Effectiveness and Acceptability of a Nutrition Intervention Targeting Chinese Adult Immigrants With Type 2 Diabetes in Canada: A Study Using Mixed Methods Analysis.

OBJECTIVES: Although culturally tailored diabetes treatment is recommended, there is a lack of relevant dietary resources for the Chinese population in Canada. In this study we assessed the feasibility and efficacy of a culturally tailored menu plan combined with nutrition education on clinical outcomes, diet quality and qualitative outcomes among Chinese immigrants with type 2 diabetes. METHODS: Participants were 17 Chinese immigrants living with type 2 diabetes in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The design was a 12-week, single-arm intervention that included weekly nutrition education supported by a culturally tailored menu plan with mixed methods evaluation. Diet quality, clinical and other outcomes were assessed pre- and postintervention. One-on-one interviews were conducted postintervention to identify program feasibility and obstacles to adherence. RESULTS: Waist circumference (mean ± standard deviation: -2.0±2.5 cm; p=0.004), total cholesterol (-21.4±28.2 mg/dL; p=0.007) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (-18.4±24.6 mg/dL; p=0.007) were decreased when compared with baseline. No significant change was detected in glycated hemoglobin. Postintervention, the Healthy Eating Index (p=0.01) and diabetes knowledge score (p=0.009) also increased. Participants reported that the program was culturally acceptable, easily understood and feasible to implement. Participants indicated the program helped them to improve their diabetes knowledge, adhere to the dietary guidelines, choose low glycemic index food and read food labels when shopping. CONCLUSIONS: A flexible, culturally tailored menu plan was a feasible and effective tool for improving diabetes knowledge, diet quality and metabolic outcomes among Chinese immigrants with type 2 diabetes.

A Hybrid SVD-Based Denoising and Self-Adaptive TMSST for High-Speed Train Axle Bearing Fault Detection.

Fault detection of axle bearings is crucial to promote the safe, efficient, and reliable running of high-speed trains. In recent decades, time-frequency analysis (TFA) techniques have been widely used in mechanical equipment fault diagnoses. Time-reassigned multisynchrosqueezing transform (TMSST), as a novel time-frequency representation (TFR) algorithm, is more suitable for dealing with strong frequency-varying signals. However, TMSST TFR results are subject to noise interference. It is difficult to extract the accurate time-frequency (TF) fault feature of the axle bearing under a complex working environment. In addition, determination of the TMSST algorithm parameters depends on the personnel's subjective experience. Therefore, the TMSST result has a great randomicity and has the disadvantage of having a poor reliability. To address the above issues, a hybrid SVD-based denoising and self-adaptive TMSST is proposed for axle bearing fault detection in this paper. The main improvements of the proposed algorithm include the following two aspects: (1) An SVD-based denoising method using the maximum SV mean to determine the reasonable SV order is adopted to eliminate noise interference and to reserve useful fault impulse information. (2) A new evaluation metric, named time-frequency spectrum permutation entropy (TFS-PEn), is put forward for the quantitative evaluation of the performance of TFR for the TMSST, and then a water cycle algorithm (WCA)-based optimized TMSST can adaptively determine the optimal algorithm parameters. In both the simulation and experimental tests, the superiority and effectiveness of the proposed method is compared with the TMSST, short-time Fourier transform (STFT), MSST, wavelet transform (WT), and Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) methods. The results show that the proposed algorithm has a better performance for extracting the weak fault features of axle bearing under a strong background noise environment.

Sparse representation of parametric dictionary based on fault impact matching for wheelset bearing fault diagnosis.

Wheelset bearing is one of the crucial rotating elements in the train bogie. Detection of wheelset bearing defect comes with many challenges due to complex wheel/rail excitation and the horrible working condition. The parametric dictionary sparse representation provides a practical path to detect the weak fault of wheelset bearing. However, the parametric dictionary obtained by the classical correlation filtering algorithm (CFA) is hard to match the analyzed signal's underlying fault impact characteristic. A novel parametric dictionary design algorithm named fault impact matching algorithm (FIMA) combining Orthogonal matching pursuit (OMP) is proposed to address the problem in this paper. The core of the FIMA mainly comprises two stages: partial segmentation and global analysis. Two indexes, correlation function (CF) and kurtosis, are used to comprehensively evaluate the partial and global matching degree between the Laplace wavelet and the signal. The proposed method's effectiveness is verified by the fault simulation analysis and the practical wheelset bearing fault signals (outer and inner race fault). Some comparison studies demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the CFA-OMP, the K-SVD-OMP and some time-frequency decomposition methods, such as EWT and VMD, in detecting the bearing weak defects.

Nutrition Interventions for Type 2 Diabetes in Chinese Populations: A Scoping Review.

Developing culturally appropriate diabetes nutrition interventions for immigrants could be facilitated knowing what is successful in the home country and other relevant countries. The primary purpose of this scoping review was to identify the design and delivery methods of nutrition interventions for Chinese populations with type 2 diabetes, in their home countries and as immigrants to western countries. A total of 14 articles was retrieved and included. Overall, the approaches used in China often were modelled on intensive lifestyle programs although alternative strategies were also identified. Most interventions were not focussed solely on nutrition, and only a few were conducted in community settings. Most of the interventions were delivered in a group format, while those conducted in China also included individual counselling, particularly for nutrition. In addition, the diabetes and nutrition-related outcomes, cultural relevance and acceptability, and other factors that influenced protocol compliance were considered. Improvements in blood glucose control were observed in participants in all interventions where it was measured. Participants reported increased nutritional knowledge but nutritional behaviour was generally not well documented. Trials conducted in the United States emphasized the importance of cultural adaptation of intervention programs, particularly with respect to dietary patterns and specific foods. Practice-transferable characteristics are highlighted. Research gaps included trials conducted in community settings with pragmatic implementation and evaluation, comparative trials of interventions to gauge relative effectiveness, and measuring and reporting dietary outcomes for better understanding of the impact on dietary behaviours and their relationship to health outcomes.

Acculturation, Dietary Acceptability, and Diabetes Management among Chinese in North America.

Immigrants to a new country face many challenges when diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, a chronic disease with a complex treatment involving both medical and behavioral interventions. These challenges will depend upon the extent to which the patient has adapted to the new country's social and cultural norms, as well as individual factors such as age, education, and gender. This adaptation is termed acculturation. With respect to nutritional interventions for type 2 diabetes, uptake and adherence over the long term will depend upon overall health literacy, the cultural acceptability of the recommended diet. This review has focused on acculturation and its effects on diabetes management in ethnic Chinese in North America as an example of one populous minority and the challenges faced in adopting nutritional recommendations. Research directions and practical considerations are suggested.