This study investigated the effect of the menstrual cycle phase on postprandial blood glucose across meals in young females. Additionally, associations between glucose responses and sex hormone concentrations at each time point were assessed. Fifteen healthy young females (aged 24.9 ± 0.8 years) participated in two trial phases: (1) the follicular phase (Days 9–11 of menstruation) and (2) the luteal phase (Days 21–23). On each trial day, participants consumed test meals of identical composition at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Postprandial blood glucose levels were measured using a continuous glucose monitoring system. Salivary estradiol and progesterone concentrations as well as core body temperature were recorded to determine the menstrual phase and examine associations with glycaemic fluctuations. No significant differences were observed between phases in postprandial glucose concentrations after breakfast or lunch. However, glucose levels 30 min after dinner were significantly higher during the luteal phase than during the follicular phase (p = 0.043). Estradiol concentrations did not differ significantly between phases at any time point, whereas progesterone levels were significantly elevated during the luteal phase at all meal times (breakfast: p = 0.005; lunch: p = 0.001; dinner: p = 0.001). Core body temperature at waking, and mean, maximum, and minimum bedtime temperatures were significantly higher in the luteal phase (p = 0.004, 0.023, 0.050, and 0.020, respectively). These findings may inform menstrual phase–specific strategies for managing postprandial glycaemia.

Middle aortic syndrome is a rare cause of aortic coarctation, characterised by progressive segmental or diffuse narrowing of the distal thoracic aorta and/or abdominal aorta, often involving the renal arteries and other visceral arteries. The syndrome is predominantly seen in children and young adults, typically presenting with severe hypertension, congestive heart failure, renal failure, or severe leg claudication. Diagnostic imaging by angiography of the descending and abdominal aorta is the preferred evaluative modality. Here, we report a case of a young man who was admitted to our Cardiology Department with severe hypertension and middle aortic syndrome diagnosed by renal Doppler scan and CT angiography. An adequate blood pressure control was achieved with antihypertensive treatment and surgery.

The Darkened Light of Faith is a work in the history of black political thought that speaks to contemporary challenges. It provides intricate reconstructions of David Walker’s rhetorical methods in his 1829 Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World; the democratic perfectionism of Maria Stewart, Hosea Easton, and Anna Julia Cooper; Frederick Douglass and Martin Delany’s debate about the meaning and implications of civic republicanism for oppressed peoples; Ida B. Wells’s and Billie Holiday’s use of journalism and music to reeducate American moral sense on lynching; and W. E. B. Du Bois’s use of art as propaganda to call readers to higher character. Thomas Jefferson, Walt Whitman, Alain Locke, and James Baldwin make cameo appearances. Rogers provides not only riveting intellectual history but also rigorous argument about the faith-based character of democratic transformation.

Use of snaplage residue in an integrated crop-livestock system (ICLS) allows adding beef production between two corn growing seasons, providing greater profitability with efficient land use. However, the effects on soil properties and the subsequent crop production remain uncertain. This study aimed to evaluate the short-term impact of residue grazing on the soil physical and chemical properties and subsequent crop yield. The treatments were two stocking rates (SR): 1) low stocking rate (LS; 3.5 AU/ha), and 2) high stocking rate (HS; 7.0 AU/ha), and ungrazed control (CT). Crossbred beef heifers (n = 48) were assigned to 16 paddocks (3 heifers/paddock). Pre-planned contrasts were used CT vs. HS+LS and HS vs. LS with a significance P ≤ 0.05. Multivariate analysis was performed using principal component analysis (PCA). Initial residual mass was no different for all treatments (9,683 kg DM/ha). There was a lower final mass for grazed than ungrazed. There was also less total pre-planting mass for grazed than ungrazed. No grazing or stocking rate effects were detected for penetration resistance. The total nitrogen returned was increased by grazing (82% compared to ungrazed). The soil phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) were also increased with grazing (28 and 42%, respectively). The total yield mass increased by grazing (15% compared to ungrazed) in the subsequent crop. In conclusion, grazing residue had no negative short-term effects on the physical characteristics of the soil, while increasing concentrations of macronutrients from animal supplementation positively affected subsequent corn yield.

This paper examines competing treatments—surgery and radioactive iodine (RAI, I131)—for hyperthyroidism in the context of post-colonial Cold War nuclear science in Taiwan. Although the U.S.-led Cold War Atoms for Peace project pushed for the globalization of nuclear medicine, it had to compete with the Japanese colonial legacy in Taiwan (Republic of China). This government-in-exile embraced nuclear science and ushered in RAI with staged rituals. However, this modern procedure failed to overtake the surgical approach (thyroidectomy); in fact, as late as the 1990s, well after RAI had become a standard procedure throughout the world, surgery was still the major treatment option for this common disease in Taiwan. The tension between the global and the local is rooted in infrastructure as well as the materiality, regulation and availability of the Iodine 131 isotope, and, finally, the customary practice of the surgical tradition, established since the colonial period. Thyroid diseases, especially endemic goiter, were an important issue in colonial medicine, and the study, diagnosis, and treatments of thyroid diseases were an integral part of colonial surgeons’ identity. Surgical clinics had been a fixture of institutional medicine throughout Taiwan by the mid-twentieth century. In contrast, with the exception of a few prestigious hospitals in Taipei such as the National Taiwan University Hospital, most medical institutions and clinicians were not equipped to use isotopes. The availability of I131 was also limited, as the nuclear reactor did not become active until the 1960s. The preference for surgery thus points to the significance of material and social conditions of medical practice in Taiwan, amid the backdrop of the haunting images of the atomic bombs dropped by the U.S. on nearby Japan which the Atoms for Peace Project had aimed to overcome.

