Scientific Research Publishing

The obesity epidemic is affecting children of all ages including young children and adolescents and when obesity occurs during adolescence, it tends to persist into adulthood. The prevalence of physical inactivity among school-aged children has contributed to the substantial rise in overweight and obesity. Physical activity throughout the school day may help reduce the risk of childhood obesity. Recess refers to a break from doing something, like work or school. Daily recess has been shown to play a significant role in increasing PA as well as increasing learning, productivity, concentration, and social development. Also, r esearch has found that structured recess can be a novel approach to provide new PA choices at recess. In this study, the authors aimed to compare the physical activity and enjoyment of urban school children during traditional unstructured recess and semi-structured recess. The sample for this study consisted of 165 elementary school children (n = 89 males)...

The Soil and Water Assessment Tool, or SWAT model, is a small watershed to river basin-scale model to simulate the quality and quantity of surface and ground water and predict the environmental impact of land use, land management practices, and climate change. SWAT is widely used in assessing soil erosion prevention and control, non-point source pollution control and regional management in watersheds. It has been successfully used to predict alterations in streamflow, evapotranspiration and soil water; however, it is not clear how effective or accurate SWAT is at predicting crop growth. Previous research suggests that while the hydrologic balance in each watershed is accurately simulated with SWAT, the SWAT model over or under predicts crop yield relative to fertilizer inputs. The SWAT model now has three alternative N simulation options: 1) SWAT model with an added flush of N (SWAT-flush); 2) N routines derived from the CENTURY model (SWAT-C); and 3) a one-pool C and N model (SWA...

In the 21st century, cancer research, integrated with biology, genetics, cytology and statistics, continues to be a hot spot. Since last century, many researchers have been working in this field on clinical observations and theoretical deduction. Among many researches, generic aspects of such, a relatively new method for learning causes and preventions for cancer, have begun to show its potential. Over the past decades, large-scale research projects have been launched but faced certain challenges. Researchers often have to deal with tens of thousands of genes with a relatively small sample size of patient cases—a dilemma referred to as the “Curse of Dimensionality”—and it makes it hard to learn the data well because of relatively sparse data in high dimensional space. To deal with the dilemma, this study used p-values of individual genes for pathway enrichment to find statistically significant pathways. The aim of this study was to find significant genes and biological pathways t...

Menopause begins between the ages of 45 - 55 for most women, when estrogen and progesterone levels decrease. Good nutrition plays significant roles in the health and quality of life of pre- and post-menopausal women. It is generally agreed that post-menopausal women should get enough vitamin, calcium, and fiber but reduce fat and calorie consumption. The objective of this study was to evaluate and compare the preference of chocolate milk products sweetened with sucrose and stevia by pre- and post-menopausal women and to examine their concerns about bone health. Women panelists were divided into two groups according to age: pre- menopausal (from 18 to 47 years old) and post-menopausal (over 48 years old) and answered the frequency of white and chocolate milk consumption during a week and their concerns about bone health. For preference, five kinds of chocolate milk were used: 1) Non Sucrose Added [NSA] with stevia and NutraFlora ® , 2) NSA with stevia, 3) with sucrose and stevia, 4...

There is increasing interest in the relation between the solar activity and climate change. Regarding the solar activity, the fractal property of the sunspot number (SSN) has been studied by many previous works. In general, fractal properties have been observed in the time series of the dynamics of complex systems. In this study, the authors examined the relationship among the solar activity, total ozone, and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) from a viewpoint of multi-fractality and investigated the change of multifractal behavior of the SSN, F10.7 flux, geomagnetic aa, total ozone, NAO, the global temperature, and NH sea ice area indices by the multifractal analysis using the wavelet transform. For this purpose, they also illustrated the change of multifractality by plotting the τ -function and used the wavelet coherence. The results showed that the solar activity related to the NAO, by observing the matching in monofractality or multifractality of these indices. When the ...

