What is really causing the obesity epidemic? A review of reviews in children and adults.

Obesity prevention is a public health priority and intervention strategies have focused primarily on healthy eating and physical activity in children and adults. To date, no review has systematically compiled and synthesised the scientific evidence from published review articles to determine whether there is clear consensus on the causes of obesity. A systematic review of the literature was conducted searching PubMed/Medline for narrative and systematic review articles published between January 1990 and October 2014 that examined the causes of obesity.

The RAB39B p.G192R mutation causes X-linked dominant Parkinson's disease.

Objective: To identify the causal gene in a multi-incident U.S. kindred with Parkinson's disease (PD).

Exudativory in the Asian loris, Nycticebus: Evolutionary divergence in the toothcomb and M3.

Objectives: Slow lorises (Nycticebus spp.) are obligate exudativores that gouge tree bark. Dental adaptations for gouging within marmosets, the only other known primate obligate exudativore, are well-known but dental adaptations in Nycticebus are largely unidentified.

Altered activation of protein kinase PKR and enhanced apoptosis in dystonia cells carrying a mutation in PKR activator protein PACT.

PACT is a stress-modulated activator of the interferon-induced double-stranded RNA-activated protein kinase (PKR). Stress-induced phosphorylation of PACT is essential for PACT's association with PKR leading to PKR activation. PKR activation leads to phosphorylation of translation initiation factor eIF2α inhibition of protein synthesis and apoptosis.

Craniomandibular signals of diet in adapids.

Objectives: The craniomandibular morphology of the adapid primates of Europe, especially Adapis and Leptadapis (sensu lato), suggests that they possessed enormous jaw adductor muscles. The goal of this study is to estimate jaw adductor muscle mass, physiological cross-sectional area (PCSA), and fiber length in adapid primates from the Eocene of Europe. We also estimated muscle leverage, bite force, and gape parameters.

Weight change in the first 2 months of a lifestyle intervention predicts weight changes 8 years later.

Objective: Examine the relationship between 1- and 2-month weight loss (WL) and 8-year WL among participants enrolled in a lifestyle intervention.

Methods: 2,290 Look AHEAD participants (BMI: 35.65 ± 5.

Evolution and Initial Experience of a Statewide Care Transitions Quality Improvement Collaborative: Preventing Avoidable Readmissions Together.

Increasing scrutiny of hospital readmission rates has spurred a wide variety of quality improvement initiatives. The Preventing Avoidable Readmissions Together (PART) initiative is a statewide quality improvement learning collaborative organized by stakeholder organizations in South Carolina. This descriptive report focused on initial interventions with hospitals.

Is the preference of natural versus man-made scenes driven by bottom-up processing of the visual features of nature?

Previous research has shown that viewing images of nature scenes can have a beneficial effect on memory, attention, and mood. In this study, we aimed to determine whether the preference of natural versus man-made scenes is driven by bottom-up processing of the low-level visual features of nature. We used participants' ratings of perceived naturalness as well as esthetic preference for 307 images with varied natural and urban content.

Diastereoselective and enantioselective silylation of 2-arylcyclohexanols.

The silylation-based kinetic resolution of trans 2-arylcyclohexanols was accomplished by employing a triaryl silyl chloride as the derivatizing reagent with a commercially available isothiourea catalyst. The methodology is selective for the trans diastereomer over the cis, which provides an opportunity to selectively derivatize one stereoisomer out of a mixture of four. By employing this technology, a facile, convenient method to form a highly enantiomerically enriched silylated alcohol was accomplished through a one-pot reduction-silylation sequence that started with a 2-aryl-substituted ketone.

Despite Resources From The ACA, Most States Do Little To Help Addiction Treatment Programs Implement Health Care Reform.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) dramatically expands health insurance for addiction treatment and provides unprecedented opportunities for service growth and delivery model reform. Yet most addiction treatment programs lack the staffing and technological capabilities to respond successfully to ACA-driven system change. In light of these challenges, we conducted a national survey to examine how Single State Agencies for addiction treatment--the state governmental organizations charged with overseeing addiction treatment programs--are helping programs respond to new requirements under the ACA.

Comparing apples and oranges-the influence of food mechanical properties on ingestive bite sizes in lemurs.

Previously we found that Maximum Ingested Bite Size (Vb )-the largest piece of food that an animal will ingest whole without biting first-scales isometrically with body size in 17 species of strepsirrhines at the Duke Lemur Center (DLC). However, because this earlier study focused on only three food types (two with similar mechanical properties), it did not yield results that were easily applied to describing the broad diets of these taxa. Expressing Vb in terms of food mechanical properties allows us to compare data across food types, including foods of wild lemurs, to better understand dietary adaptations in lemurs.

Age- and sex-specific relationships between household income, education, and diabetes mellitus in Korean adults: the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2008-2010.

Background: To investigate the effects of age and sex on the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and the prevalence and control status of diabetes mellitus (DM) in Korean adults.

Methods: Data came from 16,175 adults (6,951 men and 9,227 women) over the age of 30 who participated in the 2008-2010 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. SES was measured by household income or education level.

Health disparities are important determinants of outcome for children with solid tumor malignancies.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify health disparities in children with non-CNS solid tumor malignancies and examine their impact on disease presentation and outcome.

Methods: We examined the records of all children (age≤18years) diagnosed with a non-CNS solid tumor malignancy and enrolled in the Texas Cancer Registry between 1995 and 2009 (n=4603). The primary outcome measures were disease stage and overall survival (OS).

Assessing the effects of medical marijuana laws on marijuana use: the devil is in the details.

This paper sheds light on previous inconsistencies identified in the literature regarding the relationship between medical marijuana laws (MMLs) and recreational marijuana use by closely examining the importance of policy dimensions (registration requirements, home cultivation, dispensaries) and the timing of when particular policy dimensions are enacted. Using data from our own legal analysis of state MMLs, we evaluate which features are associated with adult and youth recreational and heavy use by linking these policy variables to data from the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) and National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97). We employ differences-in-differences techniques, controlling for state and year fixed effects, allowing us to exploit within-state policy changes.

Feasibility of using high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) to enhance treatment outcomes in persons with aphasia.

Background: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) enhances treatment outcomes post-stroke. Feasibility and tolerability of high-definition (HD) tDCS (a technique that increases current focality and intensity) for consecutive weekdays as an adjuvant to behavioral treatment in a clinical population has not been demonstrated.

Objective: To determine HD-tDCS feasibility outcomes: 1) ability to implement study as designed, 2) acceptability of repeated HD-tDCS administration to patients, and 3) preliminary efficacy.

The perception of naturalness correlates with low-level visual features of environmental scenes.

Previous research has shown that interacting with natural environments vs. more urban or built environments can have salubrious psychological effects, such as improvements in attention and memory. Even viewing pictures of nature vs.