Investigating how researcher-defined buffers and self-drawn neighbourhoods capture adolescent availability to physical activity facilities and greenspaces: An exploratory study.

BACKGROUND: Modifying the environment is considered an effective population-level approach for increasing healthy behaviours, but associations remain ambiguous. This exploratory study aims to compare researcher-defined buffers and self-drawn neighbourhoods (SDN) to objectively measured availability of physical activity (PA) facilities and greenspaces in adolescents. METHODS: Seven consecutive days of GPS data were collected in an adolescent sample of 14-18 year olds (n = 69). Using Points of Interest and greenspace data, availability of PA opportunities within activity spaces were determined. We compared 30 different definitions of researcher-defined neighbourhoods and SDNs to objectively measured availability. RESULTS: Findings showed low agreement for all researcher-defined buffers in measuring the availability of PA facilities in activity spaces. However, results were less clear for greenspace. SDNs also demonstrate low agreement for capturing availability to the PA environment. CONCLUSION: This exploratory study highlights the inadequacy of researcher-defined buffers and SDNs to define availability to environmental features.

Accuracy of buffers and self-drawn neighbourhoods in representing adolescent GPS measured activity spaces: An exploratory study.

BACKGROUND: There continues to be a lack of understanding as to the geographical area at which the environment exerts influence on behaviour and health. This exploratory study compares different potential methods of both researcher- and participant-defined definitions of neighbourhood reflect an adolescent's activity space. METHODS: Seven consecutive days of global positioning system (GPS) tracking data were collected at 15 s intervals using a small exploratory adolescent sample of 14-18 year olds (n = 69) in West Yorkshire, England. A total of 304,581 GPS tracking points were collected and compared 30 different definitions of researcher-defined neighbourhoods including radial, network and ellipse buffers at 400 m, 800 m, 1000 m, 1600 m and 3000 m, as well as participant-defined self-drawn neighbourhoods. RESULTS: This exploratory study supports emerging evidence cautioning against the use of static neighbourhood definitions for defining exposure. Traditional buffers (network and radial) capture at most 67% of activity space (home radial), and at worst they captured only 3.5% (school network) and range from capturing between 3 and 88% of total time. Similarly, self-drawn neighbourhoods captured only 10% of actual daily movement. Interestingly, 40% of an adolescent's self-drawn neighbourhood was not used. We also demonstrate that buffers capture a range of space (22-95%) where adolescents do not go, thus misclassifying the exposure. CONCLUSION: Our exploratory findings demonstrate that neither researcher- nor participant-defined definition of neighbourhood adequately captures adolescent activity space. Further research with larger samples are needed to confirm the findings of this exploratory study.

Transport properties of local thermodynamic equilibrium hydrogen plasmas including electronically excited states.

A study of the dependence of transport coefficients (thermal conductivity, viscosity, electrical conductivity) of local thermodynamic equilibrium H2 plasmas on the presence of electronically atomic excited states, H(n), is reported. The results show that excited states with their "abnormal" cross sections strongly affect the transport coefficients especially at high pressure. Large relative errors are found when comparing the different quantities with the corresponding values obtained by using ground-state transport cross sections. The accuracy of the present calculation is finally discussed in the light of the selection of transport cross sections and in dependence of the considered number of excited states.

Electronically excited states and transport properties of thermal plasmas: the reactive thermal conductivity.

The role of excited states in affecting the transport of ionization energy in thermal plasmas in the temperature range 10,000 < or = T < or = 25,000 K is discussed by taking into account the dependence of diffusion cross sections on principal quantum number. The results show a strong effect at high pressure, while compensation effects reduce the role of excited states at atmospheric pressure. Extension of the results to nonequilibrium situations is discussed by presenting calculations of effective multicomponent diffusion coefficients. In this case also the presence of excited states dramatically affects these coefficients.