Concurrent Sessions Research Articles

Effects of 8‐week active mindfulness and stress management on decentering and anxiety during the COVID‐19 pandemic

The novel coronavirus infection has substantially increased over the last year causing a global pandemic. The rate of infection is persistently rising which has forced many authorities to promote stay at home orders. Individuals may experience an increase in anxiety due to spending longer durations at home, working from home, lacking direct social interactions with friends and family, monetary losses, and potentially getting infected from the virus. Increased anxiety for prolonged periods is linked to elevated blood pressure, heart attacks, and strokes. To evaluate the influence of the pandemic on psychological health, we conducted a study on effects of mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR) and stress management education (SME). To analyze the effects of the pandemic on mental health of our participants, we compared a group which was not affected by the pandemic (NPG) to a group that was affected by the pandemic (PG). The primary aim of this study was to compare the effects of 8‐weeks active intervention of MBSR and SME in NPG and PG on state‐trait anxiety and decentering. 36 adults participated in the study. All the participants were randomly enrolled in either 8‐weeks of MBSR or SME training. The NPG had 19 participants with 10 in MBSR and 9 in the SME group. The PG had 17 participants with 8 in MBSR and 9 in SME group. The MBSR group had weekly group sessions of ~2.5h on body scanning, meditation and light yoga while the SME group had concurrent sessions on nutrition, sleep, and stress management. Both the groups also did home practice daily for ~45 minutes. The NPG met in person for each of the 8 weeks, but the PG completed the last 4‐weeks of the course online due to a stay‐at‐home mandate at the time in Michigan. All the participants filled out a questionnaire on state anxiety, trait anxiety and decentering before and after the 8‐weeks. A ReANOVA was used to compare the differences across the 8 weeks, with condition (PG vs. NPG) as a between‐subjects factor. The results showed that there was a significant increase in decentering in PG after the 8‐weeks (treatment x condition and time x condition both p<0.03). The SME participants (Δ5.6±1.5 a.u., p=0.007) and MBSR participants (Δ3.5±0.7 a.u., p=0.002) significantly improved their ability to decenter during the pandemic. State anxiety did not change across the 8‐weeks of SME or MBSR in either the NPG or PG. Trait anxiety was reduced across the 8‐week intervention groups (time p=0.043) with MBSR participants decreasing by (Δ3.4±2.8 a.u.) and SME participants decreasing by (Δ0.9±1.7 a.u.). In this small cohort of adults, the 8‐week MBSR and SME interventions helped to reduce trait anxiety, and significantly improved the ability to decenter (disconnect from emotions) during the global pandemic. In addition, there was not an increase in state‐anxiety during the pandemic, which may be at least partially due to active participation in MBSR and SME. These are encouraging results that indicate MBSR and SME can positively influence psychological health, and to help disconnect from emotions during an unprecedented global health crisis.

Acute growth hormone response to concurrent strength–sprint training with different orders in strength-trained men

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the intra-session order of concurrent strength-sprint training on the acute growth hormone response. Nine strength-trained students (age 24.1 ± 4.1) performed two different concurrent exercise orders: strength–sprint (STS) and sprint–strength (SPS). Strength training consisted of three sets of ten repetitions with 10RM for four exercises: bench press, lat pulldown, squat and shoulder press. Sprint exercise consisted of eight repetitions of 30-m maximal sprint running with 45-s rest periods between repetitions. In both exercise orders, the subjects rested for 10 min after the completion of the first part of the concurrent training session. Blood samples were collected before, between exercise modalities, and immediately after the concurrent training sessions. A significant increase in growth hormone levels occurred in response to single sessions of concurrent strength–sprint training, but no significant difference was observed between the two different orders of concurrent training (STS vs. SPS) regarding the acute growth hormone response. In general, performing sprint training before or after strength training not only imposes no inhibitory effect on the growth hormone response to strength training, but also increases the hormone’s overall response.

