The Effect of a Maternal Mediterranean Diet in Pregnancy on Insulin Resistance is Moderated by Maternal Negative Affect.

There is inconsistent evidence that healthy dietary interventions can effectively mitigate the risk of adverse outcomes associated with elevated insulin resistance in pregnancy, suggesting that other moderating factors may be at play. Maternal psychological state is an important factor to consider in this regard, because stress/mood state can directly influence glycemia and a bidirectional relationship may exist between nutrition and psychological state. The objective of this study was to examine the interaction between maternal negative affect and diet quality on third trimester insulin resistance. We conducted a prospective longitudinal study of N = 203 women with assessments in early and mid-pregnancy, which included an ecological momentary assessment of maternal psychological state, from which a negative affect score (NAS) was derived, and 24-h dietary recalls, from which the Mediterranean Diet Score (MDS) was computed. The homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) was computed from third trimester fasting plasma glucose and insulin values. Early pregnancy MDS was inversely associated with the HOMA-IR, but this did not maintain significance after adjusting for covariates. There was a significant effect of the mid-pregnancy MDS*NAS interaction term with the HOMA-IR in the adjusted model, such that a higher negative affect was found to override the beneficial effects of a Mediterranean diet on insulin resistance. These results highlight the need to consider nutrition and affective state concurrently in the context of gestational insulin resistance

Factors influencing appearance appeals for decreasing unsafe tanning behaviors

Master of ScienceDepartment of Psychological SciencesLaura A. BrannonIn a two-study thesis, the current project compares the effectiveness of various messages aimed at reducing unsafe high-end tanning behaviors. Study 1 used messages focused on either the appearance or health consequences of tanning in an effort to reduce the intention of unsafe high-end tanning behaviors. The results indicated that participants did not differ in their high-end sun tanning frequencies as a result of the message condition, but that there was an interaction effect between message type and gender, such that appearance messages were most effective at reducing unsafe tanning behaviors for females. However, upon further examination of the appearance messages, it was noted that there were two primary aspects of appearance content that were present: aging and blemishes. Therefore, Study 2 examined whether the gender effect that was present in Study 1 was being driven by either the aging or blemish content of the messages. Surprisingly, it was found in Study 2 that aging messages were more effective on male participants than female participants at reducing intention of unsafe high-end tanning behaviors. Additionally, it was found in Study 2 that graphic images effectively decreased intention to perform unsafe high-end tanning behaviors. These findings along with their implications are discussed

Neonatal White Matter Maturation Is Associated With Infant Language Development

Background: While neonates have no sophisticated language skills, the neural basis for acquiring this function is assumed to already be present at birth. Receptive language is measurable by 6 months of age and meaningful speech production by 10-18 months of age. Fiber tracts supporting language processing include the corpus callosum (CC), which plays a key role in the hemispheric lateralization of language; the left arcuate fasciculus (AF), which is associated with syntactic processing; and the right AF, which plays a role in prosody and semantics. We examined if neonatal maturation of these fiber tracts is associated with receptive language development at 12 months of age. Methods: Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) was performed in 86 infants at 26.6 ± 12.2 days post-birth. Receptive language was assessed via the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory at 12 months of age. Tract-based fractional anisotropy (FA) was determined using the NA-MIC atlas-based fiber analysis toolkit. Associations between neonatal regional FA, adjusted for gestational age at birth and age at scan, and language development at 12 months of age were tested using ANOVA models. Results: After multiple comparisons correction, higher neonatal FA was positively associated with receptive language at 12 months of age within the genu (p < 0.001), rostrum (p < 0.001), and tapetum (p < 0.001) of the CC and the left fronto-parietal AF (p = 0.008). No significant clusters were found in the right AF. Conclusion: Microstructural development of the CC and the AF in the newborn is associated with receptive language at 12 months of age, demonstrating that interindividual variation in white matter microstructure is relevant for later language development, and indicating that the neural foundation for language processing is laid well ahead of the majority of language acquisition. This suggests that some origins of impaired language development may lie in the intrauterine and potentially neonatal period of life. Understanding how interindividual differences in neonatal brain maturity relate to the acquisition of function, particularly during early development when the brain is in an unparalleled window of plasticity, is key to identifying opportunities for harnessing neuroplasticity in health and disease

The maximum number of minimal codewords in an [n,k]−[n,k]-code

Upper and lower bounds are derived for the quantity in the title, which is tabulated for modest values of $n$ and $k.$ An application to graphs with many cycles is given.Comment: 6 pp. Submitte

