Open-Label Taste-Testing Study to Evaluate the Acceptability of Both Strawberry-Flavored and Orange-Flavored Amylmetacresol/2,4-Dichlorobenzyl Alcohol Throat Lozenges in Healthy Children

BACKGROUND: Acute sore throat (pharyngitis) is one of the most common illnesses for which children are seen by primary care physicians. Most cases are caused by viruses and are benign and self-limiting. Clinically proven, over-the-counter throat lozenges provide rapid and effective relief of acute sore throat symptoms, and are increasingly important in self-management of this condition. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study (International Standard Randomized Controlled Trial Number: ISRCTN34958871) was to evaluate the acceptability of two licensed, commercially available sore throat lozenges containing amylmetacresol and 2,4-dichlorobenzyl (AMC/DCBA)—one strawberry flavored and the other orange flavored—in healthy children. STUDY DESIGN: This was an open-label, single-dose, crossover, taste-testing study in children recruited via a clinical database and advertisements over a 3.5-week period. SETTING: Potentially eligible participants were invited to attend the taste-testing session at a clinic. PARTICIPANTS: At the screening session, which took place either before or on the day of taste testing, details of relevant medical history, medication, and demographics were recorded. Of the 108 screened subjects, 102 were recruited. These were healthy male and female children aged 6–12 years. INTERVENTION: Each child cleansed their palate with water and water biscuits before tasting a strawberry-flavored lozenge (Strepsils(®) strawberry sugar free, Reckitt Benckiser Healthcare Limited, Nottingham, UK; PL 00063/0395), which was sucked for 1 minute and then expelled. The orange-flavored lozenge (Strepsils(®) orange with vitamin C, Reckitt Benckiser Healthcare Limited, Nottingham, UK; PL 016242152) was tasted at least 15 minutes later following further cleansing of the palate. The spontaneous reaction of the child on tasting each lozenge was observed and recorded. Subjects were asked to indicate their liking for each lozenge, using a 7-point hedonic facial scale, and were required to answer a series of questions relating to what they liked and disliked about the taste and the feel of the lozenge in the mouth and throat. The primary endpoint was the proportion of subjects with a hedonic facial score of >4. Secondary endpoints included the spontaneous reaction of the child on tasting the lozenge and responses to questions related to taste. RESULTS: The taste of the lozenge was scored >4 (i.e. ‘good’, ‘really good’, or ‘super good’) by 85.3 % of subjects for the strawberry flavor and 49.0 % for the orange flavor (p < 0.0001). The mean (standard deviation) score was 5.72 (1) for the strawberry-flavored lozenge and 4.35 (2) for the orange-flavored lozenge. The proportion of subjects willing to take the lozenge again was 94 % for the strawberry flavor and 56 % for the orange flavor. CONCLUSIONS: Strawberry-flavored AMC/DCBA lozenges were liked by, and acceptable to, the majority of the children. AMC/DCBA orange-flavored lozenges were also liked by, and acceptable to, approximately half the children. Overall, both strawberry and orange would be suitable flavors for lozenges intended for children when they suffer from sore throat

'Against the World': Michael Field, female marriage and the aura of amateurism'

This article considers the case of Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper, an aunt and niece who lived and wrote together as ‘Michael Field’ in the fin-de-siècle Aesthetic movement. Bradley’s bold statement that she and Cooper were ‘closer married’ than the Brownings forms the basis for a discussion of their partnership in terms of a ‘female marriage’, a union that is reflected, as I will argue, in the pages of their writings. However, Michael Field’s exclusively collaborative output, though extensive, was no guarantee for success. On the contrary, their case illustrates the notion, valid for most products of co-authorship, that the jointly written work is always surrounded by an aura of amateurism. Since collaboration defied the ingrained notion of the author as the solitary producer of his or her work, critics and readers have time and again attempted to ‘parse’ the collaboration by dissecting the co-authored work into its constituent halves, a treatment that the Fields too failed to escape

Insecticide resistance mediated 1 by an exon skipping event

Many genes increase coding capacity by alternate exon usage. The gene encoding the insect nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) a6 subunit, target of the bio-insecticide spinosad, is one example of this and expands protein diversity via alternative splicing of mutually exclusive exons. Here, we show that spinosad resistance in the tomato leaf miner, Tuta absoluta is associated with aberrant regulation of splicing of Taa6 resulting in a novel form of insecticide resistance mediated by exon skipping. Sequencing of the a6 subunit cDNA from spinosad selected and unselected strains of T. absoluta revealed all Taa6 transcripts of the selected strain were devoid of exon 3, with comparison of genomic DNA and mRNA revealing this is a result of exon skipping. Exon skipping cosegregated with spinosad resistance in survival bioassays, and functional characterization of this alteration using modified human nAChR a7, a model of insect a6, demonstrated that exon 3 is essential for receptor function and hence spinosad sensitivity. DNA and RNA sequencing analyses suggested that exon skipping did not result from genetic alterations in intronic or exonic cis-regulatory elements, but rather was associated with a single epigenetic modification downstream of exon 3a, and quantitative changes in the expression of trans-acting proteins that have known roles in the regulation of alternative splicing. Our results demonstrate that the intrinsic capacity of the a6 gene to generate transcript diversity via alternative splicing can be readily exploited during the evolution of resistance and identifies exon skipping as a molecular alteration conferring insecticide resistance

Children’s and adults’ understanding of death: Cognitive, parental, and experiential influences

