Is this most efficient way of setting a select/option box with javascript?
as long as your values are unique, you can use document.getElementById("sel_activity").value='CYC'
instead
If you're going for speed over code size, this tweak is slightly faster:
var myselect=document.getElementById("sel_activity");
var len = myselect.options.length;
for (var i=0; i<len; i++){
Minor note: You are missing a ; at the end of the first line in my snippet.