The Case for increased cross-agency data sharing in the State of Nevada

According to a July 2010 survey conducted by CNBC Nevada ranks 34th in its quality of life. Contributing to this low ranking are remarkable statistics that rank Nevada as the highest state in the nation regarding the percentage of 18 to 24 years olds who are not high school graduates and for 16 to 19 year olds who are not in school and not working. In addition, Nevada currently has the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 14%. Recognizing the need to increase the education and work skill levels for Nevada’s youth, and in an effort to remediate unacceptable educational trends, in 2005, the Nevada Public Education Foundation launched Ready for Life, a cross-agency endeavor based on the groundbreaking “Connected by 25” research conducted at Stanford University. The research found that “disconnected” youth without meaningful ties to school or work by time that they were of age 25 would most likely remain “disconnected” through their adult lives, causing a significant financial burden to society. At this crucial nexus in Nevada’s economy and public education, state and local policymakers must discover more cost effective and efficient policies. This paper sought out other state’s “best practices” policies, with research revealing that cross-agency data sharing is a cost effective and efficient strategy, which increases the capacity of agencies such as Ready for Life to better identify and serve client needs. Data sharing also offers flexible policy alternatives where consideration by legislators can occur on an incremental or comprehensive basis

Proposal for a Reference Model for Sales Operations Planning and Aggregate Planning

Companies are increasingly adopting practices aimed at improving the quality of management, with the main purpose of enabling them to act competitively in the present market characterized by high competition and strong organizational changes. Among the improvements developed, we highlight the adoption of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. However, the high cost of deploying and maintaining this type of technology can be a barrier for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that want to achieve such advances. Therefore, it is essential to develop a reference model of typical business planning modules to support ERP implementation, aiming at reducing time and cost in the elaboration of a particular model. In this context, the main objective of this paper is to develop a reference model from the elaboration of the processes related to Sales Operations Planning (SOP) and Aggregate Planning (AP), important modules of Production Planning and Control (PPC). The methodology used for the elaboration of this work was divided in eight sequential stages: study of the functions of SOP and AP, study of process modeling area, definition of reference model processes, choice of modeling notation, choice of modeling tool , development of the reference model, software development and results analysis. The modeling methodology employed in this work was the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), through the tool Bizagi Process Modeler version 3.1.0.011. The software was developed through the interface Delphi version 7.0 (Object-Pascal language) in order to apply the reference model in the support to the implementation of a business management tool. As results, from a formal documentation, the reference model proved to be a useful tool in understanding and communicating the business processes raised. It is also concluded that the implemented model is able to support the implementation of production management systems in real situations

Bijections for Entringer families

Andr\'e proved that the number of alternating permutations on $\{1, 2, \dots, n\}$ is equal to the Euler number $E_n$. A refinement of Andr\'e's result was given by Entringer, who proved that counting alternating permutations according to the first element gives rise to Seidel's triangle $(E_{n,k})$ for computing the Euler numbers. In a series of papers, using generating function method and induction, Poupard gave several further combinatorial interpretations for $E_{n,k}$ both in alternating permutations and increasing trees. Kuznetsov, Pak, and Postnikov have given more combinatorial interpretations of $E_{n,k}$ in the model of trees. The aim of this paper is to provide bijections between the different models for $E_{n,k}$ as well as some new interpretations. In particular, we give the first explicit one-to-one correspondence between Entringer's alternating permutation model and Poupard's increasing tree model.Comment: 19 page

Reference Models for Production Planning and Control Systems: A Bibliometric Analysis and Future Perspectives

The activity of modeling business processes is still not a common practice among organizations which contributes to increase the cost and time of systems deployment, improvement projects and educational software, due to the need to develop new models related to Business Processes. In this context, one of the Business Processes essential for organizations, especially those located in countries such as Brazil, where production activities are more pronounced than product development, is Production Planning and Control (PCP). In this scenario, in order to present a picture of scientific production, contribute to the literature review and identify gaps in the scientific literature within the framework of the Reference Models and PCP approach. This work aims to perform a bibliometric research in these areas of study. In this study, we used the bibliometric revision method composed of four phases: definition of database, definition of research keywords, selection of papers and analysis of papers. As a result, it was found that most scientific studies are focused on very specific situations in industrial planning or addressing particular business sectors

Determining global mean-first-passage time of random walks on Vicsek fractals using eigenvalues of Laplacian matrices

The family of Vicsek fractals is one of the most important and frequently-studied regular fractal classes, and it is of considerable interest to understand the dynamical processes on this treelike fractal family. In this paper, we investigate discrete random walks on the Vicsek fractals, with the aim to obtain the exact solutions to the global mean first-passage time (GMFPT), defined as the average of first-passage time (FPT) between two nodes over the whole family of fractals. Based on the known connections between FPTs, effective resistance, and the eigenvalues of graph Laplacian, we determine implicitly the GMFPT of the Vicsek fractals, which is corroborated by numerical results. The obtained closed-form solution shows that the GMFPT approximately grows as a power-law function with system size (number of all nodes), with the exponent lies between 1 and 2. We then provide both the upper bound and lower bound for GMFPT of general trees, and show that leading behavior of the upper bound is the square of system size and the dominating scaling of the lower bound varies linearly with system size. We also show that the upper bound can be achieved in linear chains and the lower bound can be reached in star graphs. This study provides a comprehensive understanding of random walks on the Vicsek fractals and general treelike networks.Comment: Definitive version accepted for publication in Physical Review