Food policy, dietary intakes and chronic disease in prisons

International research on prisoners demonstrates poor health outcomes, including chronic disease, with the overall burden to the community high. Prisoners are predominantly male and young. In Australia, the average incarceration length is 3 years, sufficient to impact long term health, including nutrition. Food in prisons is highly controlled, yet gaps exist in policy. In most Western countries prisons promote healthy foods, often incongruent with prisoner expectations or wants. Few studies have been conducted on dietary intakes during incarceration in relation to food policy. In this study detailed diet histories were collected on 120/945 men (mean age = 32 years), in a high-secure prison. Intakes were verified via individual purchase records, mealtime observations, and audits of food preparation, purchasing and holdings. Physical measurements (including fasting bloods) were taken and medical records reviewed. Results showed the standard food provided consistent with current dietary guidelines, however limited in menu choice. Diet histories revealed self-funded foods contributing 1–63% of energy (mean = 30%), 0–83% sugar (mean = 38%), 1–77% saturated fats (mean = 31%) and 1–59% sodium (mean = 23%). High levels of modification to food provided was found using minimal cooking amenities and inclusion of self-funded foods and/or foods retained from previous meals. Medical records and physical measurements confirmed markers of chronic disease. This study highlights the need to establish clear guidelines on all food available in prisons if chronic disease risk reduction is a goal. This study has also supported evidenced based food and nutrition policy including menu choice, food quality, quantity and safety as well as type and access to self-funded foods.

Caustic potash pulping study of water efficient Arudno donax and Sorghum bicolor; a comparison to sugarcane bagasse

Numerous crops grow in sugar regions that have the potential to increase the amount of biomass available to a small bagasse-based pulp factory. Arundo donax and Sorghum offer unique advantages to farmers compared to other agricultural crops. Sorghum bicolour requires only 1/3 of the water of sugarcane. Arundo donax is a very high yield crop, it can also grow with little water but it has the further advantage in that it is also highly stress tolerant, making it suitable for land which is unsuited to other crops. Pulps produced from these crops were benchmarked against sugarcane bagasse pulp. Arundo, sorghum and bagasse were pulped using KOH and anthraquinone to 20 Kappa number so as to produce a bleachable pulp. The unbleached sorghum pulp has better tensile strength properties than the unbleached Arundo pulp (43.8 Nm/g compared to 21.4 Nm/g) and the bleached sorghum pulp tensile strength was similar to bagasse (28.4 Nm/g). At 20 Kappa number, sorghum pulp had acceptable yield for a non-wood fibre (45% c.f. 55% for bagasse), Arundo donax pulp had low tensile strength, and relatively low yield (38.7%), even for an agricultural fibre and required severe cooking conditions to achieve similar delignification to sugarcane bagasse or sorghum. Sorghum and Arundo donax produced thicker handsheets than bagasse (>160 μm c.f. 122 μm for bagasse). In preliminary experiments sorghum and bagasse responded slightly better to Totally Chlorine Free bleaching (QPP), although none achieved a satisfactory brightness level and more optimisation is needed.

