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Influence of adipose tissue mass on bone mass in an overweight or obese population: systematic review and meta-analysis
Get PDFContext
The scientific literature shows conflicting evidence about the relationship between adiposity and bone mass in overweight and obese populations.
Objective
The aim of this review was to quantify the correlation between adipose mass (absolute and relative) and bone mineral density (BMD) in overweight and obese populations.
Data Sources
Three databases were searched electronically. In addition, reference lists of relevant articles were screened.
Study Selection
A total of 16 studies, comprising 2587 participants and 75 correlation coefficients were selected for inclusion in the review.
Data Extraction
Data were extracted from each study using a standardized form.
Results
Multilevel modeling indicated opposing relationships between BMD and adiposity: absolute adiposity correlated positively, and relative adiposity negatively, with BMD. Sex and age were the primary moderators of these relationships. Strong evidence supported a negative relationship between relative adipose mass and BMD in men (R = −0.37; 95%CI, −0.57 to −0.12) and in those aged less than 25 years (R = −0.28; 95%CI, −0.45 to −0.08).
Conclusion
To prevent bone loss in overweight and obese populations, nutrition- and exercise-based interventions that focus on a controlled reduction of adipose mass with concomitant preservation of lean mass are recommended. Systematic Review Registration: PROSPERO no. CRD42015024313
Educating people with rare rheumatological conditions
Get PDFPatients deserve better
A disease is considered to be rare if it has a population prevalence of < 5 in 10 000 [1]. Approximately 80% of rare diseases are genetic and present in childhood. The remaining 20% are acquired and present in adulthood. There are a number of rheumatic conditions that fall into this category, including most of the vasculitides and many of the connective tissue disorders. Rare diseases pose numerous educational challenges to both health-care professionals and patients; these can include ignorance of the condition among health-care professionals and patients, or relatives and friends who may never have heard of the condition. This leads to social and informational isolation because the patient has no one to turn to for advice. Increasingly, patients are turning to internet websites and chat rooms for advice, and some of these may be of poor qualit
Whose Canon is it Anyway?: Subcultural Capital, Cultural Distinction and Value in High Art and Low Culture Film Distribution
Get PDFAccording to figures from the British Film Institute (BFI), the UK has
the second largest filmed entertainment market in the world, coming
second only to the USA,1 worth an estimated £3.8 billion (2016, p. 2).
How we choose to navigate the sheer volume of films available to us is
significantly affected by the circulation of discourse, often related to its
visibility, as well as notions of taste. Jonathan Rosenbaum suggests that
we can observe a segmentation of the discourse surrounding film—where
the mainstream, the industry and academia all reinforce and promote
their own agendas (2000). Historically, early film criticism was concerned
with legitimising these texts and their study, consequently attempting to
align film analysis with that of broader historical approaches established
in the analysis of the fine arts. These early valorisations about what might
constitute the highest quality representations, and the subsequent formation
of the film studies discipline, led to the formation of the first canons
MLED_BI: A Novel Business Intelligence Design Approach to Support Multilingualism
No full textWith emerging markets and expanding international cooperation, there is a requirement to support Business Intelligence (BI) applications in multiple languages, a process which we refer to as Multilingualism (ML). ML in BI is understood in this research as the ability to store descriptive content (such as descriptions of attributes in BI reports) in more than one language at Data Warehousing (DWH) level and to use this information at presentation level to provide reports, queries or dashboards in more than one language.
Design strategies for data warehouses are typically based on the assumption of a single language environment. The motivations for this research are the design and performance challenges encountered when implementing ML in a BI data warehouse environment. These include design issues, slow response times, delays in updating reports and changing languages between reports, the complexity of amending existing reports and the performance overhead. The literature review identified that the underlying cause of these problems is that existing approaches used to enable ML in BI are primarily ad-hoc workarounds which introduce dependency between elements and lead to excessive redundancy. From the literature review, it was concluded that a satisfactory solution to the challenge of ML in BI requires a design approach based on data independence the concept of immunity from changes and that such a solution does not currently exist.
