Performance Pay and Stress : An Experimental Study

Acknowledgements: The financial support for this study by the Scottish Economic Society is gratefully acknowledged and appreciated. We are grateful for helpful comments by participants at the 2016 Scottish Economic Society Conference and seminar participants at the University of Aberdeen and the Université Panthéon-Assas as well as Daniel Powell. Help with z-tree programming from Maria Bigoni is also greatly appreciated. All errors remain with the authors.Publisher PD

Effect of breakfast omission and consumption on energy intake and physical activity in adolescent girls: a randomised controlled trial

It is not known if breakfast consumption is an effective intervention for altering daily energy balance in adolescents when compared with breakfast omission. This study examined the acute effect of breakfast consumption and omission on free-living energy intake (EI) and physical activity (PA) in adolescent girls. Using an acute randomised crossover design, forty girls (age 13.3 ± 0.8 y, body mass index 21.5 ± 5.0 kg∙m-2) completed two, 3-day conditions in a randomised, counter-balanced order: no breakfast (NB) and standardised (~1962 kJ) breakfast (SB). Dietary intakes were assessed using food diaries combined with digital photographic records and PA was measured via accelerometry throughout each condition. Statistical analyses were completed using repeated measures analysis of variance. Post-breakfast EI was 483 ± 1309 kJ/d higher in NB vs. SB (P=0.025), but total daily EI was 1479 ± 1311 kJ/d higher in SB vs. NB (P<0.0005). Daily carbohydrate, fibre and protein intakes were higher in SB vs. NB (P<0.0005), whereas daily fat intake was not different (P=0.405). Effect sizes met the minimum important difference of ≥0.20 for all significant effects. Breakfast manipulation did not affect post-breakfast macronutrient intakes (P≥0.451) or time spent sedentary or in PA (P≥0.657). In this sample of adolescent girls, breakfast omission increased post-breakfast free-living EI, but total daily EI was greater when a standardised breakfast was consumed. We found no evidence that breakfast consumption induces compensatory changes in PA. Further experimental research is required to determine the effects of extended periods of breakfast manipulation in young people

A Window for Climate Action

Recent student-led (Fridays for Future) and climate change activist-initiated (Extinction Rebellion) protests have effectively mobilized substantial resources and received extensive media coverage. However, potentially due to differences in these movements' tactics, it appears that Fridays for Future has had a more positive impact in bringing attention to the issue of climate change. The protests may have opened a policy window for climate change, presenting a momentary opportunity for substantial political action

Understanding Space Weather: The Sun as a Variable Star

The Sun is a complex system of systems and until recently, less than half of its surface was observable at any given time and then only from afar. New observational techniques and modeling capabilities are giving us a fresh perspective of the solar interior and how our Sun works as a variable star. This revolution in solar observations and modeling provides us with the exciting prospect of being able to use a vastly increased stream of solar data taken simultaneously from several different vantage points to produce more reliable and prompt space weather forecasts. Solar variations that cause identifiable space weather effects do not happen only on solar-cycle timescales from decades to centuries; there are also many shorter-term events that have their own unique space weather effects and a different set of challenges to understand and predict, such as flares, coronal mass ejections, and solar wind variation

Performance pay and low-grade stress : An experimental study

Funding Information: The financial support for this study by the Scottish Economic Society is gratefully acknowledged and appreciated. The authors are grateful for helpful comments by participants at the 2016 Scottish Economic Society Conference and seminar participants at the University of Aberdeen and the Universite Pantheon-Assas as well as Daniel Powell. Help with z-Tree programming from Maria Bigoni is also greatly appreciated. All errors remain with the authors.Peer reviewedPostprin

Preconception Healthcare: What Women Know and Believe

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to determine if women realize the importance of optimizing their health prior to a pregnancy, whether the pregnancy is planned or not; and to evaluate their knowledge level and beliefs about preconception healthcare. Additionally, we sought to understand how and when women wanted to receive information on preconception health. Methods: A survey study was performed using consecutive patients presenting to primary care practices for an annual well-woman exam. Patients were recruited based on appointment type and willingness to complete the survey at the time of their appointment, but prior to being seen by the physician. Results: A total of 499 women completed the survey. Nearly all women (98.6%) realized the importance of optimizing their health prior to a pregnancy, and realized the best time to receive information about preconception health is before conception. The vast majority of patients surveyed (95.3%) preferred to receive information about preconception health from their primary care physician. Only 39% of women could recall their physician ever discussing this topic. The population studied revealed some significant knowledge deficiencies about factors that may threaten the health of mother or fetus. Conclusions: A majority of women do understand the importance of optimizing their health prior to conception, and look to their Primary care physician as their preferred source for such information. Study participants demonstrated deficiencies in their knowledge of risk factors that impact maternal and fetal health suggesting that physicians are not addressing preconception healthcare during routine care