Environmental education through listening to children

Environmental education centres contribute to schools and communities in Environmental Education and Education for Sustainability through nature and urban -based, experiential learning and action learning approaches. An underlying assumption of these centres is that intensive, short-term, outdoor/environmental education experiences can change key attitudes and/or actions leading to positive environmental behaviour. This study reflects the interests of a researching professional who investigated aspects of a program that he designed and implemented as principal of an environmental education centre. Most evaluations of similar programs have used quasi-experimental designs to measure the program outcomes. However, this study considered the experiences of the program from the perspectives of a group of key stakeholders often overlooked in the literature; the children who participated in the program. This study examined children’s accounts of their own experiences in order to contribute new understandings of children’s perspectives and how they can be considered when designing and implementing environmental education programs. This research drew on key theoretical assumptions derived from the sociology of childhood. Within sociology of childhood, children are considered to be competent practitioners within their social worlds, who, through their talk and interaction, participate actively in the construction of their own social situations. This approach also views children as capable and competent learners who construct their knowledge through everyday participation in social experiences. This study set out to generate children’s own accounts of their experiences of a five day residential program at the Centre. In total, 54 children participated in the study that used a multi-faceted data collection approach that included conversations, drawings, photographs and journal writing. Using content analysis, data were analysed by means of an inductive approach to develop themes related to the children’s perspectives of their experiences. Three interrelated and co-dependent components of the experience emerged from the analysis; space and place; engagement and participation; and responsiveness and reflection. These components co-exist and construct the conditions for effective experiences in environmental education at the Centre. The first key finding was the emphasis that the children placed on being provided with somewhere where they could feel safe and comfortable to interact with their environment and engage in a range of outdoor experiences. The children identified that place was an outdoor classroom where they could participate in first-hand experiences and, at times, explore out-of-bound spaces; that is, a place where they had previously been limited, often by adults, in their opportunities to interact with nature. A second key finding was the emphasis that the children placed on engagement and participation in environmental experience. The children described participating in a range of new primary experiences that involved first-hand, experiences and also described participating in collaborative experiences that involved interacting with peers and with teachers, who appeared to behave differently to how they behaved at school. Finally, the children described a different type of interactional relationship with teachers, comparing the active educational role they played on camp to a more passive role at school where they sat at a table and the teacher wrote on the board. The final key finding was the emphasis that the children placed on responsiveness and reflection in the experience. In responding to their experiences, the children described the fun and excitement, confidence and satisfaction that they gained from the experience. The children also identified how their experiences contributed to the development of a caring-for-nature attitude and the value of a disorienting dilemma in promoting responsiveness to the environment. This disorienting dilemma was an event that caused the children to reassess their own beliefs and attitudes. From the three main findings, a theoretical framework that represented the children’s accounts of their experiences and a pedagogic approach that respected their accounts was developed. This pedagogic approach showed how a disorienting dilemma could create a disequilibrium in relation to a child’s existing ideas and experiences. As a result, children were challenged to reflect upon their existing environmental beliefs and practices. The findings of this research have implications for the field of environmental education. Adopting sociology of childhood provides an alternative foundation to research and can present a deeper understanding of what children believe, than an approach that relies solely on using scientific methods to undercover and analyse these understandings. This research demonstrates the value of gaining children’s accounts to assist educators to design environmental education programs as it can offer more than adult and educator perspectives. This study also provides understandings of environmental education practice by describing how the children engaged with informal learning situations. Finally, two sets of recommendations, drawn from this study, are made. The first set considers nine recommendations about and for future research and the second relates to redesigning of the environmental educational program at the research site, with six recommendations made.

An objective measure of reactive behaviour in horses

Several tests have been devised in an attempt to detect behaviour modification due to training, supplements or diet in horses. These tests rely on subjective observations in combination with physiological measures, such as heart rate (HR) and plasma cortisol concentrations, but these measures do not definitively identify behavioural changes. The aim of the present studies was to develop an objective and relevant measure of horse reactivity. In Study 1, HR responses to auditory stimuli, delivered over 6 days, designed to safely startle six geldings confined to individual stalls was studied to determine if peak HR, unconfounded by physical exertion, was a reliable measure of reactivity. Both mean (±SEM) resting HR (39.5 ± 1.9 bpm) and peak HR (82 ± 5.5 bpm) in response to being startled in all horses were found to be consistent over the 6 days. In Study 2, HR, plasma cortisol concentrations and speed of departure from an enclosure (reaction speed (RS)) in response to a single stimulus of six mares were measured when presented daily over 6 days. Peak HR response (133 ± 4 bpm) was consistent over days for all horses, but RS increased (3.02 ± 0.72 m/s on Day 1 increasing to 4.45 ± 0.53 m/s on Day 6; P = 0.005). There was no effect on plasma cortisol, so this variable was not studied further. In Study 3, using the six geldings from Study 1, the RS test was refined and a different startle stimulus was used each day. Again, there was no change in peak HR (97.2 ± 5.8 bpm) or RS (2.9 ± 0.2 m/s on Day 1 versus 3.0 ± 0.7 m/s on Day 6) over time. In the final study, mild sedation using acepromazine maleate (0.04 mg/kg BW i.v.) decreased peak HR in response to a startle stimulus when the horses (n = 8) were confined to a stall (P = 0.006), but not in an outdoor environment when the RS test was performed. However, RS was reduced by the mild sedation (P = 0.02). In conclusion, RS may be used as a practical and objective test to measure both reactivity and changes in reactivity in horses.

