Successful Weight Management: Barriers and Facilitators to Maintaining Weight After Weight Loss Via a Meal Replacement Program

Purpose: Meal replacement programs (MRPs) facilitate weight loss. Unfortunately, a large percentage of individuals that lose weight through MRP are not successful at maintaining their weight. Weight regain one year following weight loss via meal replacements has been as high as 40-50%, demonstrating a critical need to improve weight maintenance in MRP participants. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify barriers and facilitators of weight maintenance after reaching a goal weight in MRP participants. Methods: Seven focus groups of ≤8 clients were conducted to discuss barriers and facilitators of weight maintenance prior to reaching a point of saturation. Participants were thirty-two MRP participants (31-82 years old) who had reached their goal weight via a proprietary MRP that included an element of health coaching. Statistical Analysis: Data were analyzed with NVivo10 qualitative software using content analysis theory to identify emerging themes. Results: “Program logistics” was the most commonly discussed program barrier, which included subthemes of nutrition and physical activity education, support from health coaches, and confidence in health coach knowledge. “Outside influence” emerged as the second most robust barrier discussed, which included work environments and social interactions. “Interpersonal relationships” emerged as a primary weight maintenance facilitator, which encompassed interactions from family, friends, and coworkers. Health coaches also emerged as a facilitator of weight maintenance in terms of support, knowledge, and consistency. Conclusions: While different themes emerged as the most prominent barriers and facilitators to weight maintenance, strengths and weaknesses were noted within each theme highlighting the vast variation in participant needs. MRPs should consider adding a program screening tool to learn about the needs of program participants in order to tailor the program to each individual and thus, maximize weight maintenance

Numerical simulation of unsteady flow in hydraulic turbomachines

Turbines and pumps dealing with incompressible flow are examples of hydraulic turbomachines. In most cases the flow is highly turbulent and time-dependent, caused by the rotation of the impeller in a stationary casing. The geometry, with doubly curved surfaces, adds even more to the complexity. It all leads to a flow which is difficult to model. Yet, to optimize turbomachines it is necessary to analyze the flow in detail. Flow simulations using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) can be a very helpful tool. The software solves the discretized partial differential equations for mass and momentum conservation on a grid that covers the flow domain. Two basic discretization schemes can be distinguished: collocated and staggered. When a collocated scheme is used, the solution suffers from odd-even decoupling. In practice this is suppressed with artificial measures which either decrease the accuracy of the simulation or increase the calculation time for an unsteady incompressible flow. Using a staggered scheme, accurate discretization is more difficult, but odd-even decoupling is avoided. In this thesis a CFD code is developed which is based on a staggered, blockstructured grid scheme. It is suited for the calculation of time-dependent fluid motion in turbomachines. The CFD code, named DEFT, is originally developed by the group ofWesseling at Delft University of Technology. The first extension in the current work was an interpolation procedure implemented to handle non-matching grids for more flexibility in grid generation. Furthermore, a sliding interface to connect the rotating grid in the impeller and the stationary grid was developed. Coriolis and centrifugal forces for calculations in the rotating frame of reference, were mplemented in two ways: using a conservative formulation and using source terms. An adaptation of the pressure equation proved necessary to reduce calculation time for computations involving a sliding interface. Although the conceptual ideas behind these extensions are applicable in 3D, they have been implemented in 2D and verified with the simulation of a number of relatively simple flows. DeFT was validated with the simulation of the flow through a cascade of blades which is a model of an axial-flow pump. The blade surface pressure and the total force on the blade are calculated. There is good agreement between values calculated with DeFT, Fluent, values from experiments, and other CFD calculations obtained from literature. The flow through a centrifugal pump with a vaned diffusor is simulated using the staggered discretization in DeFT and the collocated discretization in Fluent. The calculated time-averaged pressure and velocity along the pitch of a rotor channel show good correspondence. The agreement with results from experiments and other CFD calculations obtained from literature is more qualitative. The calculation time needed by DeFT and Fluent is approximately equal, despite the use of a large number of blocks in DeFT and its lack of a convergence enhancing multi-grid method which is used by Fluent

INTERSECTING IDENTITIES: THE LIVED EXPERIENCES OF GAY, MALE CATHOLIC COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY ALUMNI

This phenomenological study describes emergent themes related to how gay, male alumni perceive their experiences of attending an American Catholic institution of higher education. Utilizing a modified version of Seidman’s phenomenological interview protocol, six gay, male alumni of various American Catholic institution of higher education were interviewed in an attempt to arrive at the essence of attending a college or university where Church teachings and campus culture intersected with the sexual orientation of certain community members. From the collected data, four clear themes emerged: all alumni experienced pre-college negative messages about their sexual orientation, visibility and support were positive contributors to alumni experiences and technology played a key role in connecting with other gay men. Further, Catholic Church teachings as interpreted by campus administrators had multiple impacts on the experiences of the alumni throughout their time on campus. The findings of this study can be used by educational leaders at American Catholic institutions of higher education to create awareness and better inform policy and support program creation for this vulnerable minority population of students

