The development and evaluation of an eating disorder prevention program for college age women

Initially, eating disorders in women were conceptualized as diseases caused by abnormalities within the individual: genetic predispositions, physiological abnormalities, psychological pathology, and consequences of family dysfunction. More recent etiological models emphasize the influence of sociocultural forces which help create and maintain the phenomena. Research on the biological and psychological effects of dieting and starvation, as well as an examination of the traditionally accepted ideals for women illuminate how dysfunctional eating behaviors are learned and perpetuated. Establishing the role of culture and learned behaviors and attitudes introduces the appropriateness of and need for prevention programs which challenge prevailing cultural assumptions. Examination of previously studied prevention programs shows the need for the programs\u27 content to be soundly based on a theoretical viewpoint that emphasizes these factors. Such a programming format provides the opportunity to deconstruct myths of dieting and other weight loss behaviors, and to introduce alternative attitudes and behaviors for women. Three groups of eight to twelve college sorority women participated in three week workshops on eating behaviors and attitudes. The three one hour weekly sessions built on feminist collaborative tenets involved dissemination of information, group exercises, and open discussion. Participants completed three scales of the Eating Disorders Inventory (EDI-2), the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT), and an Attitude Scale and Behavior Scale before and after participation to assess whether statistically significant changes occurred in participants\u27 levels of knowledge, their attitudes, and their behaviors. A follow-up assessment one month later measured the resiliency of any such changes. Paired tests showed participants\u27 scores on the EDI-2\u27s Drive for Thinness scale, and the Attitude and Behavior Scales to be significantly lower after the completion of the program. In their open ended evaluations of the program participants reported an increased awareness of the negative effects of dieting and decreased likelihood of dieting. Follow-up scores showed statistically significant reductions on all measures except the Behavior Scale, but few participated in follow-up. These results suggest the effectiveness of conducting a prevention program based on feminist principles that allows participants the opportunity to challenge beliefs and begin establishing new behaviors within an environment of respect and empowerment

Entanglement of superconducting charge qubits by homodyne measurement

We present a scheme by which projective homodyne measurement of a microwave resonator can be used to generate entanglement between two superconducting charge qubits coupled to this resonator. The non-interacting qubits are initialised in a product of their ground states, the resonator is initialised in a coherent field state, and the state of the system is allowed to evolve under a rotating wave Hamiltonian. Making a homodyne measurement on the resonator at a given time projects the qubits into an state of the form (|gg> + exp(-i phi)|ee>)/sqrt(2). This protocol can produce states with a fidelity as high as required, with a probability approaching 0.5. Although the system described is one that can be used to display revival in the qubit oscillations, we show that the entanglement procedure works at much shorter timescales.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figure

Selective spin coupling through a single exciton

We present a novel scheme for performing a conditional phase gate between two spin qubits in adjacent semiconductor quantum dots through delocalized single exciton states, formed through the inter-dot Foerster interaction. We consider two resonant quantum dots, each containing a single excess conduction band electron whose spin embodies the qubit. We demonstrate that both the two-qubit gate, and arbitrary single-qubit rotations, may be realized to a high fidelity with current semiconductor and laser technology.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures; published version, equation formatting improved, references adde

Reabilite of the organic certification standard: an empirical study at the producer level in Costa Rica

118 p.The extraordinary growth experienced by the organic market around the globe has created new opportunities and challenges for the organic sector. Among them, one of the most important challenges is to guarantee the reliability of the organic products. The mechanisms of control implemented for that proposed so far have shown not to be a ‘panacea’ and actually ‘feeble’ in the achievement of its ambitions. Therefore, new and more suitable mechanisms should be developed, along with a deeper knowledge of the factors that influence the reliability of the organic certification standard. This work seeks to shed some light on the matter of reliability, with the main objective of identifying the factors that influence the reliability of the organic standard at the farmer level. To that end, a theoretical model was purposed and proved through a survey carried out at the producer level in Costa Rica (n=63). The original theoretical model pursued to measure the influence of seven independent variables (‘perceived usefulness’, ‘perceived costs’, ‘motivations’, ‘sources of control’ attitudes towards risk, the certification body and the auditor) influencing the determination of the reliability, and three target variables (satisfaction, credibility and good reputation) linked with the reliability. From them, the variables ‘managerial and economic motivation’, perceived usefulness’, ‘perceived costs’ and ‘auditor’s expertise’ were found to be significant, explaining 61.3 percent of the variance in the ‘perceived reliability’ of the organic certification standard among organic farmers. Besides, the results indicate the existence of a significant correlation between the reliability and farmers’ satisfaction with the organic standard. Instead of the introduction of stricter controls or higher sanctions, as suggested often in the literature, the findings of this work propose working on the cost/benefit ratio of the producer, his/her motivations and the performance of the auditor during the inspections in order to improve the reliability of the organic certification standard. Besides, that will be way to contribute to farmers’ satisfaction with the use of organic certification standard

