Assessing Laws and Legal Authorities for Obesity Prevention and Control

This is the first paper in a two part series on the laws and legal authorities for obesity prevention and control, which resulted from the National Summit on Legal Preparedness for Obesity Prevention and Control in 2008. In this paper, the authors apply the “laws and legal authorities” component of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) legal framework on public health legal preparedness to demonstrate the essential role that law can play in the fight against obesity. Their analysis identified numerous laws and policies in the three vital domains of healthy lifestyles, healthy places, and healthy societies. For example, in terms of healthy lifestyles, governments can impact nutrition through: food subsidies, taxation, and bans; food marketing strategies; and nutritional labeling and education. With regard to healthy places, state and local governments can apply zoning laws and policy decisions to change the environment to encourage healthy eating and physical activity. Governments can promote healthy societies through laws and legal authorities that affect the ability to address obesity from a social perspective (such as antidiscrimination law, health care insurance and benefit design, school and day care for children, and surveillance). This paper describes instances of how current laws and legal authorities affect the public health goal of preventing obesity in both positive and negative ways. It also highlights the progressive use of laws at every level of government (i.e., federal, state, and local) and the interaction of these laws as they relate to obesity prevention and control. In addition, general gaps in the use of law for obesity prevention and control are identified for attention and action. (These gaps serve as the basis for the companion paper, which delineates options for policymakers, practitioners, and other key stakeholders in the improvement of laws and legal authorities for obesity prevention and control.

Distinguishing sequences for partially specified FSMs

Distinguishing Sequences (DSs) are used inmany Finite State Machine (FSM) based test techniques. Although Partially Specified FSMs (PSFSMs) generalise FSMs, the computational complexity of constructing Adaptive and Preset DSs (ADSs/PDSs) for PSFSMs has not been addressed. This paper shows that it is possible to check the existence of an ADS in polynomial time but the corresponding problem for PDSs is PSPACE-complete. We also report on the results of experiments with benchmarks and over 8 * 106 PSFSMs. © 2014 Springer International Publishing

Corruption in Developing Countries

Recent years have seen a remarkable expansion in economists' ability to measure corruption. This in turn has led to a new generation of well-identified, microeconomic studies. We review the evidence on corruption in developing countries in light of these recent advances, focusing on three questions: how much corruption is there, what are the efficiency consequences of corruption, and what determines the level of corruption? We find robust evidence that corruption responds to standard economic incentive theory but also that the effects of anticorruption policies often attenuate as officials find alternate strategies to pursue rents.Hewlett-Packard CompanyGreat Britain. Dept. for International DevelopmentMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (Governance Initiative

Impact evaluation methods in public economics : a brief introduction to randomized evaluations and comparison with other methods

Recent years have seen a large expansion in the use of rigorous impact evaluation techniques. Increasingly, public administrations are collaborating with academic economists and other quantitative social scientists to apply such rigorous methods to the study of public finance. These developments allow for more reliable measurements of the effects of different policy options on the behavioral responses of citizens, firm owners, or public officials. They can help decision makers in tax administrations, public procurement offices, and other public agencies design programs informed by well-founded evidence. This article provides an introductory overview of the most frequently used impact evaluation methods. It is aimed at facilitating communication and collaboration between practitioners and academics by introducing key vocabulary and concepts used in rigorous impact evaluation methods, starting with randomized controlled trials and comparing them with other methods ranging from simple pre–post analysis to difference-in-differences, matching estimations, and regression discontinuity designs

Light and Scanning Electron Microscopy of Wheat and Rye-Bread crumb. Interpretation of Specimens Prepared by Various Methods

The crumb of bread baked from wheat flour, rye flour, and rye meal was examined by light( LM ) and scanning electron-microscopy {SEM) . Whereas in the wheat bread the crumb is held together by a matrix of denatured protein, in the rye bread crumb highly expanded starch granules fulfill that r ole . Fractur i ng freeze-dried crumb ~rovided different information than sectioning !Jrior to freeze-drying . In the first case, little damage was caused to components of outer surfaces of vacuoles. In the second case , the protein matrix and starch granules were broken. At the same time, the presence of micropores in the material surrounding the vacuole was observed and confirmed the findings from LM of sections of the bread c rumb . Examinat ion by SEM of residues of bread crumb macerated to wash out soluble starch demonstrated the presence of a residual coherent structu re of app arently denatured gl uten proteins in wheat bread. In rye bread there were only few similar, less coherent, structures

Carotid-cavernous fistula as a mimicker of myasthenia gravis

BACKGROUND: A carotid-cavernous fistula (CCF) is an abnormal communication between the carotid arterial system and the cavernous sinus. Common symptoms of CCFs include proptosis and ophthalmoplegia, but fluctuating diplopia and presence of ptosis are not typical. CASE DESCRIPTION: We present an unusual case of CCF with fluctuating binocular diplopia and ptosis, mimicking myasthenia gravis. Electrodiagnostic testing, which included repetitive nerve stimulation and single-fiber electromyography, was normal. Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain and orbits was initially normal, but later magnetic resonance angiography revealed enlargement of the left superior ophthalmic vein along with a left CCF. Patient underwent a successful left cavernous sinus embolization. CONCLUSION: Fluctuating ophthalmic symptoms are a typical presentation of myasthenia gravis; however, there may be an association of these symptoms with a CCF. Repetitive nerve stimulation and single-fiber electromyography played a key role in diagnosis of this case, as the normal result led to further investigations revealing a CCF

Metabolic Rift or Metabolic Shift? Dialectics, Nature, and the World-Historical Method

Abstract In the flowering of Red-Green Thought over the past two decades, metabolic rift thinking is surely one of its most colorful varieties. The metabolic rift has captured the imagination of critical environmental scholars, becoming a shorthand for capitalism’s troubled relations in the web of life. This article pursues an entwined critique and reconstruction: of metabolic rift thinking and the possibilities for a post-Cartesian perspective on historical change, the world-ecology conversation. Far from dismissing metabolic rift thinking, my intention is to affirm its dialectical core. At stake is not merely the mode of explanation within environmental sociology. The impasse of metabolic rift thinking is suggestive of wider problems across the environmental social sciences, now confronted by a double challenge. One of course is the widespread—and reasonable—sense of urgency to evolve modes of thought appropriate to an era of deepening biospheric instability. The second is the widely recognized—but inadequately internalized—understanding that humans are part of nature

Sarcoidosis presenting as Wallenberg syndrome and panuveitis

© 2018 The Authors Sarcoidosis is a multi-system disease with neurological involvement being one of the more rare manifestations. We report a case of a patient who presented with the lateral medullary syndrome and panuveitis as her initial manifestation of sarcoidosis. The patient\u27s course was further complicated by renal involvement. Lacrimal gland and renal biopsies showed noncaseating granulomas without evidence of infection, establishing the diagnosis. Intracranial vertebral artery involvement was confirmed by brain imaging. Bilateral hilar lymphadenopathy with upper lobe predominant nodules on chest imaging was consistent with asymptomatic pulmonary involvement. Systemic steroid therapy is indicated for treatment of ocular sarcoidosis, with standard stroke management indicated for the treatment of lateral medullary syndrome