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