A cross-sectional study of awareness of physical activity: associations with personal, behavioral and psychosocial factors

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Interventions to promote physical activity frequently target hypothesized mediators of change, but these might be affected by a person's awareness of their own physical activity behavior. The paper aims to characterize a high-risk population by levels of awareness and to study associations between awareness and selected personal, behavioral and psychosocial factors.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data were collected on physical activity behavior, physical activity awareness, behavioral and psychosocial factors and anthropometry cross-sectionally at 6-month follow-up in a physical activity promotion trial. Awareness was assessed by comparing dichotomous self-rated physical activity with achieving activity levels according to international guidelines. Four groups were distinguished: 'Realistic Active', 'Realistic Inactive', 'Overestimator', and 'Underestimator'. Data were analyzed with ANCOVA, correcting for previous interventions and current physical activity level.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of 632 participants (mean age: 56.3 years), 321 were inactive, 61.4% of whom rated themselves as active ('Overestimators'). Compared to 'Realistic Inactives', 'Overestimators' were older, less likely to be smokers or to intend to increase their physical activity level, and had a lower body mass index. Furthermore, 'Overestimators' had similar scores to the 'Realistic Actives' on the psychological factors, but differed significantly from the 'Realistic Inactives'.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>People who overestimate their physical activity level appear to be healthier than people who aware of their low activity level. Overestimators also scored more positively on various psychosocial factors and were also less likely to intend to change their physical activity behavior, making awareness a potential barrier in physical activity promotion. Physical activity promotion strategies might include interventions with a focus on increasing awareness in this hard to reach population.</p

Synthesis and characterization of rice husk biochar via hydrothermal carbonization for wastewater treatment and biofuel production.

The recent implication of circular economy in Australia spurred the demand for waste material utilization for value-added product generations on a commercial scale. Therefore, this experimental study emphasized on agricultural waste biomass, rice husk (RH) as potential feedstock to produce valuable products. Rice husk biochar (RB) was obtained at temperature: 180 °C, pressure: 70 bar, reaction time: 20 min with water via hydrothermal carbonization (HTC), and the obtained biochar yield was 57.9%. Enhancement of zeta potential value from - 30.1 to - 10.6 mV in RB presented the higher suspension stability, and improvement of surface area and porosity in RB demonstrated the wastewater adsorption capacity. Along with that, an increase of crystallinity in RB, 60.5%, also indicates the enhancement of the catalytic performance of the material significantly more favorable to improve the adsorption efficiency of transitional compounds. In contrast, an increase of the atomic O/C ratio in RB, 0.51 delineated high breakdown of the cellulosic component, which is favorable for biofuel purpose. 13.98% SiO2 reduction in RB confirmed ash content minimization and better quality of fuel properties. Therefore, the rice husk biochar through HTC can be considered a suitable material for further application to treat wastewater and generate bioenergy

Key traveller groups of relevance to spatial malaria transmission: a survey of movement patterns in four sub-Saharan African countries

Background: As malaria prevalence declines in many parts of the world due to widescale control efforts and as drug-resistant parasites begin to emerge, a quantitative understanding of human movement is becoming increasingly relevant to malaria control. However, despite its importance, significant knowledge gaps remain regarding human movement, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Methods: A quantitative survey of human movement patterns was conducted in four countries in sub-Saharan Africa: Mali, Burkina Faso, Zambia, and Tanzania, with three to five survey locations chosen in each country. Questions were included on demographic and trip details, malaria risk behaviour, children accompanying travellers, and mobile phone usage to enable phone signal data to be better correlated with movement. A total of 4352 individuals were interviewed and 6411 trips recorded. Results: A cluster analysis of trips highlighted two distinct traveller groups of relevance to malaria transmission: women travelling with children (in all four countries) and youth workers (in Mali). Women travelling with children were more likely to travel to areas of relatively high malaria prevalence in Mali (OR = 4.46, 95 % CI = 3.42–5.83), Burkina Faso (OR = 1.58, 95 % CI = 1.23–1.58), Zambia (OR = 1.50, 95 % CI = 1.20–1.89), and Tanzania (OR = 2.28, 95 % CI = 1.71–3.05) compared to other travellers. They were also more likely to own bed nets in Burkina Faso (OR = 1.77, 95 % CI = 1.25–2.53) and Zambia (OR = 1.74, 95 % CI = 1.34 2.27), and less likely to own a mobile phone in Mali (OR = 0.50, 95 % CI = 0.39–0.65), Burkina Faso (OR = 0.39, 95 % CI = 0.30–0.52), and Zambia (OR = 0.60, 95 % CI = 0.47–0.76). Malian youth workers were more likely to travel to areas of relatively high malaria prevalence (OR = 23, 95 % CI = 17–31) and for longer durations (mean of 70 days cf 21 days, p < 0.001) compared to other travellers. Conclusions: Women travelling with children were a remarkably consistent traveller group across all four countries surveyed. They are expected to contribute greatly towards spatial malaria transmission because the children they travel with tend to have high parasite prevalence. Youth workers were a significant traveller group in Mali and are expected to contribute greatly to spatial malaria transmission because their movements correlate with seasonal rains and hence peak mosquito densities. Interventions aimed at interrupting spatial transmission of parasites should consider these traveller groups

