185 research outputs found
A Picture May Be Worth a Thousand Texts: Obese Adolescents' Perspectives on a Modified Photovoice Activity To Aid Weight Loss
Abstract Background: In an effort to enhance the vividness and personal relevance of a text messaging intervention to promote weight loss among obese adolescents, a modified Photovoice process was evaluated with adolescents in a weight management program. Methods: Photovoice is a method using photography to generate relevant images and stories from users. Participants were recruited from the Michigan Pediatric Outpatient Weight Evaluation and Reduction (MPOWER) program, a multidisciplinary weight management program for obese adolescents and their parents. Twenty-three adolescents with a mean BMI of 40 were asked to take pictures on three to five randomly assigned weight-related topics, such as ?something that reminds you to exercise,? and to text them to a research assistant. Adolescents then engaged in semistructured interviews about the experience. Detailed notes of the interviews were analyzed to identify themes. Results: Participants generally provided high ratings of the process, indicating that (1) deciding what pictures to take caused them to reflect on their weight loss experience, and (2) a mobile intervention incorporating personally relevant images (e.g., basketball as their favorite sport rather than sports in general) would increase treatment adherence. The submitted photographs frequently featured family members and friends, and participants indicated that family and friends played a major role in motivating and supporting them. Conclusions: This study suggests that a Photovoice component has the potential to enhance weight management programs for teens as part of a text messaging intervention and as an independent entity. Further work should evaluate the effect of this promising intervention on weight loss.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/98440/1/chi%2E2011%2E0095.pd
A fast radio burst with a low dispersion measure
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond pulses of radio emission of
seemingly extragalactic origin. More than 50 FRBs have now been detected, with
only one seen to repeat. Here we present a new FRB discovery, FRB 110214, which
was detected in the high latitude portion of the High Time Resolution Universe
South survey at the Parkes telescope. FRB 110214 has one of the lowest
dispersion measures of any known FRB (DM = 168.90.5 pc cm), and was
detected in two beams of the Parkes multi-beam receiver. A triangulation of the
burst origin on the sky identified three possible regions in the beam pattern
where it may have originated, all in sidelobes of the primary detection beam.
Depending on the true location of the burst the intrinsic fluence is estimated
to fall in the range of 50 -- 2000 Jy ms, making FRB 110214 one of the
highest-fluence FRBs detected with the Parkes telescope. No repeating pulses
were seen in almost 100 hours of follow-up observations with the Parkes
telescope down to a limiting fluence of 0.3 Jy ms for a 2-ms pulse. Similar
low-DM, ultra-bright FRBs may be detected in telescope sidelobes in the future,
making careful modeling of multi-beam instrument beam patterns of utmost
importance for upcoming FRB surveys.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
A systematic account of the genus Plagiostoma (Gnomoniaceae, Diaporthales) based on morphology, host-associations, and a four-gene phylogeny
Members of the genus Plagiostoma inhabit leaves, stems, twigs, and
branches of woody and herbaceous plants predominantly in the temperate
Northern Hemisphere. An account of all known species of Plagiostoma
including Cryptodiaporthe is presented based on analyses of
morphological, cultural, and DNA sequence data. Multigene phylogenetic
analyses of DNA sequences from four genes (β-tubulin, ITS,
rpb2, and tef1-α) revealed eight previously
undescribed phylogenetic species and an association between a clade composed
of 11 species of Plagiostoma and the host family Salicaceae.