This thesis presents MLED_BI (Multilingual Enabled Design for Business Intelligence). MLED_BI is a novel design approach which supports data independence and immunity from changes in the design of ML data warehouses and BI systems. MLED_BI extends existing data warehouse design approaches by revising the role of the star schema and introducing a ML design layer to support the separation of language elements. This also facilitates ML at presentation level by enabling the use of a ML content management system. Compared to existing workarounds for ML, the MLED_BI design approach has a theoretical underpinning which allows languages to be added, amended and deleted without requiring a redesign of the star schema; provides support for the manipulation of ML content; improves performance and streamlines data warehouse operations such as ETL (Extract, Transform, Load). Minor contributions include the development of a novel BI framework to address the limitations of existing BI frameworks and the development of a tool to evaluate changes to BI reporting solutions.
The MLED_BI design approach was developed based on the literature review and a mixed methods approach was used for validation. Technical elements were validated experimentally using performance metrics while end user acceptance was validated qualitatively with end users and technical users from a number of countries, reflecting the ML basis of the research. MLED_BI requires more resources at design and initial implementation stage than existing ML workarounds but this is outweighed by improved performance and by the much greater flexibility in ML made possible by the data independence approach of MLED_BI. The MLED_BI design approach enhances existing BI design approaches for use in ML environments
An Improved Dynamic Daltonization for Color-Blinds
Get PDFColor-blindness is an inherited condition which leads to the sufferer not being able to distinguish between certain colors. One of the most widely used algorithms for enhancing a color-blind’s color perception of images is Daltonization. Non-iterative Daltonization leaves the possibility of modifying imperceptible colors into colors that already exist in an image. Iterative Daltonization method provides better results by overcoming this problem. This paper presents a new iterative Daltonization method for protanopes which uses hue to ensure imperceptible colors are not modified into colors similar to existing perceptible ones. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms similar existing methods
Just get on with it: Implementing the Prevent duty in higher education and the role of academic expertise
Get PDFThe Prevent policy was introduced in 2003 as part of the UK counter-terrorism strategy (CONTEST) with the aim of preventing the radicalisation of people to terrorism. In 2015, it was given a statutory footing in the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act and it became a legal duty for Higher Education Institutions among others. Since then, Higher Education Institutions have been working to ensure their compliance with the legal duty. This article reflects on the implementation of the Prevent duty in one university. It is informed by an engagement with the Prevent group in the university which was created to implement the Prevent duty. The article argues that academic expertise had little impact in shaping the implementation of the Prevent duty at the university because the epistemic stance of counter-terrorism side lines expertise and evidence so that it can maintain its coherence and integrity. Specifically, the impact of academic expertise was limited because critically oriented academic expertise complicates a straightforward implementation of the legal duty, a state-centric orientation in the Prevent group constrained the horizon of discussion, and a crisis of knowledge at the heart of counter-terrorism replaces expertise and evidence with ideology
Adolescent Desire for Cosmetic Surgery
Get PDFBackground:
Adolescent bullying may be a key driver of interest in cosmetic surgery. This study examined the extent of such interest and whether any effect was sex-specific, and examined psychological functioning as a potential mechanism through which bullying involvement may lead to a wish for cosmetic surgery.
Methods:
A two-stage design was used. In the first stage, 2782 adolescents (aged 11 to 16 years) were screened for bullying involvement using self-reports and peer nominations. In the second stage, 752 adolescents who were bullies, victims, bully-victims, or uninvolved in bullying reported their desire for cosmetic surgery. Psychological functioning was constructed as a composite of self-esteem and emotional problems (assessed at stage 1) and body-esteem scores (assessed at stage 2).
Results:
Adolescents involved in bullying in any role were significantly more interested in cosmetic surgery than uninvolved adolescents. Desire for cosmetic surgery was greatest in adolescents who were bullied (victims and bully-victims) and girls. Desire for cosmetic surgery was highest in girls, but sex did not interact with bullying role. Being victimized by peers resulted in poor psychological functioning, which increased desire for cosmetic surgery. In contrast, desire for cosmetic surgery in bullies was not related to psychological functioning, which was in the normal range.