Virtual Scholarship and Real Academics:

Like many other regional universities in Australia, the authors’ university is well equipped to deal with distance and technology (Chugh, Ledger &amp; Shields, 2017), with staff distributed across more than 10 campuses, and many working from home on a regular basis in a non-COVID year. Yet despite this, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 presented challenges, as staff are not immune from the digital divide issues of bandwidth speed and stability, especially as the whole world moves to a video conferenced meeting solution. This presentation will discuss how our university handled this new triple headed challenge of a renewed focus on Scholarship of Learning &amp; Teaching (SoLT) in relation to Australian government advice (Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, 2020), along with a desire for upskilling in TEL, but simultaneously the limitations of technology in the pandemic, with a view to providing guidance for other institutions looking to mount this challenge.&#x0D; In tackling this issue in 2020, we were fortunate that our university already provided several avenues for staff to engage in and learn about SoLT. Among these, the Scholarship of Tertiary Teaching (SoTT) conference ran over two days via Zoom and offered several virtual concurrent sessions and topics allowing staff to share the results of their systematic evaluations into their teaching practice and student’s learning. Each session is recorded and made available via a YouTube channel, providing opportunity for conference participants to watch sessions they were unable to attend and this year we recognised the work of our presenters, abstract reviewers, and session facilitators with digital badges.&#x0D; Based on this successful model, we realized we had the essential tools already to move our other major training avenue, the Intro to SoLT workshops (previously delivered face-to-face), online. The aim of the workshops is to provide staff with a collegial environment to discuss and develop research ideas. The virtual environment makes this harder to achieve however the SOTT conference showed us that smaller sessions (four hours over four days), along with the use of breakout rooms could provide opportunity for small group discussion and that the value of Zoom Chat as a back channel for discussion was essential and should be encouraged amongst participants to provide an environment where we could maintain consistent support (Soon &amp; Cowling, 2019).&#x0D; Attendance and feedback showed us that this worked. Over 50 staff attended the event over four days, and feedback was universally positive, and this led us to rethink how our L&amp;T events should be offered. Specifically, the success of the changes suggests the development of a hyperflexible model of delivery, asynchronous but with guided support and local contacts (assisting to build campus networks), and the foundation knowledge of how to complete a systematic evaluation turned into an online module/micro-credential as a prerequisite for face-to-face and virtual workshops. The result being a L&amp;T model that leverages the lessons learnt during the pandemic into a new blended model, bringing the best aspects of face-to-face and online delivery into a new academy of best L&amp;T practice.

The 2020 Chinese National Symposium on Systematic and Evolutionary Botany

On 26–28 November 2020, the Chinese National Symposium on Systematic and Evolutionary Botany (also known as the 14th Young Scholar's Symposium) was held at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Menglun, Yunnan Province, China. The symposium was sponsored by the Botanical Society of China (BSC), and was organized by Professor Yao-Wu Xing from XTBG. The series has been held every other year regularly in the last decade. More than 500 participants from 141 institutes/universities gathered in XTBG to attend the symposium in person, and there were also more than 200 online participants. The symposium brought together the plant systematics and evolutionary biology community in China to discuss the advances in systematics, biodiversity resources and conservation, and evolutionary biology in general. Four workshops were launched on 25 November, covering “Taxonomy of tropical plants”, “Inference of divergence times”, “Organelle genome assembly and analyses”, and “Plant evolutionary genomics”. At the Opening Ceremony on 26 November, Professor Jin Chen (Director of XTBG), Professor Xiao-Quan Wang (Vice Chairman of BSC, and Director of Institute of Botany, CAS), and Professor De-Yuan Hong (Academician of CAS) addressed the symposium. The symposium also included four colloquia on “Plant taxonomy and resources”, “Paleobotany”, “Phylogenetics and biogeography”, and “Speciation and adaptive evolution”, in four concurrent sessions. There were 130 contributed oral presentations and 47 posters. Before the Closing Ceremony on 28 November, ten young investigators presented plenary talks in addition to the three plenary speeches delivered by more established scientists. In closing, Professor De-Zhu Li (Kunming Institute of Botany, CAS) provided a summary on the symposium, and Professor De-Yuan Hong made an appeal for innovative evaluation of the basic sciences, inspiring young botanists to confront the challenges facing the discipline of plant taxonomy. The symposium was very successful and well attended by many young systematists and evolutionary biologists (Fig. 1). Throughout the three days, there were very active exchanges in the form of questions/answers, discussions, and comments. The next Chinese National Symposium on Systematic and Evolutionary Botany was proposed to be held in South China Botanical Garden, CAS in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, China in 2022.

