A cluster-randomised, controlled trial to assess the impact of a workplace osteoporosis prevention intervention on the dietary and physical activity behaviours of working women: study protocol

Background Osteoporosis is a debilitating disease and its risk can be reduced through adequate calcium consumption and physical activity. This protocol paper describes a workplace-based intervention targeting behaviour change in premenopausal women working in sedentary occupations. Method/Design A cluster-randomised design was used, comparing the efficacy of a tailored intervention to standard care. Workplaces were the clusters and units of randomisation and intervention. Sample size calculations incorporated the cluster design. Final number of clusters was determined to be 16, based on a cluster size of 20 and calcium intake parameters (effect size 250 mg, ICC 0.5 and standard deviation 290 mg) as it required the highest number of clusters. Sixteen workplaces were recruited from a pool of 97 workplaces and randomly assigned to intervention and control arms (eight in each). Women meeting specified inclusion criteria were then recruited to participate. Workplaces in the intervention arm received three participatory workshops and organisation wide educational activities. Workplaces in the control/standard care arm received print resources. Intervention workshops were guided by self-efficacy theory and included participatory activities such as goal setting, problem solving, local food sampling, exercise trials, group discussion and behaviour feedback. Outcomes measures were calcium intake (milligrams/day) and physical activity level (duration: minutes/week), measured at baseline, four weeks and six months post intervention. Discussion This study addresses the current lack of evidence for behaviour change interventions focussing on osteoporosis prevention. It addresses missed opportunities of using workplaces as a platform to target high-risk individuals with sedentary occupations. The intervention was designed to modify behaviour levels to bring about risk reduction. It is the first to address dietary and physical activity components each with unique intervention strategies in the context of osteoporosis prevention. The intervention used locally relevant behavioural strategies previously shown to support good outcomes in other countries. The combination of these elements have not been incorporated in similar studies in the past, supporting the study hypothesis that the intervention will be more efficacious than standard practice in osteoporosis prevention through improvements in calcium intake and physical activity.

Australia and the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, 1945–1974

This volume in the Documents on Australian Foreign Policy series draws on unpublished records from the National Archives of Australia to document the negotiation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) from an Australian perspective. Commencing with early post-war efforts to control nuclear energy following the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the volumes traces Australia’s changing attitude to the issue of nuclear arms control and disarmament during the Cold War years of the 1950s and 1960s and its ambiguous approach to the acquisition of nuclear weapons in the subsequent negotiation of the NPT. Signed by the Gorton government in 1970 after considerable debate in the policymaking community in Canberra, the treaty was ratified by the Whitlam government in 1973 and has since formed a fundamental plank in Australian attitudes and policies towards international efforts to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons.

The senseless war : the sentencing drug offenses arms race

There has been a considerable increase in the penalties for drug trafficking following the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs 1961, over fifty years ago. In many parts of the world, the sanctions are as severe as those for homicide and rape. This penalty escalation is at odds with the counter movement to decriminalise illicit drugs. Drug supplying is the only serious crime where there are widespread moves to decriminalize the main outcome of the crime – the use illicit drugs. This paper explores this paradox. It also examines the rationales for the increasingly harsh penalties for drug suppliers. We conclude that while there is no conclusive argument in favour of the decriminalizing drugs, the weight of empirical data does not establish any concrete benefits stemming from severe penalties for serious drug offenses. In particular, there is no correlation between longer prison terms for drug offenders and a reduction in the availability and use of drugs. We propose that the penalties for drug offenses should be reduced considerably. There is no useful objective that can be achieved by a twenty-five-year term of imprisonment that cannot be achieved by a term of five to ten years. A more measured sentencing response to serious drug offense penalties would make sentencing fairer and enable billions of dollars currently directed to imprisonment to be spent on more pressing community needs.

Report of Captain A. B. Thomas, naval commandant on the Victorian Navy : from 1883 to 1886, together with regulations for permanent naval forces and naval brigade

Details the operations of the Victorian Navy for the period 1883 to 1886, including information on ships, training, stores, list of officers on the active and unattached list, list of ships including their armament, and the regulations under which the navy ran.

Kinematic analysis and workspace determination of hexarot-a novel 6-DOF parallel manipulator with a rotation-symmetric arm system

Parallel mechanisms possess several advantages such as the possibilities for high acceleration and high accuracy positioning of the end effector. However, most of the proposed parallel manipulators suffer from a limited workspace. In this paper, a novel 6-DOF parallel manipulator with coaxial actuated arms is introduced. Since parallel mechanisms have more workspace limitations compared to that of serial mechanisms, determination of the workspace in parallel manipulators is of the utmost importance. For finding position, angular velocity, and acceleration, in this paper, inverse and forward kinematics of the mechanism are studied and after presenting the workspace limitations, workspace analysis of the hexarot manipulator is performed by using MATLAB software. Next, using the obtained cloud of points from simulation, the overall borders of the workspace are illustrated. Finally, it is shown that this manipulator has the important benefits of combining a large positional workspace in relation to its footprint with a sizable range of platform rotations.

