Moving forward with complimentary feeding

"For a number of reasons, progress in improving child feeding practices in the developing world has been remarkably slow. First, complementary feeding practices encompass a number of interrelated behaviors that need to be addressed simultaneously. Child feeding practices are also age-specific within narrow age ranges, which add to the complexity of developing recommendations and measuring responses. Finally, the lack of clear international recommendations for some aspects of complementary feeding has prevented the development of universal indicators to define optimal feeding. Without appropriate measurement tools, the design and evaluation of programs to improve complementary feeding practices cannot move forward. The present paper is the first systematic attempt at filling this gap. It puts forth a framework for the development of indicators of complementary feeding practices and proposes a series of possible indicators to measure some of the most critical aspects of infant and young child feeding. The emphasis is on simple indicators for use in large surveys or in program contexts. Indicators for the following aspects of complementary feeding of 6-23-month-old children are discussed: (1) breastfeeding; (2) energy from complementary foods; (3) nutrient density of complementary foods; and (4) safe preparation and storage of complementary foods. Finally, possible approaches to validate the proposed indicators are discussed and research priorities are highlighted." Authors' Abstract"Child Feeding ,Child care ,evaluation ,

Moving forward with complimentary feeding

"For a number of reasons, progress in improving child feeding practices in the developing world has been remarkably slow. First, complementary feeding practices encompass a number of interrelated behaviors that need to be addressed simultaneously. Child feeding practices are also age-specific within narrow age ranges, which add to the complexity of developing recommendations and measuring responses. Finally, the lack of clear international recommendations for some aspects of complementary feeding has prevented the development of universal indicators to define optimal feeding. Without appropriate measurement tools, the design and evaluation of programs to improve complementary feeding practices cannot move forward. The present paper is the first systematic attempt at filling this gap. It puts forth a framework for the development of indicators of complementary feeding practices and proposes a series of possible indicators to measure some of the most critical aspects of infant and young child feeding. The emphasis is on simple indicators for use in large surveys or in program contexts. Indicators for the following aspects of complementary feeding of 6-23-month-old children are discussed: (1) breastfeeding; (2) energy from complementary foods; (3) nutrient density of complementary foods; and (4) safe preparation and storage of complementary foods. Finally, possible approaches to validate the proposed indicators are discussed and research priorities are highlighted." Authors' Abstract"Child Feeding ,Child care ,evaluation ,

A cancer cell-line titration series for evaluating somatic classification.

BackgroundAccurate detection of somatic single nucleotide variants and small insertions and deletions from DNA sequencing experiments of tumour-normal pairs is a challenging task. Tumour samples are often contaminated with normal cells confounding the available evidence for the somatic variants. Furthermore, tumours are heterogeneous so sub-clonal variants are observed at reduced allele frequencies. We present here a cell-line titration series dataset that can be used to evaluate somatic variant calling pipelines with the goal of reliably calling true somatic mutations at low allele frequencies.ResultsCell-line DNA was mixed with matched normal DNA at 8 different ratios to generate samples with known tumour cellularities, and exome sequenced on Illumina HiSeq to depths of >300×. The data was processed with several different variant calling pipelines and verification experiments were performed to assay >1500 somatic variant candidates using Ion Torrent PGM as an orthogonal technology. By examining the variants called at varying cellularities and depths of coverage, we show that the best performing pipelines are able to maintain a high level of precision at any cellularity. In addition, we estimate the number of true somatic variants undetected as cellularity and coverage decrease.ConclusionsOur cell-line titration series dataset, along with the associated verification results, was effective for this evaluation and will serve as a valuable dataset for future somatic calling algorithm development. The data is available for further analysis at the European Genome-phenome Archive under accession number EGAS00001001016. Data access requires registration through the International Cancer Genome Consortium's Data Access Compliance Office (ICGC DACO)

Impacts of Upstream Drought and Water Withdrawals on the Health and Survival of Downstream Estuarine Oyster Populations

Increases in the frequency, duration, and severity of regional drought pose major threats to the health and integrity of downstream ecosystems. During 2007-2008, the U.S. southeast experienced one of the most severe droughts on record. Drought and water withdrawals in the upstream watershed led to decreased freshwater input to Apalachicola Bay, Florida, an estuary that is home to a diversity of commercially and ecologically important organisms. This study applied a combination of laboratory experiments and field observations to investigate the effects of reduced freshwater input on Apalachicola oysters. Oysters suffered significant disease-related mortality under high-salinity, drought conditions, particularly during the warm summer months. Mortality was size-specific, with large oysters of commercially harvestable size being more susceptible than small oysters. A potential salinity threshold was revealed between 17 and 25 ppt, where small oysters began to suffer mortality, and large oysters exhibited an increase in mortality. These findings have important implications for watershed management, because upstream freshwater releases could be carefully timed and allocated during stressful periods of the summer to reduce disease-related oyster mortality. Integrated, forward-looking water management is needed, particularly under future scenarios of climate change and human population growth, to sustain the valuable ecosystem services on which humans depend

Mathematical models of the gene regulatory networks underlying mesendoderm formation in amphibians

An early event in embryo development is the formation of mesoderm, endoderm and ectoderm, known as the primary germ layers. The gene regulatory network (GRN) consisting of the regulatory mechanisms underlying the formation of mesoderm and endoderm (the mesendoderm GRN) has been extensively studied both experimentally and using mathematical models. The Xenopus GRN is complex, with much of this complexity due to large numbers of Mix and Nodal genes. Mice and humans have only single Mix and Nodal genes, meaning that the Xenopus GRN is overly complex compared with higher vertebrates. Urodele amphibians, for example the axolotl, have single Mix and Nodal genes required for mesoderm and endoderm formation giving a model organism for the study of a simplified mesendoderm GRN. We study the axolotl mesendoderm GRN by developing mathematical models that encompass the time evolution of transcription factors in a cell. A detailed investigation reveals that, despite differences in the axolotl mesendoderm GRN compared with the Xenopus, the model can qualitatively reproduce experimental observations. We obtain experimental data to estimate model parameters using a computational algorithm, then test the behaviour of the resulting mathematical model using independent data. We extend mathematical models of the Xenopus mesendoderm GRN to include transcription factors involved in patterning the DV axis. An investigation of this model shows that it can account for the formation of mesoderm, endoderm and anterior mesendoderm forming in regions of the embryo consistent wth experimental data. In the final section of this thesis, we extend a multicellular model of the Xenopus mesendoderm GRN into a grid of cells

The Social Architecture of Local Food Tourism: Challenges and Opportunities for Community Economic Development

Local food tourism—culinary tourism with an explicit emphasis on local food systems—is emerging as a “green” model for community economic development. However, do local food tourism networks constitute a net gain to community economies in all contexts? This article explores that question through surveys and interviews with farmers, restaurateurs, and food tourists in three Wisconsin counties. Framing our discussion using the community capitals framework, we argue that economic benefits do accrue to communities from participation in these networks, but the net gains are ambiguous. Specifically, involvement in local food tourism networks increases stocks of social and human capital, deepens marketing opportunities for participating enterprises, and confers a price premium for food marketed as local. However, there can be significant transaction costs associated with participation, certain types of natural and cultural capital must prefigure successful execution, and restaurateurs levy significant power over farmers within the local food network. These tradeoffs demonstrate that growth in particular community capitals may not always be unequivocally good for communities