Influence of ventilation and filtration on indoor particle concentrations in urban office buildings

This study aimed to quantify the efficiency of deep bag and electrostatic filters, and assess the influence of ventilation systems using these filters on indoor fine (<2.5 µm) and ultrafine particle concentrations in commercial office buildings. Measurements and modelling were conducted for different indoor and outdoor particle source scenarios at three office buildings in Brisbane, Australia. Overall, the in-situ efficiency, measured for particles in size ranges 6 to 3000 nm, of the deep bag filters ranged from 26.3 to 46.9% for the three buildings, while the in-situ efficiency of the electrostatic filter in one building was 60.2%. The highest PN and PM2.5 concentrations in one of the office buildings (up to 131% and 31% higher than the other two buildings, respectively) were due to the proximity of the building’s HVAC air intakes to a nearby bus-only roadway, as well as its higher outdoor ventilation rate. The lowest PN and PM2.5 concentrations (up to 57% and 24% lower than the other two buildings, respectively) were measured in a building that utilised both outdoor and mixing air filters in its HVAC system. Indoor PN concentrations were strongly influenced by outdoor levels and were significantly higher during rush-hours (up to 41%) and nucleation events (up to 57%), compared to working-hours, for all three buildings. This is the first time that the influence of new particle formation on indoor particle concentrations has been identified and quantified. A dynamic model for indoor PN concentration, which performed adequately in this study also revealed that using mixing/outdoor air filters can significantly reduce indoor particle concentration in buildings where indoor air was strongly influenced by outdoor particle levels. This work provides a scientific basis for the selection and location of appropriate filters and outdoor air intakes, during the design of new, or upgrade of existing, building HVAC systems. The results also serve to provide a better understanding of indoor particle dynamics and behaviours under different ventilation and particle source scenarios, and highlight effective methods to reduce exposure to particles in commercial office buildings.

Automatic object segmentation of unstructured scenes using colour and depth maps

This study presents a segmentation pipeline that fuses colour and depth information to automatically separate objects of interest in video sequences captured from a quadcopter. Many approaches assume that cameras are static with known position, a condition which cannot be preserved in most outdoor robotic applications. In this study, the authors compute depth information and camera positions from a monocular video sequence using structure from motion and use this information as an additional cue to colour for accurate segmentation. The authors model the problem similarly to standard segmentation routines as a Markov random field and perform the segmentation using graph cuts optimisation. Manual intervention is minimised and is only required to determine pixel seeds in the first frame which are then automatically reprojected into the remaining frames of the sequence. The authors also describe an automated method to adjust the relative weights for colour and depth according to their discriminative properties in each frame. Experimental results are presented for two video sequences captured using a quadcopter. The quality of the segmentation is compared to a ground truth and other state-of-the-art methods with consistently accurate results.

GrabCutSFM : how 3D information improves unsupervised object segmentation

In this paper, we present an unsupervised graph cut based object segmentation method using 3D information provided by Structure from Motion (SFM), called Grab- CutSFM. Rather than focusing on the segmentation problem using a trained model or human intervention, our approach aims to achieve meaningful segmentation autonomously with direct application to vision based robotics. Generally, object (foreground) and background have certain discriminative geometric information in 3D space. By exploring the 3D information from multiple views, our proposed method can segment potential objects correctly and automatically compared to conventional unsupervised segmentation using only 2D visual cues. Experiments with real video data collected from indoor and outdoor environments verify the proposed approach.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cookbooks : promoting Indigenous foodways or reinforcing Western traditions?

