Wrist-worn accelerometers are emerging as the most common instrument for measuring physical activity in large-scale epidemiological studies, though little is known about the relationship between ...wrist acceleration and physical activity energy expenditure (PAEE).
1695 UK adults wore two devices simultaneously for six days; a combined sensor and a wrist accelerometer. The combined sensor measured heart rate and trunk acceleration, which was combined with a treadmill test to yield a signal of individually-calibrated PAEE. Multi-level regression models were used to characterise the relationship between the two time-series, and their estimations were evaluated in an independent holdout sample. Finally, the relationship between PAEE and BMI was described separately for each source of PAEE estimate (wrist acceleration models and combined-sensing).
Wrist acceleration explained 44-47% between-individual variance in PAEE, with RMSE between 34-39 J•min-1•kg-1. Estimations agreed well with PAEE in cross-validation (mean bias 95% limits of agreement: 0.07 -70.6:70.7) but overestimated in women by 3% and underestimated in men by 4%. Estimation error was inversely related to age (-2.3 J•min-1•kg-1 per 10y) and BMI (-0.3 J•min-1•kg-1 per kg/m2). Associations with BMI were similar for all PAEE estimates (approximately -0.08 kg/m2 per J•min-1•kg-1).
A strong relationship exists between wrist acceleration and PAEE in free-living adults, such that irrespective of the objective method of PAEE assessment, a strong inverse association between PAEE and BMI was observed.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
In 'James Hardie Industries plc v White', the New Zealand Court of Appeal considered circumstances where a parent company could be directly liable for defective products produced by its subsidiary ...while upholding the principles behind separate corporate personality. The Court passed off the case as an unexceptional development in the law, based on an application of ordinary tort law principles and supported by decisions from overseas jurisdictions. However, the Court neglected to consider the underlying policies of the cases it cited, ignored important distinctions between them and the present case and did not inquire into whether they were in fact relevantly applicable. In fact, the Court extended parent company liability for the acts and omissions of its subsidiary far beyond what courts in overseas jurisdictions have held. In doing so, the Court implicitly lifted the corporate veil and failed to acknowledge the impact such a finding of liability would have on the corporate form.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, PRFLJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Physical activity has not been objectively measured in prospective cohorts with sufficiently large numbers to reliably detect associations with multiple health outcomes. Technological advances now ...make this possible. We describe the methods used to collect and analyse accelerometer measured physical activity in over 100,000 participants of the UK Biobank study, and report variation by age, sex, day, time of day, and season.
Participants were approached by email to wear a wrist-worn accelerometer for seven days that was posted to them. Physical activity information was extracted from 100Hz raw triaxial acceleration data after calibration, removal of gravity and sensor noise, and identification of wear / non-wear episodes. We report age- and sex-specific wear-time compliance and accelerometer measured physical activity, overall and by hour-of-day, week-weekend day and season.
103,712 datasets were received (44.8% response), with a median wear-time of 6.9 days (IQR:6.5-7.0). 96,600 participants (93.3%) provided valid data for physical activity analyses. Vector magnitude, a proxy for overall physical activity, was 7.5% (2.35mg) lower per decade of age (Cohen's d = 0.9). Women had a higher vector magnitude than men, apart from those aged 45-54yrs. There were major differences in vector magnitude by time of day (d = 0.66). Vector magnitude differences between week and weekend days (d = 0.12 for men, d = 0.09 for women) and between seasons (d = 0.27 for men, d = 0.15 for women) were small.
It is feasible to collect and analyse objective physical activity data in large studies. The summary measure of overall physical activity is lower in older participants and age-related differences in activity are most prominent in the afternoon and evening. This work lays the foundation for studies of physical activity and its health consequences. Our summary variables are part of the UK Biobank dataset and can be used by researchers as exposures, confounding factors or outcome variables in future analyses.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The Middle to Later Stone Age transition in Africa has been debated as a significant shift in human technological, cultural, and cognitive evolution. However, the majority of research on this ...transition is currently focused on southern Africa due to a lack of long-term, stratified sites across much of the African continent. Here, we report a 78,000-year-long archeological record from Panga ya Saidi, a cave in the humid coastal forest of Kenya. Following a shift in toolkits ~67,000 years ago, novel symbolic and technological behaviors assemble in a non-unilinear manner. Against a backdrop of a persistent tropical forest-grassland ecotone, localized innovations better characterize the Late Pleistocene of this part of East Africa than alternative emphases on dramatic revolutions or migrations.
