3,446 research outputs found
A proposed approach to monitor private-sector policies and practices related to food environments, obesity and non-communicable disease prevention
Private-sector organizations play a critical role in shaping the food environments
of individuals and populations. However, there is currently
very limited independent monitoring of private-sector actions related to
food environments. This paper reviews previous efforts to monitor the
private sector in this area, and outlines a proposed approach to monitor
private-sector policies and practices related to food environments, and
their influence on obesity and non-communicable disease (NCD) prevention.
A step-wise approach to data collection is recommended, in which
the first (âminimalâ) step is the collation of publicly available food and
nutrition-related policies of selected private-sector organizations. The
second (âexpandedâ) step assesses the nutritional composition of each
organizationâs products, their promotions to children, their labelling
practices, and the accessibility, availability and affordability of their
products. The third (âoptimalâ) step includes data on other commercial
activities that may influence food environments, such as political lobbying
and corporate philanthropy. The proposed approach will be further
developed and piloted in countries of varying size and income levels.
There is potential for this approach to enable national and international
benchmarking of private-sector policies and practices, and to inform
efforts to hold the private sector to account for their role in obesity and
NCD prevention
Monitoring the impacts of trade agreements on food environments
The liberalization of international trade and foreign direct investment through
multilateral, regional and bilateral agreements has had profound implications
for the structure and nature of food systems, and therefore, for the availability,
nutritional quality, accessibility, price and promotion of foods in different
locations. Public health attention has only relatively recently turned to the links
between trade and investment agreements, diets and health, and there is currently
no systematic monitoring of this area. This paper reviews the available evidence on the links between trade agreements, food environments and diets from an obesity and non-communicable disease (NCD) perspective. Based on the key issues identified through the review, the paper outlines an approach for monitoring the potential impact of trade agreements on food environments and
obesity/NCD risks. The proposed monitoring approach encompasses a set of guiding principles, recommended procedures for data collection and analysis, and quantifiable âminimalâ, âexpandedâ and âoptimalâ measurement indicators to be tailored to national priorities, capacity and resources. Formal risk assessment processes of existing and evolving trade and investment agreements,
which focus on their impacts on food environments will help inform the development of healthy trade policy, strengthen domestic nutrition and health
policy space and ultimately protect population nutrition.The following organizations provided funding support for the travel of participants
to Italy for this meeting and the preparation of background research papers: The Rockefeller Foundation, International Obesity Taskforce (IOTF), University of
Auckland, Deakin University, The George Institute, University of Sydney, Queensland University of Technology, University
of Oxford, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, World Cancer Research Fund International, University of Toronto, and The Australian National
University. The Faculty of Health at Deakin University kindly supported the costs for open access availability of this paper,
and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Centre for Research Excellence in Obesity Policy and Food Systems (APP1041020) supported the coordination and finalizing of INFORMAS manuscripts
Developability Assessment of Physicochemical Properties and Stability Profiles of HIV-1 BG505 SOSIP.664 and BG505 SOSIP.v4.1-GT1.1 gp140 Envelope Glycoprotein Trimers as Candidate Vaccine Antigens
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.The induction of broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) is a major goal in the development of an effective vaccine against HIV-1. A soluble, trimeric, germline (gI) bNAb-targeting variant of the HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein (termed BG505 SOSIP.v4.1-GT1.1 gp140, abbreviated to GT1.1) has recently been developed. Here, we have compared this new immunogen with the parental trimer from which it was derived, BG505 SOSIP.664 gp140. We used a comprehensive suite of biochemical and biophysical methods to determine physicochemical similarities and differences between the 2 trimers, and thereby assessed whether additional formulation development efforts were needed for the GT1.1 vaccine candidate. The overall higher order structure and oligomeric states of the 2 vaccine antigens were quite similar, as were their thermal, chemical, and colloidal stability profiles, as evaluated during accelerated stability studies. Overall, we conclude that the primary sequence changes made to create the gl bNAb-targeting GT1.1 trimer did not detrimentally affect its physicochemical properties or stability profiles from a pharmaceutical perspective. This developability assessment of the BG505 GT1.1 vaccine antigen supports using the formulation and storage conditions previously identified for the parental SOSIP.664 trimer and enables the development of GT1.1 for phase I clinical studies.Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Development (OPP1147661)Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Development (OPP1153692)NIH HIVRAD grant P01 AI 110657Aids Fonds grant 201601
Monitoring food and non-alcoholic beverage promotions to children
Food and non-alcoholic beverage marketing is recognized as an important factor influencing food choices related to non-communicable diseases. The monitoring of populations\u27 exposure to food and non-alcoholic beverage promotions, and the content of these promotions, is necessary to generate evidence to understand the extent of the problem, and to determine appropriate and effective policy responses. A review of studies measuring the nature and extent of exposure to food promotions was conducted to identify approaches to monitoring food promotions via dominant media platforms. A step-wise approach, comprising \u27minimal\u27, \u27expanded\u27 and \u27optimal\u27 monitoring activities, was designed. This approach can be used to assess the frequency and level of exposure of population groups (especially children) to food promotions, the persuasive power of techniques used in promotional communications (power of promotions) and the nutritional composition of promoted food products. Detailed procedures for data sampling, data collection and data analysis for a range of media types are presented, as well as quantifiable measurement indicators for assessing exposure to and power of food and non-alcoholic beverage promotions. The proposed framework supports the development of a consistent system for monitoring food and non-alcoholic beverage promotions for comparison between countries and over time
A Study of Time-Dependent CP-Violating Asymmetries and Flavor Oscillations in Neutral B Decays at the Upsilon(4S)
We present a measurement of time-dependent CP-violating asymmetries in
neutral B meson decays collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II
asymmetric-energy B Factory at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. The data
sample consists of 29.7 recorded at the
resonance and 3.9 off-resonance. One of the neutral B mesons,
which are produced in pairs at the , is fully reconstructed in
the CP decay modes , , , () and , or in flavor-eigenstate
modes involving and (). The flavor of the other neutral B meson is tagged at the time of
its decay, mainly with the charge of identified leptons and kaons. The proper
time elapsed between the decays is determined by measuring the distance between
the decay vertices. A maximum-likelihood fit to this flavor eigenstate sample
finds . The value of the asymmetry amplitude is determined from
a simultaneous maximum-likelihood fit to the time-difference distribution of
the flavor-eigenstate sample and about 642 tagged decays in the
CP-eigenstate modes. We find , demonstrating that CP violation exists in the neutral B meson
system. (abridged)Comment: 58 pages, 35 figures, submitted to Physical Review
Evidence for the Rare Decay B -> K*ll and Measurement of the B -> Kll Branching Fraction
We present evidence for the flavor-changing neutral current decay and a measurement of the branching fraction for the related
process , where is either an or
pair. These decays are highly suppressed in the Standard Model,
and they are sensitive to contributions from new particles in the intermediate
state. The data sample comprises
decays collected with the Babar detector at the PEP-II storage ring.
