Background and aimsThe aim of this study was to gain insight in the effect of a preschool-based intervention for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) teachers on promoting healthy eating and physical activity in toddlers.MethodsIn a cluster randomized controlled trial, 37 preschools of child care organization Impuls in Amsterdam Nieuw-West, the Netherlands, were randomly allocated to an intervention or control group. In total, 115 female ECEC teachers (mean age 42 ± 9 years) participated. The intervention for ECEC teachers consisted of two existing Dutch programs: ‘A Healthy Start’ and ‘PLAYgrounds’. The practices and knowledge of ECEC teachers concerning healthy eating and physical activity and the level of confidence in promoting healthy eating and physical activity in toddlers was assessed at baseline and 9 months of follow-up. To examine the effect of the intervention linear mixed models were used.ResultsPreliminary analyses of the practices indicated that Activity-related-Teaching/Autonomy-Support was increased in the intervention group (mean difference: 0.181), but not in the control group (mean difference: -0.048; p-value group*time: 0.025). Food-related-Pressure-to-Eat was decreased in the intervention group (mean difference: -0.580), but not in the control group (mean difference: -0.158; p-value group*time: 0.014). No effect of the intervention was found on knowledge (p-value group*time: 0.24) and the level of confidence (p-value group*time: 0.98) of ECEC teachers. ConclusionsThe preschool-based intervention seems to increase Activity-related-Teaching/Autonomy-Support and to decrease Food-related-Pressure-to-Eat. No effects were seen on knowledge and level of confidence of ECEC teachers in promoting healthy eating and physical activity in toddlers.
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Abstract Aims: Medical case vignettes play a crucial role in medical education, yet they often fail to authentically represent diverse patients. Moreover, these vignettes tend to oversimplify the complex relationship between patient characteristics and medical conditions, leading to biased and potentially harmful perspectives among students. Displaying aspects of patient diversity, such as ethnicity, in written cases proves challenging. Additionally, creating these cases places a significant burden on teachers in terms of labour and time. Our objective is to explore the potential of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted computer-generated clinical cases to expedite case creation and enhance diversity, along with AI-generated patient photographs for more lifelike portrayal. Methods: In this study, we employed ChatGPT (OpenAI, GPT 3.5) to develop diverse and inclusive medical case vignettes. We evaluated various approaches and identified a set of eight consecutive prompts that can be readily customized to accommodate local contexts and specific assignments. To enhance visual representation, we utilized Adobe Firefly beta for image generation. Results: Using the described prompts, we consistently generated cases for various assignments, producing sets of 30 cases at a time. We ensured the inclusion of mandatory checks and formatting, completing the process within approximately 60 min per set. Conclusions: Our approach significantly accelerated case creation and improved diversity, although prioritizing maximum diversity compromised representativeness to some extent. While the optimized prompts are easily reusable, the process itself demands computer skills not all educators possess. To address this, we aim to share all created patients as open educational resources, empowering educators to create cases independently.
Accidental allergic reactions to food are one of the major problems in adult patients diagnosed with food allergy. Such reactions occur frequently, are often severe and are associated with higher medical and non-medical costs. The aim of this Perspective is to provide insight into the different factors involved in the occurrence of accidental allergic reactions and to present an overview of practical implications for effective preventive measures. Several factors affect the occurrence of accidental reactions. These factors are related to the patient, health care, or food. The most important patient-related factors are age, social barriers to disclosing their allergy and non-adherence to the elimination diet. With regards to healthcare, the degree to which clinical practice is tailored to the individual patient is an important factor. The major food-related factor is the absence of adequate precautionary allergen labeling (PAL) guidelines. Since many factors are involved in accidental allergic reactions, different preventive strategies are needed. It is highly recommended that health care be tailored to the individual patient, with regard to education about the elimination diet, support on behavioral and psychosocial aspects, usage of shared decision-making and taking into account health literacy. In addition, it is crucial that steps are taken to improve policies and guidelines for PAL.
