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Vitamin D deficiency (25-hydroxyvitamin D; 25(OH)D) is at epidemic proportions in western dwelling South Asian populations, including severe deficiency (<12⋅5 nmol/l) in 27-60% of individuals, depending on season. The paper aimed to review the literature concerning vitamin D concentrations in this population group. Research from the UK and Europe suggests a high prevalence of South Asians with 25(OH)D concentration <25 nmol/l, with most having a 25(OH)D concentration of <50 nmol/l. In Canada, South Asians appear to have a slightly higher 25(OH)D concentration. There are few studies from the United States, South Africa and Australasia. Reasons for vitamin D deficiency include low vitamin D intake, relatively high adiposity, sun exposure avoidance and wearing of a covered dress style for cultural reasons. Possible health effects of deficiency include bone diseases such as rickets and hypocalcaemia in children and osteomalacia in adults. Vitamin D deficiency may also increase the risk of other chronic diseases. Increased fortification of food items relevant to South Asian groups (e.g. chapatti flour), as well as increased use of vitamin D supplements may help reduce this epidemic. Introducing culturally acceptable ways of increasing skin exposure to the sun in South Asian women may also be beneficial but further research is needed to assess the effectiveness of different approaches. There may be a need for a South Asian specific vitamin D dietary intake guideline in western countries. To conclude, vitamin D deficiency is epidemic in South Asians living in western countries and there is a clear need for urgent public health action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of countries' development level in sports medicine, exercise and sports performance on their success in Olympic Games. Within this purpose, 1027 papers that were published between 2010 and 2018 in the journal of Sports Medicine, of which impact factor was 7.074 in 2017, were examined in analytical and correlational terms considering the first author and total author numbers. Pearson Correlation was utilized to find out the relationships between the papers from various countries and their success at Olympic Games. Regarding the number of medals won by the countries in the 2016, 2012 and 2008, Olympic Games were found significantly correlated with the number of first author (r = 0.73) and total author (r = 0.74).

Results of international achievement surveys such as the Programme in International Student Assessment have consistently reported an achievement gap between immigrant and non-immigrant student populations around the world. This paper unpacks this persistent achievement gap by examining key characteristics that influence the performance of first- and second-generation immigrant students as well as the policies and practices that are associated with enhanced educational outcomes. A multi-layered framework is proposed to help policymakers juxtapose key characteristics of their immigrant students' achievement against individual, family, school, community, and host society characteristics and policies. The discussion also underscores the importance of connecting this multi-layered framework with other important sectors within governments such as those responsible for the economy, health, social protection, and immigration. This paper also examines limitations with current large-scale data sets and the implications for research and policy analysis.

