Intuitive Eating Behaviors among a Sample of Food Secure and Food Insecure College Students

Intuitive Eating (IE) is a food mindset focusing on honoring hunger and fullness, while rejecting the diet mentality. Research demonstrates a clear link between IE and health outcomes across many populations, including college students. Despite a growing body of literature, we still know very little about what complexities food insecurity may present for individuals trying to adopt IE behaviors. This study builds off prior research to investigate IE behaviors in food insecure and food secure students through a Qualtrics survey utilizing the Intuitive Eating Scale-2 (IES-2) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Six-Item Short Form to determine food security status. The data for this study was collected at a public, 4-year comprehensive university in the Midwest and included 47 respondents, 70% of whom identified some level of food insecurity. The mean IES-2 score for this sample was 3.23 (SD = 0.44), which aligns with previous research in this population. When disaggregated by food security status this data indicated, however, that for those with very low food security (answering positively on 3+ USDA screening questions), the ability to practice IE may be impacted by food insecurity with a mean IES-2 score of 2.91 in that subgroup. Further research will be needed to broaden the sample and assess other conditions effecting food security such as housing security, race, and gender identity

Texture-based estimation of physical characteristics of sand grains

The common occurrence and transportability of quartz sand grains make them useful for forensic analysis, providing that grains can be accurately and consistently designated into prespecified types. Recent advances in the analysis of surface texture features found in scanning electron microscopy images of such grains have advanced this process. However, this requires expert knowledge that is not only time intensive, but also rare, meaning that automation is a highly attractive prospect if it were possible to achieve good levels of performance. Basic Image Feature Columns (BIF Columns), which use local symmetry type to produce a highly invariant yet distinctive encoding, have shown leading performance in standard texture recognition tasks used in computer vision. However, the system has not previously been tested on a real world problem. Here we demonstrate that the BIF Column system offers a simple yet effective solution to grain classification using surface texture. In a two class problem, where human level performance is expected to be perfect, the system classifies all but one grain from a sample of 88 correctly. In a harder task, where expert human performance is expected to be significantly less than perfect, our system achieves a correct classification rate of over 80%, with clear indications that performance can be improved if a larger dataset were available. Furthermore, very little tuning or adaptation has been necessary to achieve these results giving cause for optimism in the general applicability of this system to other texture classification problems in forensic analysis

A Comparison of Thresholding Methods for Forensic Reconstruction Studies Using Fluorescent Powder Proxies for Trace Materials

Image segmentation is a fundamental precursor to quantitative image analysis. At present, no standardised methodology exists for segmenting images of fluorescent proxies for trace evidence. Experiments evaluated (i) whether manual segmentation is reproducible within and between examiners (with three participants repeatedly tracing three images) (ii) whether manually defining a threshold level offers accurate and reproducible results (with 20 examiners segmenting 10 images), and (iii) whether a global thresholding algorithm might perform with similar accuracy, while offering improved reproducibility and efficiency (16 algorithms tested). Statistically significant differences were seen between examiners' traced outputs. Manually thresholding produced good accuracy on average (within ±1% of the expected values), but poor reproducibility (with multiple outliers). Three algorithms (Yen, MaxEntropy, and RenyiEntropy) offered similar accuracy, with improved reproducibility and efficiency. Together, these findings suggest that appropriate algorithms could perform thresholding tasks as part of a robust workflow for reconstruction studies employing fluorescent proxies for trace evidence

Mechanistic insights of epithelial protein lost in neoplasm in prostate cancer metastasis

EPLIN is frequently downregulated or lost in various cancers. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the importance of EPLIN in prostate cancer progression, with particular focus on the mechanistic implications to elucidate EPLIN's tumour suppressive function in cancer. EPLIN expression was evaluated in prostate cancer cell lines and tissues. PC‐3 and LNCaP EPLINα overexpression models were generated through transfection with EPLINα sequence and EPLIN knockdown was achieved using shRNA in CA‐HPV‐10 cells. Functional assays were performed to evaluate cellular characteristics and potential mechanisms were evaluated using a protein microarray, and validated using western blot analysis. EPLIN expression was reduced in clinical prostate cancer sections, including hyperplasia (p≤0.001) and adenocarcinoma (p=0.005), when compared to normal prostate tissue. EPLINα overexpression reduced cell growth, migration and invasion, and influenced transcript, protein and phosphoprotein expression of paxillin, FAK and Src. EPLIN knockdown increased the invasive and migratory nature of CA‐HPV‐10 cells and also induced changes to FAK and Src total and/or phospho expression. Functional characterisation of cellular migration and invasion in addition to FAK and Src inhibition demonstrated differential effects between control and EPLINα overexpression and EPLIN knockdown cell lines. This study highlights that EPLIN expression in prostate cancer is able to influence several aspects of cancer cell characteristics, including cell growth, migration and invasion. The mechanism of the tumour suppressive action of EPLIN remains to be fully elucidated; and this study proposes a role for EPLIN's ability to regulate the aggressive characteristics of prostate cancer cells partially through regulating FAK/Src signalling

Transplantation for renal failure secondary to enteric hyperoxaluria: a case report

Enteric hyperoxaluria can lead to renal failure. There have only been a few reports of renal transplantation as treatment of endstage renal disease secondary to enteric hyperoxaluria and results have been mixed. This report describes a patient with Crohn's disease who developed chronic renal failure from enteric hyperoxaluria. He subsequently had a successful renal transplant without any post-operative oxalate related complications and has satisfactory renal function almost three years later. Aggressive pre-transplant hemodialysis was not done. The literature associated with renal transplantation for enteric hyperoxaluria is reviewed

ProSAAS-Derived Peptides are Colocalized with Neuropeptide Y and Function as Neuropeptides in the Regulation of Food Intake

ProSAAS is the precursor of a number of peptides that have been proposed to function as neuropeptides. Because proSAAS mRNA is highly expressed in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus, we examined the cellular localization of several proSAAS-derived peptides in the mouse hypothalamus and found that they generally colocalized with neuropeptide Y (NPY), but not α-melanocyte stimulating hormone. However, unlike proNPY mRNA, which is upregulated by food deprivation in the mediobasal hypothalamus, neither proSAAS mRNA nor proSAAS-derived peptides were significantly altered by 1–2 days of food deprivation in wild-type mice. Furthermore, while proSAAS mRNA levels in the mediobasal hypothalamus were significantly lower in Cpefat/fat mice as compared to wild-type littermates, proNPY mRNA levels in the mediobasal hypothalamus and in other subregions of the hypothalamus were not significantly different between wild-type and Cpefat/fat mice. Intracerebroventricular injections of antibodies to two proSAAS-derived peptides (big LEN and PEN) significantly reduced food intake in fasted mice, while injections of antibodies to two other proSAAS-derived peptides (little LEN and little SAAS) did not. Whole-cell patch clamp recordings of parvocellular neurons in the hypothalamic paraventricular nucleus, a target of arcuate NPY projections, showed that big LEN produced a rapid and reversible inhibition of synaptic glutamate release that was spike independent and abolished by blocking postsynaptic G protein activity, suggesting the involvement of a postsynaptic G protein-coupled receptor and the release of a retrograde synaptic messenger. Taken together with previous studies, these findings support a role for proSAAS-derived peptides such as big LEN as neuropeptides regulating food intake