Soft drinks and 'desire to drink' in preschoolers

Interest in soft drink consumption has increased following a dramatic rise in intake over recent years. Research to date has focused primarily on general trends in consumption or on understanding the mechanism by which soft drink consumption may be linked to weight gain. It is clear however that there is considerable individual variability in the extent to which soft drinks are consumed and factors potentially influencing intake have received little attention. This study examines how the Child Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (CEBQ) construct 'Desire to Drink' (DD) relates to drink consumption, preferences and BMI-SDS

Amateur Footage: A Global Study of User-Generated Content

Aim of Research The aim of this research is to provide the first comprehensive report about the use of user-generated content (UGC) among broadcast news channels. Its objectives are to understand how much UGC is used on air and online by these channels, why editors and journalists choose to use it, and under what conditions it is employed. The study intends to provide a holistic understanding of the use of UGC by international broadcast news channels. Methodology This research was carried out in two phases. The first involved an in-depth, quantitative content analysis examining when and how eight international news broadcasters use UGC. For this part of the research we analyzed a total of 1,164 hours of TV output and 2,254 Web pages, coding them according to parameters intended to answer the research questions. The second phase of the research was entirely qualitative. It was designed to build upon the first phase by providing a detailed overview of the professional practices that underpin the collection, verification, and distribution of UGC. To achieve this we conducted 64 interviews with news managers, editors, and journalists from 38 news organizations based in 24 countries around the world. This report brings together both phases of the research to provide a detailed overview of the key findings

Differences in physical activity and sedentary time in relation to weight in 8-9 year old children.

BACKGROUND: The health benefits of physical activity for children are well established. Although objective measures of physical activity are increasingly used there is still a lack of adequate data on physical activity in children. Sex differences in physical activity have been consistently demonstrated and lower levels of physical activity in obese than non-obese children have been shown. However, differences across the whole weight spectrum have not been examined in detail. The aim of this study was to assess associations between physical activity and sedentary time across the weight spectrum in children, and to determine whether the associations differed by sex. METHODS: Participants in the current study were 176 boys and 169 girls aged 8-9 years old taking part in a longitudinal study of associations between eating behaviours, physical activity and weight gain during childhood. Height, weight and waist circumference were measured, and physical activity data were collected using an Actigraph model GT1M worn for 5 consecutive days. Associations between sex, weight and physical activity were analysed using linear regression models. RESULTS: Boys had higher total activity (mean difference = 119, p < 0.001) and more minutes of moderate and vigorous physical activity (MVPA) (mean difference = 25, p < 0.001) than girls. A higher percentage of boys (72%) than girls (30%) met current physical activity guidelines of 60 minutes MVPA per day. In boys, weight status significantly predicted total activity (p = 0.001) and MVPA (p = 0.001) but there were no significant associations in girls. There was no significant difference in time spent sedentary between boys and girls, and weight status did not predict sedentary time. CONCLUSION: In boys, physical activity was progressively lower across the weight spectrum, but in girls physical activity was consistently low across all weight categories. Intervention is required prior to 8 years old to prevent weight-related declines in physical activity in boys and further research is required to determine at what age, if ever, weight related differences in physical activity are apparent in girls.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Direct and indirect effects of fire on microbial communities in a pyrodiverse dry-sclerophyll forest

Fire is one of the predominant drivers of the structural and functional dynamics of forest ecosystems. In recent years, novel fire regimes have posed a major challenge to the management of pyrodiverse forests. While previous research efforts have focused on quantifying the impacts of fire on above-ground forest biodiversity, how microbial communities respond to fire is less understood, despite their functional significance. Here, we describe the effects of time since fire, fire frequency and their interaction on soil and leaf litter fungal and bacterial communities from the pyrodiverse, Eucalyptus pilularis forests of south-eastern Australia. Using structural equation models, we also elucidate how fire can influence these communities both directly and indirectly through biotic-abiotic interactions. Our results demonstrate that fire is a key driver of litter and soil bacterial and fungal communities, with effects most pronounced for soil fungal communities. Notably, recently burnt forest hosted lower abundances of symbiotic ectomycorrhizal fungi and Acidobacteria in the soil, and basidiomycetous fungi and Actinobacteriota in the litter. Compared with low fire frequencies, high fire frequency increased soil fungal plant pathogens, but reduced Actinobacteriota. The majority of fire effects on microbial communities were mediated by fire-induced changes in litter and soil abiotic properties. For instance, recent and more frequent fire was associated with reduced soil sulphur, which led to an increase in soil fungal plant pathogens and saprotrophic fungi in these sites. Pathogenic fungi also increased in recently burnt forests that had a low fire frequency, mediated by a decline in litter carbon and an increase in soil pH in these sites. Synthesis. Our findings indicate that predicted increases in the frequency of fire may select for specific microbial communities directly and indirectly through ecological interactions, which may have functional implications for plants (increase in pathogens, decrease in symbionts), decomposition rates (declines in Actinobacteriota and Acidobacteriota) and carbon storage (decrease in ectomycorrhizal fungi). In the face of predicted shifts in wildfire regimes, which may exacerbate fire-induced changes in microbial communities, adaptive fire management and monitoring is required to address the potential functional implications of fire-altered microbial communities

GNOMES II: Analysis of the Galactic diffuse molecular ISM in all four ground state hydroxyl transitions using Amoeba

We present observations of the four 2 Pi 3/2 J = 3/2 ground-rotational state transitions of the hydroxyl molecule (OH) along 107 lines of sight both in and out of the Galactic plane: 92 sets of observations from the Arecibo telescope and 15 sets of observations from the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). Our Arecibo observations included off-source pointings, allowing us to measure excitation temperature (Tex) and optical depth, while our ATCA observations give optical depth only. We perform Gaussian decomposition using the Automated Molecular Excitation Bayesian line-fitting Algorithm 'AMOEBA' (Petzler, Dawson, and Wardle 2021) fitting all four transitions simultaneously with shared centroid velocity and width. We identify 109 features across 38 sightlines (including 58 detections along 27 sightlines with excitation temperature measurements). While the main lines at 1665 and 1667 MHz tend to have similar excitation temperatures (median Tex(main) difference = 0.6 K, 84% show Tex(main) difference < 2 K), large differences in the 1612 and 1720 MHz satellite line excitation temperatures show that the gas is generally not in LTE. For a selection of sightlines we compare our OH features to associated (on-sky and in velocity) HI cold gas components (CNM) identified by Nguyen et al. (2019) and find no strong correlations. We speculate that this may indicate an effective decoupling of the molecular gas from the CNM once it accumulates.Comment: Accepted for publication to PASA. 41 pages, 27 figure

Effects of plant functional group removal on CO(2)fluxes and belowground C stocks across contrasting ecosystems

Changes in plant communities can have large effects on ecosystem carbon (C) dynamics and long-term C stocks. However, how these effects are mediated by environmental context or vary among ecosystems is not well understood. To study this, we used a long-term plant removal experiment set up across 30 forested lake islands in northern Sweden that collectively represent a strong gradient of soil fertility and ecosystem productivity. We measured forest floor CO(2)exchange and aboveground and belowground C stocks for a 22-yr experiment involving factorial removal of the two dominant functional groups of the boreal forest understory, namely ericaceous dwarf shrubs and feather mosses, on each of the 30 islands. We found that long-term shrub and moss removal increased forest floor net CO(2)loss and decreased belowground C stocks consistently across the islands irrespective of their productivity or soil fertility. However, we did see context-dependent responses of respiration to shrub removals because removals only increased respiration on islands of intermediate productivity. Both CO(2)exchange and C stocks responded more strongly to shrub removal than to moss removal. Shrub removal reduced gross primary productivity of the forest floor consistently across the island gradient, but it had no effect on respiration, which suggests that loss of belowground C caused by the removals was driven by reduced litter inputs. Across the island gradient, shrub removal consistently depleted C stocks in the soil organic horizon by 0.8 kg C/m(2). Our results show that the effect of plant functional group diversity on C dynamics can be relatively consistent across contrasting ecosystems that vary greatly in productivity and soil fertility. These findings underline the key role of understory vegetation in forest C cycling, and suggest that global change leading to changes in the relative abundance of both shrubs and mosses could impact on the capacity of boreal forests to store C

Uptake of Bowel Scope (Flexible Sigmoidoscopy) Screening in the English National Programme: the first 14 months

Objective To examine uptake in the first six pilot centres of the English Bowel Scope Screening (BSS) programme, which began in early 2013 and invites adults aged 55 for a one off Flexible Sigmoidoscopy. Methods Between March 2013 and May 2014 the six pilot centres sent 21,187 invitations. Using multivariate logistic regression analysis, we examined variation in uptake by gender, socioeconomic deprivation (using the Index of Multiple Deprivation), area-based ethnic diversity (proportion of non-white residents), screening centre, and appointment time (routine: daytime vs out-of-hours: evening/weekend). Results Uptake was 43.1%. Men were more likely to attend than women (45% vs 42%; OR 1.136, 95% CI 1.076, 1.199, p