Health Benefits of Urban Agriculture

Health professionals increasingly recognize the value of farm-and garden-scale urban agriculture. Growing food and non-food crops in and near cities contributes to healthy communities by engaging residents in work and recreation that improves individual and public well-being. This article outlines the benefits of urban agriculture with regard to nutrition, food security, exercise, mental health, and social and physical urban environments. Potential risks are reviewed. Practical recommendations for health professionals to increase the positive benefits of urban agriculture are provided

Making Good Decisions: The Influence of Culture, Attachment Style, Religiosity, Patriotism and Nationalism

This study explored the conflict model of decision making Janis Mann 1977 in relation to culture attachment style religiosity patriotism and nationalism Two groups of university students from Australia n 135 and Singapore n 159 were invited to participate through the use of a web survey Vigilant decision making was higher and hyper-vigilant decision making was lower for Australian than for Singaporean respondents Vigilant decision making was negatively related to avoidant attachment style and blind patriotism while positively associated with constructive patriotism and civic content nationalism Vigilant decision making was predicted by gender female low avoidant attachment style civic nationalism and constructive patriotism Hyper-vigilant decision making was positively related to anxious and avoidant attachment style external religiosity blind patriotism traditional and civic nationalism while negatively related to constructive patriotism Hyper-vigilance was predicted by gender female anxious and avoidant attachment style and extrinsic religiosity Buck-passing was positively associated with anxious and avoidant attachment style and civic nationalism Buck-passing was predicted by anxious and avoidant attachment style and by civic nationalism Procrastination was positively related to anxious and avoidant attachment style and was predicted by country Singapore and anxious and avoidant attachment style These results are explained in terms of decisions that are made around the world that may have broad ramifications including those relating to positions on refugees and terroris

The Influence of Early Experience on, and Inheritance of, Cerebral Lateralization

Cerebral lateralization refers to the lateralized partitioning of cognitive function in either hemisphere of the brain. Using a standard detour test, we investigated lateralized behaviour in wild-caught, female poeciliid fish, Brachyraphis (=Brachyrhaphis) episcopi, from high- and low-predation areas. Wild fish were bred and their offspring reared under controlled laboratory conditions. These laboratory-reared fish were screened in the same laterality assays as their parents. We observed differences between wild-caught females and their laboratory-reared female offspring in the pattern of lateralization (tendency to use one hemisphere over the other to process information). Conversely, the strength of lateralization (consistency of hemispherical bias) was largely conserved between generations, consistent with it being a heritable character. Both wild-caught females from high-predation sites and their laboratory-reared offspring showed stronger lateralized behaviour than their counterparts from low-predation sites. This difference in strength of lateralization is likely to provide fitness benefits to fish that occur in high-predation areas by enabling them to school and watch for predators simultaneously (dual processing). We hypothesized that the differences in the pattern of lateralization observed between species, and populations within species, are due to the manner in which they perceive and classify stimuli in the world around them. In particular, the perceived emotive content or context of a scene is likely to vary between individuals that have had different life experiences

Urban Agriculture and Community Food Security in the United States: Farming from the City Center To the Urban Fringe

Urban Agriculture and Community Food Security in the United States: Farming from the City Center To the Urban Fringe is prepared by the Urban Agriculture Committee of the Community Food Security Coalition to raise awareness of the ways that urban agriculture can respond to food insecurity. The document advocates for policies that promote small-scale urban and peri-urban farming, and thereby prepare the next generation of urban farming leaders

Continuous sedation until death: The everyday moral reasoning of physicians, nurses and family caregivers in the UK, The Netherlands and Belgium

Copyright © 2014 Raus et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.Background - Continuous sedation is increasingly used as a way to relieve symptoms at the end of life. Current research indicates that some physicians, nurses, and relatives involved in this practice experience emotional and/or moral distress. This study aims to provide insight into what may influence how professional and/or family carers cope with such distress. Methods - This study is an international qualitative interview study involving interviews with physicians, nurses, and relatives of deceased patients in the UK, The Netherlands and Belgium (the UNBIASED study) about a case of continuous sedation at the end of life they were recently involved in. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed by staying close to the data using open coding. Next, codes were combined into larger themes and categories of codes resulting in a four point scheme that captured all of the data. Finally, our findings were compared with others and explored in relation to theories in ethics and sociology. Results - The participants’ responses can be captured as different dimensions of ‘closeness’, i.e. the degree to which one feels connected or ‘close’ to a certain decision or event. We distinguished four types of ‘closeness’, namely emotional, physical, decisional, and causal. Using these four dimensions of ‘closeness’ it became possible to describe how physicians, nurses, and relatives experience their involvement in cases of continuous sedation until death. More specifically, it shined a light on the everyday moral reasoning employed by care providers and relatives in the context of continuous sedation, and how this affected the emotional impact of being involved in sedation, as well as the perception of their own moral responsibility. Conclusion - Findings from this study demonstrate that various factors are reported to influence the degree of closeness to continuous sedation (and thus the extent to which carers feel morally responsible), and that some of these factors help care providers and relatives to distinguish continuous sedation from euthanasia.The Economic and Social Research Council (UK), the Research Foundation Flanders (BE), the Flemish Cancer Association (BE), the Research Council of Ghent University (BE), the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NL) and the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (NL)

Social Identity Complexity Theory: Attitudes Towards Diversity and Its Relationship with Nationalism, Religiosity, and Aggression

