The interaction between exercise, appetite and food intake : implications for weight control

Exercise could indirectly affect body weight by exerting changes on various components of appetite control, including nutrient and taste preferences, meal size and frequency, and the drive to eat. This review summarizes the evidence on how exercise affects appetite and eating behavior and in particular answers the question, “Does exercise induce an increase in food intake to compensate for the increase in energy expenditure?” Evidence will be presented to demonstrate that there is no automatic increase in food intake in response to acute exercise and that the response to repeated exercise is variable. The review will also identify areas of further study required to explain the variability. One limitation with studies that assess the efficacy of exercise as a method of weight control is that only mean data are presented—the individual variability tends to be overlooked. Recent evidence highlights the importance of characterizing the individual variability by demonstrating exercise-induced changes in appetite. Individuals who experience lower than theoretically predicted reductions in body weight can be characterized by hedonic (eg, pleasure) and homeostatic (eg, hunger) features.

Refraction in children : a comparison of two methods of accommodation control

Purpose: The prevalence of refractive errors in children has been extensively researched. Comparisons between studies can, however, be compromised because of differences between accommodation control methods and techniques used for measuring refractive error. The aim of this study was to compare spherical refractive error results obtained at baseline and using two different accommodation control methods – extended optical fogging and cycloplegia, for two measurement techniques – autorefraction and retinoscopy. Methods: Participants comprised twenty-five school children aged between 6 and 13 years (mean age: 9.52 ± 2.06 years). The refractive error of one eye was measured at baseline and again under two different accommodation control conditions: extended optical fogging (+2.00DS for 20 minutes) and cycloplegia (1% cyclopentolate). Autorefraction and retinoscopy were both used to measure most plus spherical power for each condition. Results: A significant interaction was demonstrated between measurement technique and accommodation control method (p = 0.036), with significant differences in spherical power evident between accommodation control methods for each of the measurement techniques (p < 0.005). For retinoscopy, refractive errors were significantly more positive for cycloplegia compared to optical fogging, which were in turn significantly more positive than baseline, while for autorefraction, there were significant differences between cycloplegia and extended optical fogging and between cycloplegia and baseline only. Conclusions: Determination of refractive error under cycloplegia elicits more plus than using extended optical fogging as a method to relax accommodation. These findings support the use of cycloplegic refraction compared with extended optical fogging as a means of controlling accommodation for population based refractive error studies in children.

