Identifying key belief-based targets for promoting regular physical activity among mothers and fathers with young children

We investigated the key beliefs to target in interventions aimed at increasing physical activity (PA) among mothers and fathers of young children. Parents (288 mothers and 292 fathers) completed a Theory of Planned Behaviour belief-based questionnaire and a 1-week follow-up of PA behaviour. We found that a range of behavioural, normative, and control beliefs were significantly correlated with parents’ PA intentions and behaviour, with only a few differences observed in correlations between PA beliefs and intention and behaviour by gender. A range of key beliefs was identified as making independent contributions to parents’ PA intentions; however, the behavioural beliefs about improving parenting practices (β = 0.13), interfering with other commitments (β = −0.29); normative beliefs about people I exercise with (β = 0.20); and control beliefs about lack of time (β = −0.24), inconvenience (β = −0.14), lack of motivation (β = −0.34), were revealed as significant independent predictors of actual PA behaviour. Furthermore, we found that a limited amount of parents already hold these beliefs, suggesting that these key beliefs warrant changing and, therefore, are appropriate targets for subsequent intervention. The current study fills an empirical gap in the PA literature by investigating an at-risk group and using a well established theoretical framework to identify key beliefs that guide parents’ PA decision-making. Overall, we found support for parents being a unique group who hold distinctive behavioural, normative, and control beliefs toward PA. Attention to these key underlying beliefs will assist intervention work aimed at combating inactivity among this at-risk population.

A framework for reasoning about inherent parallelism in modern object-oriented languages

With the emergence of multi-core processors into the mainstream, parallel programming is no longer the specialized domain it once was. There is a growing need for systems to allow programmers to more easily reason about data dependencies and inherent parallelism in general purpose programs. Many of these programs are written in popular imperative programming languages like Java and C]. In this thesis I present a system for reasoning about side-effects of evaluation in an abstract and composable manner that is suitable for use by both programmers and automated tools such as compilers. The goal of developing such a system is to both facilitate the automatic exploitation of the inherent parallelism present in imperative programs and to allow programmers to reason about dependencies which may be limiting the parallelism available for exploitation in their applications. Previous work on languages and type systems for parallel computing has tended to focus on providing the programmer with tools to facilitate the manual parallelization of programs; programmers must decide when and where it is safe to employ parallelism without the assistance of the compiler or other automated tools. None of the existing systems combine abstraction and composition with parallelization and correctness checking to produce a framework which helps both programmers and automated tools to reason about inherent parallelism. In this work I present a system for abstractly reasoning about side-effects and data dependencies in modern, imperative, object-oriented languages using a type and effect system based on ideas from Ownership Types. I have developed sufficient conditions for the safe, automated detection and exploitation of a number task, data and loop parallelism patterns in terms of ownership relationships. To validate my work, I have applied my ideas to the C] version 3.0 language to produce a language extension called Zal. I have implemented a compiler for the Zal language as an extension of the GPC] research compiler as a proof of concept of my system. I have used it to parallelize a number of real-world applications to demonstrate the feasibility of my proposed approach. In addition to this empirical validation, I present an argument for the correctness of the type system and language semantics I have proposed as well as sketches of proofs for the correctness of the sufficient conditions for parallelization proposed.

Regular exercise participation mediates the affective response to acute bouts of vigorous exercise

Physical inactivity is a leading factor associated with cardiovascular disease and a major contributor to the global burden of disease in developed countries. Subjective mood states associated with acute exercise are likely to influence future exercise adherence and warrant further investigation. The present study examined the effects of a single bout of vigorous exercise on mood and anxiety between individuals with substantially different exercise participation histories. Mood and anxiety were assessed one day before an exercise test (baseline), 5 minutes before (pre-test) and again 10 and 25 minutes post-exercise. Participants were 31 university students (16 males, 15 females; Age M = 20), with 16 participants reporting a history of regular exercise with the remaining 15 reporting to not exercise regularly. Each participant completed an incremental exercise test on a Monark cycle ergometer to volitional exhaustion. Regular exercisers reported significant post-exercise improvements in mood and reductions in state anxiety. By contrast, non-regular exercisers reported an initial decline in post-exercise mood and increased anxiety, followed by an improvement in mood and reduction in anxiety back to pre-exercise levels. Our findings suggest that previous exercise participation mediates affective responses to acute bouts of vigorous exercise. We suggest that to maximise positive mood changes following exercise, practitioners should carefully consider the individual’s exercise participation history before prescribing new regimes.

