Expanding evidence for the multiple dangers of epidemic abdominal obesity

The waistline of America has been expanding now for decades,1 largely as a consequence of an obesogenic environment, with a car-worshipping culture and take-away lifestyle par excellence.2 No upper limit to the prevalence or extent of obesity is yet apparent, and many countries and communities worldwide are busily following the American lead. Accumulating research evidence suggests that the personal and economic costs of the obesity epidemic are immense,3 driven by the obesity-related increases in risk for conditions such as type 2 diabetes mellitus, the metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease (CVD), kidney disease, arthritis, cancer, asthma, and sleep-disordered breathing. In addition, decreases are apparent in self-esteem and quality of life.

Expanding the concept of parental control : a role for overt and covert control in children’s snacking behaviour?

The existing literature on parental control and children’s diets is confusing. The present paper reports two studies to explore an expanded conceptualisation of parental control with a focus on overt control which ‘can be detected by the child’ and covert control which ‘cannot be detected by the child’. In study 1, 297 parents of children aged between 4 and 11 completed a measure of overt control and covert control alongside ratings of their child’s snacking behaviour as a means to assess who uses either overt or covert control and how these aspects of parental control relate to a child’s snacking behaviour. The results showed that lighter parents and those with children perceived as heavier were more likely to use covert control and those from a higher social class were more likely to use overt control. Further, whilst greater covert control predicted a decreased intake of unhealthy snacks, greater overt control predicted an increased intake of healthy snacks. In study 2, 61 parents completed the same measure of overt and covert control alongside the three control subscales of the Child Feeding Questionnaire [Birch, L.L., Fisher, J.O., Grimm-Thomas, Markey, C.N., Sawyer, R. (2001). Confirmatory factor analysis of the Child Feeding Questionnaire: A measure of parental attitudes, beliefs and practices about child feeding and obesity proneness. Appetite, 36, 201–210] to assess degrees of overlap between these measures. The results showed that although these five measures of control were all positively correlated, the correlations between the new and existing measures indicated a maximum of 21% shared variance suggesting that covert and overt control are conceptually and statistically separate from existing measures of control. To conclude, overt and covert control may be a useful expansion of existing ways to measure and conceptualise parental control. Further, these constructs may differentially relate to snacking behaviour which may help to explain some of the confusion in the literature.

The implementation of mobile technology in organizations : expanding individual use contexts

Mobile computing devices such as personal digital assistants, smart mobile phones, and other handheld computing devices hold much promise in terms of their organizational application. Many existing models of the individual acceptance and implementation of information technology in organizational contexts have been developed in the era of “at the office” computing such as MIS, office automation, groupware, and so forth. We conducted two in-depth case studies of the implementation of mobile technology in healthcare organizations. The studies highlight interrelated individual use contexts due to the mobility of the technology: the individual as employee, as professional, as private user, and as member of society. The cases show that influences emanating from these use contexts impacted on the individual adoption of the technology within the organization. While broad extra-organizational influences are incorporated in some existing individual technology adoption models, we show that it becomes relevant to accommodate these influences more specifically in research models of mobile computing in organizations. Based on the extant literature and the case study data we pave the way toward more comprehensive models of the adoption and implementation of mobile technologies in organizations.

Expanding the horizons of accounting education : incorporating social and critical perspectives

This paper examines a case of accounting education change in the context of increased interest in ethical, social, and environmental accountability, presenting a reflexive case study of a new university accounting subject incorporating social and critical perspectives. Foundational pedagogical principles and key aspects of curriculum are outlined. The pedagogy draws on the integration of humanistic and formative education (principally based on Gramscian and Freirean approaches) and deep and elaborative learning. Two key aspects of curriculum and pedagogy are analysed. First, a curriculum based on a broad conception of accounting and accountability as power-laden social processes, drawing on a range of research literature. Second, the adoption of an authentic, supportive, and collegial team teaching approach. Students’ feedback relating to identified issues is presented. The paper contributes to the renewal of the social and ethical worth of accounting education, concluding that deep accounting educational change encompasses both the content and practice of classroom activity and changes in the self-consciousness of staff and students.

Simulating urban growth in a developing nation's region using a cellular automata-based model

Urbanization is one of the most evident global changes. Research in the field of urban growth modelling has generated models that explore for drivers and components of the urban growth dynamics. Cellular automata (CA) modeling is one of the recent advances, and a number of CA-based models of urban growth have produced satisfactory simulations of spatial urban expansion over time. Most application and test of CA-based models of urban growth which provide likely and reliable simulations has been developed in urban regions of developed nations; urban regions in the United States, in particular. This is because most of the models were developed in universities and research centers of developed nations, and these regions have the required data, which is extensive. Most of the population growth in the world, however, occurs in the developing world. While some European countries show signs of stabilization of their population, in less developed countries, such as India, population still grows exponentially. And this growth is normally uncoordinated, which results in serious environmental and social problems in urban areas. Therefore, the use of existing dynamic–spatial models of urban growth in regions of developing nations could be a means to assist planners and decision makers of these regions to understand and simulate the process of urban growth and test the results of different development strategies. The pattern of growth of urban regions of developing nations, however, seems to be different of the pattern of developed countries. The former use to be more dense and centralized, normally expanding outwards from consolidated urban areas; while the second is normally more fragmented and sparse. The present paper aims to investigate to how extent existing CA-based urban growth models tested in developed nations can also be applied to a developing country urban area. The urban growth model was applied to Porto Alegre City, Brazil. An expected contiguous expansion from existing urban areas has been obtained as following the historical trends of growth of the region. Moreover, the model was sensitive and able to portray different pattern of growth in the study area by changing the value of its parameters.

