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We report the first result of a direct search for a cosmic axion background (CaB)-a relativistic background of axions that is not dark matter-performed with the axion haloscope, the Axion Dark Matter eXperiment (ADMX). Conventional haloscope analyses search for a signal with a narrow bandwidth, as predicted for dark matter, whereas the CaB will be broad. We introduce a novel analysis strategy, which searches for a CaB induced daily modulation in the power measured by the haloscope. Using this, we repurpose data collected to search for dark matter to set a limit on the axion photon coupling of a CaB originating from dark matter cascade decay via a mediator in the 800-995 MHz frequency range. We find that the present sensitivity is limited by fluctuations in the cavity readout as the instrument scans across dark matter masses. Nevertheless, we suggest that these challenges can be surmounted using superconducting qubits as single photon counters, and allow ADMX to operate as a telescope searching for axions emerging from the decay of dark matter. The daily modulation analysis technique we introduce can be deployed for various broadband rf signals, such as other forms of a CaB or even high-frequency gravitational waves.

Background: Fundamental Motor Skills (FMS) are important building blocks for children's sport-participation and lifelong physical activity. In the last decade, several international studies have reported delays in the development of FMS. To get better insight into the Dutch situation and to provide future directions, this study examined the development of FMS in Dutch primary school children. Method: The main goal of this study is to compare FMS of 11-12-year-old Dutch children in 2016 with scores of similarly-aged-children in 2006. In addition, gender, age, BMI were taken into account, to see whether changes in motor performance are related to these child characteristics. FMS-test scores on seven motor competence tests (balance, swing, jump, roll, shoot, throwing and catching, and tennis) from 1939 children in 2016 were set side by side with those of 1648 children in 2006. Temporal changes in motor competence scores were analyzed using regression-analysis. Results: This cross-sectional study shows better results for the children in 2006 compared to similarly-aged-children in 2016. Lower scores were found on six out of seven tested FMS, with the largest declines on the object control skills tennis and throwing and catching. Only vaulting jump skills remained on the same level. Overall, children with a higher BMI scored lower on all tests, except for throwing and catching via the wall. On the balancing, jumping and tennis test, the gap with children with a lower BMI widened over the last decade. Girls showed a lower competence level on rolling, shooting and throwing and catching compared to boys. During the last decade, their performance on the tennis test decreased more than for boys. Conclusions: Results of this study are alarming as diminishing motor skills are related to lower sport participation and poorer health outcomes. For the future generation, new interventions are needed to help children reach a sufficient proficiency level in FMS, to prevent or overcome the negative effects of lowered motor skills. Targeting FMS components during physical education and outside of school hours may potentially be a valuable strategy in reverting the lowering FMS levels amongst children.

Disability measures in multiple sclerosis (MS) rely heavily on ambulatory function, and current metrics fail to capture potentially important variability in walking behavior. We sought to determine whether remote step count monitoring using a consumer-friendly accelerometer (Fitbit Flex) can enhance MS disability assessment. 99 adults with relapsing or progressive MS able to walk ≥2-min were prospectively recruited. At 4 weeks, study retention was 97% and median Fitbit use was 97% of days. Substudy validation resulted in high interclass correlations between Fitbit, ActiGraph and manual step count tally during a 2-minute walk test, and between Fitbit and ActiGraph (ICC = 0.76) during 7-day home monitoring. Over 4 weeks of continuous monitoring, daily steps were lower in progressive versus relapsing MS (mean difference 2546 steps, p

We present a precision medicine application developed for multiple sclerosis (MS): the MS BioScreen. This new tool addresses the challenges of dynamic management of a complex chronic disease; the interaction of clinicians and patients with such a tool illustrates the extent to which translational digital medicine - that is, the application of information technology to medicine - has the potential to radically transform medical practice. We introduce 3 key evolutionary phases in displaying data to health care providers, patients, and researchers: visualization (accessing data), contextualization (understanding the data), and actionable interpretation (real-time use of the data to assist decision making). Together, these form the stepping stones that are expected to accelerate standardization of data across platforms, promote evidence-based medicine, support shared decision making, and ultimately lead to improved outcomes.

