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Climate Change and Health: The Physiological Society's Key Recommendations for COP29:Improvised Prehospital Methods to Reduce Cold Stress in Humans
Get PDFExploring the feasibility of a cluster pilot randomised control trial to improve children’s 24-hour movement behaviours and dietary intake: Happy Homework.
Get PDFWe aimed to explore the feasibility, acceptability, and potential efficacy of Happy Homework (HH); an 8-week home-focussed intervention, with the purpose of encouraging children’s positive dietary behaviours and engagement in positive physical activity (PA) and sleep behaviours. We randomised four Scottish schools (n = 71 participants; 5 classrooms) to either the HH intervention (n = 2) or usual curriculum control group (n = 2). HH consisted of movement and dietary-focused parent and child tasks. Primary outcome measures were intervention feasibility, acceptability, and potential efficacy. Secondary outcomes were objectively measured PA via ActiGraph GT3X+, sedentary behaviours (SBs) and sleep duration via activPAL4™ accelerometers and dietary behaviours, fruit and vegetable consumption and screen-time via questionnaires. After controlling for pre-test levels, post intervention stepping time and sleep duration were significantly greater for the HH group in comparison to the control group. The HH group reported eating more fruit and vegetables at post-test than the control group. Participants also reported the intervention to be enjoyable and motivating. These findings provide promising evidence that given a greater sample size, better retention and the prioritisation of health and wellbeing homework, HH could enhance children’s health and wellbeing
Digital Financial Literacy and Usage of Cashless Payments in Jordan: The Moderating Role of Gender
Get PDFPurpose: This study examines the relationships between various components of digital financial literacy—namely awareness, subjective knowledge, experience, digital legal framework and skills—and their influence on the adoption of cashless payment systems among university affiliates in Jordan. While also exploring the mediating role of gender in this relationship.Design/methodology: Utilising a cross-sectional survey across 34 Jordanian universities, this study examines the influence of digital financial literacy on cashless payment adoption, with gender as a moderating factor. Data from 418 participants were analysed via SPSS and SmartPLS, focusing on factor analysis to assess the constructs' reliability and validity and explore the moderating effects. Findings: The findings illuminate that digital financial awareness, experience, and skills are significant catalysts for using cashless payments among the targeted demographic. In contrast, the digital legal framework and subjective financial knowledge did not significantly influence cashless payment use. Additionally, gender differences emerged, highlighting a stronger association between digital financial experience and cashless payment usage for women.Originality/value: The originality and value of this study are encapsulated in its pioneering empirical analysis of how digital financial literacy drives the usage of cashless payments within Jordan's university sector. It contributes new insights into the effectiveness of financial literacy factors, considering the legal framework, awareness, knowledge, experience, and skills and their nuanced effects on cashless transactions. By identifying gender as a potential moderator, this study carves a fresh viewpoint in the narrative on digital financial conduct. It lays down a strategic blueprint for informed educational and policy-making initiatives.<br/
New locality records and notes on the scalation of the Alpine Punjab skink, Eurylepis taeniolata Blyth 1854, from Himachal Pradesh, India
Get PDFThe Alpine Punjab Skink, Eurylepis taeniolata Blyth 1854, ranges from Jordan to northwestern India (Feizi et al. 2016). Three subspecies are currently recognized, E. t. arabica (Szczerbak 1990), E. t. parthianica (Szczerbak 1990), and E. t. taeniolatus Blyth 1854 (Feizi et al. 2016). Eurylepis t. taeniolatus occurs in Pakistan and northwestern India (type locality: Punjab, Pakistan) (Feizi et al. 2016). This species has been recorded from only a few locations in northwestern India and accurate herpetofaunal records from Himachal Pradesh are lacking (Griffith et al. 2000; Saikia et al. 2007, Datta-Roy et al. 2017). Herein we report two additional records of E. t. taeniolatus from Himachal Pradesh, India
Examining heterogeneity of education intervention effects using quantile mixed models: a re-analysis of a cluster-randomized controlled trial of a fluency-based mathematics intervention
