6,825 research outputs found
Eating disorder services for young people in Ireland: perspectives of service providers, service users and the general adolescent population
Objectives: This paper illuminates how national eating disorder (ED) policy translates into day-to-day practice by exploring how ED services are experienced by those who deliver and use them. Methods: A mixed-methods approach was used, which combined qualitative and quantitative techniques. The paper collates data from three studies: (i) an interview study exploring the lived experiences of young people with EDs (n =8), their parents (n =5) and their healthcare professionals (n =3); (ii) a national survey of health professionals’ perspectives on existing ED services (n =171); (iii) a nationwide survey of secondary-school students’ eating concerns and patterns of help - seeking (n=290). Results: The qualitative interviews with young people and their parents revealed feelings of isolation and helplessness. Young people expressed interest in patient support groups, while parents desired greater support for the family unit. Parents were highly critical of available services, particularly in relation to access. These criticisms were echoed in the survey of healthcare professionals, who reported many barriers to delivering effective care. Clinicians were almost unanimous in calling for care pathways to be clarified via a standardised treatment protocol. The survey of adolescents indicated widespread reluctance to seek help regarding eating concerns: over one-third expressed concern about their own eating habits, but half of these had not divulged their concerns to anyone. Participants’ preferred pathways of help-seeking revolved around family and friends, and adolescents were unsure about routes of access to professional support. 3 Conclusions: The research demonstrates that many aspects of national ED policy have not been implemented in practice. The paper highlights specific gaps and suggests ways they can be redressed
The Físchlár digital video system: a digital library of broadcast TV programmes
Físchlár is a system for recording, indexing, browsing and playback of broadcast TV programmes which has been operational on our University campus for almost 18 months. In this paper we give a brief overview of how the system operates, how TV programmes are organised for browse/playback and a short report on the system usage by over 900 users in our University
Reflections on a coaching pilot project in healthcare settings
This paper draws on personal reflection of coaching experiences and learning as a coach to consider the relevance of these approaches in a management context with a group of four healthcare staff who participated in a pilot coaching project. It explores their understanding of coaching techniques applied in management settings via their reflections on using coaching approaches and coaching applications as healthcare managers. Coaching approaches can enhance a manager’s skill portfolio and offer the potential benefits in terms of successful goal achievement, growth, mutual learning and development for both themselves and staff they work with in task focused scenarios
Dietary dairy product intake and incident type 2 diabetes: a prospective study using dietary data from a 7-day food diary
The consumption of specific dairy types may be beneficial for the prevention of diabetes.
Abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the association between total and types of dairy product intake and risk of developing incident type 2 diabetes, using a food diary.
Methods: A nested case-cohort within the EPIC-Norfolk Study was examined, including a random subcohort
(n=4,000) and cases of incident diabetes (n=892, including 143 cases in the subcohort) followed-up for 11 years. Diet was assessed using a prospective 7-day food diary. Total dairy intake (g/day) was estimated and categorised into high-fat
(≥3.9%) and low-fat (<3.9% fat) dairy, and by subtype into yoghurt, cheese and milk. Combined fermented dairy product
intake (yoghurt, cheese, sour cream) was estimated and categorised into high- and low-fat. Prentice-weighted Cox
regression HRs were calculated.
Results: Total dairy, high-fat dairy, milk, cheese and high-fat fermented dairy product intakes were not associated with the
development of incident diabetes. Low-fat dairy intake was inversely associated with diabetes in age- and sex-adjusted
analyses (tertile [T] 3 vs T1, HR 0.81 [95% CI 0.66, 0.98]), but further adjustment for anthropometric, dietary and diabetes
risk factors attenuated this association. In addition, an inverse association was found between diabetes and low-fat
fermented dairy product intake (T3 vs T1, HR 0.76 [95% CI 0.60, 0.99]; ptrend=0.049) and specifically with yoghurt intake
(HR 0.72 [95% CI 0.55, 0.95]; ptrend=0.017) in multivariable adjusted analyses.
