Examining a Ripple Effect: Do Spouses’ Behavior Changes Predict Each Other’s Weight Loss?

Background. Including spouses in obesity treatment has been found to promote weight loss. We assessed whether spouses’ diet and activity changes impacted each other’s weight loss when both members attended an active weight loss program (TOGETHER) or only the primary participant attended treatment (ALONE). Methods. Heterosexual couples () enrolled in an 18-month randomized controlled weight loss trial were weighed and completed measures of dietary intake and physical activity at baseline and 6 months. We conducted dyadic data analyses using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model. Results. Participants’ weight loss was not predicted by their partners’ behavior changes. However, partners’ weight loss was predicted by their participants’ changes in calorie and fat intake. When partners were coupled with a participant who did not reduce their own calorie and fat intake as much, these partners had higher weight loss when treated in the TOGETHER group but lower weight loss when they were untreated in the ALONE group. There were no reciprocal effects found with physical activity changes. Conclusions. Direct treatment had the greatest impact on participants and partners who were treated. Untreated partners’ weight losses were positively impacted by their spouses’ dietary changes, suggesting a ripple effect from treated spouses to their untreated partners

Second order coherent power spectra

The relationship between second order stochastic processes and coherent power spectra are explored for developed grain size frequency distributions of silver halide emulsion/developer combinations. Although Wiener spectra represent incoherent power spectra, the coherent case has been unresolved due to the difficulty of filtering the optical system effect. The emulsion plates were exposed with a uniform irradiance distribution from an incoherent tungsten source to create a series of uniform density samples. Conventional processing chemistry is utilized with substitution of different developer types, from predominantly physical development to direct chemical development. The exposed and processed density samples were liquid gated with refractive index matching fluid and inserted at the front focal plane of a conventional on-axis Fourier transform system. The power spectra are ensemble and frequency domain averaged at the Fourier transform plane with a special annular ring detector. The coherent nature of the optical analyzer necessitates consideration of the interaction or interference of the power spectra for the optical system, and the spectra of the input transmittance sample. An algorithm was derived to estimate the power spectra of just the input grain distributions, which was applied to all of the measured spectra of the emulsion/developer combinations. The calculated spectra demonstrate significant power shifts from the low spatial frequency region with increasing power levels as a function of increasing developed grain size. The bandwidths of the power distributions are inversely proportional to developed grain size with the larger grains the predominant factor. The midpoints of the power spectra also shifted toward increasing spatial frequencies for decreasing values of developed grain size. The peak power levels for each emulsion/developer family were proportional to those predicted by the well known random checkerboard granularity model. Theoretical power spectra models are demonstrated for both second order and first order auto-regressive stochastic models. The second order process reveals a significant shift in the power distribution away from the low frequency region analogous to the calculated coherent power spectra. The power functions for the first order process are centered at zero spatial frequency, similar to conventional Wiener spectra. It is shown that a first order complex transmittance model transforms to the power spectra proportional to second-order stochastic processes when the real and imaginary parts are correlated. Although the filtered and measured coherent spectra are strongly dependent upon the developed grain size frequency distributions, the significant departure in shape and location of the spectra is related to the functional change from first order to second-order stochastic process characteristics

A trivial observation on time reversal in random matrix theory

It is commonly thought that a state-dependent quantity, after being averaged over a classical ensemble of random Hamiltonians, will always become independent of the state. We point out that this is in general incorrect: if the ensemble of Hamiltonians is time reversal invariant, and the quantity involves the state in higher than bilinear order, then we show that the quantity is only a constant over the orbits of the invariance group on the Hilbert space. Examples include fidelity and decoherence in appropriate models.Comment: 7 pages 3 figure

Scattering fidelity in elastodynamics

The recent introduction of the concept of scattering fidelity, causes us to revisit the experiment by Lobkis and Weaver [Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 254302 (2003)]. There, the ``distortion'' of the coda of an acoustic signal is measured under temperature changes. This quantity is in fact the negative logarithm of scattering fidelity. We re-analyse their experimental data for two samples, and we find good agreement with random matrix predictions for the standard fidelity. Usually, one may expect such an agreement for chaotic systems only. While the first sample, may indeed be assumed chaotic, for the second sample, a perfect cuboid, such an agreement is more surprising. For the first sample, the random matrix analysis yields a perturbation strength compatible with semiclassical predictions. For the cuboid the measured perturbation strength is much larger than expected, but with the fitted values for this strength, the experimental data are well reproduced.Comment: 4 page

Protein kinase Cε: an oncogene and emerging tumor biomarker

Members of the protein kinase C (PKC) family have long been studied for their contributions to oncogenesis. Among the ten different isoforms of this family of serine/threonine kinases, protein kinase Cε (PKCε) is one of the best understood for its role as a transforming oncogene. In vitro, overexpression of PKCε has been demonstrated to increase proliferation, motility, and invasion of fibroblasts or immortalized epithelial cells. In addition, xenograft and transgenic animal models have clearly shown that overexpression of PKCε is tumorigenic resulting in metastatic disease. Perhaps most important in implicating the epsilon isoform in oncogenesis, PKCε has been found to be overexpressed in tumor-derived cell lines and histopathological tumor specimens from various organ sites. Combined, this body of work provides substantial evidence implicating PKCε as a transforming oncogene that plays a crucial role in establishing an aggressive metastatic phenotype. Reviewed here is the literature that has led to the current understanding of PKCε as an oncogene. Moreover, this review focuses on the PKCε-mediated signaling network for cell motility and explores the interaction of PKCε with three major PKCε signaling nodes: RhoA/C, Stat3 and Akt. Lastly, the emerging role of PKCε as a tumor biomarker is discussed

Ways to improve the competitiveness of the economic complex of the Republic of Mordovia

The economic development of the Republic of Mordovia from 1998 to 2013 is analyzed in the article in the context of federal districts of the Russian Federation and regions of the Volga Federal District, the main trends and specifics of the development of economic complex of the Republic of Mordovia are established in comparison with those regions; key factors that affect the level of competitiveness of the regional economic complex of the Republic of Mordovia are determined; the main directions and measures to improve the competitiveness of the economic complex of the region are determined, considering economic, innovative and infrastructure opportunities that conform to the applicable program documents regulating the social and economic development of the Republic of Mordovia. In the article conclusions are made on the need for solving the problem of increasing the competitiveness of the regional economy through the use of its innovation and infrastructure capacities and the possibility of using the experience of the Republic of Mordovia in the implementation of this approach by other subjects of the Russian Federation with the same economic conditions as well as by relatively problem regions that don't have their own resource potential.peer-reviewe

Fidelity amplitude of the scattering matrix in microwave cavities

The concept of fidelity decay is discussed from the point of view of the scattering matrix, and the scattering fidelity is introduced as the parametric cross-correlation of a given S-matrix element, taken in the time domain, normalized by the corresponding autocorrelation function. We show that for chaotic systems, this quantity represents the usual fidelity amplitude, if appropriate ensemble and/or energy averages are taken. We present a microwave experiment where the scattering fidelity is measured for an ensemble of chaotic systems. The results are in excellent agreement with random matrix theory for the standard fidelity amplitude. The only parameter, namely the perturbation strength could be determined independently from level dynamics of the system, thus providing a parameter free agreement between theory and experiment