Enactive research : transversal possibilities for expanding the imaging of science

This paper explores the notion of the expanded image as a transdisciplinary interaction between people and environments. In support of this proposition, images and imaging will be discussed through a series of transformative steps: from the diagram to the biogram and from the biogram to biotopology. Two research projects, exemplary of a transdisciplinary approach, inform the move to biotopology (the continuous surface of interactions tied to imaging practices): first, theories of enaction in cognitive science foreground co-selective processes and the precariousness of self- organizing systems and supply new ways of imaging body-environment relationships (Stewart et al 2010; Thompson 2007; and Varela et al 1993); and second, the procedural architecture of artist- turned-architects Arakawa and Gins foregrounds the reconfigurability of the co-selective process that becomes an enactive practice. These approaches suggest that if the image were expanded to include the intersection of the human organism’s behaviors, artifacts (such as images) and built- environments, then the ‘person’ whose myriad surfaces flicker towards future action, might become the best description of an expanded form of imaging, always in process and flickering towards future action. The many and non-locatable surfaces of person would defy disciplinary boundaries and interfere with habitual patterns of imaging. Ultimately, the aim of expanding imaging practices is to expand an embodied capacity to configure and reconfigure conceptual and material realms.

Microstructures and properties of ferrite/bainite dual-phase steels with high hole-expanding ratio

The effects of Si and Mn contents on microstructure, mechanical properties and formability of low carbon Si-Mn steels were studied, and the crack propagation of ferrite/bainite dual-phase steel was also investigated. The results showed that the increase in Si content increases the volume fraction of equiaxed ferrite. However, the increase in Mn content increases both strength and ductility, but decreases elongation and hole-expanding ratio. The crack of ferrite/bainite dual-phase steel is formed by the mode of microvoid coalescence. When a microcrack meets the bainite, it mostly propagates along the phase interface between ferrite and bainite and by cutting off ferrite grains. The hot-rolled ferrite/bainite dual-phase steel, which has a hole-expanding ratio of 95% and good property combination, could be produced by designing proper contents of Si and Mn as well as parameters of TMCP.

Service-oriented wireless sensor networks and an energy-aware mesh routing algorithm

Service-oriented wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are being paid more and more attention because service computing can hide complexity of WSNs and enables simple and transparent access to individual sensor nodes. Existing WSNs mainly use IEEE 802.15.4 as their communication specification, however, this protocol suite cannot support IP-based routing and service-oriented access because it only specifies a set of physical- and MAC-layer protocols. For inosculating WSNs with IP networks, IEEE proposed a 6LoWPAN (IPv6 over LoW Power wireless Area Networks) as the adaptation layer between IP and MAC layers. However, it is still a challenging task how to discover and manage sensor resources, guarantee the security of WSNs and route messages over resource-restricted sensor nodes. This paper is set to address such three key issues. Firstly, we propose a service-oriented WSN architectural model based on 6LoWPAN and design a lightweight service middleware SOWAM (service-oriented WSN architecture middleware), where each sensor node provides a collection of services and is managed by our SOWAM. Secondly, we develop a security mechanism for the authentication and secure connection among users and sensor nodes. Finally, we propose an energyaware mesh routing protocol (EAMR) for message transmission in a WSN with multiple mobile sinks, aiming at prolonging the lifetime of WSNs as long as possible. In our EAMR, sensor nodes with the residual energy lower than a threshold do not forward messages for other nodes until the threshold is leveled down. As a result, the energy consumption is evened over sensor nodes significantly. The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of our service-oriented approach and lightweight middleware SOWAM, as well as the effectiveness of our routing algorithm EAMR.

Expanding children's food experiences : the impact of a school-based kitchen garden program

Objective: Evaluate achievement of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program in increasing child appreciation of diverse, healthy foods.

Design: Comparative 2-year study.

Setting: Six program and 6 comparison primary schools in rural and metropolitan Victoria, Australia, matched for socioeconomic status and size.

Participants: A total of 764 children in grades 3 to 6 (8–12 years of age) and 562 parents recruited. Retention rates at follow-up included 85% children and 75% parents.

Intervention: Each week of the school year, children spent 45 to 60 minutes in a garden class and 90 minutes in a kitchen class.

Phenomenon of interest: Program impact on children’s willingness to try new foods, capacity to describe foods, and healthy eating.

Analysis: Qualitative data analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. Quantitative data analyzed using random-effects linear regressions adjusted for school clustering.

Results: Child and parent qualitative and quantitative measures (if never tried before, odds ratio 2.0; confidence interval, 1.06–3.58) showed increases in children’s reported willingness to try new foods. No differences in articulation of food descriptions (program vs comparison groups). Qualitative evidence showed that the program extended its influence to healthy eating, but this was not reflected in the quantitative evidence.

Conclusions and Implications: Findings indicate program success in achieving its primary objective, meriting further program research.

Expanding horizon (Reykjavík)

Expanding horizons (Reykjavík) (2012-2013) is part of an ongoing series of interactive net-art/installation works that explores the space of the horizon line. Produced with time-lapse photography, animated movements, and playing with perception, this work explores how the vastness of a horizon line can be captured, compressed and re-presented for viewers to align with as an artwork