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BackgroundThere is increasing recognition that personalized approaches may be more effective in helping people establish healthier eating patterns and exercise more, and that this approach may be particularly effective in adolescents. ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to investigate the use of a smartphone app (FoodWiz2) in supporting healthy lifestyle choices in adolescence. MethodsParticipants (N=34: 11 male, 23 female) aged 16-19 years in full- or part-time education were recruited from sixth form colleges, schools, and other further education establishments in Norfolk and Suffolk, United Kingdom, between February and May 2015. Participants recorded food intake and exercise using a paper diary for 4-5 weeks and then used the app for the same duration. Initial nutrition education and general support were provided during the paper diary use, but the app included personalized messages sent in response to app activity. At the end of each study phase, participants completed an online questionnaire to describe their experience of using the paper diary and app. ResultsRecord completion declined throughout the study, possibly affected by examination pressure. Food intake data showed increased fruit consumption and significantly reduced consumption of chocolate snacks (P=.01) and fizzy drinks (P=.002) among participants using the app. Questionnaire responses indicated that the app was generally preferred to the paper diary, in particular, the app was seen as less boring to use (P=.03) and more acceptable in social settings (P

Emer de Vattel's argument that states should be understood as free and independent bodies operating as moral persons in the international sphere is credited with launching a doctrine of sovereignty that hardened national borders against external interference or obligation. It also helped launch one of the world's first modern states through its influence on the American founding. Vattel's theory rests upon the critical role of judgment, specifically, the judgment of interests. That doctrine requires that states must always think for themselves, but not only about themselves. Offering some justification for international action, even in the midst of disagreement or war, is what separates civilized from villainous nations for Vattel, and this grounds interests in the communicative habits of an international community. Because the judgment of interests incorporates a communicative element, Vattelian internationalism cannot become exclusively self-regarding, and state interests cannot be entirely contained within national borders. Instead, Vattel's distinctive combination of independence and interests is set within a global community that makes the fate of outsiders the business of every state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Elke Winter's latest work on pluralism and national identity has an iconoclastic quality that helps put Canadian multiculturalism in a new and more interesting light. But it also raises [...]

Does death provide a generative force in politics? The great theorist of political founding, Hannah Arendt, insisted that birth, not death, equipped us for the task of beginning, and pointed to Virgil’s Aeneid as a work that best understood this process. But the Aeneid is a work primarily concerned with sacrifice, suffering and death, and it highlights the losses that must be endured, the disorientation to be overcome, before renewal arrives. Reconsidering Arendt’s emphasis on action in the light of the themes of loss and despair in the Aeneid suggests that death cannot be definitively excluded from an Arendtian approach. Indeed, this element may lie close to the heart of her thinking. Virgil’s emphasis on the management of despair through prophecy suggests one reason Arendt might forego an emphasis on death, since accounts of founding, be they myth or theory, must first and foremost serve the needs of survival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]