Research on User Plane Redundant Transmission Technology for Highly Reliable 5G URLLC

Based on the research of the fifth generation of mobile communications, this paper focuses on supporting the reliable transmission technology of URLLC, and studies how to achieve transmission with higher reliability than the single-user plane channel and network function in the user plane path. Supports highly reliable transmission schemes through redundant transmission in the user plane. This transmission scheme focuses on the improvement of backhaul reliability, that is, there is no need to change the radio interface and related protocols; only a single UE is required, that is, no UE redundancy, the network nodes and related interfaces and the redundancy of concurrent PDU sessions are introduced into the network; network transmission The transport layer on the protocol is redundant, with a single network node, without UE influence.

Preface

We hereby are delighted to announce that Suleyman Demirel University, Turkey, Isparta Applied Sciences University and College of Engineering, Roorkee India in association with ICCRLAB supported by Universal Innovators has hosted the First International Conference on Computational Research and Data Analytics (ICCRDA-2020). ICCRDA-2020 moved from Physical mode to Digital (Virtual) mode due to Pandemic COVID-19. The conference was able to attract a diverse range of engineering practitioners, academicians, scholars, and industry delegates, with the reception of abstracts including more than 1200 authors from different parts of the world. The committee of professionals dedicated towards the conference is striving to achieve a high quality technical program with nine different tracks on Inventive Computing, Big data, Data Analytics and Research, Recent trends in IT, Machine learning and Internet of Things. All the tracks chosen in the conference are interrelated and are very famous among present day research community. Therefore, a lot of research is happening in the above-mentioned tracks and their related sub-areas. More than 300 full-length papers have been received, among which the contributions are focused on theoretical, computer simulationbased research, and laboratory-scale experiments. Amongst these manuscripts, 129 papers have been included in the IOP [Material Science and Engineering] proceedings after a thorough two-stage review and editing process. All the manuscripts submitted to the ICCRDA-2020 were peer-reviewed by at least two independent reviewers, who were provided with a detailed review proforma. The comments from the reviewers were communicated to the authors, who incorporated the suggestions in their revised manuscripts. The recommendations from two reviewers were taken into consideration while selecting a manuscript for inclusion in the proceedings. It is an exalting experience to finally see these elite contributions materialize into book volume as ICCRDA-2020 proceedings by IOP entitled “International Conference on Computational Research and Data Analytics”.ICCRDA-2020 invited two key-note speakers, who are eminent researchers in the field of computer science and engineering, from different parts of the world. In addition to the plenary sessions on each day of the conference, nine concurrent technical sessions are held to assure the oral presentation of around 129 accepted papers. The research part of the conference was organized in a total of 33 special sessions. These special sessions provided the opportunity for researchers conducting research in specific areas to present their results in a more focused environment.An international conference of such magnitude and release of the ICCRDA-2020 proceedings by IOP has been the remarkable outcome of the untiring efforts of the entire organizing team. We thank them all General Chairs, Advisory board members, Technical members, Program Chairs who have wished the best for ICCRDA-2020 and contributed by any means towards its success.We would also like to thank the authors of the papers for adhering to the time schedule and for incorporating the review comments. We especially want to thank our dedicated team of peer-reviewers who volunteered for the arduous and tedious step of quality checking and critique on the submitted manuscripts.Lastly, we would like to thank IOP Science for accepting our proposal for publishing the ICCRDA-2020 conference proceedings. Organizers, ICCRDA-2020 Editor(s) of the Proceedings of ICCRDA-2020 • Dr. Aditya KhampariaLovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab, IndiaEmail: aditya.khamparia88@gmail.com• Dr. Deepak GuptaMaharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology, Delhi, IndiaEmail: deepakgupta@mait.ac.in• Dr. Amit Kumar ManochaMaharaja Ranjit singh Punjab Technical University, Bathinda, IndiaEmail: akmanocha@mrsptu.ac.in• Dr. Ashish KhannaMaharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology, Delhi, IndiaEmail: ashishkhanna@mait.ac.in

