Self-Care in Mental Health: A Study on the Effectiveness of Self Care for Overall Mental Wellbeing

Studies have shown that self-care can be very effective in the treatment of different mental health issues. The purpose of this study is to test the effectiveness of three common self-care techniques (sleep, diet, and exercise) on the overall mental health and wellbeing of college students. This research consists of two surveys that collect data on self-care habits and current mental health, interposed by a two-week period of implementing positive changes to one of the self-care methods. This study used voluntary response sampling. The survey was be administered online to students at Georgia Southern University. The survey data was collected and analyzed using SPSS to determine whether the differences between groups of data are statistically significant. The data showed the most significant improvements in the overall mental wellbeing of the participants who improved sleep habits. However, it also showed improvements for the participants who improved diet or exercise habits. This shows that although proper sleep habits make the biggest impact, following any of the three self-care techniques leads to an improvement in overall mental wellbeing

HIV Testing and Conspiracy Beliefs Regarding the Origins of HIV among African Americans

Abstract Conspiracy beliefs regarding the origins of HIV are common among African Americans, and have been associated with engaging in HIV risk behaviors but also with earlier diagnosis among HIV patients. The objective of the present study was to test the association of HIV serostatus testing with conspiracy beliefs. A total of 1430 African Americans from low-income neighborhoods with high rates of drug use were surveyed in 1997-1999 in face-to-face interviews. Two 4-point items assessed if participants agreed that AIDS was started by an experiment that went wrong and AIDS was created to kill blacks and poor folks. A binary variable indicated if the respondent agreed with the statements, on average. 22.5% of the sample endorsed conspiracy beliefs, 4.0% of whom reported not having had an HIV test, compared to 7.7% of those who did not endorse conspiracy beliefs. In multivariable logistic regression modeling, never having had an HIV test was significantly associated with conspiracy beliefs (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]=0.43, 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.3-4.3), having a high school education (AOR=0.55, CI=0.35-0.84), having depression (AOR=1.61, CI=1.02-2.52), female gender (AOR=0.54, CI=0.34-0.86), younger age, and a history of injection drug use (AOR=0.36, CI=0.23-0.56), but not sex risk behaviors (multiple partners, irregular condom use). The finding that individuals who have conspiracy beliefs are more likely to have been tested for HIV may partially explain why HIV-positive individuals who endorse conspiracy beliefs are more likely to obtain an earlier diagnosis.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78123/1/apc.2009.0061.pd

Recording Lifetime Behavior and Movement in an Invertebrate Model

Characterization of lifetime behavioral changes is essential for understanding aging and aging-related diseases. However, such studies are scarce partly due to the lack of efficient tools. Here we describe and provide proof of concept for a stereo vision system that classifies and sequentially records at an extremely fine scale six different behaviors (resting, micro-movement, walking, flying, feeding and drinking) and the within-cage (3D) location of individual tephritid fruit flies by time-of-day throughout their lives. Using flies fed on two different diets, full sugar-yeast and sugar-only diets, we report for the first time their behavioral changes throughout their lives at a high resolution. We have found that the daily activity peaks at the age of 15–20 days and then gradually declines with age for flies on both diets. However, the overall daily activity is higher for flies on sugar-only diet than those on the full diet. Flies on sugar-only diet show a stronger diurnal localization pattern with higher preference to staying on the top of the cage during the period of light-off when compared to flies on the full diet. Clustering analyses of age-specific behavior patterns reveal three distinct young, middle-aged and old clusters for flies on each of the two diets. The middle-aged groups for flies on sugar-only diet consist of much younger age groups when compared to flies on full diet. This technology provides research opportunities for using a behavioral informatics approach for understanding different ways in which behavior, movement, and aging in model organisms are mutually affecting

Personalised Exercise-Rehabilitation FOR people with Multiple long-term conditions (PERFORM): protocol for a randomised feasibility trial

Introduction: Personalised Exercise-Rehabilitation FOR people with Multiple long-term conditions (PERFORM) is a research programme that seeks to develop and evaluate a comprehensive exercise-based rehabilitation intervention designed for people with multimorbidity, the presence of multiple long-term conditions (MLTCs). This paper describes the protocol for a randomised trial to assess the feasibility and acceptability of the PERFORM intervention, study design and processes. Methods and analysis: A multicentre, parallel two-group randomised trial with individual 2:1 allocation to the PERFORM exercise-based intervention plus usual care (intervention) or usual care alone (control). The primary outcome of this feasibility trial will be to assess whether prespecified progression criteria (recruitment, retention, intervention adherence) are met to progress to the full randomised trial. The trial will be conducted across three UK sites and 60 people with MLTCs, defined as two or more LTCs, with at least one having evidence of the beneficial effect of exercise. The PERFORM intervention comprises an 8-week (twice a week for 6 weeks and once a week for 2 weeks) supervised rehabilitation programme of personalised exercise training and self-management education delivered by trained healthcare professionals followed by two maintenance sessions. Trial participants will be recruited over a 4.5-month period, and outcomes assessed at baseline (prerandomisation) and 3 months postrandomisation and include health-related quality of life, psychological well-being, symptom burden, frailty, exercise capacity, physical activity, sleep, cognition and serious adverse events. A mixed-methods process evaluation will assess acceptability, feasibility and fidelity of intervention delivery and feasibility of trial processes. An economic evaluation will assess the feasibility of data collection and estimate the costs of the PERFORM intervention. Ethics and dissemination: The trial has been given favourable opinion by the West Midlands, Edgbaston Research Ethics Service (Ref: 23/WM/0057). Participants will be asked to give full, written consent to take part by trained researchers. Findings will be disseminated via journals, presentations and targeted communications to clinicians, commissioners, service users and patients and the public. Trial registration number: ISRCTN68786622. Protocol version 2.0 (16 May 2023)