Optimisation of Banana streak virus (BSV) diagnostic assays

Bananas are one of the world�fs most important crops, serving as a staple food and an important source of income for millions of people in the subtropics. Pests and diseases are a major constraint to banana production. To prevent the spread of pests and disease, farmers are encouraged to use disease�] and insect�]free planting material obtained by micropropagation. This option, however, does not always exclude viruses and concern remains on the quality of planting material. Therefore, there is a demand for effective and reliable virus indexing procedures for tissue culture (TC) material. Reliable diagnostic tests are currently available for all of the economically important viruses of bananas with the exception of Banana streak viruses (BSV, Caulimoviridae, Badnavirus). Development of a reliable diagnostic test for BSV is complicated by the significant serological and genetic variation reported for BSV isolates, and the presence of endogenous BSV (eBSV). Current PCR�] and serological�]based diagnostic methods for BSV may not detect all species of BSV, and PCR�]based methods may give false positives because of the presence of eBSV. Rolling circle amplification (RCA) has been reported as a technique to detect BSV which can also discriminate between episomal and endogenous BSV sequences. However, the method is too expensive for large scale screening of samples in developing countries, and little information is available regarding its sensitivity. Therefore the development of reliable PCR�]based assays is still considered the most appropriate option for large scale screening of banana plants for BSV. This MSc project aimed to refine and optimise the protocols for BSV detection, with a particular focus on developing reliable PCR�]based diagnostics Initially, the appropriateness and reliability of PCR and RCA as diagnostic tests for BSV detection were assessed by testing 45 field samples of banana collected from nine districts in the Eastern region of Uganda in February 2010. This research was also aimed at investigating the diversity of BSV in eastern Uganda, identifying the BSV species present and characterising any new BSV species. Out of the 45 samples tested, 38 and 40 samples were considered positive by PCR and RCA, respectively. Six different species of BSV, namely Banana streak IM virus (BSIMV), Banana streak MY virus (BSMYV), Banana streak OL virus (BSOLV), Banana streak UA virus (BSUAV), Banana streak UL virus (BSULV), Banana streak UM virus (BSUMV), were detected by PCR and confirmed by RCA and sequencing. No new species were detected, but this was the first report of BSMYV in Uganda. Although RCA was demonstrated to be suitable for broad�]range detection of BSV, it proved time�]consuming and laborious for identification in field samples. Due to the disadvantages associated with RCA, attempts were made to develop a reliable PCR�]based assay for the specific detection of episomal BSOLV, Banana streak GF virus (BSGFV), BSMYV and BSIMV. For BSOLV and BSGFV, the integrated sequences exist in rearranged, repeated and partially inverted portions at their site of integration. Therefore, for these two viruses, primers sets were designed by mapping previously published sequences of their endogenous counterparts onto published sequences of the episomal genomes. For BSOLV, two primer sets were designed while, for BSGFV, a single primer set was designed. The episomalspecificity of these primer sets was assessed by testing 106 plant samples collected during surveys in Kenya and Uganda, and 33 leaf samples from a wide range of banana cultivars maintained in TC at the Maroochy Research Station of the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation (DEEDI), Queensland. All of these samples had previously been tested for episomal BSV by RCA and for both BSOLV and BSGFV by PCR using published primer sets. The outcome from these analyses was that the newly designed primer sets for BSOLV and BSGFV were able to distinguish between episomal BSV and eBSV in most cultivars with some B�]genome component. In some samples, however, amplification was observed using the putative episomal�]specific primer sets where episomal BSV was not identified using RCA. This may reflect a difference in the sensitivity of PCR compared to RCA, or possibly the presence of an eBSV sequence of different conformation. Since the sequences of the respective eBSV for BSMYV and BSIMV in the M. balbisiana genome are not available, a series of random primer combinations were tested in an attempt to find potential episomal�]specific primer sets for BSMYV and BSIMV. Of an initial 20 primer combinations screened for BSMYV detection on a small number of control samples, 11 primers sets appeared to be episomal�]specific. However, subsequent testing of two of these primer combinations on a larger number of control samples resulted in some inconsistent results which will require further investigation. Testing of the 25 primer combinations for episomal�]specific detection of BSIMV on a number of control samples showed that none were able to discriminate between episomal and endogenous BSIMV. The final component of this research project was the development of an infectious clone of a BSV endemic in Australia, namely BSMYV. This was considered important to enable the generation of large amounts of diseased plant material needed for further research. A terminally redundant fragment (.1.3 �~ BSMYV genome) was cloned and transformed into Agrobacterium tumefaciens strain AGL1, and used to inoculate 12 healthy banana plants of the cultivars Cavendish (Williams) by three different methods. At 12 weeks post�]inoculation, (i) four of the five banana plants inoculated by corm injection showed characteristic BSV symptoms while the remaining plant was wilting/dying, (ii) three of the five banana plants inoculated by needle�]pricking of the stem showed BSV symptoms, one plant was symptomless while the remaining had died and (iii) both banana plants inoculated by leaf infiltration were symptomless. When banana leaf samples were tested for BSMYV by PCR and RCA, BSMYV was confirmed in all banana plants showing symptoms including those were wilting and/or dying. The results from this research have provided several avenues for further research. By completely sequencing all variants of eBSOLV and eBSGFV and fully sequencing the eBSIMV and eBSMYV regions, episomal BSV�]specific primer sets for all eBSVs could potentially be designed that could avoid all integrants of that particular BSV species. Furthermore, the development of an infectious BSV clone will enable large numbers of BSVinfected plants to be generated for the further testing of the sensitivity of RCA compared to other more established assays such as PCR. The development of infectious clones also opens the possibility for virus induced gene silencing studies in banana.

