Cognitive Interference in Response to Weight Loss Stimuli in Individuals Participating in a Structured Weight Loss Program

Although a central concern of public health is the self-management of chronic diseases, the cognitive demands required by behavior change are seldom explored. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of cognitive limitations—with a focus on cognitive interference (i.e. “off task” thoughts)—on weight loss efforts through both an experimental and a qualitative approach. Individuals currently enrolled in a structured weight loss program completed positive and negative weight-loss related Stroop tasks to measure cognitive interference levels. Response times were compared between and within participants who were engaged (N=25) vs. unengaged (N=15) and successful (N=16) vs. unsuccessful (N=24) with the weight loss program. Successful participants had significantly faster response times (p=.01) on the positive Stroop compared to the negative Stroop (716.6 ± 98.1, 761.3 ± 106.4), as did the engaged participants (p=.02; 725.1 ± 96.7, 759.9 ± 111.7). No statistically significant differences were found between successful & unsuccessful or engaged & unengaged groups, however the experimental findings suggest that cognitive interference in response to weight-loss related cues may be related to success with and engagement in a weight loss program. A qualitative exploration of interview responses identified themes related to cognitive processes and interference and supported the supposition that unhealthy behaviors are often automatic, and changing them can have high cognitive demands. However, participant responses also indicated that healthy behaviors can be automatized with practice. In addition, the external factors that participants identified as influencing their health behavior choices indicate that a social and built environment that supports healthier decisions would make the health behavior changes less cognitively demanding. The public health significance of these findings is that they indicate that both cognitive limitations and environmental influences should be taken into account when examining the need for health behavior change and designing interventions to address this need. Further research into how cognitive factors affect lifestyle decision-making may contribute to a deeper understanding of how to promote self-care behaviors that lead to better health outcomes

Theory of Luminescent Emission in Nanocrystal ZnS:Mn with an Extra Electron

We consider the effect of an extra electron injected into a doped quantum dot $ZnS:Mn^{2+}$. The Coulomb interaction and the exchange interaction between the extra electron and the states of the Mn ion will mix the wavefunctions, split the impurity energy levels, break the previous selection rules and change the transition probabilities. Using this model of an extra electron in the doped quantum dot, we calculated the energy and the wavefunctions, the luminescence probability and the transition lifetime and compare with the experiments. Our calculation shows that two orders of magnitudes of lifetime shortening can occur in the transition $^4T_1-^6A_1$ when an extra electron is present.Comment: 15 pages, 2 Figs No change in Fig

FLOW ANALYSIS ON DELTA WING – A REVIEW

Many aircraft, like fighters and bombers, are delta-winged aircraft. These aircraft have the characteristics of producing a greater lift at very small angles of attack even at very low Reynold’s number. Highly swept-wing aircraft experience greater lift due to the generation of the leading-edge vortex at a high angle of attack flight. The phenomena of vortex breakdown are noticed which leads to the reduction of the vortex lift and leads to the instability of the aircraft. This paper deals with an analysis of the flow on the delta wing with the existing literature and compares its benefits over the conventional wings using experimental and computational methods. The critical angles, pressure, and velocity variations are observed along with chord and spanwise locations

The Schistosoma mansoni Cytochrome P450 (CYP3050A1) Is Essential for Worm Survival and Egg Development.

Schistosomiasis affects millions of people in developing countries and is responsible for more than 200,000 deaths annually. Because of toxicity and limited spectrum of activity of alternatives, there is effectively only one drug, praziquantel, available for its treatment. Recent data suggest that drug resistance could soon be a problem. There is therefore the need to identify new drug targets and develop drugs for the treatment of schistosomiasis. Analysis of the Schistosoma mansoni genome sequence for proteins involved in detoxification processes found that it encodes a single cytochrome P450 (CYP450) gene. Here we report that the 1452 bp open reading frame has a characteristic heme-binding region in its catalytic domain with a conserved heme ligating cysteine, a hydrophobic leader sequence present as the membrane interacting region, and overall structural conservation. The highest sequence identity to human CYP450s is 22%. Double stranded RNA (dsRNA) silencing of S. mansoni (Sm)CYP450 in schistosomula results in worm death. Treating larval or adult worms with antifungal azole CYP450 inhibitors results in worm death at low micromolar concentrations. In addition, combinations of SmCYP450-specific dsRNA and miconazole show additive schistosomicidal effects supporting the hypothesis that SmCYP450 is the target of miconazole. Treatment of developing S. mansoni eggs with miconazole results in a dose dependent arrest in embryonic development. Our results indicate that SmCYP450 is essential for worm survival and egg development and validates it as a novel drug target. Preliminary structure-activity relationship suggests that the 1-(2,4-dichlorophenyl)-2-(1H-imidazol-1-yl)ethan-1-ol moiety of miconazole is necessary for activity and that miconazole activity and selectivity could be improved by rational drug design

Random Graphs and Probability Models

Preliminary results concerning random graphs, digraphs, time dependent processes, and probability model

Development of nano-structured titanium oxide thin films using a gas carving technique

A method is developed for producing nano-structured titanium oxide thin films using H2 gas interaction with titanium thin film at a high temperature. These nano-structured thin films have been formed on a quartz crystal substrate. Titanium (Ti) thin films were deposited on the quartz crystal using a RF magnetron sputterer. The samples were placed in the oven at 500-800°C for 5 hours. The gas mixture of 1% H2 in N2 was introduced in the oven. The process of Ti annealing in the presence of H2 carves Ti films into nano-structure shapes. The process is a gas-solid interaction. Thin films were characterised using Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEM) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) technique. The nano structures formed have dimensions in a range of 25nm - 150nm obtained after gas carving