Ontologies relevant to behaviour change interventions: a method for their development [version 2; peer review: 1 not approved]

Background: Behaviour and behaviour change are integral to many aspects of wellbeing and sustainability. However, reporting behaviour change interventions accurately and synthesising evidence about effective interventions is hindered by lacking a shared, scientific terminology to describe intervention characteristics. Ontologies are knowledge structures that provide controlled vocabularies to help unify and connect scientific fields. To date, there is no published guidance on the specific methods required to develop ontologies relevant to behaviour change. We report the creation and refinement of a method for developing ontologies that make up the Behaviour Change Intervention Ontology (BCIO). / Aims: (1) To describe the development method of the BCIO and explain its rationale; (2) To provide guidance on implementing the activities within the development method. / Method and results: The method for developing ontologies relevant to behaviour change interventions was constructed by considering principles of good practice in ontology development and identifying key activities required to follow those principles. The method’s details were refined through application to developing two ontologies. The resulting ontology development method involved: (1) defining the ontology’s scope; (2) identifying key entities; (3) refining the ontology through an iterative process of literature annotation, discussion and revision; (4) expert stakeholder review; (5) testing inter-rater reliability; (6) specifying relationships between entities, and; (7) disseminating and maintaining the ontology. Guidance is provided for conducting relevant activities for each step. / Conclusions: We have developed a detailed method for creating ontologies relevant to behaviour change interventions, together with practical guidance for each step, reflecting principles of good practice in ontology development. The most novel aspects of the method are the use of formal mechanisms for literature annotation and expert stakeholder review to develop and improve the ontology content. We suggest the mnemonic SELAR3, representing the method’s first six steps as Scope, Entities, Literature Annotation, Review, Reliability, Relationships

Representation of behaviour change interventions and their evaluation: Development of the Upper Level of the Behaviour Change Intervention Ontology [version 2; peer review: 1 approved, 1 approved with reservations]

Background: Behaviour change interventions (BCI), their contexts and evaluation methods are heterogeneous, making it difficult to synthesise evidence and make recommendations for real-world policy and practice. Ontologies provide a means for addressing this. They represent knowledge formally as entities and relationships using a common language able to cross disciplinary boundaries and topic domains. This paper reports the development of the upper level of the Behaviour Change Intervention Ontology (BCIO), which provides a systematic way to characterise BCIs, their contexts and their evaluations. Methods: Development took place in four steps. (1) Entities and relationships were identified by behavioural and social science experts, based on their knowledge of evidence and theory, and their practical experience of behaviour change interventions and evaluations. (2) The outputs of the first step were critically examined by a wider group of experts, including the study ontology expert and those experienced in annotating relevant literature using the initial ontology entities. The outputs of the second step were tested by (3) feedback from three external international experts in ontologies and (4) application of the prototype upper-level BCIO to annotating published reports; this informed the final development of the upper-level BCIO. Results: The final upper-level BCIO specifies 42 entities, including the BCI scenario, elaborated across 21 entities and 7 relationship types, and the BCI evaluation study comprising 10 entities and 9 relationship types. BCI scenario entities include the behaviour change intervention (content and delivery), outcome behaviour, mechanism of action, and its context, which includes population and setting. These entities have corresponding entities relating to the planning and reporting of interventions and their evaluations. Conclusions: The upper level of the BCIO provides a comprehensive and systematic framework for representing BCIs, their contexts and their evaluations. Keyword

Development of an Intervention Setting Ontology for behaviour change: Specifying where interventions take place