A Queueing Model for Threshold-Based Scaling of UPF Instances in 5G Core

The fifth-generation networks User Plane Function (UPF) provides necessary procedures to connect end-devices and data networks. A Protocol Data Unit (PDU) session between specific user equipment (UE) and the UPF is established before data transmission in 5G networks. The UPF software can be packed into either a virtual machine (VM) or a container image and instantiated in service providers' cloud infrastructure. Each UPF instance may handle several concurrent PDU sessions from various users. Operators should control the number of UPF instances to save resource consumption in the provision of Quality of Service (QoS). This paper presents a queueing model for a scenario where a threshold-based algorithm controls the number of UPF instances depending on users' traffic. We derive a method to compute the steady-state probabilities and performance measures efficiently. We investigate the performance of the UPF scaling algorithm in various scenarios with the assumption of specific hardware. Numerical results show that scaling UPF instances can lead to the good utilization of the system resource.

Community-engaged research in translational science: Innovations to improve health in Appalachia.

Health disparities between Appalachia and the rest of the country are widening. To address this, the Appalachian Translational Research Network (ATRN) organizes an annual ATRN Health Summit. The most recent Summit was held online September 22-23, 2020, and hosted by Wake Forest Clinical and Translational Science Institute in partnership with the Northwest Area Health Education Center. The Summit, titled "Community-Engaged Research in Translational Science: Innovations to Improve Health in Appalachia," brought together a diverse group of 141 stakeholders from communities, academic institutions, and the National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS) to highlight current research, identify innovative approaches to translational science and community-engaged research, develop cross-regional research partnerships, and establish and disseminate priorities for future Appalachian-focused research. The Summit included three plenary presentations and 39 presentations within 12 concurrent breakout sessions. Here, we describe the Summit planning process and implementation, highlight some of the research presented, and outline nine emergent themes to guide future Appalachian-focused research.

A Note from the Editor

A Note from the Editor Noe Montez As you read this essay, COVID-19 has impacted theatre and higher education across the globe for over a year. For many of us working in the arts and in higher education, we remember and long for the experiences we miss—interacting with our students in the live classroom, making and seeing theatre, gathering at conferences in fellowship with our colleagues in order to imagine better worlds. For many faculty of color, the pandemic became one more calamity that demanded attention from ourselves and our BIPOC students who were already injured by racism and white supremacy made legible through the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Manuel Ellis, and so many others killed and harmed by police violence. Many of our faculty have begun to examine their responsibility to their communities as academics, artists, and activists. But amid crisis and a longing for personal connection, I also see how many of us are collaborating in ways that augur hope for the field's future. I have learned greatly from the social media groups pooling resources and strategies about teaching live performance and embodiment through online learning and the collective efforts to connect scholars to one another through digital lectures and open access to academic journals, as well as through virtual conferences that allow us all the opportunity to take in more sessions and see more work than we might have otherwise been able to access in live spaces. This is not to ignore the fact that the labor of teaching and staging work has grown more time-intensive as we navigate our hybrid classrooms and Zoom performances. We must also make greater efforts to ensure that students feel our care as they navigate precarious situations in their homes. This happens at a time when universities are eliminating theatre and performing arts programs across the country in the name of COVID-19–related austerity. There is still so much to do to ensure our collective survival as a discipline, but I hope that reading this issue of Theatre Topics can remind us why we do the work that we do and offer sustenance in the difficult times ahead. As usual, our first issue of the year highlights moments from the previous year's ATHE conference, raising awareness of some of the themes and ideas that took place during our gathering. Although we could not congregate together in Detroit, several hundred of us convened in virtual space to share research and new practices. The conference theme, "Drive," invited theatre academics to "consider how various technologies—theatrical, automotive, political—work to keep our work going, keep our field driving (somewhere)." Vice President for Conferences CarlosAlexis Cruz and his conference committee scrambled to innovate the conference by creating space for sessions that featured techniques for moving classes and productions online. Additionally, BIPOC faculty insisted on sessions where ATHE could grapple with the racism and white supremacy that continues to make itself legible across the United States, theatre and performance studies, and the organization itself. The first three essays in this issue draw from the conference proceedings, beginning with President Josh Abrams comments on the state of the organization. This address speaks to the uncertainty surrounding higher education throughout the year, while inviting us to expand "our pedagogy to incorporate new forms, modes, and globally distant collaborations" (2). At the same time, he commits the organization to expanding diverse leadership and to change the organizational bylaws in order to redress the organization's previous harms to Black and Brown peoples. In a similar spirit of introspection and organizational reflection, CarlosAlexis Cruz reflects on the myriad changes to the conference that occurred over the spring and summer of 2020. He discusses his feelings about transitioning the conference from an in-person event to an online convening, [End Page ix] while maintaining the presence of our original site of Detroit. Additionally, Cruz speaks candidly about collaborations with the Black Theatre Association (BTA) and the formation of an ad hoc subcommittee, giving recognition to their work planning plenaries and concurrent sessions addressing systemic racism. The online component of the journal will feature videos featuring highlights from several...