Entanglement distribution for a practical quantum-dot-based quantum processor architecture

We propose a quantum dot (QD) architecture for enabling universal quantum information processing. Quantum registers, consisting of arrays of vertically stacked self-assembled semiconductor QDs, are connected by chains of in-plane self-assembled dots. We propose an entanglement distributor, a device for producing and distributing maximally entangled qubits on demand, communicated through in-plane dot chains. This enables the transmission of entanglement to spatially separated register stacks, providing a resource for the realization of a sizeable quantum processor built from coupled register stacks of practical size. Our entanglement distributor could be integrated into many of the present proposals for self-assembled QD-based quantum computation (QC). Our device exploits the properties of simple, relatively short, spin-chains and does not require microcavities. Utilizing the properties of self-assembled QDs, after distribution the entanglement can be mapped into relatively long-lived spin qubits and purified, providing a flexible, distributed, off-line resource. © IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft

Genomic determination of minimum multi-locus sequence typing schemas to represent the genomic phylogeny of Mycoplasma hominis.

Background: Mycoplasma hominis is an opportunistic human pathogen, associated with clinically diverse disease. Currently, there is no standardised method for typing M. homins, which would aid in understanding pathogen epidemiology and transmission. Due to availability and costs of whole genome sequencing and the challenges in obtaining adequate M. hominis DNA, the use of whole genome sequence analysis to provide clinical guidance is unpractical for this bacterial species as well as other fastidious organisms. Results: This study identified pan-genome set of 700 genes found to be present in four published reference genomes. A subset of 417 genes was identified to be core genome for 18 isolates and 1 reference. Leave-one-out analysis of the core genes highlighted set of 48 genes that are required to recapture the original phylogenetic relationships observed using whole genome SNP analysis. Three 7-locus MLST schemas with high diversity index (97%) and low dN/dS ratios (0.1, 0.13, and 0.11) were derived that could be used to confer good discrimination between strains and could be of practical use in future studies direct on clinical specimens. Conclusions: The genes proposed in this study could be utilised to design a costeffective and rapid PCR-based MLST assay that could be applied directly to clinical isolates, without prior isolation. This study includes additional genomic analysis revealing high levels of genetic heterogeneity among this species. This provides a novel and evidence based approach for the development of MLST schema that accurately represent genomic phylogeny for use in epidemiology and transmission studies

Superconducting charge qubits from a microscopic many-body perspective

The quantised Josephson junction equation that underpins the behaviour of charge qubits and other tunnel devices is usually derived through cannonical quantisation of the classical macroscopic Josephson relations. However, this approach may neglect effects due to the fact that the charge qubit consists of a superconducting island of finite size connected to a large superconductor. We show that the well known quantised Josephson equation can be derived directly and simply from a microscopic many-body Hamiltonian. By choosing the appropriate strong coupling limit we produce a highly simplified Hamiltonian that nevertheless allows us to go beyond the mean field limit and predict further finite-size terms in addition to the basic equation.Comment: Accepted for J Phys Condensed Matte

Modelisation of transition and noble metal vicinal surfaces: energetics, vibrations and stability

The energetics of transition and noble metal (Rh, Pd, Cu) vicinal surfaces, i.e., surface energy, step energy, kink energy and electronic interactions between steps, is studied at 0K from electronic structure calculations in the tight-binding approximation using a {\it s, p} and {\it d} valence orbital basis set. Then, the surface phonon spectra of copper are investigated in the harmonic approximation with the help of a semi-empirical inter-atomic potential. This allows to derive the contribution of phonons at finite temperatures to the step free energy and to the interactions between steps. The last part is devoted to the stability of vicinal surfaces relative to faceting with special attention to the domain of orientations (100)-(111). Semi-empirical potentials are shown to be not realistic enough to give a reliable answer to this problem. The results derived from electronic structure calculations predict a variety of behaviors and, in particular, a possible faceting into two other vicinal orientations. Finally, temperature effects are discussed. Comparisons are made with other theoretical works and available experiments