Motivating Diabetic and Hypertensive Patients to Engage in Regular Physical Activity: A Multi-Component Intervention Derived from the Concept of Photovoice.

Aims: A community-based multi-component intervention (increasing awareness of the importance of physical activity in chronic illness management through reading comic books, training regarding warm-up stretching exercises, identifying facilitators and barriers to exercise through photosharing, supporting self-reflection and development of action plans) was developed to promote physical activity (PA) among patients with diabetes and hypertension. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of this intervention on health behaviour (walking) and health outcomes. Design: A non-randomized controlled trial with waitlisted control and pre- and post-measures. Setting: Community centres for the elderly. Participants: A total of 204 older adults with diabetes and/or hypertension were recruited. They were assigned to either the intervention group (IG) or waitlisted to the control group (CG). Intervention: Under the supervision of a nurse, six weekly group meetings were arranged in community centres for the elderly in which the participants freely exchanged their views regarding the barriers and facilitators of regular physical activity. Participants were encouraged to take photos in their neighbourhood or at home and brought these photos to share at the group meetings. The photos showed both the barriers and the facilitators to PA. In the last meeting, each participant worked out a plan to perform PA in the coming four weeks. Measures: PA referred to the number of steps taken per day and it was measured by a Garmin Accelerometer at baseline, Week 6 and Week 10. Other measures included the nine-item Self-Efficacy Scale for Exercise⁻Chinese version (SEE-C), and the 23-item Chinese Barriers to Exercise Scale and Senior Fitness Tests. Generalised estimating equations (GEE) models compared the outcomes over time between IG and CG. Results: A statistically significant difference in the changes in the average number of steps taken daily between the two groups at Week 10 (mean difference = 965.4; 95% confidence interval: 92.2, 1838.6, p = 0.030) was observed, although the difference at Week 6 was non-significant (mean difference = 777.6; 95% confidence interval: -35.3, 1590.5, p = 0.061). IG participants also showed significant improvements in lower body strength (mean difference = 0.967; 95% confidence interval: 0.029, 1.904, p = 0.043) and lower limb flexibility (mean difference = 2.068; 95% confidence interval: 0.404, 3.731, p = 0.015) at Week 10 compared to CG participants. Conclusion: This multi-component intervention improved the participants' physical activity level and physical fitness, particularly in lower limb flexibility and body strength.

Compatibility of DNA IQ™, QIAamp® DNA Investigator, and QIAsymphony® DNA Investigator® with various fingerprint treatments.

Latent fingerprint and touch DNA are the two most important contact evidence for individualization in forensic science which provide complementary information that can lead to direct and unequivocal identification of the culprit. In order to retrieve useful information from both fingerprints and DNA, which are usually mingled together, one strategy is to perform fingerprint examination prior to DNA analysis since common DNA sampling technique such as swabbing could disturb or even destroy fingerprint details. Here, we describe the compatibility of three automatic DNA extraction systems, namely, DNA IQ™, QIAamp® DNA Investigator, and QIAsymphony® DNA Investigator®, with respective to the effects of various fingerprint detection techniques. Our results demonstrate that Super Glue fingerprint treatment followed by DNA IQ™ extraction shows better effectiveness in DNA profiling. Aluminum powder dusting offers the least interference to the three DNA extraction systems above. Magnetic powder dusting, on the other hand, strongly impedes DNA recovery. Physical Developer is the most intrusive, which yields profiles with poor quality, including lower peak heights, poor peak height ratios, and poor intra-color balance. In terms of the choice of extraction method, DNA IQ™ system is recommended for sampling after fingerprint treatments, but not the two DNA Investigator systems.

High-Q/V air-mode photonic crystal cavities at microwave frequencies.

We present results for a photonic microwave resonator designed and fabricated at 17.4 GHz with a record high Quality factor (Q=26,400) at room temperature over a mode volume smaller than one cubic wavelength. The cavity is uniquely designed to have its electric field concentrated in air, which allows for efficient coupling to free space and facilitates interactions with gaseous atomic systems and fluids.

The application of capillary electrophoresis for enantiomeric separation of N,N-dimethylamphetamine and its related analogs: intelligence study on N,N-dimethylamphetamine samples in crystalline and tablet forms.

This paper reports a new capillary zone electrophoresis method for the simultaneous chiral determination of the enantiomers of N,N-dimethylamphetamine (DMA), methamphetamine (MA), ephedrine (E), pseudoephedrine (PE) and methylephedrine (Me-E). In this study, a number of electophoretic parameters were examined and optimized including the choice of chiral selectors, the use of short-chain tetraalkylammonium cations, the effect of chiral selector concentration, buffer concentration, applied voltage and capillary temperature. Heptakis(2,6-di-O-methyl)-beta-cyclodextrin (DM-beta-CD) and tetrabutylammonium (TBA) being the best chiral selector and buffer cation, respectively, the optimized electrophoretic conditions were found to be: 20 mM DM-beta-CD, 50 mM TBAPO(4) at pH 2.5, applied voltage at 30 kV and temperature at 25 degrees C. Under the optimized conditions, all analytes were well separated with resolution factors between 3.3 and 24.0 achieved. Using phentermine as an internal standard, the intra-day (n=8) precisions for the relative migration times and peak areas of all analytes were below 1.09%, while the inter-day precisions (n=12, 6 days) for the relative migration times and peak areas of all analytes were under 3.77%. This method has been applied to the measurement of the enantiomeric purities of the seized DMA samples. The result of the measurement could provide important clues about the possible synthetic pathways of these samples.