264 research outputs found
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The Use of Web-Based Support Groups Versus Usual Quit-Smoking Care for Men and Women Aged 21-59 Years: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial (Preprint)
BACKGROUND
Existing smoking cessation treatments are challenged by low engagement and high relapse rates, suggesting the need for more innovative, accessible, and interactive treatment strategies. Twitter is a Web-based platform that allows people to communicate with each other throughout the day using their phone.
OBJECTIVE
This study aims to leverage the social media platform of Twitter for fostering peer-to-peer support to decrease relapse with quitting smoking. Furthermore, the study will compare the effects of coed versus women-only groups on women’s success with quitting smoking.
METHODS
The study design is a Web-based, three-arm randomized controlled trial with two treatment arms (a coed or women-only Twitter support group) and a control arm. Participants are recruited online and are randomized to one of the conditions. All participants will receive 8 weeks of combination nicotine replacement therapy (patches plus their choice of gum or lozenges), serial emails with links to Smokefree.gov quit guides, and instructions to record their quit date online (and to quit smoking on that date) on a date falling within a week of initiation of the study. Participants randomized to a treatment arm are placed in a fully automated Twitter support group (coed or women-only), paired with a buddy (matched on age, gender, location, and education), and encouraged to communicate with the group and buddy via daily tweeted discussion topics and daily automated feedback texts (a positive tweet if they tweet and an encouraging tweet if they miss tweeting). Recruited online from across the continental United States, the sample consists of 215 male and 745 female current cigarette smokers wanting to quit, aged between 21 and 59 years. Self-assessed follow-up surveys are completed online at 1, 3, and 6 months after the date they selected to quit smoking, with salivary cotinine validation at 3 and 6 months. The primary outcome is sustained biochemically confirmed abstinence at the 6-month follow-up.
RESULTS
From November 2016 to September 2018, 960 participants in 36 groups were recruited for the randomized controlled trial, in addition to 20 participants in an initial pilot group. Data analysis will commence soon for the randomized controlled trial based on data from 896 of the 960 participants (93.3%), with 56 participants lost to follow-up and 8 dropouts.
CONCLUSIONS
This study combines the mobile platform of Twitter with a support group for quitting smoking. Findings will inform the efficacy of virtual peer-to-peer support groups for quitting smoking and potentially elucidate gender differences in quit rates found in prior research.
CLINICALTRIAL
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02823028; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT0282302
White Dwarf Mergers on Adaptive Meshes I. Methodology and Code Verification
The Type Ia supernova progenitor problem is one of the most perplexing and
exciting problems in astrophysics, requiring detailed numerical modeling to
complement observations of these explosions. One possible progenitor that has
merited recent theoretical attention is the white dwarf merger scenario, which
has the potential to naturally explain many of the observed characteristics of
Type Ia supernovae. To date there have been relatively few self-consistent
simulations of merging white dwarf systems using mesh-based hydrodynamics. This
is the first paper in a series describing simulations of these systems using a
hydrodynamics code with adaptive mesh refinement. In this paper we describe our
numerical methodology and discuss our implementation in the compressible
hydrodynamics code CASTRO, which solves the Euler equations, and the Poisson
equation for self-gravity, and couples the gravitational and rotation forces to
the hydrodynamics. Standard techniques for coupling gravitation and rotation
forces to the hydrodynamics do not adequately conserve the total energy of the
system for our problem, but recent advances in the literature allow progress
and we discuss our implementation here. We present a set of test problems
demonstrating the extent to which our software sufficiently models a system
where large amounts of mass are advected on the computational domain over long
timescales. Future papers in this series will describe our treatment of the
initial conditions of these systems and will examine the early phases of the
merger to determine its viability for triggering a thermonuclear detonation.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa
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Facebook Recruitment Using Zip Codes to Improve Diversity in Health Research: Longitudinal Observational Study (Preprint)
BACKGROUND
Facebook’s advertising platform reaches most US households and has been used for health-related research recruitment. The platform allows for advertising segmentation by age, gender, and location; however, it does not explicitly allow for targeting by race or ethnicity to facilitate a diverse participant pool.
