Television Viewing Habits, Body Mass Index, Dietary Behaviors and Physical Activity Among University Students

This study examined the relationship between TV-viewing, BMI, dietary behaviors and physical activity in a purposive sample of university students. Twenty-three items from the National College Health Risk Behavior Survey were used. For data analysis, students were placed into dichotomous categories for TV-viewing risk; dichotomous categories were also created for each DV. Chi-square tests examined relationships between demographic and risk-behavior correlates and Ss\u27 self-reports of TV-viewing; subsequent analyses were run for Ss who were normal- and overweight/obese. Odds ratios with 95% CI were also computed. TV-viewing was related to decreased use of diet/exercise to control weight and an increased likelihood of doing physical activity, strengthening, and stretching. For normal-weight Ss, TV-viewing was associated with decreased use of diet/exercise to control weight and increased risk of consuming fatty foods. Overweight/obese Ss at-risk for TV-viewing were more likely to consume fatty foods and less likely to participate in activity, strengthening, or stretching

EFFECTIVE COSTS AND CHEMICAL USE IN U.S. AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION: BENEFITS AND COSTS OF USING THE ENVIRONMENT AS A "FREE" INPUT

This study uses a cost-function-based model of production processes in U.S. agriculture to represent producers' input and output decisions, and the implied costs of reductions in risk associated with leaching and runoff from agricultural chemical use. The model facilitates evaluation of the statistical significance of measured shadow values for "bad" outputs, and their input- and output-specific components, with a focus on the impacts on pesticide demand and its quality and quantity aspects. The shadow values of risk reduction are statistically significant, and imply increased demand for effective pesticides over time that stem largely from improvements in quality due to embodied technology, and that vary substantively by region.Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management,

Night-time on a postnatal ward: experiences of mothers, infants, and staff

This chapter illustrates an alternative approach to video ethnography, in which video case studies are described alongside semi-structured interview responses to detail night-time challenges of mothers, newborns, and hospital staff on a postnatal ward. Data from three original, inter-related research projects were combined. We uncovered five themes: maternal need for support, response to infant cues, negative experiences, bedsharing as a way of coping, and insufficient staffing. In detailing these issues, we draw attention to previously unknown or unacknowledged obstacles for new mothers and their infants, as well as the constraints on the staff involved in their care

A low intensity, community based lifestyle programme to prevent weight gain in women with young children: cluster randomised controlled trial

Objective To develop and evaluate the effectiveness of a community behavioural intervention to prevent weight gain and improve health related behaviours in women with young children

ICFAR Ideas and Aperitifs, Cate Elwes and Steven Ball

'Ideas and Aperitifs' were regular evening salons for UAL fine art staff. They offer insights into the research processes and activities of key members of UAL research staff

Systematic review of non-surgical treatments for early Dupuytren’s disease

BACKGROUND: Dupuytren’s disease is a common fibrotic disorder of the palm characterized by the development of progressive flexion deformities in the digits, leading to significant functional impairment. Surgical excision remains the most common treatment. However, this is only indicated in patients with established contractures rather than those with early disease. Early disease is generally characterized by the presence of palmar nodules with limited or no contracture of the fingers. The ideal treatment would be directed at patients with early progressive disease to prevent future deterioration. Various non-surgical treatment modalities have been described but there is currently no systematic assessment of the role and efficacy of these treatments in patients with early disease. METHODS: Using a PICOS analysis we reviewed publications of studies of patients with early disease who had received physical therapies, pharmacological treatment, or radiotherapy. Following PRISMA guidelines titles and abstract were screened using predefined criteria to identify those reporting outcomes specifically relating to the treatment of early disease. In the absence of a definition of early disease studies were included if early DD was described clinically, with digital contractures not exceeding 30°, Tubiana grades N to 1, and which reported identifiable data. Studies were excluded if data for early DD patients could not be extracted for analysis. RESULTS: In this systematic review, 26 studies were identified and analyzed to evaluate the effect of pharmacological therapy (n = 11), physical therapy (n = 5) and radiotherapy (n = 10) on early Dupuytren’s disease. The studies comprised 20 case series, 1 cohort study with the remainder reporting case studies. All publications were graded level of evidence 4 or 5 assessed using the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine grading. Narrative descriptions of the data are presented. CONCLUSIONS: Physical therapies were the most robustly assessed, using objective measures but the studies were under powered, providing insufficient evidence of efficacy. Intralesional steroid injection and radiotherapy appeared to lead to softening of nodules and to retard disease progression but lacked rigorous evaluation and studies were poorly designed. There is an urgent need for adequately powered double blinded randomized trials for this common disorder which affects 4 % of the population. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The protocol was registered (CRD42015008986 16 November 2015) with the PROSPERO international prospective register of systematic reviews. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12891-016-1200-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Camera traps and genetic identification of faecal samples for detection and monitoring of an Endangered ungulate.

