3,919 research outputs found
Improving food environments and tackling obesity: a realist systematic review of the policy success of regulatory interventions targeting population nutrition
Published: August 4, 2017Background: This systematic review (PROSPERO: CRD42015025276) employs a realist approach to investigate the effect of âreal-worldâ policies targeting different aspects of the food environment that shape individual and collective nutrition. Objectives: We were interested in assessing intermediate outcomes along the assumed causal pathway to âpolicy successâ, in addition to the final outcome of changed consumption patterns. Data sources: We performed a search of 16 databases through October 2015, with no initial restriction by language. Study eligibility criteria: We included all publications that reported the effect of statutory provisions aimed at reducing the consumption of energy-dense foods and beverages in the general population. We allowed all methodological approaches that contained some measure of comparison, including studies of implementation progress. Study appraisal and synthesis methods: We reviewed included studies using the appraisal tools for pre-post and observational studies developed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Given the considerable heterogeneity in interventions assessed, study designs employed, and outcome measures reported, we opted for a narrative synthesis of results. Results and implications: Results drawn from 36 peer-reviewed articles and grey literature reports demonstrated that isolated regulatory interventions can improve intermediate outcomes, but fail to affect consumption at clinically significant levels. The included literature covered six different types of interventions, with 19 studies reporting on calorie posting on chain restaurant menus. The large majority of the identified interventions were conducted in the US. Early results from recent taxation measures were published after the review cut-off date but these suggested more favorable effects on consumption levels. Nevertheless, the evidence assessed in this review suggests that current policies are generally falling short of anticipated health impacts.Jana Sisnowski, Jackie M. Street, Tracy Merli
Intrinsic hole mobility and trapping in a regio-regular poly(thiophene)
The transport properties of high-performance thin-film transistors (TFT) made
with a regio-regular poly(thiophene) semiconductor (PQT-12) are reported. The
room-temperature field-effect mobility of the devices varied between 0.004
cm2/V s and 0.1 cm2/V s and was controlled through thermal processing of the
material, which modified the structural order. The transport properties of TFTs
were studied as a function of temperature. The field-effect mobility is
thermally activated in all films at T<200 K and the activation energy depends
on the charge density in the channel. The experimental data is compared to
theoretical models for transport, and we argue that a model based on the
existence of a mobility edge and an exponential distribution of traps provides
the best interpretation of the data. The differences in room-temperature
mobility are attributed to different widths of the shallow localized state
distribution at the edge of the valence band due to structural disorder in the
film. The free carrier mobility of the mobile states in the ordered regions of
the film is the same in all structural modifications and is estimated to be
between 1 and 4 cm2/V s.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figure
Thermally stimulated H emission and diffusion in hydrogenated amorphous silicon
We report first principles ab initio density functional calculations of
hydrogen dynam- ics in hydrogenated amorphous silicon. Thermal motion of the
host Si atoms drives H diffusion, as we demonstrate by direct simulation and
explain with simple models. Si-Si bond centers and Si ring centers are local
energy minima as expected. We also describe a new mechanism for break- ing Si-H
bonds to release free atomic H into the network: a fluctuation bond center
detachment (FBCD) assisted diffusion. H dynamics in a-Si:H is dominated by
structural fluctuations intrinsic to the amorphous phase not present in the
crystal.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, In press EPL (Jun. 2007
Improving adaptive bagging methods for evolving data streams
We propose two new improvements for bagging methods on evolving data streams. Recently, two new variants of Bagging were proposed: ADWIN Bagging and Adaptive-Size Hoeffding Tree (ASHT) Bagging. ASHT Bagging uses trees of different sizes, and ADWIN Bagging uses ADWIN as a change detector to decide when to discard underperforming ensemble members. We improve ADWIN Bagging using Hoeffding Adaptive Trees, trees that can adaptively learn from data streams that change over time. To speed up the time for adapting to change of Adaptive-Size Hoeffding Tree (ASHT) Bagging, we add an error change detector for each classifier. We test our improvements by performing an evaluation study on synthetic and real-world datasets comprising up to ten million examples
Transit Photometry with the LCOGT Network