This article examines the recent emergence of cookbooks written for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia. The cookbooks are health promotion initiatives, developed through a desire to improve the health status of Indigenous Australians. They focus on nutritious, family meals that can be cooked on a low budget. In this article, the authors argue that the cookbooks designed for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are developed within a Western paradigm of health and nutrition that subtly reinforces Western approaches to food and disregards traditional diets. While the authors recognize the value of the cookbooks as health promotion tools, they suggest that cookbooks centred around Indigenous foodways – with a focus on traditional ingredients and traditional cooking methods – may be more appropriate for improving the health of Indigenous people and helping Indigenous cultures to thrive. They advocate for a decolonizing approach to food and nutrition, that specifically promotes Indigenous traditions and culture, and incorporates traditional foodways into modern recipes.

Let the children (and young people) play-where, how, why?

This paper reports on current research work with children and young people on the importance of public and private space for good health, wellbeing, social, educational and developmental outcomes. In many urban locations in Australia and elsewhere, public space is under attack from developers and attempts by authorities to control public space (Watson 2006). Private space in the home and garden-backyard is also under attack from development densification and trends towards bigger houses on smaller plots of land where gardens disappear altogether or a postage stamp remains (Gleeson and Sipe 2006). At the same time public policy advocates the benefits of outdoor exercise, set alongside fears about using public space exacerbated by notions of ‘stranger danger’ and control measures such as child and youth ‘curfews’. In this increasingly complex context, it is important to discover what children and young people value and need most in using private (home) and public space. In conjunction with the University of Otago, New Zealand, children and young people are consulted to discover how they use public space in parks and shopping centres and home space and the issues encountered and their proposals for improvement, to better inform policy debate, planning and formulation (ARACY 2009).

The association between pterygium and conjunctival ultraviolet autofluorescence : The Norfolk Island Eye Study

Purpose: To investigate the association between conjunctival ultraviolet autofluorescence (UVAF), a biomarker of ocular ultraviolet radiation (UVR) exposure, and prevalent pterygium. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study on Norfolk Island, South Pacific. All permanent residents aged ‡15 were invited to participate. Participants completed a sun exposure questionnaire and underwent autorefraction and slit lamp biomicroscope examination. Area of conjunctival UVAF (sum of temporal ⁄ nasal area in right and left eyes) was determined using computerized methods. Multivariate logistic and linear regression models were used to estimate the associations with pterygia and UVAF, respectively. Results: Of 641 participants, 70 people (10.9%) had pterygium in one or both eyes, and prevalence was higher in males (15.0% versus 7.7%, p = 0.003). Significant independent associations with pterygium in any eye were UVAF (per 10 mm2) [odds ratio (OR) 1.16, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.16–1.28, p = 0.002], tanning skin phenotype (OR 2.17,1.20–3.92, p = 0.010) and spending more than three-quarters of the day outside (OR 2.22, 1.20–4.09, p = 0.011). Increasing quartile of UVAF was associated with increased risk of pterygium following adjustment of age, sex and time outdoors (pTrend = 0.002). Independent associations with increasing UVAF (per 10 mm2) were decreasing age, time outdoors, skin type and male gender (all p < 0.001). UVAF area correlated well with the duration of outdoor activity (pTrend < 0.001). Conclusion: Pterygium occurs in approximately one-tenth of Norfolk Islanders. Increasing conjunctival UVAF is associated with prevalent pterygia, confirming earlier epidemiological, laboratory and ray-tracing studies that pterygia are associated with UVR. Protection from the sun should be encouraged to reduce the prevalence of pterygium in the community.

