The Association Between Health Literacy and Diet Adherence Among Primary Care Patients with Hypertension

This study examines the association between health literacy and adherence to low-salt diet practices among individuals with hypertension. Health literacy is the ability of individuals to understand and utilize health information. We surveyed 238 patients with hypertension from a primary care clinic in Charlotte, NC. We assessed health literacy and self-reported low-salt diet. Logistic regression was used to model the relationship between health literacy and low-salt diet adherence. Respondents were primarily female (67.3%) and black (80%). Black Americans were less likely to have adequate health literacy as compared to white Americans (21.8% vs. 55.8%). The study found no association between adequate health literacy and adherence to a low-salt diet (OR = 1.06, 95% CI: 0.36-3.10) after adjusting for confounders. This study addresses the conflicting findings for health literacy in two related areas: chronic illness self-care, and nutrition/diet skills. Additional research is warranted among black Americans given their increased risk of hypertension, low rates of diet adherence and previous findings of positive associations between health literacy and nutrition skills

Topological obstructions to fatness

Alan Weinstein showed that certain characteristic numbers of any Riemannian submersion with totally geodesic fibers and positive vertizontal curvatures are nonzero. In this paper we explicitly compute these invariants in terms of Chern and Pontrjagin numbers of the bundle. This allows us to show that many bundles do not admit such metrics.Comment: 32 pages. To appear in Geom. Topo

Embarrassment in the idiot

With its marriage plots and drawing room conversation, The Idiot, of all Dostoevsky’s novels, is the closest to a novel of manners. But the would-be society novel clashes with a theological imperative: the re-establishment of a Christological vision, which Dostoevsky introduces into the novel embodied in the Christ-like Prince Myshkin. The presence of Christ in the drawing room of the marriage plot appears as a kind of embarrassment of genre. Taking this scenario as its departure point, the article approaches the relationship between embarrassment and narrative in The Idiotfrom two perspectives, one grounded in the vision of disintegration, the other in the vision of cohesion. Firstly, it shows how the embarrassment of this generic quandary is allied to formal difficulties in the novel’s handling of temporality and the configuration of its character system. Secondly, in discussing the possibility of unity for which the novel yearns, embarrassment is shown to participate in the ethical constitution of the reader. This study locates emotion (embarrassment) in the novel’s genre, narrative structure, and text, and locates the reader's emotion, too. Informed by sociologist Erving Goffman’s seminal analysis of embarrassment, this article also speaks to those engaged in the study of affect and the history of emotions.This is the author accepted manuscript. It is currently under an indefinite embargo pending publication by the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

Pressure shift of the superconducting T_c of LiFeAs

The effect of hydrostatic pressure on the superconductivity in LiFeAs is investigated up to 1.8 GPa. The superconducting transition temperature, T_c, decreases linearly with pressure at a rate of 1.5 K/GPa. The negative pressure coefficient of T_c and the high ambient pressure T_c indicate that LiFeAs is the high-pressure analogue of the isoelectronic SrFe_2As_2 and BaFe_2As_2.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figure

Optimality of private quantum channels

We addressed the question of optimality of private quantum channels. We have shown that the Shannon entropy of the classical key necessary to securely transfer the quantum information is lower bounded by the entropy exchange of the private quantum channel $\cal E$ and von Neumann entropy of the ciphertext state $\varrho^{(0)}$. Based on these bounds we have shown that decomposition of private quantum channels into orthogonal unitaries (if exists) is optimizing the entropy. For non-ancillary single qubit PQC we have derived the optimal entropy for arbitrary set of plaintexts. In particular, we have shown that except when the (closure of the) set of plaintexts contains all states, one bit key is sufficient. We characterized and analyzed all the possible single qubit private quantum channels for arbitrary set of plaintexts. For the set of plaintexts consisting of all qubit states we have characterized all possible approximate private quantum channels and we have derived the relation between the security parameter and the corresponding minimal entropy.Comment: no commen

Effects of nicotine on alcohol drinking in female mice selectively-bred for high or low alcohol preference

Background Studies show that repeated nicotine use associates with high alcohol consumption in humans, and that nicotine exposure sometimes increases alcohol consumption in animal models. However, the relative roles of genetic predisposition to high alcohol consumption, the alcohol drinking patterns, and the timing of nicotine exposure both with respect to alcohol drinking and developmental stage remain unclear. The studies here manipulated all these variables, using mice selectively bred for differences in free-choice alcohol consumption to elucidate the role of genetics and nicotine exposure in alcohol consumption behaviors. Methods In Experiments 1 and 2, we assessed the effects of repeated nicotine (0, 0.5 or 1.5 mg/kg) injections immediately before binge-like (drinking-in-the-dark; Experiment 1) or during free-choice alcohol access (Experiment 2) on these alcohol drinking behaviors (immediately after injections and during re-exposure to alcohol access 14 days later) in adult high- (HAP2) and low-alcohol preferring (LAP2) female mice (co-exposure model). In Experiments 3 and 4, we assessed the effects of repeated nicotine (0, 0.5 or 1.5 mg/kg) injections 14 days prior to binge-like and free-choice alcohol access on these alcohol drinking behaviors in adolescent HAP2 and LAP2 female mice (Experiment 3) or adult HAP2 female mice (Experiment 4). Results In Experiment 1, we found that repeated nicotine (0.5 and 1.5 mg/kg) and alcohol co-exposure significantly increased binge-like drinking behavior in HAP2 but not LAP2 mice during the re-exposure phase after a 14-day abstinence period. In Experiment 2, 1.5 mg/kg nicotine injections significantly reduced free-choice alcohol intake and preference in the 3rd hour post-injection in HAP2 but not LAP2 mice. No significant effects of nicotine treatment on binge-like or free-choice alcohol drinking were observed in Experiments 3 and 4. Conclusions These results show that the temporal parameters of nicotine and alcohol exposure, pattern of alcohol access, and genetic predisposition for alcohol preference influence nicotine's effects on alcohol consumption. These findings in selectively bred mice suggest that humans with a genetic history of alcohol-use disorders may be more vulnerable to develop nicotine and alcohol co-use disorders

Social marketing and social influences: Using social ecology as a theoretical framework

Social marketing has traditionally been dominated by an individualistic model of design. In this work, the authors apply a social ecology model to the theory and practice of social marketing, demonstrating that a multilevel framework is required to fully expose and account for the complexity of sociocultural and environmental effects. The authors have generated a diagnostic tool for this use. The paper then provides a detailed demonstration of the potential power of the tool by applying it to three illustrative case studies: one on encouraging safer driving, the second promoting sustainable travel, and the third increasing early detection of lung cancer. © 2010 Westburn Publishers Ltd