Aerobic Exercise Exposure Targeting Anxiety Sensitivity: Effects on Associated Health Behaviors in Young Adults

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is associated with health behaviors such as low rates of physical activity, overeating, alcohol use, and poor sleep; however, interventions targeting AS via exercise-based interoceptive exposure have not assessed these as outcomes. In addition, previous studies are limited by brief follow-up periods. This study aimed to replicate previous aerobic exercise interoceptive exposures with an extended (6-week) follow-up and measurement of health behaviors. Participants were 44 sedentary young adults with elevated AS randomized to intervention (6 20-minute sessions of moderate-intensity treadmill walking) or assessment-only control. Assessments took place at baseline, week 2 (post-treatment), week 4, and week 8 with measurements of AS (ASI-3), physical activity (7-Day PAR), sleep (ISI), binge eating, alcohol use, depression (PHQ-8), anxiety (GAD-7), and stress (PSS-4). The intervention condition demonstrated a marginally significant reduction in AS compared to control at week 4 which eroded by week 8. There were no significant between-group differences for health behavior change. The intervention condition demonstrated decreases in depression, general anxiety, and perceived stress compared to control, but these effects eroded by week 4. There was no difference in findings for participants with BMI\u3c25 vs. those with BMI\u3e=25. Findings indicate that a brief intervention might not be sufficient to produce lasting changes in AS without additional treatment. Intervention effects were not as strong in this study compared to previous reports, which may be due to the size and greater racial/ethnic diversity of the current sample. Future research should objectively measure physical activity and explore individual variability in treatment response

Interpretable detection of unstable smart TV usage from power state logs

Power state logs from smart TVs are collected in order to construct a time-series representation of their usage. Time-series that belong to a TV exhibiting instability problems are classified accordingly. To do so, an automated feature extraction approach is used, together with linear classification methods in order to realise interpretable classification decisions. A normalized true positive rate of 0.84 ± 0.10 is obtained for the classification. The normalized true negative rate equals 0.80 ± 0.03. The final model returns a regularity statistic called the Approximate Entropy as its most important feature

The Impact of a Primary Care Psychology Training Program on Medical Utilization in a Community Sample

Mental illness and psychological distress is associated with higher rates of medical service usage and treatment of these issues results in more appropriate medical utilization rates. Little research has been conducted in an integrated care clinic, wherein health psychologists or behavioral health specialists work together with physicians to provide patient care. The current study examines the effects of brief behavioral and mental health interventions on patient medical utilization in this setting with care delivered by medical residents and doctoral psychology trainees. Access to the health system’s electronic billing records allowed for objective measures of annual healthcare utilization in terms of inpatient, outpatient, and emergency department use. A quasi-control group was constructed using propensity score matching in order to compare patients who had received a primary care psychology intervention to those who had not. Rates of inpatient utilization decreased significantly among treated patients overall as well as among treated patients identified as frequent attenders; there was no change in inpatient utilization among patients in the control group overall nor among frequent attenders in the control group, indicating that there is likely an effect of behavioral and mental health treatment on rates of inpatient visits. Rates of emergency department use and specialty outpatient visits were comparable between treated and control group patients, suggesting the lack of a treatment effect in these areas. Strengths, limitations, possible mechanisms, and implications for future research are discussed

Screening for Cognitive Impairment in Primary Brain Tumor Patients: A Preliminary Investigation with the MMSE and RBANS

Introduction: The prevalence of mild cognition impairment (MCI) among older adults (≥65) is estimated to range between 10-20% (Langa & Levine, 2014). Integrated primary care allows opportunities for interdisciplinary consultation, screening, and intervention. The aim of this study is to explore the percentage of older adults reporting cognitive concerns during their first primary care psychology visits. It is hypothesized that these rates will mirror prevalence rates in other older adult community dwelling samples in primary care settings. Methods: A patient sample of older adults (≥60) was introduced to services following a referral from their primary care physician. Clinicians then identified problems that were discussed in session, including “cognitive concerns.” Descriptive statistics will be used to assess the percentage of older adults with “cognitive concerns” in this sample, compared to other community dwelling samples. Results: 267 older adults were identified within a larger sample of patients who received primary care psychology services. The percentage of older adults who were referred for “cognitive concerns” was 10.5% (n = 28), with 12.7% (n = 34) reporting “cognitive concerns” during their visit. Interestingly of the 28 older adults referred by their provider for “cognitive concerns,” less than 50% (n = 13) of those patients reported “cognitive concerns” as one of their problems in session. Discussion: This sample of older adults reported cognitive concerns in primary care psychology sessions at a rate that falls within the range identified in other community dwelling samples. Future research could further improve upon identification and screening of older adults with cognitive concerns by psychologists in primary care settings, as intervention for MCI can improve quality of life and may delay progression of dementia (Campbell et al., 2018; Eshkoor et al., 2015).https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/gradposters/1088/thumbnail.jp

Computing Gravitational Wave Frequencies of Neutron Stars

Vibration modes of single neutron stars are important sources of continuous gravi- tational waves for detectors like the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observa- tory (LIGO). In order for LIGO to identify the weak signal buried in the noise, they rely on a theoretical template of the signal amplitude and frequency. In this thesis, we utilize a technique rst described by Chandrasekhar to calculate the frequency of the quasi- normal mode oscillations of a single neutron star. We calculate the normalized (complex) frequency for the l=2 (quadrupole) oscillation of the entire family of general relativistic polytropes with polytropic index 1.5 and a central density to central pressure ratio of 9. We nd the real part of this normalized frequency to be =0.3383, compared to Chan- drasekhar's result in his paper from 1991 of =0.3248. We nd the imaginary part of this normalized frequency to be =1.448010[Special character(s) omitted]4, compared to Chandrasekhar's result in his paper from 1991 of =1.02610[Special character(s) omitted]4. The slight dierence is likely due to higher computa- tional accuracy of modern day computers

Assessment of the Absorption Performance of Sound Absorbing Materials. Use of the Trefftz's Method and of a New Dual Particle Velocity-Pressure Sensor (Studie van de absorptie-eigenschappen van geluidsabsorberende materialen. Gebruik van de Trefftz's methode en van een nieuwe deeltjessnelheid-druk sensor)

Porous absorbing materials are applied in various fields of sound and noise control. The presented work wants to deliver a numerical simulationtool to predict the acoustical behavior of geometrically complex sound absorbing media under various excitations. To achieve this goal, a deterministic method, which is based on the indirect Trefftz s method and makes use of solution functions of the governing equations to describe the field variables in the region of interest, is extended to analyze the sound field in and above porous absorbers. The model is experimentally validated and used to analyze the sound field in some real-life configurations. Afterwards, an initial impetus is given towards the further analysis of the absorption performance of various kinds of patchworks under different angles of sound incidence and the study of sound propagation overimpedance jumps, with the aid of a model applicable to unbounded problems. Besides the development of the simulation tool, a new dual particle velocity-pressure measurement technique is presented.status: publishe