Diet, physical activity and substrate oxidation : implications for appetite control, weight loss and body composition

In many countries, governments and health agencies are strongly promoting physical activity as a means to prevent the accumulation of fatness that leads to weight gain and obesity. However, there is often a resistance to respond to health promotion initiatives. For example, in the UK, the Chief Medical Officer has recently reported that 71% of women and 61% of men fail to carry out even the minimal amount of physical activity recommended in the government’s guidelines. Similarly, the Food safety Agency has promoted reductions in the intake of fat, sugar and salt but with very little impact on the pattern of consumption. Why is it that recommendations to improve health are so difficult to implement, and produce the desired outcome?

Update on exercise and weight control

Recent analyses of population data reveal that obesity rates continue to rise, and are projected to reach unprecedented levels over the next decade 1. Despite concerted efforts to impede obesity progression, as of today, weight loss and weight maintenance strategies remain at best partially successful endeavours. Regardless of the observation that weight loss strategies can produce significant weight loss 2 and substantial improvements of the determinants of the metabolic risk profile 3, 4, it is clear that actual weight loss tends to be lower than the anticipated weight loss, and most individuals who achieve weight loss will likely regain some weight 5 and even overshoot 6 their pre-intervention body weight. As such, an improved understanding of the factors that contribute to lower than expected weight loss, and poor weight maintenance would improve the effectiveness of weight loss interventions.

A case-control study of ambient heat exposure and urolithiasis among outdoor workers in a shipbuilding company, Guangzhou, China

Higher ambient temperatures will increase heat stress on workers, leading to impacts upon their individual health and productivity. In particular, research has indicated that higher ambient temperatures can increase the prevalence of urolithiasis. This thesis examines the relationship between ambient heat exposure and urolithiasis among outdoor workers in a shipbuilding company in Guangzhou, China, and makes recommendations for minimising the possible impacts of high ambient temperatures on urolithiasis. A retrospective 1:4 matched case-control study was performed to investigate the association between ambient heat exposure and urolithiasis. Ambient heat exposure was characterised by total exposure time, type of work, department and length of service. The data were obtained from the affiliated hospital of the shipbuilding company under study for the period 2003 to 2010. A conditional logistic regression model was used to estimate the association between heat exposure and urolithiasis. This study found that the odds ratio (OR) of urolithiasis for total exposure time was 1.5 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.2–1.8). Eight types of work in the shipbuilding company were investigated, including welder, assembler, production security and quality inspector, planing machine operator, spray painter, gas-cutting worker and indoor employee. Five out of eight types of work had significantly higher risks for urolithiasis, and four of the five mainly consisted of outdoors work with ORs of 4.4 (95% CI: 1.7–11.4) for spray painter, 3.8 (95% CI: 1.9–7.2) for welder, 2.7 (95% CI: 1.4–5.0) for production security and quality inspector, and 2.2 (95% CI: 1.1–4.3) for assembler, compared to the reference group (indoor employee). Workers with abnormal blood pressure (hypertension) were more likely to have urolithiasis with an OR of 1.6 (95% CI: 1.0–2.5) compared to those without hypertension. This study contributes to the understanding of the association between ambient heat exposure and urolithiasis among outdoor workers in China. In the context of global climate change, this is particularly important because rising temperatures are expected to increase the prevalence of urolithiasis among outdoor workers, putting greater pressure on productivity, occupational health management and health care systems. The results of this study have clear implications for public health policy and planning, as they indicate that more attention is required to protect outdoor workers from heat-related urolithiasis.

TiltZoom : tilt-based zooming control for easy one-handed mobile interactions

In this paper, we present TiltZoom, a collection of tilt-based interaction techniques designed for easy one-handed zooming on mobile devices. TiltZoom represents novel gestural interaction techniques, implemented using rate-of-rotation readings from a gyroscope, a sensor commonly embedded on current generation smart phones. We designed and experimented three variants of TiltZoom - Tilt Level, Tilt and Hold and Flip Gesture. The design decisions for all three variants are discussed in this paper and their performance, as well as subjective user experience are evaluated and compared against conventional touch-based zooming techniques. TiltZoom appears to be a worthy addition to current established collection of gesture-based mobile interaction techniques for zooming controls, especially when user has only one hand available when moving about.

