Submission to the Senate Select Committee on Administration of Sport Grants Should there be a $100 million federal community sport grants program at all?

It is questionable whether national funds designed to be allocated in small amounts paid directly to local community organisations have a part to play in a federal system. Apart from the clear temptation for pork-barrelling, they make no sense in terms of efficiency and rational policy, particularly when, as is the case with sport and recreation, there is already a system in place to assess local community needs

Preclinical correction of human Fanconi anemia complementation group A bone marrow cells using a safety-modified lentiviral vector.

One of the major hurdles for the development of gene therapy for Fanconi anemia (FA) is the increased sensitivity of FA stem cells to free radical-induced DNA damage during ex vivo culture and manipulation. To minimize this damage, we have developed a brief transduction procedure for lentivirus vector-mediated transduction of hematopoietic progenitor cells from patients with Fanconi anemia complementation group A (FANCA). The lentiviral vector FancA-sW contains the phosphoglycerate kinase promoter, the FANCA cDNA, and a synthetic, safety-modified woodchuck post transcriptional regulatory element (sW). Bone marrow mononuclear cells or purified CD34(+) cells from patients with FANCA were transduced in an overnight culture on recombinant fibronectin peptide CH-296, in low (5%) oxygen, with the reducing agent, N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC), and a combination of growth factors, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), Flt3 ligand, stem cell factor, and thrombopoietin. Transduced cells plated in methylcellulose in hypoxia with NAC showed increased colony formation compared with 21% oxygen without NAC (P<0.03), showed increased resistance to mitomycin C compared with green fluorescent protein (GFP) vector-transduced controls (P<0.007), and increased survival. Thus, combining short transduction and reducing oxidative stress may enhance the viability and engraftment of gene-corrected cells in patients with FANCA

Association of FTO With Obesity-Related Traits in the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey (CLHNS) Cohort

OBJECTIVE—The underlying genetic component of obesity-related traits is not well understood, and there is limited evidence to support genetic association shared across multiple studies, populations, and environmental contexts. The present study investigated the association between candidate variants and obesity-related traits in a sample of 1,886 adult Filipino women from the Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey (CLHNS) cohort

WHO ARE THE STUDENTS OF THE DENTISTRY PROGRAM AT ULBRA IN CANOAS, RS, WHAT THEY THINK AND WHAT THEY EXPECT OF THE JOB MARKET: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

Dentistry programs should prepare professionals with a generalist profile, having biological, scientific, technical, social and humanistic training. They should be trained for the reality of the job market and to practice Dentistry in both public and private settings, in order to provide leadership in the community in which they are placed. Objective: This study aims to analyze the socio-demographic profile, satisfaction with the program, self-evaluation of academic performance and expectations of the job market of students entering and exiting the Dentistry program of ULBRA/Canoas. Methodology: This is an observational, cross-sectional study conducted using a questionnaire with different questions for students entering and exiting the program in 2015. A questionnaire was developed with both open and closed objective, multiple-choice questions. It was given to 71 (86.5%) students enrolled in the program. Results: Most of the subjects are female, single, childless and between the ages of 17 and 36 years. Most chose Dentistry as a profession because they always liked or were interested in the health field. It was observed that the exiting students worked more in the areas of General Dentistry (90.4%) and Periodontics (77.0%) during their academic time, and intended to work in private practice (49.0%) and in the Unified Health System (65.0%). Conclusion: It was concluded that the profile of the entering and the exiting students is diverse, also that the students perceive that the greatest difficulty in the practice of Dentistry is the insertion and saturation of the job market

Impact of lipid-based nutrient supplementation (LNS) on children\u27s diet adequacy in Western Uganda

Lipid-based nutrient supplements (LNS) can help treat undernutrition; however, the dietary adequacy of children supplemented with LNS, and household utilisation patterns are not well understood. We assessed diet adequacy and the quality of complementary foods by conducting a diet assessment of 128 Ugandan children, ages 6-59 months, who participated in a 10-week programme for children with moderate acute malnutrition (MAM, defined as weight-for-age z-score \u3c -2). Caregivers were given a weekly ration of 650 kcal day (-1) (126 g day(-1)) of a peanut/ soy LNS. Two 24-h dietary recalls were administered per child. LNS was offered to 86% of targeted children at least once. Among non-breastfed children, over 90% met their estimated average requirement (EAR) cut-points for all examined nutrients. Over 90% of breastfed children met EAR cut-points for nutrient density for most nutrients, except for zinc where 11.7% met cut-points. A lower proportion of both breastfed and non-breastfed children met adjusted EARs for the specific nutritional needs of MAM. Fewer than 20% of breastfed children met EAR nutrient-density guidelines for MAM for zinc, vitamin C, vitamin A and folate. Underweight status, the presence of a father in the child\u27s home, and higher programme attendance were all associated with greater odds of feeding LNS to targeted children. Children in this community-based supplemental feeding programme who received a locally produced LNS exhibited substantial micronutrient deficiencies given the special dietary needs of this population. These results can help inform programme strategies to improve LNS targeting, and highlight potential nutrient inadequacies for consumers of LNS in community-based settings

