Examining influences on boys\u27 and girls\u27 physical activity patterns: the a-class project

Understanding children&rsquo;s physical activity (PA) patterns and the factors that may influence PA are important for developing interventions within this population. One hundred and ten children aged 9&ndash;0 years from 8 schools had their PA patterns assessed over 7 days. Physiological and self-report data were also collected. Multilevel analyses revealed that cardiorespiratory fitness was a consistent, significant and positive predictor of weekday and weekend PA, while the availability of home sedentary activities was a significant but negative predictor of PA. Since a range of variables were associated with PA levels, intervention developers should be cognizant of variables that may influence children&rsquo;s activity<br /

Comparing the physiological cost of step-powered video gaming, sedentary video gaming and self paced ambulatory activity in university students

Objectives: Methods for converting inactive video gaming to active video gaming have gained popularity in recent years. This study compared the physiological cost of a new peripheral device that used steps to power video gaming in an interactive manner against sedentary video gaming and self-paced ambulatory activity of university students (aged 19-29 years).Methods: Nineteen adults (9 male, 10 female) performed six 10-minute activities, namely self-paced leisurely walking, self-paced brisk walking, self-paced jogging, two forms of sedentary video gaming, and step-powered video gaming. Activities were performed in a random order. Physiological cost during the activities was measured using Actiheart.Results: Energy expenditure during step-powered video gaming (388.8 kcal.h-1) was comparable to the energy expended during brisk walking (373.8 kcal.h-1), and elicited a higher energy cost than sedentary video gaming (124.1 kcal.h-1) but a lower energy cost than jogging (694.5 kcal.h-1).Conclusion: Overall, step-powered video gaming could be used as an entertaining and appealing tool to increase physical activity, though it should not be used as a complete substitute for traditional exercise, such as jogging.<br /

Fitting the integrated Spectral Energy Distributions of Galaxies

Fitting the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of galaxies is an almost universally used technique that has matured significantly in the last decade. Model predictions and fitting procedures have improved significantly over this time, attempting to keep up with the vastly increased volume and quality of available data. We review here the field of SED fitting, describing the modelling of ultraviolet to infrared galaxy SEDs, the creation of multiwavelength data sets, and the methods used to fit model SEDs to observed galaxy data sets. We touch upon the achievements and challenges in the major ingredients of SED fitting, with a special emphasis on describing the interplay between the quality of the available data, the quality of the available models, and the best fitting technique to use in order to obtain a realistic measurement as well as realistic uncertainties. We conclude that SED fitting can be used effectively to derive a range of physical properties of galaxies, such as redshift, stellar masses, star formation rates, dust masses, and metallicities, with care taken not to over-interpret the available data. Yet there still exist many issues such as estimating the age of the oldest stars in a galaxy, finer details ofdust properties and dust-star geometry, and the influences of poorly understood, luminous stellar types and phases. The challenge for the coming years will be to improve both the models and the observational data sets to resolve these uncertainties. The present review will be made available on an interactive, moderated web page (sedfitting.org), where the community can access and change the text. The intention is to expand the text and keep it up to date over the coming years.Comment: 54 pages, 26 figures, Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Scienc

Family involvement and helping behaviour in teams

Helping behavior at work has become increasingly important, with organizations making more and more use of cooperative work practices. The difficulty is that employees are facing growing demands beyond the workplace. This study investigates the mechanisms by which family involvement (family structure, family tasks, family support) affects helping behavior in teams. Based on a sample of 495 team members, the results show that having a supportive partner and performing care tasks increase helping behavior via enhanced fulfillment and skills. Having young children is directly and negatively related to helping behavior. The authors also conducted separate analyses for men and women.