Harmonizing agriculture and health sector actions to improve household nutrition: policy experiences from Afghanistan (2002–2007)

Coordination across sectors to address undernutrition with its varied underlying causes remains a challenge in developing countries. In Afghanistan, harmonization of health and agriculture policies and actions to reduce endemic undernutrition occurred during 2002-2007. This qualitative case study explores the forms of harmonization, enabling features and constraints in the policy process. We interviewed 57 stakeholders (39 central level, 18 provincial) involved in public nutrition or food security issues. Forms of harmonization included written policies, reseach, training and advocacy. Important features of the policy process included: policy entrepreneurs with operational and strategic capacity, consensus-building using a shared causal framework, working groups and strategic alliances. This case presents an interesting alternative to a national nutrition coordinating body, an approach that has met with mixed results, often due to the lack of authority, budget, and operational capacity of such a body to oversee ministries and enforce national nutrition objectives. Mid-level professionals mobilized into task forces achieved much with the support of national and international partners. This study highlights the importance of building capacity for sustaining change through local institutions.     

Combined Optical,Gravimetric, and Electrical Operando Investigation of Structural Variations in Polymeric Mixed Conductors

Bioelectronics based on organic mixed conductors offers tremendous application potential in biological interfacing, drug delivery systems, and neuromorphic devices. The ion injection and water swelling upon electrochemical switching can significantly change the molecular packing of polymeric mixed conductors and thus influence the device performance. Herein, we quantify ion and water injection, and analyze the change of microscopic molecular packing of typical polymeric mixed conducting materials, namely poly(3,4‑ethylenedioxythiophene) doped with poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) and poly(2-(3,3′-bis(2-(2-(2-methoxyethoxy)ethoxy) ethoxy)-[2,2′-bithiophen]-5-yl)thieno[3,2-b]thiophene) (p(g2T-TT)), by integrating electrochemical quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring, in situ charge accumulation spectroscopy, and electrical current-voltage measurement. The penetration of ions and water can lead to viscous and disordered microstructures in organic mixed conductors and the water uptake property plays a more dominant role in morphological disruption compared with ion uptake is demonstrated. This study demonstrates the potential application of the combined optical, gravimetric, and electrical operando platform in evaluating the structural kinetics of organic mixed conductors and highlights the importance of concertedly tuning the hydration process, structural integrity, and charge transport properties of organic mixed conductors in order to achieve high performance and stable bioelectronic devices.     

Humidity‐Triggered Self‐Healing of Microporous Polyelectrolyte Multilayer Coatings for Hydrophobic Drug Delivery

Layer‐by‐layer (LbL) self‐assemblies have inherent potential as dynamic coatings because of the sensitivity of their building blocks to external stimuli. Here, humidity serves as a feasible trigger to activate the self‐healing of a microporous polyethylenimine/poly(acrylic acid) multilayer film. Microporous structures within the polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM) film are created by acid treatment, followed by freeze‐drying to remove water. The self‐healing of these micropores can be triggered at 100% relative humidity, under which condition the mobility of the polyelectrolytes is activated. Based on this, a facile and versatile method is suggested for directly integrating hydrophobic drugs into PEM films for surface‐mediated drug delivery. The high porosity of microporous film enables the highest loading (≈303.5 μg cm^?2 for a 15‐bilayered film) of triclosan to be a one‐shot process via wicking action and subsequent solvent removal, thus dramatically streamlining the processes and reducing complexities compared to the existing LbL strategies. The self‐healing of a drug‐loaded microporous PEM film significantly reduces the diffusion coefficient of triclosan, which is favorable for the long‐term sustained release of the drug. The dynamic properties of this polymeric coating provide great potential for its use as a delivery platform for hydrophobic drugs in a wide variety of biomedical applications.     

Undermining the Corrective Effects of Media‐Based Political Fact Checking? The Role of Contextual Cues and Naïve Theory

Media‐based fact checking contributes to more accurate political knowledge, but its corrective effects are limited. We argue that biographical information included in a corrective message, which is often unrelated to the inaccurate claim itself, can activate misperception‐congruent naïve theories, increasing confidence in a misperception's plausibility and inducing skepticism toward denials. Resistance to corrections occurs regardless of initial belief accuracy, but the effect is strongest among those who find the contextual information objectionable or threatening. We test these claims using an online survey‐embedded experiment (N = 750) conducted in the wake of the controversy over the proposed Islamic cultural center in New York City near the site of the 9/11 attacks, and find support for our predictions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Predictive Validity of an Empirical Approach for Selecting Promising Message Topics: A Randomized‐Controlled Study

Several message topic selection approaches propose that messages based on beliefs pretested and found to be more strongly associated with intentions will be more effective in changing population intentions and behaviors when used in a campaign. This study aimed to validate the underlying causal assumption of these approaches which rely on cross‐sectional belief–intention associations. We experimentally tested whether messages addressing promising themes as identified by the above criterion were more persuasive than messages addressing less promising themes. Contrary to expectations, all messages increased intentions. Interestingly, mediation analyses showed that while messages deemed promising affected intentions through changes in targeted promising beliefs, messages deemed less promising also achieved persuasion by influencing nontargeted promising beliefs. Implications for message topic selection are discussed.     

Glyphosate Adsorption from Water Using Hierarchically Porous Metal–Organic Frameworks

The selective removal of one ligand in mixed-ligand MOFs upon thermolysis provides a powerful strategy to introduce additional mesopores without affecting the overall MOF structure. By varying the initial ligand ratio, MOFs of the MIL-125-Ti family with two distinct hierarchical pore architectures are synthesized, resembling either large cavities or branching fractures. The performance of the resulting hierarchically porous MOFs is evaluated toward the adsorptive removal of glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl)glycine) from water, and the adsorption kinetics and mechanism are examined. Due to their strong affinity for phosphoric groups, the numerous Ti–OH groups resulting from the selective ligand removal act as natural anchor points for effective glyphosate uptake. The relationships between contact duration, glyphosate concentration, and adsorbent dosage are investigated, and the impact of these parameters on the effectiveness of glyphosate removal from contaminated water samples is examined. The introduction of additional mesopores has increased the adsorption capacities by nearly 3 times with record values exceeding 440.9 mg g⁻¹, which ranks these MOFs among the best-reported adsorbents.     

Transparent,Anisotropic Biofilm with Aligned Bacterial Cellulose Nanofibers

Cellulose nanofibrils are attractive as building blocks for advanced photonic, optoelectronic, microfluidic, and bio‐based devices ranging from transistors and solar cells to fluidic and biocompatible injectable devices. For the first time, an ultrastrong and ultratough cellulose film, which is composed of densely packed bacterial cellulose (BC) nanofibrils with hierarchical fibril alignments, is successfully demonstrated. The molecular level alignment stems from the intrinsic parallel orientation of crystalline cellulose molecules produced by Acetobacter xylinum. These aligned long‐chain cellulose molecules form subfibrils with a diameter of 2–4 nm, which are further aligned to form nanofibril bundles. The BC film yields a record‐high tensile strength (≈1.0 GPa) and toughness (≈25 MJ m^?3). Being ultrastrong and ultratough, yet the BC film is also highly flexible and can be folded into desirable shapes. The BC film exhibits a controllable manner of alignment and is highly transparent with modulated optical properties, paving the way to enabling new functionalities in mechanical, electrical, fluidic, photonics, and biocompatible applications.