Photoluminescence and photoluminescence excitation studies of lateral size effects in Zn_{1-x}Mn_xSe/ZnSe quantum disc samples of different radii

Quantum disc structures (with diameters of 200 nm and 100 nm) were prepared from a Zn_{0.72}Mn_{0.28}Se/ZnSe single quantum well structure by electron beam lithography followed by an etching procedure which combined dry and wet etching techniques. The quantum disc structures and the parent structure were studied by photoluminescence and photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy. For the light-hole excitons in the quantum well region, shifts of the energy positions are observed following fabrication of the discs, confirming that strain relaxation occurs in the pillars. The light-hole exciton lines also sharpen following disc fabrication: this is due to an interplay between strain effects (related to dislocations) and the lateral size of the discs. A further consequence of the small lateral sizes of the discs is that the intensity of the donor-bound exciton emission from the disc is found to decrease with the disc radius. These size-related effects occur before the disc radius is reduced to dimensions necessary for lateral quantum confinement to occur but will remain important when the discs are made small enough to be considered as quantum dots.Comment: LaTeX2e, 13 pages, 6 figures (epsfig

A plague of waterfleas (Bythotrephes): impacts on microcrustacean community structure, seasonal biomass, and secondary production in a large inland-lake complex

© 2016, The Author(s). The spiny cladoceran (Bythotrephes longimanus) is an invasive, predaceous zooplankter that is expanding from Great Lakes coastal waters into inland lakes within a northern latitudinal band. In a large, Boundary Water lake complex (largely within Voyageurs National Park), we use two comparisons, a 2-year spatial and a 12-year temporal, to quantify seasonal impacts on food webs and biomass, plus a preliminary calculation of secondary production decline. Bythotrephes alters the seasonal biomass pattern by severely depressing microcrustaceans during summer and early fall, when the predator is most abundant. Cladoceran and cyclopoid copepods suffer the most serious population declines, although the resistant cladoceran Holopedium is favored in spatial comparisons. Microcrustacean biomass is reduced 40–60 % and secondary production declines by about 67 %. The microcrustacean community shifts towards calanoid copepods. The decline in secondary production is due both to summer biomass loss and to the longer generation times of calanoid copepods (slower turnover). The Bythotrephes “top-down” perturbation appears to hold across small, intermediate, and large-sized lakes (i.e. appears scale-independent), and is pronounced when Bythotrephes densities reach 20–40 individuals L−1. Induction tests with small cladocerans (Bosmina) suggest that certain native prey populations do not sense the exotic predator and are “blind-sided”. Failure of prey to deploy defenses could explain the disproportionate community impacts in New World versus Old World lakes

