Integrative Acoustic Mapping Reveals Hudson River Sediment Processes and Habitats

Rivers and estuaries around the world are the focus of human settlements and activities. Needs for clean water, ecosystem preservation, commercial navigation, industrial development, and recreational access compete for the use of estuaries, and management of these resources requires a detailed understanding of estuarine morphology and sediment dynamics. This article presents an overview of the first estuary-wide study of a heavily used estuary, the Hudson River, based on high-resolution acoustic mapping of the river bottom. The integration of three high-resolution acoustic methods with extensive sampling reveals an unexpected complexity of bottom features and allows detailed classification of the benthic environment in terms of riverbed morphology, sediment type, and sedimentary processes

Pregnancy and neonatal outcomes of COVID-19: The PAN-COVID study

Objective To assess perinatal outcomes for pregnancies affected by suspected or confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. Methods Prospective, web-based registry. Pregnant women were invited to participate if they had suspected or confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection between 1st January 2020 and 31st March 2021 to assess the impact of infection on maternal and perinatal outcomes including miscarriage, stillbirth, fetal growth restriction, pre-term birth and transmission to the infant. Results Between April 2020 and March 2021, the study recruited 8239 participants who had suspected or confirmed SARs-CoV-2 infection episodes in pregnancy between January 2020 and March 2021. Maternal death affected 14/8197 (0.2%) participants, 176/8187 (2.2%) of participants required ventilatory support. Pre-eclampsia affected 389/8189 (4.8%) participants, eclampsia was reported in 40/ 8024 (0.5%) of all participants. Stillbirth affected 35/8187 (0.4 %) participants. In participants delivering within 2 weeks of delivery 21/2686 (0.8 %) were affected by stillbirth compared with 8/4596 (0.2 %) delivering ≥ 2 weeks after infection (95 % CI 0.3–1.0). SGA affected 744/7696 (9.3 %) of livebirths, FGR affected 360/8175 (4.4 %) of all pregnancies. Pre-term birth occurred in 922/8066 (11.5%), the majority of these were indicated pre-term births, 220/7987 (2.8%) participants experienced spontaneous pre-term births. Early neonatal deaths affected 11/8050 livebirths. Of all neonates, 80/7993 (1.0%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Conclusions Infection was associated with indicated pre-term birth, most commonly for fetal compromise. The overall proportions of women affected by SGA and FGR were not higher than expected, however there was the proportion affected by stillbirth in participants delivering within 2 weeks of infection was significantly higher than those delivering ≥ 2 weeks after infection. We suggest that clinicians’ threshold for delivery should be low if there are concerns with fetal movements or fetal heart rate monitoring in the time around infection

LOVEBiTES: An evaluation of the LOVEBiTES and respectful relationships programs in a Sydney school

This document reports on an evaluation of the impactamong students of two violence prevention programsrun by the National Association for the Prevention ofChild Abuse and Neglect (NAPCAN). The evaluationcentres on the LOVEBiTES program run amongYear 10 students and a newly developed RespectfulRelationships program run among Year 7 students.The evaluation was conducted among students whoparticipated in these programs in a Sydney schoolin 2010. Students in Years 7 and 10 were surveyedbefore and after their participation in a thirteenweekprogram and a full-day workshop respectively,using a quantitative survey. This evaluation reportwas commissioned by NAPCAN and produced byresearchers at the University of Wollongong

"Treats, sometimes food, junk.”: Exploring "extra‟ food with parents of young children

This report presents the findings from an exploratory qualitative study which investigates parents‟ understanding and approaches to providing energy-dense and nutrient-poor “extra foods‟ to their preschool aged children. The study also explores the extent to which there is variation between parents of low and high socio-economic status (SES) in relation to these issues. The study involved 13 focus groups with 88 parents of 3-5-year-old children in distinctly socially disadvantaged and socially advantaged areas. Data from transcripts were analysed using framework analysis, which is an approach to qualitative thematic analysis that explicitly aims to generate practice and policy relevant findings

Smoke and mirrors: nutrition content claims used to market unhealthy food

Nutrition content claims are statements that relate to the presence or absence of nutrients, energy or biologically active substances in food. Currently in Australia, food manufacturers are permitted to make nutrition content claims as long as they can substantiate that the food component is present at the claimed levels, that is, that the claim is honest and true. Nutrition content claims can be used by food manufacturers to market food products, whereby positive nutritional attributes are emphasised to exaggerate the nutritional quality or health benefit of the product. In this way, nutrition-related claims can be misleading, with manufacturers able to promote single nutritional attributes without disclosing the product’s less healthy characteristics

LOVEBiTES: An evaluation of the LOVEBiTES and Respectful Relationships programs in a Sydney school

This document reports on an evaluation of the impact among students of two violence prevention programs run by the National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (NAPCAN). The evaluation centres on the LOVEBiTES program run among Year 10 students and a newly developed Respectful Relationships program run among Year 7 students. The evaluation was conducted among students who participated in these programs in a Sydney school in 2010. Students in Years 7 and 10 were surveyed before and after their participation in a thirteen- week program and a full-day workshop respectively, using a quantitative survey. This evaluation report was commissioned by NAPCAN and produced by researchers at the University of Wollongong

