106 research outputs found
sj-docx-1-nah-10.1177_02601060211032886 - Supplemental material for Examining correlates of feeding practices among parents of preschoolers
No full textSupplemental material, sj-docx-1-nah-10.1177_02601060211032886 for Examining correlates of feeding practices among parents of preschoolers by Deepa Srivastava, Lucy R. Zheng and Dipti A. Dev in Nutrition and Health</p
Leveraging wireless network virtualizaton for flexible sharing of WLANs
No full textProviding air-time guarantees across a group of clients forms a fundamental building block in sharing an access point (AP) across different virtual network service providers. Though this problem has a relatively simple solution for downlink group scheduling through traffic engineering at the AP, solving this problem for uplink (UL) traffic presents a challenge for fair sharing of wireless hotspots. Among other issues, the mechanism for uplink traffic control has to scale across a large user base, and provide flexible operation irrespective of the client channel conditions and network traffic loads. In this thesis the SplitAP architecture is proposed that addresses the problem of sharing uplink airtime across groups of users by extending the idea of network virtualization. The architecture discussed in this thesis allows different algorithms to be deployed on it for enforcing UL airtime fairness across different client groups. In this thesis, the design features of the SplitAP architecture are highlighted followed by results from evaluation on a prototype deployed with the two algorithms for controlling UL group fairness like: (1) Linear Proportional Feedback Control (LPFC) and (2) Linear Proportional Feedback Control plus (LPFC+). Performance comparisons on the ORBIT testbed show that the proposed algorithms are capable of providing group air-time fairness across wireless clients irrespective of the network volume, and traffic type. The algorithms show up to 40% improvement with a modified Jain fairness index.M.S.Includes bibliographical referencesby Dipti Vet
Head Start and child care providers' feeding practices: a potential avenue for obesity prevention in young children
No full textThe Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics released a position statement in 2012 regarding benchmarks for nutrition in child care to establish healthful eating behaviors in early childhood and prevent obesity in young children. Further, recent publications by the Institute of Medicine and national organizations have recommended specific feeding practices for child care providers to be implemented at the state-level to prevent early childhood obesity in preschool children. Although over 12 million US children in child care consuming up to 5 meals and snacks per day in such settings, little is known about child care providers’ feeding practices.
The purpose of this dissertation was to examine provider’s feeding practices in Head Start and child care programs with the following aims 1) To assess whether providers met the Academy’s benchmarks and if attainment of benchmarks varied across child care contexts (Head Start [HS], Child and Adult Care Food Program [CACFP] and non-CACFP). 2) To identify determinants of child care providers’ healthful and controlling feeding practices for 2-5y-old children. 3) To identify Head Start and child care provider’s motivators, barriers and facilitators for using family style meal service (FSMS) during child care mealtimes.
Cross-sectional data was collected in 2011 and 2012 where 118 child care providers from 24 center-based programs (6 Head Start [HS], 11 Child and Adult Care Food Program [CACFP] funded, 7 non-CACFP) completed self-administered surveys regarding their feeding practices for 2-5-year-old children. Chi-square tests and Analysis of variance were used to determine variation in meeting benchmarks across contexts. Multi-level multivariate linear regression models were used to predict seven feeding practices- healthful (allowing children to control their food intake, role modeling healthy eating and teaching children about nutrition) and controlling (pressuring children to eat and restricting access to food for health or weight control). For aim 3, qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with a subset of providers based on maximum variation purposive sampling. The interviews were lead until saturation was reached and the data was coded using thematic analysis by NVivo qualitative software.
It was found that HS providers had greater compliance with the Academy’s benchmarks compared to CACFP and non-CACFP providers. HS providers sat more frequently with children during meals (P=0.01), ate the same foods as children (P=0.001) and served meals family-style (P<0.0001) more often, compared to CACFP and non-CACFP providers. HS providers (P=0.002), parents (P=0.001) and children (P=0.01) received more nutrition education opportunities compared to CACFP and non-CACFP. HS providers encouraged more balance and variety of foods (P<0.05), offered healthier foods (P<0.05), modeled healthy eating (P<0.001), and taught children about nutrition (P<0.001) compared to CACFP and non-CACFP providers. Providers across all three contexts used significantly more non-internal than internal mealtime verbal comments (P<0.0001).
