Sleep and physical activity - the dynamics of bi-directional influences over a fortnight.

Study Objectives: The day-to-next day predictions between physical activity (PA) and sleep are not well known, although they are crucial for advancing public health by delivering valid sleep and physical activity recommendations. We used Big Data to examine cross-lagged time-series of sleep and PA over 14 days and nights.

Methods: Bi-directional cross-lagged autoregressive pathways over 153,154 days and nights from 12,638 Polar watch users aged 18-60 years (M = 40.

Is It Time We Stop Discouraging Evening Physical Activity? New Real-World Evidence From 150,000 Nights.

Professional and colloquial sleep hygiene guidelines advise against evening physical activity, despite meta-analyses of laboratory studies concluding that evening exercise does not impair sleep. This study is the first to investigate the association between objectively measured evening physical activity and sleep within a real-world big-data sample. A total of 153,154 nights from 12,638 individuals aged 18-60 years ( = 40.

Using big data to explore worldwide trends in objective sleep in the transition to adulthood.

Background: Development induces changes in sleep, and its duration has been reported to change as a function of aging. Additionally, sleep timing is a marker of pubertal maturation, where during adolescence, the circadian rhythm shifts later. Typically, this is manifested in a later sleep onset in the evening and later awakening in the morning.

Top quark jets as a probe of the constrained minimal supersymmetric standard model with a degenerate top squark and lightest supersymmetric particle.

The degenerate top squark next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle (NLSP) and neutralino (LSP) scenario is well motivated but hard to detect in the collider experiments. We propose a novel signature for detection of this scenario at the Large Hadron Collider and demonstrate its feasibility. In the constrained minimal supersymmetric standard model and top squark NLSP, gluinos are in general much heavier than the lighter top squark and, thus, it decays dominantly to high transverse momentum (p(T)) top-quark-top-squark pairs.

Endogenous melatonin predicts efficacy of exogenous melatonin in consolidation of fragmented wrist-activity rhythm of adult patients with developmental brain disorders: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study.

Objective: : We studied whether the endogenous melatonin patterns in adult patients with developmental brain disorders have any role in response to exogenous melatonin given as a sleep-promoting medicine.

Methods: : Participants included 15 adults (18-60 years, five females) with developmental brain disorders of varying etiologies, motor handicaps, and long-term history of sleep problems. According to the 24-h patterns of serum melatonin, patients were divided into two subgroups: lower and higher secretors.

Wrist actigraphy in estimation of sleep and wake in intellectually disabled subjects with motor handicaps.

Background And Purpose: We studied the applicability of wrist actigraphy to sleep-wake estimation in patients with motor handicaps.

Patients And Methods: Concomitant polysomnographic and actigraphic recordings (16-24 h) were compared in three groups: normally moving subjects with normal sleep (n=10), sleep-disordered subjects without motor handicaps (n=13) and sleep-disordered patients with different motor disabilities (n=16). The motor abilities of the subjects were determined by clinical evaluation using a grading scale from 0 to 10.

Shared means and meanings in vocal expression of man and macaque.

Vocalisations of six Macaca arctoides that were categorised according to their social context and judgements of naive human listeners as expressions of plea/submission, anger, fear, dominance, contentment and emotional neutrality, were compared with vowel samples extracted from simulations of emotional-motivational connotations by the Finnish name Saara and English name Sarah. The words were spoken by seven Finnish and 13 English women. Humans and monkeys resembled each other in the following respects.

Automatic blink detection: a method for differentiation of wake and sleep of intellectually disabled and healthy subjects in long-term ambulatory monitoring.

Objectives: To develop a method for automatic detection of blinks in electrooculograms and to evaluate reliability of blink rate as an indicator of wake and sleep in subjects with developmental brain disorders.

Design: Categorization of wake and sleep by blink rate was compared with visual sleep scoring of the polysomnograms.

Setting: Ambulatory polysomnographic recordings at home or in the sleep laboratory.

Sleep fragmentation in mentally retarded people decreases with increasing daylength in spring.

We studied the sleep-wake behavior of mentally retarded people from late winter to early summer at 60 degrees N. During this time the daylength increased 8 h 51 min. The data were collected by observing the sleep-wake status of 293 subjects at 20-min intervals for five randomized 24h periods (= recording days).

Neurological impairments and sleep-wake behaviour among the mentally retarded.

The objective of the present study was to evaluate the relationship between the sleep-wake behaviour and neurological impairments among mentally retarded people. The sleep-wake behaviour of 293 mentally retarded subjects living in a rehabilitation center was studied by a standardized observation protocol carried out by trained staff members. The protocol consisted of brief check-ups of the subjects' sleep-wake status at 20-min intervals for five randomly chosen 24-h periods during 4 months.

Multiple endocrine neoplastic-associated thymic carcinoid tumour in close relatives: octreotide scan as a new diagnostic and follow-up modality. Two case reports.

Thymic carcinoid tumours constitute less than 1% of all carcinoids, and differ markedly from true thymomas in natural history, morphology, prognosis and therapeutic options. New clinical and diagnostic modalities are described in two brothers with thymic carcinoid associated with multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome. Octreotide scintigraphy proved useful for diagnosis and follow-up, and somatostatin receptor positivity may provide new prospects for treatment of non-resectable or recurrent tumour.

Expression or emotional-motivational connotations with a one-word utterance.

The expression of "naming," "commanding," "angry," "frightened," "pleading," "astonished," "satisfied," "admiring," "scornful," and "sad" was with the word [saara] spoken by 12 subjects. Using the same connotations, the 120 utterances were categorized by 73 listeners. Most samples were agreed on by 50%-99% of the judges.

