Reasons for (Non)Participating in a Telephone-Based Intervention Program for Families with Overweight Children

Willingness to participate in obesity prevention programs is low; underlying reasons are poorly understood. We evaluated reasons for (non)participating in a novel telephone-based obesity prevention program for overweight children and their families. percentile) aged 3.5–17.4 years were screened via the CrescNet database, a representative cohort of German children, and program participation (repetitive computer aided telephone counseling) was offered by their local pediatrician. Identical questionnaires to collect baseline data on anthropometrics, lifestyle, eating habits, sociodemographic and psychosocial parameters were analyzed from 433 families (241 participants, 192 nonparticipants). Univariate analyses and binary logistic regression were used to identify factors associated with nonparticipation. percentile) was higher in participants (58.9% vs.38%,p<0.001). Participating girls were younger than boys (8.8 vs.10.4 years, p<0.001). 87.3% and 40% of participants, but only 72.2% and 24.7% of nonparticipants, respectively, reported to have regular breakfasts (p = 0.008) and 5 regular daily meals (p = 0.003). Nonparticipants had a lower household-net-income (p<0.001), but higher subjective physical wellbeing than participants (p = 0.018) and believed that changes in lifestyle can be made easily (p = 0.05).An important reason for nonparticipation was non-awareness of their child's weight status by parents. Nonparticipants, who were often low-income families, believed that they already perform a healthy lifestyle and had a higher subjective wellbeing. We hypothesize that even a low-threshold intervention program does not reach the families who really need it

HLA DR AND DQ RFLP ANALYSIS IN CROHN'S DISEASE

A study of 109 Swedish patients and 85 healthy Swedish controls with Crohn's disease (CD) by HLA class II RFLP genotyping was carried out. There was no significant association for any single DR or DQ specificity or phenotypic combination of DR and/or DO specificities among our study group of Caucasian extraction

Emergence and persistence of diversity in complex networks

Complex networks are employed as a mathematical description of complex systems in many different fields, ranging from biology to sociology, economy and ecology. Dynamical processes in these systems often display phase transitions, where the dynamics of the system changes qualitatively. In combination with these phase transitions certain components of the system might irretrievably go extinct. In this case, we talk about absorbing transitions. Developing mathematical tools, which allow for an analysis and prediction of the observed phase transitions is crucial for the investigation of complex networks. In this thesis, we investigate absorbing transitions in dynamical networks, where a certain amount of diversity is lost. In some real-world examples, e.g. in the evolution of human societies or of ecological systems, it is desirable to maintain a high degree of diversity, whereas in others, e.g. in epidemic spreading, the diversity of diseases is worthwhile to confine. An understanding of the underlying mechanisms for emergence and persistence of diversity in complex systems is therefore essential. Within the scope of two different network models, we develop an analytical approach, which can be used to estimate the prerequisites for diversity. In the first part, we study a model for opinion formation in human societies. In this model, regimes of low diversity and regimes of high diversity are separated by a fragmentation transition, where the network breaks into disconnected components, corresponding to different opinions. We propose an approach for the estimation of the fragmentation point. The approach is based on a linear stability analysis of the fragmented state close to the phase transition and yields much more accurate results compared to conventional methods. In the second part, we study a model for the formation of complex food webs. We calculate and analyze coexistence conditions for several types of species in ecological communities. To this aim, we employ an approach which involves an iterative stability analysis of the equilibrium with respect to the arrival of a new species. The proposed formalism allows for a direct calculation of coexistence ranges and thus facilitates a systematic analysis of persistence conditions for food webs. In summary, we present a general mathematical framework for the calculation of absorbing phase transitions in complex networks, which is based on concepts from percolation theory. While the specific implementation of the formalism differs from model to model, the basic principle remains applicable to a wide range of different models