The role of the family in resettlement

This practitioner’s guide unpicks different interpretations of ‘family’. It explores the family’s unique position to fulfil key characteristics that research has shown are associated with effective resettlement support. It highlights recommendations and considerations that can be adopted into the practices of those working with young people and their families. As well as outlining various ways that families can help with personal and structural support, the guide also provides tips for successfully engaging with family members and sets out ways of overcoming the challenges that exist to unlocking this important resource

Free-living dietary intake in tactical personnel and implications for nutrition practice: a systematic review

Tactical personnel (including military, law enforcement, and fire and rescue) are responsible for ensuring national and public safety. Dietary intake is an important consideration to support optimal health and performance. The aims of this systematic review were to: (1) describe the reported free-living dietary intake (energy and macronutrients) of tactical personnel, and (2) describe the practical implications of reported dietary intakes to support the physical and dietary requirements of tactical personnel. A systematic search of databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL and Web of Science) was conducted following the PRISMA guidelines. English and full text research articles were identified and screened against inclusion and exclusion criteria. Demographic and dietary intake data were extracted, tabulated, and synthesized narratively. The quality of the studies was assessed using the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Quality Criteria Checklist. Twenty-two studies (15 military, 4 law enforcement, and 2 fire and rescue) were eligible to inform this review. The volume of evidence suggested that tactical personnel met dietary protein and exceeded dietary fat recommendations but failed to meet energy and carbohydrate recommendations. Therefore, practical approaches to support optimized energy, fat and carbohydrate intake in tactical personnel is important

Penetrance and expressivity of mitochondrial variants in a large clinically unselected population

\ua9 The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press. Whole genome sequencing (WGS) from large clinically unselected cohorts provides a unique opportunity to assess the penetrance and expressivity of rare and/or known pathogenic mitochondrial variants in population. Using WGS from 179 862 clinically unselected individuals from the UK Biobank, we performed extensive single and rare variant aggregation association analyses of 15 881 mtDNA variants and 73 known pathogenic variants with 15 mitochondrial disease-relevant phenotypes. We identified 12 homoplasmic and one heteroplasmic variant (m.3243A>G) with genome-wide significant associations in our clinically unselected cohort. Heteroplasmic m.3243A>G (MAF = 0.0002, a known pathogenic variant) was associated with diabetes, deafness and heart failure and 12 homoplasmic variants increased aspartate aminotransferase levels including three low-frequency variants (MAF ~0.002 and beta~0.3 SD). Most pathogenic mitochondrial disease variants (n = 66/74) were rare in the population (<1:9000). Aggregated or single variant analysis of pathogenic variants showed low penetrance in unselected settings for the relevant phenotypes, except m.3243A>G. Multi-system disease risk and penetrance of diabetes, deafness and heart failure greatly increased with m.3243A>G level ≥ 10%. The odds ratio of these traits increased from 5.61, 12.3 and 10.1 to 25.1, 55.0 and 39.5, respectively. Diabetes risk with m.3243A>G was further influenced by type 2 diabetes genetic risk. Our study of mitochondrial variation in a large-unselected population identified novel associations and demonstrated that pathogenic mitochondrial variants have lower penetrance in clinically unselected settings. m.3243A>G was an exception at higher heteroplasmy showing a significant impact on health making it a good candidate for incidental reporting

Genetic and environmental influences on fruit and vegetable consumption and depression in older adults

Background: Prior work suggests that higher fruit and vegetable consumption may protect against depression in older adults. Better understanding of the influence of genetic and environmental factors on fruit and vegetable intakes may lead to the design of more effective dietary strategies to increase intakes. In turn this may reduce the occurrence of depression in older adults. Objectives: The primary aim of this study is to estimate the genetic and environmental influences on the consumption of fruit and vegetables in older adults. The secondary aim is an exploratory analysis into possible shared genetic influences on fruit and vegetable intakes and depression. Methods: Analysis of observational data from 374 twins (67.1% female; 208 monozygotic (MZ); 166 dizygotic (DZ)) aged ≥ 65 years drawn from the Older Australian Twins Study. Dietary data were obtained using a validated food frequency questionnaire and depressive symptoms were measured using the 15-item short form Geriatric Depression Scale. The contribution of genetic and environmental influences on fruit and vegetable intake were estimated by comparing MZ and DZ twin intakes using structural equation modelling. A tri-variate twin model was used to estimate the genetic and environmental correlation between total fruit and vegetable intakes and depression. Results: In this study, vegetable intake was moderately influenced by genetics (0.39 95%CI 0.22, 0.54). Heritability was highest for brassica vegetables (0.40 95%CI 0.24, 0.54). Overall fruit intake was not significantly heritable. No significant genetic correlations were detected between fruit and vegetable intake and depressive symptoms. Conclusions: Vegetable consumption, particularly bitter tasting brassica vegetables, was significantly influenced by genetics, although environmental influences were also apparent. Consumption of fruit was only influenced by the environment, with no genetic influence detected, suggesting strategies targeting the food environment may be particularly effective for encouraging fruit consumption

The impact of COVID-19 on the eating habits of families engaged in a healthy eating pilot trial: a thematic analysis.

This is the final version. Available from Taylor & Francis via the DOI in this record. BACKGROUND: The eating habits of children and adults have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with evidence of increases in snacking and emotional eating, including eating to relieve boredom. We explored the experiences of families with children aged 4-8 years who had recently participated in a healthy eating pilot trial when the first national lockdown began in England. METHODS: Eleven mothers were interviewed in April and May 2020. Interview questions were developed based on the COM-B model of behaviour. Four main themes were constructed using inductive thematic analysis. RESULTS: The first theme related to an initial panic phase, in which having enough food was the primary concern. The second related to ongoing challenges during the lockdown, with sub-themes including difficulties accessing food, managing children's food requests and balancing home and work responsibilities. The perception that energy-dense foods met families' needs during this time led to increased purchasing of (and thus exposure to) energy-dense foods. In the third theme, families described a turning point, with a desire to eat a healthier diet than they had in the early stages of the lockdown. Finally, in the fourth theme, families reported a number of strategies for adapting and encouraging a balanced diet with their children. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that even if parents have the capability (e.g. knowledge) and motivation to provide a healthy diet for their family, opportunity challenges (e.g. time, access to resources, environmental stressors) mean this is not always practical. Healthy eating interventions should not assume parents lack motivation and should be sensitive to the context within which parents make feeding decisions.Economic and Social Research CouncilMedical Research Counci

Infant cortex responds to other humans from shortly after birth

A significant feature of the adult human brain is its ability to selectively process information about conspecifics. Much debate has centred on whether this specialization is primarily a result of phylogenetic adaptation, or whether the brain acquires expertise in processing social stimuli as a result of its being born into an intensely social environment. Here we study the haemodynamic response in cortical areas of newborns (1–5 days old) while they passively viewed dynamic human or mechanical action videos. We observed activation selective to a dynamic face stimulus over bilateral posterior temporal cortex, but no activation in response to a moving human arm. This selective activation to the social stimulus correlated with age in hours over the first few days post partum. Thus, even very limited experience of face-to-face interaction with other humans may be sufficient to elicit social stimulus activation of relevant cortical regions

Solar-type dynamo behaviour in fully convective stars without a tachocline

In solar-type stars (with radiative cores and convective envelopes), the magnetic field powers star spots, flares and other solar phenomena, as well as chromospheric and coronal emission at ultraviolet to X-ray wavelengths. The dynamo responsible for generating the field depends on the shearing of internal magnetic fields by differential rotation. The shearing has long been thought to take place in a boundary layer known as the tachocline between the radiative core and the convective envelope. Fully convective stars do not have a tachocline and their dynamo mechanism is expected to be very different, although its exact form and physical dependencies are not known. Here we report observations of four fully convective stars whose X-ray emission correlates with their rotation periods in the same way as in Sun-like stars. As the X-ray activity - rotation relationship is a well-established proxy for the behaviour of the magnetic dynamo, these results imply that fully convective stars also operate a solar-type dynamo. The lack of a tachocline in fully convective stars therefore suggests that this is not a critical ingredient in the solar dynamo and supports models in which the dynamo originates throughout the convection zone.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure. Accepted for publication in Nature (28 July 2016). Author's version, including Method

Types of problems elicited by verbal protocols for blind and sighted participants

Verbal protocols are often used in user-based studies of interactive technologies. This study investigated whether different types of problems are revealed by concurrent and retrospective verbal protocols (CVP and RVP) for blind and sighted participants. Eight blind and eight sighted participants undertook both CVP and RVP on four websites. Overall, interactivity problems were significantly more frequent in comparison to content or information architecture problems. In addition, RVP revealed significantly more interactivity problems than CVP for both user groups. Finally, blind participants encountered significantly more interactivity problems than sighted participants. The findings have implications for which protocol is appropriate, depending on the purpose of a particular study and the user groups involved