BACKGROUND physical activity (PA) is an important factor to promote healthy ageing. However, older adults are not physically active enough. Socio-ecological models suggest that weather conditions are determinants of PA and may bias relations between other environmental factors and PA. This may especially be the case for the most vulnerable and inactive older persons. Understanding the role of w...

A multivariate, nonparametric time series simulation method is provided to generate random sequences of daily weather variables that “honor” the statistical properties of the historical data of the same weather variables at the site. A vector of weather variables (solar radiation, maximum temperature, minimum temperature, average dew point temperature, average wind speed, and precipitation) on ...

Both cereal staples and household diets can be manipulated to enhance the content of micronutrients and/or alter the levels of absorption modifiers to improve micronutrient bioavailability. Strategies described range from plant breeding, use of fertilizers and genetic engineering to changes in food preparation and processing methods at the household level involving soaking, fermentation and ger...

Appropriate benchmarks for water productivity (WP), defined here as the amount of grain yield produced per unit of water supply, are needed to help identify and diagnose inefficiencies in crop production and water management in irrigated systems. Such analysis is lacking for maize in the Western U.S. Corn Belt where irrigated production represents 58% of total maize output. The objective of thi...

PURPOSE Little is known about how seasonal variation in physical activity relates to declining physical activity in adolescence. We quantified how each of daily weather conditions and season affect physical activity during adolescence. METHODS We followed 1293 students, initially aged 12 to 13 years over 5 years. Participants completed a 7-day physical activity recall checklist every 3 months...

We evaluated the ability of the WGEN model to generate long term weather series in situations where the actual historic weather data record is only 3–10 years long. The series generated were used to simulate yield of irrigated and rainfed chickpea. To do this, four 100-year samples of weather data were generated for Tabriz, Iran. The WGEN parameters used to generate data were obtained from dail...

BACKGROUND Weather variables affect dengue transmission. This study aimed to identify a dengue weather correlation pattern in Kandy, Sri Lanka, compare the results with results of similar studies, and establish ways for better control and prevention of dengue. METHOD We collected data on reported dengue cases in Kandy and mid-year population data from 2003 to 2012, and calculated weekly incid...