OBJECTIVE
This study looked at the efficacy of zip code targeting in Facebook advertising to reach blacks/African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos who smoke daily for a quit-smoking web-based social media study.
METHODS
We ran a general market campaign for 61 weeks using all continental US zip codes as a baseline. Concurrently, we ran 2 campaigns to reach black/African American and Hispanic-/Latino-identified adults, targeting zip codes ranked first by the percentage of households of the racial or ethnic group of interest and then by cigarette expenditure per household. We also ran a Spanish language campaign for 13 weeks, targeting all continental US zip codes but utilizing Facebook’s Spanish language targeting. The advertising images and language were common across campaigns. Costs were compared for advertisement clicks, queries, applications, and participants, and yields were compared for the final three outcomes. We examined outcomes before and after the Cambridge Analytica scandal that broke in March 2018. Finally, we examined 2 promoted Facebook features: lookalike audiences and audience network placement.
RESULTS
Zip code targeting campaigns were effective for yielding the racial or ethnic groups of interest. The black-/African American–focused versus general market campaign increased black/African American weekly queries (mean 9.48, SD 5.69 vs general market mean 2.83, SD 2.05; P<.001) and applicants (mean 1.11, SD 1.21 vs general market mean 0.54, SD 0.58; P<.001). The Hispanic-/Latino-focused versus general market campaign increased Hispanic/Latino weekly queries (mean 3.10, SD 2.16 vs general market mean 0.71, SD 0.48; P<.001) and applicants (mean 0.36, SD 0.55 vs general market mean 0.10, SD 0.14; P=.001). Cost metrics did not differ between campaigns at generating participants (overall P=.54). Costs increased post- versus prescandal for the black-/African American–focused campaign for queries (mean US 5.87, SD 1.89; P=.001) and applicants (mean US 38.96, SD 28.31; P=.004) and for the Hispanic-/Latino-focused campaign for queries (mean US 7.04, SD 3.39; P=.005) and applicants (mean US 38.19, SD 21.20; P=.001).
CONCLUSIONS
Zip code targeting in Facebook advertising is an effective way to recruit diverse populations for health-based interventions. Audience network placement should be avoided. The Facebook lookalike audience may not be necessary for recruitment, with drawbacks including an unknown algorithm and unclear use of Facebook user data, and so public concerns around data privacy should be considered.
CLINICALTRIAL
ClinicalTrial.gov NCT02823028; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT0282302
Numerical Models of Binary Neutron Star System Mergers. I.: Numerical Methods and Equilibrium Data for Newtonian Models
The numerical modeling of binary neutron star mergers has become a subject of
much interest in recent years. While a full and accurate model of this
phenomenon would require the evolution of the equations of relativistic
hydrodynamics along with the Einstein field equations, a qualitative study of
the early stages on inspiral can be accomplished by either Newtonian or
post-Newtonian models, which are more tractable. In this paper we offer a
comparison of results from both rotating and non-rotating (inertial) frame
Newtonian calculations. We find that the rotating frame calculations offer
significantly improved accuracy as compared with the inertial frame models.
Furthermore, we show that inertial frame models exhibit significant and
erroneous angular momentum loss during the simulations that leads to an
unphysical inspiral of the two neutron stars. We also examine the dependence of
the models on initial conditions by considering initial configurations that
consist of spherical neutron stars as well as stars that are in equilibrium and
which are tidally distorted. We compare our models those of Rasio & Shapiro
(1992,1994a) and New & Tohline (1997). Finally, we investigate the use of the
isolated star approximation for the construction of initial data.Comment: 32 pages, 19 gif figures, manuscript with postscript figures
available at http://www.astro.sunysb.edu/dswesty/docs/nspap1.p
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