ABSTRACT
The timing and extent of late Middle Pleistocene glaciations in England and the southern North Sea are controversial topics. The recent Trent Valley Palaeolithic Project uncovered evidence ...for a post‐Anglian, pre‐Devensian glaciation that affected much of central and eastern England; the Wragby Till of Lincolnshire is associated with this glacial event, attributed here to Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 8. Coeval glacigenic deposits in the Middle Trent suggest that both western and eastern lobes of MIS 8 ice reached the Derby area. These various deposits have been assigned previously to MIS 12, 10 or 6, although the last can be excluded for the Wragby Till, which is overlain by Trent terrace deposits assigned to MIS 7 (from biostratigraphy and amino acid dating). The disposition of these glacigenic deposits within the landscape, particularly in relation to terrace deposits of the ancestral River Trent, and the absence of MIS 11 and 9 deposits within the footprint of the glaciation also provide compelling evidence. At its maximum extent in eastern England the MIS 8 ice reached the Peterborough area; identifying its extension (or otherwise) into areas such as north‐west Norfolk and the West Midlands requires further work.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Aminostratigraphies of Quaternary non-marine deposits in Europe have been previously based on the racemization of a single amino acid in aragonitic shells from land and freshwater molluscs. The value ...of analysing multiple amino acids from the opercula of the freshwater gastropod Bithynia, which are composed of calcite, has been demonstrated. The protocol used for the isolation of intra-crystalline proteins from shells has been applied to these calcitic opercula, which have been shown to more closely approximate a closed system for indigenous protein residues. Original amino acids are even preserved in bithyniid opercula from the Eocene, showing persistence of indigenous organics for over 30 million years. Geochronological data from opercula are superior to those from shells in two respects: first, in showing less natural variability, and second, in the far better preservation of the intra-crystalline proteins, possibly resulting from the greater stability of calcite. These features allow greater temporal resolution and an extension of the dating range beyond the early Middle Pleistocene. Here we provide full details of the analyses for 480 samples from 100 horizons (75 sites), ranging from Late Pliocene to modern. These show that the dating technique is applicable to the entire Quaternary. Data are provided from all the stratotypes from British stages to have yielded opercula, which are shown to be clearly separable using this revised method. Further checks on the data are provided by reference to other type-sites for different stages (including some not formally defined). Additional tests are provided by sites with independent geochronology, or which can be associated with a terrace stratigraphy or biostratigraphy. This new aminostratigraphy for the non-marine Quaternary deposits of southern Britain provides a framework for understanding the regional geological and archaeological record. Comparison with reference to sites yielding independent geochronology, in combination with other lines of evidence, allows tentative correlation with the marine oxygen isotope record.
► A stratigraphy using the intra-crystalline protein from the calcitic opercula of Bithynia is presented. ► Focused on Britain, but also using samples from a few continental sites, the coverage has been extended back to ∼3 Ma. ► This aminostratigraphy is consistent with independent geochronology, terrace stratigraphy and biostratigraphy. ► The aminostratigraphic framework has been linked to the marine oxygen isotope stratigraphy.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
The Asian land snail species Bensonella plicidens (Benson, 1849) is enigmatic due to its extremely disjunct distribution. That is, it has been reported from the Himalaya, in Eastern China and Japan, ...and one subspecies was described from Taiwan. This distribution type has not been reported in any other land snails. It is also notable that some specimens identified as B. plicidens have 'normal' plica-like apertural barriers, while others have hook-like projections in the middle of the interrupted barriers, and the hooks point to the outside of the aperture. We examined several Bensonella samples and arrived at the following conclusions: (1) Bensonella plicidens has normal plica-like apertural barriers without hooks, and the Himalayan species with hook-like barriers is a new species, Bensonella hooki Páll-Gergely sp. nov.; (2) the species with hooked barriers recorded from Japan, Taiwan and eastern China differs from both Himalayan species (i.e. Bensonella plicidens and B. hooki sp. nov.), and the name Bensonella lakainguta Hwang, 2014 is available for it; (3) hooked apertural barriers have evolved repeatedly in the Hypselostomatidae and therefore cannot be used as a distinguishing character for the genus Bensonella. Bifidaria (Bensonella) landourensis Pilsbry, 1915 and Boysidia (Bensonella) qingliangfengensis F. Fang, J. Wang and Y. Chen, 2015 are junior synonyms of B. plicidens and B. lakainguta, respectively. Since the type species of Paraboysidia Pilsbry, 1917 and Bensonella Pilsbry and Vanatta, 1900 are very similar in all important shell characters, we consider the former to be a junior synonym of the latter.