Averaging over isospin and lepton flavor, we obtain the branching
fractions and , where the
uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively. The significance of
the signal is over , while for it is .Comment: 7 pages, 2 postscript figues, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
Measurement of the Branching Fraction for B- --> D0 K*-
We present a measurement of the branching fraction for the decay B- --> D0
K*- using a sample of approximately 86 million BBbar pairs collected by the
BaBar detector from e+e- collisions near the Y(4S) resonance. The D0 is
detected through its decays to K- pi+, K- pi+ pi0 and K- pi+ pi- pi+, and the
K*- through its decay to K0S pi-. We measure the branching fraction to be
B.F.(B- --> D0 K*-)= (6.3 +/- 0.7(stat.) +/- 0.5(syst.)) x 10^{-4}.Comment: 7 pages, 1 postscript figure, submitted to Phys. Rev. D (Rapid
Communications
Journal Staff
We present the first measurements of the differential cross section d sigma/dp(T)(gamma) for the production of an isolated photon in association with at least two b-quark jets. The measurements consider photons with rapidities vertical bar y(gamma)vertical bar < 1.0 and transverse momenta 30 < p(T)(gamma) < 200 GeV. The b-quark jets are required to have p(T)(jet) > 15 GeVand vertical bar y(jet)vertical bar < 1.5. The ratio of differential production cross sections for gamma + 2 b-jets to gamma + b-jet as a function of p(T)(gamma) is also presented. The results are based on the proton-antiproton collision data at root s = 1.96 TeV collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. The measured cross sections and their ratios are compared to the next- to- leading order perturbative QCD calculations as well as predictions based on the k(T)- factorization approach and those from the sherpa and pythia Monte Carlo event generators
Measurement of Leptonic Asymmetries and Top Quark Polarization in ttbar Production
We present measurements of lepton (l) angular distributions in ttbar -> W+ b
W- b -> l+ nu b l- nubar bbar decays produced in ppbar collisions at a
center-of-mass energy of sqrt(s)=1.96TeV, where l is an electron or muon. Using
data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.4fb^-1, collected with the
D0 detector at the Fermilab Collider, we find that the angular distributions of
l- relative to anti-protons and l+ relative to protons are in agreement with
each other. Combining the two distributions and correcting for detector
acceptance we obtain the forward-backward asymmetry A^l_FB = (5.8 +- 5.1(stat)
+- 1.3(syst))%, compared to the standard model prediction of A^l_FB (predicted)
= (4.7 +- 0.1)%. This result is further combined with the measurement based on
the analysis of the l+jets final state to obtain A^l_FB = (11.8 +- 3.2)%.
Furthermore, we present a first study of the top-quark polarization.Comment: submitted versio
Measurement of the semileptonic charge asymmetry in B0 meson mixing with the D0 detector
We present a measurement of the semileptonic mixing asymmetry for B0 mesons,
a^d_{sl}, using two independent decay channels: B0 -> mu+D-X, with D- ->
K+pi-pi-; and B0 -> mu+D*-X, with D*- -> antiD0 pi-, antiD0 -> K+pi- (and
charge conjugate processes). We use a data sample corresponding to 10.4 fb^{-1}
of ppbar collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV, collected with the D0 experiment at
the Fermilab Tevatron collider. We extract the charge asymmetries in these two
channels as a function of the visible proper decay length (VPDL) of the B0
meson, correct for detector-related asymmetries using data-driven methods, and
account for dilution from charge-symmetric processes using Monte Carlo
simulation. The final measurement combines four signal VPDL regions for each
channel, yielding a^d_{sl} = [0.68 \pm 0.45 \text{(stat.)} \pm 0.14
\text{(syst.)}]%. This is the single most precise measurement of this
parameter, with uncertainties smaller than the current world average of B
factory measurements.Comment: Version includes minor textual changes following peer review by
journal, most notably the updating of Ref. [21] to reflect the most recent
publicatio
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