Get PDFTraditionally, cluster randomized controlled trials are analyzed with the average intervention effect of interest. However, in populations that contain higher degrees of heterogeneity or variation may differ across different values of a covariate, which may not be optimal. Within education and social science contexts, exploring the variation in magnitude of treatment effect at different points in the population can indicate where the intervention is most effective rather than assuming an average effect.Data from [Owen, K.L., et al., 2021. Implementation support improves outcomes of a fluency-based mathematics strategy: A cluster-randomized controlled trial. Journal of research on educational effectiveness, 14 (3), 523–542.] were reanalyzed using three modeling approaches: conditional mean-modeling reporting the average treatment effect using linear mixed models, and two quantile regression-based methods. Quantile regressions report the quantile treatment effects at different percentiles: 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th. For the Quantile approaches, a significant intervention effect in the median to upper quantiles was found and linear quantile mixed model showed improved fit over the other approaches.An improved picture of intervention effects may be apparent using quantile regression methods when analyzing cluster randomized trials that have heterogeneous error variance. In particular, the linear quantile mixed model shows improved model fit allowing a multilevel framework to include random effects. There is considerable scope to extend this framework to incorporate more complex RCT designs
SUBTLEX-CY: A new word frequency database for Welsh
Get PDFWe present SUBTLEX-CY, a new word frequency database created from a 32-million-word corpus of Welsh television subtitles. An experiment comprising a lexical decision task examined SUBTLEX-CY frequency estimates against words with inconsistent frequencies in a much smaller Welsh corpus that is often used by researchers, the Cronfa Electroneg o’r Gymraeg (CEG), and three other Welsh word frequency databases. Words were selected that were classified as low frequency (LF) in SUBTLEX-CY and high frequency (HF) in CEG and compared with words that were classified as medium frequency (MF) in both SUBTLEX-CY and CEG. Reaction time analyses showed that HF words in CEG were responded to more slowly compared to MF words, suggesting that SUBTLEX-CY corpus provides a more reliable estimate of Welsh word frequencies. The new Welsh word frequency database that also includes part-of-speech, contextual diversity, and other lexical information is freely available for research purposes on the Open Science Framework repository at https://osf.io/9gkqm/.We present SUBTLEX-CY, a new word frequency database created from a 32-million-word corpus of Welsh televisionsubtitles. An experiment comprising a lexical decision task examined SUBTLEX-CY frequency estimates against wordswith inconsistent frequencies in a much smaller Welsh corpus that is often used by researchers, the Cronfa Electronego’r Gymraeg (CEG), and three other Welsh word frequency databases. Words were selected that were classified as lowfrequency (LF) in SUBTLEX-CY and high frequency (HF) in CEG and compared with words that were classified as mediumfrequency (MF) in both SUBTLEX-CY and CEG. Reaction time analyses showed that HF words in CEG were respondedto more slowly compared to MF words, suggesting that SUBTLEX-CY corpus provides a more reliable estimate of Welshword frequencies. The new Welsh word frequency database that also includes part-of-speech, contextual diversity, andother lexical information is freely available for research purposes on the Open Science Framework repository at https://osf.io/9gkqm/
A Machine Learning Approach for Physical Activity Recognition in Cystic Fibrosis
Get PDFThis study aimed to develop and validate machine learning models to predict intensities in children and adolescents with cystic fibrosis (CF) across different accelerometry brands and placements. Thirty-five children and adolescents with CF (11.6 ± 2.8 yrs; 15 girls) and 28 healthy youth (12.2 ± 2.7 yrs; 16 girls) performed six activities whilst wearing GENEActivs (both wrists) and ActiGraphs GT9X (both wrists and waist). Three supervised learning classifiers (K-Nearest Neighbour, Random Forest and eXtreme Gradient Boosted Decision Tree) were used to identify the input signal pattern for each PA type and intensity, with a 10-fold cross-validation utilized to assess the performance of the classifiers. ActiGraph GT9X on the dominant wrist and waist and GENEActiv on the dominant wrist failed to predict vigorous intensity PA activities. All other models, for activity type and intensities, exceeded 97% accuracy, with a sensitivity and specificity of greater than 95%, irrespective of accelerometer brand, placement or health condition
Flexible Micro-Nano Fiber Sensors for Tactile Sensing
