Caffeine as a flavor additive in soft-drinks

Over 60% of soft-drinks sold in the United States contain caffeine, a mildly addictive psycho-active chemical, as a flavor additive. Using sweeteners as controls, we assessed whether caffeine has flavor activity in a cola soft-drink. A forced-choice triangle discrimination methodology was used to determine detection thresholds of caffeine in sweeteners and a cola beverage. The subjects (n=30, 28 female, 23±4 years old) were trained tasters and completed over 1600 discrimination tests during the study. The mean detection thresholds for caffeine in the sweet solutions were: 0.333±0.1 mM sucrose; 0.467±0.29 mM aspartame; 0.462±0.3 mM sucralose, well below the concentration in common cola beverages (0.55–0.67 mM). A fixed concentration of caffeine, corresponding to the concentration of caffeine in a common cola beverage (0.67 mM) was added to the sweeteners and a non-caffeinated cola beverage. Subjects could distinguish between caffeinated and non-caffeinated sweeteners (p<0.001), but all subjects failed to distinguish between caffeinated and non-caffeinated cola beverage (p=1.0). Caffeine has no flavor activity in soft-drinks yet will induce a physiologic and psychologic desire to consume the drink.

Beyond the workshop : doing multiliteracies with adolescents

Engaging students’ lifeworlds and the concerns of their communities in globalised, semiotic and information societies is imperative with the complexity of multimodal communication (Lemke 2006) in the ‘new media age’ (Kress 2003). As youth continue to demonstrate their multiliteracies proficiency with new literacies emerging from Internet Communication Technologies (ICTs), education - particularly curriculum and instruction - remains largely focused around monomodal, print-only literacy practices, often ignoring their multiple voices. In New Times (Hall 1996), there has been much rhetoric about the role of education in equipping students for the future. Multiliteracies pedagogy allows individual teachers to reconceptualise pedagogy and curriculum thereby addressing adolescents’ complex and demanding literacy needs (New London Group 1996). This paper presents new and emerging virtual contexts and environments for adolescent literacy instruction highlighting one teacher’s curricular interruptions where Multiliteracies pedagogies replaced the progressive monomodal reading and writing workshop. In conclusion, new perspectives on research related to the education of teachers in the education in post-typographic societies of the 21st century.

Re-envisioning literacy instruction with adolescents: multiliteracies, multimodality and new technologies

Engaging students' lifeworlds and the concerns of their communities in globalised, semiotic and information societies is imperative in New Times. As youth continue to exhibit their proficiency with new literacies emerging from Internet communication technologies (leTs), education-particularly curriculum and instruction-remains largely focused around monomodal, print-only literacy practices, often ignoring students' hybrid multiple voices. This paper reports on two curricular interruptions to the progressive reading and writing workshop that acknowledged adolescents' engagement with digital technologies and their new multimodalliteracy practices in a year eight public classroom within a small urban academy of technology.

Re-envisioning teacher education in the new media age: multiliteracies, multimodality and internet communication technologies

Multiliteracies pedagogy and research (New London Group, 1996) addresses the range of literacies needed by diverse students to effectively negotiate the increasing multimodality of texts, both inside and outside of schools. Yet, few university teachers understand how youth are able to express themselves, their experiences and lives, in new, empowering and perception-shifting ways as designers in the 21st century. Several theorists (Bruce, 2000; Lemke, 1998; Luke, 2000; Bolter, 1998; Glister, 1997) argue literacy education must be reconceptualised to recognize the importance of teaching and supporting multimedia literacy in a world where internet communication technologies (ICTs) incorporate all semiotic resources. Expression through multiple media and more recently hypermedia—is common to youth—but has often been demonized by historically logocentric approaches to teaching and assessment by privileging print, over all other forms of expression (Albright & Walsh, 2003; Lemke, 1998; McCloud, 1993). As digital media becomes more pervasive in a post-typographic world, tertiary education will need to engage with its representational resources for acquiring traditional school literacy and knowledge. This paper reports on initiatives in Multiliteracies instruction for both pre-service and in-service teachers to more adequately attend to the multisemiotic landscapes of students’ changing worlds in New Times (Hall, 1996).

Prevalence of psychological distress, anxiety and depression in rural communities in Australia

Objective: To describe the prevalence of psychological distress, depression and anxiety in three Australian rural settings and to identify the levels of risk by gender and age.