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Structural colour (SC) is created by light interacting with regular nanostructures in angle-dependent ways resulting in vivid hues. This form of intense colouration offers commercial and industrial benefits over dyes and other pigments. Advantages include durability, efficient use of light, anti-fade properties and the potential to be created from low cost materials (e.g. cellulose fibres). SC is widely found in nature, examples include butterflies, squid, beetles, plants and even bacteria. Flavobacterium IR1 is a Gram-negative, gliding bacterium isolated from Rotterdam harbour. IR1 is able to rapidly self-assemble into a 2D photonic crystal (a form of SC) on hydrated surfaces. Colonies of IR1 are able to display intense, angle-dependent colours when illuminated with white light. The process of assembly from a disordered structure to intense hues, that reflect the ordering of the cells, is possible within 10-20 minutes. This bacterium can be stored long-term by freeze drying and then rapidly activated by hydration. We see these properties as suiting a cellular reporter system quite distinct from those on the market, SC is intended to be “the new Green Fluorescent Protein”. The ability to understand the genomics and genetics of SC is the unique selling point to be exploited in product development. We propose exploiting SC in IR1 to create microbial biosensors to detect, in the first instance, volatile compounds that are damaging to health and the environment over the long term. Examples include petroleum or plastic derivatives that cause cancer, birth defects and allergies, indicate explosives or other insidious hazards. Hoekmine, working with staff and students within the Hogeschool Utrecht and iLab, has developed the tools to do these tasks. We intend to create a freeze-dried disposable product (disposables) that, when rehydrated, allow IR1 strains to sense and report multiple hazardous vapours alerting industries and individuals to threats. The data, visible as brightly coloured patches of bacteria, will be captured and quantified by mobile phone creating a system that can be used in any location by any user without prior training. Access to advice, assay results and other information will be via a custom designed APP. This work will be performed in parallel with the creation of a business plan and market/IP investigation to prepare the ground for seed investment. The vision is to make a widely usable series of tests to allow robust environmental monitoring for all to improve the quality of life. In the future, this technology will be applied to other areas of diagnostics.
Nearly all waterborne products, such as food, beverages, pharmaceuticals, paints, biological (medical) samples, cosmetics and wood require preservation to prevent decomposition of the product due to microbial growth. Most non-food preservatives such as isothiazolinones, bronopol, and pyrithiones, are derived from oil and are increasingly more strictly regulated due to hazards such as ecotoxicity, sensibilization and development of allergies. The low legally permitted concentrations will not only become too low to realize preservation, they will also induce antimicrobial resistance. A chemical transition towards new, innovative, biobased, and eco-friendly preservatives is therefore required. Wydo NBD is dedicated to research towards sustainable ingredients for waterborne paints. For this, together with the Hanze University, non-hazardous, eco-friendly and biobased natural preservatives will be identified and further developed towards marketable products. The knowledge obtained in this project will contribute to the development of biological (paint) conservatives knowledge and improvement of current production methods of Wydo, with the potential for wider application in food and medical products. This project aims to identify natural antimicrobial additives and consists of three consecutive stages. First, an extensive, unbiased bioinformatics guided literature mining will be performed to find relationships between biological antimicrobial compounds and microbes found in paint. The most promising antimicrobials from this mining will be made available by chemical synthesis. Subsequently, the compounds will be assessed for their potential as novel natural preservatives for waterborne paints, by testing for their antimicrobial activity and stability.
Nearly all waterborne products, such as food, beverages, pharmaceuticals, paints, biological (medical) samples, cosmetics and wood require preservation to prevent decomposition of the product due to microbial growth. Most non-food preservatives such as isothiazolinones, bronopol, and pyrithiones, are derived from oil and are increasingly more strictly regulated due to hazards such as ecotoxicity, sensibilization and development of allergies. The low legally permitted concentrations will not only become too low to realize preservation, they will also induce antimicrobial resistance. A chemical transition towards new, innovative, biobased, and eco-friendly preservatives is therefore required. Wydo NBD is dedicated to research towards sustainable ingredients for waterborne paints. For this, together with the Hanze University, non-hazardous, eco-friendly and biobased natural preservatives will be identified and further developed towards marketable products. The knowledge obtained in this project will contribute to the development of biological (paint) conservatives knowledge and improvement of current production methods of Wydo, with the potential for wider application in food and medical products.This project aims to identify natural antimicrobial additives and consists of three consecutive stages. First, an extensive, unbiased bioinformatics guided literature mining will be performed to find relationships between biological antimicrobial compounds and microbes found in paint. The most promising antimicrobials from this mining will be made available by chemical synthesis. Subsequently, the compounds will be assessed for their potential as novel natural preservatives for waterborne paints, by testing for their antimicrobial activity and stability