Let us not neglect the impact of organizational culture on increasing diversity within medical schools.

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Beyond Gross-Pitaevskii Mean Field Theory

A large number of effects related to the phenomenon of Bose-Einstein Condensation (BEC) can be understood in terms of lowest order mean field theory, whereby the entire system is assumed to be condensed, with thermal and quantum fluctuations completely ignored. Such a treatment leads to the Gross-Pitaevskii Equation (GPE) used extensively throughout this book. Although this theory works remarkably well for a broad range of experimental parameters, a more complete treatment is required for understanding various experiments, including experiments with solitons and vortices. Such treatments should include the dynamical coupling of the condensate to the thermal cloud, the effect of dimensionality, the role of quantum fluctuations, and should also describe the critical regime, including the process of condensate formation. The aim of this Chapter is to give a brief but insightful overview of various recent theories, which extend beyond the GPE. To keep the discussion brief, only the main notions and conclusions will be presented. This Chapter generalizes the presentation of Chapter 1, by explicitly maintaining fluctuations around the condensate order parameter. While the theoretical arguments outlined here are generic, the emphasis is on approaches suitable for describing single weakly-interacting atomic Bose gases in harmonic traps. Interesting effects arising when condensates are trapped in double-well potentials and optical lattices, as well as the cases of spinor condensates, and atomic-molecular coupling, along with the modified or alternative theories needed to describe them, will not be covered here.Comment: Review Article (19 Pages) - To appear in 'Emergent Nonlinear Phenomena in Bose-Einstein Condensates: Theory and Experiment', Edited by P.G. Kevrekidis, D.J. Frantzeskakis and R. Carretero-Gonzalez (Springer Verlag

Anthropogenic heat flux: advisable spatial resolutions when input data are scarce

Anthropogenic heat flux (QF) may be significant in cities, especially under low solar irradiance and at night. It is of interest to many practitioners including meteorologists, city planners and climatologists. QF estimates at fine temporal and spatial resolution can be derived from models that use varying amounts of empirical data. This study compares simple and detailed models in a European megacity (London) at 500 m spatial resolution. The simple model (LQF) uses spatially resolved population data and national energy statistics. The detailed model (GQF) additionally uses local energy, road network and workday population data. The Fractions Skill Score (FSS) and bias are used to rate the skill with which the simple model reproduces the spatial patterns and magnitudes of QF, and its sub-components, from the detailed model. LQF skill was consistently good across 90% of the city, away from the centre and major roads. The remaining 10% contained elevated emissions and B hot spots ^ representing 30 – 40% of the total city-wide energy. This structure was lost because it requires workday population, spatially resolved building energy consumption and/or road network data. Daily total building and traffic energy consumption estimates from national data were within ± 40% of local values. Progressively coarser spatial resolutions to 5 km improved skill for total Q F , but important features (hot spots, transport network) were lost at all resolutions when residential population controlled spatial variations. The results demonstrate that simple QF models should be applied with conservative spatial resolution in cities that, like London, exhibit time-varying energy use patterns