Background: Contextual factors such as an intervention's setting are key to understanding how interventions to change behaviour have their effects and patterns of generalisation across contexts. The intervention's setting is not consistently reported in published reports of evaluations. Using ontologies to specify and classify intervention setting characteristics enables clear and reproducible reporting, thus aiding replication, implementation and evidence synthesis. This paper reports the development of a Setting Ontology for behaviour change interventions as part of a Behaviour Change Intervention Ontology, currently being developed in the Wellcome Trust funded Human Behaviour-Change Project. Methods: The Intervention Setting Ontology was developed following methods for ontology development used in the Human Behaviour-Change Project: 1) Defining the ontology's scope, 2) Identifying key entities by reviewing existing classification systems (top-down) and 100 published behaviour change intervention reports (bottom-up), 3) Refining the preliminary ontology by literature annotation of 100 reports, 4) Stakeholder reviewing by 23 behavioural science and public health experts to refine the ontology, 5) Assessing inter-rater reliability of using the ontology by two annotators familiar with the ontology and two annotators unfamiliar with it, 6) Specifying ontological relationships between setting entities and 7) Making the Intervention Setting Ontology machine-readable using Web Ontology Language (OWL) and publishing online. Results: The Intervention Setting Ontology consists of 72 entities structured hierarchically with two upper-level classes: Physical setting including Geographic location, Attribute of location (including Area social and economic condition, Population and resource density sub-levels) and Intervention site (including Facility, Transportation and Outdoor environment sub-levels), as well as Social setting. Inter-rater reliability was found to be 0.73 (good) for those familiar with the ontology and 0.61 (acceptable) for those unfamiliar with it. Conclusion: The Intervention Setting Ontology can be used to code information from diverse sources, annotate the setting characteristics of existing intervention evaluation reports and guide future reporting

Long-term tobacco exposure and immunosenescence: paradoxical effects on T-cells telomere length and telomerase activity

Immunosenescence are alterations on immune system that occurs throughout an individual life. The main characteristic of this process is replicative senescence, evaluated by telomere shortening. Several factors implicate on telomere shortening, such as smoking. In this study, we evaluated the influence of smoking and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) on cytokines, telomere length and telomerase activity. Blood samples were collected from subjects aged over 60 years old: Healthy (never smokers), Smokers (smoking for over 30 years) and COPDs (ex-smokers for ≥15 years). A young group was included as control. PBMCs were cultured for assessment of telomerase activity using RT-PCR, and cytokines secretion flow cytometry. CD4+ and CD8+ purified lymphocytes were used to assess telomere length using FlowFISH. We observed that COPD patients have accelerated telomere shortening. Paradoxically, smokers without lung damage showed preserved telomere length, suggesting that tobacco smoking may affect regulatory mechanisms, such as telomerase. Telomerase activity showed diminished activity in COPDs, while Smokers showed increased activity compared to COPDs and Healthy groups. Extracellular environment reflected this unbalance, indicated by an anti-inflammatory profile in Smokers, while COPDs showed an inflammatory prone profile. Further studies focusing on telomeric maintenance may unveil mechanisms that are associated with cancer under long-term smoking

Cyclin-Dependent Kinase Inhibitor p21 Controls Adult Neural Stem Cell Expansion by Regulating Sox2 Gene Expression

In the adult brain, continual neurogenesis of olfactory neurons is sustained by the existence of neural stem cells (NSCs) in the subependymal niche. Elimination of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor 1A (p21) leads to premature exhaustion of the subependymal NSC pool, suggesting a relationship between cell cycle control and long-term self-renewal, but the molecular mechanisms underlying NSC maintenance by p21 remain unexplored. Here we identify a function of p21 in the direct regulation of the expression of pluripotency factor Sox2, a key regulator of the specification and maintenance of neural progenitors. We observe that p21 directly binds a Sox2 enhancer and negatively regulates Sox2 expression in NSCs. Augmented levels of Sox2 in p21 null cells induce replicative stress and a DNA damage response that leads to cell growth arrest mediated by increased levels of p19(Arf) and p53. Our results show a regulation of NSC expansion driven by a p21/Sox2/p53 axis

Gut microbiota modulation accounts for the neuroprotective properties of anthocyanins

