The need for a tailored approach within integrated childhood obesity care

Childhood obesity is nationally and internationally a problem requiring urgent attention. There is general agreement about the need of an integrated approach which includes both prevention of and integrated care for childhood obesity. In this dissertation, the following main research questions are addressed: How can childhood obesity care better connect to the needs and possibilities of children and their parents? What is needed for healthcare professionals to adopt a tailored approach which empowers and supports children and their parents with sustainable behavioral change towards a healthy lifestyle? The research is done in a multi- and interdisciplinary collaboration between the Obesity Center CGG at Erasmus MC Rotterdam, the Care for Obesity project at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and the LIKE consortium, funded by the Dutch Heart Foundation, ZonMw, and Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Sport.In general, from this dissertation can be concluded that with a tailored approach integrated childhood obesity care can connect to the needs and possibilities of children with obesity and their parents. Healthcare professionals can do this by acknowledging the breadth and complexity of personal and environmental factors in achieving a healthier lifestyle. Understanding the child and parents’ perspective is thereby of great importance. The role of a coordinating professional, the psychosocial and lifestyle assessment, and the combined lifestyle intervention are the key elements of integrated care which need to be structurally reimbursed. In addition, integrated care needs to be available for healthcare professionals to adopt a tailored approach which empowers and supports children and their parents with sustainable behavioral change.<br/

Blending of mathematics and physics:undergraduate students' reasoning in the context of the heat equation

The role of mathematics in physics is multifaceted. Moreover, mathematics has not only been essential to the development of physics, but conversely, many mathematical concepts arose from a desire to describe nature. The intertwining of mathematics and physics is so strong that it is sometimes difficult to separate the two. Yet this strong interconnectedness is not always reflected in education. This dichotomy makes it difficult for pupils and students to integrate their knowledge of both disciplines. The question of how best to bring both together to support learners' learning remains largely unanswered. In our study, for a specific topic (partial differential equations), we examined how students bring mathematics and physics together in their reasoning, what the specific difficulties they face in doing so are, and ultimately how we can respond to them in designing educational learning activities. We did this through three qualitative studies, in which we conducted interviews with small numbers of students and which we analyzed in detail. In the first study, we identified the specific difficulties that students face with blending mathematics and physics in this context. Second, we focused on the ways in which students combine mathematical and physical ideas in their reasoning, and how graphic reasoning can help them foster that combination. As a final step, we then designed a tutorial that draws on our previous findings and aims to support students in combining mathematics and physics

The need for a tailored approach within integrated childhood obesity care

Childhood obesity is nationally and internationally a problem requiring urgent attention. There is general agreement about the need of an integrated approach which includes both prevention of and integrated care for childhood obesity. In this dissertation, the following main research questions are addressed: How can childhood obesity care better connect to the needs and possibilities of children and their parents? What is needed for healthcare professionals to adopt a tailored approach which empowers and supports children and their parents with sustainable behavioral change towards a healthy lifestyle? The research is done in a multi- and interdisciplinary collaboration between the Obesity Center CGG at Erasmus MC Rotterdam, the Care for Obesity project at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and the LIKE consortium, funded by the Dutch Heart Foundation, ZonMw, and Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Sport.In general, from this dissertation can be concluded that with a tailored approach integrated childhood obesity care can connect to the needs and possibilities of children with obesity and their parents. Healthcare professionals can do this by acknowledging the breadth and complexity of personal and environmental factors in achieving a healthier lifestyle. Understanding the child and parents’ perspective is thereby of great importance. The role of a coordinating professional, the psychosocial and lifestyle assessment, and the combined lifestyle intervention are the key elements of integrated care which need to be structurally reimbursed. In addition, integrated care needs to be available for healthcare professionals to adopt a tailored approach which empowers and supports children and their parents with sustainable behavioral change.<br/

Token Bucket-based Throughput Constraining in Cross-layer Schedulers

In this paper we consider upper and lower constraining users' service rates in a slotted, cross-layer scheduler context. Such schedulers often cannot guarantee these bounds, despite the usefulness in adhering to Quality of Service (QoS) requirements, aiding the admission control system or providing different levels of service to users. We approach this problem with a low-complexity algorithm that is easily integrated in any utility function-based cross-layer scheduler. The algorithm modifies the weights of the associated Network Utility Maximization problem, rather than for example applying a token bucket to the scheduler's output or adding constraints in the physical layer. We study the efficacy of the algorithm through simulations with various schedulers from literature and mixes of traffic. The metrics we consider show that we can bound the average service rate within about five slots, for most schedulers. Schedulers whose weight is very volatile are more difficult to constrain.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures. Presented at 6th International Conference on Computer Science, Engineering and Information. Published in AIRCC http://airccse.org/csit/V9N13.htm

Micro-CT and mercury intrusion porosimetry characterization of the fabric of roofing slate

The petrological fabric of roofing slate determines the main properties of the slate as a construction material, such as durability and waterproofing. Roofing slates are rocks derived from the low-grade metamorphism of lutites, with a characteristic lepidoblastic fabric. However, little attention by petrologists has been paid to the role of this fabric in the behaviour of roofin slates. This work characterizes the fabric and pore system of two roofing slate varieties from Spain, using two different techniques, each with its advantages and disadvantages: X-ray microtomography, useful to find heterogeneities and mineral inclusions on the slate bulk,and mercury intrusion porosimetry, which defines the pore system. The differentiation of mineral inclusions is very useful for predicting the weathering of a slate, while the definition of the pore system may help to understand how the slate will behave during its service life