The governance of inter-organisational decision-making : understanding the impacts of informal networks on formal decision-making regimes in the Brisbane Airport region

Airports and cities inevitably recognise the value that each brings the other; however, the separation in decision-making authority for what to build, where, when and how provides a conundrum for both parties. Airports often want a say in what is developed outside of the airport fence, and cities often want a say in what is developed inside the airport fence. Defining how much of a say airports and cities have in decisions beyond their jurisdictional control is likely to be a topic that continues so long as airports and cities maintain separate formal decision-making processes for what to build, where, when and how. However, the recent Green and White Papers for a new National Aviation Policy have made early inroads to formalising relationships between Australia’s major airports and their host cities. At present, no clear indication (within practice or literature) is evident to the appropriateness of different governance arrangements for decisions to develop in situations that bring together the opposing strategic interests of airports and cities; thus leaving decisions for infrastructure development as complex decision-making spaces that hold airport and city/regional interests at stake. The line of enquiry is motivated by a lack of empirical research on networked decision-making domains outside of the realm of institutional theorists (Agranoff & McGuire, 2001; Provan, Fish & Sydow, 2007). That is, governance literature has remained focused towards abstract conceptualisations of organisation, without focusing on the minutia of how organisation influences action in real-world applications. A recent study by Black (2008) has provided an initial foothold for governance researchers into networked decision-making domains. This study builds upon Black’s (2008) work by aiming to explore and understand the problem space of making decisions subjected to complex jurisdictional and relational interdependencies. That is, the research examines the formal and informal structures, relationships, and forums that operationalise debates and interactions between decision-making actors as they vie for influence over deciding what to build, where, when and how in airport-proximal development projects. The research mobilises a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods to examine three embedded cases of airport-proximal development from a network governance perspective. Findings from the research provide a new understanding to the ways in which informal actor networks underpin and combine with formal decision-making networks to create new (or realigned) governance spaces that facilitate decision-making during complex phases of development planning. The research is timely, and responds well to Isett, Mergel, LeRoux, Mischen and Rethemeyer’s (2011) recent critique of limitations within current network governance literature, specifically to their noted absence of empirical studies that acknowledge and interrogate the simultaneity of formal and informal network structures within network governance arrangements (Isett et al., 2011, pp. 162-166). The combination of social network analysis (SNA) techniques and thematic enquiry has enabled findings to document and interpret the ways in which decision-making actors organise to overcome complex problems for planning infrastructure. An innovative approach to using association networks has been used to provide insights to the importance of the different ways actors interact with one another, thus providing a simple yet valuable addition to the increasingly popular discipline of SNA. The research also identifies when and how different types of networks (i.e. formal and informal) are able to overcome currently known limitations to network governance (see McGuire & Agranoff, 2011), thus adding depth to the emerging body of network governance literature surrounding limitations to network ways of working (i.e. Rhodes, 1997a; Keast & Brown, 2002; Rethemeyer & Hatmaker, 2008; McGuire & Agranoff, 2011). Contributions are made to practice via the provision of a timely understanding of how horizontal fora between airports and their regions are used, particularly in the context of how they reframe the governance of decision-making for airport-proximal infrastructure development. This new understanding will enable government and industry actors to better understand the structural impacts of governance arrangements before they design or adopt them, particularly for factors such as efficiency of information, oversight, and responsiveness to change.

Why do policy decision-makers opt for command and control environmental regulation? An economic analysis with special reference to Sri Lanka

This chapter examines why policy decision-makers opt for command and control environmental regulation despite the availability of a plethora of market-based instruments which are more efficient and cost-effective. Interestingly, Sri Lanka has adopted a wholly command and control system, during both the pre and post liberalisation economic policies. This chapter first examines the merits and demerits of command and control and market-based approaches and then looks at Sri Lanka’s extensive environmental regulatory framework. The chapter then examines the likely reasons as to why the country has gone down the path of inflexible regulatory measures and has become entrenched in them. The various hypotheses are discussed and empirical evidence is provided. The chapter also discusses the consequences of an environmentally slack economy and policy implications stemming from adopting a wholly regulatory approach. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the main results.

