THE CURRENT AND POTENTIAL ROLES FOR NUTRITION EDUCATION IN CANCER SUPPORT GROUPS IN SASKATOON

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe the role of nutrition education in support groups for people with cancer. Four research questions guided the research study; 1) What factors, if any, do facilitators observe that affect the nutritional status of the cancer patient? 2) What, if any, nutrition education, either formal or informal, currently takes place in cancer support groups in Saskatoon? 3) What factors do facilitators see as enhancing or detracting from nutrition education, either formal or informal, in cancer support groups in Saskatoon? 4) What role may the facilitators of the support programs for cancer patients identify for nutrition education, either formal or informal, within their groups? Using qualitative methodology in the form of interview inquiry, in — depth personal interviews were conducted with fourteen facilitators of cancer support groups. Cancer impacted their lives and the lives of their group members both physically and emotionally. Social support groups were considered beneficial in improving health and well being. However, support groups varied in organization and function. The functioning of the group was affected by group dynamics, individual characteristics of the group members, attendance issues, and the type of facilitator in the group. Nutrition education occurs both formally and informally in the groups. Formal nutrition education usually occurs in the format of a presentation by a nutrition professional on a topic of interest to the groups. Informal nutrition education occurs in the form of a group member raising a nutrition related concern, and other group members providing advice on how they dealt with that concern. There is potential for nutrition education in support groups for people with cancer. Barriers to further nutrition education in the support groups included the drop-in nature of the groups, the competing priorities of the group members, the timing of nutrition education, the availability of resources, and the characteristics of group members and facilitators. Enhancers of nutrition education included the format, importance and timeliness of nutrition education in the group. Several recommendations can be made for organizations with support groups and nutrition educators in order to enhance nutrition education

Critère d'équité en ordonnancement de grille

International audienc

Allocation de ressources et ordonnancement multi-utilisateurs : une approche basée sur l'équité

Grid and Cloud computing make possible the sharing of computer system resources, such as storage or computation time, among a set of users, according to their requests, thereby creating an illusion of infinite resources. However, as soon as those resources are insufficient to meet users’s expectations, conflicts of interest arise. Therefore, unlimited access to limited resources may lead to inefficient usage which penalizes the whole set of users. In such environments, arbitration becomes necessary in order to settle those conflicts and ensure a fair allocation to all users. We present two classes of problems : multi-user resource allocation under uncertainty and multi-user periodic task scheduling. We tackle these problems from the point of view of fairness.Les grilles de calcul et le “cloud computing” permettent de distribuer un ensemble de ressources informatiques, telles que du stockage ou du temps de calcul, à un ensemble d’utilisateurs en fonction de leurs demandes en donnant l’illusion de ressources infinies. Cependant, lorsque l’ensemble de ces ressources est insuffisant pour satisfaire les exigences des utilisateurs, des conflits d’intérêts surgissent. Ainsi, un libre accès à des ressources limitées peut entraîner une utilisation inefficace qui pénalise l’ensemble des participants. Dans de tels environnements, il devient nécessaire d’établir des procédures d’arbitrage afin de résoudre ces conflits en garantissant une distribution équitable aux différents utilisateurs. Nous présentons une nouvelle classe de problèmes : celle des ordonnancements multi-utilisateurs. Cette thèse aborde la notion d’équité au travers de problèmes d’allocation de ressources sous incertitudes et d’ordonnancement de tâches périodiques

Stereotypen und Vorurteile – facettenreiche Elemente der interkulturellen Kommunikation im Auskunftsinterview

