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A questionnaire assessing knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about bullying used in a study of pre-service teachers in the United Kingdom was replicated on a sample of 82 pre-service teachers in the United States. Results were similar for both groups of pre- service teachers. Participants had some accurate knowledge as well as some beliefs and attitudes that would not be consistent with effective teacher behaviours towards students involved in bullying. Both samples were interested in further training as part of their teacher preparation programs. Implications for training of pre-service teachers are discussed.

Purpose: Current evidence accounts for the role of (poly)phenolic compounds in the prevention of non-communicable diseases. Detailed information on population-level intakes is required to translate these findings into recommendations. This work aimed to estimate (poly)phenol intake in the UK population using data from a nationally representative survey. Methods: Data from 9374 participants (4636 children aged 1.5–18 years and 4738 adults aged 19 years and over) from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey Rolling Programme (NDNS RP) 2008–2014 was used. (Poly)phenol content of foods consumed in the NDNS RP was identified using Phenol-Explorer and through literature searches. Data on flavonoids, phenolic acids, and stilbenes were collected. Total (poly)phenol content was also assessed. Results: Mean total (poly)phenol intake ranged from 266.6 ± 166.1 mg/day in children aged 1.5–3 years to 1035.1 ± 544.3 mg/day in adults aged 65 years and over, with flavan-3-ols and hydroxycinnamic acids being the most consumed (poly)phenols across all age groups. (Poly)phenol intake was higher in males in all age groups except for adults aged 19–34 and 50–64 years, where intakes were marginally higher in females. Energy-adjusted intakes accounted for the pattern of increasing (poly)phenol intakes with age and a higher intake was observed in females across all age groups, with the exception of children aged 1.5–3 years. The main food sources were non-alcoholic beverages and fruits, being the main compounds flavan-3-ols and caffeoylquinic acids. Conclusions: This analysis provides estimates of (poly)phenol intake from a representative sample of the UK general population, which can help inform the health implications of (poly)phenol intake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: We assessed the bioavailability of orange juice (poly) phenols by monitoring urinary flavanone metabolites and ring fission catabolites produced by the action of the colonic microbiota. Objective: Our objective was to identify and quantify metabolites and catabolites excreted in urine 0-24 h after the acute ingestion of a (poly)phenol-rich orange juice by 12 volunteers. Design: Twelve volunteers [6 men and 6 women; body mass index (in kg/m²): 23.9-37.2] consumed a low (poly)phenol diet for 2 d before first drinking 250 mL pulp-enriched orange juice, which contained 584 µmol (poly)phenols of which 537 µmol were flavanones, and after a 2-wk washout, the procedure was repeated, and a placebo drink was consumed. Urine collected for a 24-h period was analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively by using high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Results: A total of 14 metabolites were identified and quantified in urine by using HPLC-MS after orange juice intake. Hesperetin-O-glucuronides, naringenin-O-glucuronides, and hesperetin-3'-O-sulfate were the main metabolites. The overall urinary excretion of flavanone metabolites corresponded to 16% of the intake of 584 µmol (poly)phenols. The GC-MS analysis revealed that 8 urinary catabolites were also excreted in significantly higher quantities after orange juice consumption. These catabolites were 3-(3'-methoxy-4'-hydroxyphenyl)propionic acid, 3-(3'-hydroxy-4'-methoxyphenyl)propionic acid, 3-(3'-hydroxy-4'-methoxyphenyl)hydracrylic acid, 3-(3'-hydroxyphenyl)hydracrylic acid, 3'-methoxy-4'-hydroxyphenylacetic acid, hippuric acid, 3'-hydroxyhip-puric acid, and 4'-hydroxyhippuric acid. These aromatic acids originated from the colonic microbiota-mediated breakdown of orange juice (poly) phenols and were excreted in amounts equivalent to 88% of (poly)phenol intake. When combined with the 16% excretion of metabolites, this percentage raised the overall urinary excretion to w 100% of intake. Conclusions: When colon-derived phenolic catabolites are included with flavanone glucuronide and sulfate metabolites, orange juice (poly)phenols are much-more bioavailable than previously envisaged. In vitro and ex vivo studies on mechanisms underlying the potential protective effects of orange juice consumption should use in vivo metabolites and catabolites detected in this investigation at physiologic concentrations. The trial was registered at BioMed Central Ltd (www.controlledtrials.com) as ISRCTN04271658. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital revolution has the potential to transform many aspects of our daily lives, including how we work and how we interact with others. While the services, benefits, and risks of smart home technologies (SHTs) have been vastly explored, this research asks: is there any space for SHTs to create conflicts within homes and their inhabitants? Drawing from a rich empirical dataset consisting of a literature review, semi-structured research interviews with experts, three focus groups across the UK (Manchester, London, and Surrey), and a nationally representative survey (n = 1032), this study investigates how SHTs can enable conflicts with couples and partners, children and parents, landlords and tenants, neighbors and hosts and guests. • Explores users' perceptions on smart home technologies. • Examines how digital technologies can enable conflicts within households. • Explores conflict through a nationally representative survey in the United Kingdom as well as three focus groups (n = 18 respondents). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The UK''s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs supports the use of systematic tools for the prioritisation of known and well defined animal diseases to facilitate long and medium term planning of surveillance and disease control activities. The recognition that emerging events were not covered by the existing disease-specific approaches led to the establishment of the Veterinary Risk Group (VRG), constituted of government officials, and supporting structures such as the Risk Management Cycle and the Emerging Threat Highlight Report (ETHiR), to facilitate the identification, reporting and assessment of emerging threats to UK''s animal health. Since its inception in November 2009 to the end of February 2011, the VRG reviewed 111 threats and vulnerabilities (T&V) reported through ETHiR. In July 2010 a decision support system (DSS) based on multi-criteria-decision-analysis (MCDA) improved ETHiR to allow the systematic prioritisation of emerging T&V. The DSS allows the regular ranking of emerging T&V by calculating a set of measurement indices related to the actual impact, possible impact on public perception and level of available capabilities associated with every T&V. The systematic characterisation of the processes leading to the assessment of T&V by the VRG has led to a consistent, auditable and transparent approach to the identification and assessment of emerging risks. The regular use of MCDA to manage a portfolio of emerging risks represents a different and novel application of MCDA in a health related context. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Summary. The paper discusses population size estimation on the basis of a frequency distribution of zero-truncated counts and is motivated by a study on the geographical distribution of hidden scrapie in Great Britain. Aggregation of scrapie cases is considered at the county level and results in sparse zero-truncated count distributions which make the application of conventional capture-recapture procedures for estimating the hidden part of the scrapie-affected population difficult. We suggest a smoothed generalization of Zelterman's estimator of population size which overcomes the overestimation bias of the conventional Zelterman estimator and instead produces a lower bound, which is typically larger than Chao's lower bound estimator. The estimator uses an empirical Bayes approach with various choices for the prior distribution including a parametric choice of the gamma distribution as well as various non-parametric distributions. A simulation study investigates the performance of the new estimators, and also in comparison with conventional estimators. The empirical Bayes estimator with a non-parametric mixture model as prior performs well and the boundary problem of the conventional non-parametric discrete mixture model estimator leading to spurious population size is avoided. In the application to hidden scrapie in Great Britain the new estimators lead to maps of scrapie of observed-hidden ratios as well as completeness of the current surveillance system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several surveillance techniques have been used to quantify the prevalence of both classical and atypical scrapie in British sheep, namely the recording of clinical suspects (RC) and the testing of animals slaughtered at abattoir (AS) or reported as fallen stock (FS). Any estimate of prevalence based on a particular source is likely to have been affected by demographic differences in the populations sampled. In this study, the demographic characteristics of scrapie-affected holdings detected by each of the surveillance streams (RC, AS, FS) in Great Britain were compared. Analyses of all three streams indicated that the probability of an affected holding being detected by a particular stream differed by geographical area, the number of animals brought onto the holding, the type of scrapie identified (classical vs. atypical) and the year. More detailed analysis of AS and FS suggested that the annual and regional differences between these surveys could be explained by differences in sampling effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Movement records are often used to identify animal sample provenance by retracing the movements of individuals. Here we present an alternative method, which uses the same identity tags and movement records as are used to retrace movements, but ignores individual movement paths. The first step uses a simple query to identify the most likely birth holding for every identity tag included in a database recording departures from agricultural holdings. The second step rejects a proportion of the birth holding locations to leave a list of birth holding locations that are relatively reliable. The method was used to trace the birth locations of sheep sampled for scrapie in abattoirs, or on farm as fallen stock. Over 82% of the sheep sampled in the fallen stock survey died at the holding of birth. This lack of movement may be an important constraint on scrapie transmission. These static sheep provided relatively reliable birth locations, which were used to define criteria for selecting reliable traces. The criteria rejected 16.8% of fallen stock traces and 11.9% of abattoir survey traces. Two tests provided estimates that selection reduced error in fallen stock traces from 11.3% to 3.2%, and in abattoir survey traces from 8.1% to 1.8%. This method generated 14,591 accepted traces of fallen stock from samples taken during 2002–2005 and 83,136 accepted traces from abattoir samples. The absence or