Reliability and validity of conjunctival ultraviolet autofluorescence measurement

BACKGROUND: Conjunctival ultraviolet autofluorescence (UVAF) photography was developed to detect and characterise pre-clinical sunlight-induced UV damage. The reliability of this measurement and its relationship to outdoor activity are currently unknown. METHODS: 599 people aged 16-85 years in the cross-sectional Norfolk Island Eye Study were included in the validation study. 196 UVAF individual photographs (49 people) and 60 UVAF photographs (15 people) of Norfolk Island Eye Study participants were used for intra- and inter-observer reliability assessment, respectively. Conjunctival UVAF was measured using UV photography. UVAF area was calculated using computerised methods by one grader on two occasions (intra-observer analysis) or two graders (inter-observer analysis). Outdoor activity category, during summer and winter separately, was determined with a UV questionnaire. Total UVAF equalled the area measured in four conjunctival areas (nasal/temporal conjunctiva of right and left eyes). RESULTS: Intra-observer (ρ_c=0.988, 95% CI 0.967 to 0.996, p<0.001), and inter-observer concordance correlation coefficients (ρ_c=0.924, 95% CI 0.870 to 0.956, p<0.001) of total UVAF exceeded 0.900. When grouped according to 10 mm(2) total UVAF increments, intra- and inter-observer reliability was very good (κ=0.81) and good (κ=0.71), respectively. Increasing time outdoors was strongly with increasing total UVAF in summer and winter (p(trend) <0.001). CONCLUSION: Intra- and inter-observer reliability of conjunctival UVAF is high. In this population, UVAF correlates strongly with the authors' survey-based assessment of time spent outdoors.

The GSTM1 null genotype confers an increased risk for Solar Keratosis Development in an Australian Caucasian Population

Solar keratoses affect approximately 50% of Australian Caucasians aged over 40 y. Solar keratoses can undergo malignant transformation into squamous cell carcinoma followed by possible metastasis and are risk factors for basal cell carcinoma, melanoma, and squamous cell carcinoma. The glutathione-S-transferase genes play a part in detoxification of carcinogens and mutagens, including some produced by ultraviolet radiation. This study examined the role of glutathione-S-transferase M1, T1, P1, and Z1 gene polymorphisms in susceptibility to solar keratoses development. Using DNA samples from volunteers involved in the Nambour Skin Cancer Prevention Trial, allele and genotype frequencies were determined using polymerase chain reaction and restriction enzyme digestion. No significant differences were detected in glutathione-S-transferase P1 and glutathione-S-transferase Z1 allele or genotype frequencies; however, a significant association between glutathione-S-transferase M1 genotypes and solar keratoses development was detected (p=0.003) with null individuals having an approximate 2-fold increase in risk for solar keratoses development (odds ratio: 2.1; confidence interval: 1.3-3.5) and a significantly higher increase in risk in conjunction with high outdoor exposure (odds ratio: 3.4; confidence interval: 1.9-6.3). Also, a difference in glutathione-S-transferase T1 genotype frequencies was detected (p=0.039), although considering that multiple testing was undertaken, this was found not to be significant. Fair skin and inability to tan were found to be highly significant risk factors for solar keratoses development with odds ratios of 18.5 (confidence interval: 5.7-59.9) and 7.4 (confidence interval: 2.6-21.0), respectively. Overall, glutathione-S-transferase M1 conferred a significant increase in risk of solar keratoses development, particularly in the presence of high outdoor exposure and synergistically with known phenotypic risk factors of fair skin and inability to tan.