Functionalism, co-operation, good faith, and the making of the "daily-preventive justice" in contract law theory and practice. A contribution to a rational understanding of good faith and to its future reseasonable developments. Evaluations from

The thoughts and observations contained in this paper were first presented in a preliminary form at the Staff Seminar that I gave at the University of Cape Town (UCT) - Department of Private Law, on Tuesday May 8 2012. The organizers generously offered me a free choice of subject. Such an offer always poses a problem to imaginative people like myself. I finally chose as my subject the role of good faith in contract law theory and practice and then entitled the Seminar “Good Faith & Contracts - Brothers in Arms”. The aim of the talk was to briefly describe what I see behind the doctrine of good faith (and, more broadly, behind the general course of the parties’ behavior before and after the conclusion of an agreement), to then explain the need of its protection and future reasonable developments by challenging the limitations of both traditional and current legal approaches to contract law theory and practice. By adopting a comparative modus investigandi, it emerged that especially in the area of contract law a new law-finding process is emerging in the European continent and it is leading to re-conceive the meta-national legislative interventions by challenging the limits of Hobbes’s Leviathan. As asserted, we ought to not take this process for granted because although there are many forms of social organization, contract is the most pervasive and the law of contract still is the most important vehicle to support and supplement private arrangements. However, the point of departure for theorizing about private law is based on experience. Consequently, despite the growing emphasis on the convergence of national legal systems in Europe, conducting research on private law theory and practice requires that imagination and creativity be matched with prudence. Proficiency has to be aligned with what we have learned from history.

Effect of increasing dietary calcium through supplements and dairy food on body weight and body composition: a meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials

This meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials assessed the effect of Ca on body weight and body composition through supplementation or increasing dairy food intake. Forty-one studies met the inclusion criteria (including fifty-one trial arms; thirty-one with dairy foods (n 2091), twenty with Ca supplements (n 2711). Ca intake was approximately 900 mg/d higher in the supplement groups compared with control. In the dairy group, Ca intake was approximately 1300 mg/d. Ca supplementation did not significantly affect body weight (mean change ( - 0·17, 95 % CI - 0·70, 0·37) kg) or body fat (mean change ( - 0·19, 95 % CI - 0·51, 0·13) kg) compared to control. Similarly, increased dairy food intake did not affect body weight ( - 0·06, 95 % CI - 0·54, 0·43) kg or body fat change ( - 0·36, 95 % CI - 0·80, 0·09) kg compared to control. Sub-analyses revealed that dairy supplementation resulted in no change in body weight (nineteen studies, n 1010) ( - 0·32, 95 % CI - 0·93, 0·30 kg, P= 0·31), but a greater reduction in body fat (thirteen studies, n 564) ( - 0·96, 95 % CI - 1·46, - 0·46 kg, P < 0·001) in the presence of energy restriction over a mean of 4 months compared to control. Increasing dietary Ca intake by 900 mg/d as supplements or increasing dairy intake to approximately 3 servings daily (approximately 1300 mg of Ca/d) is not an effective weight reduction strategy in adults. There is, however, an indication that approximately 3 servings of dairy may facilitate fat loss on weight reduction diets in the short term.

The getting physical on cigarettes trial: rationale and methods

Smoking cessation success rates are generally dismal amongst self-quitters, with a discrepancy apparent among sexes with women having lower cessation rates than men (Osler, Prescott, Godtfredsen, Hein, & Schnohr, 1999; Royce, Corbett, Sorensen, & Ockene, 1997; Wetter et al., 1999). The Getting Physical on Cigarettes project aims to be the first clinical trial to appropriately evaluate the effectiveness of home-based lifestyle exercise maintenance program in assisting women to prevent smoking relapse and maintain exercise and weight following the termination of a structured and supervised exercise and nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) smoking cessation intervention. This paper outlines the rationale and methods of the trial - a supervised exercise and NRT program lasting 14 weeks, which is followed by a home-based exercise maintenance program. Sedentary female smokers will be randomized into one of four research arms: Exercise Maintenance; Exercise Maintenance + Relapse Prevention Booklets; Relapse Prevention Booklets + Contact; Contact Control. The Exercise Maintenance groups will be counseled on maintaining exercise in their home environment, while the other groups will be counseled on health issues not involving exercise or smoking. The "Forever Free" booklet series (Brandon, Collins, Juliano, & Lazev, 2000) will be distributed to participants in the Relapse Prevention groups. The primary outcome measure is continuous smoking abstinence. Secondary outcomes are exercise behaviour, and selected physiological and psychological variables. Results will assist researchers and health professionals develop and implement similar treatment interventions that are grounded in behaviour change theory.

From the inside to the outside. Architecture Venice Biennales 2014 and 2016

The comparison between the Position Statements of the latest two Venice Biennale of Architecture, Fundamentals, directed by Rem Koolhaas in 2014 and Reporting from the front that Alejandro Aravena prepares for 2016, is an evident sign of the internal stress that architectural practice has been suffering during the last decade. Koolhaas intensively focused on the immediate past whilst Aravena presents a Biennalle strongly decided to explore possible alternatives for the future of Architecture. The first one tried to define the core, theessence, the most elemental particles that utterly compose Architecture. The second looks at the boundaries, the periphery, the outskirts, the limits of the discipline. Fundamentals was theoretical, personal, abstract, compact and aesthetic. Reporting from the front will be practical, collective, concrete, permeable and ethical. This fertile antagonism or counterpoint between both approaches is too frequently understood as incompatible. However, as a matter of fact the coexistence of these two different perspectives within architectural practice is the mostdistinctive feature of the complex contemporary architectural landscape. The insertion of the analysis of both position statements within the historical evolution of the Venice Bienale since 1980, allows a reinterpretation of the antagonism between the two exhibitions and evidences some lines of thought and action in the architectural world. Following the war industry terminology that Report from the front has chosen, Aravena identifies with precision the theatre of operations; the space and time that is requesting an urgent response from architecture.Previously Koolhaas had defined the armament that Architecture has available to undertake this crucial mission: to define the role and relevance of Architecture in the immediate future. Until now, battles in the front have been a guerrilla warfare. More reactive than proactive. Battles for survival more than for experience. Necessary but, at the same time, insufficient. Valuable actions in radical contexts; heroic acts in extreme situations; occasional infiltrations that find their final reason for being in their own audacity. Time has come for these counterattackarchitectures to evolve from protests to proposals.