Home availability of vegetables, barriers to purchasing and preparing vegetables, and vegetable intake in a sample of primarily low-income, Hispanic children

Background: Obesity prevalence in American children disproportionately affects low-income children. Consumption of vegetables is a dietary factor that is often targeted to promote weight loss and decrease risk of obesity, and has shown a relationship with home vegetable availability, though no studies have examined this relationship in a large, predominantly low-income, Hispanic sample. Objective: To examine the association between availability of different types of vegetables in the home, perceived parental barriers to vegetable purchase and preparation, and child vegetable intake in a low-income, Hispanic sample. Design: Secondary cross-sectional analysis of TX Sprouts. Participants: 1925 students from twelve elementary schools who have >50% Hispanic enrollment and >50% of children receiving free and reduced lunches in the Greater Austin area. Main Outcomes Measures: Parents/guardians completed a questionnaire packet that included information about free/reduced lunch program (FRL) participation, availability of fresh, canned, frozen, and cut-up vegetables and salad in the home, and perceived barriers to purchasing/preparing vegetables. Child-reported dietary intake data was collected via 14-item validated dietary screener. Statistical Analyses Performed: Negative binomial regression was used to examine the relationship between home vegetable availability and vegetable intake. Chi-square analyses were conducted to assess the relationship between barriers to purchasing/preparing vegetables and home vegetable availability. Results: Children who had fresh vegetables, cut-up vegetables, and salad available in the home “all of the time” consumed more vegetables than those who had them in the home “never”, “sometimes”, or “most of the time” (p<0.05). Participants were less likely to have vegetables in the home “all of the time” if they perceived them as expensive, inaccessible, or perishable, or if they did not have the time, skills, or family assistance to prepare/cook vegetables (p<0.01). Conclusions: Addressing barriers to the purchase and preparation of vegetables in the home may be a cost-effective policy target to promote vegetable intake for children of all socioeconomic backgrounds.Nutritional Science

New DRIE-Patterned Electrets for Vibration Energy Harvesting

This paper is about a new manufacturing process aimed at developing stable SiO2/Si3N4 patterned electrets using a Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE) step for an application in electret-based Vibration Energy Harvesters (e-VEH). This process consists in forming continuous layers of SiO2/Si3N4 electrets in order to limit surface conduction phenomena and is a new way to see the problem of electret patterning. Experimental results prove that patterned electrets charged by a positive corona discharge show excellent stability with high surface charge densities that may reach 5mC/m^2 on 1.1\mu m-thick layers, even with fine patterning and harsh temperature conditions (up to 250{\deg}C). This paves the way to new e-VEH designs and manufacturing processes.Comment: Proc. European Energy Conference, 201

In vitro rearing of Pratylenchidae nematodes on carrot discs

Cette technique d'élevage s'applique aux nématodes migrateurs (par exemple, aux espèces de Pratylenchus et à Radopholus similis) pour une production de masse des nématodes à des fins expérimentales, pour leur conservation, et pour des études de leur multiplication ou de leurs mécanismes de reproduction. Le principe de la méthode appliquée, les principaux avantages, le matériel végétal nécessaire et le temps requis sont présentés. Matériel et méthodes. Le matériel de laboratoire nécessaire, ainsi que le détail des neuf étapes nécessaires à la préparation des disques de carotte, la préparation des nématodes, l'inoculation des nématodes et la récupération des nématodes hors des boîtes de Pétri sont décrits. Les problèmes potentiels sont répertoriés. Résultats. Plusieurs milliers de nématodes peuvent être extraits à partir d'un disque de carotte après 6-8 semaines de culture, selon l'espèce et la population considérées (Résumé d'auteur

Scientific cooperation in the South China Sea: another lever for China?

Overview Security issues in the South China Sea are often studied, whereas analysis of scientific cooperation in those waters is rare, thinly spread and short.&nbsp;This paper looks at shared priorities, China\u27s leading role in launching scientific programs, implications for the environment, and the use of scientific cooperation as a power vector. The research space is increasingly well controlled, but that control isn’t the product of scientific cooperation. It’s the result of China leading research programs. Scientific cooperation hasn’t reduced mistrust, and common interests don’t prevail. In relations between Southeast Asia and China, the fulcrum is asymmetry. The differences in scientific cooperation noted in this paper demonstrate that asymmetry and its serious long-term consequences for neighbouring countries

Electret-based cantilever energy harvester: design and optimization

We report in this paper the design, the optimization and the fabrication of an electret-based cantilever energy harvester. We develop the mechanical and the electrostatic equations of such a device and its implementation using Finite Elements (FEM) and Matlab in order to get an accurate model. This model is then used in an optimization process. A macroscopic prototype (3.2cm^{2}) was built with a silicon cantilever and a Teflon\textregistered electret. Thanks to this prototype, we manage to harvest 17\muW with ambient-type vibrations of 0.2g on a load of 210M{\Omega}. The experimental results are consistent with simulation results

Scalar Field Cosmologies With Inverted Potentials

Regular bouncing solutions in the framework of a scalar-tensor gravity model were found in a recent work. We reconsider the problem in the Einstein frame (EF) in the present work. Singularities arising at the limit of physical viability of the model in the Jordan frame (JF) are either of the Big Bang or of the Big Crunch type in the EF. As a result we obtain integrable scalar field cosmological models in general relativity (GR) with inverted double-well potentials unbounded from below which possess solutions regular in the future, tending to a de Sitter space, and starting with a Big Bang. The existence of the two fixed points for the field dynamics at late times found earlier in the JF becomes transparent in the EF.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure

Gravitational Effects on Domain Walls with Curvature Correction

We derive the effective action for a domain wall with small thickness in curved spacetime and show that, apart from the Nambu term, it includes a contribution proportional to the induced curvature. We then use this action to study the dynamics of a spherical thick bubble of false vacuum (de Sitter) surrounded by an infinite region of true vacuum (Schwarzschild)