Agreement between bioelectrical impedance and dual energy X-ray absorptiometry in assessing fat,lean and bone mass changes in adults after a lifestyle intervention

We aimed to assess the agreement of a commercially available bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) device in measuring changes in fat, lean and bone mass over a 10-week lifestyle intervention, with dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) as reference. A sample of 136 volunteers (18–66 years) underwent a physical activity intervention to enhance lean mass and reduce fat mass. BIA (Tanita BC545) and DXA (Hologic Explorer) measures of whole-body composition were taken at baseline and at the end of the intervention. After an average of 74 ± 18 days intervention, DXA showed significant changes in 2 of 3 outcome variables: reduced fat mass of 0.802 ± 1.092 kg (P < 0.001), increased lean mass of 0.477 ± 0.966 kg (P < 0.001); minor non-significant increase of 0.007 ± 0.041 kg of bone mass (P = 0.052). The respective changes in BIA measures were a significant reduction of 0.486 ± 1.539 kg fat (P < 0.001), but non-significant increases of 0.084 ± 1.201 kg lean mass (P = 0.425), and 0.014 ± 0.091 kg bone (P = 0.074). Significant, but moderately weak, correlations were seen in absolute mass changes between DXA and BIA: 0.511 (fat), 0.362 (lean) and 0.172 (bone). Compared to DXA, BIA demonstrated mediocre agreement to changes in fat mass, but poor agreement to lean mass changes. BIA significantly underestimated the magnitude of changes in fat and lean mass compared to DXA.     

Social Network Sites and Political Engagement: Exploring the Impact of Facebook Connections and Uses on Political Protest and Participation

Past studies have shown positive relationships between use of social network sites (SNSs) and political engagement, but an understanding of the mechanisms underlying the relationship is limited because the studies often did not take into account the diverse affordances of SNSs that can influence participation in different ways. Adopting the O-S-R-O-R (Orientation–Stimulus–Reasoning–Orientation–Response) model of political communication effects, this study examined the roles of Facebook network size, connections with public political actors, use for news, and political expression on political attitudes, protest, and participation. Structural equation analyses were conducted based on data from a national sample in Hong Kong, a city-state with one of the world’s highest Facebook penetration rates. Results showed that Facebook network size and connections with public political actors exhibit both direct and indirect effects on participation through Facebook news, expression, and efficacy. Facebook news exhibited indirect effects primarily though political expression. A discriminant function analysis also showed that age, education, and online news exposure were the most influential variables for distinguishing Facebook users and nonusers. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Authorization,rationalization, and moral evaluation: legitimizing acupuncture in Hong Kong's newspapers

Hong Kong has always been regarded as a critical region of Cultural China. Surprisingly, traditional Chinese medicine has not yet been accepted as legitimate in the city. This study uses acupuncture as a case to investigate the way media texts work to organize a field of knowledge and practices about health in a post-colonial society where contrasting perspectives and hybrid ideas rooted from the East and the West intermingle. Acupuncture is conceptualized as socially constructed health knowledge that has become increasingly legitimate in media discourse. Through a mixed-method approach that combines discourse and content analysis, a total of 666 news articles related to acupuncture published in two Hong Kong newspapers over a 10-year period were analyzed. Three major forms of discursive construction of legitimation – authorization, rationalization, and moral evaluation – were identified and elaborated in association with the texts and the social contexts. This study reveals a complex process of generating legitimacy for health knowledge through news narratives.     

High-tech,hard work: an investigation of teachers’ work in the digital age

This paper explores the ways in which digital technologies are now implicated in the work – and specifically the labour – of school teachers. Drawing upon qualitative studies in two Australian high schools, the paper examines the variety of ways in which teachers’ work is now enacted and experienced along digital lines. In particular, the paper highlights the association of digital technologies with the standardization, evidencing, intensification and altered affect of teachers’ work. The paper questions the extent to which these trends might be seen as constituting ‘new’ forms of labour, with the research data pointing to continuities and disjunctures in terms of teachers’ autonomy and professionalization. The paper also considers how these conditions are experienced in different ways across the teaching workforce. The paper concludes by reflecting on how fairer and/or empowering working conditions might be achievable through alternate uses of digital technology.     

第二语言习得中的语言迁移现象简析

在借鉴语言迁移研究成果的基础上，分析了第二语言习得过程中出现的“前摄干扰”（汉式英语）和“后摄干扰”（夹生汉语）现象，以便认识语言迁移的发展规律，从而促进外语教学工作的开展。     

A hypermedia system for teaching database design task

The number of commercial object-oriented database systems and object-oriented interfaces to traditional database systems is increasing. To facilitate the process of object-oriented data modelling (OODM) for experts and end-users, a hypermedia system is designed that is able to teach and guide users in performing OODM. The system supports the full range of modelling activities, from the identification of a class and its properties, to the relationships among classes. It provides other important functions, such as error checking of the model, graphical interface and the provision of hypermedia contextual explanations. Hypermedia are effectively used in the system so that the users can learn OODM effectively, as well as perform OODM correctly and quickly. The system has been empirically evaluated to gauge its effectiveness and ease of use. The evaluation suggests that the system will be useful for a OODM training or teaching course, and it can also be an effective computer-based learning tool for selflearning     

Writing motivation and performance in Chinese children

Reading and Writing - This study examined the relationships between writing motivation and written composition performance in Chinese among 388 Chinese children in Grades 3 to 5 in accordance with...     

Towards precision medicine: from quantitative imaging to radiomics

Radiology (imaging) and imaging-guided interventions, which provide multi-parametric morphologic and functional information, are playing an increasingly significant role in precision medicine. Radiologists are trained to understand the imaging phenotypes, transcribe those observations (phenotypes) to correlate with underlying diseases and to characterize the images. However, in order to understand and characterize the molecular phenotype (to obtain genomic information) of solid heterogeneous tumours, the advanced sequencing of those tissues using biopsy is required. Thus, radiologists image the tissues from various views and angles in order to have the complete image phenotypes, thereby acquiring a huge amount of data. Deriving meaningful details from all these radiological data becomes challenging and raises the big data issues. Therefore, interest in the application of radiomics has been growing in recent years as it has the potential to provide significant interpretive and predictive information for decision support. Radiomics is a combination of conventional computer-aided diagnosis, deep learning methods, and human skills, and thus can be used for quantitative characterization of tumour phenotypes. This paper discusses the overview of radiomics workflow, the results of various radiomics-based studies conducted using various radiological images such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and positron-emission tomography (PET), the challenges we are facing, and the potential contribution of radiomics towards precision medicine.     

Spying on children during a school playground intervention using a novel method for direct observation of activities during outdoor play

Our aims were to examine the efficacy of a new observational instrument ‘System for Observing Outdoor Play’ for detecting changes in outdoor play and chart the use of recycled and repurposed materials in the school playground during the course of an intervention to increase outdoor play. Children from one Sydney primary school were observed (N = 111; 5–12 years) using an observational instrument developed as part of the Sydney Playground Project. Data on types of activities and frequencies were collected at baseline and seven times during intervention. Use of intervention materials was consistently high and associated with increases in play-related activities (40–77%), while inactive pursuits decreased (52–31%), on average. The observational instrument proved efficacious in tracking changes in play. Modification of the school playground environment by introducing loose parts changed children’s play-related behaviour; the variety of activities increased, including construction and creative play. Physical inactivity decreased. Recycled materials can increase children’s creative, social and physical play.