Prescriptions for Produce: An intervention with nutrition education, cooking instruction and produce vouchers to increase fruit and vegetable consumption.

In this pilot study, we evaluated the feasibility of nutrition education, cooking instruction and produce vouchers for pregnant low income mothers to increase fruit and vegetable consumption. Participants were first trimester pregnant mothers receiving prenatal care at a local Federally Qualified Health Clinic (FQHC) in San Antonio. They attended a grocery shopping tour and cooking class conducted by a registered dietitian, focusing incorporating fruit and vegetables into meals, and a monthly $40 voucher, redeemable for fruit and vegetables. Mothers with high menu planning and grocery shopping skills and more fruit at home reported higher fruit intakes. Mothers with high grocery shopping skills reported higher vegetable intakes. Compared to baseline, the reported home availability of fruit, and fruit and vegetable intakes were significantly improved at post 1; fruit and vegetable home availability, menu planning and grocery shopping skills, and fruit and vegetable intakes were significantly higher at post 2

The rationality of Sol manifolds

Let $\Gamma$ be the fundamental group of a manifold modeled on three dimensional Sol geometry. We prove that $\Gamma$ has a finite index subgroup $G$ which has a rational growth series with respect to a natural generating set. We do this by enumerating $G$ by a regular language. However, in contrast to most earlier proofs of this sort our regular language is not a language of words in the generating set, but rather reflects a different geometric structure in $G$.Comment: 30 pages; author's name changed to agree with published version; to appear in Journal of Algebr

Timely Ambulatory Follow Up After Emergency Department Discharge

Background Problem Statement: Patients over the age of 65 lack timely ambulatory follow up after discharge from the ED, leading to increased return to the ED, resource utilization, and mortality. Project AIM: Within 6 months of intervention, 70% of patients over the age of 65 who were recently discharged from the ED will follow up with their PCP within 7 days of the timeline recommended by the ED provider

Non-adiabatic effects in the phonon dispersion of Mg 1--x Al x B 2

Superconducting MgB$\_2$ shows an E$\_{2g}$ zone center phonon, as measured by Raman spectroscopy, that is very broad in energy and temperature dependent. The Raman shift and lifetime show large differences with the values elsewhere in the Brillouin Zone measured by Inelastic X-ray Scattering (IXS), where its dispersion can be accounted for by standard harmonic phonon theory, adding only a moderate electron-phonon coupling. Here we show that the effects rapidly disappear when electron-phonon coupling is switched off by Al substitution on the Mg sites. Moreover, using IXS with very high wave-vector resolution in MgB$\_2$, we can follow the dispersion connecting the Raman and the IXS signal, in agreement with a theory using only electron-phonon coupling but without strong anharmonic terms. The observation is important in order to understand the effects of electron-phonon coupling on zone center phonons modes in MgB$\_2$, but also in all metals characterized by a small Fermi velocity in a particular direction, typical for layered compounds

Obesity-induced changes in lipid mediators persist after weight loss.

BackgroundObesity induces significant changes in lipid mediators, however, the extent to which these changes persist after weight loss has not been investigated.Subjects/methodsWe fed C57BL6 mice a high-fat diet to generate obesity and then switched the diet to a lower-fat diet to induce weight loss. We performed a comprehensive metabolic profiling of lipid mediators including oxylipins, endocannabinoids, sphingosines and ceramides in key metabolic tissues (including adipose, liver, muscle and hypothalamus) and plasma.ResultsWe found that changes induced by obesity were largely reversible in most metabolic tissues but the adipose tissue retained a persistent obese metabolic signature. Prostaglandin signaling was perturbed in the obese state and lasting increases in PGD2, and downstream metabolites 15-deoxy PGJ2 and delta-12-PGJ2 were observed after weight loss. Furthermore expression of the enzyme responsible for PGD2 synthesis (hematopoietic prostaglandin D synthase, HPGDS) was increased in obese adipose tissues and remained high after weight loss. We found that inhibition of HPGDS over the course of 5 days resulted in decreased food intake in mice. Increased HPGDS expression was also observed in human adipose tissues obtained from obese compared with lean individuals. We then measured circulating levels of PGD2 in obese patients before and after weight loss and found that while elevated relative to lean subjects, levels of this metabolite did not decrease after significant weight loss.ConclusionsThese results suggest that lasting changes in lipid mediators induced by obesity, still present after weight loss, may play a role in the biological drive to regain weight

Weber and Simmel’s philosophical and political stances : a dialogue in three acts

This article is an imagined dialogue between Weber and Simmel which makes a modest use of some of the resources of theatrical play in order to provide an overall portrait of both thinkers and to bring their thought to bear on our present. The dialogue consists of three acts focused on three central problematics in as many critical moments in Weber and Simmel’s lives: Act I takes place during the preparations for the first conference of the German Sociological Association and thus deals with the constitution of sociology as a socio-cultural science. Act II takes place amidst the First World War and its theme is evidently politics. Finally, Act III, where our two characters correspond instead of maintaining a face-to-face dialogue, is situated towards the end of the war and focuses on the attitude to life and indeed to death, as Simmel’s tragic yet admirable death takes place then. A brief introduction explains how we tried to use the possibilities of the dialogical form to expound Weber’s and Simmel’s thought, to compel them to confront their own blind spots and ‘unthoughts’, as well as to explore new ways of teaching the classics and transmitting their thought

Disentangling PTEN-cooperating tumor suppressor gene networks in cancer.

We have recently performed a whole-body, genome-wide screen in mice using a single-copy inactivating transposon for the identification of Pten (phosphatase and tensin homolog)-cooperating tumor suppressor genes (TSGs). We identified known and putative TSGs in multiple cancer types and validated the functional and clinical relevance of several promising candidates for human prostate cancer