Health education for Somali Bantu refugees via home visits

Background: Somali Bantu refugees, with unique health information needs, created challenges for health and social service providers. Objectives: A service innovation was developed (i) to raise awareness, especially among local health and social service providers, about the Bantu refugees’ presence in the community, their culture, and their information needs and (ii) to deliver needed health information, emphasizing child health, to the Bantu mothers in their homes. Methods: The project consisted of: (i) a community conference targeting local health and social service providers, describing the refugees’ presence in the community, their culture, and information needs. (ii) Focus groups conducted with members of the Bantu population elicited additional information needs. (iii) Curriculum was developed based on identified needs, and (iv) the curriculum was delivered to the refugees in their homes. A clinical informationist and MP3 technology enhanced the project. Findings: Conference attendees’ evaluation responses indicated improved understanding of Bantu culture. Focus groups’ identification of health information needs provided a framework for the health education curriculum. A project website made educational materials available to other healthcare providers. Conclusions: The project raised awareness of the Bantus’ presence, culture, and information needs. Identification of other unmet needs demonstrated that additional support for refugees is required.     

The relationship between peak height velocity and physical performance in youth soccer players

Longitudinal changes in height, weight and physical performance were studied in 33 Flemish male youth soccer players from the Ghent Youth Soccer Project. The players' ages at the start of the study ranged from 10.4 to 13.7 years, with a mean age of 12.2 +/- 0.7 years. Longitudinal changes were studied over a 5 year period. Peak height velocity and peak weight velocity were determined using non-smoothed polynomials. The estimations of peak height velocity, peak weight velocity and age at peak height velocity were 9.7 +/- 1.5 cm x year-1, 8.4 +/- 3.0 kg x year-1 and 13.8 +/- 0.8 years, respectively. Peak weight velocity occurred, on average, at the same age as peak height velocity. Balance, speed of limb movement, trunk strength, upper-body muscular endurance, explosive strength, running speed and agility, cardiorespiratory endurance and anaerobic capacity showed peak development at peak height velocity. A plateau in the velocity curves was observed after peak height velocity for upper-body muscular endurance, explosive strength and running speed. Flexibility exhibited peak development during the tear after peak height velocity. Trainers and coaches should be aware of the individual characteristics of the adolescent growth spurt and the training load should also be individualized at this time.     

Knee extensor and flexor torque development with concentric and eccentric isokinetic training

This study assessed muscular torque and rate of torque development following concentric (CON) or eccentric (ECC) isokinetic training. Thirty-eight women were randomly assigned to either CON or ECC training groups. Training consisted of knee extension and flexion of the nondominant leg three times per week for 20 weeks (SD = 1). Eccentric training increased ECC knee extension and flexion peak torque more than CON training. The ECC group improved acceleration time and time to peak torque with ECC movements versus the CON group. Slow-velocity ECC isokinetic training yielded greater ECC and similar CON torque development gains versus CON training over the course of 20 weeks in young women.     

Perception of kinematic characteristics of tennis strokes for anticipating stroke type and direction

The purpose of this study was to determine the sources of visual information used by highly skilled tennis players in anticipating their opponent's shots. In Experiment 1, motion analysis of the strokes showed that the relative motion between the racquet and forearm was different between the ground strokes and lobs, but there were no reliable kinematic differences when shot direction was varied. In Experiment 2, 12 skilled tennis players observed the opponent hitting strokes in a normal video or in a point-light display with different segments occluded. Players' anticipation accuracy was not degraded by the use of the point-light display. Occluding the racquet and forearm significantly reduced the participant's ability to determine the type of stroke produced.     

The graph-theoretic field model— II. application of multi-terminal representations to field problems

This paper is a sequel to a paper entitled “The Graph-Theoretic Field Model—I: Modelling and Formulations” (1). Herein, the Theory of Multi-Terminal Representations is applied to the Graph-Theoretic Field Model to provide mathematical models of finite elements. The element models are obtained solely from the algebraic building blocks of the Graph-Theoretic Field Model, without recourse to any functional mathematics. The theory of Multi-Terminal Representations is developed for both linear and non-linear problems. Examples of the application of the theory to one- and two-dimensional field problems are presented from heat conduction and electrostatics.     

An On-line Search for Optimum Operating Conditions of Noisy Systems

Optimum process operating conditions are often achieved by on-line computer programming. A general method has been developed which is capable of optimizing processes whose responses are corrupted by random error. The method is particularly useful for application to processes whose response functions contain sharp ridges. Application to ridge and non-ridge systems gives the same results in each case showing that the rate of convergence of the search is totally unaffected by the presence of a ridge. An accelarated gradient method is used which obtains its derivatives from a quadratic interpolation. The inability of the gradient method to move along a ridge is overcome by projecting a straight line through points on the ridge to obtain new starting points for a gradient search. Points on the ridge are located by finding the stationary point of the polynomial which is constructed by regression through points found by the gradient search. The method is applied to several test functions known to the literature—a fast convergence rate is obtained for a wide range of noise levels.