Auskunft und Beratung in Bibliotheken sind ein integraler Bestandteil der Arbeit von Bibliothekaren*innen. Durch den demografischen Wandel ist man als solche*r im Auskunftsinterview ständig in Kontakt mit Menschen unterschiedlicher Herkunft und kultureller Erfahrungen. Die ‚eigene‘ Gesellschaft befindet sich in einem stetigen Wandel, der auch mit mehr Diskriminierung aufgrund von Vorurteilen und Stereotypen einhergeht. Diese soziale Wahrnehmung ist relativ, und sie kann sowohl positive als auch negative Eindrücke von Menschen widerspiegeln und hat sowohl hilfreiche wie auch hinderliche Implikationen im Auskunftsdienst.Conveying information and consultation in libraries are an integral part of the work of any librarian. Due to the demographic change, as a librarian working behind the information desk, one is constantly in contact with people of different origins and cultural experiences. As one's own society is more and more in a heterogeneous cultural change, one becomes more aware of their own diverse environment around oneself, which can result in more opportunities for discrimination on the basis of prejudices and stereotypes. This social perception is relative, and it can reflect positive as well as negative impressions of people and has both helpful and hindering implications in the consultation service.Peer Reviewe

Evolution of Heterogeneous Cellular Automata in Fluctuating Environments

The importance of environmental fluctuations in the evolution of living organisms by natural selection has been widely noted by biologists and linked to many important characteristics of life such as modularity, plasticity, genotype size, mutation rate, learning, or epigenetic adaptations. In artificial-life simulations, however, environmental fluctuations are usually seen as a nuisance rather than an essential characteristic of evolution. HetCA is a heterogeneous cellular automata characterized by its ability to generate open-ended long-term evolution and “evolutionary progress”. In this paper, we propose to measure the impact of different types of environmental fluctuations in HetCA. Our results indicate that environmental changes induce mechanisms analogous to epigenetic adaptation or multilevel selection. This is particularly prevalent in two of the tested fluctuation schemes, which involve a round-robin inhibition of certain cell types, where phenotypic selection seems to occur.Funding for this work was provided by the Science Foundation Ireland and the ERC Advanced Grant EPNet #340828. Some of the simulations were run on the MareNostrum supercomputer of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center.Postprint (author's final draft

Rational bidding using reinforcement learning: an application in automated resource allocation

The application of autonomous agents by the provisioning and usage of computational resources is an attractive research field. Various methods and technologies in the area of artificial intelligence, statistics and economics are playing together to achieve i) autonomic resource provisioning and usage of computational resources, to invent ii) competitive bidding strategies for widely used market mechanisms and to iii) incentivize consumers and providers to use such market-based systems. The contributions of the paper are threefold. First, we present a framework for supporting consumers and providers in technical and economic preference elicitation and the generation of bids. Secondly, we introduce a consumer-side reinforcement learning bidding strategy which enables rational behavior by the generation and selection of bids. Thirdly, we evaluate and compare this bidding strategy against a truth-telling bidding strategy for two kinds of market mechanisms – one centralized and one decentralized

Analyzing the EGEE production grid workload: application to jobs submission optimization

International audienceGrids reliability remains an order of magnitude below clusters on production infrastructures. This work is aims at improving grid application performances by improving the job submission system. A stochastic model, capturing the behavior of a complex grid workload management system is proposed. To instantiate the model, detailed statistics are extracted from dense grid activity traces. The model is exploited in a simple job resubmission strategy. It provides quantitative inputs to improve job submission performance and it enables quantifying the impact of faults and outliers on grid operations

Q-Strategy: A Bidding Strategy for Market-Based Allocation of Grid Services

The application of autonomous agents by the provisioning and usage of computational services is an attractive research field. Various methods and technologies in the area of artificial intelligence, statistics and economics are playing together to achieve i) autonomic service provisioning and usage of Grid services, to invent ii) competitive bidding strategies for widely used market mechanisms and to iii) incentivize consumers and providers to use such market-based systems. The contributions of the paper are threefold. First, we present a bidding agent framework for implementing artificial bidding agents, supporting consumers and providers in technical and economic preference elicitation as well as automated bid generation by the requesting and provisioning of Grid services. Secondly, we introduce a novel consumer-side bidding strategy, which enables a goal-oriented and strategic behavior by the generation and submission of consumer service requests and selection of provider offers. Thirdly, we evaluate and compare the Q-strategy, implemented within the presented framework, against the Truth-Telling bidding strategy in three mechanisms – a centralized CDA, a decentralized on-line machine scheduling and a FIFO-scheduling mechanisms