Design and setting: Three cross-sectional surveys in the Greater Green Triangle area covering the south-east of South Australia (Limestone Coast), and south-west (Corangamite Shire) and north-west (Wimmera) of Victoria.

Participants: A total of 1563 people, aged 25–74 years, randomly selected from the electoral roll.

Main outcome measures: Psychological distress assessed by the Kessler 10, and anxiety and depression assessed by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale.

Results: The prevalence of psychological distress was 31% for both men and women with two-thirds reporting moderate and one-third high levels of psychological distress. The prevalence of depression and anxiety was approximately 10%. The highest rate of psychological distress, anxiety and depression occurred in the 45–54 years age group. There were no consistent gender or area differences in the prevalence of psychological distress, depression or anxiety.

Conclusions: A third of the rural population reported psychological distress, with the highest prevalence observed in middle-aged men and women. Thus, health professionals should attend not only to physical health, but also to mental health status in this age group. It is also important to target prevention strategies at the 20% who reported moderate levels of psychological distress in order to prevent the development of more serious conditions.

Food and move project, promoting healthy eating & physical activity in a secondary school setting, pat 1: baseline data, interventions and future recommendations

The Food and Move project was a collaborative project with the students, staff and parents from four Warrnambool secondary colleges which focussed on promoting healthy eating and physical activity in secondary schools and built capacity for ongoing health promotion to address overweight/obesity.

The project aimed to:

1. Increase awareness amongst students, parents and staff of the links between regular physical activity and good nutrition to achieve optimal health.
2. Increase awareness amongst students, parents and staff of childhood/adolescent obesity and its implications for future health.
3. Improve the opportunities for students to access healthy food at their school canteen.
4. Improve the opportunities for students to access physical activity at recess and lunchtime.
5. Prepare a resource package of initiatives for use in secondary colleges to support the provision of opportunities for healthy eating and physical activity at Warrnambool secondary colleges.
6. Support the development of appropriate physical activity and nutrition curricula.

Identifying the barriers to implementing the Victorian Department of Education and Training guidelines regarding the provisions of nutrient dense food options in school canteens

Aims & rationale/Objectives : To identify barriers to the full implementation of new guidelines regarding school canteen menus launched by The Victorian Education Department in May 2004.
Methods : A self-administered questionnaire was sent to principals, business mangers and canteen managers of 13 secondary schools in South West Victoria covered by The Greater Green Triangle area (response rate 59%). The questions explored the canteen's role, operation, staffing and profits; existence and content of canteen policy; enablers and barriers to the sale of healthier foods; introduction and promotion of healthier foods; and perceived implications of banning less healthy foods.
Principal findings : The study identified several barriers to implementing healthy menus in school canteens, these being largely consistent with those found in other studies. The majority of schools reported they were making attempts to follow the guidelines for school food services, but were experiencing difficulty in proceeding to full implementation. The barriers identified through the study were student preference for less healthy options, concerns about profitability, lack of policy or its active communication and promotion at the school level and competition from other food outlets.
Discussion : There was evidence that healthy foods had not been actively promoted, suggesting that identification of student preferences as a barrier was based on perception rather than observation. The Victorian guidelines are effectively voluntary, with no accountability measures in place.
Implications : Research needs to be conducted to provide reliable and tested information about factors which impact on student choice. Schools would benefit from specialised assistance to formulate business plans for contemporary canteens selling healthy food and a clarification of government policy.
Presentation type : Poster

A population-based approach to optimising the use of anti-hypertensives

PowerPoint presentation

Biometric, nutritional and organoleptic changes in intensively farmed Murray Cod (Maccullochella peelii peelii) purged for different time periods

A period of purging before harvesting is common practice in intensive aquaculture to eliminate any possible off flavours from the fish. The present study was conducted to evaluate the biometrical, nutritional and sensory changes in intensively farmed Murray cod (Maccullochella peelii peelii) after 0, 2 and 4 weeks of purging. After the main biometric parameters were recorded, fish were analysed for proximate, fatty acid composition and flavour volatile compounds. A consumer preference test (triangle test) was also conducted to identify sensorial differences that may affect the consumer acceptability of the product.

