How to design and establish a national school-based physical fitness monitoring and surveillance system for children and adolescents: A 10-step approach recommended by the FitBack network.

Background: Providing individual- and population-level data on children's physical fitness (PF) is a crucial public health and education priority. However, few national fitness monitoring or surveillance systems are currently in practice internationally. We aim to summarize the current European PF monitoring and surveillance systems for school-aged children and to provide experience-based guidelines on how to design such systems.

Speech-language pathologists' professional stress level and factors affecting it in the Republic of Serbia.

Background: In the Republic of Serbia, to our knowledge, there has been no research dedicated to the professional stress faced by speech-language pathologists (SLPs). Since speech therapy belongs to the helping professions, SLPs might experience professional stress.

Objective: To examine the levels of professional stress in SLPs concerning sociodemographic characteristics and terms of the workplace.

Opto-magnetic imaging spectroscopy in analyzing rotary NiTi endodontic instruments.

Intra-canal fracture of rotary NiTi instruments occurs due to torsional stress, cyclic fatigue, or a combination of these two factors. Broken instruments are a serious obstacle to shaping, cleaning, and filling of the root canal and can adversely affect the outcome of endodontic therapy. The aim of this study was to examine the magnetic properties and ultrastructural changes of new, used, and fractured NiTi instruments using opto-magnetic imaging spectroscopy (OMIS).

European fitness landscape for children and adolescents: updated reference values, fitness maps and country rankings based on nearly 8 million test results from 34 countries gathered by the FitBack network.

Objectives: (1) To develop reference values for health-related fitness in European children and adolescents aged 6-18 years that are the foundation for the web-based, open-access and multilanguage fitness platform (FitBack); (2) to provide comparisons across European countries.

Methods: This study builds on a previous large fitness reference study in European youth by (1) widening the age demographic, (2) identifying the most recent and representative country-level data and (3) including national data from existing fitness surveillance and monitoring systems. We used the Assessing Levels of PHysical Activity and fitness at population level (ALPHA) test battery as it comprises tests with the highest test-retest reliability, criterion/construct validity and health-related predictive validity: the 20 m shuttle run (cardiorespiratory fitness); handgrip strength and standing long jump (muscular strength); and body height, body mass, body mass index and waist circumference (anthropometry).

Is the physical fitness of schoolchildren dependent on their physical activity levels and nutritional status? The experience from Serbia.

Introduction: based on the presumed relationship between physical activity and physical fitness, it seems reasonable to expect that being active would result in sufficient fitness levels. However, the relationship between physical activity and fitness is not so plausible and needs deeper exploration. Objectives: we conducted a study aimed at exploring: a) the potential variation in physical activity level by gender and school grade; and b) the effect of physical activity level, gender, and nutritional status on physical fitness test results.

Immediate and Long-Term Porosity of Calcium Silicate-Based Sealers.

Introduction: Open pores between endodontic sealer and root canal walls present potential niches for bacterial growth and migration pathways. The aim was to assess the internal and external porosity of calcium silicate-based sealers and to ascertain the long-term effect of storage in simulated body fluid on sealer porosity.

Methods: Sixteen single-rooted teeth were filled with gutta-percha and 1 of 4 root canal sealers: BioRoot RCS, EndoSequence BC, MTA Fillapex, or AH Plus.

Health-related physical fitness levels and prevalence of obesity in Serbian elementary schoolchildren.

Objectives: the aims of the study were to provide gender- and age-specific physical fitness levels among Serbian schoolchildren and to identify prevalence of overweight and obesity. Methods: a sample of 6,188 boys and 6,023 girls aged nine to 14 years were assessed using the physical fitness battery established through the National Fitness Project of Serbia. Physical fitness levels were determined for body height, body weight and body mass index and for six physical fitness tests (sit and reach, 4 x 10 m shuttle run, standing long jump, 30 sec sit-ups, bent arm hang, 20-m shuttle run).

Guidelines-Driven Educational Intervention Promotes Healthy Lifestyle Among Adolescents and Adults: A Serbian National Longitudinal Study.

The effectiveness of short-term focused educational programs to change health behaviors across large populations seems to be poorly described so far. The main aim of the present study was to evaluate an age-specific 45-min educational program, designed in accordance with the current U.S.

Physical fitness for sedentary students: a common trend from six European countries.

Background: Several studies have assessed the fitness level of students to evaluate physical condition, compare groups with differences in social disadvantage and to define indexes for post training programs. Often, these large surveys compared groups without normative value that could define the real, practical gaps. Thus, the aim of this study was the definition of baseline values describing the fitness level of sedentary European students.

