Identification of behaviour change techniques and engagement strategies to design a smartphone app to reduce alcohol consumption using a formal consensus method

Background: Digital interventions to reduce excessive alcohol consumption have the potential to have a broader reach and be more cost-effective than traditional brief interventions. However, there is not yet a strong evidence base on their ability to engage users or on their effectiveness. Objective: This study aimed to identify the behaviour change techniques (BCTs) and engagement strategies most worthy of further study by inclusion in a smartphone application (app) to reduce alcohol consumption, using formal expert consensus methods. Methods: The first phase of the study consisted of a Delphi exercise with three rounds. It was conducted with seven international experts in the field of alcohol and/or behaviour change. In the first round, experts identified BCTs most likely to be effective at reducing alcohol consumption and strategies most likely to engage users with an app; these were rated in the second round; and those rated as effective by at least four out of seven participants were ranked in the third round. The rankings were analysed using Kendall’s W coefficient of concordance, which indicates consensus between participants. The second phase consisted of a new, independent group of experts (n=43) ranking the BCTs that were identified in the first phase. The correlation between the rankings of the two groups was assessed using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. Results: Twelve BCTs were identified as likely to be effective. There was moderate agreement among the experts over their ranking (W=.465, χ2(11)=35.77, P<.001) and the BCTs receiving the highest mean rankings were self-monitoring, goal-setting, action planning, and feedback in relation to goals. There was a significant correlation between the ranking of the BCTs by the group of experts who identified them and a second independent group of experts (Spearman’s rho=.690, P=.01). Seventeen responses were generated for strategies likely to engage users. There was moderate agreement among experts on the ranking of these engagement strategies (W=.563, χ2(15)=59.16, P<.001) and those with the highest mean rankings were ease of use, design – aesthetic, feedback, function, design – ability to change design to suit own preferences, tailored information, and unique smartphone features. Conclusions: The BCTs with greatest potential to include in a smartphone app to reduce alcohol consumption were judged by experts to be self-monitoring, goal-setting, action planning, and feedback in relation to goals. The strategies most likely to engage users were ease of use, design, tailoring of design and information, and unique smartphone features

High Energy Gamma-rays from Globular Clusters

It is expected that specific globular clusters can contain up to a hundred of millisecond pulsars. These pulsars can accelerate leptons at the shock waves originated in collisions of the pulsar winds and/or inside the pulsar magnetospheres. Energetic leptons diffuse gradually through the globular cluster comptonizing stellar and microwave background radiation. We calculate the GeV-TeV $\gamma$-ray spectra for different models of injection of leptons and parameters of the globular clusters assuming reasonable, of the order of 1%, efficiency of energy conversion from the pulsar winds into the relativistic leptons. It is concluded that leptons accelerated in the globular cluster cores should produce well localized $\gamma$-ray sources which are concentric with these globular clusters. The results are shown for four specific globular clusters (47 Tuc, Ter 5, M13, and M15), in which significant population of millisecond pulsars have been already discovered. We argue that the best candidates, which might be potentially detected by the present Cherenkov telescopes and the planned satellite telescopes (AGILE, GLAST), are 47 Tuc on the southern hemisphere, and M13 on the northern hemisphere. We conclude that detection (or non-detection) of GeV-TeV $\gamma$-ray emission from GCs by these instruments put important constraints on the models of acceleration of leptons by millisecond pulsars.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, 1 table, accepted to MNRA

A comprehensive analysis of the oil fields of the North Slope of Alaska: their use as analogs, recent exploration, and forecasted royalty and production tax revenue

Master's Project (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2018Revenues from petroleum production supply most of the revenue for unrestricted general funds for the State of Alaska. As such, variations in the price of oil, decline from existing production and new developments greatly affect the money available for the state to spend on everything from roads to education. This study reviewed all producing oil fields on the North Slope, characterized their reservoir performance and forecasted future production. This was coupled with analysis of recent exploration discoveries and ongoing project developments to forecast future North Slope production and create potential royalty and production tax revenue forecasts. After 40 years of production, Prudhoe Bay remains the dominant field on the North Slope, accounting for 45% of current production. Relatively large changes in the non-anchor field pools are only able to change North Slope production by a couple of percent due to the nature of their size compared to Prudhoe Bay, Kuparuk and Alpine. New developments however, are able to materially contribute to changes in North Slope production if they are large enough. With continued activity in the many fields, creating an accurate forecast is challenging, however, without new developments, the Trans Alaska Pipeline will need to make changes to accommodate low flow rates. Currently identified new developments have the potential to extend current production rates 10-20 years. Some of these announced developments and discoveries have announced productivity rates that are not realistic compared to analog well performance, and will likely require many more wells to achieve the announced rates and volumes

Legislative Efforts Pertinent to the Subject Matter of Selected Debate Propositions from 1920 to 1967

