Search results for "Mechanisms"
showing 10 items of 587 documents
Wow! They really like celeriac! Kindergarten teachers' experiences of an intervention to increase 1-year-olds' acceptance of vegetables
2021
Abstract Exposure to varied foods in early life is important for short- and long-term health and development. Strategically introducing toddlers to new vegetables is not a common practice in Norwegian kindergartens. Therefore, we developed, conducted, and evaluated a web-based cluster randomised kindergarten intervention, Pre-schoolers’ Food Courage 2.0. The purpose of the current qualitative study was to explore kindergarten teachers' experience of implementing this intervention and what they thought facilitated the positive impact of the intervention reported in the quantitative evaluation. Ten individual telephonic interviews with kindergarten teachers who took part in the intervention s…
Genomic and non-genomic mechanisms of action of thyroid hormones and their catabolite 3,5-diiodo-l-thyronine in Mammals
2020
Since the realization that the cellular homologs of a gene found in the retrovirus that contributes to erythroblastosis in birds (v-erbA), i.e. the proto-oncogene c-erbA encodes the nuclear receptors for thyroid hormones (THs), most of the interest for THs focalized on their ability to control gene transcription. It was found, indeed, that, by regulating gene expression in many tissues, these hormones could mediate critical events both in development and in adult organisms. Among their effects, much attention was given to their ability to increase energy expenditure, and they were early proposed as anti-obesity drugs. However, their clinical use has been strongly challenged by the concomita…
The antimicrobial activity of honey and propolis extracts from the central region of Romania
2021
Abstract Honey and propolis from Apis mellifera (bees) are products that have been used due to their multiple biological properties. The antimicrobial activity of 10 honey samples of known origin and 4 propolis extracts gathered from the same beekeepers located in Transylvania, Romania, were used against certain microorganisms: Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Candida albicans. The study also investigated the positive interaction of propolis aqueous extracts when used with poly-floral honey against the same microorganisms. The most sensitive to the activity of honey samples was the S. aureus strain (the largest inhibition area 18 mm) for p…
Changing Behavior : A Theory- and Evidence-Based Approach
2020
Social problems in many domains, including health, education, social relationships, and the workplace, have their origins in human behavior. The documented links between behavior and social problems have sparked interest in governments and organizations to develop effective interventions to promote behavior change. The Handbook of Behavior Change provides comprehensive coverage of contemporary theory, research, and practice on behavior change. The handbook incorporates theory- and evidence-based approaches to behavior change with chapters from leading theorists, researchers, and practitioners from multiple disciplines, including psychology, sociology, behavioral science, economics, and impl…
Methodological Approach for Identifying Mechanisms in ICT4D: A Critical Realism Perspective
2017
Part 4: Social Mechanisms of ICT-Enabled Development; International audience; The ontological questions ‘What is ICT?’ and ‘What is development?’ are described and documented in literature. Similarly, methodological approaches for understanding how ICT leads to development or for measuring the impact of ICT are described. However, explaining ‘why’ ICT works or not in the contexts of developing countries needs further investigation. We propose a critical realism based methodological approach for answering the above mentioned ‘why’-question. The core of a critical realism based approach is to identify the underlying mechanism(s) that may explain a phenomenon of why ICT leads to development. W…
Interventions with Sticky Social Norms: A Critique
2021
Abstract We study the consequences of policy interventions when social norms are endogenous but costly to change. In our environment, a group faces a negative externality that it partially mitigates through incentives in the form of punishments. In this setting, policy interventions can have unexpected consequences. The most striking is that when the cost of bargaining is high, introducing a Pigouvian tax can increase output—yet in doing so increase welfare. An observer who saw that an increase in a Pigouvian tax raised output might wrongly conclude that this harmed welfare and that a larger tax increase would also raise output. This counter-intuitive impact on output is demonstrated theore…
Informal, formal institutions and credit: complements or substitutes?
2019
AbstractThis paper analyses the relationship between informal institutions measured by social trust and the provision of private credit. Research on the trust–finance relationship abounds, although most of it is confined to the micro-level, with far fewer contributions from a wide, cross-country perspective. Considering a sample of 119 economies in the period 1993–2015, results suggest that social trust is an important determinant of private credit, and that its effects are transmitted indirectly via some particular aspects of the quality of economic-judicial institutions. In addition, and contrary to previous findings in related areas, substitutive effects for informal and formal instituti…
Menstrual problems and lifestyle among Spanish university women
2020
Menstrual problems affect many young women worldwide, conditioning both their academic performance and quality of life. This study sought to analyse the prevalence of menstrual problems and their possible relationship with lifestyle among Spanish university women, as part of a research project (UniHcos Project) involving a cohort of 11 Spanish universities with 7208 university students. A descriptive analysis was performed using the bivariate chi-square test and the Student&rsquo
pH Feedback Lifecycles Programmed by Enzymatic Logic Gates Using Common Foods as Fuels
2021
Abstract Artificial temporal signaling systems, which mimic living out‐of‐equilibrium conditions, have made large progress. However, systems programmed by enzymatic reaction networks in multicomponent and unknown environments, and using biocompatible components remain a challenge. Herein, we demonstrate an approach to program temporal pH signals by enzymatic logic gates. They are realized by an enzymatic disaccharide‐to‐monosaccharide‐to‐sugar acid reaction cascade catalyzed by two metabolic chains: invertase‐glucose oxidase and β‐galactosidase‐glucose oxidase, respectively. Lifetimes of the transient pH signal can be programmed from less than 15 min to more than 1 day. We study enzymatic k…
Different approaches to marriage downgrading : from an anti-elusive measure to an antidiscriminatory claim
2021
The essay focuses on the different mechanisms of marriage downgrading. Given the principle of ?cross-border continuity? of statuses, limits to this continuity are sometimes admitted and they are placed through downgrading mechanisms. That can occour in the case of same-sex marriages transcription in a Member State which does not allow such marriages, but which does allow samesex registered partnerships. Downgrading mechanism has an anti-elusive function, but it is not without problems in terms of discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. A different approach is taken in the case of an opposite-sex couple requesting the downgrading of their marriage, celebrated before the Member S…