Free healthy breakfasts in primary schools: A cluster randomised controlled trial of a policy intervention in Wales, UK

Objective: The present study evaluated the impact of a national school programme of universal free healthy breakfast provision in Wales, UK. Design: A cluster randomised controlled trial with repeated cross-sectional design and a 12-month follow-up. Primary outcomes were breakfast skipping, breakfast diet and episodic memory. Secondary outcomes were frequency of eating breakfast at home and at school, breakfast attitudes, rest-of-day diet and class behaviour. Setting: Primary schools in nine local education authority areas. Subjects: A total of 4350 students (aged 9–11 years) at baseline and 4472 at follow-up in 111 schools. Results: Students in intervention schools reported significantly higher numbers of healthy food items consumed at breakfast and more positive attitudes towards breakfast eating at 12 months. Parents in intervention schools reported significantly higher rates of consumption of breakfast at school and correspondingly lower rates of breakfast consumption at home. No other significant differences were found. Conclusions: The intervention did not reduce breakfast skipping; rather, pupils substituted breakfast at home for breakfast at school. However, there were improvements in children’s nutritional intake at breakfast time, if not the rest of the day, and more positive attitudes to breakfast, which may have implications for life-course dietary behaviours. There was no impact on episodic memory or classroom behaviour, which may require targeting breakfast skippers

Luminescence Spectroscopy of Semiconductor Surfaces and Interfaces

Low energy cathodoluminescence spectroscopy (CLS) employing incident electron energies in the range of a few kV or less enable measurement of electronic structure near semiconductor surfaces and interfaces. Coupled with photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL), the CLS technique has been extended to characterize electronic structure tens of nanometers below the free surface at metal-semiconductor and semiconductor-semiconductor junctions. CLS has revealed discrete, deep electronic states for clean and metallized semiconductor surfaces as a function of atomic ordering as well as vicinal surfaces as a function of misorientation. A combination of CLS and PL reveals deep level features associated with strain relaxation and dislocations at heterojunction interfaces as well as variations in epilayer growth conditions. Such observations demonstrate the existence of discrete, deep levels in the semiconductor band gap and their sensitivity to chemical and atomic structure near surfaces and interfaces. Furthermore, the energies and densities of such deep levels provide a consistent picture of Fermi level stabilization and band bending at semiconductor contacts. Finally, our results indicate that deep level CLS/PL measurements are an effective, in-situ probe of surface and interface quality

The COBRAS/SAMBA space mission

COBRAS/SAMBA is an ESA mission designed for extensive, accurate mapping of the anisotropies of the Cosmic Background Radiation, with angular sensitivity from sub-degree scales up to and overlapping with the COBE-DMR resolution. This will allow a full identification of the primordial density perturbations which grew to form the large-scale structures observed in the present universe. The COBRAS/SAMBA maps will provide powerful tests for the inflationary model and decisive answers on the origin of cosmic structure. A combination of bolometric and radiometric instrumentation will ensure the sensitivity and wide spectral coverage required for accurate foreground discrimination. A far-Earth orbit has been selected to minimize the unwanted emission from the Earth. The project is currently in the Phase A study within the European Space Agency M3 programme

Large methane releases lead to strong aerosol forcing and reduced cloudiness

The release of vast quantities of methane into the atmosphere as a result of clathrate destabilization is a potential mechanism for rapid amplification of global warming. Previous studies have calculated the enhanced warming based mainly on the radiative effect of the methane itself, with smaller contributions from the associated carbon dioxide or ozone increases. Here, we study the effect of strongly elevated methane (CH4) levels on oxidant and aerosol particle concentrations using a combination of chemistry-transport and general circulation models. A 10-fold increase in methane concentrations is predicted to significantly decrease hydroxyl radical (OH) concentrations, while moderately increasing ozone (O3). These changes lead to a 70 % increase in the atmospheric lifetime of methane, and an 18 % decrease in global mean cloud droplet number concentrations (CDNC). The CDNC change causes a radiative forcing that is comparable in magnitude to the longwave radiative forcing ("enhanced greenhouse effect") of the added methane. Together, the indirect CH4-O3 and CH4-OH-aerosol forcings could more than double the warming effect of large methane increases. Our findings may help explain the anomalously large temperature changes associated with historic methane releases

Cost-effectiveness of a national exercise referral programme for primary care patients in Wales: results of a randomised controlled trial

This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.The research was independent and funded by the Welsh Assembly Government. RTE is supported by Public Health Wales. Additional support for LM and SM during write up was provided by The Centre for the Development and Evaluation of Complex Interventions for Public Health Improvement (DECIPHer), a UKCRC Public Health Research: Centre of Excellence. Funding from the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Economic and Social Research Council (RES-590-28-0005), Medical Research Council, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Wellcome Trust (WT087640MA), under the auspices of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration, is gratefully acknowledged