A free weekly iron-folic acid supplementation and regular deworming program is associated with improved hemoglobin and iron status indicators in Vietnamese women

Background Anemia due to iron deficiency is recognized as one of the major nutritional deficiencies in women and children in developing countries. Daily iron supplementation for pregnant women is recommended in many countries although there are few reports of these programs working efficiently or effectively. Weekly iron-folic acid supplementation (WIFS) and regular deworming treatment is recommended for non-pregnant women living in areas with high rates of anemia. Following a baseline survey to assess the prevalence of anemia, iron deficiency and soil transmitted helminth infections, we implemented a program to make WIFS and regular deworming treatment freely and universally available for all women of reproductive age in two districts of a province in northern Vietnam over a 12 month period. The impact of the program at the population level was assessed in terms of: i) change in mean hemoglobin and iron status indicators, and ii) change in the prevalence of anemia, iron deficiency and hookworm infections. Method Distribution of WIFS and deworming were integrated with routine health services and made available to 52,000 women. Demographic data and blood and stool samples were collected in baseline, and three and 12-month post-implementation surveys using a population-based, stratified multi-stage cluster sampling design. Results The mean Hb increased by 9.6 g/L (95% CI, 5.7, 13.5, p < 0.001) during the study period. Anemia (Hb<120 g/L) was present in 131/349 (37.5%, 95% CI 31.3, 44.8) subjects at baseline, and in 70/363 (19.3%, 95% CI 14.0, 24.6) after twelve months. Iron deficiency reduced from 75/329 (22.8%, 95% CI 16.9, 28.6) to 33/353 (9.3%, 95% CI 5.7, 13.0) by the 12-mnth survey, and hookworm infection from 279/366 (76.2%,, 95% CI 68.6, 83.8) to 66/287 (23.0%, 95% CI 17.5, 28.5) over the same period. Conclusion A free, universal WIFS program with regular deworming was associated with reduced prevalence and severity of anemia, iron deficiency and ho

Anchoring and exposing in the third place : regular identification at the boundaries of social realms

Harry’s is my favourite bar in my neighbourhood. It is a small wine bar, owned by three men in their late thirties and targeted at people like them; my gentrifying inner city neighbourhood’s 20 to 40 something urban middle class. Harry’s has seats along the bar, booths inside, and a courtyard out the back. The seating arrangements mean that larger groups tend to gather outside, groups of two to four spread around the location, and people by themselves, or in groups of two, tend to sit at the bar. I usually sit at the bar....

Futures languages in Taiwan

Taiwan is a rapidly changing society, facing many challenges. In this state of flux, it is important to step back and see the big picture. The NewFutures 2000 conference, which commemorated fifty years of the of Tamkang University, in TamShui (the northernmost tip), Taiwan (Republic of China) and was held on 5–7 November 2000, gave Taiwanese an opportunity to gain just such a perspective. The ostensible aim of the conference was to explore ‘transformations in education, culture and technology’. But numerous perspectives and academic approaches were explored; predictions, normative visions, probable futures, alternative futures, ethical futures, epistemological re-constructions, studies and deconstruction’s of images of the future, myth and worldview—all received attention, sometimes overwhelming the participants with contradictory and overbearing ideas. [introduction]

Information accountability with policy languages for e-Health

ICT is becoming a prominent part of healthcare delivery but brings with it information privacy concerns for patients and competing concerns by the caregivers. A proper balance between these issues must be established in order to fully utilise ICT capabilities in healthcare. Information accountability is a fairly new concept to computer science which focuses on fair use of information. In this paper we investigate the different issues that need to be addressed when applying information accountability principles to manage healthcare information. We briefly introduce an information accountability framework for handling electronic health records (eHR). We focus more on digital rights management by considering data in eHRs as digital assets and how we can represent privacy policies and data usage policies as these are key factors in accountability systems.

