Swiss School of Archaeology in Greece
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Age-related change in children's physical activity and sedentary time: The International Children's Accelerometry Database (ICAD)
No full textMany young people fail to achieve the minimum recommended amount of physical activity to benefit their health. Understanding the nature of age-related changes in behaviour and how this varies for population sub-groups is informative for intervention design. The aim of this study was to describe age-related changes in physical activity and sedentary time and examine variability in patterns of change across demographic sub-groups.
Data are from 13 studies in the International Children's Accelerometry Database (ICAD), all of which provided ≥2 waves of waist-worn accelerometer data. Annual change in sedentary time, light intensity physical activity (LPA) and moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA) were estimated using three level mixed effects linear regression models, using participant age as the exposure variable. In interaction models, we examined whether changes in behaviour differed by day of the week (weekday/ weekend), age at baseline assessment (<10/ ≥ 10 years), sex, weight category, maternal education and ethnicity.
In total, 6567 participants provided two or more waves of valid accelerometer data (44.5% boys, mean (SD) baseline age 10.6 (2.1) years (range 4.1-15.8 years)). Across the week and for all studied sub-groups, sedentary time increased by approximately 25 minutes/day/year of age, LPA decreased by approximately 22 minutes/day/year of age and MVPA decreased by approximately 3 minutes/day/year of age. The annual increase in sedentary time was greater in girls compared to boys (β (95% confidence interval) change (min) for each additional year of age: girls, 25.9 (25.4, 26.4); boys, 23.6 (23.0, 24.2)) and in adolescents compared to children (adolescents, 27.0 (26.5, 27.6); children, (23.5 (22.9, 24.2)). The annual decrease in MVPA was greater in boys compared to girls (boys, -2.7 (-3.0, -2.5); girls, -2.2 (-2.4, -2.0)) and at the weekend compared to during the week (weekend, -3.0 (-3.3, -2.8); weekday -2.3 (-2.5, -2.1)).
Accelerometer assessed sedentary time increased whilst LPA and MVPA decreased during childhood and adolescence. This overall pattern was observed across the week and in all studied sub-groups, but small differences in the magnitude of changes can be used to guide the timing and targeting of behaviour change interventions, such as designing physical activity interventions which focus on weekends where a child's time is less structured.
Copyright: © 2025 Atkin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
The Slow Road from Serfdom: Labor Coercion and Long-Run Development in the Former Russian Empire
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Can non-invasive motor unit analysis reveal distinct neural strategies of force production in young with uncomplicated type 1 diabetes?
No full textto investigate the early consequences of type 1 diabetes (T1D) on the neural strategies of muscle force production.
motor unit (MU) activity was recorded from the vastus lateralis muscle with High-Density surface Electromyography during isometric knee extension at 20 and 40% of maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) in 8 T1D (4 males, 4 females, 30.5 ± 3.6 years) and 8 matched control (4 males, 4 females, 27.3 ± 5.9 years) participants. Muscle biopsies were also collected from vastus lateralis for fiber type analysis, including myosin heavy chain (MyHC) isoform content via protein and mRNA expression.
MVC was comparable between groups as well as MU conduction velocity, action potentials' amplitude and proportions of MyHC protein isoforms. Nonetheless, MU discharge rate, relative derecruitment thresholds and mRNA expression of MyHC isoform I were lower in T1D.
young people with uncomplicated T1D present a different neural control of muscle force production. Furthermore, differences are detectable non-invasively in absence of any functional manifestation (i.e., force production and fiber type distribution). These novel findings suggest that T1D has early consequences on the neuromuscular system and highlights the necessity of a better characterization of neural control in this population
Production of Neuroepithelial Organoids from Human-Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells for Mimicking Early Neural Tube Development.
No full textOrganoids have emerged as robust tools for unravelling the mechanisms that underly tissue development. They also serve as important in vitro systems for studying fundamentals of stem cell behavior and for building advanced disease models. During early development, a crucial step in the formation of the central nervous system is patterning of the neural tube dorsal-ventral (DV) axis. Here we describe a simple and rapid culture protocol to produce human neuroepithelial (NE) cysts and DV-patterned organoids from single human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). Rather than being embedded within a matrix, hiPSCs undergo a 5-day differentiation process in medium containing soluble extracellular matrix and are allowed to self-organize into 3D cysts with defined central lumen structures that express early neuroepithelial markers. Moreover, upon stimulation with sonic hedgehog proteins and all-trans retinoic acid, NE cysts further develop into NE organoids with DV patterning. This rapid generation of patterned NE organoids using simple culture conditions enables mimicking, monitoring, and longitudinal manipulation of NE cell behavior. This straightforward culture system makes NE organoids a tractable model for studying neural stem cell self-organization and early neural tube developmental events.© 2024. Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
Associations of cardiorespiratory fitness and muscle strength during pregnancy with metabolic health outcomes and inflammatory parameters at 1-year postpartum in women after gestational diabetes
No full textWomen with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) have increased risk of insulin resistance, glucose intolerance, and low-grade systemic inflammation in the postpartum. Higher cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and muscular strength are associated with improved metabolic outcomes in the general population, but data in women with GDM are lacking. We investigated the longitudinal associations of CRF and muscular strength during pregnancy with glucose intolerance, insulin resistance and inflammation parameters at 1-year postpartum in women with GDM.
This is a secondary analysis of the MySweetHeart trial, which included 179 women with GDM. During pregnancy, CRF was assessed using the Chester Step test, and muscular strength was measured via handgrip strength (HS) and adjusted for pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI). At one-year postpartum, participants underwent a 75 g oral glucose tolerance test, and we calculated HOMA-IR and MATSUDA index. We calculated glucose intolerance and assessed metabolic syndrome (MetS) and c-reactive protein (CRP) at 1-year postpartum.
