Motivating reflection about health within the family: the use of goal setting and tailored feedback

It is widely acknowledged that obesity is a serious health issue. Despite governments?? campaigns and initiatives to raise the level of awareness, the proportion of adults classified as overweight or obese is increasing steadily. As a result, there has been a growing interest in Human Computer Interaction and User Modelling to study how to support health behaviour change. While most of the work to date has focused on individuals, medical research has shown that family engagement plays an important role on health behaviour. To consider the family context, we are developing technology that facilitates health discussions and encourages supportive behaviour within the family. We investigate how to motivate members of a family to reflect upon their lifestyle and think of ways in which they can make it healthier. In particular, we have looked at whether providing explicit goals and tailored feedback can have an impact. During a two week trial with families in which we explored these strategies, we found that setting a collective goal for the family influenced how much the family as a whole contributed, and that feedback increased significantly mothers?? participation. Our results also suggest that establishing a family goal encouraged families to work together and, in particular, to help each other find ways to be healthier. Finally, 76% of participants reported discussing the task with someone in their family, and, also discussing it together as a family (57%).     

A survey of models and algorithms for winter road maintenance. Part I: system design for spreading and plowing

Winter road maintenance operations involve a host of decision-making problems at the strategic, tactical, operational, and real-time levels. Those operations include spreading of chemicals and abrasives, snow plowing, loading snow into trucks, and hauling snow to disposal sites. As the first of a four-part survey, this paper reviews optimization models and solution algorithms for the design of winter road maintenance systems for spreading and plowing operations. System design problems for snow disposal operations are discussed in the second paper. The two last parts of the survey mainly address vehicle routing, depot location, and fleet sizing models for winter road maintenance. The present paper surveys research on determining the level of service policy and partitioning a region or road network into sectors for spreading and plowing operations. We also describe the applied setting in which these problems arise.     

Cross-analysis of hazmat road accidents using multiple databases

Road selection for hazardous materials transportation relies heavily on risk analysis. With risk being generally expressed as a product of the probability of occurrence and the expected consequence, one will understand that risk analysis is data intensive. However, various authors have noticed the lack of statistical reliability of hazmat accident databases due to the systematic underreporting of such events. Also, official accident databases alone are not always providing all the information required (economical impact, road conditions, etc.). In this paper, we attempt to integrate many data sources to analyze hazmat accidents in the province of Quebec, Canada. Databases on dangerous goods accidents, road accidents and work accidents were cross-analyzed. Results show that accidents can hardly be matched and that these databases suffer from underreporting. Police records seem to have better coverage than official records maintained by hazmat authorities. Serious accidents are missing from government's official databases (some involving deaths or major spills) even though their declaration is mandatory.     

Slope Perception from Monoscopic Field Images: Applications to Mobile Robot Navigation

When remotely navigating a mobile robot, operators must estimate the slope of local terrain in order to avoid areas that are too steep to climb or that slope so steeply downward that the operator would lose control of the rover. Although many rovers are equipped with sensor systems to aid the operator in this task, it is sometimes necessary to estimate slopes from two-dimensional images, either when planning operations or when the operator wishes to monitor the results of a sensor system. This experiment compares the operator’s estimates of the slope in Martian terrain with the actual slope determined from three-dimensional data. The ten participants overestimated the slope of the indicated regions by an average of 19° (SD 16°). An analytic model of the error, based on psychophysical analysis, accurately predicts the average magnitude of the errors. Implementation of this model eliminates an average amount of participant error. However, the large estimate variance within and between participants and images still poses a challenge for accurate slope estimation.     

Working memory span development: A time-based resource-sharing model account.

The time-based resource-sharing model (P. Barrouillet, S. Bernardin, & V. Camos, 2004) assumes that during complex working memory span tasks, attention is frequently and surreptitiously switched from processing to reactivate decaying memory traces before their complete loss. Three experiments involving children from 5 to 14 years of age investigated the role of this reactivation process in developmental differences in working memory spans. Though preschoolers seem to adopt a serial control without any attempt to refresh stored items when engaged in processing, the reactivation process is efficient from age 7 onward and increases in efficiency until late adolescence, underpinning a sizable part of developmental differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Operational strategy of a two-step thermochemical process for solar hydrogen production

A two-step thermochemical cycle process for solar hydrogen production from water has been developed using ferrite-based redox systems at moderate temperatures. The cycle offers promising properties concerning thermodynamics and efficiency and produces pure hydrogen without need for product separation.     

Working memory functioning in medicated Parkinson's disease patients and the effect of withdrawal of dopaminergic medication.

Cognitive impairments in Parkinson's disease (PD) could be explained by a central executive (CE) deficit in A. D. Baddeley's (1986) working memory model. To test this hypothesis, verbal, spatial, and double span tasks were given to 12 medicated PD patients and control participants, with varying recall delays. The double span task was assigned to explore the coordinating and integrating function of the CE, and lengthening the recall delay was expected to implicate more attentional resources. PD patients had lower spans relative to controls in all tasks. However, the more specific implication of the CE was difficult to prove. One reason could be that PD patients were on dopaminergic treatment when tested. To control this effect, 12 PD patients on and off medication were studied in a second experiment using the same tasks. PD patients off medication had lower spans only in the double task; this result underlines the role of dopamine on working memory processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationships between sensory and physicochemical measurements in meat of rabbit from three different breeding systems using canonical correlation analysis

Meat from rabbits reared either according to a standard (STAND) or a high quality norm (LABEL) or a low growth breeding (RUSSE) system were submitted to a sensory evaluation and to a large set of physicochemical measurements (weight of retail cuts, colour parameters, ultimate pH, femur flexure test, Warner-Bratzler shear test, water holding capacities and cooking losses). STAND rabbit meat exhibited the most juicy meat in back and in leg (p<0.01). Leg tenderness significantly decreased (p<0.001) in the rank order STAND>LABEL>RUSSE. Canonical correlation analysis showed strong correlations between physicochemical and sensory variables (R(2)=0.73 and 0.68 between the two first pairs of canonical variates). Especially, sensory tenderness and WB shear test variables assessed on raw longissimus muscle (LL) were correlated. Fibrous attribute in back was correlated with cooking loss in LL. When analysed separately only RUSSE rabbits exhibited the same relations between variables as those calculated in whole dataset.