Almost all Indochinese ungulates are classified as globally threatened but efforts to assess and monitor population status have been hampered by their rarity, cryptic nature and uncertainty in accurate identification from sightings. An improved approach is urgently needed to gather information about threatened ungulate species in order to effectively conserve them as, a lack of reliable monitoring methods means that basic information such as population sizes, distribution and habitat associations is currently unknown. Here, we used a combination of camera trapping and genetic detection of the Endangered Eld’s deer, Rucervus eldii, to investigate the utility of these methods to infer intensity of site use within a protected Cambodian dry forest. We asked: 1) Are Eld's deer present in our study area?; 2) How is site use influenced by local habitat?; and 3) Do camera traps or genetic detection perform better in terms of detection and monitoring? Camera traps were deployed and faecal samples collected from Chhaeb Wildlife Sanctuary in Northern Cambodia during the 2017 dry season. Faecal samples were identified as Eld’s deer using newly developed species-specific mitochondrial DNA primers. Camera traps recorded 20 Eld’s deer observations across 3905 trap-nights and 44 out of 71 collected faecal samples, identified by fieldworkers as likely to belong to Eld’s deer, were positively identified to be so. Camera trap surveys and genetic detection demonstrated that Eld’s deer were present in Chhaeb Wildlife Sanctuary, although the number of detections relative to sampling effort was low in both methods (detected at 29% and 1% of sample sites, respectively). Occupancy models showed that water level and tree diameter both had positive relationships, whilst human and domestic or feral pig activity had a negative relationship, with the relative intensity of Eld’s deer site use. Overall, our data suggest that both of our methods can prove effective for monitoring Eld’s deer but that repeated sampling is necessary to account for their low detectability in this area. We suggest that faecal samples are collected during future camera trap monitoring visits to maximise efficiency, increase detectability, and provide the most information to support conservation

Resistant spaces in Kristeva and Foucault, and their literary formation in Barnes and Lorde.

This thesis examines, in the light of Julia Kristeva's and Michel Foucault's recent theorisations of the productions of meaning, the work of two authors, Djuna Barnes and Audre Lorde, whose writing, it argues, sets up virtual spaces which can become places of resistance to the normative functioning of a given culture. Having sketched a philosophical background to notions of extra-linguistic space through reference to Plato, Kant, Hegel and Lacan, the first chapter considers what is distinctive in the theories of space provided by Kristeva, who (in Revolution in Poetic Language) develops Plato's notion of the chora functioning at times as a synonym for "semiotic articulation". The semiotic (le semiotique) is employed by Kristeva in a very precise way. It represents a convolution of expressions: operating as a drive system within the body that affects the structure of language (understood by her as the symbolic), as a "network of marks" that breaches the established sign systems, and as a revolutionary process that is responsible for the transgression and articulation of new meanings. Because both the semiotic and the symbolic are an inseparable part of the signifying processes of language, they together act as pathways of production. Of all these various processes and relations, the most remarkable one is that these two modalities are genderised: the semiotic chora is "enigmatic and feminine, th[e] space underlying the written"; while the symbolic is a "phallic function". That being so, one of the main features of this thesis is to articulate a feminist argument in relation to Kristeva, expounding on the notion of the spatial concept of the semiotic chora as a "resistance" to phallocentrism. The second chapter sets out to explore Foucault's spatial reasoning. My argument is that space is central to Foucault's concerns. This is demonstrated in several ways. First I suggest that Foucault's interpretation of a social construction of space is such that the subject is connected to its own fashioning processes. Second, by introducing space into his documentation of history, Foucault sets in motion a dispersion of society's master narratives. In respect of this, I argue that a methodology can be formed from Foucault's spatial term "heterotopia", where contingent sites, rather than causes, shape new discourses and open up possibilities of resistance against the techniques and tactics of domination. Because (as Foucault writes in The Order of Things) the heterotopia serves to "desiccate speech, stop words in their tracks, contest the very possibility of grammar at its source", it not only produces discourse, it challenges all boundaries and remains essentially fluid, escaping the matrix of historical category. The next three chapters consider the implications of Kristeva's definition of the semiotic chora which, as briefly mentioned above, is constituted by psychosomatic drives. Hence, mood plays a central role in the semiotic chora. I construct a reading of Nightwood the main tenet of which is to examine the textual variations of Kristeva's resistant and abject `language'. Located in melancholy, incest, and discontentednesse ach trope forms individual chapterse xploring ways in which the limits of language are transgressed. Taken as a whole, the theme running through the three chapters on Nightwood is that new literary formations arise when the abject as mood becomes structured and made meaningful by the symbolic. The last two chapters examine Foucault's position in relation to Kristeva's, and argue that Kristeva's and Foucault's spatial thinking questions the appearance of finality and completeness in language. These chapters also provide a practical application of Foucault's heterotopia, in which spaces between contingent sites are shaped by Lorde. It is argued that opportunities of resistance are provided by Lorde who, naming her disparate position against the master narratives that fail to recognise her, locates her difference from them. In conclusion, a feminist reading of Kristeva's chora and Foucault's heterotopia reveals an opening to resistant spaces and new paths of production of meaning. Chora and heterotopia, then, are not merely abstract philosophical concepts, but powerful tools of reading, as is shown by their application in the interpretation of the works of Barnes and Lorde