Conclusions/interpretation: Greater low-fat fermented dairy product intake, largely driven by yoghurt intake, was associated with a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes development in prospective analyses. These findings suggest that the consumption of specific dairy types may be beneficial for the prevention of diabetes, highlighting the importance of food
group subtypes for public health messages
Capacities of Grassmann channels
A new class of quantum channels called Grassmann channels is introduced and
their classical and quantum capacity is calculated. The channel class appears
in a study of the two-mode squeezing operator constructed from operators
satisfying the fermionic algebra. We compare Grassmann channels with the
channels induced by the bosonic two-mode squeezing operator. Among other
results, we challenge the relevance of calculating entanglement measures to
assess or compare the ability of bosonic and fermionic states to send quantum
information to uniformly accelerated frames.Comment: 33 pages, Accepted in Journal of Mathematical Physics; The role of
the (fermionic) braided tensor product for quantum Shannon theory, namely
capacity formulas, elucidated; The conclusion on the equivalence of Unruh
effect for bosons and fermions for quantum communication purposes made clear
and even more precis
Recognition without identification, erroneous familiarity, and déjà vu
Déjà vu is characterized by the recognition of a situation concurrent with the awareness that this recognition is inappropriate. Although forms of déjà vu resolve in favor of the inappropriate recognition and therefore have behavioral consequences, typical déjà vu experiences resolve in favor of the awareness that the sensation of recognition is inappropriate. The resultant lack of behavioral modification associated with typical déjà vu means that clinicians and experimenters rely heavily on self-report when observing the experience. In this review, we focus on recent déjà vu research. We consider issues facing neuropsychological, neuroscientific, and cognitive experimental frameworks attempting to explore and experimentally generate the experience. In doing this, we suggest the need for more experimentation and amore cautious interpretation of research findings, particularly as many techniques being used to explore déjà vu are in the early stages of development.PostprintPeer reviewe
Women’s perspectives on smartphone apps for fertility tracking and predicting conception : a mixed methods study
Acknowledgement We would like to thank all our survey respondents and interview participants, without whom this research would not have been possible. Additionally, we would like to thank the Clearblue team at SPD Development Company Ltd., for their assistance and support with volunteer recruitment and assistance with implementation of the research. Funding This work was conducted as an MPH research project at the University of Aberdeen. SPD Development Company Ltd. (Clearblue) provided pregnancy and ovulation tests as rewards for participants who completed interviews.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Optimizing a Certified Proof Checker for a Large-Scale Computer-Generated Proof
In recent work, we formalized the theory of optimal-size sorting networks
with the goal of extracting a verified checker for the large-scale
computer-generated proof that 25 comparisons are optimal when sorting 9 inputs,
which required more than a decade of CPU time and produced 27 GB of proof
witnesses. The checker uses an untrusted oracle based on these witnesses and is
able to verify the smaller case of 8 inputs within a couple of days, but it did
not scale to the full proof for 9 inputs. In this paper, we describe several
non-trivial optimizations of the algorithm in the checker, obtained by
appropriately changing the formalization and capitalizing on the symbiosis with
an adequate implementation of the oracle. We provide experimental evidence of
orders of magnitude improvements to both runtime and memory footprint for 8
inputs, and actually manage to check the full proof for 9 inputs.Comment: IMADA-preprint-c
Competing magnetic fluctuations in Sr3Ru2O7 probed by Ti doping
We report the effect of nonmagnetic Ti4+ impurities on the electronic and
magnetic properties of Sr3Ru2O7. Small amounts of Ti suppress the
characteristic peak in magnetic susceptibility near 16 K and result in a sharp
upturn in specific heat. The metamagnetic quantum phase transition and related
anomalous features are quickly smeared out by small amounts of Ti. These
results provide strong evidence for the existence of competing magnetic
fluctuations in the ground state of Sr3Ru2O7. Ti doping suppresses the low
temperature antiferromagnetic interactions that arise from Fermi surface
nesting, leaving the system in a state dominated by ferromagnetic fluctuations.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl
Diet quality, liveweight change and responses to N supplements by cattle grazing Astrebla spp. (Mitchell grass) pastures in the semi-arid tropics in north-western Queensland, Australia
Experiments during 4 years examined the diets selected, growth, and responses to N supplements by Bos indicus-cross steers grazing summer-rainfall semi-arid C4 Astrebla spp. (Mitchell grass) rangelands at a site in north-western Queensland, Australia. Paddock groups of steers were not supplemented (T-NIL), or were fed a non-protein N (T-NPN) or a cottonseed meal (T-CSM) supplement. In Experiment 1, young and older steers were measured during the late dry season (LDS) and the rainy season (RS), while steers in Experiments 2–4 were measured through the annual cycle. Because of severe drought the measurements during Experiment 3 annual cycle were limited to T-NIL steers. Pasture availability and species composition were measured twice annually. Diet was measured at 1–2 week intervals using near infrared spectroscopy of faeces (F.NIRS). Annual rainfalls (1 July–30 June) were 42–68% of the long-term average (471 mm), and the seasonal break ranged from 17 December to 3 March. There was wide variation in pasture, diet (crude protein (CP), DM digestibility (DMD), the CP to metabolisable energy (CP/ME) ratio) and steer liveweight change (LWC) within and between annual cycles. High diet quality and steer liveweight (LW) gain during the RS declined progressively through the transition season (TS) and early dry season (EDS), and often the first part of the LDS. Steers commenced losing LW as the LDS progressed. In Experiments 1 and 2 where forbs comprised ≤15 g/kg of the pasture sward, steers selected strongly for forbs so that they comprised 117–236 g/kg of the diet. However, in Experiments 3 and 4 where forbs comprised substantial proportions of the pasture (173–397 g/kg), there were comparable proportions in the diet (300–396 g/kg). With appropriate stocking rates the annual steer LW gains were acceptable (121–220 kg) despite the low rainfall. The N supplements had no effect on steer LW during the TS and the EDS, but usually reduced steer LW loss by 20–30 kg during the LDS. Thus during low rainfall years in Mitchell grass pastures there were substantial LW responses by steers to N supplements towards the end of the dry season when the diet contained c. <58 g CP/kg or c. <7.0 g CP/MJ ME
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