Lifestyle and socioeconomic correlates of breakfast skipping in Hong Kong primary 4 schoolchildren

Objective: Although breakfast is associated with different benefits, breakfast skipping is increasingly common among children. This study aimed to identify lifestyle and socioeconomic correlates of breakfast skipping in Hong Kong schoolchildren. Methods: 68 606 primary 4 participants of the Department of Health Student Health Service in 1998-2000 reported breakfast habit and other lifestyle characteristics using a standardized questionnaire. Height and weight were measured by trained SHS nurses. Socioeconomic data were reported by parents. In cross-sectional analysis, multivariate logistic regression was used to identify lifestyle and socioeconomic correlates of breakfast skipping. Results: 3 598 subjects (5.2%) usually skipped breakfast. Breakfast skipping was associated with being overweight (Odds ratio = 1.59, 95% CI: 1.46 to 1.73) and obese (2.06, 1.80 to 2.36), and unhealthy dietary habits including more frequent junk food (1.23, 1.14 to 1.33) but less frequent fruit/vegetable (1.23, 1.13 to 1.34) and milk (1.98, 1.80 to 2.16) intake. Breakfast skippers tended to skip lunch, do less extra-curricular physical activity, watch more television and have less educated parents. Conclusions: Breakfast skipping was significantly related to various health-compromising lifestyle characteristics and lower parental education. Breakfast habit can be a potential lifestyle indicator. Education programmes aimed at specific target groups should encourage regular breakfast consumption. © 2010 Elsevier Inc.postprin

Workplace health promotion: assessing the cardiopulmonary risks of the construction workforce in Hong Kong

Objective Health needs of different employee subgroups within an industry can differ. We report the results of a workplace cardiopulmonary risk assessment targeting workers and support staff in the construction industry. Methods A free worksite-based cardiopulmonary risk assessment for 1,903 workers on infrastructural contracts across Hong Kong was initiated in May 2014. Cardiopulmonary risk screening was performed in 60-minute blocks for approximately 30 workers/block with individualized feedback and lifestyle counseling. Risk profiles stratified by occupational roles are differentiated using the χ2-test for categorical and Student’s t-test for continuous variables. Results Most construction workers and clerks/professionals were male (83.2% and 71.2%, respectively) and Chinese (78.7% and 90.9%, respectively). Construction workers were older (mean: 44.9 years, SD 11.5) and less well-educated (6.1% received tertiary education) than clerks/professionals (35.0 years, 10.7; 72.6% received tertiary education), but more likely to be hypertensive (22.6% vs. 15.4%, p<0.001), overweight/obese (71.7% vs. 56.6%, p<0.001), centrally obese (53.1% vs. 35.5%, p<0.001), and have undesirable levels of high-density lipoprotein (41.6% vs. 35.8%, p<0.05) and diabetic levels of non-fasting blood glucose (4.3% vs. 1.6%, p<0.05). Up to 12.6% of construction workers and 9.7% of office clerks/professions had three or more metabolic syndrome risk factors. While construction workers were more likely than clerks/professionals to be daily smokers, they reported better work-related physical activity and diet. Conclusions Simple worksite health risk screening can identify potentially high-cardiopulmonary-risk construction industry employee subgroups for onward confirmatory referral. Separate cardiopulmonary health promotion strategies that account for the varying lifestyle profiles of the two employee subgroups in the industry appear justified.published_or_final_versio

Cross-sectional study on parental pro-drinking practices and adolescent alcohol drinking in Hong Kong

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Correlates of pro-drinking practices in drinking parents of adolescents in Hong Kong

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Gender, generation and the experiences of farm dwellers resettled in the Ciskei Bantustan, South Africa, ca 1960–1976