Tanning beds have been classified as carcinogenic to humans. As a result, many countries have enacted laws regulating the use of commercial tanning beds, including bans for minors. However, there is no international overview of the current legal status of access restrictions for minors that provides details on their specific design regarding age limits and possible exceptions to the statutory regulation. Therefore, we performed a comprehensive web search of current tanning bed legislation for minors on the three continents North America, Australia, and Europe. Our findings regarding the existence and concrete design of access restrictions are presented graphically, using maps. We found a wide variety of different legislations. In Australia, a total ban on tanning beds exists, while in New Zealand, tanning bed use is banned for minors. In Europe, about half of the countries have implemented a strict ban for minors. In North America, we found differences in the age limit for access restrictions between the states, provinces, and territories for those regions that implemented a ban for minors. In the United States, some states have rather "soft bans" that allow use by minors with different types of parental consent. The patchwork in legislation calls for harmonization. Therefore, our comparison is an important starting point for institutions such as the World Health Organization or the European Commission to advance their goals toward a harmonization of tanning bed legislation in general and for minors in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The possible effect on avifaunas of a hypothetical future warmer climate has recently caused much speculation, frequently ill-founded. On the other hand the actual effects of past warmer interglacials on avifaunas have strangely enough attracted no interest. This paper is an effort to remedy this, by reviewing the avifaunas of the previous interglacial (MIS 5e, 117-130 Ka BP). This interglacial was significantly warmer than the present one, about 2°C in the North Temperate zone and 5°C or more in the Arctic, and may have been the warmest interval since the Pliocene. Most of the known Last Interglacial avifaunas are from the temperate parts of North America and Europe. The scarcity of avifaunas from other areas are due both to a scarcity of Pleistocene avifaunas in general and to rudimentary Quaternary chronologies, which makes it difficult to date faunas older than the last glaciation. In North America. the largest collections are from California and Florida. The Californian faunas are similar to modem faunas, both for seabirds and landbirds, while the Florida faunas contain a number of extralimital Central American and South American species. A small fauna from Arctic Canada (Old Crow Basin) is also similar to modern faunas. In Europe, several faunas from Central Europe differ little from extant faunas in the same areas, while faunas from Great Britain contain some southern (Iberian) species. Material from the southern hemisphere is very limited, and consists of one small fauna from New Zealand which is similar to modern faunas from the same area. The only LIG avifauna that shows dramatic differences from present-day conditions is from southwestern Egypt. This area is now extreme desert but had a rich Afrotropical avifauna during LIG. presumably due to a northward expansion of the African Monsoon. In general it seems that a temperature rise of the order of 2°C does not have a very dramatic impact on temperate avifaunas, while in the tropics changes in precipitation patterns may be more important than temperatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The meta-analysis described in this paper evaluated the relationships between 11 types of leadership practices and 7 organizational, teaming, leader, and employee outcomes. A main focus of analysis was whether the leadership practices were differentially related to the study outcomes. Studies were eligible for inclusion if the correlations between leadership subscale measures (rather than global measures of leadership) and outcomes of interest were reported. The random effects weighted average correlations between the independent and dependent measures were used as the sizes of effects for evaluating the influences of the leadership practices on the outcome measures. One hundred and twelve studies met the inclusion criteria and included 39,433 participants. The studies were conducted in 31 countries in different kinds of programs, organizations, companies, and businesses. Ninety-six percent of the practice-outcome effect sizes were statistically significant where approximately half of the relationships were moderated by organizational types (for-profit, not-for-profit, education, healthcare, government, etc.). Results indicated that the 11 types of leadership practices were differentially related to the study outcomes even in the presence of considerable between study heterogeneity. Implications for leadership development are described.

Teacher agency (TA) has been increasingly supported as an influential factor for teacher professional learning, school improvement and sustainable educational change. Previous studies, however, feature a variety of discrepancies in their conceptualisation and approaches to examining teacher agency. A systematic review is essential to map the field, refine our understanding of the concept and inform relevant stakeholders of useful insights for policy making and further research. After being screened against a number of inclusion criteria, 104 empirical studies were selected to be included in this review. Thematic analysis was adopted for the data analysis of these papers. Findings indicate an imbalance in geographical, theoretical, methodological and thematic distributions in previous studies. Six major themes were identified from the literature: (1) TA enactment, (2) the role of teacher cognition, (3) influential factors, (4) implementing professional development interventions, (5) TA outcomes and (6) TA change trajectory. TA can be extrapolated in terms of its source, enactment and outcomes. Teachers' capacities, implementation strategies, and contextual factors jointly determine the achievement of their professional agency. A conceptual framework for accounting teacher agency holistically is proposed and implications for relevant stakeholders are discussed.

A thematic content analysis of the seven issues (35 papers and two editorials) of the "International Research in Early Childhood Education" ("IRECE") journal published by Monash University in Melbourne, Victoria was conducted to explore the themes over its five years of publication. Publications were grouped into defined data chunks by year and Leximancer was used to discover concepts and themes. Five dominant themes emerged: children/s; childhood; learning; parent/s and teacher/s. Pathway analyses were then conducted to more fully understand and describe each theme. Data were used to visually represent the most frequently appearing terms to form a tag cloud, which in turn contributes to the development of a "folksonomy" for the journal. Finally, mentions of geographic regions were also explored which positively reflected on international focus of the journal.

