Feeding beliefs and practices of Chinese immigrant mothers : validation of a modified version of the child feeding questionnaire

The Child Feeding Questionnaire (CFQ) developed by Birch and colleagues (2001) is a widely used tool for measuring parental feeding beliefs, attitudes and practices. However, the appropriateness of the CFQ for use with Chinese populations is unknown. This study tested the construct validity of a novel Chinese version of the CFQ using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Participants included a convenience sample of 254 Chinese-Australian mothers of children aged 1-4 years. Prior to testing, the questionnaire was translated into Chinese using a translation-back-translation method, one item was re-worded to be culturally appropriate, a new item was added (monitoring), and five items that were not age-appropriate for the sample were removed. Based on previous literature, both a 7-factor and an 8-factor model were assessed via CFA. Results showed that the 8-factor model, which separated restriction and use of food rewards, improved the conceptual clarity of the constructs and provided a good fit to the data. Internal consistency of all eight factors was acceptable (Cronbach’s α: .60−.93). This modified 8-factor CFQ appears to be a linguistically and culturally appropriate instrument for assessing feeding beliefs and practices in Chinese-Australian mothers of young children.

An ontology for a Robot Scientist

Soldatova, L., Clare, A., Sparkes, A. and King, R. D. (2006) An ontology for a robot scientist. Bioinformatics 2006 22: 464-471

Hacia la nueva ordenación de la universidad española.

Se propone una nueva ordenación de la universidad española, a partir de la trascripción del discurso del profesor Lora Tamayo, pronunciado en la Asamblea de Catedráticos de las Facultades de Filosofía y Letras, que se ha celebrado en la Universidad de Granada. Las autoridades educativas españolas han dado especial realce a esta Asamblea, en la que se han planteado problemas básicos para la reordenación universitaria. Se destacan dos propósitos en la nueva ordenación de la universidad, y se tocan puntos como la ordenación del profesorado universitario, la investigación en la universidad y los planes de estudio.