In their own words: A qualitative study exploring influences on the food choices of university students

Issue addressed: University students generally make independent decisions regarding food choices. Current research about knowledge of Australian Dietary Guidelines (ADG), sources of nutrition information and influences on food choices for this group is scarce. Methods: Qualitative data were collected from gender‐separated focus groups comprising four female (n = 31) and four male (n = 18) to identify: knowledge of ADG; sources of nutrition information; factors that influence food choices; perceived relevant nutrition messages and how best to deliver them. Results: Gaps in knowledge were identified particularly regarding number of serves and serving size for food groups. Social media was the most commonly reported source of knowledge. Social media was also a major influence on food choice due to its impact on body ideals. Conclusion: Current health promotion nutrition messages were perceived irrelevant given the focus on long‐term health risks. Health and adhering to the ADG were not identified as important. The desire to look a particular way was the major influence on food choices. So what? While there is an awareness of ADG, our participants made a deliberate decision not to follow them. This provides a challenge for developing relevant preventive health messages for this target audience

Hidden reach of the micromanagers

Small interfering RNAs can trigger unintended, microRNA-like off-target effects, but the impact of these effects on functional studies has been controversial. A recent study in BMC Genomics shows that microRNA-like effects can predominate among the 'hits' of functional genomics screens

Sleep quality and the treatment of intestinal microbiota imbalance in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A pilot study

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is a multisystem illness, which may be associated with imbalances in gut microbiota. This study builds on recent evidence that sleep may be influenced by gut microbiota, by assessing whether changes to microbiota in a clinical population known to have both poor sleep and high rates of colonization with gram-positive faecal Streptococcus, can improve sleep. Twenty-one CFS participants completed a 22- day open label trial. Faecal microbiota analysis was performed at baseline and at the end of the trial. Participants were administered erythromycin 400 mg b.d. for 6 days. Actigraphy and questionnaires were used to monitor sleep, symptoms and mood. Changes in patients who showed a clinically significant change in faecal Streptococcus after treatment (responders; defined as post-therapy distribution<6%) were compared to participants who did not respond to treatment. In the seven responders, there was a significant increase in actigraphic total sleep time (p=0.028) from baseline to follow up, compared with non-responders. Improved vigour scores were associated with a lower Streptococcus count (ρ=-0.90, p=0.037). For both the responders and the whole group, poorer mood was associated with higher Lactobacillus. Short term antibiotic treatment appears to be insufficient to effect sustainable changes in the gut ecosystem in most CFS participants. Some improvement in objective sleep parameters and mood were found in participants with reduced levels of gram-positive gut microbiota after antibiotic treatment, which is encouraging. Further study of possible links between gut microorganisms and sleep and mood disturbances is warranted

Effects of Explicit Convection on Future Projections of Mesoscale Circulations, Rainfall, and Rainfall Extremes over Eastern Africa

Eastern Africa’s fast-growing population is vulnerable to changing rainfall and extremes. Using the first pan-African climate change simulations that explicitly model the rainfall-generating convection, we investigate both the climate change response of key mesoscale drivers of eastern African rainfall, such as sea and lake breezes, and the spatial heterogeneity of rainfall responses. The explicit model shows widespread increases at the end of the century in mean (~40%) and extreme (~50%) rain rates, whereas the sign of changes in rainfall frequency has large spatial heterogeneity (from −50% to over +90%). In comparison, an equivalent parameterized simulation has greater moisture convergence and total rainfall increase over the eastern Congo and less over eastern Africa. The parameterized model also does not capture 1) the large heterogeneity of changes in rain frequency; 2) the widespread and large increases in extreme rainfall, which result from increased rainfall per humidity change; and 3) the response of rainfall to the changing sea breeze, even though the sea-breeze change is captured. Consequently, previous rainfall projections are likely inadequate for informing many climate-sensitive decisions—for example, for infrastructure in coastal cities. We consider the physics revealed here and its implications to be relevant for many other vulnerable tropical regions, especially those with coastal convection

The effect of westerlies on East African rainfall and the associated role of tropical cyclones and the Madden–Julian Oscillation

Variability of rainfall in East Africa has major impacts on lives and livelihoods. From floods to droughts, this variability is important on short daily time‐scales to longer decadal time‐scales, as is apparent from the devastating effects of droughts in East Africa over recent decades. Past studies have highlighted the Congo airmass in enhancing East African rainfall. Our detailed analysis of the feature shows that days with a westerly moisture flow, bringing the Congo airmass, enhance rainfall by up to 100% above the daily mean, depending on the time of year. Conversely, there is a suppression of rainfall on days with a strong easterly flow. Days with a westerly moisture flux are in a minority in all seasons but we show that long rains with more westerly days are wetter, and that during the most‐recent decade which has had more frequent droughts (associated with the “Eastern African climate paradox”), there has been few days with such westerlies. We also investigate the influence of the Madden–Julian Oscillation (MJO) and tropical cyclones, and their interaction with the westerly flow. We show that days of westerly moisture flux are more likely during phases 3 and 4 of the MJO and when there are one or more tropical cyclones present. In addition, tropical cyclones are more likely to form during these phases of the MJO, and more likely to be coincident with westerlies when forming to the east of Madagascar. Overall, our analysis brings together many different processes that have been discussed in the literature but not yet considered in complete combination. The results demonstrate the importance of the Congo airmass on daily to climate time‐scales, and in doing so offers useful angles of investigation for future studies into prediction of East African rainfall