Fish purged for 2 and 4 weeks had a significant weight loss of 4.1% and 9.1%, respectively, compared to unpurged fish, whilst perivisceral fat content did not change. The concentration of saturated (SFA), monounsaturated (MUFA) and highly unsaturated (HUFA) fatty acids were not significantly affected by purging time, while polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), n − 3 and n − 3 HUFA were significantly higher (P < 0.05) in purged fish compared to unpurged fish. Consumers were able to detect differences between the purged and unpurged fish (P < 0.05) preferring the taste of the purged fish. However, consumers were unable to distinguish between fish purged for 2 and 4 weeks.

This study showed that a 2 weeks purging period was necessary and sufficient to ameliorate the final organoleptic quality of farmed Murray cod. With such a strategy the nutritional qualities of edible flesh are improved while the unavoidable body weight loss is limited.

Rhizo-textual analyses of educational policy documents

In this paper, I describe methodological applications of Deleuze and Guattari's (1987) understanding of rhizomatic knowledge systems. I draw on rhizo-textual analyses of two different policy documents used in Australia to direct teachers in their teaching of English in primary (elementary) schools.

A rhizo-textual analysis is not concerned with following traditional, scientifically rigorous channels through a study; from data collection, through analysis, to findings that report some objectively discovered truth. Rather, a rhizo-textual analysis is a mapping of connections, of the fleshy tubers that are the rhizome. The mapping draws on various, and often contradictory work, ideas and concepts. What would seem to be "disparate phenomena" enables me to "connect diverse fragments of data in ways that produce new linkages and reveal discontinuities" (Alvermann, 2000, p. 118).

As Deleuze and Guattari point out, "A rhizome ceaselessly establishes connections between semiotic chains, organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, social sciences, and social struggles" (1987, p. 7). This ceaselessness of the connections between rhizomes shifts attention away from the construction of a particular reading of any text towards a new careful attendance to the multiplicity of linkages that can be mapped between any text and other texts, other readings, other assemblages of meaning. Elizabeth Grosz describes rhizomatic texts as "a process of scattering thoughts, scrambling terms, concepts and practices, forging linkages, becoming a form of action" (1995, p. 126)

Within the policy texts I have analysed, this scrambling and scattered process establishes connections between disparate discursive systems, about literacy, about texts, about students and how students learn, and about teaching so that the version of literacy teaching that is produced seems to be normative, to be unquestionably rational, and therefore to be beyond critique.

Biometric, nutritional and sensory changes in intensively farmed Murray cod (Maccullochella peelii peelii, Mitchell) following different purging times

A period of purging before harvesting is common practice in intensive aquaculture to eliminate any possible off flavours from the fish. The present study was conducted to evaluate the biometrical, nutritional and sensory changes in intensively farmed Murray cod (Maccullochella peelii peelii) after 0, 2 and 4 weeks of purging. After the main biometric parameters were recorded, fish were analysed for proximate, fatty acid composition and flavour volatile compounds. A consumer preference test (triangle test) was also conducted to identify sensorial differences that may affect the consumer acceptability of the product.

Fish purged for 2 and 4 weeks had a significant weight loss of 4.1% and 9.1%, respectively, compared to unpurged fish, whilst perivisceral fat content did not change. The concentration of saturated (SFA), monounsaturated (MUFA) and highly unsaturated (HUFA) fatty acids were not significantly affected by purging time, while polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), n − 3 and n − 3 HUFA were significantly higher (P < 0.05) in purged fish compared to unpurged fish. Consumers were able to detect differences between the purged and unpurged fish (P < 0.05) preferring the taste of the purged fish. However, consumers were unable to distinguish between fish purged for 2 and 4 weeks.

This study showed that a 2 weeks purging period was necessary and sufficient to ameliorate the final organoleptic quality of farmed Murray cod. With such a strategy the nutritional qualities of edible flesh are improved while the unavoidable body weight loss is limited.

Clinical placement and rurality of career commencement : a pilot study

This article reports on a project that aimed to discover whether rural placement can influence new graduates to take up rural positions, and what factors play a role in the decision-making. This pilot study reports the findings from a pre-survey of students (n = 110) who completed a questionnaire at the end of their rural placement in the Greater Green Triangle region, Australia. Findings are compared with matched questionnaire responses for students who subsequently completed a post-survey after graduation and who commenced work (n = 28). Rural placement appears to be associated with commencing rural practice after graduation. More graduates with an urban home address commenced rural practice than graduates with a rural home address who started their careers in the city. Longer placements may sway those with a city background to start work in a rural area.