Global, regional, and national age-sex-specific mortality for 282 causes of death in 195 countries and territories, 1980–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Background Global development goals increasingly rely on country-specific estimates for benchmarking a nation's progress. To meet this need, the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2016 estimated global, regional, national, and, for selected locations, subnational cause-specific mortality beginning in the year 1980. Here we report an update to that study, making use of newly available data and improved methods. GBD 2017 provides a comprehensive assessment of cause-specific mortality for 282 causes in 195 countries and territories from 1980 to 2017. Methods The causes of death database is composed of vital registration (VR), verbal autopsy (VA), registry, survey, police, and surveillance data. GBD 2017 added ten VA studies, 127 country-years of VR data, 502 cancer-registry country-years, and an additional surveillance country-year. Expansions of the GBD cause of death hierarchy resulted in 18 additional causes estimated for GBD 2017. Newly available data led to subnational estimates for five additional countries—Ethiopia, Iran, New Zealand, Norway, and Russia. Deaths assigned International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes for non-specific, implausible, or intermediate causes of death were reassigned to underlying causes by redistribution algorithms that were incorporated into uncertainty estimation. We used statistical modelling tools developed for GBD, including the Cause of Death Ensemble model (CODEm), to generate cause fractions and cause-specific death rates for each location, year, age, and sex. Instead of using UN estimates as in previous versions, GBD 2017 independently estimated population size and fertility rate for all locations. Years of life lost (YLLs) were then calculated as the sum of each death multiplied by the standard life expectancy at each age. All rates reported here are age-standardised. Findings At the broadest grouping of causes of death (Level 1), non-communicable diseases (NCDs) comprised the greatest fraction of deaths, contributing to 73·4% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 72·5–74·1) of total deaths in 2017, while communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional (CMNN) causes accounted for 18·6% (17·9–19·6), and injuries 8·0% (7·7–8·2). Total numbers of deaths from NCD causes increased from 2007 to 2017 by 22·7% (21·5–23·9), representing an additional 7·61 million (7·20–8·01) deaths estimated in 2017 versus 2007. The death rate from NCDs decreased globally by 7·9% (7·0–8·8). The number of deaths for CMNN causes decreased by 22·2% (20·0–24·0) and the death rate by 31·8% (30·1–33·3). Total deaths from injuries increased by 2·3% (0·5–4·0) between 2007 and 2017, and the death rate from injuries decreased by 13·7% (12·2–15·1) to 57·9 deaths (55·9–59·2) per 100 000 in 2017. Deaths from substance use disorders also increased, rising from 284 000 deaths (268 000–289 000) globally in 2007 to 352 000 (334 000–363 000) in 2017. Between 2007 and 2017, total deaths from conflict and terrorism increased by 118·0% (88·8–148·6). A greater reduction in total deaths and death rates was observed for some CMNN causes among children younger than 5 years than for older adults, such as a 36·4% (32·2–40·6) reduction in deaths from lower respiratory infections for children younger than 5 years compared with a 33·6% (31·2–36·1) increase in adults older than 70 years. Globally, the number of deaths was greater for men than for women at most ages in 2017, except at ages older than 85 years. Trends in global YLLs reflect an epidemiological transition, with decreases in total YLLs from enteric infections, respiratory infections and tuberculosis, and maternal and neonatal disorders between 1990 and 2017; these were generally greater in magnitude at the lowest levels of the Socio-demographic Index (SDI). At the same time, there were large increases in YLLs from neoplasms and cardiovascular diseases. YLL rates decreased across the five leading Level 2 causes in all SDI quintiles. The leading causes of YLLs in 1990—neonatal disorders, lower respiratory infections, and diarrhoeal diseases—were ranked second, fourth, and fifth, in 2017. Meanwhile, estimated YLLs increased for ischaemic heart disease (ranked first in 2017) and stroke (ranked third), even though YLL rates decreased. Population growth contributed to increased total deaths across the 20 leading Level 2 causes of mortality between 2007 and 2017. Decreases in the cause-specific mortality rate reduced the effect of population growth for all but three causes: substance use disorders, neurological disorders, and skin and subcutaneous diseases. Interpretation Improvements in global health have been unevenly distributed among populations. Deaths due to injuries, substance use disorders, armed conflict and terrorism, neoplasms, and cardiovascular disease are expanding threats to global health. For causes of death such as lower respiratory and enteric infections, more rapid progress occurred for children than for the oldest adults, and there is continuing disparity in mortality rates by sex across age groups. Reductions in the death rate of some common diseases are themselves slowing or have ceased, primarily for NCDs, and the death rate for selected causes has increased in the past decade

Change4Life Sports Clubs research 2016 - part one report

Change4Life Sports Clubs are funded by the Department of Health and managed by the Youth Sport Trust (YST). The clubs were introduced into primary schools in 2011/12 and aim to increase the physical activity, health and wellbeing of less active 7-9 year olds through the provision of fun multi-sport themes and healthy lifestyle activities. The success of the clubs has resulted in additional funding to expand the programme as a central part of a broader healthy lifestyle offer in schools. This is supported by the development of a hub of expertise focused in the areas of greatest health inequalities (priority areas) to support and share effective practice among schools and local authority Health and Wellbeing boards. In 2015, spear produced a Lifetime Impact Evaluation of the Change4Life Sports Clubs (2011-2015). The evaluation incorporated a controlled experimental evaluation at the forefront of research in the social sciences and NESTA rated 4-5. Data from over 7,500 children in more than 500 clubs showed that Change4Life Sports Clubs have a significant, positive impact on the activity levels, health behaviours and wellbeing of participating children. The Lifetime Evaluation Report included a number of recommendations for enhancing and building upon the evidence base for the programme. These recommendations included assessing the effectiveness of programme infrastructure in the sustainability of the clubs, assessing programme alignment with public health priorities and exploring the possibility of an economic assessment of the impact of the programme. The Change4Life Sports Clubs Research 2016 has three key objectives: 1. Demonstrate the wider impact of the Change4Life Sports Clubs 2. Assess the value for money and return on investment of the Change4Life Sports Clubs 3. Capture good practice for embedding and sustaining the programme (locally and nationally) This Part 1 Report examines the evidence of the wider impact of Change4Life Sports Clubs (objective 1), explored and presented in 5 main sections: 1.Evaluation of the wider impact of Change4Life Sports Clubs on healthy lifestyles 2.Evaluation of the wider impact of Change4Life Sports Clubs on behaviour and engagement 3.Exploration of how the Change4Life Sports Clubs are being embedded and sustained in schools 4.Exploration of how the Change4Life Sports Clubs programme supports whole school agenda 5.Exploration of how the Change4Life Sports Clubs programme supports public health priorities The final section of this report presents 6 area profiles to provide a geographical context to the wider impact of the Change4Life Sports Clubs

