Physical status, nutrient intake and dietary pattern of adolescent female factory workers in urban Bangladesh

This cross-sectional study examined the physical status, nutrient intake and dietary pattern of adolescent female factory workers in urban Bangladesh. A total of 1211 postmenarchial girls aged 14-19y from seventeen readymade garment industries spread over the Dhaka City participated in the study. Body weight, height and skin fold thickness were measured for all subjects. The nutrient intake was assessed by 24-h recall method and 7-day food frequency questionnaire was used to investigate their dietary pattern on a sub-sample of 509 girls. Sixty five percent of the girls were short (height-for-age,

Heuristic algorithm for computing reversal distance with multigene families via binary integer programming

Hannenhalli and Pevzner developed the first polynomial-time algorithm for the combinatorial problem of sorting of signed genomic data. Their algorithm solves the minimum number of reversals required for rearranging a genome to another when gene duplication is nonexisting. In this paper, we show how to extend the Hannenhalli-Pevzner approach to genomes with multigene families. We propose a new heuristic algorithm to compute the reversal distance between two genomes with multigene families via the concept of binary integer programming without removing gene duplicates. The experimental results on simulated and real biological data demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is able to find the reversal distance accurately. ©2005 IEEE

The spatial pattern of child growth in Papua New Guinea

Child growth in PNG shows strong regional differences, with highlands children being generally shorter but stockier than those from lowland areas. Differences in diet, socioeconomic status and local subsistence agriculture were found to be important predictors of child growth. All variables indicating higher socioeconomic status were correlated with better growth, as was a high consumption of imported and local high quality foods such as cereals, legumes, tinned fish or meat and fresh fish. Differences in subsistence explained between 25% and 50% of the geographical variation in growth. Child growth was better in systems based on cassava and sweet potato, and worse in those where banana, sago and taro are staples. The cultivation of all major cash crops and sales of fish and food crops improved child growth. Birth weights show similar patterns to those observed in child growth. The implications of these findings for possible interventions are discussed.