Politicians as experts, electoral control, and fiscal restraints

We establish an argument for fiscal restraints which is based on the idea that politicians are experts in the meaning of the credence good literature. A budget maximizing politician is better informed than the electorate about the necessary spending to ensure the states ability to provide services for the economy. Voters, being able to observe the budget but not the necessary level of spending, attenuate the government’s spending level via electoral control. A fiscal restraint limits the maximum spending a government will choose if the level of spending ensuring the politicians reelection is not sufficient to ensure the state’s ability to provide services to the economy. We determine when such a fiscal restraint improves voter welfare and discuss the role of the opposition in situations where very high levels of spending are required.

An intelligent network control system for plug-in electric vehicles and the associate communication mechanism

The development of an intelligent plug-in electric vehicle (PEV) network is an important research topic in the smart grid environment. An intelligent PEV network enables a flexible control of PEV charging and discharging activities and hence PEVs can be utilized as ancillary service providers in the power system concerned. Given this background, an intelligent PEV network architecture is first developed, and followed by detailed designs of its application layers, including the charging and discharging controlling system, mobility and roaming management, as well as communication mechanisms associated. The presented architecture leverages the philosophy in mobile communication network buildup

Budget-aware role based access control

The suitability of Role Based Access Control (RBAC) is being challenged in dynamic environments like healthcare. In an RBAC system, a user's legitimate access may be denied if their need has not been anticipated by the security administrator at the time of policy specification. Alternatively, even when the policy is correctly specified an authorised user may accidentally or intentionally misuse the granted permission. The heart of the challenge is the intrinsic unpredictability of users' operational needs as well as their incentives to misuse permissions. In this paper we propose a novel Budget-aware Role Based Access Control (B-RBAC) model that extends RBAC with the explicit notion of budget and cost, where users are assigned a limited budget through which they pay for the cost of permissions they need. We propose a model where the value of resources are explicitly defined and an RBAC policy is used as a reference point to discriminate the price of access permissions, as opposed to representing hard and fast rules for making access decisions. This approach has several desirable properties. It enables users to acquire unassigned permissions if they deem them necessary. However, users misuse capability is always bounded by their allocated budget and is further adjustable through the discrimination of permission prices. Finally, it provides a uniform mechanism for the detection and prevention of misuses.

Collective dynamics and control of a 3-D small-world network with time delays

The paper presents a detailed analysis on the collective dynamics and delayed state feedback control of a three-dimensional delayed small-world network. The trivial equilibrium of the model is first investigated, showing that the uncontrolled model exhibits complicated unbounded behavior. Then three control strategies, namely a position feedback control, a velocity feedback control, and a hybrid control combined velocity with acceleration feedback, are then introduced to stabilize this unstable system. It is shown in these three control schemes that only the hybrid control can easily stabilize the 3-D network system. And with properly chosen delay and gain in the delayed feedback path, the hybrid controlled model may have stable equilibrium, or periodic solutions resulting from the Hopf bifurcation, or complex stranger attractor from the period-doubling bifurcation. Moreover, the direction of Hopf bifurcation and stability of the bifurcation periodic solutions are analyzed. The results are further extended to any "d" dimensional network. It shows that to stabilize a "d" dimensional delayed small-world network, at least a "d – 1" order completed differential feedback is needed. This work provides a constructive suggestion for the high dimensional delayed systems.

Protein monoubiquitination and polyubiquitination generate structural diversity to control distinct biological processes

Ubiquitination involves the attachment of ubiquitin (Ub) to lysine residues on substrate proteins or itself, which can result in protein monoubiquitination or polyubiquitination. Polyubiquitination through different lysines (seven) or the N-terminus of Ub can generate different protein-Ub structures. These include monoubiquitinated proteins, polyubiqutinated proteins with homotypic chains through a particular lysine on Ub or mixed polyubiquitin chains generated by polymerization through different Ub lysines. The ability of the ubiquitination pathway to generate different protein-Ub structures provides versatility of this pathway to target proteins to different fates. Protein ubiquitination is catalyzed by Ub-conjugating and Ub-ligase enzymes, with different combinations of these enzymes specifying the type of Ub modification on protein substrates. How Ub-conjugating and Ub-ligase enzymes generate this structural diversity is not clearly understood. In the current review, we discuss mechanisms utilized by the Ub-conjugating and Ub-ligase enzymes to generate structural diversity during protein ubiquitination, with a focus on recent mechanistic insights into protein monoubiquitination and polyubiquitination.