Use of the 24-hour dietary recall to evaluate dietary intake of participants in the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program

2018 Fall.Includes bibliographical references.To view the abstract, please see the full text of the document

Biobanking and consenting to research: a qualitative thematic analysis of young people's perspectives in the North East of England

BACKGROUND: Biobanking biospecimens and consent are common practice in paediatric research. We need to explore children and young people's (CYP) knowledge and perspectives around the use of and consent to biobanking. This will ensure meaningful informed consent can be obtained and improve current consent procedures. METHODS: We designed a survey, in co-production with CYP, collecting demographic data, views on biobanking, and consent using three scenarios: 1) prospective consent, 2) deferred consent, and 3) reconsent and assent at age of capacity. The survey was disseminated via the Young Person's Advisory Group North England (YPAGne) and participating CYP's secondary schools. Data were analysed using a qualitative thematic approach by three independent reviewers (including CYP) to identify common themes. Data triangulation occurred independently by a fourth reviewer. RESULTS: One hundred two CYP completed the survey. Most were between 16-18 years (63.7%, N = 65) and female (66.7%, N = 68). 72.3% had no prior knowledge of biobanking (N = 73). Acceptability of prospective consent for biobanking was high (91.2%, N = 93) with common themes: 'altruism', 'potential benefits outweigh individual risk', 'frugality', and '(in)convenience'. Deferred consent was also deemed acceptable in the large majority (84.3%, N = 86), with common themes: 'altruism', 'body integrity' and 'sample frugality'. 76.5% preferred to reconsent when cognitively mature enough to give assent (N = 78), even if parental consent was previously in place. 79.2% wanted to be informed if their biobanked biospecimen is reused (N = 80). CONCLUSION: Prospective and deferred consent acceptability for biobanking is high among CYP in the UK. Altruism, frugality, body integrity, and privacy are the most important themes. Clear communication and justification are paramount to obtain consent. Any CYP with capacity should be part of the consenting procedure, if possible

Restricted feedback control of one-dimensional maps

Dynamical control of biological systems is often restricted by the practical constraint of unidirectional parameter perturbations. We show that such a restriction introduces surprising complexity to the stability of one-dimensional map systems and can actually improve controllability. We present experimental cardiac control results that support these analyses. Finally, we develop new control algorithms that exploit the structure of the restricted-control stability zones to automatically adapt the control feedback parameter and thereby achieve improved robustness to noise and drifting system parameters.Comment: 29 pages, 9 embedded figure

From Extractivism to Global Extractivism : The Evolution of an Organizing Concept

All the named authors were members of the Helsinki Research Working Group on Global Extractivisms and Alternatives, who jointly constructed this article. Equal authorship by all authors is recognised.Research on extractivism has rapidly proliferated, expanding into new empirical and conceptual spaces. We examine the origins, evolution, and conceptual expansion of the concept. Extractivism is useful to analyze resource extraction practices around the world. ‘Global Extractivism’ is a new conceptual tool for assessing global phenomena. We situate extractivism within an ensemble of concepts, and explore its relation to development, the state, and value. Extractivism as an organizing concept addresses many fields of research. Extractivism forms a complex of self-reinforcing practices, mentalities, and power differentials underwriting and rationalizing socio-ecologically destructive modes of organizing life-through subjugation, depletion, and non-reciprocity.Peer reviewe

Empowerment of Smallholder Women Farmers through Self-Help Groups in South-West India

Though women act as the backbone of world agricultural workforce most of them are economically backward. But, self help group (SHG) movement made some tangible changes in empowering rural women in India. The study was carried out among 120 SHG women farmers and 60 non-SHG women farmers of south west India to analyze the impact of SHGs in empowering rural farm women. Results showed most of SHG women farmers as highly empowered and their economic empowerment found to be prominent compared to control group. However, empowerment score of non-SHG women farmers showed strong correlation with some social and technological indicators. Major factors that favoured sustainable high performance of SHGs were; heterogeneity of the group, proximity of the women’s households, income generation and extension contact. The study confirmed that acquisition of some autonomy by women in social participation and economic decision-making have contributed to overcome many constraints that hamper their overall empowerment