Background: Many children aged 9-12 appear to have low levels of fundamental movement skills (FMS). Physical education (PE) is important because PE-teachers can teach children a variety of FMS and can influence PE-motivation. However, declined levels of PE-motivation are reported in the final grades of elementary school. Therefore, more insight in the relations between PE-motivation and FMS is needed. Purposes: In the first phase, instruments to measure the satisfaction of basic psychological needs (competence, autonomy, classmate relatedness and teacher relatedness) and PE-motivation (autonomous and controlled) in 9-12-year-old children were developed and validated. The purpose of the second phase was to examine the influence of basic psychological needs on PE-motivation, the influence of PE-motivation on locomotor skills, object control skills and balance skills, and the direct influence of basic psychological needs on FMS for boys and girls aged 9-12. Participants and data collection: In the first phase, 172 children (82 boys, 90 girls, M = 10.72 years + 0.77) filled out questionnaires assessing the satisfaction of their basic psychological needs and motivation for PE. Forty-eight children completed the questionnaires again 4 weeks later. In the second phase, a total of 138 children (66 boys, 72 girls, 10.8 years + 0.79) (three schools from phase 1 and one new school) participated. Children from the new school also completed the questionnaires and all children conducted the subtest for speed and agility, upper limb coordination and balance of the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency 2. Data analysis: In phase 1, linear weighted Kappa's and the Mokken Scale Program for polychotomous items were used to test reliability and validity. In phase 2, Pearson's correlations and multiple linear regression analyses were performed to examine the relations. Findings: Regarding phase 1, all subscales were reliable and the validity was considered moderate to strong except for the autonomy subscale, which was not reliable and valid. With respect to phase 2, all basic psychological needs, except autonomy among girls, had moderate to strong correlations with autonomous PE-motivation. Teacher relatedness was the most important predictor for boys and girls, while the second predictor was classmate relatedness for boys and competence for girls. No positive significant relations between basic psychological needs and FMS and between PE-motivation and FMS were found. In contrary, moderate but negative relations between teacher relatedness and balance skills and between autonomous PE-motivation and balance skills were found for boys. Conclusions: The results confirmed the importance of the basic psychological needs in the prediction of autonomous PE-motivation in 9-12-year-old children. Although all needs should be supported by the PE-teacher, it is important to be aware of the different impact of the needs on autonomous PE-motivation for boys and girls. Despite the missing relations with FMS, PE-teachers seem to be able to autonomously motivate children for PE regardless of their FMS proficiency.

Integrating physical activity into the curriculum has potential health and cognitive benefits in primary school children. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of physically active academic lessons on cardiovascular fitness, muscular fitness and executive functions. In the current randomized controlled trial, 499 second and third graders within 12 primary schools (mean age = 8.1 ± 0.7) were randomized to the intervention (n = 249) or control condition (n = 250). The physically active academic lessons were given for 2 consecutive school years, 22 weeks per year, three times a week, with a duration of 20-30 min per lesson. Multiple tests were administered before, between and after the intervention period, measuring cardiovascular fitness, muscular fitness and executive functions. Multilevel analysis accounted for the nested structure of the children within classes and schools. Results showed a larger improvement in speed-coordination (B = -0.70, P = 0.002) and a lower improvement in static strength (B = -0.92, P < 0.001) for the intervention group compared with the control group. The current lessons did not result in a significant change in executive functions.

This study examined the differences between children with a low socioeconomic status [socially disadvantaged children (SDC)] and children without this disadvantage (non-SDC) on physical fitness and academic performance. In addition, this study determined the association between physical fitness and academic performance, and investigated the possible moderator effect of SDC. Data on 544 children were collected and analysed (130 SDC, 414 non-SDC, mean age = 8.0 ± 0.7). Physical fitness was measured with tests for cardiovascular and muscular fitness. Academic performance was evaluated using scores on mathematics, spelling and reading. SDC did not differ on physical fitness, compared with non-SDC, but scored significantly lower on academic performance. In the total group, multilevel analysis showed positive associations between cardiovascular fitness and mathematics (ß = 0.23), and between cardiovascular fitness and spelling (ß = 0.16), but not with reading. No associations were found between muscular fitness and academic performance. A significant interaction effect between SDC and cardiovascular fitness was found for spelling. To conclude, results showed a specific link between cardiovascular fitness and mathematics, regardless of socioeconomic status. SDC did moderate the relationship between cardiovascular fitness and spelling.

