Practices and values regarding milk consumption among pre-schoolers in Bangkok

Purpose: Thai government agencies and the business sector have been promoting milk consumption. Considering the robust and continual movements by those actors to promote milk consumption among children in Thailand at the national level, this study aims to investigate milk-consumption practices and values towards milk consumption at pre-school, family and individual levels. Methods: This cross-sectional qualitative study employs observation and interview methods, along with the Ecological System Theory as a framework. Data were collected from three kindergartens used by families of varying socio-economic status, and the homes of 18 pre-schoolers, aged 3-5 years old, attending these kindergartens, from October 2013-September 2014. Results: Findings reveal kindergartens implemented daily routines to make children drink milk. Practices at home include (i) overfeeding of milk, (ii) preference for fortified milk and (iii) using sweetness to make children drink milk. These practices were underpinned by values that milk is good for children and good parents feed their children milk. These values, in combination with other macro-level measures such as the government’s milk-promotion campaigns and the milk industry’s marketing, influence the milk-drinking practices of pre-schoolers. Conclusion: The promotion of the benefits of milk prompted children to exceed the recommended milk consumption of 400ml per day. Balanced information on moderation in milk drinking was absent

An agent-based model of the response to angioplasty and bare-metal stent deployment in an atherosclerotic blood vessel

Purpose: While animal models are widely used to investigate the development of restenosis in blood vessels following an intervention, computational models offer another means for investigating this phenomenon. A computational model of the response of a treated vessel would allow investigators to assess the effects of altering certain vessel- and stent-related variables. The authors aimed to develop a novel computational model of restenosis development following an angioplasty and bare-metal stent implantation in an atherosclerotic vessel using agent-based modeling techniques. The presented model is intended to demonstrate the body's response to the intervention and to explore how different vessel geometries or stent arrangements may affect restenosis development. Methods: The model was created on a two-dimensional grid space. It utilizes the post-procedural vessel lumen diameter and stent information as its input parameters. The simulation starting point of the model is an atherosclerotic vessel after an angioplasty and stent implantation procedure. The model subsequently generates the final lumen diameter, percent change in lumen cross-sectional area, time to lumen diameter stabilization, and local concentrations of inflammatory cytokines upon simulation completion. Simulation results were directly compared with the results from serial imaging studies and cytokine levels studies in atherosclerotic patients from the relevant literature. Results: The final lumen diameter results were all within one standard deviation of the mean lumen diameters reported in the comparison studies. The overlapping-stent simulations yielded results that matched published trends. The cytokine levels remained within the range of physiological levels throughout the simulations. Conclusion: We developed a novel computational model that successfully simulated the development of restenosis in a blood vessel following an angioplasty and bare-metal stent deployment based on the characteristics of the vessel crosssection and stent. A further development of this model could ultimately be used as a predictive tool to depict patient outcomes and inform treatment options. © 2014 Curtin, Zhou