Healthy Eating and Active Living in North Portland: Asset Mapping with G.I.S.

Making community development as democratic as possible has long been a challenge for urban planners and municipalities alike. A number of obstacles stand in the way of greater community participation in the planning process and consequently communities who are best served by their design. Visual Preference Surveys (VPS) are a tool planners can use to increase participation in the design process within the communities they serve. This can result in community plans that more accurately reflect the wants or needs of its members. Relying heavily on image driven content, VPS offers communities a straightforward methodology that asks participants to rate paired images of development options. This document is a review of some of the literature focused on the uses of VPS. Included is an explanation of VPS, the advantages and challenges it offers, general case studies, and the potential for using VPS to specifically address issues related to Healthy Eating/Active Living

Isoflavones and endothelial function

Dietary isoflavones are thought to be cardioprotective due to their structural similarity to oestrogen. Oestrogen is believed to have beneficial effects on endothelial function and may be one of the mechanisms by which premenopausal women are protected against CVD. Decreased NO production and endothelial NO synthase activity, and increased endothelin-1 concentrations, impaired lipoprotein metabolism and increased circulating inflammatory factors result from oestrogen deficiency. Oestrogen acts by binding to oestrogen receptors alpha and beta. Isoflavones have been shown to bind with greater affinity to the latter. Oestrogen replacement therapy is no longer thought to be a safe treatment for prevention of CVD; isoflavones are a possible alternative. Limited evidence from human intervention studies suggests that isoflavones may improve endothelial function, but the available data are not conclusive. Animal studies provide stronger support for a role of isoflavones in the vasculature, with increased vasodilation and endothelial NO synthase activity demonstrated. Cellular mechanisms underlying the effects of isoflavones on endothelial cell function are not yet clear. Possible oestrogen receptor-mediated pathways include modulation of gene transcription, and also non-genomic oestrogen receptor-mediated signalling pathways. Putative non-oestrogenic pathways include inhibition of reactive oxygen species production and up regulation of the protein kinase A pathway (increasing NO bioavailability). Further research is needed to unravel effects of isoflavones on intracellular regulation of the endothelial function. Moreover, there is an urgent need for adequately powered, robustly designed human intervention studies in order to clarify the present equivocal findings

Ownership influences on corporate social responsibility in the Indian context

The empirical evidence from the extant literature has been equivocal regarding the influence exerted by different ownership types on corporate social responsibility (CSR), especially in developing countries such as India characterized by institutional voids. We use a longitudinal panel dataset of 500 large Indian companies to test a model of corporate ownership forms as key determinants of CSR engagement in India. Based on neo-institutional theory, our model of CSR determinants investigates the roles of three salient aspects of ownership namely multinational ownership/affiliation, state ownership and family ownership and control, after controlling for the influence of firm size, firm age, leverage, the availability of slack resources, profitability and various governance attributes. Our ordered logit regressions indicate strong support for the role of multinational ownership and family control and management in promoting higher levels of CSR engagement. Contrary to expectations, public sector ownership appeared to negatively impact CSR engagement. We offer our conjectures on this anomalous finding and the research possibilities it opens up

Analytical and compositional aspects of isoflavones in food and their biological effects

This paper provides an overview of analytical techniques used to determine isoflavones (IFs) in foods and biological fluids with main emphasis on sample preparation methods. Factors influencing the content of IFs in food including processing and natural variability are summarized and an insight into IF databases is given. Comparisons of dietary intake of IFs in Asian and Western populations, in special subgroups like vegetarians, vegans, and infants are made and our knowledge on their absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion by the human body is presented. The influences of the gut microflora, age, gender, background diet, food matrix, and the chemical nature of the IFs on the metabolism of IFs are described. Potential mechanisms by which IFs may exert their actions are reviewed, and genetic polymorphism as determinants of biological response to soy IFs is discussed. The effects of IFs on a range of health outcomes including atherosclerosis, breast, intestinal, and prostate cancers, menopausal symptoms, bone health, and cognition are reviewed on the basis of the available in vitro, in vivo animal and human data