Annual Report of the Secretary-Treasurer

Annual Report of the Secretary-Treasurer Stephen Berry (bio) In her engaging history of the southern historical association, Bethany Johnson paints a particularly compelling portrait of the Association at its nadir during World War II, when, three years out of four, it decided not to hold an annual meeting. Students and faculty alike had raced into the army or to Washington, D.C. Graduate programs were anemic. Scholars were too distracted to write. The Journal had barely enough books to review. "It breaks my historical heart to vote for cancellation," one Executive Council member noted, "but there seems [to be] no other course." Some feared the Association would never recover, but when the war ended, meeting attendance skyrocketed, and the 1946 meeting was the second-largest to that date. The Program Committee credited "the social side" of the SHA for the speedy recovery. Members had returned simply because they missed each other, because "we have all been separated for so long." Past is prologue: the pandemic has put a strain on the Association, but there remains a prevailing sense of community and endurance. President Thavolia Glymph deserves particular credit in steering the Association through turbulent times. We should credit, too, the longest-serving Program Committee in SHA history. Co-chairs Kendra Field, Joseph Reidy, and Randy Sparks, along with the rest of their team, created a fantastic in-person meeting and then adapted it as one of the first virtual meetings of a major historical association in the United States. While some program participants chose to delay their presentation until the 2021 meeting in New Orleans, our "Virtual Memphis" meeting featured fourteen concurrent sessions, an opening plenary featuring poet Nikki Finney, all of the usual administrative and business meetings, a virtual graduate student lunch, a virtual book exhibit, drop-in sessions for mentoring and editing advice, and much more. While we deeply regretted not being able to meet in Memphis in person, the city remained a [End Page 317] focus of the meeting, with panels such as "All Roads Lead to Memphis: Excavating the City's Multicultural Roots" and "Memphis Since King: The Struggle to Make Black Lives Matter in the Bluff City." Another strong theme of the meeting was the vitality of southern women's history, as the Southern Association for Women Historians celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. Program highlights included "By One Vote: Woman Suffrage in the South"; "Radical Women/Queering Southern History"; and "Sisterly Networks: Fifty Years of Southern Women's History." The program was capped by an awards ceremony featuring the announcement of a new article prize in southern women's history. Founded and largely funded by Joan Cashin of Ohio State University, the Anne Braden Prize was established to commemorate the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, recognizing the right of women to vote, and will be given annually by the SHA to the best journal article or edited essay focusing on southern women's history. Articles on women from every racial, ethnic, class, or subregional background are welcome. The first prize will be awarded at our Baltimore meeting in 2022, to an article published in 2021. The Executive Council met virtually on Thursday afternoon, November 19, 2020, ahead of the opening evening plenary. Decisions included 1) the formation of a new standing committee devoted to enforcing our sexual harassment policy; 2) the adoption of a new "one year off" rule, which requires all program participants in a given year to sit out the next year before being eligible to participate again; and 3) the restructuring of the Membership Committee, whose members will now serve three-year terms. Membership Committee chair Kelly Kennington deserves particular recognition for overseeing the overhaul of the committee and its duties. Like most major historical associations, the SHA has seen slight but steady declines in membership for more than a decade, but Kennington and her team are reversing the trend. In conjunction with our Graduate Student Council, the SHA inaugurated a micro-grant program for graduate students willing to write reflective pieces for our blog (thesha.org/blog) about their research, teaching, and lives in the shadow of the pandemic. Ultimately we made seventeen awards, and the blog provided a forum...

