Pathway to health: Cluster-randomized trail to increase fruit and vegetable consumption among smokers in public housing.

Objectives: Examine the effectiveness of an intervention to increase fruits and vegetables (FV) consumption among smokers. Design: Cluster-randomized trial of 20 public housing developments; 10 randomly assigned to an FV intervention and 10 to a smoking cessation intervention. Main outcome measures: Usual (past 7 days) and past 30 days change in daily FV intake at 8 weeks and 6 months postbaseline. Results: Greater increases were seen in the FV group. At Week 8 and Month 6, the FV group had consumed 1.58 (p = .001) and 0.78 (p = .04), respectively, more daily FV servings in the past 7 days than the cessation group. At the same time points, the FV group had consumed 3.61 (p = .01) and 3.93 (p = .01), respectively, more FV servings in the past 30 days than the cessation group. Completing more motivational interviewing sessions (p = .02) and trying more recipes (p = .02) led to significantly greater increases at Month 6 among FV participants. Conclusions: Motivational interviewing counseling and lifestyle modification through trying out healthy recipes may be effective in helping a high-risk population increase their FV intake. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cyclic variation of the power of ultrasonic Doppler signalsbackscattered by polystyrene microspheres and porcine erythrocytesuspensions

Factors affecting the power of the ultrasonic Doppler signal within the flow cycle have been evaluated experimentally using a pulsatile flow loop model. Polystyrene microspheres and porcine red cells suspended in saline solution for hematocrits between 2 and 40% were used as scattering fluid in the flow model. Experiments were performed at mean flow velocities of 11, 64, and 76 cm/s. In laminar flow experiments performed at a mean velocity of 11 cm/s, no variation of the Doppler power was found for both polystyrene microspheres and red cell suspensions (40% hematocrit). When turbulence was induced in the flow model, the power increasing during systole, a maximum was observed early after peak systole, and a decrease was obtained in diastole during deceleration of flow     

Effect of various parameters on the level of mixing in continuous flow systems

Variations of the level of mixing in a flow system have been investigated as a function of the following parameters: diameter, shape and speed of the agitator, feed rate and position of the feed inlet. At agitator speeds inferior to a critical value, a minimum level of mixing is observed which depends on the position of the feed inlet. At speeds superior to the critical value, the level of mixing increases linearly with agitator speed, at a given feed rate, until conditions of perfect mixing are reached. The critical agitator speed and the position of each straight line depend on the agitator size. A modified Reynolds number makes possible a more general correlation. At a given agitator speed, superior to the critical value, the level of mixing decreases as the feed rate increases, due to the smaller amount of energy imparted by the agitator per unit mass of feed. The effect of agitator shape on the level of mixing is rather pronounced as it affects the flow patterns inside the reservoir.     

Experimental evaluation of intrinsic and nonstationary ultrasonic Doppler spectral broadening in steady and pulsatile flow loop models

Intrinsic and nonstationary Doppler spectral broadening, and the skewness of the spectral representation, were evaluated experimentally using porcine red cell suspensions as ultrasonic scatterers. Theoretically, the relative Doppler bandwidth, defined as the intrinsic bandwidth divided by the mean Doppler frequency shift, should be velocity independent. The relative Doppler bandwidth invariance theorem was experimentally verified with an in vitro steady laminar blood flow model. It is shown that the relative bandwidth is both independent of the flow velocity and blood hematocrit. Using a pulsatile laminar flow model, the authors demonstrated that the relative Doppler bandwidth invariance theorem did not hold during flow acceleration and deceleration. In addition, a positive skewness of the Doppler spectra was observed during acceleration while a negative skewness was measured during the deceleration of blood. The effect of the window duration used in the Fourier spectral computation, on nonstationary broadening, is characterized.     

Nonlinear inverse optimization approach for determining the weights of objective function in standing reach tasks

This paper presents a nonlinear inverse optimization approach to determine the weights for the joint displacement function in standing reach tasks. This inverse optimization problem can be formulated as a bi-level highly nonlinear optimization problem. The design variables are the weights of a cost function. The cost function is the weighted summation of the differences between two sets of joint angles (predicted posture and the actual standing reach posture). Constraints include the normalized weights within limits and an inner optimization problem to solve for joint angles (predicted standing reach posture). The weight linear equality constraints, obtained through observations, are also implemented in the formulation to test the method. A 52 degree-of-freedom (DOF) human whole body model is used to study the formulation and visualize the prediction. An in-house motion capture system is used to obtain the actual standing reach posture. A total of 12 subjects (three subjects for each percentile in stature of 5th percentile female, 50th percentile female, 50th percentile male and 95th percentile male) are selected to run the experiment for 30 tasks. Among these subjects one is Turkish, two are Chinese, and the rest subjects are Americans. Three sets of weights for the general standing reach tasks are obtained for the three zones by averaging all weights in each zone for all subjects and all tasks. Based on the obtained sets of weights, the predicted standing reach postures found using the direct optimization-based approach have good correlation with the experimental results. Sensitivity of the formulation has also been investigated in this study. The presented formulation can be used to determine the weights of cost function within any multi-objective optimization (MOO) problems such as any types of posture prediction and motion prediction.     

