The effects of an individualized diet and exercise program on body fat levels in Taiwanese females aged 40-60 : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Nutritional Science

Obesity is increasingly common throughout the world and is associated with significant health problems. Middle-aged migrant women are one of the risk groups for obesity. Their body fat levels increase because of their age and menopause experiences. Besides, the change of lifestyle and eating habits after immigration also affects their body fat levels. Recent studies show the combination of diet and exercise may decrease body fat levels. This study is to observe the effects of a short-term diet and exercise intervention on body fat levels in middle-aged Taiwanese women in New Zealand. Thirty Taiwanese women aged between 40-60, who currently live in New Zealand were enrolled in this study. Body weight, height, skinfolds and circumferences were measured before and after the study. Subjects also completed a 24-hr diet recall, three-day diet record and answered a questionnaire to provide general information and an assessment of physical activity levels. Subjects were divided into an intervention group (n=17) and a control group (n=10). In the intervention group, subjects were given a personal diet and exercise program for 9 weeks according to their diet and physical activity levels subjects in the control group stayed with their own previous diet and exercise habits without any modification. The results of this study showed no significant differences (P>0.05) in body weight between both groups. However, body fat levels in the intervention group decreased significantly (p<0.001) compared to the control group. It was also found that subjects who had higher initial body weight and BMI, lost more body weight during the intervention. Besides, subjects who were more active during the intervention lost more weight. It was concluded that a short-term diet and exercise interventions might decrease body fat levels in middle-aged Taiwanese women in New Zealand

Spiking Neural P Systems with Addition/Subtraction Computing on Synapses

Spiking neural P systems (SN P systems, for short) are a class of distributed and parallel computing models inspired from biological spiking neurons. In this paper, we introduce a variant called SN P systems with addition/subtraction computing on synapses (CSSN P systems). CSSN P systems are inspired and motivated by the shunting inhibition of biological synapses, while incorporating ideas from dynamic graphs and networks. We consider addition and subtraction operations on synapses, and prove that CSSN P systems are computationally universal as number generators, under a normal form (i.e. a simplifying set of restrictions)

Galaxy clustering, CMB and supernova data constraints on ϕ\phiCDM model with massive neutrinos

We investigate a scalar field dark energy model (i.e., $\phi$CDM model) with massive neutrinos, where the scalar field possesses an inverse power-law potential, i.e., $V(\phi)\propto {\phi}^{-\alpha}$ ($\alpha>0$). We find that the sum of neutrino masses $\Sigma m_{\nu}$ has significant impacts on the CMB temperature power spectrum and on the matter power spectrum. In addition, the parameter $\alpha$ also has slight impacts on the spectra. A joint sample, including CMB data from Planck 2013 and WMAP9, galaxy clustering data from WiggleZ and BOSS DR11, and JLA compilation of Type Ia supernova observations, is adopted to confine the parameters. Within the context of the $\phi$CDM model under consideration, the joint sample determines the cosmological parameters to high precision. It turns out that $\alpha <4.995$ at 95% CL for the $\phi$CDM model. And yet, the $\Lambda$CDM scenario corresponding to $\alpha = 0$ is not ruled out at 95% CL. Moreover, we get $\Sigma m_{\nu}< 0.262$ eV at 95% CL for the $\phi$CDM model, while the corresponding one for the $\Lambda$CDM model is $\Sigma m_{\nu} < 0.293$ eV. The allowed scale of $\Sigma m_\nu$ in the $\phi$CDM model is a bit smaller than that in the $\Lambda$CDM model. It is consistent with the qualitative analysis, which reveals that the increases of $\alpha$ and $\Sigma m_\nu$ both can result in the suppression of the matter power spectrum. As a consequence, when $\alpha$ is larger, in order to avoid suppressing the matter power spectrum too much, the value of $\Sigma m_\nu$ should be smaller.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl