Policy in perspective: Assessing the relationship between malnourishment in children and school meal legislation since the early 20th Century

Malnourishment in children has been a cause of governmental concern for over a century. However, the nature of malnourishment has shifted during the 20th Century. Around the time of the Boer War there were concerns that children were not receiving sufficient nutrition which caused under-nourishment whereas today the concern is related to the opposite end of the malnourishment spectrum with increasing numbers of children suffering from over-nourishment. In the early 20th Century the government introduced legislation to allow Local Education Authorities to provide school meals to under-nourished children in order to prevent associated malaise and allow them to benefit from the education they were receiving. School meal legislation has been altered and amended over the course of a century to shape our children’s bodies and minds. This thesis analyses whether government policies for school meals have, since their introduction in 1906 in England, had a genuine impact (either positive or negative) on observed, longitudinal changes in childhood nutrition. The thesis assesses a series of cross-sectional data for children’s height and weight collected in the UK from 1908 to the present in order to estimate changes in malnutrition (including underweight, overweight, and obesity) for UK children. This quantitative analysis is contextualised with qualitative data on the development of legislation relating to school meals and interviews/focus groups with school cooks in an attempt to identify potential relationships. The thesis discusses observed fluctuations in the nutritional status of children in relation to the changes in government legislation on school meals and contextualises the findings with the wider literature. The findings suggest that fluctuations in child malnourishment are not easily attributed to changes in one category of government legislation. However, when placed into the context of wider sociological changes the increasing prevalence of childhood obesity seen from the mid-1980s appears to be strongly associated with changes in government welfare provision, of which the school meal forms a small part. Moreover, this thesis suggests that contemporary associations between low socio-economic status and overweight and obesity prevalence may not have manifested until after 1994. Children who received a free school meal between 1972 and 1994 had, on average, a lower body mass index (BMI) Z-score than children who had a paid school meal, had a packed lunch or went home. Additionally, there were strong relationships between low BMI Z-score and parent’s social class. Overweight and obesity in children rose sharply from the mid-1980s onwards during a period of legislative changes which, according to school cooks, significantly affected the quality of school meals. However, it was not possible to directly attribute these rises to the changes in school meal legislation. Although the school meal has been used as a tool for governing child malnourishment it is not possible to untangle rises in obesity and overweight from wider sociological phenomena which may have also influenced these increases. This thesis suggests that while legislation for school meals may be protective against under-nourishment in children it is currently unclear to what extent this affects childhood obesity

Prevalence of gambling disorder among prisoners: a systematic review

This article presents the first systematic review of studies on the prevalence of gambling disorder among prisoners across international jurisdictions. Only original studies that were published in English and employed reliable and valid screening tools are included in this analysis. The review finds that rates of problem or pathological gambling in prison populations are highly variable, ranging from 5.9% to 73% of male and female inmates surveyed. Nevertheless, recorded rates of problem and pathological gambling among inmates are consistently and significantly higher than rates of problem and pathological gambling recorded among the general population. The review indicates that the institution of problem gambling treatment programmes in carceral settings is necessary, to aid community re-entry and reduce the likelihood of re-offending. Moreover, it is suggested that the screening of inmates should become standard practice across penal institutions and other criminal justice organisations, with a view to better addressing the needs of offenders

Liquid biopsy in pancreatic cancer: Are we ready to apply it in the clinical practice?

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) exhibits the poorest prognosis of all solid tumors, with a 5-year survival of less than 10%. To improve the prognosis, it is necessary to advance in the development of tools that help us in the early diagnosis, treatment selection, disease monitoring, evaluation of the response and prognosis. Liquid biopsy (LB), in its different modalities, represents a particularly interesting tool for these purposes, since it is a minimally invasive and risk-free procedure that can detect both the presence of genetic material from the tumor and circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the blood and therefore distantly reflect the global status of the disease. In this work we review the current status of the main LB modalities (ctDNA, exosomes, CTCs and cfRNAs) for detecting and monitoring PDA

Pathways to digital skills development for Latino workers

UpSkill America — an initiative of the Economic Opportunities Program — and the Latinos and Society Program at the Aspen Institute, with support from Google.org, launched the Digital Skills and the Latino Workforce research project to better understand the challenges and opportunities that Latino workers and Latino business owners face to succeed in the digital economy. This report presents findings from a nationwide survey and in-depth interviews with employers of Latino frontline workers and workforce development organizations. The publication also identifies promising business practices and ecosystem approaches to developing the digital skills of the Latino workforce. Finally, the report concludes with a call-to-action for employers and workforce organizations to get involved in the planning process around the Digital Equity Act programs, to start in Summer 2022

Síntesis y caracterización de un biomaterial para su uso en ingeniería de tejidos de piel

La ingeniería de tejidos constituye una disciplina relativamente nueva y un campo de investigación y desarrollo interdisciplinario que aplica los conocimientos de la bioingeniería, química, física, biología etc. para resolver problemas químicos y quirúrgicos asociados a la pérdida de tejido o al fallo funcional de órganos (San Román et al., 2000; Naderi et al., 2011). Esta área de conocimiento busca proporcionar una nueva solución a los problemas de daño o pérdida tisular, mediante el reemplazo o restauración de tejido. Más aún se aspira a recobrar la función de un órgano y en algunos casos su reconstrucción parcial o total, con estructuras que contengan poblaciones específicas de células. La meta fundamental de la ingeniería de tejidos es desarrollar sustitutos (biológicos o sintéticos) que restauren, mantengan o mejoren la función del tejido perdido o lesionado por trauma o enfermedad. (Marler et al., 1998; Landínez et al., 2010). Esta nueva área de estudio permitirá crear estrategias que permitan la sustitución del tejido dañado, por un tejido diseñado y construido para satisfacer las funciones y las necesidades de cada paciente

The Effect of Timing and Type of Exercise on the Quality of Sleep in Trained Individuals

International Journal of Exercise Science 13(7): 837-858, 2020. Sleep is an extremely important component for overall health and for a well-balanced training program. Recent studies have highlighted the interaction between sleep, recovery, and performance in elite and recreational athletes alike. Exercise has been known to affect the quality of sleep, nevertheless the impact is not well understood in the current research, particularly the effects of exercise timing and intensity on sleep quality. The purpose of this study was to understand if exercise timing and intensity significantly impact sleep quality among recreational exercisers. The participants involved were recreational exercisers who were self-grouped into an AM or PM exercise group. They participated in a seven-day quantitative, quasi-experimental, exploratory study wearing an Actigraph watch. The participant’s intensity was also self-grouped into moderate intensity or high intensity based on criteria cut points. Data was analyzed using a factorial ANOVA to examine if there was a significant difference between exercise timing and intensity on sleep quality of the participants. There were no significant differences in sleep quality in either the time group (AM vs PM) or the intensity group (MOD vs VIG) within the four measures of sleep that were looked at throughout this study; total sleep time, sleep onset latency, sleep efficiency % and wake after sleep onset (TST, SOL, SE, and WASO). Results within both, the AM and PM group and the MOD and VIG group, results showed no significant differences. These results conclude that neither exercise intensity or timing had an effect on sleep quality

El cine regional en el Perú

Se expone un panorama del llamado cine regional en el Perú. Se señalan las causas de su aparición; se describe el perfi l del cineasta regional; se explica el sistema de producción, realización, distribución y exhibición de las películas regionales; se analizan los principales géneros abordados por los cineastas regionales, y se mencionan algunas de las películas más importantes de cada género, así como los modos narrativos, la dramaturgia y el lenguaje audiovisual empleado en los filmes. Por último, se reseña el apoyo institucional brindado al cine regional, en especial de parte de Estado a través de los concursos convocados primero por Conacine y después por el Ministerio de Cultura

Alterations in the glycan profile of mouse transferrin: new insights in collagen-​induced arthritis

Transferrin purification from mice serum samples by immunoaffinity chromatography (IAC) was optimized in order to study the possible modifications occurred in its glycans in collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) samples. SDS-PAGE and nanoLC-MS/MS were used to monitor the IAC purification performance. Afterwards, a relative quantification of mouse transferrin (mTf) glycan isomers using [12C6]/[13C6]-aniline was used to unequivocally detect alterations in the glycan profile of CIA mice. In addition, multivariate data analysis was applied to identify the most meaningful glycan isomers for the discrimination between control and pathological samples. Partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) revealed that five out of fifteen mTf glycan isomers could be potential biomarkers of CIA, most of them corresponding to highly sialylated structures (H6N5S3_2, H6N5S3_3 and H5N4S3_2). Moreover, some of these glycan isomers also seemed to be related with the progression of CIA, especially H6N5S2 and H6N5S3_2, as their overexpression increased with the clinical score of the pathology. Hence, the established methodology provides valuable information to find glycan-based biomarkers of CIA, but also leaves the door open to evaluate, in the future, glycosylation changes of many other inflammatory diseases, in which transferrin has been described to be altered