21 research outputs found

    School nutrition environments since local wellness policies

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    Background: Many factors contribute to the school nutrition environment including food policies and practices, advertising and the presence of competitive foods (CF). The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) provides nutritious meals to students, however CF been shown to inhibit the dietary intake of students who have access to them. School food service (SFS) operations with tight budgets often turn to CF sales to produce extra revenue, which causes lost profits from NSLP reimbursements in return. Local wellness policies (LWP) were mandated in 2006 and provided schools an opportunity to change the school nutrition environment, including CF. Methods: Sixteen Iowa school districts were selected and school personnel completed online surveys prior to site visits in fall 2007 and spring 2009. Site visits included a NSLP observation, inventory of all CF available to students, and interview with district- and school-level personnel and administrators. CF were categorized as meeting nutritional standards (MNS) or not (NMNS) and calculations were performed by students per item and according to school characteristics. NSLP participation and CF revenues were collected by school in for the 2005-2006, 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 academic years and results were measured as meals/student/week and sales/student/year, respectively. Relationships between meals and sales and environment and policy variables were explored. Results: Open/closed campus policy, demonstration/comparison and school size appeared to impact change, prevalence, or composition of CF. Total a la carte (ALC) items increased, while beverage vending appeared to decrease, regardless of school characteristics. Environmental variables appeared to be more related to meals and CF dollars spent than policy factors. Meals/student/week and dollars/student/year were significantly, negatively related. Conclusions: Open/closed campus policy appeared to influence types of items offered in ALC, the change in those items over time, as well as the percentage of items meeting or not meeting nutritional standards. Competition with outside venues appeared to play a role in the school food environment. Additionally, a high LWP policy rating was not as predictive of the CF environment as a focus on CF or open/closed campus status. The physical environment influenced NSLP participation and CF sales more than policy, showing schools must implement policy for it to make a difference. The negative relationship between meals/student/week and dollars/student/year confirms that CF are not simply for revenue, but also cost NSLP reimbursements

    The Lombard effect in singing humpback whales : source levels increase as ambient ocean noise levels increase

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    Funding: Office of Naval Research (Code 322, Marine Mammals and Biology), Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet (Code N465JR), and the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Living Marine Resources Program.Many animals increase the intensity of their vocalizations in increased noise. This response is known as the Lombard effect. While some previous studies about cetaceans report a 1 dB increase in the source level (SL) for every dB increase in the background noise level (NL), more recent data have not supported this compensation ability. The purpose of this study was to calculate the SLs of humpback whale song units recorded off Hawaii and test for a relationship between these SLs and background NLs. Opportunistic recordings during 2012-2017 were used to detect and track 524 humpback whale encounters comprised of 83 974 units on the U.S. Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility hydrophones. Received levels were added to their estimated transmission losses to calculate SLs. Humpback whale song units had a median SL of 173 dB re 1 ÎĽ Pa at 1 m, and SLs increased by 0.53 dB/1 dB increase in background NLs. These changes occurred in real time on hourly and daily time scales. Increases in ambient noise could reduce male humpback whale communication space in the important breeding area off Hawaii. Since these vocalization changes may be dependent on location or behavioral state, more work is needed at other locations and with other species.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

    International Paediatric Mitochondrial Disease Scale

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    OBJECTIVE : There is an urgent need for reliable and universally applicable outcome measures for children with mitochondrial diseases. In this study, we aimed to adapt the currently available Newcastle Paediatric Mitochondrial Disease Scale (NPMDS) to the International Paediatric Mitochondrial Disease Scale (IPMDS) during a Delphi-based process with input from international collaborators, patients and caretakers, as well as a pilot reliability study in eight patients. Subsequently, we aimed to test the feasibility, construct validity and reliability of the IPMDS in a multicentre study. METHODS : A clinically, biochemically and genetically heterogeneous group of 17 patients (age 1.6–16 years) from five different expert centres from four different continents were evaluated in this study. RESULTS : The feasibility of the IPMDS was good, as indicated by a low number of missing items (4 %) and the positive evaluation of patients, parents and users. Principal component analysis of our small sample identified three factors, which explained 57.9 % of the variance. Good construct validity was found using hypothesis testing. The overall interrater reliability was good [median intraclass correlation coefficient for agreement between raters (ICCagreement) 0.85; range 0.23–0.99). CONCLUSION : In conclusion, we suggest using the IPMDS for assessing natural history in children with mitochondrial diseases. These data should be used to further explore construct validity of the IPMDS and to set age limits. In parallel, responsiveness and the minimal clinically important difference should be studied to facilitate sample size calculations in future clinical trials.The work of SK and JS was sponsored by ZonMW (The Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development).http://link.springer.com/journal/10545am2017Paediatrics and Child Healt

