Promoting diet and physical activity in nurses: A systematic review

Objective: To systematically review the effectiveness of intervention studies promoting diet and physical activity (PA) in nurses. Data Source: English language manuscripts published between 1970 and 2014 in PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL, and EMBASE, as well as those accessed with the PICO tool, were reviewed. Study Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria: Inclusion criteria comprised (1) nurses/student nurses working in a health care setting and (2) interventions where PA and/or diet behaviors were the primary outcome. Exclusion criteria were (1) non–peer-reviewed articles or conference abstracts and (2) interventions focused on treatment of chronic conditions or lifestyle factors other than PA or diet in nurses. Data Extraction: Seventy-one full texts were retrieved and assessed for inclusion by two reviewers. Data were extracted by one reviewer and checked for accuracy by a second reviewer. Data Synthesis: Extracted data were synthesized in a tabular format and narrative summary. Results: Nine (n = 737 nurses) studies met the inclusion criteria. Quality of the studies was low to moderate. Four studies reported an increase in self-reported PA through structured exercise and goal setting. Dietary outcomes were generally positive, but were only measured in three studies with some limitations in the assessment methods. Two studies reported improved body composition without significant changes in diet or PA. Conclusions: Outcomes of interventions to change nurses' PA and diet behavior are promising, but inconsistent. Additional and higher quality interventions that include objective and validated outcome measures and appropriate process evaluation are required.

Identifying landscape meanings: Images and interactions at Gas Works Park

This thesis contributes a substantial new theoretical understanding of what 'landscape meanings' are, and what constitutes the specific meanings of particular landscapes to individuals. Further, it proposes how landscape architects may identify these meanings to inform critical and ethical research, theory, professional practice and education. What emerges from this representative case study of the landscape of Richard Haag's Gas Works Park in Seattle is the understanding that a person's expressions of their 'cognitive landscape images' of a particular landscape, coupled with their expressions of their 'interactions' with that landscape, constitute the specific 'meaning-narrative' they attach to it.

Designing rich information experiences to shape learning outcomes

Students in higher education typically learn to use information as part of their course of study, which is intended to support ongoing academic, personal and professional growth. Informing the development of effective information literacy education, this research uses a phenomenographic approach to investigate the experiences of a teacher and students engaged in lessons focused on exploring language and gender topics by tracing and analyzing their evolution through scholarly discourse. The findings suggest that the way learners use information influences content-focused learning outcomes, and reveal how teachers may enact lessons that enable students to learn to use information in ways that foster a specific understanding of the topic they are investigating.

A new methodology for realizing magnification of holographic images

The article describes a new method for obtaining a holographic image of desired magnification, consistent with the stipulated criteria for its resolution and aberrations.

The Neuberg/Aron Family Chronicle.

Chronicle of the Neubarg/Aron families with memoirs, images, and family trees

Alueellinen imago ja identiteetti liikkeessä

Regions are considered to be in competition for investments, industries, inhabitants and skilled labour nationally as well as internationally. In the context of tightening competition, more and more attention has been paid to regional attractors. A positive image is an important attractor in regional competition. In Finland, many towns and regions have either implemented or are planning to implement various image-enhancing campaigns or other measures aimed at improving their image. The role of identity is very important in developing a regional image. Good regional image should be based on a strong regional identity and awareness. Related to this is the perception of one's own region as separate from others and the familiarity of the region. If a region has no place in the awareness of its residents or if the inhabitants do not identify with it, its very existence as a social construct can be questioned. This means that building the regional image, which in this context is seen as social constructivism, is extremely difficult if the degree of regional awareness and identification is low. On the other hand, regional identity is being built also by developing the regional image. In a way, regional discourses have become more marketing-oriented in that instead of trying to create a regional esprit de corps there is now more image-oriented speech aimed at striving to improve the attractivity to outsiders of the region. Even though the goal is to bring the region to the attention of non-residents, a measure of construction of regional identity for the local population is automatically effected at the same time. Regional image and identity are consequences of linguistic producing and understanding of a region. It means that both image and identity are seen as language-created social constructions. The regional image is created through various discourses, but also the construction of a regional identity as regional consciousness and identification is largely a linguistic process. Essential in this context is perceiving the region as a discursive project characterized by its representation as texts, images and symbols. The linguistic production of a region is not a neutral description of "reality", but a representation based on interpretations, experiences and different motivations. Production and perceiving vary in time, so regional image and identity are on the move. This research is driven by the ongoing change of the regional system. The municipal and service structure reform is in progress and the number of municipalities seems to be on the decrease. At the same time, European Union s regional policy and regionalism on the whole are changing the status of sub-regions. At municipal level the crucial question is how the municipal structure reform will affect regional identity. This study points out that strong sense of municipal identity is a source of opposition to changes in municipal structure, but on the other hand the deinstitutionalization of the old municipality in municipal merger does not in itself mean the weakening of municipal identity.

Shanghai Collection 1924 - 1950

The collection relates to life in the ghetto and includes materials on: founding of the ghetto; relief groups such as JDC, ORT, HIAS, and SACRA (Shanghai Ashkenazic Collaborating Relief Association); political organizations such as Zionist groups, the Bund; the rabbinate; the sick and benevolent society; kitchen fund; commercial establishments; religious schools , secular schools; professional associations; art, theater and music activities; Jewish press; emigration from Shanghai after World War II. There are also manuscript histories of the Shanghai Ghetto.

Morris Rosenfeld papers, 1898.

Contains correspondence from M.R. and his translator, Leo Wiener, to F.H. Day, publisher, concerning M.R.'s poems in English translation, entitled, Songs from the ghetto.

