Nutritional Deficiencies During the Harvest Season According to Household Consumption and Level of Nutritional Knowledge: A Case Study of Northern Mozambique

Mozambique is classified as a low income country, the lowest development classification defined by the World Bank. It is underdeveloped in food security, agricultural production, and nutritional status, and research shows its residents are not foreign to poverty and malnutrition. Low protein, starchy foods (maize, rice, wheat, cassava) comprise the majority of the Mozambican diet; these starchy foods are the most available for consumption. Although availability impacts diet, educational barriers may also threaten the knowledge of nutrition and perceptions of healthy foods. Illiteracy and lack of education are extreme challenges to disseminating nutritional education efforts in the rural Nampula region. New Horizons, a for-profit poultry company located in the rural Nampula region, provides local villagers with employment opportunities that provide increased income and ultimately lead to increased quality of life (which may affect employees’ diet and food choices). This study assessed the nutritional status of New Horizons employees and nonemployees and their knowledge and perceptions of nutrition. When reporting daily food consumption, grains represented the highest percentage of caloric intake for both groups, followed by beans and tubers. Respondents could not consistently provide a definition of nutrition, but employees were able to define nutrition more often than nonemployees. When reporting healthy foods, leaves, maize flour, and bananas were chosen most often. When reporting preferred foods to consume, employees chose luxury goods and nonemployees chose starchy foods. Respondents could not provide a consistent answer of where they learned about healthy foods. Implications for practice include incorporating nutrition and healthy foods lessons with school lunch programs. Future research should assess respondents during the harvest, post-harvest, and hungry seasons to account for seasonality, and measure foods consumed by providing measuring utensils for respondents

Agricultural Communications: Perspectives from the Experts

This qualitative research study evaluates the perspectives of agricultural communications (ACOM) according to ACOM experts (N = 25) from across the United States. Respondents represented policy makers, industry leaders, educators, and researchers and averaged about 15 years of experience. However, respondents were unable to identify a consistent definition of ACOM. Skills and characteristics needed by agricultural communicators ranged from general agriculture and policy understanding to technical communications and science knowledge. Audience identification, agricultural and policy knowledge, and targeted message development and delivery were all important skills needed by ACOMRs. Agricultural communicator characteristics focused on being flexible, responsible, gaining trust, and thinking critically. Challenges, sometimes noted as barriers, ranged from knowledge area changes to division and defense and from a non-unified voice to rapid expansion of technology. The discussion of higher education institutions training generalists versus specialists is an important topic based on findings of this study. Recommendations for future ACOM focus and education are discussed

Reflection, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Preschool-Age Children

Faculty advisor: Philip David Zelazo, Ph.DThis research was supported by the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP)

Screening the maize rhizobiome for consortia that improve Azospirillum brasilense root colonization and plant growth outcomes

Plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) are valuable for supporting sustainable food production and may alleviate the negative impacts of chemical fertilizers on human health and the environment. While single-strain inoculations have proven unreliable due to poor survival and colonization in the rhizosphere, application of PGPB in multispecies consortia has the potential to improve these outcomes. Here, we describe a new approach for screening and identifying bacterial consortia that improve the growth of corn relative to plants inoculated with a single strain. The method uses the microwell recovery array (MRA), a microfabricated high-throughput screening device, to rapidly explore the maize (Zea mays L.) rhizobiome for higher-order combinations of bacteria that promote the growth and colonization of the nitrogen-fixing PGPB, Azospirillum brasilense. The device simultaneously generates thousands of random, unique combinations of bacteria that include A. brasilense and members of the maize rhizobiome, then tracks A. brasilense growth in each combination during co-culture. Bacteria that show the highest levels of A. brasilense growth promotion are then recovered from the device using a patterned light extraction technique and are identified. With this approach, the screen uncovered growth-promoting consortia consisting primarily of bacteria from the Acinetobacter-Enterobacter-Serratia genera, which were then co-inoculated with A. brasilense on axenic maize seedlings that were monitored inside a plant growth chamber. Compared to maize plants inoculated with A. brasilense alone, plants that were co-inoculated with these consortia showed accelerated growth after 15 days. Follow-up root colonization assays revealed that A. brasilense colonized at higher levels on roots from the co-inoculated seedlings. These findings demonstrate a new method for rapid bioprospecting of root and soil communities for complementary PGPB and for developing multispecies consortia with potential use as next-generation biofertilizers