Categorising foods in terms of healthy diets: cuisines, dietary patterns and dietary guidelines

In the previous chapters the role of nutrients in the functioning of the body was described, and the food sources of these nutrients were listed. This chapter moves up a level and describes the effects of combinations of food on overall health. Recall in Chapter 1 that the discussion on food and health began with the concepts of molecules from foods operating at the physiological level. Food was then viewed as a combination of nutrients that were there for a purpose, reflecting the physiological needs of plants and animals that become food. Given the differences in these physiological forms, it is reasonable to assume that a wide range of foods is needed to meet human physiological needs. The only food that serves as a complete food for humans is breast milk in infancy. Indeed it is the recognised best food for infants in the first six months of life [1]. The production of breast milk is also the consequence of a human physiological process that comes after the feeding of the foetus in utero. The nutrient composition of human breast milk naturally follows suit in meeting nutritional needs for the early stages of life of the infant. With growth and development, nutritional needs are met through a combination of foods, but for best results this combination also has a nutritional code, just as breast milk does for the newborn. This code represents an ideal combination of foods that deliver requirements for health. There is always individual variation in requirements [2], but from a population health perspective, guidelines can be set based on best available knowledge at the time. The fact that humans have evolved to live longer and healthier lives can be seen as a reflection of better access to, and cultural knowledge of, foods that are good to eat. Analyses of cultural eating patterns (or cuisines) often show that staple foods provide substantial amounts of nutrients known to be required for growth and development {3]. Some cultures have even more formally defined the relationships between food and health, to the extent that foods can become somewhat medicalised (e.g. in Ayurvedic and Chinese medicines). In Western societies, both the Mediterranean and Asian cuisines have been recognised as being associated with healthier outcomes than cuisines based on other food choices [4-6]. Cuisines may also be defined in terms of the foods people elect not to include, such as vegetarian cuisines that exclude various forms of foods from animal sources. Establishing the evidence for the health benefits of particular food patterns and cuisines, however, requires a substantial amount of research. In effect, the concept of a healthy cuisine is a good example of where research and practice coexist. That is, cultural practice provides a common knowledge of healthy food but modern science works to expose the details of why this may be so, to correct misconceptions and to consolidate the food knowledge base overall

Nutrition during the lifecycle: infancy and childhood

Food choices in the early years influence not only body composition and growth rate, but also the establishment of eating patterns that can continue throughout life. Dietary intakes during childhood and adolescence are critical in setting the scene for health in the future. Several studies have looked at growth in infancy as a risk factor for lifetime obesity. In a recent systematic review, there was good evidence that infants in the highest part of the size distribution for weight or body mass index were at increased risk of adult and childhood obesity [1]. In several other studies, however, it has been reported that \u27thinness\u27 at birth was associated with increased risk of diabetes and chronic disease in later life [2]. It thus appears that being at either end of the weight spectrum in infancy is associated with health risks in later life. In a study by Euser and colleagues [3], with pre-term infants \u3c32 \u3eweeks\u27 gestation, early weight gain (between birth and 3 months) had a more significant impact on BMI (+4.9SD) than later infancy weight gain from 3 months to 1 year (BMI+2.5SD) (p\u3c0.05) at age 19 years. However in the Euser study, the results may not be generalisable to healthy weight infants, as the study was focused on pre-term babies (-1.5 kg). It is interesting to note, however, that the period of early catch-up growth can also be associated with detrimental metabolic effects. Current evidence indicates that intervention strategies in infancy should emphasise improvements in linear growth in the first two years rather than weight gain, and avoiding excessive weight gain relative to height gain (BMI) after the age of2 years [4, 5]

Development and validation of a salt knowledge questionnaire

Objective Initiatives promoting the reduction of high-salt food consumption by consumers need to be partly based on current levels of salt knowledge in the population. However, to date there is no validated salt knowledge questionnaire that could be used to assess population knowledge about dietary salt (i.e. salt knowledge). Therefore, the aim of the present study was to develop and validate a salt knowledge questionnaire. Design A cross-sectional study was conducted on an online web survey platform using convenience, snowball sampling. The survey questionnaire was evaluated for content and face validity before being administered to the respondents. Setting Online survey. Subjects A total of forty-one nutrition experts, thirty-two nutrition students and thirty-six lay people participated in the study. Results Item analyses were performed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the test items. Twenty-five items were retained to form the final set of questions. The total scores of the experts were higher than those of the students and lay people (P \u3c 0·05). The total salt knowledge score showed significant correlations with use of salt at the table (ρ = −0·197, P \u3c 0·05) and inspection of the salt content in food products when shopping (ρ = 0·400; P \u3c 0·01). Conclusions The questionnaire demonstrated sufficient evidence of construct validity and internal consistencies between the items. It is likely to be a useful tool for the evaluation and measurement of levels of salt knowledge in the general population