A Dietary Assessment of the U.S. Food Supply: Comparing Per Capita Food Consumption with Food Guide Pyramid Serving Recommendations

Most American diets do not meet Federal Food Guide Pyramid dietary recommendations. On average, people consume too many servings of added fats and sugars and too few servings of fruits, vegetables, dairy products, lean meats, and foods made from whole grains compared with a reference set of Food Guide Pyramid serving recommendations appropriate to the age and gender composition of the U.S. population. In addition, while the healthfulness of diets has improved over time, the pace of improvement has been uneven. For example, while Americans consumed record amounts of fruits and vegetables in 1996, consumption of caloric sweeteners also reached a 27-year high. This report is the first dietary assessment to use ERSís time-series food supply data to compare average diets with Federal dietary recommendations depicted in the Food Guide Pyramid. Food Guide Pyramid servings were estimated for more than 250 agricultural commodities for 1970-96. New techniques were developed to adjust the data for food spoilage and other losses accumulated throughout the marketing system and the home.food, food consumption, CSFII, Food Guide Pyramid, Dietary Guidelines for Americans, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty,

Improving Retention of Science Student Teachers

Our on-going research aims to try and find out why some Science graduates on one year (PGCE) teacher training courses are not successful in completing the course. The course itself has been judged ‘Outstanding’ (Ofsted, 2010), so we have focused on the student teachers (trainees). Some key characteristics of trainees ‘at risk’ of being unsuccessful were identified in a variety of ways, including data analysis of records for trainees who left the course early and those who successfully completed the course, focus groups, questionnaires and case studies. Loss of trainees during PGCE courses appears to be a characteristic across many providers of initial teacher education for Science in the UK. Key factors emerging include gender, age, previous experiences/careers, support (or otherwise) of family/partner, caring issues (children/parents), subject knowledge, attendance at a subject knowledge enhancement course and more. If characteristics of ‘at risk’ trainees can be identified, strategies can be put into place to identify applicants, who might be at risk, at the selection stage and to support them during the course to reduce the drop-out rate. Recent work, described in the paper, appears to be improving our retention. Further research is needed to confirm and extend our current approach, which could, perhaps, be applied in other institutions and across other disciplines

Regolith grain sizes of Saturn's rings inferred from Cassini-CIRS far-infrared spectra

We analyze far-infrared (10-650 cm$^{-1}$) emissivity spectra of Saturn's main rings obtained by the Cassini Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS). In modeling of the spectra, the single scattering albedos of regolith grains are calculated using the Mie theory, diffraction is removed with the delta-Eddington approximation, and the hemispherical emissivities of macroscopic free-floating ring particles are calculated using the Hapke's isotropic scattering model. Only pure crystalline water ice is considered and the size distribution of regolith grains is estimated. We find that good fits are obtained if the size distribution is broad ranging from 1 $\mu$m to 1-10 cm with a power law index of $\sim 3$. This means that the largest regolith grains are comparable to the smallest free-floating particles in size and that the power law indices for both free-floating particles and regolith grains are similar to each other. The apparent relative abundance of small grains increases with decreasing solar phase angle (or increasing mean temperature). This trend is particularly strong for the C ring and is probably caused by eclipse cooling in Saturn's shadow, which relatively suppresses warming up of grains larger than the thermal skin depth ($\sim$ 1 mm) under subsequent solar illumination.Comment: 42pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in Icaru

Providing for the Priceless Student: Ideologies of Choice in an Emerging Educational Market

The growing popularity of school choice is typically linked to the spread of neoliberal ideology. Identifying four components of this ideology, we examine the rationales of providers in an emerging private school market. Data come from interviews and site visits at 45 “third-sector” private schools in Toronto, Canada. We find that only one of the four components has a strong resonance among these educators. Few private school operators sharply criticize public schools, compete via quantitative performance indicators, or are strongly business oriented. However, they voice a philosophy of matching their personal talents to the needs of “unique” children. Overall, rather than being influenced by neoliberalism, these providers are more directly driven by personalized rationales that prize tailored education in specialized niches. We draw two conclusions from these findings. First, they demonstrate how ideologies of choice are shaped by their market setting, in this case, small proprietorship, in contrast to a corporate environment. Second, they highlight how providers can be motivated by new cultures of consumerism and intensive child rearing when working in highly uncertain conditions. We recommend that theories of choice recognize the range of educational markets and the specific motives of their providers

