Relationships between sleep duration, physical activity and body mass index in young New Zealanders: An isotemporal substitution analysis.

Background: The evidence regarding the unique effect of sedentary behaviour on obesity among children is unclear. Moreover, the effect of substituting sedentary behaviour with physical activity of different intensities on the body composition of children has received limited empirical study.

Objective: To examine the mathematical effects on Body Mass Index (BMI) of substituting sedentary behaviours with physical activities of different intensities on children and youth aged 5-14 years old in New Zealand.

A Novel Restraint Device for Injection of Larvae that Minimizes the Risk of Accidental Operator Needle Stick Injury.

Larvae of the insect are increasingly being used for studying pathogenic microbes and their virulence mechanisms, and as a rapid model for screening novel antimicrobial agents. The larvae (waxworms) are most frequently infected by injection of pathogenic organisms into the haemocoel through the insect's prolegs. The mostly widely used method for restraining the waxworms for injection is by grasping them between the operator's fingers, which puts the operator at risk of needle stick injury, an important consideration when working with highly pathogenic and/or drug-resistant microorganisms.

Virtual Normalization of Physical Impairment: A Pilot Study to Evaluate Motor Learning in Presence of Physical Impairment.

Motor learning is a critical component of the rehabilitation process; however, it can be difficult to separate the fundamental causes of a learning deficit when physical impairment is a confounding factor. In this paper, a new technique is proposed to augment the residual ability of physically impaired patients with a robotic rehabilitation exoskeleton, such that motor learning can be studied independently of physical impairment. The proposed technique augments the velocity of an on-screen cursor relative to the restricted physical motion.

Infrared Video Pupillography Coupled with Smart Phone LED for Measurement of Pupillary Light Reflex.

Clinical assessment of pupil appearance and pupillary light reflex (PLR) may inform us the integrity of the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Current clinical pupil assessment is limited to qualitative examination, and relies on clinical judgment. Infrared (IR) video pupillography combined with image processing software offer the possibility of recording quantitative parameters.

The Role of Personality Traits in Young Adult Fruit and Vegetable Consumption.

This project investigated how individual differences in the big-five personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and agreeableness) predicted plant-food consumption in young adults. A total of 1073 participants from two samples of young adults aged 17-25 reported their daily servings of fruits, vegetables, and two unhealthy foods for comparison purposes using an Internet daily diary for 21 or 13 days (micro-longitudinal, correlational design). Participants also completed the Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) measure of personality, and demographic covariates including gender, age, ethnicity, and body mass index (BMI).

: a new polychaete species (Annelida: Capitellidae) collected from a mangrove habitat on Ambon Island, Indonesia.

A new species Capitella ambonensis sp. nov. is described from loamy sand sediment of a mangrove habitat on Ambon Island, Indonesia.

Multishelled Ni-Rich Li(Ni Co Mn )O Hollow Fibers with Low Cation Mixing as High-Performance Cathode Materials for Li-Ion Batteries.

is proposed to synthesize highly porous multishelled Ni-rich Li(Ni Co Mn )O hollow fibers with very low cation mixing. The low cation mixing results from the cation confinement by the novel "egg-box" structure in the alginate template. These hollow fibers exhibit remarkable energy density, high-rate capacity, and long-term cycling stability when used as cathode material for Li-ion batteries.

Statin utilisation in a real-world setting: a retrospective analysis in relation to arterial and cardiovascular autonomic function.

Randomized trials suggest that statin treatment may lower blood pressure and influence cardiovascular autonomic function (CVAF), but the impact of duration of usage, discontinuation, and adherence to this therapy is unknown. We examined these issues with regard to blood pressure (BP)-related variables in a large, population-based study. Participants were 4942 adults (58% male; aged 50-84 years): 2179 on statin treatment and 2763 untreated.

Further Work on the Shaping of Cortical Development and Function by Synchrony and Metabolic Competition.

This paper furthers our attempts to resolve two major controversies-whether gamma synchrony plays a role in cognition, and whether cortical columns are functionally important. We have previously argued that the configuration of cortical cells that emerges in development is that which maximizes the magnitude of synchronous oscillation and minimizes metabolic cost. Here we analyze the separate effects in development of minimization of axonal lengths, and of early Hebbian learning and selective distribution of resources to growing synapses, by showing in simulations that these effects are partially antagonistic, but their interaction during development produces accurate anatomical and functional properties for both columnar and non-columnar cortex.

Can Psychological Expectation Models Be Adapted for Placebo Research?

Placebo responses contribute substantially to the effect and clinical outcome of medical treatments. Patients' expectations have been identified as one of the major mechanisms contributing to placebo effects. However, to date a general theoretical framework to better understand how patient expectations interact with features of medical treatment has not been developed.

A Zebrafish Model for Infection with the Obligate Intracellular Pathogen .

Obligate intracellular chlamydial bacteria of the Planctomycetes-Verrucomicrobia-Chlamydiae (PVC) superphylum are important pathogens of terrestrial and marine vertebrates, yet many features of their pathogenesis and host specificity are still unknown. This is particularly true for families such as the which, in addition to epithelia, cellular targets for nearly all , can infect and replicate in macrophages, an important arm of the innate immune system or in their free-living amoebal counterparts. An ideal pathogen model system should include both host and pathogen, which led us to develop the first larval zebrafish model for chlamydial infections with .

