Changes in physical activity following a genetic-based internet-delivered personalized intervention: randomized controlled trial (Food4Me)

Background: There is evidence that physical activity (PA) can attenuate the influence of the fat mass- and obesity-associated (FTO) genotype on the risk to develop obesity. However, whether providing personalized information on FTO genotype leads to changes in PA is unknown. Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine if disclosing FTO risk had an impact on change in PA following a 6-month intervention. Methods: The single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs9939609 in the FTO gene was genotyped in 1279 participants of the Food4Me study, a four-arm, Web-based randomized controlled trial (RCT) in 7 European countries on the effects of personalized advice on nutrition and PA. PA was measured objectively using a TracmorD accelerometer and was self-reported using the Baecke questionnaire at baseline and 6 months. Differences in baseline PA variables between risk (AA and AT genotypes) and nonrisk (TT genotype) carriers were tested using multiple linear regression. Impact of FTO risk disclosure on PA change at 6 months was assessed among participants with inadequate PA, by including an interaction term in the model: disclosure (yes/no) × FTO risk (yes/no). Results: At baseline, data on PA were available for 874 and 405 participants with the risk and nonrisk FTO genotypes, respectively. There were no significant differences in objectively measured or self-reported baseline PA between risk and nonrisk carriers. A total of 807 (72.05%) of the participants out of 1120 in the personalized groups were encouraged to increase PA at baseline. Knowledge of FTO risk had no impact on PA in either risk or nonrisk carriers after the 6-month intervention. Attrition was higher in nonrisk participants for whom genotype was disclosed (P=.01) compared with their at-risk counterparts. Conclusions: No association between baseline PA and FTO risk genotype was observed. There was no added benefit of disclosing FTO risk on changes in PA in this personalized intervention. Further RCT studies are warranted to confirm whether disclosure of nonrisk genetic test results has adverse effects on engagement in behavior change.

Creativity, entrepreneurship and economic development: city-level evidence on creativity spillover of entrepreneurship

We examine the black box of creativity, entrepreneurship and economic development by asking about the mechanisms through which creativity can influence economic development in cities. We propose that, like the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship, creativity spillovers occur and can be slowed by a creativity filter. We examine how creativity and entrepreneurship, and creativity and a melting pot environment, interact to influence urban economic development. Using data on 187 cities in 15 European countries for the period 1999–2009, we advance the extant literature by providing evidence on the existence and dynamics of a creativity filter.

Flexible work and immigration in Europe

Immigration has risen substantially in many European economies, with far-reaching if still uncertain implications for labor markets and industrial relations. This paper investigates such implications, focusing on employment flexibility, involving both ‘external flexibility’ (fixed-term or temporary agency and/or involuntary part-time work) and ‘internal flexibility’ (overtime and/or balancing-time accounts). The paper identifies reasons why immigration should generally increase the incidence of such flexibility, and why external should rise more than internal flexibility. The paper supports these claims using a dataset of establishments in sixteen European countries.

Reproducibility of the online Food4Me food-frequency questionnaire for estimating dietary intakes across Europe

Background: Accurate dietary assessment is key to understanding nutrition-related outcomes and is essential for estimating dietary change in nutrition-based interventions. Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the pan-European reproducibility of the Food4Me food-frequency questionnaire (FFQ) in assessing the habitual diet of adults. Methods: Participantsfromthe Food4Me study, a 6-mo,Internet-based, randomizedcontrolled trial of personalized nutrition conducted in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, Greece, and Poland were included. Screening and baseline data (both collected before commencement of the intervention) were used in the present analyses, and participants were includedonly iftheycompleted FFQs at screeningand at baselinewithin a 1-mo timeframebeforethe commencement oftheintervention. Sociodemographic (e.g., sex andcountry) andlifestyle[e.g.,bodymass index(BMI,inkg/m2)and physical activity] characteristics were collected. Linear regression, correlation coefficients, concordance (percentage) in quartile classification, and Bland-Altman plots for daily intakes were used to assess reproducibility. Results: In total, 567 participants (59% female), with a mean 6 SD age of 38.7 6 13.4 y and BMI of 25.4 6 4.8, completed bothFFQswithin 1 mo(mean 6 SD: 19.26 6.2d).Exact plus adjacent classification oftotal energy intakeinparticipants was highest in Ireland (94%) and lowest in Poland (81%). Spearman correlation coefficients (r) in total energy intake between FFQs ranged from 0.50 for obese participants to 0.68 and 0.60 in normal-weight and overweight participants, respectively. Bland-Altman plots showed a mean difference between FFQs of 210 kcal/d, with the agreement deteriorating as energy intakes increased. There was little variation in reproducibility of total energy intakes between sex and age groups. Conclusions: The online Food4Me FFQ was shown to be reproducible across 7 European countries when administered within a 1-mo period to a large number of participants. The results support the utility of the online Food4Me FFQ as a reproducible tool across multiple European populations. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01530139.

