1,037 research outputs found
Assessment of Cancer Survivorsâ Experiences of Using a Publicly Available Physical Activity Mobile Application
Background: Regular participation in physical activity (PA) is associated with improved physical and psychosocial outcomes in cancer survivors. However, PA levels are low during and after cancer treatment. Interventions to promote PA in this population are needed. PA mobile apps are popular and have potential to increase PA participation, but little is known about how appropriate or relevant they are for cancer survivors.
Objective: This study aims to (1) assess recruitment, study uptake, and engagement for a publicly available PA mobile app (GAINFitness) intervention in cancer survivors; (2) assess cancer survivorsâ attitudes towards the app; (3) understand how the app could be adapted to better meet the needs of cancer survivors; and (4) to determine the potential for change in PA participation
and psychosocial outcomes over a 6-week period of using the app.
Methods: The present study was a one-arm, pre-post design. Cancer survivors (N=11) aged 33 to 62 years with a mean (SD) age of 45 (9.4), and 82% (9/11) female, were recruited (via community/online convenience sampling to use the app for 6 weeks). Engagement with the app was measured using self-reported frequency and duration of usage. Qualitative semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted after the 6-week study period and were analyzed using thematic analysis. PA, well-being, fatigue, quality of life (QOL), sleep quality, and anxiety and depression were self-reported at baseline and at a 6-week follow-up using the Godin Leisure Time Exercise Questionnaire (GLTEQ), the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-General (FACT-G), the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT)-Fatigue Scale Questionnaire, the Health and Quality of Life
Outcomes (EQ5D) Questionnaire, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), respectively.
Results: Of the people who responded to the study advertisement, 73% (16/22) agreed to participate and 100% (11/11) of the participants who started the study completed all baseline and follow-up outcome measures and the telephone interview. On average, participants used the app twice a week for 25 minutes per session. Four themes were identified from the qualitative interviews surrounding the suitability of the app for cancer survivors and how it could be adapted: (1) barriers to PA, (2) receiving advice about PA from reliable sources, (3) tailoring the application to oneâs lifestyle, and (4) receiving social support from others. Pre-post comparison showed significant increases in strenuous PA, improvements in sleep quality, and reductions in mild PA.
There were no significant changes in moderate PA or other psychosocial outcomes.
Conclusions: All participants engaged with the app and qualitative interviews highlighted that the app was well-received. A generic PA mobile app could bring about positive improvements in PA participation and psychosocial outcomes among cancer survivors. However, a targeted PA app aimed specifically towards cancer survivors may increase the relevance and suitability of
the app for this population
Processes leading to concentration of platinum-group elements in chromite rich rocks
Platinum-group elements are enriched in the ultramafic parts of the Stillwater, Bushveld and Great Dyke Complexes. Processes whereby this enrichment may occur are considered
Fundamental limits on the rate of bacterial growth
Recent years have seen an experimental deluge interrogating the relationship between bacterial growth rate, cell size, and protein content, quantifying the abundance of proteins across growth conditions with unprecedented resolution. However, we still lack a rigorous understanding of what sets the scale of these quantities and when protein abundances should (or should not) depend on growth rate. Here, we seek to quantitatively understand this relationship across a collection of Escherichia coli proteomic data covering â 4000 proteins and 36 growth rates. We estimate the basic requirements for steady-state growth by considering key processes in nutrient transport, cell envelope biogenesis, energy generation, and the central dogma. From these estimates, ribosome biogenesis emerges as a primary determinant of growth rate. We expand on this assessment by exploring a model of proteomic regulation as a function of the nutrient supply, revealing a mechanism that ties cell size and growth rate to ribosomal content
Fundamental limits on the rate of bacterial growth
Recent years have seen an experimental deluge interrogating the relationship between bacterial growth rate, cell size, and protein content, quantifying the abundance of proteins across growth conditions with unprecedented resolution. However, we still lack a rigorous understanding of what sets the scale of these quantities and when protein abundances should (or should not) depend on growth rate. Here, we seek to quantitatively understand this relationship across a collection of Escherichia coli proteomic data covering â 4000 proteins and 36 growth rates. We estimate the basic requirements for steady-state growth by considering key processes in nutrient transport, cell envelope biogenesis, energy generation, and the central dogma. From these estimates, ribosome biogenesis emerges as a primary determinant of growth rate. We expand on this assessment by exploring a model of proteomic regulation as a function of the nutrient supply, revealing a mechanism that ties cell size and growth rate to ribosomal content
Diffusion in a Random Velocity Field: Spectral Properties of a Non-Hermitian Fokker-Planck Operator
We study spectral properties of the Fokker-Planck operator that describes
particles diffusing in a quenched random velocity field. This random operator
is non-Hermitian and has eigenvalues occupying a finite area in the complex
plane. We calculate the eigenvalue density and averaged one-particle Green's
function, for weak disorder and dimension d>2. We relate our results to the
time-evolution of particle density, and compare them with numerical
simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Passive scalars, random flux, and chiral phase fluids
We study the two-dimensional localization problem for (i) a classical
diffusing particle advected by a quenched random mean-zero vorticity field, and
(ii) a quantum particle in a quenched random mean-zero magnetic field. Through
a combination of numerical and analytic techniques we argue that both systems
