Promoting Team-Based Exercise Among African American Breast Cancer Survivors

Physical activity benefits the health and well-being of breast cancer survivors (BCS). Yet, many African American survivors do not routinely exercise and have increased risk of poor outcomes. The purpose of this mixed-method study was to identify motivational factors compelling African American BCS to participate in a 14-week team walking program and to intend to continue exercise after the intervention concluded. Focus groups were held with participants (n = 12) before and after training. Content analysis discovered themes before the intervention: Not wanting to go at it alone, exercise not a life or treatment priority, cancer treatment affected activity, advocates to exercise, and can exercise really help? Four themes postintervention themes included: In the same boat, changed mind-set, improved weight and activity, and overcoming barriers. Physical data verified improvements. Results suggest that a team-based exercise training program may assist in overcoming a sedentary behavior tendency and subsequently improve health among survivors

Survivors Speak: A Qualitative Analysis of Motivational Factors Influencing Breast Cancer Survivors’ Participation in a Sprint Distance Triathlon

Aims and Objectives To examine motivational factors influencing breast cancer survivors to participate in triathlon training, complete a triathlon and maintain an exercise thereafter. Background Routine exercise has been shown to improve quality of life and reduce recurrence for breast cancer survivors. Yet physical and psychological factors present barriers for initiating and maintaining an exercise routine. Research is limited in exploring factors of exercise motivation from the survivor\u27s perspective. Design Qualitative design using focus groups and individual follow-up phone interviews to explore motivation for exercise initiation and maintenance. Methods One to two weeks after completing a triathlon, 11 breast cancer survivors who trained together participated in one of three focus groups to discuss their experience. Five months post triathlon 6 of the 11 participants were successfully contacted and phone interviews were conducted to explore exercise maintenance. Focus groups and interviews were analysed using content and thematic analysis. Results Five themes emerged (1) Champion for Exercise, (2) Part of a Team, (3) Everyone Had a Story, (4) Not Really Exercise and (5) What Do We Do Now? Overall, survivors recognised their need for lifestyle change (e.g. moving from a sedentary lifestyle to a more active one). More importantly, they identified the team approach to exercise initiation was crucial in their success in sustaining a behavioural change. Conclusions Emphasis needed on developing team exercise training programmes for survivors. Nurses can play a critical role in discussing with survivors, the benefits of exercise initiation and maintenance. Relevance to clinical practice Breast cancer survivors are hesitant to initiate routine exercise. Training with women who share a common lived experience increases the likelihood of success. Nurses are in a position to encourage breast cancer survivors to participate in group exercise programmes as a way to improve quality of life

Transition to practice programs: what Australian and New Zealand nursing and midwifery graduates said. A Graduate eCohort Sub-Study

Aim: To describe what Australian and New Zealand graduates said about the Nurse Entry to Practice program. Background: The Nurse Entry to Practice is a structured programme that offers professional and educational support for graduate nurses in their first year of practice. Method: The qualitative research described and reported herein constitutes a sub-study of the Graduate e-Cohort Study. This qualitative sub-study describes the responses to one on-line survey question offered in 2013 which asked about issues around gaining employment. Only those responses related to the Nurse Entry to Practice program by 197 recently graduated Australian and New Zealand nursing and midwifery students as they transitioned into professional practice are presented. Results: Graduates looking for jobs in the year 2009 and 2010 were positive about their uptake of a Nurse Entry to Practice program. At the time the programs were a viable and plentiful option in which the graduate could take a program associated with a final undergraduate clinical placement. This resulted in these graduates remaining in the ward or organisation where the program was undertaken. This consequence was reported more widely by 2008 graduates, 2009 graduates from New Zealand but was not reported at all by 2010 graduates. Nurses or midwives looking for a job in 2011 reported less on a Nurse Entry to Practice program and when they did they indicated that the program was hard to get into. Conclusion: This research offers educators, employers and administrators insights into improving the transition experience for recently graduated nurses and midwives

Driving Performance of Drug-Impaired Bus Drivers in Work Zone Areas

There are several safety issues in work zone areas due to decrease lane width, and presence of large equipment and on-site workers. The safety issues are compounded for drivers that are also drug impaired. In this study, we examine the driver performance of 18 commercial bus operators in a simulated environment while they are under the influence of a benzodiazepine drug (Triazolam). The findings show that those drivers under the influence of the drug had higher steering entropy and greater difficulty staying close to the intended travel lane when compared to those who were not under the influence of the drug. These wider travelling distances around work barrels, by those under the influence of Triazolam, could have a potential impact on the safety of nearby construction workers and heavy machine operators

Generational Career Shifts: how Matures, Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials view work

We examined several career concepts, including career identity, planning and resilience, career salience, work locus of control, modern career orientations, career self-efficacy, and career anchors, as well as the expectations of pre-career Millennials. Overall, our study shows significant intergenerational differences across many of these concepts. For example, Matures identified with their careers more than other generations, which suggests that work plays a more central role in their lives. Millennials and Gen X employees indicated a belief that they are not in control of their career success. Moreover, Millennials had lower levels of selfefficacy than both Gen X and Boomer employees. In terms of career anchors, we found that each successive younger generation placed more importance on autonomy and independence, entrepreneurial creativity, lifestyle, service, and dedication. Lastly, pre-career Millennials indicated high expectations for salary growth over their careers, despite expecting to take an average of five years off of work for child-rearing and travel activities

FollowMe: Vehicle Behaviour Prediction in Autonomous Vehicle Settings

An ego vehicle following a virtual lead vehicle planned route is an essential component when autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles interact. Yet, there is a question about the driver's ability to follow the planned lead vehicle route. Thus, predicting the trajectory of the ego vehicle route given a lead vehicle route is of interest. We introduce a new dataset, the FollowMe dataset, which offers a motion and behavior prediction problem by answering the latter question of the driver's ability to follow a lead vehicle. We also introduce a deep spatio-temporal graph model FollowMe-STGCNN as a baseline for the dataset. In our experiments and analysis, we show the design benefits of FollowMe-STGCNN in capturing the interactions that lie within the dataset. We contrast the performance of FollowMe-STGCNN with prior motion prediction models showing the need to have a different design mechanism to address the lead vehicle following settings

Change Detection Performance Under Divided Attention with Dynamic Driving Scenarios

This study investigated the effect of cognitive load on the relationshipbetween confidence in detecting changes and actual change detectionperformance. Two experiments simulated glancing away from the roadway byperiodically blanking the driver’s view for one second. Experiments wereconducted in a driving simulator where participants were asked to detect changesin the location and appearance of other vehicles while driving on a multi-lanesuburban roadway. In addition, cognitive load was imposed using messages thatparticipants were asked to listen to and answer questions about. Participants’sensitivity (d’) to vehicle changes was calculated and compared with subjectiveratings of confidence in detecting those changes. Results indicated a positiverelationship between d’ and confidence, suggesting that participants were aware ofthe factors that influenced their change-detection performance. However, thestrength of the relationship was situation-dependent. The strength of therelationship decreased when the detection task was more difficult and in thepresence of cognitive load

The Effect of Voice Interactions on Drivers’ Guidance of Attention

The objective of the current study was to assess the effect of voice interactions with an in-vehicle system on drivers’ guidance of attention. Our approach was to examine the effect of voice interactions on endogenous control of attention using a modified Posner cue-target paradigm. Consistent with the bottleneck hypothesis, dual-task slowing was observed when drivers responded to an auditory task and to a pedestrian detection task concurrently. This interference contributed to disrupted attention allocation, especially when drivers could not rely on their endogenous control of attention