Nutrition knowledge and practices, and consumption of vitamin A--rich plants by rural Nepali participants and nonparticipants in a kitchen-garden program

Food-based nutrition interventions, including kitchen gardens and nutrition education, offer a potentially sustainable approach to reducing multiple nutritional deficiencies, but they have been poorly evaluated in developing countries. In a poor region of the terai (the flat, subtropical agricultural region that borders on India) in rural Nepal, we developed and evaluated the impact of a nutrition program added to the Market Access for Rural Development (MARD) Project. The primary objective of the MARD Project was to augment household income by increasing the production of high-economic-value crops. The objective of the nutrition program was to increase vitamin A and iron intakes by promoting kitchen gardens (training, technical assistance, and seed distribution) and nutrition education. One-third of the kitchen-garden program participants also attended nutrition education or agricultural training sessions that were part of the MARD Project. The program was evaluated after 36 months by a cross-sectional nutrition survey in 430 MARD households with kitchen gardens and 389 non-MARD control households. The lack of knowledge about nutrition, including the causes, prevention, and treatment of night-blindness and anemia, was remarkable. However, compared with control households, the kitchen-gardens group had significantly more nutrition knowledge (38% vs. 13% knew one of the causes of night-blindness, and 17% vs. 3% knew one of the causes of anemia), were more likely to feed special complementary foods to infants and to preserve food, and consumed more of 16 types of home-produced micronutrient-rich vegetables and fruits. Although the cross-sectional nature of the study limits our ability to attribute these differences to the program, we observed a striking lack of nutrition knowledge in these communities, and a clear opportunity to increase the intake of vitamin A through home production of vitamin A-rich plants.     

Epidemiological comparisons of problems and positive qualities reported by adolescents in 24 countries.

In this study, the authors compared ratings of behavioral and emotional problems and positive qualities on the Youth Self-Report (T. M. Achenbach & L. A. Rescorla, 2001) by adolescents in general population samples from 24 countries (N = 27,206). For problem scales, country effect sizes (ESs) ranged from 3% to 9%, whereas those for gender and age ranged from less than 1% to 2%. Scores were significantly higher for girls than for boys on Internalizing Problems and significantly higher for boys than for girls on Externalizing Problems. Bicountry correlations for mean problem item scores averaged .69. For Total Problems, 17 of 24 countries scored within one standard deviation of the overall mean of 35.3. In the 19 countries for which parent ratings were also available, the mean of 20.5 for parent ratings was far lower than the self-report mean of 34.0 in the same 19 countries (d = 2.5). Results indicate considerable consistency across 24 countries in adolescents' self-reported problems but less consistency for positive qualities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Outpatient psychotherapy with dangerous clients: A model for clinical decision making.

The precedent-setting 1976 judicial decision of Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California established a duty to protect whereby psychotherapists are expected to exercise reasonable care to protect the potential victims of their clients' violent behavior. However, no standard of care for dangerous clients has been established. In this article, the authors present a model for clinical decision making to determine the best interventions for dealing with dangerous outpatient clients. The model takes into account the degree of violence risk and the strength of the therapeutic alliance. Four cases are presented to illustrate the application of the model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of natural images on the detectability of simple and compound wavelet subband quantization distortions

Quantization of the coefficients within a discrete wavelet transform subband gives rise to distortions in the reconstructed image that are localized in spatial frequency and orientation and are spatially correlated with the image. We investigated the detectability of these distortions: Contrast thresholds were measured for both simple and compound distortions presented in the unmasked paradigm and against two natural-image maskers. Simple and compound distortions were generated through uniform scalar quantization of one or two subbands. Unmasked detection thresholds for simple distortions yielded contrast sensitivity functions similar to those reported for 1-octave Gabor patches. Detection thresholds for simple distortions presented against two natural-image backgrounds revealed that thresholds were elevated across the frequency range of 1.15-18.4 cycles per degree with the greatest elevation for low-frequency distortions. Unmasked thresholds for compound distortions revealed relative sensitivities of 1.1-1.2, suggesting that summation of responses to wavelet distortions is similar to summation of responses to gratings. Masked thresholds for compound distortions revealed relative sensitivities of 1.5-1.7, suggesting greater summation when distortions are masked by natural images.     

Canid sex attractant studies

Behavioral studies using anestrous female beagles, and olfactory tests with dogs in the absence of females, indicate that methylp-hydroxybenzoate cannot be considered a key sexual attractant for male beagles, even though this compound has been found in estrous vaginal secretions.     

The formation and properties of mineral-polyacid cements

A study of the cement-forming reactions between certain naturally occurringortho- andpyro-silicate minerals and aqueous polyacid solutions is presented with particular reference to the rheological characteristics of the cement mixtures and the mechanical properties of the hardened cement pastes. The hydrolytic stability of the cements is discussed in terms of the nature of cations present in the gel matrix.     

Monadic recursion schemes: The effect of constants

When the class of monadic recursion schemes is augmented by individual constants, some of the properties change. It becomes undecidable whether “S diverges” or “S is strongly equivalent to T” for S, T schemes with individual constants. The family of value languages generated by this class of schemes is the family of recursively enumerable languages. The subclass of free schemes with constants is also investigated. It remains decidable whether “S halts” or “S diverges” for S a free scheme with individual constants, but it becomes undecidable whether “T has a strongly equivalent free scheme” for T an arbitrary scheme with individual constants.     

Survival of bacteriophages in seawater

The stability of T₂ bacteriophage in seawater was investigated under laboratory conditions and in the natural waters of a bay. Inactivation was temperature dependent and was enhanced by sunlight and sewage pollution. Chemical inactivation did not appear to be a major factor.