have extended eigenstates at a special point in the spectrum, , where a
sublattice decomposition obtains. In a neighborhood of this point, the Lyapunov
exponents of the transfer-matrices acquire ratios characteristic of conformal
invariance allowing an indirect determination of for the typical spatial
decay of eigenstates.Comment: use revtex, two-column, 4 pages, 5 postscript figures, submitted to
PR
âAnyone can co-design?â: A case study synthesis of six experience-based co-design (EBCD) projects for healthcare systems improvement in New South Wales, Australia
Experience-based co-design (EBCD) is a quality improvement approach that is being used internationally to bring service users and health professionals together to improve healthcare experiences, systems and processes. Early evaluations and case studies of EBCD have shown promise in terms of improvements to experience and organisational processes, however challenges remain in participation around shared power and decision making, mobilisation for implementation, sustainment of improvements and measurement of outcomes. The objective of this case study was to explore the emergent issues in EBCD participation and implementation in six quality improvement projects conducted in mental health, rehabilitation, blood and bone marrow transplant, brain injury rehabilitation, urinary incontinence and intellectual disability settings by the Agency for Clinical Innovation (ACI), New South Wales, Australia (2015-2018). Methods: A two stage process of analysis was employed. The first stage involved a case to case synthesis using a variable-oriented approach. In this approach themes were identified within individual cases and compared across cases in workshops with all project leads. In the second stage the case themes were synthesised within an overarching thematic that was identified as the main challenge in effective participation and implementation in these EBCD projects. The results: themes identified in the first stage of analysis related to different methods for gathering experiences and the activities used for the co-design of improvements. Variability in service user participation within co-design workshops was also discussed. Four out of the six projects implemented improvements in full. The prominent thematic overarching all six EBCD cases was the need for guidance on capability development and co-design preparedness for all participants in co-design not only project leads. In conclusion, variability in EBCD implementation makes it difficult to identify which component parts are essential for improving experiences and services, and which of these lead to sustained changes and benefits for service users and health professionals. One way to address this is to develop a model for co-design capability and preparedness that is closely linked with a set of eight mechanisms that have been previously identified as essential to achieving change in healthcare improvement initiatives.
Experience Framework
This article is associated with the Innovation & Technology lens of The Beryl Institute Experience Framework. (http://bit.ly/ExperienceFramework) Access other PXJ articles related to this lens. Access other resources related to this len
String Matching and 1d Lattice Gases
We calculate the probability distributions for the number of occurrences
of a given letter word in a random string of letters. Analytical
expressions for the distribution are known for the asymptotic regimes (i) (Gaussian) and such that is finite
(Compound Poisson). However, it is known that these distributions do now work
well in the intermediate regime . We show that the
problem of calculating the string matching probability can be cast into a
determining the configurational partition function of a 1d lattice gas with
interacting particles so that the matching probability becomes the
grand-partition sum of the lattice gas, with the number of particles
corresponding to the number of matches. We perform a virial expansion of the
effective equation of state and obtain the probability distribution. Our result
reproduces the behavior of the distribution in all regimes. We are also able to
show analytically how the limiting distributions arise. Our analysis builds on
the fact that the effective interactions between the particles consist of a
relatively strong core of size , the word length, followed by a weak,
exponentially decaying tail. We find that the asymptotic regimes correspond to
the case where the tail of the interactions can be neglected, while in the
intermediate regime they need to be kept in the analysis. Our results are
readily generalized to the case where the random strings are generated by more
complicated stochastic processes such as a non-uniform letter probability
distribution or Markov chains. We show that in these cases the tails of the
effective interactions can be made even more dominant rendering thus the
asymptotic approximations less accurate in such a regime.Comment: 44 pages and 8 figures. Major revision of previous version. The
lattice gas analogy has been worked out in full, including virial expansion
and equation of state. This constitutes the main part of the paper now.
Connections with existing work is made and references should be up to date
now. To be submitted for publicatio
Spectrum of the Fokker-Planck operator representing diffusion in a random velocity field
We study spectral properties of the Fokker-Planck operator that represents
particles moving via a combination of diffusion and advection in a
time-independent random velocity field, presenting in detail work outlined
elsewhere [J. T. Chalker and Z. J. Wang, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 79}, 1797
(1997)]. We calculate analytically the ensemble-averaged one-particle Green
function and the eigenvalue density for this Fokker-Planck operator, using a
diagrammatic expansion developed for resolvents of non-Hermitian random
operators, together with a mean-field approximation (the self-consistent Born
approximation) which is well-controlled in the weak-disorder regime for
dimension d>2. The eigenvalue density in the complex plane is non-zero within a
wedge that encloses the negative real axis. Particle motion is diffusive at
long times, but for short times we find a novel time-dependence of the
mean-square displacement, in dimension d>2, associated
with the imaginary parts of eigenvalues.Comment: 8 pages, submitted to Phys Rev
Aquilegia, Vol. 19 No. 2, April-June 1995: Newsletter of the Colorado Native Plant Society
https://epublications.regis.edu/aquilegia/1075/thumbnail.jp
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