In this paper these eight new species of Plagiostoma are described,
four species are redescribed, and four new combinations are proposed. A key to
the 25 accepted species of Plagiostoma based on host, shape, and size
of perithecia, perithecial arrangement in the host, and microscopic
characteristics of the asci and ascospores is provided. Disposition of
additional names in Cryptodiaporthe and Plagiostoma is also
discussed
OMG Do Not Say LOL: Obese Adolescents' Perspectives on the Content of Text Messages to Enhance Weight Loss Efforts
Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/93769/1/oby.2011.266.pd
Measuring Black Hole Spin using X-ray Reflection Spectroscopy
I review the current status of X-ray reflection (a.k.a. broad iron line)
based black hole spin measurements. This is a powerful technique that allows us
to measure robust black hole spins across the mass range, from the stellar-mass
black holes in X-ray binaries to the supermassive black holes in active
galactic nuclei. After describing the basic assumptions of this approach, I lay
out the detailed methodology focusing on "best practices" that have been found
necessary to obtain robust results. Reflecting my own biases, this review is
slanted towards a discussion of supermassive black hole (SMBH) spin in active
galactic nuclei (AGN). Pulling together all of the available XMM-Newton and
Suzaku results from the literature that satisfy objective quality control
criteria, it is clear that a large fraction of SMBHs are rapidly-spinning,
although there are tentative hints of a more slowly spinning population at high
(M>5*10^7Msun) and low (M<2*10^6Msun) mass. I also engage in a brief review of
the spins of stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binaries. In general,
reflection-based and continuum-fitting based spin measures are in agreement,
although there remain two objects (GROJ1655-40 and 4U1543-475) for which that
is not true. I end this review by discussing the exciting frontier of
relativistic reverberation, particularly the discovery of broad iron line
reverberation in XMM-Newton data for the Seyfert galaxies NGC4151, NGC7314 and
MCG-5-23-16. As well as confirming the basic paradigm of relativistic disk
reflection, this detection of reverberation demonstrates that future large-area
X-ray observatories such as LOFT will make tremendous progress in studies of
strong gravity using relativistic reverberation in AGN.Comment: 19 pages. To appear in proceedings of the ISSI-Bern workshop on "The
Physics of Accretion onto Black Holes" (8-12 Oct 2012). Revised version adds
a missing source to Table 1 and Fig.6 (IRAS13224-3809) and corrects the
referencing of the discovery of soft lags in 1H0707-495 (which were in fact
first reported in Fabian et al. 2009
Leaf-inhabiting genera of the Gnomoniaceae, Diaporthales
The Gnomoniaceae are characterised by ascomata that are generally
immersed, solitary, without a stroma, or aggregated with a rudimentary stroma,
in herbaceous plant material especially in leaves, twigs or stems, but also in
bark or wood. The ascomata are black, soft-textured, thin-walled, and
pseudoparenchymatous with one or more central or eccentric necks. The asci
usually have a distinct apical ring. The Gnomoniaceae includes
species having ascospores that are small, mostly less than 25 μm long,
although some are longer, and range in septation from non-septate to
one-septate, rarely multi-septate. Molecular studies of the
Gnomoniaceae suggest that the traditional classification of genera
based on characteristics of the ascomata such as position of the neck and
ascospores such as septation have resulted in genera that are not
monophyletic. In this paper the concepts of the leaf-inhabiting genera in the
Gnomoniaceae are reevaluated using multiple genes, specifically
nrLSU, translation elongation factor 1-alpha (tef1-α), and RNA
polymerase II second largest subunit (rpb2) for 64 isolates. ITS sequences
were generated for 322 isolates. Six genera of leaf-inhabiting
Gnomoniaceae are defined based on placement of their type species
within the multigene phylogeny. The new monotypic genus
Ambarignomonia is established for an unusual species, A.
petiolorum. A key to 59 species of leaf-inhabiting Gnomoniaceae is
presented and 22 species of Gnomoniaceae are described and
illustrated
Dark matter and collider phenomenology of split-UED
We explicitly show that split-universal extra dimension (split-UED), a
recently suggested extension of universal extra dimension (UED) model, can
nicely explain recent anomalies in cosmic-ray positrons and electrons observed
by PAMELA and ATIC/PPB-BETS. Kaluza-Klein (KK) dark matters mainly annihilate
into leptons because the hadronic branching fraction is highly suppressed by
large KK quark masses and the antiproton flux agrees very well with the
observation where no excess is found . The flux of cosmic gamma-rays from pion
decay is also highly suppressed and hardly detected in low energy region (E<20
GeV). Collider signatures of colored KK particles at the LHC, especially q_1
q_1 production, are studied in detail. Due to the large split in masses of KK
quarks and other particles, hard p_T jets and missing E_T are generated, which
make it possible to suppress the standard model background and discover the
signals.Comment: 32 pages, 15 figure
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