Thinness in young schoolchildren in Serbia: another case of the double burden of malnutrition?

Objective: Thinness is rarely highlighted or regularly monitored among children in developed countries although it may be rather frequent and pose a significant risk to children's health. We aimed to describe the prevalence of mild, moderate and severe thinness among young Serbian schoolchildren.

Design: Cross-sectional study of schoolchildren aged 6-9 years.

Factors associated with good self-rated health in European adolescents: a population-based cross-sectional study.

Objectives: The aim of the present study was to investigate self-reported health status and associated factors.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the participants were 6501 adolescents (52% females) aged 14-19 years from three European countries: Croatia, Lithuania and Serbia. Self-rated health was assessed by using one item question: "How would you perceive your health?" The answers were arranged along a 5-point Likert-type scale: (1) very poor, (2) poor, (3) fair, (4) good and (5) excellent.

Mediterranean Diet and Its Correlates among Adolescents in Non-Mediterranean European Countries: A Population-Based Study.

Little is known about the factors which might influence the adherence to a Mediterranean diet in non-Mediterranean European countries. Thus, the main purpose of this study was to determine the associations between socioeconomic, psychological, and physical factors on a Mediterranean diet. In this cross-sectional study, participants were 14-18-year-old adolescents ( = 3071) from two non-Mediterranean countries: Lithuania ( = 1863) and Serbia ( = 1208).

WHO European Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative in Serbia: a prevalence of overweight and obesity among 6-9-year-old school children.

Background: The World Health Organization (WHO) European Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative (COSI) is a public health program established in order to understand the progress of the obesity epidemic in young populations and gain inter-country comparisons within the European region, yet the data from a number of East European countries, including Serbia, were not available then. Therefore, the main aim of this cross-sectional study was to collect data about the prevalence of overweight and obesity among 6-9-year-old school children in Serbia according to the standardized protocol during the Fourth COSI Implementation Round.

Methods: From September 2015 to November 2015, 5102 first- and second-grade primary-school children (age 7.

Psychometric Properties of the Attitudes toward Physical Activity Scale: A Rasch Analysis Based on Data From Five Locations.

This article describes the development and validation of the Attitudes toward Physical Activity Scale (APAS) to measure the attitudes, beliefs, and self-efficacy toward physical activity by children at the primary school level. The framework included: physical fitness, self-efficacy, personal best goal orientation in physical activity, interest in physical activity, importance of physical activity, benefits of physical activity, contributions of video exercise to learning in school subjects, contributions of video exercise to learning about health and environmental support. The sample comprised of 630 school students between grades 1 and 7 from five countries, namely Lithuania (29%), Poland (26%), Serbia (19%), Singapore (16%) and Zimbabwe (11%).

Chronoamperometric study of elemental sulphur (S) nanoparticles (NPs) in NaCl water solution: new methodology for S NPs sizing and detection.

Background: Elemental sulfur (S) persists in natural aquatic environment in a variety of forms with different size distributions from dissolved to particulate. Determination of S speciation mainly consists of the application of chromatographic and electrochemical techniques while its size determination is limited only to the application of microscopic and light scattering techniques. S biological and geochemical importance together with recent increases of S industrial applications requires the development of different analytical tools for S sizing and quantification.

Physical self-concept of adolescents in Western Balkan countries: a pilot study.

The aim of this study was to explore physical self-concept of adolescents of the Western Balkans (Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina) according to sex and country. The participants were 2,606 students, ages 13 and 14 years (M = 13.5, SD = 0.

Accuracy of three electronic apex locators in determining the apical foramen in multi-rooted teeth: Randomised clinical and laboratory study.

This study aimed to compare the accuracy of three electronic apex locators (EALs), Raypex 5, Apex NRG and ProPex II, in locating the apical foramen (AF) in vivo. Thirty multi-rooted teeth were included in the study. Distances from the file tip to the radiographic apex from the buccal (R1) and mesial (R2) aspect were measured after extraction.

Sequential separation of Fe and Sr from liquid samples by using Sr resin and rapid determination of ⁵⁵Fe and (⁸⁹,⁹⁰)Sr.

The obtained results showed that the Sr resin can be used for the chromatographic separation of Fe (III) and Sr (II) ions by using a mixture of HCl and HNO3. It was shown that the binding strength of Fe (III) decreases with increasing concentration of HNO3 while the binding strength of Sr (II) increases. It was found that the optimal bonding strength is achieved in 6 mol/L HCl:3 mol/L HNO3 and varying concentrations of acid in the mixture allow their selective separation.