Spatial distributions and seasonal cycles of aerosol climate effects in India seen in a global climate-aerosol model

Climate-aerosol interactions in India are studied by employing the global climate-aerosol model ECHAM5-HAM and the GAINS inventory for anthropogenic aerosol emissions. Model validation is done for black carbon surface concentrations in Mukteshwar and for features of the monsoon circulation. Seasonal cycles and spatial distributions of radiative forcing and the temperature and rainfall responses are presented for different model setups. While total aerosol radiative forcing is strongest in the summer, anthropogenic forcing is considerably stronger in winter than in summer. Local seasonal temperature anomalies caused by aerosols are mostly negative with some exceptions, e.g., parts of northern India in March-May. Rainfall increases due to the elevated heat pump (EHP) mechanism and decreases due to solar dimming mechanisms (SDMs) and the relative strengths of these effects during different seasons and for different model setups are studied. Aerosol light absorption does increase rainfall in northern India, but effects due to solar dimming and circulation work to cancel the increase. The total aerosol effect on rainfall is negative for northern India in the months of June-August, but during March-May the effect is positive for most model setups. These differences between responses in different seasons might help converge the ongoing debate on the EHPs and SDMs. Due to the complexity of the problem and known or potential sources for error and bias, the results should be interpreted cautiously as they are completely dependent on how realistic the model is. Aerosol-rainfall correlations and anticorrelations are shown not to be a reliable sole argument for deducing causality

The Performance of Current Atmospheric Radiation Codes in Phase I of CIRC

The Continual Intercomparison of Radiation Codes (CIRC) is intended as an evolving and regularly updated reference source for evaluation of radiative transfer (RT) codes used in Global Climate Models and other atmospheric applications. In our presentation we will discuss our evaluation of the performance of 13 shortwave and 11 longwave RT codes that participated in Phase I of CIRC. CIRC differs from previous intercomparisons in that it relies on an observationally validated catalogue of cases. The seven CIRC Phase I baseline cases, five cloud-free, and two with overcast liquid clouds, are built around observations by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurements (ARM) program that satisfy the goals .of Phase I, namely to examine RT model performance in realistic, yet not overly complex, atmospheric conditions. Besides the seven baseline cases, additional idealized "subcases" are also examined to facilitate interpretation of model errors. We will quantify individual model performance with respect to reference line-by-line calculations, and will also highlight RT code behavior for conditions of doubled CO2 , aspects of utilizing a spectral specification of surface albedo, and the impact of the inclusion of scattering in the thermal infrared. Our analysis suggests that RT codes should work towards improving their calculation of diffuse shortwave flux, shortwave absorption, treatment of spectral surface albedo, and shortwave CO2 forcing. Despite practical difficulties in comparing our results to previous results by the Intercomparison of Radiation Codes in Climate Models (ICRCCM) conducted about 20 years ago, it appears that the current generation of RT codes do indeed perform better than the codes of the ICRCCM era. By enhancing the range of conditions under which participating codes are tested, future CIRC phases will hopefully allow even more rigorous examination of RT code performance

NHERF1/EBP50 is an organizer of polarity structures and a diagnostic marker in ependymoma

NHERF1/EBP50, an adaptor protein required for epithelial morphogenesis, has been implicated in the progression of various human malignancies. NHERF1-deficient mice have intestinal brush border structural defects and we report here that they also have disorganized ependymal cilia with development of non-obstructive hydrocephalus. Examination of mouse and human brain tissues revealed highest NHERF1 expression at the apical plasma membrane of ependymal cells. In ependymal tumors, NHERF1 expression was retained in polarized membrane structures, such as microlumens, rosettes and canals, where it co-localized with some of its ligands, such as moesin and PTEN. Analysis of a comprehensive panel of 113 tumors showed robust NHERF1 labeling of microlumens in 100% of ependymomas, subependymomas, and pediatric anaplastic ependymomas, and in 67% of adult anaplastic ependymomas. NHERF1 staining was present in 35% of ependymoma cases that lacked reactivity for EMA, the routine immunohistochemical marker used for ependymoma diagnosis. NHERF1 labeling of microlumens was either absent or rarely seen in other types of brain tumors analyzed, denoting NHERF1 as a reliable diagnostic marker of ependymal tumors. Anaplastic foci and a subset of adult anaplastic ependymomas showed complete absence of NHERF1-labeled polarity structures, consistent with a loss of differentiation in these aggressive tumors. These data highlight a role for NHERF1 in ependymal morphogenesis with direct application to the diagnosis of ependymal tumors. Keywords: NHERF1/EBP50 Ependymoma Hydrocephalus Polarity Moesin PTE