This paper examines the experiences of farm dwellers resettled in rural townships in the Ciskei Bantustan during the decades of the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing on the oral testimonies of elderly residents of Sada and Ilinge townships, the paper shows how gendered and generational inequalities within households were crucial factors shaping individuals' experiences of resettlement from the farms. The paper engages with an older literature that regarded the abolition of labour tenancy and linked resettlement programmes as the final stage of farm tenants' proletarianization. It highlights the problems of this linear narrative, and argues that men and women experienced and understood this process in radically different ways. Male labour migration and the remnants of farm paternalism meant that while resettlement cemented the status of migrant men, for women and non-migrant men this process was characterized by contradiction: on the one hand, escape from the spatial hegemonies of farm paternalism and, on the other, heightened economic exposure

Precision measurements of the top quark mass and width with the D0 detector

Since the discovery of the top quark in 1995 at the Fermliab Tevatron Collider, top quark properties have been measured with ever higher precision. In this article, recent measurements of the top quark mass and its width using up to 3.6 fb{sup -1} of D0 data are summarized. Different techniques and final states have been examined and no deviations within these measurements have been observed. In addition to the direct measurements, a measurement of the top quark mass from its production cross section and a measurement of the top-antitop quark mass difference are discussed. With a mass of 173.3 {+-} 1.1 GeV, the top quark is the heaviest of all known fundamental particles. Due to the high mass, its Yukawa coupling is close to unity suggesting that it may play a special role in electroweak symmetry breaking. Precise measurements of both, the W boson and the top quark mass, constrain the mass of the yet unobserved Higgs boson and allow to restrict certain extensions of the Standard Model. At the Tevatron collider with a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV, 85% of the top quark pairs are produced in quark-antiquark annihilation; 15% originate from gluon fusion. Top quarks are predicted to decay almost exclusively to a W boson and a bottom quark. According to the number of hadronic W decays, top events are classified into all-jets, lepton+jets and dilepton events. The lepton+jets channel is characterized by four jets, one isolated, energetic charged lepton and missing transverse energy. With 30%, the branching fraction of the lepton+jets channel is about seven times larger than the one of the dilepton channel whereas the signal to background ratio is about three times smaller. The main background in this final state comes from W +jets events. Instrumental background arises from events in which a jet is misidentified as an electron and events with heavy hadrons that decay into leptons which pass the isolation requirements. The topology of the dilepton channel is described by two jets, two isolated, energetic charged leptons and significant missing transverse energy from the undetected neutrinos. The main background are Z + jets and diboson events (WW/WZ/ZZ+jets) as well as instrumental background as characterized above. At the D0 experiment, different techniques are used to measure the top quark mass. They are summarized in the following sections together with the first measurement of the top anti-top quark mass difference and the first precise determination of the top quark width

High-temperature electromagnons in the magnetically induced multiferroic cupric oxide driven by intersublattice exchange

Magnetically induced ferroelectric multiferroics present an exciting new paradigm in the design of multifunctional materials, by intimately coupling magnetic and polar order. Magnetoelectricity creates a novel quasiparticle excitation--the electromagnon--at terahertz frequencies, with spectral signatures that unveil important spin interactions. To date, electromagnons have been discovered at low temperature (<70 K) and predominantly in rare-earth compounds such as RMnO3. Here we demonstrate using terahertz time-domain spectroscopy that intersublattice exchange in the improper multiferroic cupric oxide (CuO) creates electromagnons at substantially elevated temperatures (213-230 K). Dynamic magnetoelectric coupling can therefore be achieved in materials, such as CuO, that exhibit minimal static cross-coupling. The electromagnon strength and energy track the static polarization, highlighting the importance of the underlying cycloidal spin structure. Polarized neutron scattering and terahertz spectroscopy identify a magnon in the antiferromagnetic ground state, with a temperature dependence that suggests a significant role for biquadratic exchange

Pengaruh Pemberian Ekstrak Ophiocephalus striatus terhadap Kadar TNF-α dan TGF-β1 serta Kapasitas Difusi Paru dan Kualitas Hidup pada Pasien PPOK Stabil dengan Muscle Wasting

