3,132 research outputs found
Investigation of additives for improvement of adhesive and elastomer performance Final report
Improvement additives for adhesive and elastomer performanc
The effectiveness of a social media intervention for reducing portion sizes in young adults and adolescents
open access journalAbstract
Objective: Adolescents and young adults select larger portions of energy-dense food than recommended. The majority of young people have a social media profile, and peer influence on social media may moderate the size of portions selected.
Methods: Two pilot-interventions examined whether exposure to images of peers’ portions of high-energy-dense (HED) snacks and sugar-sweetened-beverages (SSBs) on social media (Instagram) would influence reported desired portions selected on a survey. Confederate peers posted ‘their’ portions of HED snacks and SSBs on Instagram. At baseline and intervention end participants completed surveys that assessed desired portion sizes.
Results: In intervention 1, Undergraduate students (N=20, Mean age=19.0y, SD=0.65y) participated in a two-week intervention in a within-subjects design. Participants reported smaller desired portions of HED snacks and SSBs following the intervention, and smaller desired portions of HED snacks for their peers. In intervention 2, adolescents (N=44, Mean age=14.4y, SD=1.06y) participated in a four-week intervention (n=23) or control condition (n=21) in a between-subjects design. Intervention 2 did not influence adolescents to reduce their desired reported portion sizes of HED snacks or SSBs relative to control.
Conclusions: These preliminary studies demonstrated that social media is a feasible way to communicate with young people. However, while the intervention influenced young adults’ reported desired portions and social norms regarding their peers’ portions, no significant impact on desired reported portion sizes was found for HED snacks and SSBs in adolescents. Desired portion sizes of some foods and beverages may be resistant to change via a social media intervention in this age group
Representational capacity of a set of independent neurons
The capacity with which a system of independent neuron-like units represents
a given set of stimuli is studied by calculating the mutual information between
the stimuli and the neural responses. Both discrete noiseless and continuous
noisy neurons are analyzed. In both cases, the information grows monotonically
with the number of neurons considered. Under the assumption that neurons are
independent, the mutual information rises linearly from zero, and approaches
exponentially its maximum value. We find the dependence of the initial slope on
the number of stimuli and on the sparseness of the representation.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures, Phys. Rev. E, vol 63, 11910 - 11924 (2000
Containing Grief: Ambiguities and Dilemmas in the Emotional Work of UK Childhood Bereavement Services
This thesis adopts a cross-disciplinary perspective. Drawing on psychoanalytic and
sociological theory, it examines the emotional work of UK childhood bereavement services;
and explores the role of the researcher in the production of knowledge. It adopts Alvesson
and Skoldberg's (2000) reflexive methodology to re-examine data from an earlier study that
comprised a national postal survey of childhood bereavement services (n=127), and 8 ýndepth
organisational case studies. Data were collected through interviews with 60 paid and
unpaid staff, a postal survey of 74 unpaid staff, and participant observation of 6 group
interventions.
The thesis elaborates a theory of the ambiguities and dilemmas of their complex emotional
work, and the term 'emotion/al' is used to denote inter-relationship between three features of
the work: it expressly engages staff with emotion; it generates emotion in staff; and services
undertake emotional work with, and on behalf of, individuals, the organisation and culture.
The forward slash also signifies the potential for a bifurcated experience as a result of
undertaking this work.
Hochschild's (1983) sociological concept of emotional labour and feeling rules and Bion's
(1959; 1962; 1970) psychoanalytic theory of 'container/contained' are used to understand the
emotion/al process in each of these settings as one of 'containing grief'. Bion's
container/contained relationship describes the mechanism through which the capacity to link
experience to thought is developed. The thesis argues that childhood bereavement services
act as a 'container. In bearing children's intense feelings of grief and through their
interventions, services enable them to make meaning of their bereavement and integrate it
into their life narrative. Childhood bereavement services also challenge 'feeling rules' in
relation to childhood bereavement. Through their emotion/al work, they also act as a
container of cultural anxiety influencing and re-defining assumptions and beliefs about
children and their experience of bereavement. In containing grief, childhood bereavement
services contribute to cultural change
- …