Categorization of voice disorders with six perceptual dimensions.

To obtain a perceptual reference for acoustic feature selection, 94 male and 124 female voices were categorized using the ratings of 6 clinicians on visual analog scales for pathology, roughness, breathiness, strain, asthenia, and pitch. Partial correlations showed that breathiness and roughness were the main determinants of pathology. The six-dimensional ratings (the six median scores for each voice) were categorized with the aid of the Sammon map and the self-organizing map.

Voice reactions to histamine inhalation in asthma.

Susceptibility to voice reactions during a histamine provocation test was studied in 21 asthmatics and 21 healthy subjects. Speech samples were recorded before, and 5 and 15 min after histamine inhalation, and the samples were rated by six speech pathologists. Deterioration of voice quality occurred in 2/12 asthmatic men and in 3/9 asthmatic women within 5 min after histamine inhalation; no change was observed between 5 and 15 min.

Cul-de-sac hypernasality test with pattern recognition of LPC indices.

Acoustic differences between samples of [i], [u], and [a] uttered in nose-open and nose-obstructed condition were studied in 6 women with isolated cleft palate and pathological nasalance scores and 9 healthy women with normal nasalance scores. The speech samples were depicted by 14-component vocal tract area feature vectors obtained by linear prediction and the differences between the samples were studied with a self-organized feature map. Each location on the map corresponds to a certain signal pattern, neighboring locations to similar patterns.

Locomotor activity and melatonin rhythms in rats under non-24-h lighting cycles.

The adjustment of pineal melatonin and locomotor activity rhythms to 10:10-h light:dark (LD) or 14:14-h LD cycles was studied in male Wistar rats. Both lighting conditions were thought to be outside the limits of entrainment of the rest-activity rhythm in this species. We assumed that the rhythm of pineal melatonin synthesis might be more adaptable.

Spectral pattern recognition of improved voice quality.

The self-organizing map (a neural network) was applied to the spectral pattern recognition of voice quality in 34 subjects: 15 patients operated on because of insufficient glottal closure and 19 subjects not treated for voice disorders. The voice samples, segments of sustained /a/, were perceptually rated by six experts. A self-organized acoustic feature map was first computed from tokens of /a/ and then used for the analysis of the samples.

Cortical sensory evoked potentials and communicative forebrain functions.

Cortical evoked potentials were measured to visual, auditory and somatosensory stimuli in 20 subjects with serious neurodevelopmental impairments due to various etiologies. The results were compared with behavioral observations to find out whether the absence/presence of the responses corresponded to the level of social functioning. No cortical evoked potentials were elicited in two subjects, responses to the stimulation of one modality were missing in three subjects (retinal b-waves and brainstem auditory and somatosensory evoked potentials were, however, preserved in them).

Characterization of melatonin binding to the anteroventral and anterodorsal thalamic nuclei of the rat.

Binding of 2-[125I]melatonin to the anteroventral and anterodorsal nuclei of the rat limbic thalamus was analyzed with in vitro autoradiography. In both nuclei the binding was of high affinity (Kd values 24-41 pM) and was competed with by nanomolar concentrations of 6-hydroxymelatonin. Kd values were in the same range as those reported for other high-affinity binding sites in the brain.

Melatonin, cortisol and body temperature rhythms in Lennox-Gastaut patients with or without circadian rhythm sleep disorders.

The daily rhythms of melatonin, cortisol and body temperature were studied in 16 institutionalized subjects with the Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. The results of 9 subjects with normal daily rhythms of sleep and wakefulness (group 1) were compared with those of 7 subjects with disordered sleep (group 2). Salivary samples were collected and axillary temperature was measured every 2 h during two or three separate 26-h periods.

Self-organized acoustic feature map in detection of fricative-vowel coarticulation.

The self-organizing map, a neural network algorithm of Kohonen, was used for the detection of coarticulatory variation of fricative [s] preceding vowels [a:], [i:], and [u:]. The results were compared with the psychoacoustic classification of the same samples to find out whether the map had extracted perceptually meaningful features of [s]. The map distinguished samples of [s] in front of [u:] from those in front of [a:] or [i:] throughout the fricative duration.

Hormonal and locomotor activity rhythms in rats under 90-min dark-pulse conditions.

The ability of a short dark pulse to entrain the circadian rhythms in rats was investigated. Pineal melatonin contents and serum levels of corticosterone and thyrotropin, a thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), were measured and locomotor activity was recorded under 12:12-h light-dark cycles (LD; darkness from 1800 to 0600 h) and under a 22.5:1.

Acoustic pattern recognition of fricative-vowel coarticulation by the self-organizing map.

Word-initial samples of fricative [s] preceding vowels [a:], [ae:], [e:], [i:], [u:], [o:], and [y:] in Finnish words were studied with the self-organizing map. An acoustic map was first calculated from speech samples of women without speech disorders, and then the [s] samples were measured on this map. In all 10 subjects the [s] samples preceding the rounded vowels [u:] and [o:] clearly differed from the samples in front of unrounded [a:], [ae:], [e:], and [i:].

Acoustic pattern recognition of /s/ misarticulation by the self-organizing map.

The [s] samples of 11 women, psychoacoustically classified as acceptable/unacceptable, were studied with the self-organizing map, the neural network algorithm of Kohonen. The measurement map had been previously computed with nondisordered speech samples. Fifteen-component spectral vectors, analyzed with the map, were calculated from short-time FFT spectra at 10-ms intervals.