Harnessing the power of advertising to prevent childhood obesity

Background: Social marketing integrates communication campaigns with behavioural and environmental change strategies. Childhood obesity programs could benefit significantly from social marketing but communication campaigns on this issue tend to be stand-alone. Methods: A large-scale multi-setting child obesity prevention program was implemented in the Hunter New England (HNE) region of New South Wales (NSW), Australia from 2005-2010. The program included a series of communication campaigns promoting the program and its key messages: drinking water; getting physically active and; eating more vegetables and fruit. Pre-post telephone surveys (n = 9) were undertaken to evaluate awareness of the campaigns among parents of children aged 2-15 years using repeat cross-sections of randomly selected cohorts. A total of 1,367 parents (HNE = 748, NSW = 619) participated. Results: At each survey post baseline, HNE parents were significantly more likely to have seen, read or heard about the program and its messages in the media than parents in the remainder of the state (p < 0.001). Further, there was a significant increase in awareness of the program and each of its messages over time in HNE compared to no change over time in NSW (p < 0.001). Awareness was significantly higher (p < 0.05) in HNE compared to NSW after each specific campaign (except the vegetable one) and significantly higher awareness levels were sustained for each campaign until the end of the program. At the end of the program participants without a tertiary education were significantly more likely (p = 0.04) to be aware of the brand campaign (31%) than those with (20%) but there were no other statistically significant socio-demographic differences in awareness. Conclusions: The Good for Kids communication campaigns increased and maintained awareness of childhood obesity prevention messages. Moreover, messages were delivered equitably to diverse socio-demographic groups within the region

Single Eye mRNA-Seq Reveals Normalisation of the Retinal Microglial Transcriptome Following Acute Inflammation

Background: Whether retinal microglia can maintain or restore immune homeostasis during and after inflammation is unclear. We performed single-eye mRNA-sequencing on microglia at different timepoints following a single inflammatory stimulus to characterise their transcriptome during and after resolution of endotoxin-induced uveitis (EIU). / Experimental Approach: Cx3cr1CreER:R26-tdTomato (C57BL/6) male heterozygotes were administered tamoxifen via different regimes at 4–5 weeks of age. Four weeks post-tamoxifen, mice were injected intravitreally with 10 ng lipopolysaccharide (endotoxin induced uveitis, EIU). Six-hundred retinal microglia were obtained by FACS from individual naïve retinas and at 4 h, 18 h, and 2 weeks following EIU induction. Samples were sequenced to a depth of up to 16.7 million reads using the SMART-Seq v4 Ultra Low Input RNA kit. The data was analysed using Partek software and Ingenuity Pathway Analysis. Genes were considered differentially-expressed (DEG) if the FDR step-up p-value was ≤0.05 and the fold-change was ≥±2. / Results: Flow cytometric analysis indicates that the Cx3cr1CreER:R26-tdTomato strain is both sensitive (>95% tagging) and specific (>95% specificity) for microglia when tamoxifen is administered topically to the eye for 3 days. During “early” activation, 613 DEGs were identified. In contrast, 537 DEGs were observed during peak cellular infiltrate and none at 2 weeks, compared to baseline controls (1,069 total unique DEGs). Key marker changes were validated by qPCR, flow cytometry, and fluorescence microscopy. C5AR1 was identified and validated as a robust marker of differentiating microglial subsets during an LPS response. / Conclusion: Using EIU to provide a single defined inflammatory stimulus, mRNA-Seq identified acute transcriptional changes in retinal microglia which returned to their original transcriptome after 2 weeks. Yolk-sac derived microglia are capable of restoring their homeostatic state after acute inflammation

2020-2021 KSU Concerto Competition Finals

Students of the KSU School of Music perform in the final round of the 2020-2021 Concerto Competition. Winners will perform with the KSU Symphony Orchestra or the KSU Wind Ensemble when health and safety permit. Presented virtually from Morgan Concert Hall of the Bailey Performance Center.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/musicprograms/2328/thumbnail.jp

Counts-in-Cylinders in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey with Comparisons to N-body Simulations

Environmental statistics provide a necessary means of comparing the properties of galaxies in different environments and a vital test of models of galaxy formation within the prevailing, hierarchical cosmological model. We explore counts-in-cylinders, a common statistic defined as the number of companions of a particular galaxy found within a given projected radius and redshift interval. Galaxy distributions with the same two-point correlation functions do not necessarily have the same companion count distributions. We use this statistic to examine the environments of galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Data Release 4. We also make preliminary comparisons to four models for the spatial distributions of galaxies, based on N-body simulations, and data from SDSS DR4 to study the utility of the counts-in-cylinders statistic. There is a very large scatter between the number of companions a galaxy has and the mass of its parent dark matter halo and the halo occupation, limiting the utility of this statistic for certain kinds of environmental studies. We also show that prevalent, empirical models of galaxy clustering that match observed two- and three-point clustering statistics well fail to reproduce some aspects of the observed distribution of counts-in-cylinders on 1, 3 and 6-Mpc/h scales. All models that we explore underpredict the fraction of galaxies with few or no companions in 3 and 6-Mpc/h cylinders. Roughly 7% of galaxies in the real universe are significantly more isolated within a 6 Mpc/h cylinder than the galaxies in any of the models we use. Simple, phenomenological models that map galaxies to dark matter halos fail to reproduce high-order clustering statistics in low-density environments.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures. Accepted, Ap