NSAM-derived total surface area vs. SMPS-derived "mobility equivalent" surface area for different environmentally relevant aerosols

The surface area of inhaled particles deposited in the alveolar region, as reported by the TSI nanoparticle surface area monitor (NSAM), was compared with the corresponding value estimated by a TSI scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS) for a range of environmentally relevant aerosols, including petrol emissions, ETS, laser printer emissions, cooking emissions and ambient aerosols. The SMPS values were based on a mobility size distribution assuming spherical particles using the appropriate size-dependent alveolar-deposition factors provided by the ICRP. In most cases, the two instruments showed good linear agreement. With petrol emissions and ETS, the linearity extended to over 103 μm2 cm-3. With printer emissions, there was good linearity up to about 300 μm2 cm-3 while the NSAM increasingly overestimated the surface area at higher concentrations. The presence of a nucleation event in ambient air caused the NSAM to over-estimate the surface area by a factor of 2. We summarize these results and conclude that the maximum number concentration up to which the NSAM is accurate clearly depends on the type of aerosol being sampled and provide guidance for the use of the instrument.

Transitions in taste in Vietnam and the diaspora

This paper argues that food and styles of eating have become the predominant markers of social change for the Vietnamese in both Vietnam and in the diaspora. In post-socialist Vietnam the transition to a market economy has allowed for a huge growth in the number of restaurants and cafes, and in the north, a return to an earlier style of cooking. The intense interest and emphasis on food as embodied pleasure has meant that it has come to stand for the transition away from a heavily state-controlled economy. The new configurations of family and friendship are being framed by newly available ways of ‘eating out’, which are both a means of social display and distinction as well as an indicator of the tensions between reform and festivity within an authoritarian nation-state struggling to define itself in a globalising world. At the same time as food in Vietnam is undergoing rapid transformation so too has the Vietnamese diaspora enerationally changed its eating patterns. Although there as been a focus in the literature on food in the diaspora that emphasises the nostalgic and recuperative elements of ‘migrant food’, I argue that food is the prime mechanism of intercultural engagement for each diasporic generation. For older Vietnamese, Vietnamese restaurants and barbecues have been the sites of interplay between cultural tradition’ and innovation, and between Australianness and Vietnameseness, and these interstitial places continue to be important for younger Vietnamese. Within this established framework of cross-cultural interaction, for Vietnamese youth, the social settings of ‘ethnic food’, eaten at home and shared with family, have been grafted onto a sociality of eating fast food. This melding together of both invention and convention, of transgression and ordinariness provides the background against which young people from migrant backgrounds are reinvigorating the social spaces of food consumption and in the process both e-enchanting and destabilising the notion of migrant food.

Personal exposure to ultrafine particles : the influence of time-activity patterns

Exposure to ultrafine particles (UFPs) is deemed to be a major risk affecting human health. Therefore, airborne particle studies were performed in the recent years to evaluate the most critical micro-environments, as well as identifying the main UFP sources. Nonetheless, in order to properly evaluate the UFP exposure, personal monitoring is required as the only way to relate particle exposure levels to the activities performed and micro-environments visited. To this purpose, in the present work, the results of experimental analysis aimed at showing the effect of the time-activity patterns on UFP personal exposure are reported. In particular, 24 non-smoking couples (12 during winter and summer time, respectively), comprised of a man who worked full-time and a woman who was a homemaker, were analyzed using personal particle counter and GPS monitors. Each couple was investigated for a 48-h period, during which they also filled out a diary reporting the daily activities performed. Time activity patterns, particle number concentration exposure and the related dose received by the participants, in terms of particle alveolar-deposited surface area, were measured. The average exposure to particle number concentration was higher for women during both summer and winter (Summer: women 1.8×104 part. cm-3; men 9.2×103 part. cm-3; Winter: women 2.9×104 part. cm-3; men 1.3×104 part. cm-3), which was likely due to the time spent undertaking cooking activities. Staying indoors after cooking also led to higher alveolar-deposited surface area dose for both women and men during the winter time (9.12×102 and 6.33×102 mm2, respectively), when indoor ventilation was greatly reduced. The effect of cooking activities was also detected in terms of women’s dose intensity (dose per unit time), being 8.6 and 6.6 in winter and summer, respectively. On the contrary, the highest dose intensity activity for men was time spent using transportation (2.8 in both winter and summer).