Conclusions:
Bullying victimization is related to poor psychological functioning, and both are related to a greater desire for cosmetic surgery in adolescents. Cosmetic surgeons should screen candidates for psychological vulnerability and may want to include a short screening questionnaire for a history of peer victimizatio
The relationship between arch height and foot length: Implications for size grading
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Medial longitudinal Arch Height is synonymous with classifying foot type and conversely foot function. Detailed knowledge of foot anthropometry is essential in the development of ergonomically sound footwear. Current Footwear design incorporates a direct proportionate scaling of instep dimensions with those of foot length. The objective of this paper is to investigate if a direct proportional relationship exists between human arch height parameters and foot length in subjects with normal foot posture.
Method
A healthy convenience sample of 62 volunteers was recruited to participate in this observational study. All subjects were screened for normal foot health and posture. Each subject's foot dimensions were scanned and measured using a 3D Foot Scanner. From this foot length and arch height parameters were obtained. Normalised ratios of arch height with respect to foot length were also calculated. The arch height parameters and the normalised arch ratios were used interchangeably as the dependent variables with the foot length parameters used as the independent variable for Simple Linear Regression and Correlation.
Results
Analysis of foot length measures demonstrated poor correlation with all arch height parameters.
Conclusion
No significant relationships between arch height and foot length were found. The predictive value of the relationship was found to be poor. This holds significant implications for the current method of proportionate scaling of footwear in terms of fit and function to the midfoot region for a normative population.
Keywords
Anthropometry; Allometry; Footwear; Medial longitudinal arch; Footwear last; Footwear sizing; Footwear gradin
Demanding Success: Examining the Effects of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy on Performance-Related Outcomes
Get PDFRational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is a psychotherapeutic approach based on the premise that when faced with adversity, irrational beliefs determine unhealthy negative emotions and maladaptive behaviors, whereas rational beliefs lead to healthy and adaptive alternatives. Using the ABC(DE) model the process of REBT aims to dispute and replace irrational with rational beliefs, ultimately providing a model of human functioning. Although the detrimental effects of irrational beliefs on psychological health are established, less is known about the deleterious effects on human behavior and performance. The thesis adds to the extant literature in two ways. First, the primary aim of this thesis were to examine effects of REBT, and irrational and rational self-statements on performance-related outcomes. A secondary aim of the thesis was to provide an insight into the effective application of REBT with elite athletes, and those with a physical disability. Using the context of sport, five studies were conducted in this thesis. Three applied field-based studies were conducted in Part I, exploring the effects of REBT on psychological, physiological, and performance outcomes in elite athletes. The findings indicated the effects of REBT (i.e., irrational beliefs, self-efficacy, perception of control, physiological markers, and performance markers) were most evident when delivered to an athlete on an individual basis and with a greater number of sessions. Data also indicated when the delivery of REBT was individually specific and sufficient in dose the effects on IBs and associated outcomes were immediate and maintained, signifying a fundamental shift towards a rational view of adversity (e.g., failure, setbacks, and rejection). In Part II, two experimental studies were conducted to examine the effects of irrational and rational self-statements on markers of performance. In contrast to findings from Part I the results showed no distinction in psychological (anxiety), physiological (heart rate), cognitions (eye gaze data), and performance outcomes (BHT and HPT) between irrational and rational approaches to an acute competitive task. Collectively the thesis findings provide partial support to a growing evidence-base demonstrating the value of REBT as an effective means of enhancing an athlete’s psychological approach and response to adversity/challenge (e.g., competition). The findings also offer a nuanced view between IBs/RBs and maladaptive/adaptive responses to adversity, overcoming what appears to be an overly simplistic dichotomy depicted within previous literature that IBs hinder, whereas RBs are wholly adaptive towards performance. Meeting the second thesis aim, in Chapter 7 valuable professional practice insights into the effective application of REBT with elite athletes and those with a physical disability were discussed. Elite sport and performance contexts are inherent with challenges and practitioners would be prudent to balance the short and long-term benefits of REBT on performance, and the detrimental effects of IBs on psychological health. Ultimately, research that examines the efficacy of interventions originally conceived within clinical settings such as REBT mark a shift in perspective for effective psychological support and alter the boundaries of techniques available to practitioners. Limitations and recommendations for future researchers are provided
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