Parents understanding of vitamin D requirements, and the use of fortified foods

One in four toddlers are not achieving the recommended vitamin D intake crucial for their healthy development(1, 2). This study explored parents’ acceptability of factors affecting purchasing of foods and drinks fortified with Vitamin D in children aged 0-2 years old. A total of 194 parents completed an online parent questionnaire. Focus groups and interviews were used to explore in depth perceptions of vitamin D fortification. Thirteen participants participated in the 5 focus groups, 5 completed interviews. The majority of participants were female (mothers) and of White-British ethnic background, aged between 25-40 years, with 89% of the sample with a level 3 qualification (e.g. 2 or more A levels, NVQ level 3). Basic descriptive statistics were calculated from the questionnaire data and a thematic analysis methodology was applied to the qualitative data. The findings indicated low purchasing of vitamin D fortified foods/drinks by parents (21% of the sample). The foods/drinks most purchased were cereal, yogurts and alternative milks. Willingness to purchase certain products fortified with vitamin D to increase their child’s vitamin D was however high. After excluding formula milk, parents would be willing to buy yogurt, yogurt drinks, cereals, milk-based drinks, fruit juice and margarine. The table outlines parents’ views on the facilitators and barriers to purchasing vitamin D fortified foods and drinks. There is a potential for fortified foods to play a role in increasing the intake of vitamin D intake. Parents need quality education explaining the need to prevent vitamin D deficiency, though fortified products. Products also need to be suitable for babies and toddlers; better labelled, lower cost; with healthy options available with lower sugar and salt content, tasty, longer shelf life and better availability in local shops and supermarkets. Future research should determine if consumption of fortified foods/drinks alone rather than supplementation is sufficient to meet children’s daily intake of vitamin D(3)

Decrease of resistance to air flow with nasal strips as measured with the airflow perturbation device

BACKGROUND: Nasal strips are used by athletes, people who snore, and asthmatics to ease the burden of breathing. Although there are some published studies that demonstrate higher flow with nasal strips, none had directly measured the effect of the strips on nasal resistance using the airflow perturbation device (APD). The APD is an inexpensive instrument that can measure respiratory resistance based on changes in mouth pressure and rate of airflow. METHOD: This study tested forty-seven volunteers (14 men and 33 women), ranging in age from 17 to 51. Each volunteer was instructed to breathe normally into the APD using an oronasal mask with and without nasal strips. The APD measured respiratory resistance during inhalation, exhalation, and an average of the two. RESULTS: Results of a paired mean t-test comparing nasal strip against no nasal strip were statistically significant at the p = 0.05 level. The Breathe Right™ nasal dilator strips lowered nasal resistance by an average of 0.5 cm H(2)0/Lps from an average nasal resistance of 5.5 cm H(2)0/Lps. CONCLUSIONS: Nasal strips reduce nasal resistance when measured with the APD. The effect is equal during exhalation and during inhalation

Systematic Evaluation of Candidate Blood Markers for Detecting Ovarian Cancer

Epithelial ovarian cancer is a significant cause of mortality both in the United States and worldwide, due largely to the high proportion of cases that present at a late stage, when survival is extremely poor. Early detection of epithelial ovarian cancer, and of the serous subtype in particular, is a promising strategy for saving lives. The low prevalence of ovarian cancer makes the development of an adequately sensitive and specific test based on blood markers very challenging. We evaluated the performance of a set of candidate blood markers and combinations of these markers in detecting serous ovarian cancer.We selected 14 candidate blood markers of serous ovarian cancer for which assays were available to measure their levels in serum or plasma, based on our analysis of global gene expression data and on literature searches. We evaluated the performance of these candidate markers individually and in combination by measuring them in overlapping sets of serum (or plasma) samples from women with clinically detectable ovarian cancer and women without ovarian cancer. Based on sensitivity at high specificity, we determined that 4 of the 14 candidate markers--MUC16, WFDC2, MSLN and MMP7--warrant further evaluation in precious serum specimens collected months to years prior to clinical diagnosis to assess their utility in early detection. We also reported differences in the performance of these candidate blood markers across histological types of epithelial ovarian cancer.By systematically analyzing the performance of candidate blood markers of ovarian cancer in distinguishing women with clinically apparent ovarian cancer from women without ovarian cancer, we identified a set of serum markers with adequate performance to warrant testing for their ability to identify ovarian cancer months to years prior to clinical diagnosis. We argued for the importance of sensitivity at high specificity and of magnitude of difference in marker levels between cases and controls as performance metrics and demonstrated the importance of stratifying analyses by histological type of ovarian cancer. Also, we discussed the limitations of studies (like this one) that use samples obtained from symptomatic women to assess potential utility in detection of disease months to years prior to clinical detection

4E assessment of power generation systems for a mobile house in emergency condition using solar energy: a case study

In this study, a solar parabolic trough concentrator (PTC) was evaluated as a heat source of a power generation system based on energy (E1), exergy (E2), environmental (E3), and economic (E4) analyses. Various configurations of power generation systems were investigated, including the solar SRC (SRC) and solar ORC (ORC). Water and R113 were used as heat transfer fluids of SRC and ORC system, respectively. It should be mentioned that the proposed solar systems were evaluated for providing the required power of a mobile house in an emergency condition such as an earthquake that was happened in Kermanshah, Iran, in 2016 with many homeless people. The PTC system was optically and thermally investigated based on sensitivity analysis. The optimized PTC system was assumed as a heat source of the RC with two various configurations for power generation. Then, the solar RC systems were investigated based on 4E analyses for providing the power of the mobile house based on various numbers of solar RC units. It was concluded that the solar SRC system could be recommended for achieving the highest 4E performance. The highest value of its energy efficiency was found at 24.60% and of his exergy at 26.37%. On the other hand, the ORC system has energy and exergy efficiencies at 17.64% and 18.91%, respectively, which are significantly lower than the efficiencies of the SRC system. The optimum heat source temperature for the SRC system is found at 650 K, while for the ORC system at 499 K. Moreover, the best economic performance was found with the SRC system with a payback period of 7.47 years. Finally, the CO2 mitigated per annum (φCO2) was estimated at 5.29 (tones year−1), and the carbon credit (ZCO2) was calculated equal to 76.71 ($ year−1)

Status of India in Global Hunger Index SDGs: Challenges and Initiatives

India adopted the 2nd Zero hunger goal out of the 17th Sustainable Goals which includes- achieving zero hunger by 2030 with the aim that everyone enjoys their adequate right to food. In the country, the economic growth rates have not been matched with the changing demographics. India is facing a substantial challenge to meet of achieving zero hunger. The paper highlights the status of India in Global Hunger Index, and challenges, and suggest some measure to combat this problem