Higher CRF during pregnancy was associated with lower risk of glucose intolerance, MetS, and insulin resistance at one-year postpartum (all p ≤ 0.047). These associations were attenuated after adjusting for classical diabetes risk factors including family history of diabetes, age, ethnicity, and pre-pregnancy BMI. Higher HS during pregnancy was associated with lower CRP, HOMA-IR, higher MATSUDA index, and reduced MetS (BMI-based) at one-year postpartum, independent of classical diabetes risk factors (all p ≤ 0.035).
In this longitudinal cohort of women with GDM, higher CRF and HS during pregnancy were protective of adverse metabolic health outcomes at 1-year postpartum. The relationship between HS and metabolic health was independent of classical diabetes risk factors.
© 2025. The Author(s)
Statistics of Extremes for the Insurance Industry
No full textWe provide a survey of how techniques developed for the modelling of extremes naturally matter in insurance, and how they need to and can be adapted for the insurance applications. Topics covered include truncation, tempering, censoring and regression techniques. The discussed techniques are illustrated on concrete data sets
Simultaneous Evaluation of Pulse Contour Devices Using an Innovative Hemodynamic Simulation Bench
No full textIntroduction: Evaluating cardiovascular function is crucial in the care of critically ill patients. Recent advancements in continuous cardiac output (CO) monitoring have led to the emergence of several arterial pulse contour devices. To effectively compare the accuracy of these devices, a comprehensive assessment is necessary. However, no experimental studies were found that have evaluated these devices in a controlled setting. Methods: In this innovative bench study, we used a Donovan mock circulatory system in conjunction with a total artificial heart (TAH-t) to simultaneously generate several comparable arterial waveforms and compared CO estimates from three different pulse contour devices: FloTrac™ (Vigileo™, v1.8 4th generation, Edwards LifeSciences, Irvine, CA, USA), proAQT™ (PulsioFlex™, Pulsion Medical Systems, Munich, Germany), and LiDCO™ Plus (LiDCO™, LidCO Ltd., Cambridge, UK). These devices underwent several hemodynamic challenges (HCs), including decreased preload, decreased afterload, and increased heart rate. To evaluate the degree of agreement between the devices, we performed a Bland-Altman analysis for the paired devices. The interclass comparison, error percentage, and variation coefficient for each device were also assessed. Results: The present study first tested the comparability between the three additional arterial line waveforms, and the arterial control line was simultaneously generated with the hemodynamic simulation bench. Comparing the reference values of the dP/dt and sAUC pulse pressure, we found no clinically significant difference between the simultaneously generated arterial waveforms. The different pulse contour devices were then each connected to the arterial lines, with the performance of HCs. HC1 with a decreased preload revealed that CO estimates significantly decreased compared to the baseline values: 3.2 ± 0.06 L.min-1, 4.7 ± 0.05, 4.3 ± 0.07, and 4.0 ± 0.05 for reference methods FloTrac™, PulsioFlex™, and LiDCO™, respectively. HC2 with an increased heart rate revealed CO estimates with FloTrac™, PulsioFlex™, and LiDCO™-6.0 ± 0.03, 6.6 ± 0.06, and 6.0 ± 0.05 L.min-1, respectively-when the CO estimate was 5.6 ± 0.2. HC3 with a decreased afterload that significantly increased CO estimates compared to the baseline with FloTrac™, PulsioFlex™, and LiDCO™-7.0 ± 0.18, 6.6 ± 0.15, and 7.1 ± 0.30 L.min-1, respectively-when the CO estimate with the reference method did not change significantly (from 5.90 ± 0.13 to 5.94 ± 0.11 p = 0.26). The devices' degree of agreement was estimated with Bland-Altman analysis. Conclusions: The Donovan Mock Circulatory System with SynCardia TAH-t can be used as an innovative experimental hemodynamic simulation bench. It was proven to be stable, accurate, and reliable in generating several controlled pulse pressure waveforms, while many parameters could be changed, such as the preload, heart rate, or afterload. This enables a simultaneous evaluation of different pulse contour devices submitted to several HCs. This is of interest for clinicians to better understand the underlying principles and realistically compare the performance and potentially inherent limitations of pulse contour devices experimentally in a controlled simulated environment
Role of viral coinfection in post-pandemic invasive Group A streptococcal infections in adults, a nation-wide cohort study (iGASWISS)
No full textDuring the winter season of 2022-2023, numerous countries experienced a surge in invasive Streptococcus pyogenes (iGAS) infections. The role of viral coinfections in the post-COVID surge has not been elucidated. We report nation-wide data describing clinical presentation, microbiological characteristics, and associations with viral infection in adults during this period.
A multicenter retrospective cohort study was conducted across 10 hospitals in Switzerland, including adults (> 16 years old) with iGAS infection from November 2022 to February 2023. Descriptive analysis was performed. A multivariable logistic regression model was fitted to assess the impact of viral coinfection. In addition, genetic analysis was performed in available isolates.
A total of 194 patients were included, with a median age of 50 years (interquartile range [IQR]: 37-69). 17/194 (8.8%) were immunosuppressed and 40/194 (20.6%) exhibited concomitant viral infections, predominantly Influenza A (21/40, 53%). Illness severity was high: 65/194 (33.5%) of cases necessitated admission to an intensive care unit (ICU), and the 30-day mortality was 4% (n = 8). Among the available strains for genetic analysis (n = 48), heterogeneity was found although ST28-emm1 isolates (also known as M1UK) was predominant (22/48).
The post-COVID iGAS surge in Switzerland was associated with high levels of morbidity and mortality in immunocompetent adults. M1UK was predominant within the iGAS strains circulating in Switzerland during the study period and viral coinfection was a predictor for ICU admission and mortality.
© 2025. The Author(s)