Understanding Eating and Exercise Behaviors in Post Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass Patients: A Quantitative and Qualitative Study

Background: Weight regain following gastric bypass (GB) surgery continues to plague many individuals across the United States. However, understanding long-term eating and exercise behaviors to promote and sustain a lower weight following GB surgery is limited. Method: The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions and attitudes of eating and exercise behaviors associated with weight maintenance in post-GB patients (n = 24) 2 or more years postsurgery. Demographic, anthropometric, and food record data were collected. Focus groups and personal interviews were used to understand behaviors and support systems associated with weight stabilization. Focus groups were audiotaped, transcribed, and organized into common themes. Results: All participants were female, with a mean of 6 years postsurgery, and had a mean age of 51.8 – 10.5 years. The majority were married (71%) and had a college degree (58%). Although the average weight regain postsurgery was estimated at 16.2 – 12.7 kg, most of the women (75%) had maintained a significant weight loss of at least 50% of their excess body weight. Themes associated with weight regain emerging from the focus groups included variable family support and a return to ‘‘old eating habits.’’ Conclusion: Focus group participants identified lack of long-term emotional support from family members and limited community support for weight loss surgery patients

Evaluating the Cephalonia method of library induction

This is a PDF version of an article published in SCONUL Focus© 2007. SCONUL Focus is available online at http://www.sconul.ac.uk/publications/newsletterThis article discusses the results of a survey carried out at the University of Chester library into student feedback of the Cephalonia method of library induction

Introduction: the case for rethinking school violence

School violence is a complex issue that raises important questions about social and educational relationships and about the nature of schooling itself. Explanations of possible causes abound, as researchers, educationalists and communities alike look for answers to a problem that persists - and at times erupts with deadly consequences - in what are ordinarily considered to be safe and supportive places for children and young people. Numerous definitions of violence have attempted to describe, delineate and categorise terms such as 'bullying' and 'violence', yet these are subject to ongoing debate and generally reflect the philosophical and ideological underpinnings of particular disciplinary fields. Contributors to this book locate their work within a broad sociocultural research tradition, informed by fields as diverse as sociology, anthropology, education, criminology and literary, media and cultural studies

Affective reactions to auditory hallucinations in psychotic, evangelical and control groups

Objectives: Building on recent work on the similarities and differenes in delusional ideation between psychotic and religious populations (Peters, Day, McKenna, and Orbach, 1999), the experiences of auditory hallucinations in psychotic, evangelical and control groups were examined in this study. -- Method: The incidence and subjective experiences of hearing voices were assessed using questionnaire methods in psychotic out-patients, evangelical Christians and controls (non-psychotic, non-evangelical). -- Results: Incidence of auditory hallucinations differend significantly across the three groups with psychotics showing the highest levels and controls the lowest levels. The experiences of the evangelical group were significantly more positive than those of the control group, which in turn were significantly more positive than those of the psychotic group. The most recent experience of hearing voices was rated more positively than the first experience by the psychotic and religious groups but not by the control group. These findings were much stronger for affective reactions to the experiences than for perceptions of the voices. -- Conclusion: These results provide only partial support for the findings of Peters et al. (1999) on differences in delusional ideation and possible reasons for this are discussed. The findings for religious and psychotic individuals are discussed further in terms of interpretational and coping mechanisms

Assessing gait impairments based on auto-encoded patterns of mahalanobis distances from consecutive steps

Proceedings of: 14th conference of the Association for the Advancement of Assistive Technology in Europe (AAATE 2017), Sheffield (UK), 12-15th September 2017.Insole pressure sensors capture the force distribution patterns during the stance phase while walking. By comparing patterns obtained from healthy individuals to patients suffering different medical conditions based on a given similarity measure, automatic impairment indexes can be computed in order to help in applications such as rehabilitation. This paper uses the data sensed from insole pressure sensors for a group of healthy controls to train an auto-encoder using patterns of stochastic distances in series of consecutive steps while walking at normal speeds. Two experiment groups are compared to the healthy control group: a group of patients suffering knee pain and a group of post-stroke survivors. The Mahalanobis distance is computed for every single step by each participant compared to the entire dataset sensed from healthy controls. The computed distances for consecutive steps are fed into the previously trained autoencoder and the average error is used to assess how close the walking segment is to the autogenerated model from healthy controls. The results show that automatic distortion indexes can be used to assess each participant as compared to normal patterns computed from healthy controls. The stochastic distances observed for the group of stroke survivors are bigger than those for the people with knee pain.The research leading to these results has received funding from the “HERMES-SMART DRIVER” project TIN2013-46801-C4-2-R (MINECO), funded by the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), and the “ANALYTICS USING SENSOR DATA FOR FLATCITY” project TIN2016-77158-C4-1-R (MINECO/ ERDF, EU) funded by the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)