Maternal High Fat Diet Alters Skeletal Muscle Mitochondrial Catalytic Activity in Adult Male Rat Offspring.

A maternal high-fat (HF) diet during pregnancy can lead to metabolic compromise, such as insulin resistance in adult offspring. Skeletal muscle mitochondrial dysfunction is one mechanism contributing to metabolic impairments in insulin resistant states. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate whether mitochondrial dysfunction is evident in metabolically compromised offspring born to HF-fed dams.

A sixth-level habitat cascade increases biodiversity in an intertidal estuary.

Many studies have documented habitat cascades where two co-occurring habitat-forming species control biodiversity. However, more than two habitat-formers could theoretically co-occur. We here documented a sixth-level habitat cascade from the Avon-Heathcote Estuary, New Zealand, by correlating counts of attached inhabitants to the size and accumulated biomass of their biogenic hosts.

Recent Advances in the Synthesis, Characterization and Application of Zn-containing Heterogeneous Catalysts.

Monovalent Zn (3d4s) systems possess a special electronic structure that can be exploited in heterogeneous catalysis and photocatalysis, though it remains challenge to synthesize Zn-containing materials. By careful design, Zn-related species can be synthesized in zeolite and layered double hydroxide systems, which in turn exhibit excellent catalytic potential in methane, CO and CO activation. Furthermore, by utilizing advanced characterization tools, including electron spin resonance, X-ray absorption fine structure and density functional theory calculations, the formation mechanism of the Zn species and their structure-performance relationships can be understood.

Hippocampal lipid differences in Alzheimer's disease: a human brain study using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-imaging mass spectrometry.

Introduction: Alzheimer's disease (AD), the leading cause of dementia, is pathologically characterized by β-amyloid plaques and tau tangles. However, there is also evidence of lipid dyshomeostasis-mediated AD pathology. Given the structural diversity of lipids, mass spectrometry is a useful tool for studying lipid changes in AD.

An NBD Derivative of the Selective Rat Toxicant Norbormide as a New Probe for Living Cell Imaging.

Norbormide (NRB) is a unique compound that acts directly on rat vascular myocytes to trigger a contractile process, through an as yet unknown mechanism, which results in the selective contraction of rat peripheral arteries. To gain insight into the mechanisms involved in NRB rat-selective activity, we investigated the subcellular distribution of NRB-AF12, a nitrobenzoxadiazole (NBD)-derivative of NRB, in living NRB-sensitive and NRB-insensitive cells. In both cell types, NRB-AF12 localized to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), Golgi apparatus, mitochondria, lysosomes, and endosomes; however, in NRB-sensitive cells, the fluorescence also extended to the plasma membrane.

Intercomparison of methods of coupling between convection and large-scale circulation: 2. Comparison over nonuniform surface conditions.

As part of an international intercomparison project, the weak temperature gradient (WTG) and damped gravity wave (DGW) methods are used to parameterize large-scale dynamics in a set of cloud-resolving models (CRMs) and single column models (SCMs). The WTG or DGW method is implemented using a configuration that couples a model to a reference state defined with profiles obtained from the same model in radiative-convective equilibrium. We investigated the sensitivity of each model to changes in SST, given a fixed reference state.

Intercomparison of methods of coupling between convection and large-scale circulation: 1. Comparison over uniform surface conditions.

As part of an international intercomparison project, a set of single-column models (SCMs) and cloud-resolving models (CRMs) are run under the weak-temperature gradient (WTG) method and the damped gravity wave (DGW) method. For each model, the implementation of the WTG or DGW method involves a simulated column which is coupled to a reference state defined with profiles obtained from the same model in radiative-convective equilibrium. The simulated column has the same surface conditions as the reference state and is initialized with profiles from the reference state.

Serological Evidence of Immune Priming by Group A Streptococci in Patients with Acute Rheumatic Fever.

Acute rheumatic fever (ARF) is an autoimmune response to Group A Streptococcus (GAS) infection. Repeated GAS exposures are proposed to 'prime' the immune system for autoimmunity. This notion of immune-priming by multiple GAS infections was first postulated in the 1960s, but direct experimental evidence to support the hypothesis has been lacking.

Catechol-O-methyltransferase val(158)met Polymorphism Interacts with Sex to Affect Face Recognition Ability.

The catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) val158met polymorphism affects the breakdown of synaptic dopamine. Consequently, this polymorphism has been associated with a variety of neurophysiological and behavioral outcomes. Some of the effects have been found to be sex-specific and it appears estrogen may act to down-regulate the activity of the COMT enzyme.

Metabolic Network Modeling of Microbial Interactions in Natural and Engineered Environmental Systems.

We review approaches to characterize metabolic interactions within microbial communities using Stoichiometric Metabolic Network (SMN) models for applications in environmental and industrial biotechnology. SMN models are computational tools used to evaluate the metabolic engineering potential of various organisms. They have successfully been applied to design and optimize the microbial production of antibiotics, alcohols and amino acids by single strains.

Studying Autism Spectrum Disorder with Structural and Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging: A Survey.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) modalities have emerged as powerful means that facilitate non-invasive clinical diagnostics of various diseases and abnormalities since their inception in the 1980s. Multiple MRI modalities, such as different types of the sMRI and DTI, have been employed to investigate facets of ASD in order to better understand this complex syndrome. This paper reviews recent applications of structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), to study autism spectrum disorder (ASD).