Drama and languages education : authentic assessment through process drama

In this chapter I explore the ways process drama can enrich and enliven the assessment regime of a middle school beginner language program. The chapter draws on five months’ language teaching which I did to collect data during my doctoral research. I taught a secondary co-educational class of 12-13 year olds (first year secondary school) for their German lessons while the teacher who had invited me in observed the lessons. Throughout the project there was an emphasis on student participation through questionnaire, discussion and interview...

Languages of Communication : Indigenous language and/or English?

My interest in producing this paper on Indigenous languages was borne out of conversations with and learnings from community members in the Torres Straits and those connected to the ‘Dream Circle’. Nakata (2003, p. 12) laments the situation whereby ‘teachers are transitionary and take their hard-earned knowledge with them when they leave’. I am thus responding to the call to add to the conversation in a productive albeit culturally loaded way. To re-iterate, I am neither Indigenous nor am I experienced in teaching and learning in these contexts. As problematic as these two points are, I am in many ways typical of the raft of inexperienced white Australian teachers assigned to positions in school contexts where Indigenous students are enrolled or in mainstream contexts with substantial populations of Indigenous students. By penning this article, it is neither my intention to contribute to the silencing of Indigenous educators or Indigenous communities. My intention is to articulate my teacherly reflections as they apply to the topic under discussion. The remainder of this paper is presented in three sections. The next section provides a brief overview of the number of Indigenous people and Indigenous languages in Australia and the role of English as a language of communication. The section which follows draws on theorisations from second/additional language acquisition to overview three different schools of thought about the consequences of English in the lives of Indigenous Australians. The paper concludes by considering the tensions for inexperienced white Australian teachers caught up in the fray.

Villains of the piece

Welcome to the first of what will be a regular review essay on films about journalism, covering recent releases as well as looking back at established classics and under-rated obscurities.

Experimental observations of rapid maize streak virus evolution reveal a strand-specific nucleotide substitution bias

Background. Recent reports have indicated that single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) viruses in the taxonomic families Geminiviridae, Parvoviridae and Anellovirus may be evolving at rates of ∼10-4 substitutions per site per year (subs/site/year). These evolution rates are similar to those of RNA viruses and are surprisingly high given that ssDNA virus replication involves host DNA polymerases with fidelities approximately 10 000 times greater than those of error-prone viral RNA polymerases. Although high ssDNA virus evolution rates were first suggested in evolution experiments involving the geminivirus maize streak virus (MSV), the evolution rate of this virus has never been accurately measured. Also, questions regarding both the mechanistic basis and adaptive value of high geminivirus mutation rates remain unanswered. Results. We determined the short-term evolution rate of MSV using full genome analysis of virus populations initiated from cloned genomes. Three wild type viruses and three defective artificial chimaeric viruses were maintained in planta for up to five years and displayed evolution rates of between 7.4 × 10-4 and 7.9 × 10-4 subs/site/year. Conclusion. These MSV evolution rates are within the ranges observed for other ssDNA viruses and RNA viruses. Although no obvious evidence of positive selection was detected, the uneven distribution of mutations within the defective virus genomes suggests that some of the changes may have been adaptive. We also observed inter-strand nucleotide substitution imbalances that are consistent with a recent proposal that high mutation rates in geminiviruses (and possibly ssDNA viruses in general) may be due to mutagenic processes acting specifically on ssDNA molecules. © 2008 Walt et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Effect of aging time and Al substitution on the morphology of aluminous goethite

Goethite and Al-substituted goethite were synthesized from the reaction between ferric nitrate and/or aluminum nitrate and potassium hydroxide. XRF, XRD, TEM with EDS were used to characterize the chemical composition, phase and lattice parameters, and morphology of the synthesized products. The results show that d(020) decreases from 4.953 to 4.949 Å and the b dimension decreases from 9.951 Å to 9.906 Å when the aging time increases from 6 days to 42 days for 9.09 mol% Al-substituted goethite. A sample with 9.09 mol% Al substitution in Al-substituted goethite was prepared by a rapid co-precipitation method. In the sample, 13.45 mol%, 12.31 mol% and 5.85 mol% Al substitution with a crystal size of 163, 131, and 45 nm are observed as shown in the TEM images and EDS. The crystal size of goethite is positively related to the degree of Al substitution according to the TEM images and EDS results. Thus, this methodology is proved to be effective to distinguish the morphology of goethite and Al substituted goethite.