High-fat (HF) diets are thought to disrupt the profile of the gut microbiota in a manner that may contribute to the neuroinflammation and neurobehavioral changes observed in obesity. Accordingly, we hypothesize that by preventing HF-diet induced dysbiosis it is possible to prevent neuroinflammation and the consequent neurological disorders. Anthocyanins are flavonoids found in berries that exhibit anti-neuroinflammatory properties in the context of obesity. Here, we demonstrate that the blackberry anthocyanin-rich extract (BE) can modulate gut microbiota composition and counteract some of the features of HF-diet induced dysbiosis. In addition, we show that the modifications in gut microbial environment are partially linked with the anti-neuroinflammatory properties of BE. Through fecal metabolome analysis, we unravel the mechanism by which BE participates in the bilateral communication between the gut and the brain. BE alters host tryptophan metabolism, increasing the production of the neuroprotective metabolite kynurenic acid. These findings strongly suggest that dietary manipulation of the gut microbiota with anthocyanins can attenuate the neurologic complications of obesity, thus expanding the classification of psychobiotics to anthocyanins

Phenotypic and genotypic monitoring of Schistosoma mansoni in Tanzanian schoolchildren five years into a preventative chemotherapy national control programme

We conducted combined in vitro PZQ efficacy testing with population genetic analyses of S. mansoni collected from children from two schools in 2010, five years after the introduction of a National Control Programme. Children at one school had received four annual PZQ treatments and the other school had received two mass treatments in total. We compared genetic differentiation, indices of genetic diversity, and estimated adult worm burden from parasites collected in 2010 with samples collected in 2005 (before the control programme began) and in 2006 (six months after the first PZQ treatment). Using 2010 larval samples, we also compared the genetic similarity of those with high and low in vitro sensitivity to PZQ

Flavor of quiver-like realizations of effective supersymmetry

We present a class of supersymmetric models which address the flavor puzzle and have an inverted hierarchy of sfermions. Their construction involves quiver-like models with link fields in generic representations. The magnitude of Standard-Model parameters is obtained naturally and a relatively heavy Higgs boson is allowed without fine tuning. Collider signatures of such models are possibly within the reach of LHC in the near future.Comment: LaTeX, 17 pages, 3 figures. V2: reference adde

Extensive Copy-Number Variation of Young Genes across Stickleback Populations

MM received funding from the Max Planck innovation funds for this project. PGDF was supported by a Marie Curie European Reintegration Grant (proposal nr 270891). CE was supported by German Science Foundation grants (DFG, EI 841/4-1 and EI 841/6-1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

A new insight for monitoring ungulates : density surface modelling of roe deer in a Mediterranean habitat

We would like to thank the University of Aveiro (Department of Biology) and FCT/MEC for the financial support to CESAM RU (UID/AMB/50017) through national funds and, where applicable, co-financed by the FEDER, within the PT2020 Partnership Agreement. TAM is partially funded by FCT, Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal, through the project UID/MAT/00006/2013.Ungulates are especially difficult to monitor, and population estimates are challenging to obtain; nevertheless, such information is fundamental for effective management. This is particularly important for expanding species such as roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), whose populations dramatically increased in number and geographic distribution over the last decades. In an attempt to follow population trends and assess species ecology, important methodological advances were recently achieved by combining line or point sampling with geographic information systems (GIS). In this study, we combined density surface modelling (DSM) with line transect survey to predict roe deer density in northeastern Portugal. This was based on modelling pellet group counts as a function of environmental factors while taking into account the probability of detecting pellets and conversion factors to relate pellet density to animal density. We estimated a global density of 3.01 animals/100 ha (95 % CI 0.37–3.51) with a 32.82 % CV. Roe deer densities increased with increasing distance to roads as well as with higher percentage of cover areas and decreased with increasing distance to human populations. This recently developed spatial method can be advantageous to predict density over space through the identification of key factors influencing species abundance. Furthermore, surface maps for subset areas will enable to visually depict abundance distribution of wild populations. This will enable the assessment of areas where ungulate impacts should be minimized, allowing an adaptive management through time.PostprintPeer reviewe