This study examines the motor skills and executive functioning (EF) of 28 children diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS; mean age: 10 years 6 months, range: 7-12 years; 19 boys, 9 girls) in comparison with age- and gender-matched typically developing children. The potential relationship between motor performance and EF in children with PDD-NOS is investigated as well. The children's motor skills were evaluated with the Movement ABC. EF, in terms of planning ability, strategic decision making, and problem solving, was gauged with the Tower of London (TOL) task. Compared with their typically developing peers, the children with PDD-NOS scored poor on the Movement ABC (p less than 0.01) and the TOL (p less than 0.05). They had significantly more definite motor problems than the normative sample of the Movement ABC: 43% (manual dexterity, p less than 0.001), 25% (ball skills, p less than 0.001), and 25% (balance skills, p less than 0.001). There were significant inverse relationships between manual dexterity and the TOL score (r = -0.46, p less than 0.01), and balance and the TOL score (r = -0.41, p less than 0.05), indicating that children with a better performance on the manual dexterity subtest and the balance subtest had a better TOL score than children with a worse performance. Children with PDD-NOS have inferior motor skills, and these deficits are interrelated with planning ability, strategic decision making, and problem solving. (Contains 3 tables.)

Background: There is a relatively small body of research on the motor performance of children with mild intellectual disabilities (MID) and borderline intellectual functioning (BIF). Adequate levels of motor skills may contribute to lifelong enjoyment of physical activity, participation in sports and healthy lifestyles. The present study compares the motor skills of children with intellectual disability (ID) to the abilities observed in typically developing children. It also aimed to determine whether there is an association between degree of ID and motor performance. Methods: A total of 170 children between 7 and 12 years old with MID or BIF, who attended schools for special education, were examined on the test component of the Movement Assessment Battery for Children (MABC) test. Both groups were compared with the norm scores of the total score, sub-scale scores and individual items of the MABC test. Results: Of the children, 81.8% with MID and 60.0% with BIF performed below the 16th percentile on the total score of the MABC. Both groups demonstrated a relative weakness in the area of manual dexterity. Comparisons between both groups showed small to moderate effect sizes on the total score of the MABC, as well as for all three sub-scales, favouring the children with BIF. Conclusions: Children with ID had significantly more borderline and definite motor problems than the normative sample and there was an association between degree of ID and performance of manual dexterity, ball skills and balance skills. This study highlights the importance of improving motor skill performance in both children with borderline and mild ID, and the results support the notion that the level of motor and cognitive functioning are related in children with ID.

Background: It has been suggested that children with intellectual disabilities (ID) have motor problems and higher-order cognitive deficits. The aim of this study was to examine the motor skills and executive functions in school-age children with borderline and mild ID. The second aim was to investigate the relationship between the two performance domains. Methods: Sixty-one children aged between 7 and 12 years diagnosed with borderline ID (33 boys and 28 girls; 71 less than IQ less than 79) and 36 age peers with mild ID (24 boys and 12 girls; 54 less than IQ less than 70) were assessed. Their abilities were compared with those of 97 age- and gender-matched typically developing children. Qualitative motor skills, i.e. locomotor ability and object control, were evaluated with the Test of Gross Motor Development (TGMD-2). Executive functioning (EF), in terms of planning ability, strategic decision-making and problem solving, was gauged with the Tower of London (TOL) task. Results: Compared with the reference group, the full ID cohort scored significantly lower on all assessments. For the locomotor skills, the children with mild ID scored significantly lower than the children with borderline ID, but for the object control skills and the TOL score, no significant differences between the two groups were found. Motor performance and EF correlated positively. At the most complex level, the TOL showed decision time to be a mediator between motor performance and EF: the children with the lower motor scores had significantly shorter decision times and lower EF scores. Analogously, the children with the lower object control scores had longer execution times and lower EF scores. Conclusions: The current results support the notion that besides being impaired in qualitative motor skills intellectually challenged children are also impaired in higher-order executive functions. The deficits in the two domains are interrelated, so early interventions boosting their motor and cognitive development are recommended.

The effects of at least 23-hr deprivation, 5-min presession exposure, and individual preference on the acquisition of mands were investigated in these studies. Two boys who were 2.5 years old and diagnosed with autism participated in the studies. Preference assessments were conducted to identify preference levels of various toys. Toys of various preferences were then assigned to either a 23-hr deprivation or 5-min presession exposure condition for mand training. Both deprivation and preference level affected acquisition of mands. Implications for teaching children to mand are discussed. (Contains 4 figures.)

Salary, job responsibility, and mobility data from 673 Wisconsin superintendents and principals indicated that 81 percent changed organizations at least once; 54 percent of all position changes were organizational; interpositional mobility led to higher salaries and longer time to achieve level; and extra time spent teaching seemed to slow advancement. (SK)