Understanding the Changing Cultural Value of the BBC World Service and the British Council

This project investigated the changing cultural value of the BBC World Service (WS) and the British Council (BC) and how their cultural value can be assessed and measured. For eight decades, these organisations have been the face and voice of Britain overseas. Our research found that their attraction and influence abroad remains strong, but is on the wane, reflecting the UK’s declining economic and political significance on the world stage. Among the key findings of our historical and contemporary research: Cultural value is the catalyst of all aspects of value at WS and BC, founded on their capacity to act as transcultural intermediaries, fostering international understanding, and setting benchmarks in global standards for journalism and cultural relations work. Cultural value is relational, never independent of political and economic value. It is perspectival: audiences trust the quality and credibility of outputs; high professional standards and prestige benefit staff; funders appreciate the diplomatic and soft power assets. Cultural value accrues slowly over time but can be quickly lost. Social media afford new ways of connecting, informing and engaging citizens at home and abroad. Our case studies analysing the uses of Twitter and Facebook by BC and WS around global media events underscore the so far limited role of social media in democratising participation and promoting intercultural dialogue. We developed an innovative, theoretically grounded and empirically informed Cultural Value Model (CVM). This is an innovative device for conceptualising, analysing and assessing value in a multidimensional, composite, visual way. The CVM is designed for planning, monitoring and evaluating projects and organisations over time, alongside existing performance indicators and impact measures. It is currently being tested and developed on further projects at WS and BC as well as at the Swedish Institute

Gene Therapy for Glaucoma by Ciliary Body Aquaporin 1 disruption using CRISPR-Cas9

Glaucoma is a common cause of blindness, yet current therapeutic options are imperfect. Clinical trials have invariably shown that reduction in intraocular pressure (IOP) regardless of disease subtype prevents visual loss. Reducing ciliary body aqueous humor production can lower IOP, and the adeno-associated virus ShH10 serotype was identified as able to transduce mouse ciliary body epithelium following intravitreal injection. Using ShH10 to deliver a single vector CRISPR-Cas9 system disrupting Aquaporin 1 resulted in reduced IOP in treated eyes (10.4 ± 2.4 mm Hg) compared with control (13.2 ± 2.0 mm Hg) or non-injected eyes (13.1 ± 2.8 mm Hg; p < 0.001; n = 12). Editing in the aquaporin 1 gene could be detected in ciliary body, and no off-target increases in corneal or retinal thickness were identified. In experimental mouse models of corticosteroid and microbead-induced ocular hypertension, IOP could be reduced to prevent ganglion cell loss (32 ± 4 /mm2) compared with untreated eyes (25 ± 5/mm2; p < 0.01). ShH10 could transduce human ciliary body from post-mortem donor eyes in ex vivo culture with indel formation detectable in the Aquaporin 1 locus. Clinical translation of this approach to patients with glaucoma may permit long-term reduction of IOP following a single injection

Intravenous indocyanine green dye is insufficient for robust immune cell labelling in the human retina

It is not currently possible to reliably visualise and track immune cells in the human central nervous system or eye. Previous work demonstrated that indocyanine green (ICG) dye could label immune cells and be imaged after a delay during disease in the mouse retina. We report a pilot study investigating if ICG can similarly label immune cells within the human retina. Twelve adult participants receiving ICG angiography as part of routine standard of care were recruited. Baseline retinal images were obtained prior to ICG administration then repeated over a period ranging from 2 hours to 9 days. Matched peripheral blood samples were obtained to examine systemic immune cell labelling and activation from ICG by flow cytometry with human macrophage cultures as positive controls. Differences between the delayed near infrared ICG imaging and 488 nm autofluorescence was observed across pathologies, likely arising from the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). Only one subject demonstrated ICG signal on peripheral blood myeloid cells and only three distinct cell-sized signals appeared over time within the retina of three participants. No significant increase in immune cell activation markers were detected after ICG administration. ICG accumulated in the endosomes of macrophage cultures and was detectable above a minimum concentration, suggesting cell labelling is possible. ICG can label RPE and may be used as an additional biomarker for RPE health across a range of retinal disorders. Standard clinical doses of intravenous ICG do not lead to robust immune cell labelling in human blood or retina and further optimisation in dose and route are required

Skunk River Review Fall 2004, vol 16

https://openspace.dmacc.edu/skunkriver/1012/thumbnail.jp

Mixed Chamber Ensembles, Spring 2018

This Mixed Chamber Ensembles performance features students performing a variety of chamber works for various groupings of instruments.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/musicprograms/2047/thumbnail.jp