alcohol consumption and an 8% increase in low levels of physical activity were observed among patients; no significant changes occurred in partners. Baseline high alcohol consumption and low physical activity were the strongest predictors of these behaviours at follow-up. Low alcohol self-efficacy and increasing age were associated with poorer health-related behaviours at follow-up for alcohol consumption and physical activity, respectively. Conclusions: Colonoscopy is associated with marginal beneficial changes in some behaviours but not others. Further work is needed to explore how services can optimise increases in beneficial behaviours and mitigate increases in harmful ones

Apparent bypass of negative selection in CD8+ tumours in CD2-myc transgenic mice.

A role for antigen stimulation in lymphoid neoplasia has been postulated and is supported by indirect evidence that suggests that the interaction of antigen with both T cells and B cells may constitute an epigenetic event that can contribute to tumour induction or tumour progression. Using myc-bearing transgenic mice that develop mainly clonal T-cell lymphomas we have investigated the possibility that endogenous antigen-mediated clonal deletion might be overridden in tumorigenesis. CD2-myc transgenic mice were backcrossed on to a CBA/Ca background to ensure Mtv-mediated deletion of V beta 11-expressing T cells in the resultant offspring. Lymphomas arising from these mice were subsequently screened for V beta 11 expression. There was a clear correlation between the age at which mice developed neoplasia and the tumour phenotype. Mice with CD4- CD8+ tumours succumbed to thymic lymphoma at a significantly younger age than mice developing CD4+ CD8+ tumours. A small number of tumours consisted of the 'forbidden' V beta 11 phenotype, showing that cells vulnerable to transformation could escape negative selection. The majority of the V beta 11-positive tumours were CD4- CD8+ and were only observed in mice showing clinical evidence of tumour development at a relatively young age. The phenotype of these cells and the age at which tumours arose suggests that T cells escaping tolerance may be susceptible to transformation

Layers Utilized by an ArcGIS Model to Approximate Commercial Coral and Sponge By-catch in the NAFO Regulatory Area

This report specifically addresses Fisheries Commission Request #16: "Implement and/or further refine the existing GIS simulation/modelling framework, in conjunction with the VMS data supplied by the NAFO Secretariat ...", brought forth in the Fisheries Commission 33rd Annual Meeting Report (NAFO, 2011a). Data layers utilized by the model as well as their various means of construction are described in detail including the generation of NAFO VMS trawl lines. These VMS trawl line data were used to better understand fishing behaviour and also generate a new standard trawl length (13.8 nm) to be utilized by trawl simulations. The justification for utilizing just the Spain/EU research trawl by-catch dataset instead of the combined Canada/Spain/EU dataset for the production of higher resolution sponge and sea pen biomass surfaces is also made. It is demonstrated how this high resolution (5x5 km cell grid) Spain/EU data biomass layer could be utilized with 2000 randomly placed and oriented 13.8 nm simulation trawls to generate by-catch values, organized by thresholds, to capture the distributional extent of high concentration sponge and sea pen areas. This serves as the basis for a kernel density polygon analysis that calculates a commercial sponge and sea pen encounter threshold (Kenchington et al., 2011). Finally, using the Spain/EU only high resolution biomass surface, by-catch output from VMS trawls and their simulated 13.8 nm standard trawl line counterparts are compared

INVESTIGATION OF A 2-COLOUR UNDULATOR FEL USING PUFFIN

Abstract Initial studies of a 2-colour FEL amplifier using one monoenergetic electron beam are presented. The interaction is modelled using the unaveraged, broadband FEL code Puffin. A series of undulator modules are tuned to generate two resonant frequencies along the FEL interaction and a self-consistent 2-colour FEL interaction at widely spaced non-harmonic wavelengths at 1nm and 2.4nm is demonstrated