This study explored the development of understanding of death in a sample of 4- to 11-year-old British children and adults (N = 136). It also investigated four sets of possible influences on this development: parents’ religion and spiritual beliefs, cognitive ability, socioeconomic status, and experience of illness and death. Participants were interviewed using the “death concept” interview that explores understanding of the subcomponents of inevitability, universality, irreversibility, cessation, and causality of death. Children understood key aspects of death from as early as 4 or 5 years, and with age their explanations of inevitability, universality, and causality became increasingly biological. Understanding of irreversibility and the cessation of mental and physical processes also emerged during early childhood, but by 10 years many children’s explanations reflected not an improved biological understanding but rather the coexistence of apparently contradictory biological and supernatural ideas—religious, spiritual, or metaphysical. Evidence for these coexistent beliefs was more prevalent in older children than in younger children and was associated with their parents’ religious and spiritual beliefs. Socioeconomic status was partly related to children’s biological ideas, whereas cognitive ability and experience of illness and death played less important roles. There was no evidence for coexistent thinking among adults, only a clear distinction between biological explanations about death and supernatural explanations about the afterlife

Emotion regulation styles as longitudinal predictors of compulsive exercise : a twelve month prospective study

Exercise can be used as a mood regulator but, in the eating disorder literature, exercise has sometimes been found to be compulsive, detrimental to physical health, and regarded as one maladaptive strategy used to regulate emotions. This study examined longitudinal associations between emotion regulation styles and this compulsive exercise in 572 adolescents who completed measures of compulsive exercise and emotion regulation. Twelve months later they completed measures of compulsive exercise. Compulsive exercise was predicted by Internal Dysfunctional emotion regulation in girls and boys, even after controlling for initial levels of compulsive exercise. Adolescents displaying compulsivity to exercise may require intervention programmes to alter their emotion regulation strategies

The hospital microbiome project: meeting report for the UK science and innovation network UK-USA workshop ‘beating the superbugs: hospital microbiome studies for tackling antimicrobial resistance’, October 14th 2013

The UK Science and Innovation Network UK-USA workshop ‘Beating the Superbugs: Hospital Microbiome Studies for tackling Antimicrobial Resistance’ was held on October 14th 2013 at the UK Department of Health, London. The workshop was designed to promote US-UK collaboration on hospital microbiome studies to add a new facet to our collective understanding of antimicrobial resistance. The assembled researchers debated the importance of the hospital microbial community in transmission of disease and as a reservoir for antimicrobial resistance genes, and discussed methodologies, hypotheses, and priorities. A number of complementary approaches were explored, although the importance of the built environment microbiome in disease transmission was not universally accepted. Current whole genome epidemiological methods are being pioneered in the UK and the benefits of moving to community analysis are not necessarily obvious to the pioneers; however, rapid progress in other areas of microbiology suggest to some researchers that hospital microbiome studies will be exceptionally fruitful even in the short term. Collaborative studies will recombine different strengths to tackle the international problems of antimicrobial resistance and hospital and healthcare associated infections

Experiences of Those With Other Disfluencies

This ethnographic study collected and analyzed interviews of 8 children with “other” fluency disorders: cluttering, atypical disfluency, excessive non-stuttering like disfluency. Each school-age child participated in a semi-structured interview focusing on grand and mini tour questions. The participants were asked to speak about their perspective and experience with communication in general. Preliminary results of this study revealed the following themes: friendships are hard; high-level communication is a goal; everyone doesn’t ‘get’ me when I talk. Clinical and research implications of findings will be discussed.https://digitalcommons.misericordia.edu/research_posters2025/1002/thumbnail.jp

The development of vegetarian omega-3 oil in water nanoemulsions suitable for integration into functional food products

Global trends show that habitual omega-3 intakes are short of recommended guidelines, particularly among vegetarians and vegans. The potential health implications of low long chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC3PUFA) intakes coupled with concerns about sustainability of fish stocks call for innovative approaches to provide food based solutions to this problem. Nanoemulsions are systems with extremely small droplet sizes that could provide a solution whilst improving the bioavailability of LC3PUFA. Oil in water nanoemulsion systems were successfully created using ultrasound with oil loads of up to 50 vol % using vegetarian LC3PUFA oils. Nanoemulsions containing 50 vol % flaxseed and algae oil were created with mean droplet size measurements of 192 and 182nm respectively using combinations of the emulsifiers Tween 40 and lecithin. This technique could be applied to create vegetarian LC3PUFA nanoemulsions suitable for integration into enriched functional food products with the potential to increase LC3PUFA intakes and bioavailability

Measuring affective well-being at work using short-form scales : implications for affective structures and participant instructions

Measuring affective well-being in organizational studies has become increasingly widespread, given its association with key work-performance and other markers of organizational functioning. As such, researchers and policy-makers need to be confident that well-being measures are valid, reliable and robust. To reduce the burden on participants in applied settings, short-form measures of affective well-being are proving popular. However, these scales are seldom validated as standalone, comprehensive measures in their own right. In this article, we used a short-form measure of affective well-being with 10 items: the Daniels five-factor measure of affective well-being (D-FAW). In Study 1, across six applied sample groups (N = 2624), we found that the factor structure of the short-form D-FAW is robust when issued as a standalone measure, and that it should be scored differently depending on the participant instruction used. When participant instructions focus on now or today, then affect is best represented by five discrete emotion factors. When participant instructions focus on the past week, then affect is best represented by two or three mood-based factors. In Study 2 (N = 39), we found good construct convergent validity of short-form D-FAW with another widely used scale (PANAS). Implications for the measurement and structure of affect are discussed