Within a single year, we deployed and commissioned a total of seven 1m telescopes to three sites (McDonald Observatory, CTIO and SAAO). These are complemented by two existing 2m telescopes, located in the northern (Haleakala) and southern (Siding Spring Observatory) hemispheres. Before the end of 2013, one additional 1m telescope will be deployed at McDonald Observatory, and two at Siding Spring Observatory, which will complete the southern ring and enable continuous LCOGT dark time in the southern hemisphere. We present transit observations acquired at each site with currently-deployed 1m telescopes. These data demonstrate some of the network's unique capabilities, such as simultaneous transit observations from multiple sites and construction of full transits by combining partial transit light curves from two sites. Such exercises pave the path toward searching for and characterizing transits of long period exoplanets, simultaneous multi-color transit observations, as well as studying spot distributions and rotation periods of exoplanet host stars using the LCOGT network
The Serre spectral sequence of a noncommutative fibration for de Rham cohomology
For differential calculi on noncommutative algebras, we construct a twisted
de Rham cohomology using flat connections on modules. This has properties
similar, in some respects, to sheaf cohomology on topological spaces. We also
discuss generalised mapping properties of these theories, and relations of
these properties to corings. Using this, we give conditions for the Serre
spectral sequence to hold for a noncommutative fibration. This might be better
read as giving the definition of a fibration in noncommutative differential
geometry. We also study the multiplicative structure of such spectral
sequences. Finally we show that some noncommutative homogeneous spaces satisfy
the conditions to be such a fibration, and in the process clarify the
differential structure on these homogeneous spaces. We also give two explicit
examples of differential fibrations: these are built on the quantum Hopf
fibration with two different differential structures.Comment: LaTeX, 33 page
Measuring Charge Transport in an Amorphous Semiconductor Using Charge Sensing
We measure charge transport in hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) using
a nanometer scale silicon MOSFET as a charge sensor. This charge detection
technique makes possible the measurement of extremely large resistances. At
high temperatures, where the a-Si:H resistance is not too large, the charge
detection measurement agrees with a direct measurement of current. The device
geometry allows us to probe both the field effect and dispersive transport in
the a-Si:H using charge sensing and to extract the density of states near the
Fermi energy.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Test of mode coupling theory for a supercooled liquid of diatomic molecules.I. Translational degrees of freedom
A molecular dynamics simulation is performed for a supercooled liquid of
rigid diatomic molecules. The time-dependent self and collective density
correlators of the molecular centers of mass are determined and compared with
the predictions of the ideal mode coupling theory (MCT) for simple liquids.
This is done in real as well as in momentum space. One of the main results is
the existence of a unique transition temperature T_c, where the dynamics
crosses over from an ergodic to a quasi-nonergodic behavior. The value for T_c
agrees with that found earlier for the orientational dynamics within the error
bars. In the beta- regime of MCT the factorization of space- and time
dependence is satisfactorily fulfilled for both types of correlations. The
first scaling law of ideal MCT holds in the von Schweidler regime, only, since
the validity of the critical law can not be confirmed, due to a strong
interference with the microscopic dynamics. In this first scaling regime a
consistent description within ideal MCT emerges only, if the next order
correction to the asymptotic law is taken into account. This correction is
almost negligible for q=q_max, the position of the main peak in the static
structure factor S(q), but becomes important for q=q_min, the position of its
first minimum. The second scaling law, i.e. the time-temperature superposition
principle, holds reasonably well for the self and collective density
correlators and different values for q. The alpha-relaxation times tau_q^(s)
and tau_q follow a power law in T-T_c over 2 -- 3 decades. The corresponding
exponent gamma is weakly q-dependent and is around 2.55. This value is in
agreement with the one predicted by MCT from the value of the von Schweidler
exponent but at variance with the corresponding exponent gammaComment: 14 pages of RevTex, 19 figure
Gravitational Microlensing Events from the First Year of the Northern Galactic Plane Survey by the Zwicky Transient Facility
The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) (Bellm et al. 2019; Graham et al. 2019; Masci et al. 2019) is currently surveying the entire northern sky, including dense Galactic plane fields. Here, we present preliminary results of the search for gravitational microlensing events in the ZTF data collected from the beginning of the survey (2018 March 20) through 2019 June 30
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