Zooming into daily life : Within-person associations between physical activity and affect in young adults

Funding The first author was funded by the LEAD Graduate School & Research Network [GSC1028], a project of the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments. Acknowledgements We thank Laura Grube, Leona Hellwig, Parvin Nemati, and Sarah Schmid for their study assistance and all the individuals who participated and made this research feasible.Peer reviewedPostprin

Physical Activity in Children and Adults – Associations with Affect and Impact on Executive Functions

Physical inactivity is a wide-spread phenomenon in the Western world. It has detrimental influences on health, resulting in the fourth-leading risk factor of global mortality. In addition to being an effective tool for improving physical health, physical activity can also serve to improve mental health. The present dissertation aims at investigating the potential benefits of physical activity for affect and executive functions, both representing aspects of mental health. To be more precise, the research aim of the present dissertation is trifold. First, the associations between physical activity and affect in young adults’ daily lives are investigated by applying ambulatory assessment (Manuscript 1). Second, the application of ambulatory assessment in the school context, including the assessment of physical activity, affect and executive functions, and its advantages for supporting educational success are reviewed (Manuscript 2). Third, the effectiveness of a physical activity intervention for improving executive functions in young children is investigated in a standardized intervention study (Manuscript 3). Thereby, the present dissertation extends and enriches theoretical and empirical knowledge in two ways. On the one hand, it focuses in particular on the transfer of effects into everyday life by relying on ambulatory assessment. On the other hand, it targets specific age groups, young adults and young children, that seem to be highly susceptible for the benefits of physical activity since young adults’ affect is especially low and young children’s executive functions are still developing. Manuscript 1 investigated the associations between physical activity and affect in young adults’ daily lives. Ambulatory assessment was applied in an intensive longitudinal study, conducted in 189 young adults across 10 consecutive days. Participants wore accelerometers to objectively assess moderate-to-vigorous physical activity continuously throughout the day and reported their affect in time-stamped online diaries before going to sleep. Multilevel analyses revealed significant within-person associations between daytime physical activity and same-day’s evening affect. On days when participants engaged in more activity than usual, they reported not only less depressed and less angry affect in the evening, but also more vigor and serenity. These results extend previous findings with evidence obtained in real life and by focusing on the associations between physical activity and specific affect states. Further on, the results of this manuscript allow deriving practical implications for health promotion programs for young adults. Manuscript 2 provided a literature review on the application of ambulatory assessment in the school context. It introduced ambulatory assessment as a method that enables investigating fluctuations in physiological and mental processes within students and teachers. Specifically, applying ambulatory assessment methods can detect intraindividual changes and fluctuations in behavioral (e.g., physical activity), affective, and cognitive (e.g. executive functions) processes as they naturally occur within a school day or across days. Thereby, a high ecological validity can be reached and contextual factors of various modalities are assessable. Moreover, the results of ambulatory assessment studies in school can lay the foundation for developing theories on the etiology of academic achievement. Consequently, this manuscript highlights the benefits of applying ambulatory assessment in school to support educational success. Manuscript 3 described a standardized intervention study in 103 young children that tests the effectiveness of acute physical activity for improving executive functions and also takes the moderating influence of previous motor coordination experiences into account. Children were randomly assigned to a physical activity or sitting control condition, both conducted in a one-on-one experimenter-child setting. Executive functions were assessed with two tasks directly following the interventions. Motor coordination experiences were measured with a parental questionnaire. Regression analyses revealed no difference in both executive function tasks between children in the physical activity compared to the control condition. However, individual differences in children’s motor coordination experiences moderated the effectiveness of physical activity for executive functions. Children with lower levels of motor coordination experiences showed negative effects of physical activity on executive functions compared to a sitting activity, whereas children with higher levels of motor coordination experiences showed a trend indicating positive effects of physical activity on executive functions. These results allow drawing causal inferences about the effects of physical activity on executive functions and extend prior findings by its application of standardized methods in young children. Furthermore, practical implications for the use of physical activity in early education can be derived. As a whole, the present dissertation shows that physical activity can serve as a tool for enhancing affect in young adults and executive functions in young children, and thus, for improving mental health. In addition, it underlines the value of applying ambulatory assessment to obtain evidence in real life and in particular in the school context to support education. Consequently, the present dissertation contributes conceptual knowledge about the potential of physical activity for improving affect and executive functions. Practical implications for how physical activity can be used to support health and education are discussed together with directions for future research

Utilizing Incentivized Economic Experiments to Test for Social Skills Acquisition Through Physical Education: Study Protocol of the Movigen Project

Besides cognitive skills, non-cognitive skills—social skills in particular—are crucial for outcomes in various domains of life. The present work describes the design of the Movigen project, an intervention study with children aged 10–13 years using enhanced physical education lessons to foster social skills in a playful way. Utilizing a novel methodological approach various incentivized economic experiments were applied to test for spillover effects of the intervention on social skills. At three points during the course of the study individuals participated in a series of incentivized economic experiments to elicit economic preferences and personality traits. Additional information about physical activity and free time activities, different psychometric scales, and family background were elicited with questionnaires. Furthermore, a subset of individuals was equipped with accelerometers for 7 days to validate the answers on physical activity in the questionnaire. The data set comprises a treatment group which received enhanced physical education lessons and a control group which received regular physical education lessons at school. The comparison of individuals\u27 decision in the economic experiments between both groups allows to study the impact of our intervention on social skills

Social skills and sports: Pupils of an elite school of sports are more competitive and cooperative

