EFFECTS OF FOOD ASSISTANCE AND NUTRITION PROGRAMS ON NUTRITION AND HEALTH: VOLUME 4, EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE LITERATURE REVIEW

This report provides a summary of a comprehensive review and synthesis of published research on the impact of USDA's domestic food and nutrition assistance programs on participants' nutrition and health outcomes. The outcome measures reviewed include food expenditures, household nutrient availability, dietary intake, other measures of nutrition status, food security, birth outcomes, breastfeeding behaviors, immunization rates, use and cost of health care services, and selected nonhealth outcomes, such as academic achievement and school performance (children) and social isolation (elderly). The report is one of four volumes produced by a larger study that includes Volume 1, Research Design; Volume 2, Data Sources; Volume 3, Literature Review; and Volume 4, Executive Summary of the Literature Review. The review examines the research on 15 USDA food assistance and nutrition programs but tends to focus on the largest ones for which more research is available: food stamps, school feeding programs, and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Over half of USDA's budget - $41.6 billion in fiscal year 2003 - was devoted to food assistance and nutrition programs that provide low-income families and children with access to a healthy diet.Dietary intake, food expenditures, nutrient availability, nutrient intake, nutritional status, nutrition and health outcomes, USDAs food assistance and nutrition programs, Food Security and Poverty,

The Ferment in Divorce Legislation

Marriage as we know it in America is undergoing rigorous re-examination and even hostile attack in the last third of the twentieth century in part because of the doubt expressed in some quarters that this venerable institution meets the psychological and sociological needs of the mass of men and women. And since, as one wag has put it, marriage is the cause of divorce, one can expect great ferment in the area of divorce law as well. Such is in fact the case. The legislatures, the prime source of divorce law, after a period of neglect sometimes going back to the revolutionary period, are beginning to explore and occasionally enact legislation which is moving the law from quasi-tort (fault) theory toward a concept embracing the dissolution of a partnership when the partners are temperamentally incapable of making a success of the enterprise. But even though change appears to be the order of the day, there is presently no real national consensus as to the form that change should take. Many legislative approaches have been suggested in an effort to modify or eliminate the fault principle. These will be explored at length in this article, and their strengths and weaknesses will be emphasized. In addition, the effects of the new legislation on the parties, the individual judges and lawyers involved, and the bar will be discussed. In the course of this discussion of the ferment in divorce law the authors have not hesitated to state their own preferences and their reasons therefor. For the discussion of new legislative approaches to divorce to be meaningful to the reader unfamiliar with divorce law, an historical and contemporary matrix is provided

Long-Term, Seasonal, and Event-Driven Sediment Movement on East Beach, San Salvador Island, Bahamas

East Beach is a modern, medium-energy shoreline located on the northeast coast of San Salvador Island, Bahamas. Stake and horizon profiles were made at 9 sites along a 1-km section of the beach in June, 1990, and every six months thereafter through January,1992. These observations appear to confirm that East Beach is a prograding shoreline, building onto the eastern shelf of the island. Seasonally corrected volume calculations indicate that between June, 1990 and January, 1992 approximately 14,000 m3 of new sand per kilometer were added to the East Beach system, with most of the sand likely derived from the nearshore shelf area. Visual evidence for progradation could be seen in the formation of a heavily vegetated berm along the backshore, that by June, 1991 had reached a maximum height of 40 cm before its destruction by the powerful storm that hit San Salvador in late October, 1991. Seasonal topographic measurements and volume calculations indicate a minimum of 8,600 m3/km of sediment moving offshore in response to higher average wave energies in the winter, and returning to build a wide foreshore and pronounced berm during the summer months. The late October storm battered East Beach with waves that entrained meter-sized blocks of coral, cut back the primary dune line by an average of 5.1 m, and washed over approximately 1,500 m3of sediment into the primary dune swale. Storm damage was measurably less severe at northern stations, possibly because of sheltering by Northeast Point and Man Head Cay, or by baffling action of the dense patch reefs offshore, or both

Soluble tau species, not neurofibrillary aggregates, disrupt neural system integration in a tau transgenic model

Neurofibrillary tangles are a feature of Alzheimer disease and other tauopathies, and while they are generally believed to be markers of neuronal pathology, there is little evidence evaluating whether tangles directly impact neuronal function. To investigate the response of cells in hippocampal circuits to complex behavioral stimuli, we used an environmental enrichment paradigm to induce expression of an immediate-early gene, Arc, in the rTg4510 mouse model of tauopathy. These mice reversibly overexpress P301L tau and exhibit substantial neurofibrillary tangle deposition, neuronal loss, and memory deficits. Employing fluorescent in situ hybridization to detect Arc mRNA, we found that rTg4510 mice have impaired hippocampal Arc expression both without stimulation and in response to environmental enrichment; this likely reflects the combination of functional impairments of existing neurons and loss of neurons. However, tangle-bearing cells were at least as likely as non-tangle-bearing neurons to exhibit Arc expression in response to enrichment. Transgene suppression with doxycycline for 6 weeks resulted in increased percentages of Arc-positive cells in rTg4510 brains compared to untreated transgenics, restoring enrichment-induced Arc mRNA levels to that of wild-type controls despite the continued presence of neurofibrillary pathology. We interpret these data to indicate that soluble tau contributes to impairment of hippocampal function, while tangles do not preclude neurons from responding in a functional circuit

