2,927 research outputs found
Group cognitive behavioural therapy for stroke survivors with depression and their carers
Background: Depression in stroke survivors is common, leads to poorer outcomes and often not treated. A group cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) program (Brainstorm) for stroke survivors with depression, and their carers has been running as part of usual care since 2007.
Objective: To evaluate the implementation and acceptability of Brainstorm, a closed group intervention consisting of up to 10 sessions of education, activity planning, problem solving and thought challenging.
Methods: Participating stroke survivors and their carers complete assessment measures at baseline, post-treatment and 1-month and 6-months follow-up. A mixed models for repeated measures data was conducted with depression and anxiety scores for stroke survivors (Beck Depression Inventory-II; Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale) and the assessment of depression, anxiety and carer burden for carers. Acceptability was assessed by session attendance and written and open participant feedback upon completion of the program.
Results: Forty-eight community dwelling stroke survivors and 34 carers attended Brainstorm, with a median attendance of 88% of sessions. Follow-up assessments were completed by 77% (post-treatment), 46% (1-month) and 38% (6-month) of stroke survivors. Stroke survivorsâ depression scores decreased from baseline to post-treatment (p<.001); maintained at 1-month (p<.001) but not at 6-month (p=.056). Anxiety scores decreased between baseline and 1-month (p=.013). Carer burden, depression and anxiety scores at 1-month and 6-month follow-up, for carers, were all reduced when compared with baseline (p<.05).
Conclusion: The Brainstorm group intervention for depression in stroke survivors appears to have been effectively implemented and is acceptable to stroke survivors and carers
Chiral extrapolation of lattice data for the hyperfine splittings of heavy mesons
Hyperfine splittings between the heavy vector (D*, B*) and pseudoscalar (D,
B) mesons have been calculated numerically in lattice QCD, where the pion mass
(which is related to the light quark mass) is much larger than its physical
value. Naive linear chiral extrapolations of the lattice data to the physical
mass of the pion lead to hyperfine splittings which are smaller than
experimental data. In order to extrapolate these lattice data to the physical
mass of the pion more reasonably, we apply the effective chiral perturbation
theory for heavy mesons, which is invariant under chiral symmetry when the
light quark masses go to zero and heavy quark symmetry when the heavy quark
masses go to infinity. This leads to a phenomenological functional form with
three parameters to extrapolate the lattice data. It is found that the
extrapolated hyperfine splittings are even smaller than those obtained using
linear extrapolation. We conclude that the source of the discrepancy between
lattice data for hyperfine splittings and experiment must lie in non-chiral
physics.Comment: 27 pages, 6 figure
Chiral extrapolation of lattice moments of proton quark distributions
We present the resolution of a long-standing discrepancy between the moments
of parton distributions calculated from lattice QCD and their experimental
values. We propose a simple extrapolation formula for the moments of the
nonsinglet quark distribution u-d, as a function of quark mass, which embodies
the general constraints imposed by the chiral symmetry of QCD. The inclusion of
the leading nonanalytic behavior leads to an excellent description of both the
lattice data and the experimental values of the moments.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Physical Review Letter
Chiral Behaviour of the Rho Meson in Lattice QCD
In order to guide the extrapolation of the mass of the rho meson calculated
in lattice QCD with dynamical fermions, we study the contributions to its
self-energy which vary most rapidly as the quark mass approaches zero; from the
processes and . It turns out that in
analysing the most recent data from CP-PACS it is crucial to estimate the
self-energy from using the same grid of discrete momenta as
included implicitly in the lattice simulation. The correction associated with
the continuum, infinite volume limit can then be found by calculating the
corresponding integrals exactly. Our error analysis suggests that a factor of
10 improvement in statistics at the lowest quark mass for which data currently
exists would allow one to determine the physical rho mass to within 5%.
