Interventions Targeting Deep Tissue Lymph Nodes May Not Effectively Reduce the Risk of Salmonellosis from Ground Pork Consumption: A Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment

The inclusion of deep tissue lymph nodes (DTLNs) or nonvisceral lymph nodes contaminated with Salmonella in wholesale fresh ground pork (WFGP) production may pose risks to public health. To assess the relative contribution of DTLNs to human salmonellosis occurrence associated with ground pork consumption and to investigate potential critical control points in the slaughter‐to‐table continuum for the control of human salmonellosis in the United States, a quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) model was established. The model predicted an average of 45 cases of salmonellosis (95% CI = [19, 71]) per 100,000 Americans annually due to WFGP consumption. Sensitivity analysis of all stochastic input variables showed that cooking temperature was the most influential parameter for reducing salmonellosis cases associated with WFGP meals, followed by storage temperature and Salmonella concentration on contaminated carcass surface before fabrication. The input variables were grouped to represent three main factors along the slaughter‐to‐table chain influencing Salmonella doses ingested via WFGP meals: DTLN‐related factors, factors at processing other than DTLNs, and consumer‐related factors. The evaluation of the impact of each group of factors by second‐order Monte Carlo simulation showed that DTLN‐related factors had the lowest impact on the risk estimate among the three groups of factors. These findings indicate that interventions to reduce Salmonella contamination in DTLNs or to remove DTLNs from WFGP products may be less critical for reducing human infections attributable to ground pork than improving consumers’ cooking habits or interventions of carcass decontamination at processing.     

Real men do not read labels: the effects of masculinity and involvement on college students' food decisions

Consumer literature shows that a decision's degree of personal importance and relevance--one's level of involvement in the decision--indicates which type of intervention strategy will be effective in influencing consumers' choices. The authors surveyed 358 college students at a state university in the western United States to test the applicability of involvement on issues of obesity and eating habits. They found food decisions to be of greater personal importance and relevance to female students than to their male counterparts. The results suggest that efforts to address levels of obesity and being overweight among male college students must recognize that men's food choices are very much rooted in the ideology of what it means to be female and male in contemporary American society. The authors advance 5 peripheral-route intervention strategies to augment existing cognitive-oriented, information-based intervention programs.     

Joint and individual tool making in preschoolers: From social to cognitive processes

Tool making has been proposed as a key force in driving the complexity of human material culture. The ontogeny of tool‐related behaviors hinges on social, representational, and creative factors. In this study, we test the associations between these factors in development across two different cultures. Results of Study 1 with 5‐to‐6‐year‐old Turkish children in dyadic or individual settings show that tool making is facilitated by social interaction, hierarchical representation, and creative abilities. Results of a second explorative study comparing the Turkish sample with a sample of 5‐to‐6‐year‐old children in New Zealand suggest that tool innovation might be affected by culture, and that the role of cognitive and creative factors diminishes through social interaction in tool making.     

“Responsiveness of mature oak trees (Quercus robur L.) to soil water dynamics and meteorological constraints in urban environments”

Urban Ecosystems - Urban trees contribute to the regulation of microclimates of cities through transpirational cooling. The main environmental factors determining transpiration are evaporative...     

A Matter of Context? Understanding Social Enterprises in Changing Environments: The Case of Germany

Questioning the popular point-blank juxtaposition of “new social enterprises” and “old providers” of social services, the paper argues that contingency is an important feature of any organizational setting. Drawing on the case of Germany, it suggests a time-contingent typology of social enterprises covering the roots of social entrepreneurship in the nineteenth century over the rise of the Free Welfare Associations up to the often highlighted “new generation” of social entrepreneurs. Against this background, today’s social enterprises appear to be less novel and unique but again a time-contingent outcome of an adjustment to a zeitgeist-specific governance arrangement.     

Solving the Problems of Iowa Food Deserts: Food Insecurity and Civic Structure*

Abstract Rural regions include places where food sources are not evenly distributed, leading to areas of concentration and food deserts—places where few or no grocery stores exist. Individuals are hypothesized to depend on personal connections and the civic structure of where they live to help them solve the problem of food insecurity. We find that residents living in poor rural counties with few grocery stores and perceptions of high civic structure are significantly less likely to be food insecure. A great deal of food giving and receiving is reported, but these personal connections do not decrease the odds of being food insecure. Lower incomes and being younger increase the odds of food insecurity. Our findings suggest that investments in strengthening the social structure of rural communities along with strategies that increase incomes can help households solve the problem of food insecurity.     

Family Therapy Practitioners Researching the Reactions of Practitioners to an Outcome Measure

Family therapy is under increasing pressure to use ‘objective’ measures of effectiveness, but there are strong voices in the field objecting to such research. The primary objective of this project was to investigate the acceptability and perceived potential usefulness of a short self‐report questionnaire. A secondary objective was to explore the viability of conducting such research by a group of practitioners who would collaborate primarily through emails. Nine experienced family therapists were interviewed as they worked through the 16 items of a pilot version of the SCORE questionnaire. The recorded interviews were analysed using Template Analysis. The SCORE was found to be generally acceptable for use with clients but the exercise generated information on a variety of concerns about the content of the measure. Beyond its potential as an outcome measure there was considerable interest in how it could be used therapeutically. The operation of the Practitioner Research Network proved functional but indicated some of the difficulties that such networks might encounter.