Coordination, inclusiveness and wage inequality between median and bottom income workers

What explains cross-national variation in wage inequality? Research in comparative political economy stresses the importance of the welfare state and wage coordination in reducing not only disposable income inequality but also gross earnings inequality. However, the cross-national variation in gross earnings inequality between median and low income workers is at odds with this conventional wisdom: the German coordinated market economy is now more unequal in this type of inequality than the UK, a liberal market economy. To solve this puzzle, I argue that non-inclusive coordination benefits median but not bottom income workers and is as a result associated with higher – rather than lower - wage inequality. I find support for this argument using a large N quantitative analysis of wage inequality in a panel of Western European countries. Results are robust to the inclusion of numerous controls, country fixed effects, and also hold with a sample of OECD countries. Taken together these findings force us to reconsider the relationship between coordination and wage inequality at the bottom of the income distribution.

Trust in the German police

The relative levels of trust in the police are explored, using data from the fifth round of the European Social Survey (ESS) which covered mainly 28 European countries. In this article, the position of Germany is examined within the international context. German trust in the police, for both German natives and ethnic minorities, for those 15 and over is high in comparison to other European countries. The article also tests if it is the fair treatment of citizens by the police, or the high value placed on rule adherence and conformity, that is driving the German citizen’s trust. It shows that the German police is trusted due to their perceived fairness, effectiveness and shared moral values, rather than on value placed on conformity to authority.

A new Home, far from Home : The assimilation process of women involved in intercultural marriages based on Internet meeting

The internet has revolutionized the way we socialize, and as a consequence the way to love. The new communication technologies have facilitated intercultural relationships. Nowadays family relations are one of the major factors in immigration to European countries. Family relations means persons who arrive as family dependents and in accordance with laws regulating family reunification. This thesis aims to apply the classical assimilation theory stated by Milton Gordon (1964), which formulates a series of assimilation stages through which an individual must pass in order to be completely assimilated. In accordance with this theory, marriage is the final phase for a newcomer to fully incorporate into the host society. Thus, based on this presumption and other contemporary theories, the present study has analysed how women who get involved in intercultural marriages based on internet meeting experience these assimilation stages and evaluated the resources used by respondents to incorporate themselves into Swedish society.The main goal of the study was to determine if jumping to the last stage of assimilation does assure the incorporation in the social or/and labour spheres and the findings demonstrate that even though husbands are a valuable resource for assimilation, several cultural issues in Swedish society make it difficult to assure success for the newcomers.On the other hand, Sweden is a country with a strong national sentiment and the assimilation of immigrants still is an important issue to deal with. The Swedish Integration Board has disappeared and major projects for integration have been left in the hands of the municipalities or the Migration Board, institutions that still do not know how to deal with this dilemma.

