The effects of health beliefs on weight loss in individuals at high risk for NIDDM

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether perceived risk and other health beliefs held by individuals at high risk for developing NIDDM predict weight loss and behavior change during a behavioral weight loss program to reduce the risk of NIDDM. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Health beliefs and objective risk factors for diabetes were examined in 154 overweight men and women with a family history of NIDDM. The effects of these factors on adherence, dietary intake, weight loss, and changes in glucose levels were examined in a subset of 79 of these subjects who participated in a 2-year behavioral weight control program. RESULTS: Those subjects who perceived themselves at highest risk of developing diabetes had a stronger family history of the disease and were more likely to be women than subjects considering themselves at more moderate risk. These participants also rated diabetes as a more serious disease, but were less likely to believe that weight loss would lower their risk. None of these health beliefs were related to attendance at meetings, dietary intake, weight loss, or fasting glucose, but higher perceived seriousness predicted larger reductions in BMI at 1 year. Of the objective risk factors for NIDDM, higher baseline BMI predicted larger weight losses throughout the program, and a stronger family history of diabetes was related to greater weight regain after an initial weight loss. CONCLUSIONS: Perceived risk of developing diabetes and other health beliefs did not predict performance in a behavioral weight loss program. These data suggest that efforts to modify health beliefs by educating high-risk individuals about their risk and benefits of weight loss may not be effective in improving long-term weight loss results.     

Do you believe in repressed memories?

A survey of 613 undergraduates investigated beliefs about and experience with repressed memories. The results indicated that participants (a) had some degree of belief in repressed memories; (b) felt that therapy sometimes leads to false memories being implanted; (c) felt, to some degree, that repressed memory evidence should be allowed in court; and (d) had experience with repressed memories, either personally or through media coverage. Also, the gender of the participants affected many of the ratings (e.g., women had greater belief in and more personal experience with such memories than men). The implications of these results for professionals and laypeople are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adsorption Thermodynamics and Kinetics of Malachite Green onto Ca(OH)2-Treated Fly Ash

Fly ash, an industrial by-product abundant in India, was treated with alkali and tested as a low-cost adsorbent for the removal of malachite green from an aqueous solution in a batch adsorption procedure. Effects of stirring rate, temperature, pH, initial dye concentration, contact time, and adsorbent dose were investigated. The adsorption was found to be strongly dependent on pH of the medium and the adsorption capacity decreased with an increase in temperature. The Langmuir isotherm model showed a good fit to the equilibrium adsorption data at all temperatures. The mean free energy (E) estimated from the Dubinin-Radushkevich model indicated that the adsorption mechanism was chemical ion exchange. The kinetic data were found to follow the pseudo second-order kinetic model. The rate constant decreased with the increase in temperature indicating the exothermic nature of adsorption. Intraparticle diffusion was not the sole rate-controlling factor. The Arrhenius and Eyring equations were used to evaluate the activation parameters. The activation energy (Ea) was estimated to be 56.08??kJ?mol-1. Gibbs free energy (ΔG0) was spontaneous for all interactions, and the adsorption process exhibited exothermic enthalpy values. Results suggest that alkali-treated fly ash is a potential low-cost adsorbent for removal of malachite green from an aqueous solution.     

Simplex and duplex PCR assays for species specific identification of cattle and buffalo milk and cheese

A polymerase chain reaction, amplifying a fragment of the mitochondrial DNA D loop region was developed for species specific detection of cattle and buffalo milk. The method was simultaneously extended for detection of HTST pasteurized milk samples and cheeses of bovine and buffalo origin. A common forward primer was used with two different species specific reverse primers that resulted amplification of a 126 bp and 226 bp products for cattle and buffalo, respectively, in simplex as well as in multiplex polymerase chain reaction. The primers successfully amplified DNA extracted by conventional protocol from minimal amount of raw milk, heat treated milk and cheese of either bovine or buffalo origin. The primers showed a high degree of specificity. The sensitivity of the assay was excellent with detection level of 0.1 percent adulteration of cow and buffalo milk or cheese (0.15 ng buffalo and 0.04 ng cattle DNA). The assay represents a sensitive and simple method for identification of adulteration in milk and cheese.     

Investigating the Effect of Process Parameter on the Properties of Rf Sputtered pSi Thin Film by Taguchi and ANOVA Analysis

Silicon - Boron doped pSi was deposited on Si substrate in the RF magnetron sputtering system by varying three process parameters, namely-sputtering power, working pressure, and Ar gas flow rate....     