Regarding predictors of provider’s feeding practices; working in a HS center predicted teaching children about nutrition and modeling healthy eating; that may be attributed to the HS performance standards which require HS providers to practice healthful feeding. Providers who reported being concerned about children’s weight, responsible for feeding children and had an authoritarian feeding style were more likely to pressure children to eat, restrict intake, and control food intake to decrease or maintain children’s weight. Providers with non-White race, who were trying to lose weight, perceived nutrition as important in their own diet, and had greater number of nutrition training opportunities were more likely to use restrictive feeding practices. Findings suggest that individual and child care level factors, particularly provider race, education, training, feeding attitudes and styles and the child care context may influence providers’ feeding practices with young children.
A qualitative investigation of the motivators, barriers and facilitators for using family style meal service (FSMS) from the perspective of 18 child care providers revealed that HS and CACFP providers were motivated to use FSMS because it created pleasant mealtimes, opportunities to role model healthy eating, and healthful child development. CACFP and non-CACFP providers reported not using FSMS because it was resource intensive, messy, unhygienic, and seemed to violate CACFP policy. HS and CACFP providers recommended strategies to overcome these barriers. They suggested that FSMS becomes easier with practice and teaching children self-help skills during play time can avoid messes during mealtimes.
Possible reasons for an increased compliance of HS providers to the Academy’s benchmarks may be attributed to HS federal performance standards for child nutrition and increased nutrition training opportunities for HS staff. HS programs can serve as a model in implementing the Academy’s benchmarks. Considering the predictors of providers feeding practices identified by this study when developing interventions, may add to the efficacy of childhood obesity prevention programs. The present research offers new insights not only regarding providers’ barriers to FSMS, but also strategies from providers to help overcome these barriers and allow for effective implementation of FSMS in child care settings. Providers should be encouraged to adopt FSMS, because the long-term health consequences and learning opportunities of FSMS outweigh any barriers related to its practical implementation. By strengthening policies and training that are more aligned with the Academy’s benchmarks, child care providers can be in a unique position to prevent childhood obesity by instilling positive eating behaviors related to self-regulation of the preschool-aged children in their care.Item withdrawn by Laura Spradlin ([email protected]) on 2013-11-25T23:14:56Z
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Participation in the CACFP Ensures Availability but not Intake of Nutritious Foods at Lunch in Preschool Children in Child-Care Centers
No full textBackground — The US Department of Agriculture Child and Adult Care Food program (CACFP) recently (October 2017) updated requirements for meal reimbursement and best practice recommendations for serving nutritious meals and beverages, and minimum age-specific serving sizes for five food groups. It is not known whether CACFPfunded child-care centers are meeting the updated meal pattern requirements and best practice recommendations, and whether children are meeting nutrition recommendations based on the current 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA). Objective This study assessed whether the recruited CACFP-funded child-care centers in this study were meeting the updated (2017) CACFP requirements regarding foods served for lunch and whether children attending these child-care centers were meeting ageand sex-specific DGA recommendations regarding foods consumed.
Design — This was a cross-sectional study using the Dietary Observation for Child Care method.
Participants and settings — Children aged 3 to 5 years (n 108) from 10 classrooms in three CACFP-funded child-care centers in Lincoln, NE, were recruited by convenience sampling during spring 2018.
Measurable outcomes — Food served and consumed during observed lunches in comparison with updated CACFP requirements and DGA, respectively.
Statistical analysis — Adjusted mean amounts of foods served from each food group were compared with age specific minimum CACFP serving size requirements. Adjusted mean amounts of foods consumed from each food group were then compared with ageand sex-specific DGA recommendations.
Results — The recruited child-care centers were meeting the updated CACFP requirements regarding foods served but showed limited adherence to the best practice recommendations during the observed lunches. However, the overall mean intake for grains, fruits, and vegetables was significantly lower (P\u3c0.01) than DGA recommendations. In addition, approximately 25% of the children did not consume any vegetables during their meal.