It is frequently observed that individuals who actively practice sports also do well in other domains of life, e.g., the labor market. While the underlying mechanisms are not yet fully understood, it is often argued that sports participation is embedded in a setting which fosters qualities which prove advantageous beyond sports. In the present paper, we examine competitive and cooperative behavior in children aged 10–13 years. Rather than on individual levels of sports participation, the focus is on the institutional setting of an elite school of sports (ESS) as compared to regular upper secondary schools. To obtain measures for competitiveness and cooperativeness, we utilize experimental methods which are established in economics. Our results show that ESS students are both more competitive and more cooperative than their counterparts at regular schools

Fgf and Sdf-1 Pathways Interact during Zebrafish Fin Regeneration

The chemokine stromal cell-derived factor-1 (SDF1) was originally identified as a pre-B cell stimulatory factor but has been recently implicated in several other key steps in differentiation and morphogenesis. In addition, SDF1 as well as FGF signalling pathways have recently been shown to be involved in the control of epimorphic regeneration. In this report, we address the question of a possible interaction between the two signalling pathways during adult fin regeneration in zebrafish. Using a combination of pharmaceutical and genetic tools, we show that during epimorphic regeneration, expression of sdf1, as well as of its cognate receptors, cxcr4a, cxcr4b and cxcr7 are controlled by FGF signalling. We further show that, Sdf1a negatively regulates the expression of fgf20a. Together, these results lead us to propose that: 1) the function of Fgf in blastema formation is, at least in part, relayed by the chemokine Sdf1a, and that 2) Sdf1 exerts negative feedback on the Fgf pathway, which contributes to a transient expression of Fgf20a downstream genes at the beginning of regeneration. However this feedback control can be bypassed since the Sdf1 null mutants regenerate their fin, though slower. Very few mutants for the regeneration process were isolated so far, illustrating the difficulty in identifying genes that are indispensable for regeneration. This observation supports the idea that the regeneration process involves a delicate balance between multiple pathways

miFRame: analysis and visualization of miRNA sequencing data in neurological disorders

Background: While in the past decades nucleic acid analysis has been predominantly carried out using quantitative low- and high-throughput approaches such as qRT-PCR and microarray technology, next-generation sequencing (NGS) with its single base resolution is now frequently applied in DNA and RNA testing. Especially for small non-coding RNAs such as microRNAs there is a need for analysis and visualization tools that facilitate interpretation of the results also for clinicians. Methods: We developed miFRame, which supports the analysis of human small RNA NGS data. Our tool carries out different data analyses for known as well as predicted novel mature microRNAs from known precursors and presents the results in a well interpretable manner. Analyses include among others expression analysis of precursors and mature miRNAs, detection of novel precursors and detection of potential iso-microRNAs. Aggregation of results from different users moreover allows for evaluation whether remarkable results, such as novel mature miRNAs, are indeed specific for the respective experimental set-up or are frequently detected across a broad range of experiments. Results: We demonstrate the capabilities of miFRame, which is freely available at http://www.ccb.uni-saarland.de/miframe on two studies, circulating biomarker screening for Multiple Sclerosis (cohort includes clinically isolated syndrome, relapse remitting MS, matched controls) as well as Alzheimer Disease (cohort includes Alzheimer Disease, Mild Cognitive Impairment, matched controls). Here, our tool allowed for an improved biomarker discovery by identifying likely false positive marker candidates

Advies opzet monitoring en evaluatie kringlooplandbouw : notitie opgesteld op verzoek van het Ministerie van Landbouw, Natuur en Voedselkwaliteit

Deze notitie bevat 2 onderdelen: Deel 1. Advies opzet monitoring en evaluatiesysteem. Deel 2. Verkenning: uitwerking monitoring voor enkele thema’s die spelen in de kringlooplandbouw (bodemkwaliteit, bemesting, veevoer, biodiversiteit, klimaat, voedselconsumptie, neveneffecten)

Der Karlsruher Physikkurs für die Sekundarstufe I, Gesamtband

Der Karlsruher Physikkurs ist ein Lehrbuch für die Sekundarstufe des Gymnasiums: 3 Bände für die Sek I und 5 Bände für die Sek II. Ihm liegt eine einheitliche Sachstruktur zu Grunde. Er ist dadurch leicht verständlich und gleichzeitig kompakt. Außerdem werden Barrieren zu Nachbardisziplinen abgebaut. Veraltete Konzepte wurden eliminiert, die Zahl der Fachausdrücke stark reduziert. Er wird gern gelesen von Jungen und Mädchen

Delineation of Chondroid Lipoma: An Immunohistochemical and Molecular Biological Analysis

Aims. Chondroid lipoma (CL) is a benign tumor that mimics a variety of soft tissue tumors and is characterized by translocation t(11;16). Here, we analyze CL and its histological mimics. Methods. CL (n = 4) was compared to a variety of histological mimics (n = 83) for morphological aspects and immunohistochemical features including cyclinD1(CCND1). Using FISH analysis, CCND1 and FUS were investigated as potential translocation partners. Results. All CLs were strongly positive for CCND1. One of 4 myoepitheliomas, CCND1, was positive. In well-differentiated lipomatous tumors and in chondrosarcomas, CCND1 was frequently expressed, but all myxoid liposarcomas were negative. FISH analysis did not give support for direct involvement of CCND1 and FUS as translocation partners. Conclusions. Chondroid lipoma is extremely rare and has several and more prevalent histological mimics. The differential diagnosis of chondroid lipomas can be unraveled using immunohistochemical and molecular support