World Health Organization dietary norms: a quantitative evaluation of potential consumption impacts in the United States, United Kingdom, and France

The member countries of the World Health Organization have endorsed its Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity, and Health. We assess the potential consumption impacts of these norms in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom using a mathematical programming approach. We find that adherence would involve large reductions in the consumption of fats and oils accompanying large rises in the consumption of fruits, vegetables, and cereal. Further, in the United Kingdom and the United States, but not France, sugar intakes would have to shrink considerably. Focusing on sub-populations within each country, we find that the least educated, not necessarily the poorest, would have to bear the highest burden of adjustment.

Food consumption impacts of adherence to dietary norms in the United States: a quantitative assessment

Promotion of adherence to healthy-eating norms has become an important element of nutrition policy in the United States and other developed countries. We assess the potential consumption impacts of adherence to a set of recommended dietary norms in the United States using a mathematical programming approach. We find that adherence to recommended dietary norms would involve significant changes in diets, with large reductions in the consumption of fats and oils along with large increases in the consumption of fruits, vegetables, and cereals. Compliance with norms recommended by the World Health Organization for energy derived from sugar would involve sharp reductions in sugar intakes. We also analyze how dietary adjustments required vary across demographic groups. Most socio-demographic characteristics appear to have relatively little influence on the pattern of adjustment required to comply with norms, Income levels have little effect on required dietary adjustments. Education is the only characteristic to have a significant influence on the magnitude of adjustments required. The least educated rather than the poorest have to bear the highest burden of adjustment. Out- analysis suggests that fiscal measures like nutrient-based taxes may not be as regressive as commonly believed. Dissemination of healthy-eating norms to the less educated will be a key challenge for nutrition policy.

Food consumption impacts of adherence to dietary norms in the United States: a quantitative assessment

Promotion of adherence to healthy-eating norms has become an important element of nutrition policy in the United States and other developed countries. We assess the potential consumption impacts of adherence to a set of recommended dietary norms in the United States using a mathematical programming approach. We find that adherence to recommended dietary norms would involve significant changes in diets, with large reductions in the consumption of fats and oils along with large increases in the consumption of fruits, vegetables, and cereals. Compliance with norms recommended by the World Health Organization for energy derived from sugar would involve sharp reductions in sugar intakes. We also analyze how dietary adjustments required vary across demographic groups. Most socio-demographic characteristics appear to have relatively little influence on the pattern of adjustment required to comply with norms, Income levels have little effect on required dietary adjustments. Education is the only characteristic to have a significant influence on the magnitude of adjustments required. The least educated rather than the poorest have to bear the highest burden of adjustment. Out- analysis suggests that fiscal measures like nutrient-based taxes may not be as regressive as commonly believed. Dissemination of healthy-eating norms to the less educated will be a key challenge for nutrition policy.

Method for the production of cotton somatic embryos. United States Patent Application

The present invention provides Inter alia, a method for the production of cotton somatic embryos comprising (a) isolating a totipotent stomatal cell-containing epidermal explant from leaf material excised from a cotton plant; and (b) culturing said explant in a basal medium which comprises an embryogenic callus-inducing quantity of an auxin and a cytokinin under an embryogenic callus inducing intensity of light until embryogenic callus is formed; and (c) sub-culturing said embryogenic callus onto a somatic embryo differentiation media to produce said somatic embryos. Plants may be regenerated from the somatic embryos and in a particular embodiment of the invention said totipotent stomatal cell is transformed, prior to the inducement of embryogenic callus, with a polynucleotide that provides for a desired agronomic trait.

Obesity and diabetes, the built environment, and the ‘local’ food economy in the United States, 2007

Obesity and diabetes are increasingly attributed to environmental factors, however, little attention has been paid to the influence of the ‘local’ food economy. This paper examines the association of measures relating to the built environment and ‘local’ agriculture with U.S. county-level prevalence of obesity and diabetes. Key indicators of the ‘local’ food economy include the density of farmers’ markets and the presence of farms with direct sales. This paper employs a robust regression estimator to account for non-normality of the data and to accommodate outliers. Overall, the built environment is associated with the prevalence of obesity and diabetes and a strong local’ food economy may play an important role in prevention. Results imply considerable scope for community-level interventions.

Manipulation and articulation: population statistics in 19th century France and England

The article presents an essay that deals with the study conducted by Donald MacKenzie and the case studies comparing the use of population statistics in France and Great Britain in the periods of 1825 and 1885. It analyzes Donald MacKenzie's study on the ways professional and political commitments informed the choice of statistical indexes in the British statistical community. Furthermore, the author is interested in knowing how this influenced the development of mathematical statistics in Great Britain. The author concludes that the differences in the debates over population statistics are accounted to the differences in the social and epistemological logics of population statistics.

Typification of four North American club-chollas: the names of four Engelmannian species from Mexico and Southwestern United States

The names Opuntia bulbispina, O. clavata, O. emoryi and O. grahamii, originally proposed by George Engelmann between 1848 and 1856, are reviewed and typified after new findings of previously unknown voucher specimens. Original materials collected by some of the collaborators employed by Engelmann during the Mexican Boundary Survey were discovered in a loan from the Torrey Herbarium at the New York Botanical Garden (NY). Many of the materials include fragments of stems and fruits, and others include only sectioned flowers and some seeds. Particularly good descriptions of the species here concerned were published in Engelmann’s “Synopsis of the Cactaceae” in 1857, and exceptional illustrations were produced by Paulus Roetter and printed in “Cactaceae of the Boundary” in 1859. The problems surrounding some previous typifications of these names range from typification of joint lectotypes to illegitimate typifications of illustrations when original material was known to exist. The materials selected for typification were collected by the Mexican Boundary Survey and are lodged at the herbaria of the Missouri Botanical Garden (MO) and the New York Botanical Garden (NY); some are illustrations published by Engelmann.