http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:0E1DA12A-0ECA-4280-B9ED-C99A43B14686
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BFBNIB, DOBA, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Pleistocene hominin dispersals out of, and back into, Africa necessarily involved traversing the diverse and often challenging environments of Southwest Asia
. Archaeological and palaeontological ...records from the Levantine woodland zone document major biological and cultural shifts, such as alternating occupations by Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. However, Late Quaternary cultural, biological and environmental records from the vast arid zone that constitutes most of Southwest Asia remain scarce, limiting regional-scale insights into changes in hominin demography and behaviour
. Here we report a series of dated palaeolake sequences, associated with stone tool assemblages and vertebrate fossils, from the Khall Amayshan 4 and Jubbah basins in the Nefud Desert. These findings, including the oldest dated hominin occupations in Arabia, reveal at least five hominin expansions into the Arabian interior, coinciding with brief 'green' windows of reduced aridity approximately 400, 300, 200, 130-75 and 55 thousand years ago. Each occupation phase is characterized by a distinct form of material culture, indicating colonization by diverse hominin groups, and a lack of long-term Southwest Asian population continuity. Within a general pattern of African and Eurasian hominin groups being separated by Pleistocene Saharo-Arabian aridity, our findings reveal the tempo and character of climatically modulated windows for dispersal and admixture.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK, ZAGLJ
ABSTRACT
Research over the last two decades has revealed a rich record of Lower Palaeolithic occupation in Britain before 450 000 years. Acheulean industries (Mode II) first appear in the later part ...of the early Middle Pleistocene Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 19–13. This paper reviews: (i) the age of the earliest Acheulean in Britain; (ii) the climates under which the earliest Acheulean industries occur, as recorded by the palaeoecological assemblages that are found at key archaeological sites; and (iii) the spatial and temporal pattern of regional climate change, i.e. the magnitude of glacial/interglacial cycles that occurred as a backdrop to the first arrival of Mode II archaeology in Britain. This review suggests that in Britain, the earliest Acheulean populations arrived during MIS 13 and that early occupation occurred under a range of climatic/environmental settings but frequently under post‐temperate late interglacial or interstadial‐type cool boreal environments. Furthermore, this review shows that the pattern of climate forcing in Western Europe during MIS 13–12 was not analogous to the interglacial cycles of the past 450 000 years as latitudinal climate gradients appear to have been less pronounced. The paper concludes by discussing the significance of these observations for understanding the arrival of the earliest Acheulean in Britain.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
ABSTRACT
The Last Interglacial LIG, equivalent to marine isotope stage (MIS) 5e was a period of enhanced global warmth, with potential significance for understanding future climate warming. It has ...long been proposed that the LIG in Britain (the Ipswichian Interglacial) was significantly warmer than present, based on the occurrence of fossils of extant thermophilous plant and animal species intolerant of the current climate. Here, we review the evidence for palaeotemperatures that can be derived from such fossil taxa (beetles, ostracods, plant macrofossils and herpetiles) to assess the level of warmth that Britain experienced during the LIG. Quantified palaeotemperature reconstructions generated for eight British sequences indicate that the LIG was likely to have been warmer than the present but at only one site (Trafalgar Square) is there strong evidence for climates that were significantly warmer than those experienced during the Holocene. Consequently, while there is evidence to support the idea that the thermal regime of the LIG in Britain was different from that of the Holocene, this evidence is restricted to a single site. The paper concludes by discussing the thermal regime of the LIG in Britain in the context of its role as an analogue for future warming in the 21st century and beyond.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
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