Rapid detection of pandemic influenza in the presence of seasonal influenza

Background: Key to the control of pandemic influenza are surveillance systems that raise alarms rapidly and sensitively. In addition, they must minimise false alarms during a normal influenza season. We develop a method that uses historical syndromic influenza data from the existing surveillance system 'SERVIS' (Scottish Enhanced Respiratory Virus Infection Surveillance) for influenza-like illness (ILI) in Scotland. Methods: We develop an algorithm based on the weekly case ratio (WCR) of reported ILI cases to generate an alarm for pandemic influenza. From the seasonal influenza data from 13 Scottish health boards, we estimate the joint probability distribution of the country-level WCR and the number of health boards showing synchronous increases in reported influenza cases over the previous week. Pandemic cases are sampled with various case reporting rates from simulated pandemic influenza infections and overlaid with seasonal SERVIS data from 2001 to 2007. Using this combined time series we test our method for speed of detection, sensitivity and specificity. Also, the 2008-09 SERVIS ILI cases are used for testing detection performances of the three methods with a real pandemic data. Results: We compare our method, based on our simulation study, to the moving-average Cumulative Sums (Mov-Avg Cusum) and ILI rate threshold methods and find it to be more sensitive and rapid. For 1% case reporting and detection specificity of 95%, our method is 100% sensitive and has median detection time (MDT) of 4 weeks while the Mov-Avg Cusum and ILI rate threshold methods are, respectively, 97% and 100% sensitive with MDT of 5 weeks. At 99% specificity, our method remains 100% sensitive with MDT of 5 weeks. Although the threshold method maintains its sensitivity of 100% with MDT of 5 weeks, sensitivity of Mov-Avg Cusum declines to 92% with increased MDT of 6 weeks. For a two-fold decrease in the case reporting rate (0.5%) and 99% specificity, the WCR and threshold methods, respectively, have MDT of 5 and 6 weeks with both having sensitivity close to 100% while the Mov-Avg Cusum method can only manage sensitivity of 77% with MDT of 6 weeks. However, the WCR and Mov-Avg Cusum methods outperform the ILI threshold method by 1 week in retrospective detection of the 2009 pandemic in Scotland. Conclusions: While computationally and statistically simple to implement, the WCR algorithm is capable of raising alarms, rapidly and sensitively, for influenza pandemics against a background of seasonal influenza. Although the algorithm was developed using the SERVIS data, it has the capacity to be used at other geographic scales and for different disease systems where buying some early extra time is critical

Plasma Zinc But Not the Exchangeable Zinc Pool Size Differs Between Young and Older Korean Women

This study was done to determine the effect of age on zinc metabolism and status among healthy Korean women. Measures of zinc metabolism and status were measured in eight young women (22–24 years) and seven elderly women (66–75 years) consuming a typical Korean diet. Oral and intravenous tracers highly enriched in 67Zn and 70Zn were administered simultaneously. Multiple plasma, 24-h urines, and fecal samples were collected after isotope administration. In the young women, additional plasma were collected to determine zinc kinetics using a seven-compartmental model. Exchangeable Zinc Pool (EZP) was estimated by Miller’s method. Plasma zinc concentrations were higher in older women than younger women (p < 0.05). EZP and urinary zinc tended to be higher in older women than younger women. Fractional and total zinc absorption and endogenous fecal zinc losses did not differ between young and older women. A comparison of the zinc kinetics of the Korean and American women showed no differences in plasma or EZP zinc parameters. However, absorbed zinc and zinc flux to slowly turning over tissues (Q7) were lower in Korean women than that of Americans (p < 0.01) suggesting the total body zinc content of Korean women is lower than that of American women

Current challenges in software solutions for mass spectrometry-based quantitative proteomics

This work was in part supported by the PRIME-XS project, grant agreement number 262067, funded by the European Union seventh Framework Programme; The Netherlands Proteomics Centre, embedded in The Netherlands Genomics Initiative; The Netherlands Bioinformatics Centre; and the Centre for Biomedical Genetics (to S.C., B.B. and A.J.R.H); by NIH grants NCRR RR001614 and RR019934 (to the UCSF Mass Spectrometry Facility, director: A.L. Burlingame, P.B.); and by grants from the MRC, CR-UK, BBSRC and Barts and the London Charity (to P.C.