Personalising airway clearance in chronic lung disease

This review describes a framework for providing a personalised approach to selecting the most appropriate airway clearance technique (ACT) for each patient. It is based on a synthesis of the physiological evidence that supports the modulation of ventilation and expiratory airflow as a means of assisting airway clearance. Possession of a strong understanding of the physiological basis for ACTs will enable clinicians to decide which ACT best aligns with the individual patient's pathology in diseases with anatomical bronchiectasis and mucus hypersecretion. The physiological underpinning of postural drainage is that by placing a patient in various positions, gravity enhances mobilisation of secretions. Newer ACTs are based on two other physiological premises: the ability to ventilate behind obstructed regions of the lung and the capacity to achieve the minimum expiratory airflow bias necessary to mobilise secretions. After reviewing each ACT to determine if it utilises both ventilation and expiratory flow, these physiological concepts are assessed against the clinical evidence to provide a mechanism for the effectiveness of each ACT. This article provides the clinical rationale necessary to determine the most appropriate ACT for each patient, thereby improving care

Protein-coding variants implicate novel genes related to lipid homeostasis contributing to body-fat distribution.

Body-fat distribution is a risk factor for adverse cardiovascular health consequences. We analyzed the association of body-fat distribution, assessed by waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index, with 228,985 predicted coding and splice site variants available on exome arrays in up to 344,369 individuals from five major ancestries (discovery) and 132,177 European-ancestry individuals (validation). We identified 15 common (minor allele frequency, MAF ≥5%) and nine low-frequency or rare (MAF <5%) coding novel variants. Pathway/gene set enrichment analyses identified lipid particle, adiponectin, abnormal white adipose tissue physiology and bone development and morphology as important contributors to fat distribution, while cross-trait associations highlight cardiometabolic traits. In functional follow-up analyses, specifically in Drosophila RNAi-knockdowns, we observed a significant increase in the total body triglyceride levels for two genes (DNAH10 and PLXND1). We implicate novel genes in fat distribution, stressing the importance of interrogating low-frequency and protein-coding variants

Diffusion of School-Based Prevention Programs in Two Urban Districts: Adaptations, Rationales, and Suggestions for Change

The diffusion of school-based preventive interventions involves the balancing of high-fidelity implementation of empirically-supported programs with flexibility to permit local stakeholders to target the specific needs of their youth. There has been little systematic research that directly seeks to integrate research- and community-driven approaches to diffusion. The present study provides a primarily qualitative investigation of the initial roll-out of two empirically-supported substance and violence prevention programs in two urban school districts that serve a high proportion of low-income, ethnic minority youth. The predominant ethnic group in most of our study schools was Asian American, followed by smaller numbers of Latinos, African Americans, and European Americans. We examined the adaptations made by experienced health teachers as they implemented the programs, the elicitation of suggested adaptations to the curricula from student and teacher stakeholders, and the evaluation of the consistency of these suggested adaptations with the core components of the programs. Data sources include extensive classroom observations of curricula delivery and interviews with students, teachers, and program developers. All health teachers made adaptations, primarily with respect to instructional format, integration of real-life experiences into the curriculum, and supplementation with additional resources; pedagogical and class management issues were cited as the rationale for these changes. Students and teachers were equally likely to propose adaptations that met with the program developers’ approval with respect to program theory and implementation logistics. Tensions between teaching practice and prevention science—as well as implications for future research and practice in school-based prevention—are considered

DU Undergraduate Showcase: Research, Scholarship, and Creative Works

DU Undergraduate Showcase: Research, Scholarship, and Creative Work

DIY Methods 2023 Conference Proceedings

The act of circulating research through zines invites participants into the “gift economy” of zine culture, where knowledge is shared within a system of reciprocal generosity and pleasure in opposition to hierarchical and capitalist forms of knowledge exchange. As zines cut through the often strict and inaccessible boundaries of traditional, peer-reviewed publications, they also allow for the circulation of research to broader audiences, making knowledge more accessible. As such, academic zines transform research into a gift to be shared amongst unknown peers, while also situating the mobilization of knowledge as care work. And so, while we are excited to receive abstracts around diverse themes and across disciplines, we ask participants to think about knowledge as a gift and research as care work during their zine-making process. How do these visions of knowledge and research mobilization affect how you view your research, others’ research, and/or yourself

Determinants of penetrance and variable expressivity in monogenic metabolic conditions across 77,184 exomes

Penetrance of variants in monogenic disease and clinical utility of common polygenic variation has not been well explored on a large-scale. Here, the authors use exome sequencing data from 77,184 individuals to generate penetrance estimates and assess the utility of polygenic variation in risk prediction of monogenic variants