Characterization of AKT independent effects of the synthetic AKT inhibitors SH-5 and SH-6 using an integrated approach combining transcriptomic profiling and signaling pathway perturbations

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Signal transduction processes mediated by phosphatidyl inositol phosphates affect a broad range of cellular processes such as cell cycle progression, migration and cell survival. The protein kinase AKT is one of the major effectors in this signaling network. Chronic AKT activation contributes to oncogenic transformation and tumor development. Therefore, analogs of phosphatidyl inositol phosphates (PIAs) were designed as new small drugs to block AKT activity for cancer treatment. Here we characterize the biological effects of the PIAs SH-5 and SH-6 in colorectal cancer cell lines.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Serum-starved or serum-supplemented human colorectal cancer cell lines SW480, HT29 and HCT116 were exposed to SH-5 and SH-6. AKT activation was determined by western blotting. Cell viability was assessed using a colorimetric XTT-based assay, apoptosis and cell cycle changes were monitored by FACS analysis. The dynamics of cell morphology alterations was evaluated by confocal and time-lapse microscopy. Transcriptional changes due to inhibitor treatment were analyzed using Affymetrix HG-U133A microarrays and RT-PCR.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>While the PIAs clearly reduce AKT phosphorylation in serum starved cells, we did not observe a significant reduction under serum supplemented conditions, giving us the opportunity to analyze AKT independent effects of these compounds. Both inhibitors induce broadly the same morphological alterations, in particular changes in cell shape and formation of intracellular vesicles. Moreover, we observed the induction of binucleated cells specifically in the SW480 cell line. Gene expression analysis revealed transcriptional alterations, which are mostly cell line specific. In accordance to the phenotype we found a gene group associated with mitosis and spindle organization down regulated in SW480 cells, but not in the other cell lines. A bioinformatics analysis using the Connectivity Map linked the gene expression pattern of the inhibitor treated SW480 cells to PKC signaling. Using confocal laser scanning microscopy and time lapse recording we identified a specific defect in the last step of the cytokinesis as responsible for the binucleation.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The PIAs SH-5 and SH-6 impinge on additional cellular targets apart from AKT in colorectal cancer cells. The effects are mostly cell line specific and have an influence at the outcome of the treatment. In view of potential clinical trials it will be necessary to take these diverse effects into consideration to optimize patient treatment.</p

Different methods for standardization of fishing efforts

Surplus production models are widely employed to evaluate the condition of fish stocks, encompassing the entire stock, overall fishing effort, and the total yield derived from the stock. These models operate under the assumption that variations in population biomass result from hikes due to growth and reproduction, as well as drops due to natural and fishing mortality. Utilizing Catch-Per-Unit-Effort (CPUE) as input, these models rely on the presumption that CPUE is directly proportional to the biomass of fish stock in the sea. An inherent challenge in fitting such a production model lies in determining CPUE, whether in terms of units operated or in hours of operation/actual fishing hours (AFH) or in any measure of fishing efforts. Given the heterogeneous nature of fishing fleets in tropical regions, they are often categorized into boat-gear categories, where fishing units within each category share similar characteristics and performance. When assessing the collective impact of the fishing operations of the entire fleet on the exploitation of fish stock, nominal addition of the efforts of different boat-gear categories may lack meaningfulness without prior effort adjustment to enhance comparability. In tropical regions, due to the varying capacities of gears and the potential presence of multiple species in each gear, the effort expended to catch a resource cannot be simply considered as the sum of the duration/units of operation of all gears. This paper aims to underscore various effort standardization methodologies found in the literature for different situations, offering insights into the challenges faced in tropical fisheries and proposing a way forward