Calibration of two objective measures of physical activity for children

A calibration study was conducted to determine the threshold counts for two commonly used accelerometers, the ActiGraph and the Actical, to classify activities by intensity in children 5 to 8 years of age. Thirty-three children wore both accelerometers and a COSMED portable metabolic system during 15 min of rest and then performed up to nine different activities for 7 min each, on two separate days in the laboratory. Oxygen consumption was measured on a breath-by-breath basis, and accelerometer data were collected in 15-s epochs. Using receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis, cutpoints that maximised both sensitivity and specificity were determined for sedentary, moderate and vigorous activities. For both accelerometers, discrimination of sedentary behaviour was almost perfect, with the area under the ROC curve at or exceeding 0.98. For both the ActiGraph and Actical, the discrimination of moderate (0.85 and 0.86, respectively) and vigorous activity (0.83 and 0.86, respectively) was acceptable, but not as precise as for sedentary behaviour. This calibration study, using indirect calorimetry, suggests that the two accelerometers can be used to distinguish differing levels of physical activity intensity as well as inactivity among children 5 to 8 years of age.     

Children and stress: Sources,reactions, and interventions

Stress in childhood is universal, an inevitable part of life. No child reaches adolescence without having to cope with the normal developmental and environmental stresses of weaning, toilet training, entry into school, and the inevitable increasing demands for self-control and responsibility.Diane Shrier is clinical associate professor and director of child and adolescent psychiatry at the New Jersey Medical School in Newark.     

Leading them to books—For life

Promoting lifelong reading, learning, and library use is a goal of most youth-serving librarians. The Young Adult Services Department of the Mesa, Arizona, Public Library is finding that more teens are entering adulthood each year as library users and supporters, and they are bringing their children to the library, too. This article shares a YA librarian's perspectives on how to provide successful reader advisory for teens and how to get young adults to read on their own, building the foundation of a lifelong interest in reading, an interest passed from generation to generation. Building this foundation depends on dedicated, well-trained specialists in YA library service, the publication of well-written and attractive books for teens, school and public library administrative support. Diane P. Tuccillo has been head of the Young Adults Services Adult Services Department at the Mesa (Arizona) Public Library since 1980. She has had articles published in a variety of professional journals includingEmergency Librarian, Voice of Young Advocates (VOYA), andThe ALAN Review, and is a regular book reviewer forVOYA, Kliatt Young Adult Paperback Book Guide, andSchool Library Journal.     

GENDER BIAS: ANALYSIS OF FACTORS CAUSING MALE UNDERREPRESENTATION IN SURVEYS

Using data from a 1987 telephone survey of over 1,000 Illinoisadult residents, this research looked into factors causing maleunder-representation in surveys using the last-birthday methodof respondent selection. Differences by sex in rates of refusaland non-contact (after respondent selection) were evaluatedfor relative contribution to gender bias. Accuracy of informant'sresponse to the birthday question was gauged by checking againstbirth dates of adults rostered during the interview. Other factors,such as the proportion of informants who do not know the lastbirthday, or who misreport from a desire to be the one interviewed(or not interviewed), were evaluated for relative effect onsample representation of males and females.     

Key Strategies for Building Research Capacity of University Faculty Members

Universities are under pressure to increase external research funding, and some federal agencies offer programs to expand research capacity in certain kinds of institutions. However, conflicts within faculty roles and other aspects of university operations influence the effectiveness of particular strategies for increasing research activity. We review conventional approaches to increasing research, focusing on outcomes for individual faculty members and use one federally-funded effort to build cancer-related research capacity at a public university as an example to explore the impact of various strategies on research outcomes. We close with hypotheses that should be tested in future formal studies.