ambiguity of flock tag records at the time of slaughter prevented the tracing of 16–24% of abattoir samples during 2002–2004, although flock tag records improved in 2005. The use of internal scoring to generate and evaluate results from the database query, and the confirmation of results by comparison with other database fields, are analogous to methods used in web search engines. Such methods may have wide application in tracing samples and in adding value to biological datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The present paper investigates the question of a suitable basic model for the number of scrapie cases in a holding and applications of this knowledge to the estimation of scrapie-affected holding population sizes and adequacy of control measures within holding. Is the number of scrapie cases proportional to the size of the holding in which case it should be incorporated into the parameter of the error distribution for the scrapie counts? Or, is there a different - potentially more complex - relationship between case count and holding size in which case the information about the size of the holding should be better incorporated as a covariate in the modeling? Methods: We show that this question can be appropriately addressed via a simple zero-truncated Poisson model in which the hypothesis of proportionality enters as a special offset-model. Model comparisons can be achieved by means of likelihood ratio testing. The procedure is illustrated by means of surveillance data on classical scrapie in Great Britain. Furthermore, the model with the best fit is used to estimate the size of the scrapie-affected holding population in Great Britain by means of two capture-recapture estimators: the Poisson estimator and the generalized Zelterman estimator. Results: No evidence could be found for the hypothesis of proportionality. In fact, there is some evidence that this relationship follows a curved line which increases for small holdings up to a maximum after which it declines again. Furthermore, it is pointed out how crucial the correct model choice is when applied to capture-recapture estimation on the basis of zero-truncated Poisson models as well as on the basis of the generalized Zelterman estimator. Estimators based on the proportionality model return very different and unreasonable estimates for the population sizes. Conclusion: Our results stress the importance of an adequate modelling approach to the association between holding size and the number of cases of classical scrapie within holding. Reporting artefacts and speculative biological effects are hypothesized as the underlying causes of the observed curved relationship. The lack of adjustment for these artefacts might well render ineffective the current strategies for the control of the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper, we apply one-list capture–recapture models to estimate the number of scrapie-affected holdings in Great Britain. We applied this technique to the Compulsory Scrapie Flocks Scheme dataset where cases from all the surveillance sources monitoring the presence of scrapie in Great Britain, the abattoir survey, the fallen stock survey and the statutory reporting of clinical cases, are gathered. Consequently, the estimates of prevalence obtained from this scheme should be comprehensive and cover all the different presentations of the disease captured individually by the surveillance sources. Two estimators were applied under the one-list approach: the Zelterman estimator and Chao''s lower bound estimator. Our results could only inform with confidence the scrapie-affected holding population with clinical disease; this moved around the figure of 350 holdings in Great Britain for the period under study, April 2005–April 2006. Our models allowed the stratification by surveillance source and the input of covariate information, holding size and country of origin. None of the covariates appear to inform the model significantly. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Background: So-called atypical scrapie was first identified in Great Britain (GB) in 2002 following the introduction of wide-scale scrapie surveillance. In particular, abattoir and fallen stock surveys have been carried out in GB since 2002, with a total of 147 atypical positives identified by the end of 2006. The results of these surveys provide data with which to assess temporal trends in the prevalence of atypical scrapie in sheep in Great Britain between 2002 and 2006. Results: Using the results of abattoir and fallen stock surveys, the prevalence of atypical scrapie (percentage of samples positive) was estimated. The prevalence in the abattoir and fallen stock surveys, for all years combined, was 0.09% (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.08%-0.11%) and 0.07% (95% CI: 0.05%-0.11%), respectively. There were no significant temporal trends in either survey. Comparing the surveys' results, there were no significant differences in annual prevalence or the prevalence within PrP genotypes. For the abattoir survey, the PrP genotype with the highest prevalence was AHQ/AHQ, which was significantly higher than all other genotypes, except ARR/ AHQ, AHQ/ARH and ARH/ARQ. Conclusion: The estimated prevalence of atypical scrapie was similar in both the abattoir and fallen stock surveys. Our results indicate there was no significant temporal trend in prevalence, adding to evidence that this atypical form of scrapie may be a sporadic condition or, if it is infectious, that the force of infection is very low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Scrapie is a neuro-degenerative disease in small ruminants. A data set of 3113 records of sheep reported to the Scrapie Notifications Database in Great Britain has been studied. Clinical signs were recorded as present/absent in each animal by veterinary officials (VO) and a post-mortem diagnosis was made. In an attempt to detect healthy animals within the set of suspects using only the clinical signs, 18 classification methods were applied ranging from simple linear classifiers to classifier ensembles such as Bagging, AdaBoost and Random Forests. The results suggest that the clinical classification by the VO was adequate as no further differentiation within the set of suspects was feasible. