Legislative Documents

Also, variously referred to as: House bills; House documents; House legislative documents; legislative documents; General Court documents

Incidental rewarding cues influence economic decisions in people with obesity

Recent research suggests that obesity is linked to prominent alterations in learning and decision-making. This general difference may also underlie the preference for immediately consumable, highly palatable but unhealthy and high-calorie foods. Such poor food-related inter-temporal decision-making can explain weight gain; however, it is not yet clear whether this deficit can be generalized to other domains of inter-temporal decision-making, for example financial decisions. Further, little is known about the stability of decision-making behavior in obesity, especially in the presence of rewarding cues. To answer these questions, obese and lean participants (n = 52) completed two sessions of a novel priming paradigm including a computerized monetary delay discounting task. In the first session, general differences between groups in financial delay discounting were measured. In the second session, we tested the general stability of discount rates. Additionally, participants were primed by affective visual cues of different contextual categories before making financial decisions. We found that the obese group showed stronger discounting of future monetary rewards than the lean group, but groups did not differ in their general stability between sessions nor in their sensitivity toward changes in reward magnitude. In the obese group, a fast decrease of subjective value over time was directly related to a higher tendency for opportunistic eating. Obese in contrast to lean people were primed by the affective cues, showing a sex-specific pattern of priming direction. Our findings demonstrate that environments rich of cues, aiming at inducing unhealthy consumer decisions, can be highly detrimental for obese people. It also underscores that obesity is not merely a medical condition but has a strong cognitive component, meaning that current dietary and medical treatment strategies may fall too short

Interior flow and near-nozzle spray development in a marine-engine diesel fuel injector

A consolidated effort at optically characterising flow patterns, in-nozzle cavitation, and near-nozzle jet structure of a marine diesel fuel injector is presented. A combination of several optical techniques was employed to fully transparent injector models, compound metal-glass and full metal injectors. They were all based on a common real-scale dual nozzle hole geometry for a marine two-stroke diesel engine. In a stationary flow rig, flow velocities in the sac-volume and nozzle holes were measured using PIV, and in-nozzle cavitation visualized using high-resolution shadowgraphs. The effect of varying cavitation number was studied and results compared to CFD predictions. In-nozzle cavitation and near-nozzle jet structure during transient operation were visualized simultaneously, using high-speed imaging in an atmospheric pressure spray rig. Near-nozzle spray formation was investigated using ballistic imaging. Finally, the injector geometry was tested on a full-scale marine diesel engine, where the dynamics of near-nozzle jet development was visualized using highspeed shadowgraphy. The range of studies focused on a single common geometry allows a comprehensive survey of phenomena ranging from first inception of cavitation under well-controlled flow conditions to fuel jet structure at real engine conditions

Adipositas, Kognition und Entscheidungsverhalten

Entscheidungen zu fällen, ist ein integraler Bestandteil des täglichen Lebens. Im Kontext von Adipositas sind Entscheidungen von besonderem Interesse, die das Essverhalten und die physische Aktivität beeinflussen. Wie wir uns letztendlich entscheiden, hängt von einer Fülle von Faktoren ab. Diese sind unter anderem der erwartete Belohnungswert, der Aufwand, den es aufzubringen gilt, ob wir alle Alternativen kennen und schon Erfahrungen damit gesammelt haben, aber auch welche ausdrücklichen Ziele wir uns gesteckt haben. Zusätzlich bestimmt unser Gehirn, wie wahrscheinlich es ist, dass wir uns für die eine oder andere Alternative entscheiden. Warum aber fällt es Menschen mit Adipositas so schwer, ihr Verhalten so zu steuern, dass es mit ihren ausdrücklich formulierten Zielen übereinstimmt? Könnte es sein, dass Gehirnsysteme, welche die Entscheidungsfindung stützen, als Folge von Adipositas verändert sind? In diesem Kapitel sollen die Eigenheiten von Kognition, Entscheidungsfindung und Gehirnfunktion bei Adipositas hervorgehoben werden, die auf tiefgreifende Unterschiede zwischen Personen mit und ohne Adipositas in Gehirnsystemen hinweisen, die die Verhaltenskontrolle steuern. Unterschiede in diesen Hirnsystemen könnten eine mechanistische Erklärung dafür liefern, dass Personen mit Adipositas Schwierigkeiten gegenüber stehen, wenn sie versuchen, ihr Verhalten zu ändern