“The Acquisition of Wealth, or of A Comfortable Subsistence”: The Census of 1800 and the Yankee Migration to Maine, 1760-1825

In 1800 census-takers George Haliburton of Penobscot and Samuel Cony of Hallowell exceeded their official instructions and appended to their reports information about residents’ places of origin. This unusual addition to the rather limited census of 1800 offers insight into early migrations to the Penobscot, Kennebec, and Androscoggin valleys. Using this as a base, Jamie Eves takes a new look at New England\u27s internal migration patterns and reevaluates the motives and meaning of the pioneering process in this formative period in Maine’s history

Promoting stair climbing in Barcelona: similarities and differences with interventions in English-speaking populations

This study evaluated the ability of three different messages to encourage stair climbing on the Barcelona underground. Two weeks of baseline were followed by three banner intervention periods with three different messages, each for a 2 week period. Follow-up data was gathered two weeks after removing the messages. Stair climbing increased overall [odds ratio (OR) = 1.45; 95% confidence intervals (CIs) = 1.25–1.68], with no statistical differences between the messages. During follow-up, stair climbing remained elevated (OR = 1.22; 95% CIs = 1.01–1.48). These preliminary data suggest stair climbing interventions, effective in the UK, may prove successful in Catalonia and Spain. Baseline differences, however, outline the magnitude of the task

The 'active ingredients' for successful community engagement with disadvantaged expectant and new mothers: a qualitative comparative analysis

AIMS: To explore which conditions of community engagement are implicated in effective interventions targeting disadvantaged pregnant women and new mothers. BACKGROUND: Adaptive experiences during pregnancy and the early years are key to reducing health inequalities in women and children worldwide. Public health nurses, health visitors and community midwives are well placed to address such disadvantage, often using community engagement strategies. Such interventions are complex; however, and we need to better understand which aspects of community engagement are aligned with effectiveness. DESIGN: Qualitative comparative analysis conducted in 2013, of trials data included in a recently published systematic review. METHODS: Two reviewers agreed on relevant conditions from 24 maternity or early years intervention studies examining four models of community engagement. Effect size estimates were converted into 'fuzzy' effectiveness categories and truth tables were constructed. Using fsQCA software, Boolean minimization identified solution sets. Random effects multiple regression and fsQCA were conducted to rule out risk of methodological bias. RESULTS/FINDINGS: Studies focused on antenatal, immunization, breastfeeding and early professional intervention outcomes. Peer delivery (consistency 0·83; unique coverage 0·63); and mother-professional collaboration (consistency 0·833; unique coverage 0·21) were moderately aligned with effective interventions. Community-identified health need plus consultation/collaboration in intervention design and leading on delivery were weakly aligned with 'not effective' interventions (consistency 0·78; unique coverage 0·29). CONCLUSIONS: For disadvantaged new and expectant mothers, peer or collaborative delivery models could be used in interventions. A need exists to design and test community engagement interventions in other areas of maternity and early years care and to further evaluate models of empowerment

Reducing systematic review workload using text mining: opportunities and pitfalls

This EAHIL workshop focussed on three applications of text mining to assist with screening citations for systematic reviews, and encouraged participants to discuss issues affecting their adoption. This paper outlines these applications and summarises the factors raised by participants in relation to their uptake. Key aspects to uptake include having an accepted advantage over existing approaches, coupled with training and user support

Patients Emotions during Meal Experience: Understanding through Critical Incident Technique

Background and Objectives: It was established that eating experience may affect patients emotionally. Acknowledging the role and understanding the basis of patients’ emotions in their food consumption may assist in identifying their nutritional status as well as their satisfaction with foodservice. To date, there are limited studies focusing on patients’ food-related emotional experiences. Hence the present study sought to explore the issue using a qualitative approach. Methods: The study was conducted in three Malaysian public hospitals, two of which from rural and one from urban areas. Information about aspects of the hospital food experience was gathered using semi-structured interview method. A total of 29 patients who felt well enough to provide information about the hospital food were identified with the help of the head nurses. Patients were recruited based on the concept of data saturation. The interview was implemented based on Critical Incident Technique (CIT), which enables systematic extraction of information from the wealth of data in the stories told by the interviewees about things which have happened to them. Data were analysed using content analysis method. Findings: Patients were found toexperience emotions including frustration, interest, enjoyment, hostility, shame, boredom, sadness, anger, surprise and satisfaction in relation to food provision. The frequency of incidents eliciting negative emotions (56.7%) was higher than that of positive incidents (43.3%). Frustration, interest, and enjoyment were the most frequently reported emotions. Conclusions: Our study highlights emotion as an important aspect of patients’ food consumption, and lays a ground for incorporation of food-related emotion into hospital services and patient management research. Our study also indicated the CIT to be effective and credible in elucidating hidden patients’ emotions, which encourages its application in future relevant studies

Understanding Patients’ Meal Experiences through Staff’s Role: Study on Malaysian Public Hospitals

Background: One way to improve hospital food provision is certainly by understanding the management of hospital foodservices, but there is limited detailed information about staff roles in food provision in many hospitals around the world. Objective: The hospital meal experience of patients, a part of the services provided by hospitals, is becoming important. Therefore, the role of various hospital staff members was studied through their behavior, attitudes, and practices so as to understand how the foodservice system works to address patients’ food consumption. Methods: This qualitative research used the convenient sampling method. Data was collected by interviewing twenty hospital employees with different job scopes (nurses, doctors, dietitians, foodservice managers, and directors of hospital foodservices) in 6 public hospitals. Results: Themes such as providing familiar food, food as the motivational factor for consumption, empathy shown by staff, and influences of the eating environment were identified using content analysis. Conclusion: The viewpoints and experiences of key stakeholders facilitated the understanding of various factors involved in the provision of hospital food which affect patients’ decisions to accept and consume food