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Reports of clinical scrapie in Great Britain between January 1, 1993 and December 31, 2002 were reviewed. Scrapie was confirmed in 4142 sheep on 1099 holdings. the cumulative case and holding incidence risks decreased in 2001, probably owing to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, although there were regional variations. Sheep aged between three and four years old constituted the largest affected group. In the period between 1998 and 2002, 51-3 per cent of the cases had the genotype ARQ/VRQ, 19-3 per cent were ARQ/ARQ and 18-9 per cent were VRQ/VRQ; Swaledale, Shetland and Welsh mountain sheep were the most common pure breeds reported. The areas at highest risk were the Shetland Islands, followed by the south and east of England. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A questionnaire assessing knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about bullying used in a study of pre-service teachers in the United Kingdom was replicated on a sample of 82 pre-service teachers in the United States. Results were similar for both groups of pre- service teachers. Participants had some accurate knowledge as well as some beliefs and attitudes that would not be consistent with effective teacher behaviours towards students involved in bullying. Both samples were interested in further training as part of their teacher preparation programs. Implications for training of pre-service teachers are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We applied capture–recapture methodology (CRC) to data from three surveillance sources (statutory notification, abattoir survey (AS) and fallen stock (FS) survey) to estimate the number of holdings infected with scrapie in Great Britain and to assess the sensitivity of the surveillance network. Between January 1, 2002 and March 31, 2003, 144 holdings were identified by the three sources. Using CRC modelling techniques, we estimated a minimum lower bound for the total number of holdings infected as 642. A biologically plausible positive dependence between the statutory reporting and the fallen stock survey was found statistically significant. The sensitivity of the three sources combined was very low. The integration of the three overlapping sources provided a better understanding of the interactions within the surveillance network. However, the scarcity of the data and reduced overlapping among sources only allowed for very cautious inferences to be drawn about the true proportion of scrapie affected holdings in the national population. Future surveys and surveillance activities should be planned such that the resulting data can be used more effectively as part of CRC modelling approaches. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Editorial. Comments on the focus of HIV prevention initiatives on encouragement of harm reduction behavior in Great Britain. Test of a number of behavioral interventions; Decrease of HIV-associated mortality; Reasons for the design and implementation of sexual risk reduction prevention programs.

The article discusses the results of surveys that estimates the prevalence of scrapie in the sheep population in Great Britain in 2002 and 2003. The surveys reported a number of sheep found dead-on-farm in the region. There were several examinations for scrapie-associated fibrils and the Western blot.

The article discusses a case control study which determined the risk factors for the livestock disease, atypical scrapie, in sheep holdings in Great Britain.

Objectives: There is an established relationship between nightlife, substance use and violence. This study investigated this relationship when people are on holiday, and explored the differences in experiences between physical and verbal violence. Study design: A survey of young tourists at seven airport departure areas in Southern European resorts. Methods: Questionnaires from 6502 British and German tourists were analysed exploring demographics, violence (verbal and physical), substance use, and reasons for resort and venue selection. Results: Over two-thirds of respondents reported being drunk on their holiday, 12.4% had been involved in arguments and 2.9% had been involved in fights. Logistic regression high- lighted more violence amongst visitors to Mallorca [arguments: adjusted odds ratio (AOR) 2.7; fights: AOR 2.0] compared with those visiting Portugal, males (arguments: AOR 1.3; fights: AOR 1.7), those who had used illicit drugs (arguments: AOR 1.5; fights: AOR 2.9), those who had been in fights at home in the last 12 months (arguments: AOR 2.2; fights AOR 2.9), and those who had frequently been drunk abroad (arguments: AOR 2.4; fights: AOR 2.5). Those aged 16-19 years, visiting Italy or Crete, who were drunk for fewer than half of the days of their stay, and who chose bars because they were frequented by drunk people were more likely to report having an argument. Fights were associated with cannabis use and were negatively associated with choosing bars with a friendly atmosphere. Economic status or frequency of visiting bars had no relationship with arguments or fights. Conclusions: Understanding and addressing the variables involved in violence when holidaying abroad is critical in targeting appropriate health promotion and harm reduction measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]