Regulatory agencies define a single-use device (SUD) as a medical device that is designated by the manufacturer for use during a single medical procedure on a single patient and is intended to be discarded after the procedure. However, used SUDs are not discarded in all circumstances; rather, they are sometimes reprocessed for reuse using specific methods for cleaning and disinfection. Recent trends indicate regulated reprocessing is often performed by third-party reprocessors who are independent from healthcare facilities, but in-hospital reprocessing has been reported for many different types of SUDs and remains prevalent in many low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). The current investigation was motivated by a recent survey of in-hospital reprocessing in Tanzanian hospitals that identified bag-valve masks (BVM) as a commonly reused SUD. In LMIC with a high burden of neonatal mortality, inadequate supplies and poorly functioning BVM can contribute to inconsistent resuscitat...

Many studies have shown that pregnancy-related low back and pelvic pain (LBPP) occurs from the second or third trimester to postpartum. LBPP is an important issue that affects pregnant women for a long period and continuation of LBPP has effects on infant rearing and return to work. Reduction of the severity of LBPP may improve the quality of daily life during pregnancy and postpartum.   In this paper, the authors examined the intensity of LBPP, difficulty for daily life activity and mental health and their associations from early pregnancy until 3 months postpartum in a prospective study and also examined predictive factors for LBPP at 3 months postpartum.  The study was conducted from March 2015 to August 2017 in a birth center in Kagawa Prefecture in Japan. The researchers recruited 55 pregnant women who responded to questionnaires in the first, second and third trimesters and at one week, one month and 3 months postpartum. They designed a self-administered questionna...

Many rural areas are facing problems such as a decline in productive function and lack of social infrastructure (e.g., medical, educational and transportation systems) because of depopulation, which will increase the health risk for residents, especially the old people. The incidence of cardiovascular disease begins to increase from middle age. One of the psychological risk factors of cardiovascular disease is the type A behavior pattern. The type A behavior pattern consists of enhanced aggressiveness, ambitiousness, competitive drive and a chronic sense of time urgency. It is thought that a type A behavior pattern leads to cardiovascular disease because the characteristics of type A behavior easily cause a stress response. To develop an effective health education program to prevent cardiovascular disease in middle-aged residents after retirement in underpopulated areas, the authors explored the effects of a stress management program based on the type A behavior pattern.  ...

Objective, safe, and easy-to-use means of evaluating demineralized lesions have not been available outside of dental offices, so dental checkups at schools must primarily rely on visual inspection in Japan. However, dentists have to perform visual inspections of numerous students with insufficient time and light sources. Consequently, the accuracy of school dental checkups in Japan depends on the skill of individual dentist. Recently, some laser or fluorescence devices used to evaluate carious lesions have been developed. Although in vitro and in vivo studies have reported the reliability of these devices, they have not yet been introduced for use in school dental checkups. In this paper, the authors aimed to evaluate advantages of introducing quantitative light-induced fluorescence-digital (QLF-D) in school oral examinations.  Three experiments were conducted from May 2014 to March 2016. Experiment No. 1: Three dentists who had professional backgrounds of >3 years pe...

As is known to all, mental illness can disrupt an individual’s ability to relate to their family, friends, colleagues, and broader community, leading to significant distress and disability. Postnatal depression (PND) is a mental health condition that develops between one month and up to one year after the birth of a baby. It can affect anyone. Although it’s more commonly reported by mothers, it can affect any new parents—both moms and dads—and it can affect parents who adopt. Postpartum depression is likely caused by many different factors that work together, including family history, biology, personality, life experiences, and the environment (especially sleep deprivation). Mental health literacy is defined as “knowledge and beliefs about mental disorders which aid their recognition, management or prevention”. It has received increasing attention as a useful strategy to promote early identification of mental disorders, reduce stigma and enhance help-seeking be...

Sepsis is a potentially life-threatening complication of an infection. Sepsis occurs when chemicals released into the bloodstream to fight the infection trigger inflammatory responses throughout the body. In the modern antibiotic era, treatment protocols for sepsis necessitate the rapid institution of broad-spectrum antibiotics. Pocalcitonin (PCT) is a biomarker with unique properties that make it a potential serum marker for directing the clinical management of sepsis. A growing literature on procalcitonin suggests significant potential for its use in the diagnosis of sepsis, although its role in clinical medicine continues to be controversial. This report sought to evaluate the evidence-based data available from prospective randomized controlled trials (RCT) on the role of PCT in guiding reductions in antibiotic duration in adult sepsis patients. A comprehensive search of published prospective RCT(s) on the use of PCT as a tool for guiding antibiotic therapy in adult sep...