Complex exon-intron marking by histone modifications is not determined solely by nucleosome distribution

It has recently been shown that nucleosome distribution, histone modifications and RNA polymerase II (Pol II) occupancy show preferential association with exons (“exon-intron marking”), linking chromatin structure and function to co-transcriptional splicing in a variety of eukaryotes. Previous ChIP-sequencing studies suggested that these marking patterns reflect the nucleosomal landscape. By analyzing ChIP-chip datasets across the human genome in three cell types, we have found that this marking system is far more complex than previously observed. We show here that a range of histone modifications and Pol II are preferentially associated with exons. However, there is noticeable cell-type specificity in the degree of exon marking by histone modifications and, surprisingly, this is also reflected in some histone modifications patterns showing biases towards introns. Exon-intron marking is laid down in the absence of transcription on silent genes, with some marking biases changing or becoming reversed for genes expressed at different levels. Furthermore, the relationship of this marking system with splicing is not simple, with only some histone modifications reflecting exon usage/inclusion, while others mirror patterns of exon exclusion. By examining nucleosomal distributions in all three cell types, we demonstrate that these histone modification patterns cannot solely be accounted for by differences in nucleosome levels between exons and introns. In addition, because of inherent differences between ChIP-chip array and ChIP-sequencing approaches, these platforms report different nucleosome distribution patterns across the human genome. Our findings confound existing views and point to active cellular mechanisms which dynamically regulate histone modification levels and account for exon-intron marking. We believe that these histone modification patterns provide links between chromatin accessibility, Pol II movement and co-transcriptional splicing

Value for money & return on Investment of Change4Life Sports Clubs – part 2

Headlines Unit Outcome and Unit Cost Analyses • Change4Life Sports Clubs have a cost of £305 for every new child meeting CMO physical activity guidelines, for which cost an additional 0.2 children were lifted out of inactivity and a further 2.2 children were lifted out of low activity, with each of these children experiencing an average increase in reported wellbeing and individual development outcomes of 71%. • In comparison to the control condition counterfactual, Change4Life Sports Clubs delivered the following NET outcomes per £1,000 of expenditure: • 41 participants • 0.8 sustained clubs • 3.9 Young Leaders • 2.8 new children meeting CMO physical activity guidelines • 8.4 children lifted out of low activity • 1.3 children lifted out of inactivity • 0.1 children newly eating 5-a-day • 0.6 children reporting increased wellbeing and individual development outcomes • 5.1 children starting with low activity levels reporting increased wellbeing and individual development outcomes. Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) Analysis • The cost per QALY generated for the GROSS outcomes of Change4Life Sports Clubs is £3,385 (range:£3,036 to £3,806). • In comparison to the control condition counterfactual, the cost per QALY generated for the NET outcomes of Change4Life Sports Clubs is £3,791 (range: £3,413 to £4,245). • The cost per QALY generated for Change4Life Sports Clubs is significantly below NICE’s threshold for value for money per QALY of £20,000. • The cost per QALY generated for the GROSS outcomes of Change4Life Sports Clubs compares favourably to GROSS outcomes estimated for walking buses (£4,008 per QALY), dance classes (£27,570 per QALY), free swimming (£40,462 per QALY) and community sports (£71,456 per QALY). • The cost per QALY generated by the NET outcomes of exercise referral interventions in adulthood is approximately five and a half times greater than that of Change4Life Sports Clubs. Analysis of Future Health at Ages 13-15 • The Change4Life Sports Clubs cohort are predicted to do around an hour more physical activity per week at ages 13-15 than that predicted for the control condition counterfactual, and than today’s 13-15 year olds. • The estimated additional physical activity of the Change4Life Sports Clubs cohort up to ages 13-15 will generate one additional QALY for every five children that took part in Change4Life Sports Clubs. • In comparison to the control counterfactual, the cost per QALY generated by the estimated future NET outcomes of Change4Life Sports Clubs up to ages 13-15 is £120. • Across the Health Survey for England, the Millennium Cohort Study and the Understanding Society Survey, no data is available to support a robust estimation of likely health and wellbeing status associated with physical activity levels at ages 13