Carbohydrate needs of the young athlete

Carbohydrate (CHO) typically provides the majority of energy in the athlete’s diet and is essential to fuel high intensity exercise. Ensuring adequate energy is available to meet the demands of high energy expenditures is important in the young athlete to ensure proper growth, development, and maturation. Physiological and metabolic changes that accompany the transition from childhood to adolescence and to adulthood, combined with the additional energy expenditure arising from exercise, mean that the dietary needs of young athletes require special consideration. However, in contrast to the well-documented literature in adults, little research attention has been given to child and adolescent populations. Thus, the development of specific recommendations for CHO intake in young athletes is difficult. Nevertheless, it is possible to make some general recommendations. Both the total daily CHO intake and the timing of CHO consumption in relation to exercise can determine whether adequate CHO substrate is available for muscles and the central nervous system or whether CHO fuel sources might limit exercise performance. In terms of the overall diet, CHO should contribute to the majority of energy intake, which must be high enough to support growth and maturation whilst fuelling the additional physical activity, and consequently elevated energy expenditure, in young athletes. In particular, CHO is an important fuel for high intensity exercise in young athletes. Decrements in exercise performance, fatigue and changes in body composition may serve as useful indicators that CHO intake may not be adequate, particularly in female adolescent athletes. During exercise, drinks containing CHO could be considered for young athletes engaged in endurance exercise due to the preferential use of exogenous CHO in younger athletes in the pre- or early- pubertal stages. However, evidence on CHO loading and CHO for post-exercise recovery does not appear to be available in children or adolescents. This chapter provides an overview of the available evidence that can be used to inform recommendations for CHO intake and timing in young athletes. Where no direct evidence in young athletes is available, we have relied on the relevant adult-based literature whilst emphasising that the direct translation and application of these findings to children and adolescents must be viewed cautiously

1012-101 Vascular Smooth Muscle-Directed Adenovlral Vectors

Gene transfer to the vascular wall utilizing locally-delivered recombinant adenoviral vectors has shown promise as a novel technique for therapeutic as well as experimental modulation of vascular wall gene expression. Infusion of such vectors using porous balloon catheters (PBC) has previously been demonstrated to result in transduction of extravascular cells at the delivery site, as well as substantial systemic transduction as a consequence of release of vector into the circulation. Introduction of a vascular-directed promoter into the adenoviral vector should thus contribute to targeting the expression of genes to the vascular wall, while reducing peri-vascular and systemic expression. In order to test the feasibility of utilizing the vascular smooth muscle α-actin (SMA) promoter to confer tissue specificity upon a recombinant adenoviral vector, we constructed an adenovirus (AvLacZ5) employing a 1.1 kilobase region of the murine SMA promoter to direct the expression of the nuclear-targeted beta-galactosidase (lacZ) gene and evaluated gene transduction by this vector, in comparison with a vector differing only by the presence of the RSV-LTR promoter. Several cell types were used as targets, including bovine aortic smooth muscle cells (BASMC). human pulmonary epithelial carcinoma cells (A549 cells), and transformed human embryonic kidney epithelial cells which are competent to replicate these adenoviral vectors (293 cells). The vector incorporating the SMA promoter demonstrated substantial selectivity for vascular smooth muscle gene expression, with typical transductions carried out in parallel under identical conditions manifesting 90–95% lacZ-expressing BASMC, 0.3% lacZ-positive A549 cells, and 4% positive 293 cells. Conversely, parallel transductions with the vector employing the RSV promoter typically resulted in 95–99% lac-expressing 293 cells at vector concentrations yielding only 5–10% positive BASMC. These data support cell lineage-specificity of AvLacZ5 at the level of promoter function rather than due to intrinsic cellular differences in capacity for adenovirally-mediated transduction. However, it is notable that a limited subpopulation of 293 cells clearly are able to direct sufficient transcription from the SMA promoter sequences chosen to yield detectable lacZ expression; the molecular basis for this heterogeneity of expression remains to be determined. Adenoviral vectors utilizing these promoter sequences may render vascular-restricted gene transfer feasible when used in conjunction with mechanical devices providing a component of spatial localization

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Economic and Social Research Council (Grant number ES/R01163X/1)Non peer reviewedPublisher PDFPublisher PD

Metabolism and exercise during youth — The year that was 2017

Two publications were selected because they are excellent representations of studies examining different ends of the exercise-sedentary behavior continuum in young people. The first study is an acute response study with 13 mixed-sex, mid to late adolescents presenting complete data from 4 different randomized experimental crossover conditions for analyses. Continuous glucose monitoring showed that interrupting prolonged continuous sitting with body-weight resistance exercises reduced the postprandial glucose concentration compared with a time-matched uninterrupted period of sitting. Furthermore, the effects of the breaks in sitting time were independent of the energy content of the standardized meals, but variations in the area under the glucose time curves expression were important. The second study adopted a chronic 12-week exercise training intervention design with a large sample of obese children and adolescents who were allocated randomly to high-intensity interval training (HIIT), moderate-intensity continuous training, or nutritional advice groups. HIIT was the most efficacious for improving cardiorespiratory fitness compared with the other interventions; however, cardiometabolic biomarkers and visceral/subcutaneous adipose tissue did not change meaningfully in any group over the 12 weeks. Attrition rates from both HIIT and moderate-intensity continuous training groups reduce the validity of the exercise training comparison, yet this still provides a solid platform for future research comparisons using HIIT in young people