Early Thermal Evolution of Planetesimals and its Impact on Processing and Dating of Meteoritic Material

Radioisotopic ages for meteorites and their components provide constraints on the evolution of small bodies: timescales of accretion, thermal and aqueous metamorphism, differentiation, cooling and impact metamorphism. Realising that the decay heat of short-lived nuclides (e.g. 26Al, 60Fe), was the main heat source driving differentiation and metamorphism, thermal modeling of small bodies is of utmost importance to set individual meteorite age data into the general context of the thermal evolution of their parent bodies, and to derive general conclusions about the nature of planetary building blocks in the early solar system. As a general result, modelling easily explains that iron meteorites are older than chondrites, as early formed planetesimals experienced a higher concentration of short-lived nuclides and more severe heating. However, core formation processes may also extend to 10 Ma after formation of Calcium-Aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs). A general effect of the porous nature of the starting material is that relatively small bodies (< few km) will also differentiate if they form within 2 Ma after CAIs. A particular interesting feature to be explored is the possibility that some chondrites may derive from the outer undifferentiated layers of asteroids that are differentiated in their interiors. This could explain the presence of remnant magnetization in some chondrites due to a planetary magnetic field.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figures, Accepted for publication as a chapter in Protostars and Planets VI, University of Arizona Press (2014), eds. H. Beuther, R. Klessen, C. Dullemond, Th. Hennin

Geometric criticality between plaquette phases in integer-spin kagome XXZ antiferromagnets

The phase diagram of the uniaxially anisotropic $s=1$ antiferromagnet on the kagom\'e lattice includes a critical line exactly described by the classical three-color model. This line is distinct from the standard geometric classical criticality that appears in the classical limit ($s \to \infty$) of the 2D XY model; the $s=1$ geometric T=0 critical line separates two unconventional plaquette-ordered phases that survive to nonzero temperature. The experimentally important correlations at finite temperature and the nature of the transitions into these ordered phases are obtained using the mapping to the three-color model and a combination of perturbation theory and a variational ansatz for the ordered phases. The ordered phases show sixfold symmetry breaking and are similar to phases proposed for the honeycomb lattice dimer model and $s=1/2$ $XXZ$ model. The same mapping and phase transition can be realized also for integer spins $s \geq 2$ but then require strong on-site anisotropy in the Hamiltonian.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Radioactive Probes of the Supernova-Contaminated Solar Nebula: Evidence that the Sun was Born in a Cluster

We construct a simple model for radioisotopic enrichment of the protosolar nebula by injection from a nearby supernova, based on the inverse square law for ejecta dispersion. We find that the presolar radioisotopes abundances (i.e., in solar masses) demand a nearby supernova: its distance can be no larger than 66 times the size of the protosolar nebula, at a 90% confidence level, assuming 1 solar mass of protosolar material. The relevant size of the nebula depends on its state of evolution at the time of radioactivity injection. In one scenario, a collection of low-mass stars, including our sun, formed in a group or cluster with an intermediate- to high-mass star that ended its life as a supernova while our sun was still a protostar, a starless core, or perhaps a diffuse cloud. Using recent observations of protostars to estimate the size of the protosolar nebula constrains the distance of the supernova at 0.02 to 1.6 pc. The supernova distance limit is consistent with the scales of low-mass stars formation around one or more massive stars, but it is closer than expected were the sun formed in an isolated, solitary state. Consequently, if any presolar radioactivities originated via supernova injection, we must conclude that our sun was a member of such a group or cluster that has since dispersed, and thus that solar system formation should be understood in this context. In addition, we show that the timescale from explosion to the creation of small bodies was on the order of 1.8 Myr (formal 90% confidence range of 0 to 2.2 Myr), and thus the temporal choreography from supernova ejecta to meteorites is important. Finally, we can not distinguish between progenitor masses from 15 to 25 solar masses in the nucleosynthesis models; however, the 20 solar mass model is somewhat preferred.Comment: ApJ accepted, 19 pages, 3 figure

Participatory methods: engaging children’s voices and experiences in research

This Guide lays out the case for participatory research with children, as well as explaining key research design principles and methods. Research that treats children merely as respondents to heavily adult-framed research is likely to miss key aspects of their lives, so participation can raise research quality. Further, from a rights-based perspective, children should be allowed to actively participate in research designed to inform policy that will shape their future. We offer an overview of the diverse methods available, including drawing, storytelling, digital photography, participatory audio or video, SMS surveys, as well as research, monitoring and evaluation co-led by children. Cross cutting these methodological approaches are the principles of participatory research, such as considering carefully the unequal life realities of children in the same country, often resulting in additional efforts having to be undertaken to amplify the voices of otherwise overlooked groups. This also involves recognising the different levels of digital literacies along gender, class, education and rural/urban lines. Ethical considerations also play a role where children are asked to produce online content and use digital images responsibly. Overall, participatory methods tend to involve longer-term, intense relationships between researchers and children that require careful framing and are often best undertaken with local partners