Athletic Trainers' Selection Behaviors Related to Multi-Session Continuing Education Conferences

ContextContinuing education (CE) in athletic training is commonly achieved at multi-session conferences.ObjectivesTo explore athletic trainers' (ATs') planning practices at multi-session conferences regarding format types, preferred domains of athletic training practice, and ideal number of concurrent sessions.DesignCross-sectional survey with quantitative and qualitative questions.SettingWeb-basedPatients or Other Participants8660 ATs surveyedIntervention(s)We established content and face validity and piloted the tool before use. We distributed the survey via email weekly for 6 weeks. Trustworthiness of qualitative data was established with multiple-analyst triangulation and external auditing. Data were collected through a Web-based survey comprised of demographic questions and questions regarding CE choices.Main Outcome Measure(s)Quantitative data- measures of central tendency, standard deviations, and frequencies; qualitative- inductive coding method.Results908 ATs responded (response rate = 10.5%) and 767 were included in analysis. Respondents (age, y = 38 ± 11; females = 367, males = 249, missing/prefer not to answer = 151; 15 ± 11 years of clinical experience) most preferred to attend workshops (78%, n = 598/767), large-group lectures (75.9%, n = 582/767), and small-group lectures (63.5%, n = 487/767). They were motivated to select preferred session formats by learning preferences (38.4%, n = 239/623) and interest in the topic (37.4%, n = 233/623). Examination, assessment, and diagnosis was the most preferred domain (80.7%, n = 619/767). Health care administration and professional responsibility was least preferred (41.9%, n = 321/767). Practical application was the main influencer (53.4%, n = 337/631) to attend sessions. Almost half (49.7%, n = 381/671) of respondents stated that their CE selection behaviors changed depending on the number of concurrent sessions. They prioritized sessions by interest when conflicts occurred (31.4%, n = 211/671).ConclusionReducing feelings of indecision and ensuring applicable sessions for ATs is important. Multi-session conferences should include sessions that align with attendee preferences relative to domains of practice and session formats. However, attendee preferences provide faulty guidance for CE decision-making and should not be the only mechanism to drive planning.

Book of Abstracts - JPII Centennial International Conference Concurrent Sessions

Book of Abstracts - JPII Centennial International Conference Concurrent Sessions

Distribution of concurrent training sessions does not impact endurance adaptation

ObjectivesOptimized concurrent training regimes are warranted in physical training of military-, law enforcement- and rescue-personnel. This study investigated if four 15-min endurance training sessions weekly improve aerobic capacity and performance more than one 60-min endurance session weekly during the initial phase of a Basic Military Training program. DesignA randomized training intervention study with functional and physiological tests before and after the intervention. MethodsMilitary conscripts (n=290) were randomly allocated to three groups completing 9 weeks training. Weekly training consisted of four endurance and four strength training sessions lasting 15min each (‘Micro-training’: MIC); one strength and one endurance session lasting 60min each (‘Classical-training’: CLA) or two 60min sessions of standard military training (‘Control-training’: CON). ResultsBoth 12-min (∼7−10%) and shuttle run performance (∼35−42%) improved (P≤0.001) similarly in all groups. Likewise, functional 2-min maximal repetition exercise capacity increased (P≤0.05) similarly in all groups (Lunges ∼17−24 %; PushUp ∼10−20%; AbdominalFlexions∼21−23%). Peak oxygen uptake changes depended on group (P≤0.05) with increases (P≤0.01) in MIC (7±7%, n=23) and CON (12±18%, n=17) and no changes in CLA. Maximal m. vastus lateralis citrate synthase activity decreased 14±26% (P≤0.001, n=18) in CLA. Likewise, maximal m. vastus lateralis 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase activity decreased 8±17% in MIC (n=28) and 14±24% in CLA (n=18). ConclusionsFour 15-min endurance training sessions weekly improves running performance and strength-endurance similarly to one 60min session. Peak oxygen uptake only increases with more than one endurance session weekly and leg muscle oxidative capacity appears reduced after basic military training.