In this study we tested social identity complexity theory (Roccas & Brewer, 2002) in relation to attitudes towards diversity and the associated variables of nationalism, religiosity, and aggression in a cross-cultural study of 397 Malaysian and 240 Australian students. Australians reported higher positive attitudes towards diversity than Malaysians. Diversity was positively associated with nationalism, religiosity, and aggression in Malaysians. Traditional nationalism was negatively associated with diversity in Australians. These results support social identity complexity theory and partially support associated predictions for Australian, while contradicting predictions for Malaysians

Rare, Potentially Pathogenic Variants in ZNF469 Are Not Enriched in Keratoconus in a Large Australian Cohort of European Descent

Purpose: The Zinc Finger Protein 469 (ZNF469) gene has been proposed as a candidate gene for keratoconus due to the association of an upstream polymorphism (rs9938149) with the disease in two independent studies, and the role of the gene in the autosomal recessive disease Brittle Cornea Syndrome. Coding variants in ZNF469 have been assessed for association with keratoconus in several small studies, with conflicting results. We assessed rare, potentially pathogenic variants in ZNF469 for enrichment in keratoconus patients in a cohort larger than all previous studies combined. Methods: ZNF469 was sequenced in 385 Australian keratoconus patients of European descent, 346 population controls, and 230 ethnically matched screened controls by either whole exome sequencing or targeted gene sequencing. The frequency of rare and very rare potentially pathogenic variants was compared between cases and controls using χ2 or Fisher\u27s exact tests and further explored using a gene based test (Sequence Kernel Association Test [SKAT]), weighting on the rarity of variants. Results: A total of 49 rare, including 33 very rare, potentially pathogenic variants were identified across all groups. No enrichment of rare or very rare potentially pathogenic variants in ZNF469 was observed in our cases compared to the control groups following analysis using χ2 or Fisher\u27s exact tests. This finding was further supported by the SKAT results, which found no significant difference in the frequency of variants predicted to be damaging between cases and either control group (P = 0.06). Conclusions: Rare variants in ZNF469 do not contribute to keratoconus susceptibility and do not account for the association at rs9938149

Malaysian and Australian students’ views on diversity: a differential item functioning analysis

Background: With global travel and access to media from around the world, people are increasingly confronted with similarities and differences between themselves and others that may encourage building bridges as well as walls. Often reality is distorted fuelling misunderstandings and resentments which sometimes lead to devastating consequences. For example, much of the distrust and violence that is seen in the world is in part, fuelled by perceived differences. Thus, the concept of diversity and people’s attitudes towards it may be a crucial predictor of conflict. Objective: This paper aims to explore the differences and similarities between Malaysian and Australian university students on factors related to their attitudes towards diversity, including level of aggression, nationalism, socialization, and patriotism. Method: A survey was administered to students at the International Islamic University of Malaysia (n=398) and students at the University of Western Sydney (n=239). The Rasch Measurement Model was utilized to investigate the differential item functioning (DIF) across the two nationalities. Results: The analysis showed significant and substantial differences between Australian and Malaysian students on many items related to the different aspects of diversity. DIF contrast favoured Australian students on some items and vice-versa. Results of the DIF analysis support a general view of the two groups. More interestingly, the DIF analysis seems to point to a changing trend among young Malaysians. Conclusion: To explore the factors that relate to attitudes towards diversity is important to understand how these attitudes are formed and how they evolve

Spontaneous Stratification in Granular Mixtures

Granular materials size segregate when exposed to external periodic perturbations such as vibrations. Moreover, mixtures of grains of different sizes spontaneously segregate in the absence of external perturbations: when a mixture is simply poured onto a pile, the large grains are more likely to be found near the base, while the small grains are more likely to be near the top. Here, we report a spontaneous phenomenon arising when we pour a mixture between two vertical plates: the mixture spontaneously stratifies into alternating layers of small and large grains whenever the large grains are rougher than the small grains. In contrast, we find only spontaneous segregation when the large grains are more rounded than the small grains. The stratification is related to the occurrence of avalanches; during each avalanche the grains comprising the avalanche spontaneously stratify into a pair of layers through a "kink" mechanism, with the small grains forming a sublayer underneath the layer of large grains.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, http://polymer.bu.edu/~hmakse/Home.htm

Absorber Materials for Transition-Edge Sensor X-ray Microcalorimeters

Arrays of superconducting transition-edge sensors (TES) can provide high spatial and energy resolution necessary for x-ray astronomy. High quantum efficiency and uniformity of response can be achieved with a suitable absorber material, in which absorber x-ray stopping power, heat capacity, and thermal conductivity are relevant parameters. Here we compare these parameters for bismuth and gold. We have fabricated electroplated gold, electroplated gold/electroplated bismuth, and evaporated gold/evaporated bismuth 8x8 absorber arrays and find that a correlation exists between the residual resistance ratio (RRR) and thin film microstructure. This finding indicates that we can tailor absorber material conductivity via microstructure alteration, so as to permit absorber thermalization on timescales suitable for high energy resolution x-ray microcalorimetry. We show that by incorporating absorbers possessing large grain size, including electroplated gold and electroplated gold/electroplated bismuth, into our current Mo/Au TES, devices with tunable heat capacity and energy resolution of 2.3 eV (gold) and 2.1 eV (gold/bismuth) FWHM at 6 keV have been fabricated