    School nutrition environments since local wellness policies

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    Background: Many factors contribute to the school nutrition environment including food policies and practices, advertising and the presence of competitive foods (CF). The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) provides nutritious meals to students, however CF been shown to inhibit the dietary intake of students who have access to them. School food service (SFS) operations with tight budgets often turn to CF sales to produce extra revenue, which causes lost profits from NSLP reimbursements in return. Local wellness policies (LWP) were mandated in 2006 and provided schools an opportunity to change the school nutrition environment, including CF. Methods: Sixteen Iowa school districts were selected and school personnel completed online surveys prior to site visits in fall 2007 and spring 2009. Site visits included a NSLP observation, inventory of all CF available to students, and interview with district- and school-level personnel and administrators. CF were categorized as meeting nutritional standards (MNS) or not (NMNS) and calculations were performed by students per item and according to school characteristics. NSLP participation and CF revenues were collected by school in for the 2005-2006, 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 academic years and results were measured as meals/student/week and sales/student/year, respectively. Relationships between meals and sales and environment and policy variables were explored. Results: Open/closed campus policy, demonstration/comparison and school size appeared to impact change, prevalence, or composition of CF. Total a la carte (ALC) items increased, while beverage vending appeared to decrease, regardless of school characteristics. Environmental variables appeared to be more related to meals and CF dollars spent than policy factors. Meals/student/week and dollars/student/year were significantly, negatively related. Conclusions: Open/closed campus policy appeared to influence types of items offered in ALC, the change in those items over time, as well as the percentage of items meeting or not meeting nutritional standards. Competition with outside venues appeared to play a role in the school food environment. Additionally, a high LWP policy rating was not as predictive of the CF environment as a focus on CF or open/closed campus status. The physical environment influenced NSLP participation and CF sales more than policy, showing schools must implement policy for it to make a difference. The negative relationship between meals/student/week and dollars/student/year confirms that CF are not simply for revenue, but also cost NSLP reimbursements.</p

    Impact of donor-acceptor functionalization on the properties of linearly π-conjugated oligomers: establishing quantitative relationships for the substituent and substituent cooperative effect based on quantum chemical calculations

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    To understand better the impact of donor-acceptor substitution on the properties of linearly π-conjugated compounds, we performed a computational study on a series of variably substituted trans-polyacetylenes, polyynes, and polythiophenes. The focus of this work is on how rapidly the impact of a given substituent or a given combination of substituents vanishes along the π-conjugated chain. The response of the structural (bond-length alternation, rotational barrier) and molecular properties ((hyper)polarizability, chemical shift) to substitution is analyzed using different protocols, including a superposition model for the evaluation of the cooperative effect of substituents in homo- and heterosubstituted oligomers. With the exception of the (hyper)polarizability, the impact of donor-acceptor substitution is found to vanish following an exponential. The rate of decay of the substituent impact is found to be characteristic for each backbone, whereas the choice of substituent determines the absolute value of the respective property. The combination of substituents is shown to determine whether the substituent cooperative effect on a property is of an enhancing or damping nature. The rate of decay of the cooperative effect on most properties, including the (hyper)polarizability, is also found to follow an exponential law

    Physiological trait networks enhance understanding of crop growth and water use in contrasting environments

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    Plant function arises from a complex network of structural and physiological traits. Explicit representation of these traits, as well as their connections with other biophysical processes, is required to advance our understanding of plant-soil-climate interactions. We used the Terrestrial Regional Ecosystem Exchange Simulator (TREES) to evaluate physiological trait networks in maize. Net primary productivity (NPP) and grain yield were simulated across five contrasting climate scenarios. Simulations achieving high NPP and grain yield in high precipitation environments featured trait networks conferring high water use strategies: deep roots, high stomatal conductance at low water potential ("risky" stomatal regulation), high xylem hydraulic conductivity and high maximal leaf area index. In contrast, high NPP and grain yield was achieved in dry environments with low late-season precipitation via water conserving trait networks: deep roots, high embolism resistance and low stomatal conductance at low leaf water potential ("conservative" stomatal regulation). We suggest that our approach, which allows for the simultaneous evaluation of physiological traits, soil characteristics and their interactions (i.e., networks), has potential to improve our understanding of crop performance in different environments. In contrast, evaluating single traits in isolation of other coordinated traits does not appear to be an effective strategy for predicting plant performance

    Sterol Structure Determines Miscibility versus Melting Transitions in Lipid Vesicles

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    Lipid bilayer membranes composed of DOPC, DPPC, and a series of sterols demix into coexisting liquid phases below a miscibility transition temperature. We use fluorescence microscopy to directly observe phase transitions in vesicles of 1:1:1 DOPC/DPPC/sterol within giant unilamellar vesicles. We show that vesicles containing the “promoter” sterols cholesterol, ergosterol, 25-hydroxycholesterol, epicholesterol, or dihydrocholesterol demix into coexisting liquid phases as temperature is lowered through the miscibility transition. In contrast, vesicles containing the “inhibitor” sterols androstenolone, coprostanol, cholestenone, or cholestane form coexisting gel (solid) and liquid phases. Vesicles containing lanosterol, a sterol found in the cholesterol and ergosterol synthesis pathways, do not exhibit coexisting phases over a wide range of temperatures and compositions. Although more detailed phase diagrams and precise distinctions between gel and liquid phases are required to fully define the phase behavior of these sterols in vesicles, we find that our classifications of promoter and inhibitor sterols are consistent with previous designations based on fluorescence quenching and detergent resistance. We find no trend in the liquid-liquid or gel-liquid transition temperatures of membranes with promoter or inhibitor sterols and measure the surface fraction of coexisting phases. We find that the vesicle phase behavior is related to the structure of the sterols. Promoter sterols have flat, fused rings, a hydroxyl headgroup, an alkyl tail, and a small molecular area, which are all attributes of “membrane active” sterols
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