Publications by authors named "Berardi V"

Background: Mobile sensing technology allows automated behavior shaping routines to be incorporated into health behavior interventions and other settings. In previous work, a computational model was built to investigate how to best arrange automatic behavior shaping procedures, but the degree to which this model reflects actual human behavior is not known.

Purpose: To translate a previously developed computational model of automatic behavior shaping into an experimental setting.

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  • The study analyzed 5804 days of Super-Kamiokande data from 1996 to 2018 to detect variations in solar ^{8}B neutrino flux.
  • The researchers utilized a five-day interval measurement approach and employed maximum likelihood and Lomb-Scargle methods to find any periodic modulations.
  • They found a significant modulation related to Earth's elliptical orbit around the Sun, with measurements of eccentricity and perihelion shift aligning with astronomical data.
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Background: Delay discounting is the depreciation in a reward's perceived value as a function of the time until receipt. Monetary incentive programs that provide rewards contingent on meeting daily physical activity (PA) goals may change participants' delay discounting preferences.

Purpose: Determine if monetary incentives provided in close temporal proximity to meeting PA goals changed delay discounting, and if such changes mediated intervention effects.

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The introduction of quantum methods in spectroscopy can provide enhanced performance and technical advantages in the management of noise. We investigate the application of quantum illumination in a pump and probe experiment. Thermal lensing in a suspension of gold nanorods is explored using a classical beam as the pump and the emission from parametric downconversion as the probe.

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  • - The T2K experiment reports enhanced measurements of neutrino oscillation parameters through new proton-on-target (POT) neutrino data, significantly improving analysis methods with a major focus on the near detector's new selection procedures.
  • - This analysis is the first to utilize data from the NA61/SHINE experiment, helping to refine the neutrino flux model and enhance the neutrino interaction model by incorporating new nuclear effects.
  • - Both frequentist and Bayesian approaches indicate a preference for normal mass ordering and a nearly maximal CP-violating phase, with notable exclusions and constraints on certain parameters aligning with past T2K studies.
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Background: The intensive data typically collected by mobile health (mHealth) apps allows factors associated with persistent use to be investigated, which is an important objective given users' well-known struggles with sustaining healthy behavior.

Objective: Data from a commercial meditation app (n=14,879; 899,071 total app uses) were analyzed to assess the validity of commonly given habit formation advice to meditate at the same time every day, preferably in the morning.

Methods: First, the change in probability of meditating in 4 nonoverlapping time windows (morning, midday, evening, and late night) on a given day over the first 180 days after creating a meditation app account was calculated via generalized additive mixed models.

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We report a search for cosmic-ray boosted dark matter with protons using the 0.37  megaton×years data collected at Super-Kamiokande experiment during the 1996-2018 period (SKI-IV phase). We searched for an excess of proton recoils above the atmospheric neutrino background from the vicinity of the Galactic Center.

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Secondhand and thirdhand smoke exposure most often occur at home, but little is known about occurrences of in-home smoking. We ascertained in-home cannabis smoking reported by all (i.e.

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Lupus autoimmunity frequently presents with neuropsychiatric manifestations, but underlying etiology remains poorly understood. Human brain cytoplasmic 200 RNA (BC200 RNA) is a translational regulator in neuronal synapto-dendritic domains. Here, we show that a BC200 guanosine-adenosine dendritic transport motif is recognized by autoantibodies from a subset of neuropsychiatric lupus patients.

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Objective: Meditation with mobile apps has been shown to improve mental and physical health. However, regular, long-term meditation app use is needed to maintain these health benefits, and many people have a difficult time maintaining engagement with meditation apps over time. Our goal was to determine the length of the timeframe over which usage data must be collected before future app abandonment can be predicted accurately in order to better target additional behavioral support to those who are most likely to stop using the app.

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  • A search for exclusive two-photon production via photon exchange in proton-proton collisions was conducted using data from the LHC in 2016, focusing on events with intact protons.
  • The analysis aimed to select events with a diphoton invariant mass above 350 GeV, ensuring both protons remained intact to minimize interference from strong interactions.
  • No events meeting the criteria were found, which allowed researchers to set new limits on two anomalous four-photon coupling parameters, revealing |ζ_{1}|<2.9×10^{-13} GeV^{-4} and |ζ_{2}|<6.0×10^{-13} GeV^{-4} at a 95% confidence level.
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Introduction: Secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure creates health risks for non-smokers and is especially detrimental to children. This study evaluated whether immediate feedback in response to poor indoor air quality in children's bedrooms can reduce the potential for SHS exposure, as measured by adherence to a World Health Organization (WHO) indoor air standard.

Methods: Homes that contained children and an adult who regularly smoked inside (n=298) had an air particle monitor installed in the child's bedroom.

