Health literacy as an opportunity?:Adaptation and implementation of interventions to promote healthy lifestyle behaviours and food environments

The prevalence of people with overweight or obesity is continually increasing worldwide. This high prevalence is an important public health issue, both for individuals as well as society as a whole. The complex problems associated with overweight and obesity relate to individual and environmental factors. Unhealthy dietary patterns and physical inactivity may result in an individual’s energy intake continuously exceeding their energy expenditure, increasing their risk of becoming overweight or obese. Environments that influence these lifestyle behaviours also may play an important role in improving such behaviours. At the societal level, the obesogenic food environment plays an important role and at the individual level, people’s food environments at home and at work play an important role in eating patterns. Most adults spend the majority of their time at home or at work. Thus, people may gain most benefit from health promotion interventions focused on healthy lifestyle behaviours and the home and workplace food environment. The starting point of this dissertation is the further development, implementation, and evaluation of two evidence-based health promotion interventions. One intervention is SMARTsize, which focuses on portion control strategies and the home food environment. The other intervention is the Healthy worksite cafeteria, which focuses on the food environment at the workplace. Previous studies on these interventions clearly indicated the need for further development for groups with low socioeconomic position and health literacy levels. Intervention implementation processes and tools should be aligned to this group, relevant settings and stakeholders to increase the intervention’s effectiveness and sustainable implementation. The aim of this dissertation is two-fold: ∙ Aim 1. Further develop the individual lifestyle intervention SMARTsize and Healthy worksite cafeteria intervention towards suitability for adults with low levels of health literacy. This further development is based on three exploratory studies in the work setting. These three studies serve as the stepping stone for aim 2.∙ Aim 2. Implement and evaluate the developed SMARTsize intervention (version 2021) in a real-life setting, among clients in the primary care dietitian practice setting. An additional question arose during the research project based on the studies: How can individuals practically apply the skills for maintaining and improving positive health, especially those adults with a low socioeconomic position who also have limited health literacy? This topic was reflected upon in a perspective paper. The original research goal was to conduct the SMARTsize and Healthy worksite cafeteria interventions in the workplace. This could not be achieved due to COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and social distance requirements. Finally, we introduced and evaluated the further developed SMARTsize intervention in primary care dietitian practices

The Carnival of the Courtroom: Public Moral Argument, Antiwar Protest, and the Chicago Eight Trial

In this project, I examined rhetorical activities of the 1969–1970 Chicago Eight Trial, focusing on discourse from the trial itself (e.g., from the eight defendants, the judge, the lawyers, and the court reports) and discourse occurring outside the trial (e.g., newspaper reports) from 1968 to the present. Because the Chicago Eight Trial played an important role in the discussion of the Vietnam War and the antiwar movement, I sought to interrogate the rhetorical dimensions of the discourse within the trial, in the media coverage of the trial, and among the participants during the trial. This case was situated within the context of antiwar protests in the United States as well as the transformative context of the 1960s, specifically contestations about the Cold War, civil rights, political assassinations, and the military draft. Overall, this project was intended to deepen understanding of how public moral argument, Baktinian carnival, and guerrilla theater functioned in discourses of the Chicago Eight Trial, whose defendants aimed to challenge the dominant sociopolitical culture over the U.S. war in Vietnam. In addition, the Chicago Eight Trial was a prime example of the ways that public moral arguments can be used to disseminate messages about the political, ethical, and social conditions in the United States. Finally, in this project, I sought to understand how the rhetoric involving the Chicago Eight Trial was framed by the defendants and by the media. The project contributes to literature about framing, protest movements, and social change

Nano-enabled bioanalytical approaches to ultrasensitive detection of low abundance single nucleotide polymorphisms

Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) constitute the most common types of genetic variations in the human genome. A number of SNPs have been linked to the development of life threatening diseases including cancer, cardiovascular diseases and neurodegenerative diseases. The ability for ultrasensitive and accurate detection of low abundant disease-related SNPs in bodily fluids (e.g. blood, serum, etc.) holds a significant value in the development of non-invasive future biodiagnostic tools. Over the past two decades, nanomaterials have been utilized in a myriad of biosensing applications due to their ability of detecting extremely low quantities of biologically important biomarkers with high sensitivity and accuracy. Of particular interest is the application of such technologies in the detection of SNPs. The use of various nanomaterials, coupled with different powerful signal amplification strategies, has paved the way for a new generation of ultrasensitive SNP biodiagnostic assays. Over the past few years, several ultrasensitive SNP biosensors capable of detecting specific targets down to the ultra-low regimes (ca. aM and below) and therefore holding great promises for early clinical diagnosis of diseases have been developed. This mini review will highlight some of the most recent, significant advances in nanomaterial-based ultrasensitive SNP sensing technologies capable of detecting specific targets on the attomolar (10-18 M) regime or below. In particular, the design of novel, powerful signal amplification strategies that hold the key to the ultrasensitivity is highlighted

ABITUDINE AL CONSUMO DI LEGUMI IN BAMBINI E ADOLESCENTI: UNO STUDIO TRASVERSALE

Vaillant André. Langues et littératures slaves du Moyen Âge. In: École pratique des hautes études, Section des sciences historiques et philologiques. Annuaire 1950-1951. 1950. pp. 57-58