Finally, our analysis throws new light on a long-standing problem with the
J-parameter.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures. Full analytic forms of the self-energies are
included and a correction in the omega-pi self-energ
Recommended from our members
Fruit and vegetable intake: change with age across childhood and adolescence
Abstract
Eating fruit and vegetables (FV) offers important health benefits for children and adolescents, but their average intake is low. To explore if negative trends with age exist as children grow, this study modelled differences in fruit and vegetable consumption from childhood to young adulthood. A pseudo-panel was constructed using Years 1-4 (combined) of the Rolling Programme of the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey (2008/09 â 2011/12). Intake of fruits and vegetables in the NDNS was recorded using 4- day unweighted food diaries. Data consisted of 2131 observations of individuals aged 2 to 23 years. Age-year-cohort decomposition regression analyses were used to separate age effects from year and cohort effects in the data. Total energy intake was included to account for age differences in overall energy consumption. Fruit intake started to decrease from the age of 7 for boys and girls and reached its lowest level during adolescence. By 17 years boys were consuming 0.93 (p = 0.037) less fruit portions compared to the age of two. By 15 years, girls were consuming 0.8 fruit portions less (p = 0.053). Vegetable intake changed little during childhood and adolescence (p = 0.0834 and p = 0.843 for change between 7 and 12 years, boys and girls respectively). There was unclear evidence of recovery of FV intakes in early adulthood. Efforts to improve FV intake should consider these trends, and focus attention on the factors influencing intake across childhood and adolescence in order to improve the nutritional quality of diets during these periods
Measuring diet in primary school children aged 8-11 years: validation of the Child and Diet Evaluation Tool (CADET) with an emphasis on fruit and vegetable intake.
Background/Objectives:The Child And Diet Evaluation Tool (CADET) is a 24-h food diary that measures the nutrition intake of children aged 3-7 years, with a focus on fruit and vegetable consumption. Until now CADET has not been used to measure nutrient intake of children aged 8-11 years. To ensure that newly assigned portion sizes for this older age group were valid, participants were asked to complete the CADET diary (the school and home food diary) concurrently with a 1-day weighed record. Subjects/Methods:A total of 67 children with a mean age of 9.3 years (s.d.: ± 1.4, 51% girls) participated in the study. Total fruit and vegetable intake in grams and other nutrients were extracted to compare the mean intakes from the CADET diary and Weighed record using t-tests and Pearson's r correlations. Bland-Altman analysis was also conducted to assess the agreement between the two methods. Results: Correlations comparing the CADET diary to the weighed record were high for fruit, vegetables and combined fruit and vegetables (r=0.7). The results from the Bland-Altman plots revealed a mean difference of 54âg (95% confidence interval: -88, 152) for combined fruit and vegetables intake. CADET is the only tool recommended by the National Obesity Observatory that has been validated in a UK population and provides nutrient level data on children's diets. Conclusions:The results from this study conclude that CADET can provide high-quality nutrient data suitable for evaluating intervention studies now for children aged 3-11 years with a focus on fruit and vegetable intake
Chaotic memristor
We suggest and experimentally demonstrate a chaotic memory resistor
(memristor). The core of our approach is to use a resistive system whose
equations of motion for its internal state variables are similar to those
describing a particle in a multi-well potential. Using a memristor emulator,
the chaotic memristor is realized and its chaotic properties are measured. A
Poincar\'{e} plot showing chaos is presented for a simple nonautonomous circuit
involving only a voltage source directly connected in series to a memristor and
a standard resistor. We also explore theoretically some details of this system,
plotting the attractor and calculating Lyapunov exponents. The multi-well
potential used resembles that of many nanoscale memristive devices, suggesting
the possibility of chaotic dynamics in other existing memristive systems.Comment: Applied Physics A (in press
Asymptotic quasinormal modes of scalar field in a gravity's rainbow
In the context of a gravity's rainbow, the asymptotic quasinormal modes of
the scalar perturbation in the quantum modified Schwarzschild black holes are
investigated. By using the monodromy method, we calculated and obtained the
asymptotic quasinormal frequencies, which are dominated not only by the mass
parameter of the spacetime, but also by the energy functions from the modified
dispersion relations. However, the real parts of the asymptotic quasinormal
modes is still , which is consistent with Hod's conjecture. In
addition, for the quantum corrected black hole, the area spacing is calculated
and the result is independent of the energy functions, in spite of the area
itself is energy dependence. And that, by relating the area spectrum to loop
quantum gravity, the Barbero-Immirzi parameter is given and it remains the same
as from the usual black hole
- âŠ