Borlänge and Falun Brundtland cities

Development of an infrastructure for Brundtland Renewable Energy Network - BREN is a European Commission Alterner Project with Contract no XVII/4. 1030/Z96-032.The project has its origin in the UN-report “Our Common Future”, 1989. A change in and reduction of the use of energy was fundamental in order to reach the goals which the report proposed. Denmark decided on an action plan on how energy consumption could be reduced “Energi 2000 - Handlingsplan för en bäredygtig udvikling”. The ministries of energy in Denmark and Schleswig Holstein both agreed to start an energy saving project in a smaller town. The project was called “Brundtlandby” and the two first were Toftlund in South Jutland and Bredstedt in North Friesland. After a short period a further two German Cities, Rheinsberg and Viernheim, and Rajec in Slovakia joined the group. A network for the exchange of knowledge and experience between the cities was formed. The network, Brundtland City Project, inspired the participating cities in the continuing work with energy saving measures. The Brundtland City Project was presented at an international conference “Cities and Energy” in Trondheim, Norway,in December 1995. Great interest was shown in the project and it was decided that a network should be developed in northern European countries as a pilot project to be enlarged with other European countries later on. A steering committee was formed with representatives from the nordic countries.An application was sent to the European Commission, Alterner Program, and was approved in Juli 1996. The project was subdivided into nine activities. Activity 1, consisted of summarising the experiences of the Brundtland City Project in Toftlund, Denmark and the Brundtland Cities network in Slovakia, Germany and Denmark. The Scandinavian part started with Activity 2, to engage municipalities/cities in Finland, Norway and Sweden in the project. The Solar Energy Research Center, SERC, Högskolan Dalarna was appointed as co-ordinator for the Swedish part. The project was presented at a seminar on the 30th September for representatives from the municipalities of Borlänge and Falun. On the 10th of December 1996 the two municipalities accepted the invitation to join the Northern network. Pelle Helje, Borlänge Energi, has been informant for the municipality of Borlänge and Anders Goop, Department of Urban Planninginformant for the municipality of Falun with Jan Kaans, Estates department providing information to the basis for the Newsletter.Reports on the work in Borlänge and Falun municipalities have been made to Brundtland Center Denmark on three occasions; Activities 2-5, 16-12-1997, Activities 6-7, including parts of activities 8-9, 03-03-1998, and the basis for the Newsletter, 01-07-1998. The Nordic reports have been compiled at the Brundtland Center Denmark for submission to the European Commission. English has been the common language. After the report of activities 2 - 5 the participants wereinvited to a project meeting and a workshop at Brundtland Center the 23rd and 24th March 1998.This was the first occasion the participants in the project met and the network thus took a moreconcrete form. It also was decided that the next meeting should be in Borlänge in August 1998,with Borlänge Energi and Solar Energy Research Center SERC as organisers. As BrundtlandCentre Denmark was wound up for financial reasons, the project meeting in Borlänge wascancelled.Compilation of the Final Report was carried out by Esbensen Consultants in October 1998Future development of the networkIt is intended to continue the work with the Brundtland City Network as an “EU Thermie Bproject”and the network will be enlarged with the addition of four new Brundtland Cities from Austria, Germany, Italy and Great Britain. In addition the village of Putja in Estonia will join the network but this will be financed by the EU-Phare programme.

Out-of-town shopping and its induced CO2-emissions

Planning policies in several European countries have aimed at hindering the expansion of out-of-town shopping centers. One argument for this is concern for the increase in transport and a resulting increase in environmental externalities such as CO2-emissions. This concern is weakly founded in science as few studies have attempted to measure CO2-emissions of shopping trips as a function of the location of the shopping centers. In this paper we conduct a counter-factual analysis comparing downtown, edge-of-town and out-of-town shopping. In this comparison we use GPS to track 250 consumers over a time-span of two months in a Swedish region. The GPS-data enters the Oguchi’s formula to obtain shopping trip-specific CO2-emissions. We find that consumers’ out-of-town shopping would generate an excess of 60 per cent CO2-emissions whereas downtown and edge-of-town shopping centers are comparable.

Can France really stop them? : A study grounded on the realist perspective about the French foreign policy towards Syria as the root cause of the Phenomenon of French Foreign Fighters

During the Syrian conflict the number of European Foreign Fighters has increased exponentially and has become an ever-growing concern for European policymakers. This phenomenon presents host of major security challenges for European policymakers and governments. Among European countries, France provides the highest number of citizens who have gone to Syria to fight against Assad´s regime. The French authorities have estimated that by mid-2014, over 700 French citizens have left France and travelled to Syria to fight. Historically France has had a relationship with Syria which started with its role as a border-drawing colonial power. Grounded in a framework of realism, that emphasizes nation-states as the primary actor within the international system, the analysis concentrates on the role of France´s foreign policy on the Syria as push factor for terrorism and radicalization. This paper attempts to determinate a specific correlation between the policy that France has been conducting towards Syria between 2000 and 2015, and the phenomenon of French Foreign Fighters. Findings suggest that France´s foreign policy towards Syria is the main root cause of the French Foreign Fighters phenomenon.

Healthy revolutions: promoting cycling among women

Issue addressed: Australian women's participation in cycling for transport and recreation is approximately half that of men. These gender differences do not occur in several western European countries. Research is required to investigate the individual, social and environmental determinants of Australian women's participation in cycling for transport and recreation.

Discussion: Few studies have systematically investigated women's perceptions and experiences of cycling and little is known about what motivates and sustains their involvement. Preliminary indications are that, for women, there may be an interest in and capacity to participate in cycling that is not being translated into practice. Safety concerns appear to be a significant deterrent to women cycling. Safety factors have a differential impact on women as they are generally more risk averse than men. Quantitative risk assessments suggest that the risk of injury associated with cycling is small and that the health benefits outweigh the health costs. Cycling promotion campaigns may achieve greater success with women if they enable women to experience cycling in an environment that both is, and is perceived to be, safe and supportive.

