Reliability, Objectivity, Validity and Reference Levels of the Austrian Balance Check (ABC)-A Novel Balance Field Test for Children, Adolescents and Young Adults to Assess Static Balance.

Balance is a relevant indicator of physical fitness and correlates with intellectual abilities. Due to limited resources, however, balance tests are underrepresented in fitness checks. To develop an effective field test to assess static balance with minimal cost, little spatial requirement and short testing time, a cross-sectional pilot study was conducted in three different school types (primary school, secondary school, and high school) and the reliability, objectivity and validity of the novel Austrian Balance Check (ABC) were assessed, with the generation of age- and gender-specific reference values.

Effect of a physical activity and healthy eating lifestyle intervention in pregnancy on fetal growth trajectories: The DALI randomised controlled trial.

Background: Obesity during pregnancy is related to fetal overgrowth. Effective interventions that can mitigate this risk are needed.

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the effect of a lifestyle intervention for pregnant women with obesity on fetal growth trajectories.

Source apportionment of ultrafine particles in urban Europe.

There is a body of evidence that ultrafine particles (UFP, those with diameters ≤ 100 nm) might have significant impacts on health. Accordingly, identifying sources of UFP is essential to develop abatement policies. This study focuses on urban Europe, and aims at identifying sources and quantifying their contributions to particle number size distribution (PNSD) using receptor modelling (Positive Matrix Factorization, PMF), and evaluating long-term trends of these source contributions using the non-parametric Theil-Sen's method.

Structural Covariance Networks in the Fetal Brain Reveal Altered Neurodevelopment for Specific Subtypes of Congenital Heart Disease.

Background: Altered structural brain development has been identified in fetuses with congenital heart disease (CHD), suggesting that the neurodevelopmental impairment observed later in life might originate in utero. There are many interacting factors that may perturb neurodevelopment during the fetal period and manifest as structural brain alterations, such as altered cerebral substrate delivery and aberrant fetal hemodynamics.

Methods And Results: We extracted structural covariance networks from the log Jacobian determinants of 435 in utero T2 weighted image magnetic resonance imaging scans, (n=67 controls, 368 with CHD) acquired during the third trimester.

Reliability, Objectivity, Validity, and Reference Levels of the Austrian Pole Climbing Test (APCT)-A Novel Monitoring Tool for Assessing General Fitness in Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults.

Climbing is an activity involving many major muscle groups and, therefore, it is suitable for assessing general physical fitness. The Austrian pole climbing test (APCT) was developed as a reliable and valid test for the assessment of general fitness levels in children, adolescents, and young adults. In this cross-sectional pilot study, 677 participants (aged 6 to 19 years) were assessed via the APCT.