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Ten good outcome and ten poor outcome psychotherapy cases were compared to investigate whether or not the temporal stability and flexibility of their process variables can predict their outcomes. Each participant was monitored daily using the Therapy Process Questionnaire (TPQ), which has 43 items and seven sub-scales, and responses over time were analyzed in terms of correlation robustness and correlation variability across the TPQ sub-scales. "Correlation robustness" and "correlation variability" are two basic characteristics of any correlation matrix: the first is calculated as the sum of the absolute values of Pearson correlation coefficients, the second as the standard deviation of Pearson correlation coefficients.

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Introduction: People living in obesogenic environments, with limited access to healthful food outlets and exercise facilities, generally have poor health. Previous research suggests that behavioral risk factors and indicators of physiological functioning may mediate this link; however, no studies to date have had the requisite data to investigate multi-level behavioral and physiological risk factors simultaneously. The present study conducted serial and parallel mediation analyses to examine behavioral and physiological pathways explaining the association between environmental obesogenicity and cardiovascular disease (CVD).

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Most body image studies assess only linear relations between predictors and outcome variables, relying on techniques such as multiple Linear Regression. These predictor variables are often validated multi-item measures that aggregate individual items into a single scale. The advent of machine learning has made it possible to apply Nonlinear Regression algorithms-such as Random Forest and Deep Neural Networks-to identify potentially complex linear and nonlinear connections between a multitude of predictors (e.

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Introduction: Potent lifestyle interventions to increase moderate-to-vigorous physical activity are urgently needed for population-level chronic disease prevention. This trial tested the independent and joint effects of a mobile health system automating adaptive goal setting and immediate financial reinforcement for increasing daily walking among insufficiently active adults.

Study Design: Participants were randomized into a 2 (adaptive versus static goal setting) X 2 (immediate versus delayed financial incentive timing) condition factorial trial to increase walking.

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Studies are needed to understand the association between self-reported home smoking bans and objective measures of in-home smoking according to smokers' ethnicity/nativity. Data came from a trial that used air particle monitors to reduce children's secondhand smoke exposure in smokers' households (N = 251). Linear regressions modeled (a) full home smoking bans by ethnicity/nativity, and (b) objectively measured in-home smoking events, predicted by main and interaction effects of self-reported home smoking bans and ethnicity/nativity.

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Background: Behavioral habits are often initiated by contextual cues that occur at approximately the same time each day; so, it may be possible to identify a reflexive habit based on the temporal similarity of repeated daily behavior. Mobile health tools provide the detailed, longitudinal data necessary for constructing such an indicator of reflexive habits, which can improve our understanding of habit formation and help design more effective mobile health interventions for promoting healthier habits.

Objective: This study aims to use behavioral data from a commercial mindfulness meditation mobile phone app to construct an indicator of reflexive meditation habits based on temporal similarity and estimate the association between temporal similarity and meditation app users' perceived health benefits.

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The current study examined the prevalence and correlates of over 50 sexual practices in a national survey of heterosexual and lesbian women in relationships. Coarsened exact matching was used to create comparable samples of heterosexual (n = 2510) and lesbian (n = 283) women on six demographic factors, including relationship length. Heterosexual and lesbian women were equally likely to be sexually satisfied (66% heterosexual women vs.

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This study examined whether patterns of self-organization in physical activity (PA) predicted long-term success in a yearlong PA intervention. Increased moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA) was targeted in insufficiently active adults (N = 512) via goal setting and financial reinforcement. The degree to which inverse power law distributions, which are reflective of self-organization, summarized (a) daily MVPA and (b) time elapsed between meeting daily goals (goal attainment interresponse times) was calculated.

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We describe an analysis comparing the pp[over ¯] elastic cross section as measured by the D0 Collaboration at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV to that in pp collisions as measured by the TOTEM Collaboration at 2.76, 7, 8, and 13 TeV using a model-independent approach.

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Objective: Determine the temporal and spatial characteristics of stairs versus elevator use in a university residence hall to inform future physical activity promotion efforts.

Participants: All residents and visitors for a single, four-story residence hall dormitory building located on a college campus in Orange, CA.

Methods: Smart mat systems capable of detecting pedestrian traffic were placed in front of the stairs and elevators on each floor plus a basement.

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Background: Prior research examining the relationship between cannabis use, sedentary behavior, and physical activity has generated conflicting findings, potentially due to biases in the self-reported measures used to assess physical activity. This study aimed to more precisely explore the relationship between cannabis use and sedentary behavior/physical activity using objective measures.

Methods: Data were obtained from the 2005-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

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Few studies have examined the relative effectiveness of reinforcing versus aversive consequences at changing behavior in real-world environments. Real-time sensing devices makes it easier to investigate such questions, offering the potential to improve both intervention outcomes and theory. This research aims to describe the development of a real-time, operant theory-based secondhand smoke (SHS) intervention and compare the efficacy of aversive versus aversive plus reinforcement contingency systems.

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