Conclusions — Although child-care centers were meeting the updated CACFP requirements by serving the recommended amounts of foods, children were not meeting DGA-recommended intakes. Future studies are needed to explore ways to improve adherence to best practice recommendations to improve children’s consumption of healthy foods in child-care centers
Predicting traction return current in electric railway systems through physics-informed neural networks
No full textThis paper addresses the problem of determining the distribution of the return current in electric railway traction systems. The dynamics of traction return current are simulated in all three space dimensions by informing the neural networks with the Partial Differential Equations (PDEs) known as telegraph equations. In addition, this work proposes a method of choosing optimal activation functions for training the physics-informed neural network to solve higher-dimensional PDEs. We propose a Monte Carlo based framework to choose the activation function in lower dimensions, mitigating the need for ensemble training in higher dimensions. To further strengthen the applicability of the Monte Carlo based framework, experiments are presented under two loss functions governed by L2 and L∞ norms. The presented method efficiently simulates the traction return current for electric railway systems, even for three-dimensional problems.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Railway Engineerin
The Use of Family Engagement Principles by Childcare Providers From Various Childcare Settings: A Qualitative Study
No full textFamily engagement in childcare is important to ensure the optimal growth, development, and safety of children. Previous research has explored family engagement practices, but limited research is available on the application of theory to explain the uptake of family engagement principles. The purpose of this study was to explore the use and perceptions of the National Association of the Education for Young Children’s six principles of effective family engagement among childcare providers from various childcare settings following the Innovation-Decision Process of the Diffusion of Innovation Theory. A semi-structured interview with a card-sorting task was used to explore providers’ knowledge, adoption, and perceived difficulty of implementation as well as their perceived outcomes, reasoning for use or non-use, and advice on use of the family engagement principles. Notable findings suggest variance in childcare providers’ knowledge, adoption, and perceived difficulty of all six family engagement principles. Childcare providers mentioned various perceived outcomes and reasoning for use of principles, such as improved relationship with parents and enhanced child learning. Lack of time and perceived disinterest of parents were commonly reported difficulties for the use of family engagement principles. Future studies should expand upon the exploration of family engagement practices and comparison between different childcare settings and philosophies. Further efforts are needed to investigate effective integration and use of technology for communication
Examining Foods and Beverages Served and Child Food Insecurity across Early Care and Education (ECE) Programs in Communities with High Rates of Obesity and Food Insecurity
No full textThe purpose of this study was to examine implementation of serving food and beverage evidence-based practices (nutrition EBPs) across CACFP participating licensed childcare centers (CCCs, n =51) and family childcare homes (FCCHs, n =49) in central California. Results indicated that FCCHs reported significantly higher (p<.05) implementation of nutrition EBPs and barriers than CCCs. Both CCCs and FCCHs refer families to WIC/SNAP when they observe child food insecurity and control how much food is served to children. It is important to consider organizational structure (CCCs, FCCHs) and child food insecurity when developing policies/interventions for improving implementation of nutrition EBPs in ECEs
Needs Assessment for Informing Extension Professional Development Trainings on Teaching Adult Learners
No full textAs society becomes more information saturated, Extension must evaluate its educational programming and delivery methods used to facilitate adult learning. Extension professionals must have a comprehensive understanding of how adults learn. Accordingly, we conducted a needs assessment as a basis for providing professional development trainings focused on teaching adults. Our objective was to identify Extension professionals\u27 professional development needs related to designing and facilitating programming based on andragogy. We developed a survey instrument that addressed andragogy-related topics and administered it to Extension professionals. The results indicated that professional development centered on andragogy was needed by and relevant to the study participants. We describe the study and resulting professional development training and provide associated recommendations that are applicable across Extension
A qualitative comparison of parent and childcare provider perceptions of communication and family engagement in children\u27s healthy eating and physical activity
No full textBackground: Parents and childcare providers play a substantial role in the development of health behaviors among the children they care for. In order to ensure the optimal growth and development of children, communication and family engagement in childcare is critical. Previous studies examining parent or provider perceptions about healthy eating or physical activity have explored these concepts individually and/or have only included only parents or providers. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare childcare provider and parent perceptions of communication regarding healthy eating and physical activity as well as use of best practice strategies on family engagement for these topics.
Methods: Childcare providers (n = 12) in childcare centers or a family childcare home and a parent (n = 12) of a child they provide care for participated in a semistructured interview guided by the Social Ecological Model. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and uploaded to NVivo for data analysis. Data were analyzed using a directed content analysis. Three trained qualitative researchers developed a codebook and then compared responses between parents and providers.
Results: Similarities in provider and parent responses included agreement on healthy eating; influences on child development; parents being the most influential on children\u27s healthy eating; how they identified physical activity opportunities; and the use of family engagement principles. Differences that arose included parents\u27 roles in promoting children\u27s physical activity; challenges for parents in promoting healthy eating and physical activity; and providers\u27 encouragement of physical activity. Importantly, few parents mentioned providers were top influences on their child\u27s healthy eating or physical activity. Providers also mentioned having difficult conversations with parents was challenging.
Conclusions: Future efforts are needed to (1) help parents understand the providers\u27 role in the development of their child\u27s health behaviors and (2) strengthen efforts to engage families in healthy behaviors outside of childcare facilities
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