National intercollegiate debate propositions have dealt with topics of national or international concern since 1920. In A History of Speech Education in America, L. Leroy Cowperthwaite and A. Craig Baird stated that the subjects selected for debate propositions have clearly reflected the political, \u27economic, and sociological issues of the time. Since the topics selected for intercollegiate debate refer to national and international subjects that are reflective of timely issues, it may be beneficial to those concerned with topic selection, and. anyone else involved. or interested in debate, to determine to what extent the national intercollegiate debate propositions have been reflected in national programs or acts. The purpose of this inquiry is to determine the legislative efforts made by the federal government, during the five years subsequent to the date the question was debated, to enact into law the sense of selected national intercollegiate debate propositions dealing with domestic concerns from 1920 through 1967. The following sources were utilized in gathering information relevant to the history of debate, and more specifically, the history of the national intercollegiate debate proposition: (1) Decision by Debate; (2) Discussion and Debate, Tools of a Democracy; (J) Directing Forensics: Debate and Contest Speaking; (4) Argumentation and Debate - Rational Decision Making; (5) A Short History of the British Commonwealth; (6) Competitive Debate - Rules and Techniques; (?) A Historical Sketch of Intercollegiate Debating: I and II, The Quarterly Journal of Speech; (8) A History of Speech Education in America; (9) other miscellaneous sources. The information was then arranged chronologically beginning with the European and Asian origins of debate through the development of the national intercollegiate debate proposition

Permeability evolution across carbonate hosted normal fault zones

Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank Total E&P and BG Group for project funding and support, and the Industry Technology Facilitator for facilitating the collaborative development (grant number 3322PSD). The authors would also like to express their gratitude to the Aberdeen Formation Evaluation Society and the College of Physical Sciences at the University of Aberdeen for partial financial support. Raymi Castilla (Total E&P), Fabrizio Agosta and Cathy Hollis are also thanked for their constructive comments and suggestions to improve the standard of this manuscript as are John Still and Colin Taylor (University of Aberdeen) for technical assistance in the laboratory. Piero Gianolla is thanked for his editorial handling of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPostprin

Validation of the theoretical domains framework for use in behaviour change and implementation research

BACKGROUND: An integrative theoretical framework, developed for cross-disciplinary implementation and other behaviour change research, has been applied across a wide range of clinical situations. This study tests the validity of this framework. METHODS: Validity was investigated by behavioural experts sorting 112 unique theoretical constructs using closed and open sort tasks. The extent of replication was tested by Discriminant Content Validation and Fuzzy Cluster Analysis. RESULTS: There was good support for a refinement of the framework comprising 14 domains of theoretical constructs (average silhouette value 0.29): 'Knowledge', 'Skills', 'Social/Professional Role and Identity', 'Beliefs about Capabilities', 'Optimism', 'Beliefs about Consequences', 'Reinforcement', 'Intentions', 'Goals', 'Memory, Attention and Decision Processes', 'Environmental Context and Resources', 'Social Influences', 'Emotions', and 'Behavioural Regulation'. CONCLUSIONS: The refined Theoretical Domains Framework has a strengthened empirical base and provides a method for theoretically assessing implementation problems, as well as professional and other health-related behaviours as a basis for intervention development

Stimulation of Nicotiana tabacum pollen tube growth by γ-irradiation

Irradiation of pollen grains from Nicotiana tabacum with 60Co-γ-irradiation in the dose range of 1–6Gy stimulates growth of the pollen tube up to 50% above control level. Further increase of the irradiation dose to 12Gy reduces pollen growth approximately to control level. Pollen tube growth was measured photometrically by determination of the turbidity of a suspension of the fragmented pollen tubes. The sensitivity of Nicotiana tabacum pollen to γ-irradiation is higher than that of pollen from pine and Douglas-fir. The biological and environmental implications are discussed

Increasing condom use in heterosexual men: development of a theory-based interactive digital intervention

Increasing condom use to prevent sexually transmitted infections is a key public health goal. Interventions are more likely to be effective if they are theory- and evidence-based. The Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW) provides a framework for intervention development. To provide an example of how the BCW was used to develop an intervention to increase condom use in heterosexual men (the MenSS website), the steps of the BCW intervention development process were followed, incorporating evidence from the research literature and views of experts and the target population. Capability (e.g. knowledge) and motivation (e.g. beliefs about pleasure) were identified as important targets of the intervention. We devised ways to address each intervention target, including selecting interactive features and behaviour change techniques. The BCW provides a useful framework for integrating sources of evidence to inform intervention content and deciding which influences on behaviour to target

Statistical interaction modeling of bovine herd behaviors

While there has been interest in modeling the group behavior of herds or flocks, much of this work has focused on simulating their collective spatial motion patterns which have not accounted for individuality in the herd and instead assume a homogenized role for all members or sub-groups of the herd. Animal behavior experts have noted that domestic animals exhibit behaviors that are indicative of social hierarchy: leader/follower type behaviors are present as well as dominance and subordination, aggression and rank order, and specific social affiliations may also exist. Both wild and domestic cattle are social species, and group behaviors are likely to be influenced by the expression of specific social interactions. In this paper, Global Positioning System coordinate fixes gathered from a herd of beef cows tracked in open fields over several days at a time are utilized to learn a model that focuses on the interactions within the herd as well as its overall movement. Using these data in this way explores the validity of existing group behavior models against actual herding behaviors. Domain knowledge, location geography and human observations, are utilized to explain the causes of these deviations from this idealized behavior