Enhancing resilience in cross-boundary families: A parent–child parallel group intervention

Summary Cross-boundary children and their parents suffer from various stressors and mental health problems. This pilot study aimed to investigate whether an emotion regulation parallel intervention for children and parents enhanced resilience and mental health among both groups. A total of 38 pairs of cross-boundary children and parents participated in concurrent but separate intervention sessions. Three waves of tests (i.e. pre-, post-, and one-month follow-up tests) were conducted, using t-tests to evaluate the time effects during the intervention. Findings The children and parents reported significant improvements in positive affect, resilience, and family harmony, as well as a reduction in depressive symptoms following the emotion regulation intervention. For both children and parents, over half of the participants who were in the high-depression category have crossed the threshold, from high to low level of depression at post-test, and participants with higher depression levels generally benefited more from the intervention. Applications Future researchers seeking to implement demand-driven and practice-based interventions in community settings should consider contextual and cultural sensitivity, and involve community stakeholders (e.g. cross-boundary family members and social workers) in all aspects of the research process with a given community-based participatory research approach. Screening based on depression may maximize the benefits to the participants. The essential components, as well as the fidelity measures of the intervention, should be refined. Randomized controlled trials are advocated in future studies to test the efficacy and effectiveness of the intervention in different contexts (e.g. clinical and community populations).

Impact of low-volume concurrent strength training distribution on muscular adaptation

ObjectivesMilitary-, rescue- and law-enforcement personnel require a high physical capacity including muscular strength. The present study hypothesized that 9 weeks of volume matched concurrent short frequent training sessions increases strength more efficiently than less frequent longer training sessions. DesignA randomized training intervention study with functional and physiological tests before and after the intervention. MethodsMilitary conscripts (n=290) were assigned to micro-training (four 15-min strength and four 15-min endurance bouts weekly); classical-training (one 60-min strength and one 60-min endurance training session weekly) or a control-group (two 60-min standard military physical training sessions weekly). ResultsThere were no group difference between micro-training and classical-training in measures of strength. Standing long jump remained similar while shotput performance was reduced (P≤0.001) in all three groups. Pull-up performance increased (P≤0.001) in micro-training (7.4±4.6 vs. 8.5±4.0 repetitions, n=59) and classical-training (5.7±4.1 vs. 7.1±4.2 repetitions, n=50). Knee extensor MVC increased (P≤0.01) in all groups (micro-training, n=30, 11.5±8.9%; classical-training, n=24, 8.3±11.5% and control, n=19, 7.5±11.8%) while elbow flexor and hand grip MVC remained similar. Micro-training increased (P≤0.05) type IIa percentage from 32.5±11.0% to 37.6±12.3% (n=20) and control-group increased (P≤0.01) type IIax from 4.4±3.0% to 11.6±7.9% (n=8). In control-group type I, fiber size increased (P≤0.05) from 5121±959μm to 6481±2084μm (n=5). Satellite cell content remained similar in all groups. ConclusionsWeekly distribution of low-volume concurrent training completed as either eight 15-min bouts or two 60-min sessions of which 50% was strength training did not impact strength gains in a real-world setting.

The 11th Australian Rural and Remote Mental Health Symposium Communiqué.

The 11th Australian Rural and Remote Mental Health Symposium Communiqué.