Tie-Over Bolster Pressure Dressing Improves Outcomes of Skin Substitutes Xenografts on Athymic Mice

The efficacy of skin substitutes is established for the treatment of burn injuries, but its use is not limited to this condition. This technology has the potential to improve the treatment of various conditions by offering highly advanced and personalized treatments. In vivo studies are challenging but essential to move to clinical use in humans. Mice are the most widely used species in preclinical studies, but the main drawback of this model is the limited surface area of the graft in long-term transplantation studies caused by the displacement and the contraction of the graft. We improved the conventional surgical procedures by stabilizing the chamber covering the graft with intramuscular sutures and by adding a tie-over bolster dressing. The current study was therefore performed to compare outcomes of skin grafts between the conventional and optimized skin graft model. Human self-assembled skin substitutes (SASSs) were prepared and grafted to athymic mice either by the conventional method or by the new grafting method. Graft healing and complications were assessed using digital photographs on postoperative days 7, 14, and 21. Similar structure and organization were observed by histological staining. The new grafting method reduced medium and large displacement events by 1.26-fold and medium and large contraction events by 1.8-fold, leading to a 1.6-fold increase in graft surface area compared to skin substitutes grafted with the usual method. This innovation ensures better reproducibility and consistency of skin substitute transplants on mice.     

Evaluation of FFT-Based and Moder Parametrc Methods for the Spectral Analysis of Bioprosthetic Valve Sounds

The objective of this paper is to compare the performance of conventional FFT-based (basic periodogram and Welch's method) and modern parametric (all-pole and pole-zero modeling) methods in estimating the spectral distribution of cardiac bioprosthetic valve sounds, and for the extraction of the two most dominant frequency peaks (DFP). These methods were tested for stability by adding random noise and truncating the bioprosthetic valve closing sounds, and for reproducibility by measuring the variance of the spectra obtained from three consecutive recordings of each patient. Results from a group of 11 patients show that the basic periodogram and Steiglitz-McBride's method with maximum entropy (pole-zero modeling) provide the most consistent (minimal variance) estimates of the DFP's of the closing sounds. However, for estimating spectral distributions, the most stable methods appear to be the basic periodogram and Steiglitz-McBride's method with extrapolation to zero. The basic periodogram appears to be the best compromise to estimate both the spectral distribution and the DFP's of the bioprosthetic closing sounds.     

MODELING VACUUM-CONTACT DRYING OF WOOD: THE WATER POTENTIAL APPROACH

ABSTRACT

A two-dimensional mathematical model for vacuum-contact drying of wood is presented. The moisture and heat equations are based on the water potential concept whereas the pressure equation is formulated considering unsteady state conservation equation of dry air. Most of the model parameters were determined during independent experiments. The set of equations is then solved in a coupled form using the finite element method. The validation of the model is performed using experimental results obtained during vacuum-contact drying of sugar maple sapwood. The experimental and calculated data are in good agreement. Nevertheless, some discrepancies are observed which can be attributed to the boundary conditions used and to the fact that heat transfer by convection was neglected.     

Violence classifications and their impact on observed relationships with key factors in young offenders.

The understanding of violent criminal behavior is hindered by definitional problems in both the legal and research communities. Different definitions of violent criminal behavior and different classifications of the severity of violence are fundamental problems that need to be resolved in order to develop better conceptual models of the precursors to criminal violence that can inform management and treatment of violent young offenders. This study evaluated 6 classifications of violent juvenile offenses derived from the legal system and published research. The authors compare frequencies from different classifications and examine the influence of classifications on observed associations with expected predictor variables. Differences in frequencies and perceived associations between classifications highlight the need to adopt a consistent method of coding violent offenses for research purposes in order to obtain valid results that are capable of informing policy, the judiciary, and the development of effective interventions. The final classification system offers a method of systematic coding based on the type, frequency, and outcome of the violent behavior that distinguishes between levels of violence severity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)