Increasing vegetable intakes: rationale and systematic review of published interventions

Purpose While the health benefits of a high fruit and vegetable consumption are well known and considerable work has attempted to improve intakes, increasing evidence also recognises a distinction between fruit and vegetables, both in their impacts on health and in consumption patterns. Increasing work suggests health benefits from a high consumption specifically of vegetables, yet intakes remain low, and barriers to increasing intakes are prevalent making intervention difficult. A systematic review was undertaken to identify from the published literature all studies reporting an intervention to increase intakes of vegetables as a distinct food group. Methods Databases—PubMed, PsychInfo and Medline—were searched over all years of records until April 2015 using pre-specified terms. Results Our searches identified 77 studies, detailing 140 interventions, of which 133 (81 %) interventions were conducted in children. Interventions aimed to use or change hedonic factors, such as taste, liking and familiarity (n = 72), use or change environmental factors (n = 39), use or change cognitive factors (n = 19), or a combination of strategies (n = 10). Increased vegetable acceptance, selection and/or consumption were reported to some degree in 116 (83 %) interventions, but the majority of effects seem small and inconsistent. Conclusions Greater percent success is currently found from environmental, educational and multi-component interventions, but publication bias is likely, and long-term effects and cost-effectiveness are rarely considered. A focus on long-term benefits and sustained behaviour change is required. Certain population groups are also noticeably absent from the current list of tried interventions

The persistent shadow of the supermassive black hole of M 87

In April 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration reported the first-ever event-horizon-scale images of a black hole, resolving the central compact radio source in the giant elliptical galaxy M 87. These images reveal a ring with a southerly brightness distribution and a diameter of ∼42 μas, consistent with the predicted size and shape of a shadow produced by the gravitationally lensed emission around a supermassive black hole. These results were obtained as part of the April 2017 EHT observation campaign, using a global very long baseline interferometric radio array operating at a wavelength of 1.3 mm. Here, we present results based on the second EHT observing campaign, taking place in April 2018 with an improved array, wider frequency coverage, and increased bandwidth. In particular, the additional baselines provided by the Greenland telescope improved the coverage of the array. Multiyear EHT observations provide independent snapshots of the horizon-scale emission, allowing us to confirm the persistence, size, and shape of the black hole shadow, and constrain the intrinsic structural variability of the accretion flow. We have confirmed the presence of an asymmetric ring structure, brighter in the southwest, with a median diameter of 43.3−3.1+1.5 μas. The diameter of the 2018 ring is remarkably consistent with the diameter obtained from the previous 2017 observations. On the other hand, the position angle of the brightness asymmetry in 2018 is shifted by about 30° relative to 2017. The perennial persistence of the ring and its diameter robustly support the interpretation that the ring is formed by lensed emission surrounding a Kerr black hole with a mass ∼6.5 × 109 M⊙. The significant change in the ring brightness asymmetry implies a spin axis that is more consistent with the position angle of the large-scale jet

Mathematical Classification of Tight Junction Protein Images

We present the rationale for the development of mathematical features used for classification of images stained for selected tight junction proteins. The project examined localization of zonula occludens-1, claudin-1 and F-actin in a model epithelium, Madin-Darby canine kidney II cells. Cytochalasin D exposure was used to perturb junctional localization by actin cytoskeleton disruption. Mathematical features were extracted from images to reliably reveal characteristic information of the pattern of protein localization. Features, such as neighborhood standard deviation, gradient of pixel intensity measurement and conditional probability, provided meaningful information to classify complex image sets. The newly developed mathematical features were used as input to train a neural network that provided a robust method of individual image classification. The ability for researchers to make determinations concerning image classification while minimizing human bias is an important advancement for the field of tight junction cellular biology

Foliar, soil, litter, and chlorin data on carbon, nitrogen, and isotopes from a Hawaiian climosequence

δ15N of abundant chlorins (pheophytin a) and bulk material from leaves, litter, and soil across four sites of a precipitation gradient on leeward Kohala volcano, Hawaii

Reduced Energy Expenditure and Increased Inflammation Are Early Events in the Development of Ovariectomy-Induced Obesity

Menopause, an age-related loss of ovarian hormone production, promotes increased adiposity and insulin resistance. However, the diet-independent mechanism by which loss of ovarian function promotes increased adipose tissue mass and associated metabolic pathologies remains unclear. To address this question, we monitored food intake and weight gain of ovariectomized (OVX) mice and sham OVX (SHM) mice for 12 wk. Although food intake was similar, OVX mice gained 25% more weight than SHM mice. Moreover, the OVX mice accumulated 4.7- and 4.4-fold more perigonadal and inguinal adipose tissue by weight, respectively, with 4.4-fold (perigonadal, P < 0.001) and 5.3-fold (inguinal, P < 0.01) larger adipocytes and no change in adipocyte cell number. OVX-induced adiposity was coincident with an 18% decrease in metabolic rate during the dark phase (P = 0.001) as well as an 11% decrease during the light phase (P = 0.03). In addition, ambulatory activity levels of OVX mice were decreased only during the dark phase (40%, P = 0.008). OVX mice displayed evidence of immune infiltration and inflammation in adipose tissue, because perigonadal and inguinal adipose depots from OVX mice had increased expression of TNFα, iNOS, CD11c, and other hallmarks of adipose tissue inflammation. In contrast, expression of the T cell marker CD3 (3.5-fold, P = 0.03) and Th1 cytokine interferon-γ (IFNγ) (2.6-fold, P = 0.02) were elevated in perigonadal but not sc fat. Finally, histology revealed OVX-specific liver hepatic steatosis, coincident with increased PPARγ gene expression and downstream lipogenic gene expression. In summary, OVX in mice decreases energy expenditure, without altering energy intake, resulting in adipocyte hypertrophy, adipose tissue inflammation, and hepatic steatosis