Creating design guidelines for building city dashboards from a user's perspectives

City dashboards are increasingly becoming a tool of urban management and governance, used by administrations to monitor key urban metrics and the performance of services and policy. To date, however, there has been little research done from a users perspective of what constitutes a good or bad city dashboard and to establish essential user-centered design principles. In this foundational study, we examine four city dashboards with respect to their design, content, usability, and utility as experienced by existing dashboard users. The study presented was undertaken using a protocol analysis that elicited verbal reports through concurrent think-aloud sessions. In addition, critical incident technique procedures were followed to collect interaction data of critical significance to the users. A content analysis was then conducted on transcripts from these sessions. The research identified specific areas of concern to current dashboard users and led to the creation of new and informed guidelines for producing a dashboard system for Dublin, Ireland.

Report on the Thirty-Fifth Southern Forest Tree Improvement Conference (SFTIC 2019)

The 35th biennial Southern Forest Tree Improvement Conference (SFTIC) was held on the 4th and 5th day of June 2019, in Lexington, KY, USA. The theme of the conference was “Genetics and improvement of forest health and productivity”. Plenary speakers detailed significant progress in understanding forest tree genomes, identifying candidate genes for disease resistance and tree architecture traits and utilizing both genomic selection and genetic modification to advance forest health and productivity. Concurrent and general technical sessions provided additional evidence of progress in these areas as well as information on seed zone development for the eastern USA and species prioritization for conservation and restoration programs, in addition to advanced genome-assisted selection and breeding methods and programs in species of commercial interest including pines and eucalyptus. An interactive poster session provided each poster presenter an opportunity to speak in front of a general session audience and to take Q&A in a traditional poster session format. Pre-conference workshops and a post-conference field tour rounded out the 35th SFTIC with 88 registered for the conference, more than 60 participating in workshops and 33 attending the field tour. The conference program and proceedings are accessible through the SFTIC web site at http://www.sftic.org.

A Multi-Commodity Flow Problem for Fair Resource Allocation in Multi-Path Video Delivery Networks

Video streaming services employ the Internet to distribute content to an ever-increasing number of concurrent viewers. The delivery architecture employed by leading video platforms requires players to run a control algorithm dynamically choosing the video bitrate to match the time-varying network bandwidth and avoid playback interruptions due to buffer underruns. Such an algorithm is generally designed to (selfishly) improve the quality individually perceived by users. Consequently, this control architecture leads, in the optimal case, to maximize the average quality perceived collectively by all users and not to a distribution of resources that is fair in terms of user perceived quality. We argue that video service providers should manage their delivery network to address fairness issues to gracefully degrade the perceived quality equally for all users when resources become scarce. Even though the general problem of providing a fair level of perceived quality does not scale with the cumbersome number of concurrent users, this paper shows that the Multi-Commodity Flow Problem (MCFP) optimization framework is a proper and efficient tool to address this open issue. First, we show how to cast the resource allocation problem to an MCFP and then we propose a strategy to make the resulting problem tractable for video distribution platforms serving massive audiences. The performance of the proposed optimal fair resource allocation strategy is assessed using realistic simulations involving thousands of concurrent video sessions on a real network topology by varying both the total load on the network and key system parameters.

Formal Verification of Forward-Secure Authenticated Key Exchange Scheme for Location-based Service Application

A Location-based service (LBS) is a popularinformation service which uses the geographical position of theuser to provide service. Major challenges for wide deploymentof such services is security and privacy, in our paper we propose a generic model of authenticated key exchange (AKE)protocol termed as forward-secure authenticated key exchangeprotocol (FSAKE) which uses elliptic curve cryptosystem. TheFSAKE protocol supports concurrent sessions and is used fortheexchange of secure seed values which are used in forward-securepseudo-random number generators to generate secret keys formessage authentication and symmetric encryption. The FSAKEprotocol is a key evolving scheme which updates the long-termkeys (LTKs) at regular intervals and guarantees the security ofthe past keys and mitigates the damage caused by exposure ofthe current key. We make use of Scyther model checking tool toprove the correctness of FSAKE protocol security.