In vivo Remineralization Using a Sustained Topical Fluoride Delivery System

The efficacy of a new remineralization system was determined in vivo by maintaining a low concentration of approximately 1 ppm fluoride for 48 hrs against a demineralized human tooth. Human subjects were selected who wore removable partial dentures containing two or more of the demineralized teeth with film system. The findings indicate levels of fluoride uptake to 500 ppm at 50 micron depths in experimental sites.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66607/2/10.1177_00220345800590030501.pd

An Analysis Of Student XBRL Project Teams: Value-Adding Educational Experiences Using Emerging Technology

Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is a new approach that offers great promise for a fundamental improvement to the way in which financial information is maintained and reported.  With every innovation, comes the need to educate.  Because of the overarching aspects of XBRL and its implications, a team learning approach is appropriate.  This paper presents a case study of three student projects that resulted in the development of XBRL applications.  An analysis is provided of the teams, the projects, and important lessons learned

Editorial: Nucleic Acids Research and Nucleic Acid Therapeutics

Nucleic Acids Research has recently commissioned the publication of a series of Survey and Summary articles that encapsulate the current ‘state of the art’ surrounding the creation, function, behavior and optimization of nucleic acid molecules that may be adopted for clinical applications

Hedgehog signaling regulates dental papilla formation and tooth size during zebrafish odontogenesis

Intercellular communication by the hedgehog cell signaling pathway is necessary for tooth development throughout the vertebrates, but it remains unclear which specific developmental signals control cell behavior at different stages of odontogenesis. To address this issue, we have manipulated hedgehog activity during zebrafish tooth development and visualized the results using confocal microscopy. Results: We first established that reporter lines for dlx2b, fli1, NF-κB, and prdm1a are markers for specific subsets of tooth germ tissues. We then blocked hedgehog signaling with cyclopamine and observed a reduction or elimination of the cranial neural crest derived dental papilla, which normally contains the cells that later give rise to dentin-producing odontoblasts. Upon further investigation, we observed that the dental papilla begins to form and then regresses in the absence of hedgehog signaling, through a mechanism unrelated to cell proliferation or apoptosis. We also found evidence of an isometric reduction in tooth size that correlates with the time of earliest hedgehog inhibition. Conclusions: We hypothesize that these results reveal a previously uncharacterized function of hedgehog signaling during tooth morphogenesis, regulating the number of cells in the dental papilla and thereby controlling tooth size

Survey of micrometeorological parameters within a forest canopy at Fort Polk, Louisiana, A

CER80-81WZS-FWL-WEM44.Includes bibliographical references (page 44).February 1982.A field investigation of micrometeorological parameters inside and above a forest canopy at Fort Polk, Louisiana, was conducted in conjunction with the Atmospheric Sciences Laboratory Dusty Infrared Test IIIA. The three orthogonal components of the wind, ory- and wet-bulb temperatures and total solar radiation were measured inside this forest canopy by means of an instrumented meteorological tower. In addition, turbulence inside the forest canopy was monitored by means of hot-wire anemometers. Tethersonde balloon sounding above the forest canopy was further performed. The meteorological data was reduced by means of three different statistical methods. Single sample period values, one-minute sample averages and sequential sample values were computed. The latter two methods led to the construction of time series which can readily be used to perform advanced statistical analyses. Totals of 27 h 29 min of meteorological tower data and 2 h 50 min of balloon data were reduced. The results are presented in tabular form in 1422 tables and partially displayed in 1795 figures under separate cover in view of their large volume. Selected samples of the results are, however, presented herein. The results supply a data base for analyses of airflow in a forest canopy. Suggestions for future work of significance for mission-oriented cases and for modeling of airflow in a forest canopy are outlined.Contract DAAG29-76-D-0100 conducted for the U.S. Army Atmospheric Sciences Laboratory, White Sands Missile Range

Table-driven software architecture for a stitching system

Native code for a CNC stitching machine is generated by generating a geometry model of a preform; generating tool paths from the geometry model, the tool paths including stitching instructions for making stitches; and generating additional instructions indicating thickness values. The thickness values are obtained from a lookup table. When the stitching machine runs the native code, it accesses a lookup table to determine a thread tension value corresponding to the thickness value. The stitching machine accesses another lookup table to determine a thread path geometry value corresponding to the thickness value