Designing Auction Mechanisms for Dynamic Spectrum Access

With the increasing demands for radio spectrum, techniques are being explored that would allow dynamic access of spectrum bands that are under-utilized. In this regard, a new paradigm called dynamic spectrum access is being investigated where wireless service providers (WSPs) would dynamically seek more spectrum from the under-utilized licensed bands when and where they need without interfering with the primary users. Currently, there is little understanding on how such a dynamic allocation will operate so as to make the system feasible under economic terms. In this paper, we consider the dynamic spectrum allocation process where multiple WSPs (bidders) compete to acquire necessary spectrum band from a common pool of spectrum. We use auction theory to analyze the allocation process when the demand from WSPs exceeds the available spectrum. We investigate various auction mechanisms under different spectrum allocation constraints to find WSPs’ bidding strategies and revenue generated by spectrum owner. We show that sequential bidding of bands provides better result than the concurrent bidding when WSPs are constrained to at most single unit allocation. On the other hand, when the bidders request for multiple units, (i.e., they are not restricted by allocation constraints) synchronous auction mechanism proves to be beneficial than asynchronous auctions.

An analysis of the corrosion of pure iron in sodium loop systems

A detailed theoretical treatment is given of the application of mass transfer theory to the corrosion of iron by flowing sodium in non-isothermal loop systems. Comparison between theory and data reported in the literature for corrosion in the hot isothermal section of a loop, enables values of the mass transfer coefficient and the concentration driving force to be determined separately, and it is shown that corrosion is probably diffusion controlled. However, both the magnitude of the concentration driving force and the oxygen effect are anomalous if the solubility of iron in sodium is that recommended in the literature. It is shown theoretically that the presence of particles in the sodium cannot remove these anomalies. Using much lower values of solubility, obtained in a recent determination by Fleitman and Isaacs, it is shown by computer simulation that excellent agreement between theory and data is obtained and that corrosion is consistent with diffusion control.     

The laser as a research tool in visual system investigation.

Describes the laser as a research tool, based principally on the results of a systematic study of the use and effect of an argon laser retinal photocoagulation unit. Some of the morphologic features of the retina after photocoagulation lesions of varying severity and duration, and how these manipulations and modifications may be used in studies of visual system function and morphology, are discussed. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A hierarchical method combining gait and phase of motion with spatiotemporal model for person re-identification

Re-identification refers to the problem of establishing correspondence among various observations of the same subject viewed at different time instances in different camera positions. We propose a hierarchical approach for re-identifying a subject by combining gait with phase of motion and a spatiotemporal model. The fundamental nature of the gait biometric of being amenable to capturing from a distance even at low resolution without active co-operation of subjects, has motivated us to use it for re-identification. We use two features related to a subject’s motion dynamics, one is his exit/entry phase of motion and the other is his gait signature. An additional third feature is obtained from the spatiotemporal model of the camera network which is learnt during the training phase in the form of a multivariate probability density of space–time variables (entry/exit location, exit velocity, and inter-camera travel time) using kernel density estimation. Once all these three features have been computed, correspondences are established by dynamic programing based maximum likelihood (ML) estimation. The performance of our method has been evaluated on a real data set featuring a two-camera and a three-camera network in a hallway monitoring situation. The proposed approach shows promising results on both the data sets.     

Effect on de-hydrogenation efficiency on doping of rare earth elements (Pr,Nd, Gd,Dy) in MgH2 – A density functional theory study

Effect on de-hydrogenation efficiency on doping of rare earth elements Pr, Nd, Gd and Dy in MgH₂ was studied using density functional theory. Specific storage capacity both in terms of volumetric and gravimetric capacity was also studied. Volumetric capacity was shown to decrease with the trends Dy > Gd > Nd > Pr, in accordance with the increase of unit cell volume, while gravimetric capacity was shown to decrease with the same trend in accordance with their atomic mass number. Analysis of density of states exhibits the presence of H-s states across Fermi energy, only for nearest neighbor H-atoms of rare earth (RE) dopants. These states are formed due to the delocalization of H-s states arising from the shorter MgH bond length, while Mg remain connected with a nearest neighbor H of RE dopant and due to the superposition and hence polarization of H-s states with f-orbital of RE elements across Fermi energy. Accordingly, H₂ desorption can be predicted to occur only from the nearest neighbor H atoms of RE dopant. Pr and Nd were shown to affect the dehydrogenation efficiency similarly as La and Ce doping in MgH₂ as obtained in our previous work. It is seen that Pr and Nd doping will reduce the H₂ desorption temperature as La and Ce in MgH₂, while, Gd and Dy doping will act negatively by increasing the de-sorption temperature even in comparison to pure MgH₂.