UA Research Summary No. 15

Utterly worthless. That’s how a congressman from Missouri described Alaska in 1867, when the U.S. bought it from Russia. A lot of Americans agreed. For almost 100 years, hardly anyone— except some Alaskans—wanted Alaska to become a state. But Alaska did finally become a state, in 1959. Today, after 142 years as a U.S. possession and 50 years as a state, Alaska has produced resources worth (in today’s dollars) around $670 billion. The U.S. paid$7.2 million for Alaska, equal to about $106 million now. For perspective, that’s roughly what the state government collected in royalties from oil produced on state-owned land in just the month of March 2009. To help mark 50 years of statehood, this publication first takes a broad look at what’s changed in Alaska since 1959. That’s on this page and the back page. We’ve also put together a timeline of political and economic events in Alaska from 1867 to the present. That’s on the inside pages. There’s an interactive version of the timeline—with photos, figures, and more—on ISER’s Web site: www.iser.uaa.alaska.edu

What role do images and Arts Activism play in reinforcing messages connected to the theme of Climate Change ?

Abstract. The main focus of this research will be on the role that Illustration, Animation and Activism might play in raising awareness of Environmental Issues with a particular emphasis on Climate Change and will highlight creative events that took place in December 2015 to coincide with COP 21 in Paris. Through research undertaken using a range of sources including books, films, animations and the Internet, the aim is to identify individuals and collectives involved in creative practice that highlights Connected Communities of practitioners working individually and collectively, globally, towards the common theme of Climate Change. The research will include the work of the organization ‘ Forever Swarm ‘ and ‘ Cape Farewell ‘and other Collectives and individuals working towards an exploration of this theme

Understanding First-day Returns of Hospitality Initial Public Offerings

[Excerpt] The decision for a company to issue shares publicly for the first time is not to be taken lightly. The manager-owner of a private firm must carefully weigh the benefits of an initial public offering (IPO) against the costs. Potential benefits include the ability to raise capital in the public markets on more attractive terms than in private circles; increased liquidity for managers and other insiders who wish to sell ownership stakes; and increased recognition and credibility with customers, employees, and suppliers. These benefits, however, come at considerable direct and indirect costs. For U.S. firms, the direct costs, such as investment banking commissions, average about 11 percent of IPO proceeds.1 Less obvious, but sometimes more painful for issuing firms, is an additional indirect cost commonly referred to as “IPO underpricing.

No evidence for reduced Simon cost in elderly bilinguals and bidialectals

We explored whether a bilingual advantage in executive control is associated with differences in cultural and ethnic background associated with the bilinguals’ immigrant status, and whether dialect use in monolinguals can also incur such an advantage. Performance on the Simon task in older non-immigrant (Gaelic-English) and immigrant (Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Malay, Punjabi, Urdu-English) bilinguals was compared with three groups of older monolingual English speakers, who were either monodialectal users of the same English variety as the bilinguals or were bidialectal users of a local variety of Scots. Results showed no group differences in overall reaction times as well as in the Simon effect thus providing no evidence that an executive control advantage is related to differences in cultural and ethnic background as was found for immigrant compared to non-immigrant bilinguals, nor that executive control may be improved by use of dialect. We suggest the role of interactional contexts and bilingual literacy as potential explanations for inconsistent findings of a bilingual advantage in executive control

Deregulated JAK/STAT signalling in lymphomagenesis, and its implications for the development of new targeted therapies

Gene expression profiling has implicated several intracellular signalling cascades, including the JAK/STAT pathway, in the pathogenesis of particular subtypes of lymphoma. In marked contrast to the situation in patients with either acute lymphoblastic leukaemia or a myeloproliferative neoplasm, JAK2 coding sequence mutations are rare in lymphoma patients with an activated JAK/STAT “signature”. This is instead the consequence of mutational events that result in the increased expression of non-mutated JAK2; positively or negatively affect the activity of other components of the JAK/STAT pathway; or establish an autocrine signalling loop that drives JAK-mediated cytokine-independent proliferation. Here, we detail these genetic lesions, their functional consequences, and impact on patient outcome. In light of the approval of a JAK1/JAK2 inhibitor for the treatment of myelofibrosis, and preliminary studies evaluating the efficacy of other JAK inhibitors, the therapeutic potential of compounds that target JAK/STAT signalling in the treatment of patients with lymphoma is also discussed