Conclusions: Research is needed to determine what strategies are likely to be most effective in promoting cycling among Australian women, as a basis for developing programs, policies and facilities to support women's participation in cycling.

Professionalisation and accounting in China: a historical and comparative review

While applied broadly within the setting of accounting and some other occupations, “a profession” is a particularly Western concept with peculiarly British origins. Additionally, the significance of such status and the process of “professionalisation” by which it is acquired remain beset by lingering uncertainties. Examination of the sociology of the accounting occupation within non-Western locations can contribute to exposing and clarifying these problematic and contingent aspects of occupational stratification, as well as assist in redressing the bias towards English-speaking and European countries within the accounting history literature. Proceeding from these theoretical premises, a historical and comparative study of the accounting occupation within China is undertaken. This seeks to integrate the world’s most populous nation into the historical narrative of the professionalisation of accounting, and reinforces – often vividly – that accountants’ work status is not bound to any predetermined trajectory which is innate to the occupation. Instead, the variety of localised and time-specific variables which constitute the occupational context are shown to exert a dominating influence.

Seasonal storage for solar thermal systems in Australia?

Seasonal storage systems have been operating in various European countries since 1985. Combined with solar collectors, these systems are known as ‘central solar heating plants with seasonal storage’ (CSHPSS). While these systems have been shown to be technically feasible, their cost is still too high to make them competitive with fossil fuels.

In Australia, we have quite different conditions to those countries where CSHPSS have been trialled. In general, we experience higher radiation levels, ambient temperatures and cooling loads. Our heating loads and energy prices are also usually lower. As a result, any evaluation of CSPSS operating in a European context may not be valid for Australian conditions. To the authors’ knowledge, no evaluation of these systems has been carried out for Australia.

This paper therefore attempts an initial assessment of these systems and their viability for Australia. The paper first describes the various types of CSHPSS and then reviews their current status. The performance of one type of CSHPSS operating in several locations of Australia has been predicted using a TRNSYS model. The simulations indicated that the design guidelines for Europe are inappropriate for Australia and would result in greatly over-sized systems.

An indication of the financial viability of the system was determined by calculating a simple payback period for a variety of fossil fuels. This type of seasonal storage systems appears to be financially attractive in areas of southern Australia where the solar system is displacing LPG.

Measuring message framing effects across Europe

This study examines consumer response to positively versus negatively framed advertising messages across seven Central and Western European countries. The frames elicited significantly different emotional, cognitive and attitudinal reactions. Groups of nations where consumers responded more homogeneously to the frames were different from the groups plotted according to cultural context. In addition, the results present a new perspective for international marketing. While advertising content and imagery has often been designed to account for known or assumed differences across nations, the findings of this study show that neglecting even subtle national differences can be misleading and can result in adverse consequences. The study has shown that consumers in similar countries, such as Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary, respond quite differently to positively or negatively framed advertisements. This suggests that even advertising campaigns that are designed for relatively narrow international audiences may not be effective when featuring an inappropriate message frame.

Cross-national agreement on disability weights:the Eurpoean disability weights project

Background: Disability weights represent the relative severity of disease stages to be incorporated in summary measures of population health. The level of agreement on disability weights in Western European countries was investigated with different valuation methods.

Methods: Disability weights for fifteen disease stages were elicited empirically in panels of health care professionals or non-health care professionals with an academic background following a strictly standardised procedure. Three valuation methods were used: a visual analogue scale (VAS); the time trade-off technique (TTO); and the person trade-off technique (PTO). Agreement among England, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden on the three disability weight sets was analysed by means of an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) in the framework of generalisability theory. Agreement among the two types of panels was similarly assessed.

Results: A total of 232 participants were included. Similar rankings of disease stages across countries were found with all valuation methods. The ICC of country agreement on disability weights ranged from 0.56 [95% CI, 0.52–0.62] with PTO to 0.72 [0.70–0.74] with VAS and 0.72 [0.69–0.75] with TTO. The ICC of agreement between health care professionals and non-health care professionals ranged from 0.64 [0.58–0.68] with PTO to 0.73 [0.71–0.75] with VAS and 0.74 [0.72–0.77] with TTO.

Conclusions: Overall, the study supports a reasonably high level of agreement on disability weights in Western European countries with VAS and TTO methods, which focus on individual preferences, but a lower level of agreement with the PTO method, which focuses more on societal values in resource allocation.