Book Reviews

Book reviews by Edward A. Westin, John P. Frank, Charles W. Joiner, Roger Paul Peters, and Aaron I. Abell

The effectiveness of home versus community-based weight control programmes initiated soon after breast cancer diagnosis: a randomised controlled trial

BackgroundBreast cancer diagnosis may be a teachable moment for lifestyle behaviour change and to prevent adjuvant therapy associated weight gain. We assessed the acceptability and effectiveness of two weight control programmes initiated soon after breast cancer diagnosis to reduce weight amongst overweight or obese women and prevent gains in normal-weight women.MethodsOverweight or obese (n?=?243) and normal weight (n?=?166) women were randomised to a three-month unsupervised home (home), a supervised community weight control programme (community) or to standard written advice (control). Primary end points were change in weight and body fat at 12 months. Secondary end points included change in insulin, cardiovascular risk markers, quality of life and cost-effectiveness of the programmes.ResultsForty-three percent of eligible women were recruited. Both programmes reduced weight and body fat: home vs. control mean (95% CI); weight ?2.3 (?3.5, ?1.0) kg, body fat ?1.6 (?2.6, ?0.7) kg, community vs. control; weight ?2.4 (?3.6, ?1.1) kg, body fat ?1.4 (?2.4, ?0.5) kg (all p?<?0.001). The community group increased physical activity, reduced insulin, cardiovascular disease risk markers, increased QOL and was cost-effective.ConclusionsThe programmes were equally effective for weight control, but the community programme had additional benefits.Clinical trial registrationISRCTN6857614

Teaching parallel computing to science faculty: Best practices and common pitfalls

In 2002, we first brought High Performance Computing (HPC) methods to the college classroom as a way to enrich Computational Science education. Through the years, we have continued to facilitate college faculty in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines to stay current with HPC methodologies. We have accomplished this by designing and delivering faculty workshops, hosted in a variety of lab settings, as well as by developing tools supporting the technical infrastructure necessary for HPC education, all this without requiring access to traditional HPC computing platforms. In all, we have so far presented 16 professional development workshops for close to 400 predominantly undergraduate STEM faculty. This paper presents the result of internal formative evaluation by workshop instructors and the materials and tools developed during that process. We did this work as part of the National Computational Science Institute (NCSI) and in collaboration with the following groups: The Minority Serving Institutions - High Performance Computing (MSI-HPC) program of the National Computational Science Alliance The Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges (CCSC) The Center for Excellence in High Performance Computing The Oklahoma University Supercomputing Symposium series The Super Computing (SC) conference series education program We presented learners with a sequence of interactive, run it, modify it, build it open-ended lab exercises drawn from a variety of disciplines. Interactivity means having the ability to change parallel and algorithmic parameters, e.g. running software on more than one machine, using different models, refining the model, changing the problem scale, using different parallel algorithms. There is a lack of scientific parallel curricula suitable for illustrating Computational Science principles in the classroom. We addressed this need by locating, and where necessary creating, suitable open source software, data-sets, and curricular support materials related to typical problems in STEM disciplines. We use two methods to address the lack of educational HPC infrastructure of most institutions. Via a workstation reboot, the Bootable Cluster CD (BCCD) temporarily transforms a pre-existing Windows or Macintosh laboratory into a computational cluster in under five minutes. Second, we have prototyped an easily portable, airline checkable, under $3000, 8 node cluster for delivering HPC education anywhere with a standard electrical outlet. All the described curriculum materials and software are available through the Shodor Foundation\u27s Computational Science Education Reference Desk (CSERD), one of the pathway projects of the National Science Foundation\u27s National Science Digital Library (NSDL). Copyright © 2006 ACM

Teaching high performance computing to undergraduate faculty and undergraduate students

A growing proportion of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) research is increasingly dependent on Cyberinfrastructure (CI). CI has experienced rapid progress in enabling technologies - hardware, storage, networking, middleware, tools, libraries - but much slower improvements in workforce development. Currently, CI consumers tend to lag substantially behind CI capabilities. This paper de-scribes a series of linked efforts to address the gap between the workforce and the technology. Copyright 2010 ACM

Book Reviews

Book reviews by Edward A. Westin, John P. Frank, Charles W. Joiner, Roger Paul Peters, and Aaron I. Abell

Book Reviews

Book reviews by Edward A. Westin, John P. Frank, Charles W. Joiner, Roger Paul Peters, and Aaron I. Abell