Physical State of Molecular Gas in High Galactic Latitude Translucent Clouds

The rotational transitions of carbon monoxide (CO) are the primary means of investigating the density and velocity structure of the molecular interstellar medium. Here we study the lowest four rotational transitions of CO towards high-latitude translucent molecular clouds (HLCs). We report new observations of the J = (4-3), (2-1), and (1-0) transitions of CO towards eight high-latitude clouds. The new observations are combined with data from the literature to show that the emission from all observed CO transitions is linearly correlated. This implies that the excitation conditions which lead to emission in these transitions are uniform throughout the clouds. Observed 13CO/12CO (1-0) integrated intensity ratios are generally much greater than the expected abundance ratio of the two species, indicating that the regions which emit 12CO (1-0) radiation are optically thick. We develop a statistical method to compare the observed line ratios with models of CO excitation and radiative transfer. This enables us to determine the most likely portion of the physical parameter space which is compatible with the observations. The model enables us to rule out CO gas temperatures greater than 30K since the most likely high-temperature configurations are 1 pc-sized structures aligned along the line of sight. The most probable solution is a high density and low temperature (HDLT) solution. The CO cell size is approximately 0.01 pc (2000 AU). These cells are thus tiny fragments within the 100 times larger CO-emitting extent of a typical high-latitude cloud. We discuss the physical implications of HDLT cells, and we suggest ways to test for their existence.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables, emulateapj To be published in The Astrophysical Journa

Association of socioeconomic status change between infancy and adolescence, and blood pressure, in South African young adults: Birth to Twenty Cohort

ObjectiveSocial epidemiology models suggest that socioeconomic status (SES) mobility across the life course affects blood pressure. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between SES change between infancy and adolescence, and blood pressure, in young adults, and the impact of early growth on this relationship.SettingData for this study were obtained from a ‘Birth to Twenty’ cohort in Soweto, Johannesburg, in South Africa.ParticipantsThe study included 838 Black participants aged 18 years who had household SES measures in infancy and at adolescence, anthropometry at 0, 2, 4 and 18 years of age and blood pressure at the age of 18 years.MethodsWe computed SES change using asset-based household SES in infancy and during adolescence as an exposure variable, and blood pressure and hypertension status as outcomes. Multivariate linear and logistic regressions were used to investigate the associations between SES change from infancy to adolescence, and age, height and sex-specific blood pressure and hypertension prevalence after adjusting for confounders.ResultsCompared to a persistent low SES, an upward SES change from low to high SES tertile between infancy and adolescence was significantly associated with lower systolic blood pressure (SBP) at the age of 18 years (β=−4.85; 95% CI −8.22 to −1.48; p<0.01; r2=0.1804) after adjusting for SES in infancy, small-for-gestational-age (SGA) and weight gain. Associations between SES change and SBP were partly explained by weight gain between birth and the age of 18 years. There was no association between SES mobility and diastolic blood pressure, mean arterial pressure or hypertension status.ConclusionsOur study confirms that upward SES change has a protective effect on SBP by the time participants reach young adulthood. Socioeconomic policies and interventions that address inequality may have the potential to reduce cardiovascular disease burden related to BP in later life

Evaluating measurement error in readings of blood pressure for adolescents and young adults

Readings of blood pressure are known to be subject to measurement error, but the optimal method for combining multiple readings is unknown. This study assesses different sources of measurement error in blood pressure readings and assesses methods for combining multiple readings using data from a sample of adolescents/young adults who were part of a longitudinal epidemiological study based in Cebu, Philippines. Three sets of blood pressure readings were collected at 2-year intervals for 2127 adolescents and young adults as part of the Cebu National Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Study. Multi-trait, multi-method (MTMM) structural equation models in different groups were used to decompose measurement error in the blood pressure readings into systematic and random components and to examine patterns in the measurement across males and females and over time. The results reveal differences in the measurement properties of blood pressure readings by sex and over time that suggest the combination of multiple readings should be handled separately for these groups at different time points. The results indicate that an average (mean) of the blood pressure readings has high validity relative to a more complicated factor-score-based linear combination of the readings