Latar belakang : Penurunan massa otot rangka merupakan manifestasi ekstra paru yang ditemukan pada sekitar 50% pasien PPOK dan mengakibatkan penurunan kualitas hidup serta peningkatan mortalitas. Ketidakseimbangan sintesis dan degradasi protein yang melibatkan TNF-α dan TGF-β1 berperan dalam terjadinya muscle wasting, baik pada otot rangka maupun otot pernapasan yang lebih lanjut mempengaruhi kapasitas difusi paru terhadap karbonmonoksida (DLCO). Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk membuktikan pengaruh pemberian ekstrak Ophiocephalus striatus – suatu suplementasi nutrisi oral yang kaya akan protein dan asam amino – terhadap penurunan kadar TNF-α dan TGF-β1 serta perbaikan DLCO dan kualitas hidup pasien PPOK dengan muscle wasting. Metode : Penelitian klinis dengan metode quasi experimental pada pasien PPOK dengan muscle wasting di Poli Paru Rumah Sakit Umum Dr. Saiful Anwar Malang, di mana 32 pasien diberikan suplementasi nutrisi ekstrak Ophiocephalus striatus selama 12 minggu. Pengukuran kadar TNF-α, TGF-β1, DLCO, dan skor CAT sebagai parameter kualitas hidup dilakukan sebelum dan sesudah intervensi nutrisi. Hasil : Terdapat perubahan tidak signifikan pada penurunan kadar TNF-α dan peningkatan kapasitas difusi paru (masing-masing p=0,681 dan p=0,369). Tetapi ditemukan perubahan signifikan pada penurunan kadar TGF-β1 (p=0,000) dan peningkatan kualitas hidup yang diukur dengan skor CAT (p=0,000). Tidak ditemukan adanya korelasi yang signifikan antara kadar sitokin inflamasi tersebut dengan kapasitas difusi paru maupun skor CAT Kesimpulan : Ekstrak Ophiocephalus striatus sebagai suplementasi nutrisi oral mampu menurunkan kadar TNF-α memperbaiki DLCO. Selain itu, kadar TGF-β1 sebagai sitokin fibrogenik dan kualitas hidup menjadi lebih baik secara signifikan setelah suplementasi nutrisi. Hasil penelitian ini mempertimbangkan peranan penting dari pemberian suplementasi nutrisi oral sebagai tatalaksana bagi pasien PPOK dengan muscle wasting

Differences in toxicity and accumulation of metal from copper oxide nanomaterials compared to copper sulphate in zebrafish embryos: Delayed hatching, the chorion barrier and physiological effects

The mechanisms of toxicity of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) to the early life stages of freshwater fish, and the relative hazard compared to dissolved metals, is only partially understood. In the present study, zebrafish embryos were exposed to lethal concentrations of copper sulphate (CuSO4) or copper oxide (CuO) ENMs (primary size ∼15 nm), and then the sub-lethal effects investigated at the LC10 concentrations over 96 h. The 96 h-LC50 (mean ± 95% CI) for CuSO4 was 303 ± 14 µg Cu L−1 compared to 53 ± 9.9 mg L−1 of the whole material for CuO ENMs; with the ENMs being orders of magnitude less toxic than the metal salt. The EC50 for hatching success was 76 ± 11 µg Cu L−1 and 0.34 ± 0.78 mg L−1 for CuSO4 and CuO ENMs respectively. Failure to hatch was associated with bubbles and foam-looking perivitelline fluid (CuSO4), or particulate material smothering the chorion (CuO ENMs). In the sub-lethal exposures, about 42% of the total Cu as CuSO4 was internalised, as measured by Cu accumulation in the de-chorionated embryos, but for the ENMs exposures, nearly all (94%) of the total Cu was associated with chorion; indicating the chorion as an effective barrier to protect the embryo from the ENMs in the short term. Both forms of Cu exposure caused sodium (Na+) and calcium (Ca2+), but not magnesium (Mg2+), depletion from the embryos; and CuSO4 caused some inhibition of the sodium pump (Na+/K+-ATPase) activity. Both forms of Cu exposure caused some loss of total glutathione (tGSH) in the embryos, but without induction of superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity. In conclusion, CuSO4 was much more toxic than CuO ENMs to early life stage zebrafish, but there are subtle differences in the exposure and toxic mechanisms for each substance