Lifetime evaluation of the Change4Life Primary School Sports Club Programme

ABOUT THE PROGRAMME The Change4Life Primary School Sports Club programme is funded by the Department of Health and managed by the Youth Sport Trust. The clubs were introduced into primary schools in 2011/12 and aim to increase the physical activity, health and wellbeing of less active 7-9 year olds through the provision of fun multi-sport themes and healthy lifestyle activities. SPEAR’s evaluations of the primary programme have consistently demonstrated that Change4Life Clubs can be effective mechanisms for increasing physical activity levels among less active primary children. Through provision of a safe space to learn and play, the opportunity to contribute to club delivery and encouragement of small steps toward increasing activity levels, the clubs have helped less active children build the competencies, confidence and resilience they need to be healthy and active throughout the lifecourse. The success of the Change4Life Primary School Sports Clubs has resulted in additional funding to expand the programme as a central part of a broader healthy lifestyle offer in schools. This is supported by the development of a hub of expertise focused in the areas of greatest health inequalities (priority areas) to support and share effective practice among schools and local authority Health and Wellbeing boards. ABOUT THE EVALUATION SPEAR was commissioned from October 2013 to March 2015 to conduct a third, successive evaluation of the Change4Life Primary School Sports Club programme. In October 2014, SPEAR produced an Interim Report including impact and delivery insights and progress and planning for the primary evaluation. SPEAR also recommended inclusion of a lifetime impact assessment to provide additional value to the Final Report findings and the project end date was subsequently extended to May 2015. This Final Report both supplements and supersedes the Interim Report. SPEAR’s current evaluation of the Change4Life Clubs reflects both the changing context and priorities of the primary programme and, through a systematic, controlled experimental evaluation, provides the robust evidence base necessary to support and further the programme as it develops into the future. The 2015 Final Report presents a lifetime evaluation of the programme to date. Drawing together extant data from SPEAR’s 2011/12 and 2012/13 (2011-20133 ) evaluations with new data collated across 2013/14 and early 2014/154 (2013-20155 ), this report focuses on the lifetime impact of the clubs in key areas, namely physical activity, health behaviours and wellbeing. The report shows how delivery has evolved to address programme aims, discusses challenges faced embedding clubs as a sustainable part of schools’ healthy lifestyle offer and considers preliminary evidence of the impact of the new support framework in priority areas. Data informing this report is drawn from the survey returns of over 7,500 children participating in more than 500 Change4Life Clubs and from just under 500 children in 15 control schools. Survey completions from over 2,000 club deliverers and SGOs, telephone interviews with 39 stakeholders and data from 20 site visits complements and triangulates the experimental data allowing the experiences and perspectives of a broad range of stakeholders to be presented. Key messages are summarised at the start of each section (and in the Headlines section on pages 2-5). The report is divided into three substantive sections: Who participated? What worked? and What did the clubs look like? The Influence of the Change4Life Brand is addressed and Recommendations for the programme are presented