Network Creation Games: Think Global - Act Local

We investigate a non-cooperative game-theoretic model for the formation of communication networks by selfish agents. Each agent aims for a central position at minimum cost for creating edges. In particular, the general model (Fabrikant et al., PODC'03) became popular for studying the structure of the Internet or social networks. Despite its significance, locality in this game was first studied only recently (Bil\`o et al., SPAA'14), where a worst case locality model was presented, which came with a high efficiency loss in terms of quality of equilibria. Our main contribution is a new and more optimistic view on locality: agents are limited in their knowledge and actions to their local view ranges, but can probe different strategies and finally choose the best. We study the influence of our locality notion on the hardness of computing best responses, convergence to equilibria, and quality of equilibria. Moreover, we compare the strength of local versus non-local strategy-changes. Our results address the gap between the original model and the worst case locality variant. On the bright side, our efficiency results are in line with observations from the original model, yet we have a non-constant lower bound on the price of anarchy.Comment: An extended abstract of this paper has been accepted for publication in the proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Mathematical Foundations on Computer Scienc

Acidification effects on biofouling communities: winners and losers

How ocean acidification affects marine life is a major concern for science and society. However, its impacts on encrusting biofouling communities, that are both the initial colonizers of hard substrata and of great economic importance, are almost unknown. We showed that community composition changed significantly, from 92% spirorbids, 3% ascidians and 4% sponges initially to 47% spirorbids, 23% ascidians and 29% sponges after 100days in acidified conditions (pH 7.7). In low pH, numbers of the spirorbid Neodexiospira pseudocorrugata were reduced x5 compared to controls. The two ascidians present behaved differently with Aplidium sp. decreasing x10 in pH 7.7, whereas Molgula sp. numbers were x4 higher in low pH than controls. Calcareous sponge (Leucosolenia sp.) numbers increased x2.5 in pH 7.7 over controls. The diatom and filamentous algal community was also more poorly developed in the low pH treatments compared to controls. Colonization of new surfaces likewise showed large decreases in spirorbid numbers, but numbers of sponges and Molgula sp. increased. Spirorbid losses appeared due to both recruitment failure and loss of existing tubes. Spirorbid tubes are comprised of a loose prismatic fabric of calcite crystals. Loss of tube materials appeared due to changes in the binding matrix and not crystal dissolution, as SEM analyses showed crystal surfaces were not pitted or dissolved in low pH conditions. Biofouling communities face dramatic future changes with reductions in groups with hard exposed exoskeletons and domination by soft-bodied ascidians and sponges.EU [227799, 00415/2010]; Natural Environment Research Council [bas0100036, bas0100025

Leishmania-specific surface antigens show sub-genus sequence variation and immune recognition.

A family of hydrophilic acylated surface (HASP) proteins, containing extensive and variant amino acid repeats, is expressed at the plasma membrane in infective extracellular (metacyclic) and intracellular (amastigote) stages of Old World Leishmania species. While HASPs are antigenic in the host and can induce protective immune responses, the biological functions of these Leishmania-specific proteins remain unresolved. Previous genome analysis has suggested that parasites of the sub-genus Leishmania (Viannia) have lost HASP genes from their genomes

Understanding Intermodel Variability in Future Projections of a Sahelian Storm Proxy and Southern Saharan Warming

Projected changes in the intensity of severe rain events over the North African Sahel—falling from large mesoscale convective systems—cannot be directly assessed from global climate models due to their inadequate resolution and parameterization of convection. Instead, the large-scale atmospheric drivers of these storms must be analyzed. Here we study changes in meridional lower-tropospheric temperature gradient across the Sahel (ΔTGrad), which affect storm development via zonal vertical wind shear and Saharan air layer characteristics. Projected changes in ΔTGrad vary substantially among models, adversely affecting planning decisions that need to be resilient to adverse risks, such as increased flooding. This study seeks to understand the causes of these projection uncertainties and finds three key drivers. The first is intermodel variability in remote warming, which has strongest impact on the eastern Sahel, decaying toward the west. Second, and most important, a warming–advection–circulation feedback in a narrow band along the southern Sahara varies in strength between models. Third, variations in southern Saharan evaporative anomalies weakly affect ΔTGrad, although for an outlier model these are sufficiently substantive to reduce warming here to below that of the global mean. Together these uncertain mechanisms lead to uncertain southern Saharan/northern Sahelian warming, causing the bulk of large intermodel variations in ΔTGrad. In the southern Sahel, a local negative feedback limits the contribution to uncertainties in ΔTGrad. This new knowledge of ΔTGrad projection uncertainties provides understanding that can be used, in combination with further research, to constrain projections of severe Sahelian storm activity