Get PDFFlexible tactile sensors play an important role in wearable devices, human–computer interaction devices, and advanced robotics. We propose a novel structure of bionic flexible tactile sensor. The micro-nano fibers (MNFs) are packed in a 10-μm film on a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) base, forming a thin film-MNF-PDMS structure. A ridge-shaped sensing region is formed on the surface of the PDMS substrate. The MNF is so close to the sensor surface that vibration and pressure signals can act directly on the MNF. Compared to existing MNF flexible sensors, this sensor has higher sensitivity and faster response time. We tested the response of the flexible sensor to vibration and temperature. This sensor can measure vibration signals from 0.1 Hz to2 kHz. The sensitivity of this sensor to temperature can reach 1.43 nm/◦C. Surfaces with different roughness or texture can be distinguished by sliding on the sensor surface. The structural and functional characteristics of this sensor are desirable in flexible bionic devices and advanced robots
Iranian Teachers’ Perceptions of Technology Integration in Teaching English as a Foreign Language
Get PDFThe integration of technology in higher education, particularly in the teaching of English as a foreign language (TEFL), has been significantly impacted by globalisation. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated this trend, with a shift towards online and mobile-assisted language learning. This study, which employed a small-scale qualitative research approach using volunteer sampling and face-to-face interviews, explores Iranian TEFL teachers’ perceptions of technology integration during the pandemic. The research uncovers the impact of online and mobile-assisted language learning on both students’ learning and teachers’ professional knowledge and effectiveness. Six themes emerged from the analysis of the 14 semi-structured interviews conducted with in-service TEFL teachers: online teaching quality, challenges of online teaching, influence of teacher characteristics, quality of applied technological knowledge, affordance of technology integration, and online teaching components. The findings suggest that individual variability exists in teachers’ integration of technology in practice, the quality of online language teaching, and language teachers’ technological knowledge. This indicates a need for targeted mentoring and coaching to improve technology-mediated practice. Additionally, the study reveals that variability in individual teacher capacity is not related to the length of teaching experience, highlighting the need for ongoing professional development for teachers throughout their careers.Key Words: TEFL, in-service teachers, online learning, mobile-assisted language teaching, teachers’ technological knowledge.<br/
Considerations for event-related gamma-aminobutyric acid functional magnetic resonance spectroscopy
Get PDFAbstractThe use of sequential proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to follow glutamate and gamma‐aminobutyric acid (GABA) changes during functional task‐based paradigms, functional MRS (fMRS), has increased. This technique has been used to investigate GABA dynamics during both sensory and behavioural tasks, usually with long ‘block design’ paradigms. Recently, there has been an increase in interest in the use of short stimuli and ‘event‐related’ tasks. While changes in glutamate can be readily followed by collecting multiple individual transients (or shots), measurement of GABA, especially at 3 T, is usually performed using editing techniques like Mescher–Garwood point‐resolved spectroscopy (MEGA‐PRESS), which by its nature is a dual shot approach. This poses problems when considering an event‐related experiment, where it is unclear when GABA may change, or how this may affect the individual subspectra of the MEGA‐PRESS acquisition. To address this issue, MEGA‐PRESS data were simulated to reflect the effect of a transient change in GABA concentration due to a short event‐related stimulus. The change in GABA was simulated for both the ON and OFF subspectra, and the effect of three different conditions (increase only during ON acquisition, increase during OFF acquisition and increase across both) on the corresponding edited GABA spectrum was modelled. Results show that a transient increase in GABA that only occurs during the ON subspectral acquisition, while not changing the results much from when GABA is changed across both conditions, will give a much larger change in the edited GABA spectrum than a transient increase that occurs only during the OFF subspectral acquisition. These results suggest that researchers should think carefully about the design of any event‐related fMRS studies using MEGA‐PRESS, as well as the analysis of other functional paradigms where transient changes in GABA may be expected. Experimental design considerations are therefore discussed, and suggestions are made