Measuring progress from 1990 to 2017 and projecting attainment to 2030 of the health-related Sustainable Development Goals for 195 countries and territories: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Background Efforts to establish the 2015 baseline and monitor early implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlight both great potential for and threats to improving health by 2030. To fully deliver on the SDG aim of “leaving no one behind”, it is increasingly important to examine the health-related SDGs beyond national-level estimates. As part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2017 (GBD 2017), we measured progress on 41 of 52 health-related SDG indicators and estimated the health-related SDG index for 195 countries and territories for the period 1990–2017, projected indicators to 2030, and analysed global attainment. Methods We measured progress on 41 health-related SDG indicators from 1990 to 2017, an increase of four indicators since GBD 2016 (new indicators were health worker density, sexual violence by non-intimate partners, population census status, and prevalence of physical and sexual violence [reported separately]). We also improved the measurement of several previously reported indicators. We constructed national-level estimates and, for a subset of health-related SDGs, examined indicator-level differences by sex and Socio-demographic Index (SDI) quintile. We also did subnational assessments of performance for selected countries. To construct the health-related SDG index, we transformed the value for each indicator on a scale of 0–100, with 0 as the 2·5th percentile and 100 as the 97·5th percentile of 1000 draws calculated from 1990 to 2030, and took the geometric mean of the scaled indicators by target. To generate projections through 2030, we used a forecasting framework that drew estimates from the broader GBD study and used weighted averages of indicator-specific and country-specific annualised rates of change from 1990 to 2017 to inform future estimates. We assessed attainment of indicators with defined targets in two ways: first, using mean values projected for 2030, and then using the probability of attainment in 2030 calculated from 1000 draws. We also did a global attainment analysis of the feasibility of attaining SDG targets on the basis of past trends. Using 2015 global averages of indicators with defined SDG targets, we calculated the global annualised rates of change required from 2015 to 2030 to meet these targets, and then identified in what percentiles the required global annualised rates of change fell in the distribution of country-level rates of change from 1990 to 2015. We took the mean of these global percentile values across indicators and applied the past rate of change at this mean global percentile to all health-related SDG indicators, irrespective of target definition, to estimate the equivalent 2030 global average value and percentage change from 2015 to 2030 for each indicator. Findings The global median health-related SDG index in 2017 was 59·4 (IQR 35·4–67·3), ranging from a low of 11·6 (95% uncertainty interval 9·6–14·0) to a high of 84·9 (83·1–86·7). SDG index values in countries assessed at the subnational level varied substantially, particularly in China and India, although scores in Japan and the UK were more homogeneous. Indicators also varied by SDI quintile and sex, with males having worse outcomes than females for non-communicable disease (NCD) mortality, alcohol use, and smoking, among others. Most countries were projected to have a higher health-related SDG index in 2030 than in 2017, while country-level probabilities of attainment by 2030 varied widely by indicator. Under-5 mortality, neonatal mortality, maternal mortality ratio, and malaria indicators had the most countries with at least 95% probability of target attainment. Other indicators, including NCD mortality and suicide mortality, had no countries projected to meet corresponding SDG targets on the basis of projected mean values for 2030 but showed some probability of attainment by 2030. For some indicators, including child malnutrition, several infectious diseases, and most violence measures, the annualised rates of change required to meet SDG targets far exceeded the pace of progress achieved by any country in the recent past. We found that applying the mean global annualised rate of change to indicators without defined targets would equate to about 19% and 22% reductions in global smoking and alcohol consumption, respectively; a 47% decline in adolescent birth rates; and a more than 85% increase in health worker density per 1000 population by 2030. Interpretation The GBD study offers a unique, robust platform for monitoring the health-related SDGs across demographic and geographic dimensions. Our findings underscore the importance of increased collection and analysis of disaggregated data and highlight where more deliberate design or targeting of interventions could accelerate progress in attaining the SDGs. Current projections show that many health-related SDG indicators, NCDs, NCD-related risks, and violence-related indicators will require a concerted shift away from what might have driven past gains—curative interventions in the case of NCDs—towards multisectoral, prevention-oriented policy action and investments to achieve SDG aims. Notably, several targets, if they are to be met by 2030, demand a pace of progress that no country has achieved in the recent past. The future is fundamentally uncertain, and no model can fully predict what breakthroughs or events might alter the course of the SDGs. What is clear is that our actions—or inaction—today will ultimately dictate how close the world, collectively, can get to leaving no one behind by 2030

Embedding and sustaining Change4Life Sports Clubs: regional case studies – part three

Change4Life Sports Clubs are funded by the Department of Health (DoH) and managed by the Youth Sport Trust (YST). The clubs were introduced into primary schools in 2011/12 and aim to increase the physical activity, health and wellbeing of less active 7-9 year olds through provision of fun multi-sport themes and healthy lifestyle activities. The success of the clubs has resulted in additional funding to expand the programme as a central part of a broader healthy lifestyle offer in schools. This is supported by the development of a hub of expertise focused in the areas of greatest health inequalities to support and share effective practice among schools and local authority Health and Wellbeing boards. In 2015, spear produced a Lifetime Impact Evaluation of the Change4Life Sports Clubs, drawing on data from over 7,500 children in more than 500 clubs. The Change4Life Sports Clubs 2016 research builds upon the Lifetime Evaluation with new data from children, schools and public health directorates to address three key objectives: 1) Demonstrate the wider impact of Change4Life Sports Clubs; 2) Assess the value for money and return on investment of Change4Life Sports Clubs and; 3) Capture good practice for embedding and sustaining the programme. Part Three presents Area Case Studies for six geographical regions in England to provide insight into how the Change4Life Sports Clubs have been embedded and sustained in schools across each area: East, East Midlands, London, North East, North West and South East. Each case study is informed by (re)analysis of club deliverer and School Games Organiser (SGO) survey data, site visit case studies, and interviews conducted with Public Health Teams, senior school staff, Change4Life Sports Club Leads and SGOs. The final section of Part Three presents recommendations for embedding and sustaining the Change4Life Sports Clubs