Measurement of associated Z plus charm production in proton-proton collisions at root s=8TeV

A study of the associated production of a Z boson and a charm quark jet (Z + c), and a comparison to production with a b quark jet (Z + b), in pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV are presented. The analysis uses a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb(-1), collected with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC. The Z boson candidates are identified through their decays into pairs of electrons or muons. Jets originating from heavy flavour quarks are identified using semileptonic decays of c or b flavoured hadrons and hadronic decays of charm hadrons. The measurements are performed in the kinematic region with two leptons with pT(l) > 20 GeV, vertical bar eta(l)vertical bar 25 GeV and vertical bar eta(jet)vertical bar Z + c + X) B(Z -> l(+)l(-)) = 8.8 +/- 0.5 (stat)+/- 0.6 (syst) pb. The ratio of the Z+c and Z+b production cross sections is measured to be sigma(pp -> Z+c+X)/sigma (pp -> Z+b+X) = 2.0 +/- 0.2 (stat)+/- 0.2 (syst). The Z+c production cross section and the cross section ratio are also measured as a function of the transverse momentum of theZ boson and of the heavy flavour jet. The measurements are compared with theoretical predictions.Peer reviewe

Measurement of the underlying event activity in inclusive Z boson production in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV

This paper presents a measurement of the underlying event activity in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13TeV, performed using inclusive Z boson production events collected with the CMS experiment at the LHC. The analyzed data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 2.1 fb(-1). The underlying event activity is quantified in terms of the charged particle multiplicity, as well as of the scalar sum of the charged particles' transverse momenta in different topological regions defined with respect to the Z boson direction. The distributions are unfolded to the stable particle level and compared with predictions from various Monte Carlo event generators, as well as with similar CDF and CMS measurements at center-of-mass energies of 1.96 and 7TeV respectively.Peer reviewe

A Whole New World: Changes in Disney Songs Throughout Time

Although Disney has put out more than 100 movies since its start in 1937, there are only twelve official Disney Princesses. These princesses have become staples in the lives of young children, especially young girls. Children look at Disney Princesses as role models, and many children show this through copying the princesses. Children love to dress up as their favorite princesses, but more than anything, children love singing the Disney princesses’ songs. The first Disney Princess film was Snow White, which was released in 1937. However, the most recent princess film was Moana, released in 2016, almost 80 years after Snow White. From the civil rights movement to legalizing gay marriage, and everything in-between, society has changed a lot over the past 80 years. It is obvious that Disney Princesses have changed from 1937, but the question is: How much have Disney Princess songs changed over this time? Have the messages in these songs progressed with the princesses, or are Disney songs still stuck in the past? I analyzed all twelve official Disney Princesses’ movies and songs to try and answer these questions. Even though there are still similar themes in both modern and classic Disney songs, such as love or wanting more out of life, Disney songs have changed to fit more modern princesses. Though classic Disney songs were almost all about love, modern Disney songs rarely talk explicitly about love. Some modern Disney Princesses have no love songs whatsoever, such as Moana and Merida. This shift in the types of messages presented to young girls through these songs proves that these Disney Princesses can remain as inspirations to young girls without impeding their potential to one day change the world

The Post Matriculation Enrolment Decision: Do Public Colleges Provide Students with a Viable Alternative? Evidence from the First Four Waves of the National Income Dynamics Study

This paper uses National Income Dynamic Survey (NIDS) data from 2008‐2015, together with administrative data on South African schools and post‐secondary institutions, to estimate the impact of home background, school quality and scholastic ability during a learner’s final years of schooling on enrolment in post‐secondary education. We analyse enrolment patterns for each of three institution types separately, namely public universities, public Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges, and private colleges. In light of government’s current policy to expand TVET colleges over the next two decades, we focus specifically on this institutional category. In particular, we investigate the role of financial constraints in the enrolment decision, in order to assess the viability of the plan to expand post‐secondary education via the TVET sector. Through a series of multinomial logit regressions, we find that household income during matric year is highly significant in determining enrolment in all types of post‐secondary institutions, including TVETs. Individual ability (as measured by numeracy test scores) is also important in explaining enrolment in both universities and TVETs, even after controlling for socio‐economic background and school quality variables. These findings suggest that increasing the number of seats available at TVET colleges, without expanding funding opportunities and assessing the level of course content, is unlikely to result in the target of 2.5 million learners in TVET by 2030 being met.Nicola Branson: Senior Research Officer, SALDRU, UCT. Email: [email protected] Amy Kahn: Survey Consultant and Researcher, SALDRU, UCT. Email: [email protected] Acknowledgements: Funding for this research from the Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation is gratefully acknowledged