Background and purpose: The purpose of this work is to summarize cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) research trends and highlights presented at the annual Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (SCMR) scientific sessions over the past 20 years. Methods: Scientific programs from all SCMR Annual Scientific Sessions from 1998 to 2017 were obtained. SCMR Headquarters also provided data for the number and the country of origin of attendees and the number of accepted abstracts according to type. Data analysis included text analysis (key word extraction) and visualization by 'word clouds' representing the most frequently used words in session titles for 5-year intervals. In addition, session titles were sorted into 17 major subject categories to further evaluate research and clinical CMR trends over time. Results: Analysis of SCMR annual scientific sessions locations, attendance, and number of accepted abstracts demonstrated substantial growth of CMR research and clinical applications. As an international field of study, significant growth of CMR was documented by a strong increase in SCMR scientific session attendance (> 500%, 270 to 1406 from 1998 to 2017, number of accepted abstracts (> 700%, 98 to 701 from 1998 to 2018) and number of international participants (42-415% increase for participants from Asia, Central and South America, Middle East and Africa in 2004-2017). 'Word clouds' based evaluation of research trends illustrated a shift from early focus on 'MRI technique feasibility' to new established techniques (e.g. late gadolinium enhancement) and their clinical applications and translation (key words 'patient', 'disease') and more recently novel techniques and quantitative CMR imaging (key words 'mapping', 'T1', 'flow', 'function'). Nearly every topic category demonstrated an increase in the number of sessions over the 20-year period with 'Clinical Practice' leading all categories. Our analysis identified three growth areas 'Congenital', 'Clinical Practice',and 'Structure/function/flow'. Conclusion: The analysis of the SCMR historical archives demonstrates a healthy and internationally active field of study which continues to undergo substantial growth and expansion into new and emerging CMR topics and clinical application areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the taxonomic diversity of the Xylodon raduloides species complex (Hymenochaetales, Basidiomycota) is examined. Specimens were studied using an integrative taxonomic approach that includes molecular phylogenetic and morphological analyses, and environmental niche comparisons. Four different species were found inside the Xylodon raduloides complex, with a biogeographic distribution pattern bound by geographic regions: Europe, North America, Patagonia, and Australia–New Zealand. Molecular, morphological, and environmental evidences delimit two lineages within this complex: a Northern Hemisphere clade with longer basidiospores and wider ranges in temperature and precipitation tolerance, and a Southern Hemisphere clade with smaller and more spherical basidiospores, and an isothermal and more humid climate preference. The integrative taxonomic approach used in this study demonstrates congruence between data sets and shows how morphological and environmental characteristics contribute to the differentiation of fungal species complexes. By combining various sources of taxonomic information, three new species are described: Xylodon laurentianus, X. novozelandicus, and X. patagonicus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vespa velutina nigrithorax is an invasive alien organism that has raised concerns in all beekeeping communities of invaded countries including the Republic of Korea, European countries and Japan. Known also as the yellow-legged hornet (or the 'Asian hornet'), it is native to northern India, eastern Nepal, Bhutan and the People's Republic of China. Given its climatic and biological characteristics and the effects of climate change, some coastal areas of North America, Argentina, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand are also susceptible to invasion. Vespa velutina nigrithorax notably affects managed honey-bee colonies by predation on foragers and causing a reduction in the collection of food resources. Being a generalist predator, the yellow-legged hornet also preys on other managed and wild pollinators, and therefore its impacts are not limited to the beekeeping sector but also represent a biodiversity concern. The purpose of this paper is to provide an assessment of V. v. nigrithorax against the four criteria established in Chapter 1.2. of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) Terrestrial Animal Health Code for the inclusion of a disease, infection or infestation in the OIE list. The work was requested by the OIE Scientific Commission for Animal Diseases and presented to this Commission and to the OIE Terrestrial Animal Health Standards Commission in September 2017. Owing to the lack of effective measures to prevent its spread, the fact that its legal situation in some countries is under the mandate of environmental authorities rather than Veterinary Services, and because it is not considered a disease or parasite, V. v. nigrithorax is not currently being proposed for inclusion in the OIE list. At the end of the text, the statements from the two commissions are included and discussed.

Patient advocacy is based on the premise that people have the right to make their own choices about their health care. Personal advocacy is centred on the experiential expertise of the individual affected by the condition, whereas group advocacy is grounded on patient-centred strategies and actions. The first patient advocacy groups for arthritis were set up over 20 years ago in the USA and have subsequently spread to many other countries. This paper discusses the growth and impact of personal advocacy as well as recent developments in group advocacy in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, and North America, in terms of arthritis awareness, research, corporate partnerships, and the Bone and Joint Decade global initiative.