Ensemble averaged entanglement of two-particle states in Fock space

Recent results, extending the Schmidt decomposition theorem to wavefunctions of identical particles, are reviewed. They are used to give a definition of reduced density operators in the case of two identical particles. Next, a method is discussed to calculate time averaged entanglement. It is applied to a pair of identical electrons in an otherwise empty band of the Hubbard model, and to a pair of bosons in the the Bose-Hubbard model with infinite range hopping. The effect of degeneracy of the spectrum of the Hamiltonian on the average entanglement is emphasised.Comment: 19 pages Latex, changed title, references added in the conclusion

Promoting stair climbing: Stair-riser banners are better than posters... sometimes

Objective: Stair-riser banners are twice as effective as posters in encouraging stair climbing in shopping centres. This study tested the effectiveness of stair-riser banners in an English train station in 2006-2007. Method: The train station had a 39-step staircase and an adjacent escalator. Baseline observations (3.5 weeks) were followed by 10.5 weeks of a banner intervention supplemented with 3 weeks of a poster intervention. Both poster and banner featured the message ‘Stair climbing burns more calories per minute than jogging. Take the stairs’. Ascending escalator and stair users (N=36,239) were coded for gender. Results: Analyses, controlling for effects of gender and pedestrian traffic volume, revealed no significant change in stair climbing between baseline (40.6%) and the banner intervention (40.9%; p=0.98). Addition of the poster increased stair climbing (44.3%; OR= 1.36, 95% CIs 1.16-1.60, p< 0.001), with the effect reduced at higher pedestrian traffic volumes. Conclusion: While stair-riser banners had no effect, the poster intervention increased stair climbing. The high pedestrian volumes as the wave of disembarking passengers seek to leave the station would have obscured the visibility of the banner for many commuters. Thus stair-riser banners appear unsuitable point-of-choice prompts in stations where pedestrian traffic volume is high

School closure in response to epidemic outbreaks: Systems-based logic model of downstream impacts [version 1; peer review: 2 approved]

Background: School closures have been a recommended non-pharmaceutical intervention in pandemic response owing to the potential to reduce transmission of infection between children, school staff and those that they contact. However, given the many roles that schools play in society, closure for any extended period is likely to have additional impacts. Literature reviews of research exploring school closure to date have focused upon epidemiological effects; there is an unmet need for research that considers the multiplicity of potential impacts of school closures. Methods: We used systematic searching, coding and synthesis techniques to develop a systems-based logic model. We included literature related to school closure planned in response to epidemics large and small, spanning the 1918-19 ‘flu pandemic through to the emerging literature on the 2019 novel coronavirus. We used over 170 research studies and a number of policy documents to inform our model. Results: The model organises the concepts used by authors into seven higher level domains: children’s health and wellbeing, children’s education, impacts on teachers and other school staff, the school organisation, considerations for parents and families, public health considerations, and broader economic impacts. The model also collates ideas about potential moderating factors and ethical considerations. While dependent upon the nature of epidemics experienced to date, we aim for the model to provide a starting point for theorising about school closures in general, and as part of a wider system that is influenced by contextual and population factors. Conclusions: The model highlights that the impacts of school closures are much broader than those related solely to health, and demonstrates that there is a need for further concerted work in this area. The publication of this logic model should help to frame future research in this area and aid decision-makers when considering future school closure policy and possible mitigation strategies

Sex differences in exercise-induced diaphragmatic fatigue in endurance-trained athletes

There is evidence that female athletes may be more susceptible to exercise-induced arterial hypoxemia and expiratory flow limitation and have greater increases in operational lung volumes during exercise relative to men. These pulmonary limitations may ultimately lead to greater levels of diaphragmatic fatigue in women. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to determine whether there are sex differences in the prevalence and severity of exercise-induced diaphragmatic fatigue in 38 healthy endurance-trained men (n = 19; maximal aerobic capacity = 64.0 ± 1.9 ml·kg–1·min–1) and women (n = 19; maximal aerobic capacity = 57.1 ± 1.5 ml·kg–1·min–1). Transdiaphragmatic pressure (Pdi) was calculated as the difference between gastric and esophageal pressures. Inspiratory pressure-time products of the diaphragm and esophagus were calculated as the product of breathing frequency and the Pdi and esophageal pressure time integrals, respectively. Cervical magnetic stimulation was used to measure potentiated Pdi twitches (Pdi,tw) before and 10, 30, and 60 min after a constant-load cycling test performed at 90% of peak work rate until exhaustion. Diaphragm fatigue was considered present if there was a 15% reduction in Pdi,tw after exercise. Diaphragm fatigue occurred in 11 of 19 men (58%) and 8 of 19 women (42%). The percent drop in Pdi,tw at 10, 30, and 60 min after exercise in men (n = 11) was 30.6 ± 2.3, 20.7 ± 3.2, and 13.3 ± 4.5%, respectively, whereas results in women (n = 8) were 21.0 ± 2.1, 11.6 ± 2.9, and 9.7 ± 4.2%, respectively, with sex differences occurring at 10 and 30 min (P < 0.05). Men continued to have a reduced contribution of the diaphragm to total inspiratory force output (pressure-time product of the diaphragm/pressure-time product of the esophagus) during exercise, whereas diaphragmatic contribution in women changed very little over time. The findings from this study point to a female diaphragm that is more resistant to fatigue relative to their male counterparts