A Berlin Childhood ca. 1900 1900

English translation of "Berliner Kindheit um 1900" by Shierry Weber Nicholsen.

Max James Kohler papers, 1888-1934.

Contains scrapbooks, correspondence and reports relating to Kohler's extensive activities on behalf of liberal immigration and naturalization laws in the United States, his opposition to the registration of aliens, the problems of Chinese immigration to the United States, his opposition to the use of the term "Hebrew Race" in the classification of immigrants, the drafting of minority clauses at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Jewish and Christian relations in the U.S., and the condition of Jews in Russia, Roumania, Poland and Nazi-Germany with the following institutions: the American Civil Liberties Union, 1926-1934, the American Jewish Committee, 1909-1934, B'nai Brith, 1930-1933, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations - Board of Delegates on Civil Rights, the Committee on Ellis Island, the Foreign Language Information Service, the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Baltimore, the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society, the Jewish Immigrants' Information Bureau in Galveston, Texas, the Industrial Removal Office, the National Conference of Jews and Christians, the National Council of Jewish Women, the National Council on Naturalization and Citizenship, the Bureau of Immigration to the United States Department of Laborm the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, the Department of State and individual United States Congressmen.

Philip Slomovitz papers, undated, 1933-1966.

Contains correspondence as editor of the Detroit Jewish chronicle and of The Jewish news. Of special interest is the correspondence with members of the U.S. Congress relating to aid to Israel, material relating to the boycott of Viceroy cigarettes, the question of the Jewish descent of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the dictionary definition of "Jew."

Bridging the gap: Curriculum practices in community language schools and their challenges

This study investigated curriculum practices in Queensland community language schools and how these practices are supported by government policy. The conceptual framework drew on theories of ethnolinguistic vitality and curriculum dimensions. The research design involved case studies of two community language schools of different sizes, using classroom observation and interviews. Cross–case analysis revealed contrasting curriculum practices determined by student enrolments, and different capacities to access and benefit from what policy support was available. This study offers some implications and possibilities to better support quality curriculum practices in community language schools.

Learning Nonlinear Visual Processing from Natural Images

The paradigm of computational vision hypothesizes that any visual function -- such as the recognition of your grandparent -- can be replicated by computational processing of the visual input. What are these computations that the brain performs? What should or could they be? Working on the latter question, this dissertation takes the statistical approach, where the suitable computations are attempted to be learned from the natural visual data itself. In particular, we empirically study the computational processing that emerges from the statistical properties of the visual world and the constraints and objectives specified for the learning process. This thesis consists of an introduction and 7 peer-reviewed publications, where the purpose of the introduction is to illustrate the area of study to a reader who is not familiar with computational vision research. In the scope of the introduction, we will briefly overview the primary challenges to visual processing, as well as recall some of the current opinions on visual processing in the early visual systems of animals. Next, we describe the methodology we have used in our research, and discuss the presented results. We have included some additional remarks, speculations and conclusions to this discussion that were not featured in the original publications. We present the following results in the publications of this thesis. First, we empirically demonstrate that luminance and contrast are strongly dependent in natural images, contradicting previous theories suggesting that luminance and contrast were processed separately in natural systems due to their independence in the visual data. Second, we show that simple cell -like receptive fields of the primary visual cortex can be learned in the nonlinear contrast domain by maximization of independence. Further, we provide first-time reports of the emergence of conjunctive (corner-detecting) and subtractive (opponent orientation) processing due to nonlinear projection pursuit with simple objective functions related to sparseness and response energy optimization. Then, we show that attempting to extract independent components of nonlinear histogram statistics of a biologically plausible representation leads to projection directions that appear to differentiate between visual contexts. Such processing might be applicable for priming, \ie the selection and tuning of later visual processing. We continue by showing that a different kind of thresholded low-frequency priming can be learned and used to make object detection faster with little loss in accuracy. Finally, we show that in a computational object detection setting, nonlinearly gain-controlled visual features of medium complexity can be acquired sequentially as images are encountered and discarded. We present two online algorithms to perform this feature selection, and propose the idea that for artificial systems, some processing mechanisms could be selectable from the environment without optimizing the mechanisms themselves. In summary, this thesis explores learning visual processing on several levels. The learning can be understood as interplay of input data, model structures, learning objectives, and estimation algorithms. The presented work adds to the growing body of evidence showing that statistical methods can be used to acquire intuitively meaningful visual processing mechanisms. The work also presents some predictions and ideas regarding biological visual processing.

Portion of a manuscript of daily prayers in the handwriting of Abraham Isaacs

Digital image

The neuroscience of inspirational leadership: the importance of collective-oriented language and shared group membership

Effective leaders are believed to inspire followers by providing inclusive visions of the future that followers can identify with. In the present study, we examined the neural mechanisms underlying this process, testing key hypotheses derived from transformational and social identity approaches to leadership. While undergoing functional MRI, supporters from the two major Australian political parties (Liberal vs. Labor) were presented with inspirational collective-oriented and noninspirational personal-oriented statements made by in-group and out-group leaders. Imaging data revealed that inspirational (rather than noninspirational) statements from in-group leaders were associated with increased activation in the bilateral rostral inferior parietal lobule, pars opercularis, and posterior midcingulate cortex: brain areas that are typically implicated in controlling semantic information processing. In contrast, for out-group leaders, greater activation in these areas was associated with noninspirational statements. In addition, noninspirational statements by in-group (but not out-group) leaders resulted in increased activation in the medial prefrontal cortex, an area typically associated with reasoning about a person’s mental state. These results show that followers processed identical statements qualitatively differently as a function of leaders’ group membership, thus demonstrating that shared identity acts as an amplifier for inspirational leadership communication.