During the Nine Years’ War, limitations of state capacity required that English imperial policy makers delegate substantial authority to provincial governors and assemblies in North American colonies. Proximity to sites of conflict, along with access to developed regional financial networks, gave provincial leaders relative efficiency when planning and executing military campaigns. Although useful in the short term, imperial policy makers considered the influence of provincial leaders like William Phips in Massachusetts to be a threat to their centralized authority in metropolitan London. Consequently, North American colonial wars revealed a tension in the transatlantic imperial relationship between the metropolitan English state and English colonies—namely, that peripheral expansion required delegation but that same delegation threatened central authority that English authorities considered necessary for sovereignty. This tension reached a breaking point on the issue of monetary policy. Phips’s advocacy for colonial monetary autonomy would ultimately provoke his removal as governor and imprisonment.

Models allow us to expose, explore, and excavate our assumptions. This is especially true for the sorts of assumptions that concern scholars of marginalization and resistance, who aim to show how patriarchy, colonialism, and related structures shape our lives. Yet within this scholarship, there is a recurrent skepticism toward practices of modeling, particularly formal or idealizing practices. These critiques portray modeling as anything from necessarily sexist to perniciously universalizing to oppressive. While these claims are mistaken, they nevertheless share a crucial and underappreciated undercurrent: alienation. I argue that alienation provides a more fundamental and more precise framework for evaluating modeling practices. This reframing clarifies the normative stakes of exclusionary modeling while preserving formal techniques for the projects that they are especially well-positioned to promote: exposing entrenched assumptions, resisting “obfuscatory accommodation,” and facilitating engagement across epistemic and political divides.

This paper reviews the history of Australian Nutrition Policy over the last 50 years with the intent to highlight and examine past successes and failures to help inform current evidence-based nutrition policies and practice. The review outlines the factors and activities leading to the first and only Australian national Food and Nutrition Policy (1992). It describes challenges and strengths around the implementation and evaluation of the policy and the subsequent strategic action plans Eat Well Australia and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nutrition Strategy and Action plan (2000-2010). To illustrate state and territory policy activities, a brief case study is presented of the positive impacts of Eat Well Queensland before disinvestment by the incoming state government in 2012. The review found a major challenge has been lack of an adequately funded, consistent, sustained commitment to implementation of policy actions. Various efforts to develop supportive infrastructure are described, such as the Australian National Preventive Health Agency (2011-2014). Network analysis and studies of barriers and enablers illustrate the power and influence of unhealthy food and drink industries on evidence-based nutrition policy. The review concludes with discussion of current opportunities, noting the need for ongoing political support and good governance, including active management of vested interests. It also highlights the need for investment in nutrition archives in Australia to improve access to historical data and better inform future policy and programs.

This article examines the 1928 German–Soviet Alai–Pamir expedition as a moment when different scientific traditions, political ambitions and bodily practices met in the high-altitude borderlands of Central Asia. Focusing on the mapping of the Fedchenko glacier, it argues that knowledge emerged not simply from instruments and protocols, but from the difficult encounter between bodies, technical tools and a resistant glacial landscape. The glacier thus became more than a physical object of study; it was an epistemologically charged terrain where ways of knowing were tested and made visible. German scientists, drawing on alpine traditions of glaciology, emphasized precision, discipline and methodological control. Soviet participants, by contrast, highlighted endurance, improvisation and collective struggle, casting physical hardship as proof of revolutionary commitment and shaping a distinctly ideological form of scientific masculinity. By tracing these entanglements of body, landscape and ideology, the article presents the expedition as an example of how science operates not only as a cognitive project, but also as a deeply embodied and politicized practice.

People living with dementia are at risk of going missing. The goal of this project was to develop case scenarios for health service providers, service recipients, and care partners to facilitate dialogues about managing risks related to going missing. This paper presents 10 case scenarios, based in real events, created to describe factors related to missing incidents of people living with dementia. Scenarios were developed following qualitative analysis of dementia-related missing incident reports from 515 MedicAlert Foundation Canada® hotline call summary notes, 1760 missing incident reports from three Canadian police departments and one search and rescue unit, and the experiences of two families. The case scenarios were reviewed by five participants for comprehensibility and validity. The case scenarios are an educational tool for health service providers, first responders, care partners, and persons living with dementia to use when discussing ways to manage risks of going missing.

Diets low in diverse fibre-rich plant foods contribute to the rise of chronic disease. The BIOME study (NCT06231706; 6-week parallel randomised controlled trial) in 399 adults (35–65 years; BMI 18·5–40 kg/m2; fibre intake < 20 g/d) investigated a whole-food plant blend containing > 30 ingredients, rich in (poly)phenols, fibre and micronutrients. Participants were randomised (1:1:1) to the blend (30 g/d), an isoenergetic control (bread croutons, 28 g/d) or probiotic (Lactobacillus rhamnosus, 15bn CFU/d). Analysts were blinded to allocation. The primary outcome was change in ‘favourable’ and ‘unfavourable’ gut microbiome species (ZOE Microbiome Health Ranking 2025); secondary outcomes included blood metabolites, symptoms, stool output, anthropometry, hunger, sleep, energy and mood. A crossover sub-study explored postprandial glucose, hunger and mood. Of 349 participants analysed (fifty excluded), self-reported adherence was > 98 %. The 30+ plant blend resulted in more species changing relative abundance at 6 weeks v. control (57 v. 14 species-level genome bins (SGB), P < 0·001) and probiotic (57 v. 4 SGB, P < 0·001). There were no significant between-group differences in microbiome health ranks of significantly changing species (increasing or decreasing). Blend participants self-reported reduced indigestion, constipation, heartburn and flatulence and increased energy v. control (all P < 0·05). Six related but no serious adverse events occurred. In the sub-study, adding the blend to a high-carbohydrate meal (v. meal alone) reduced hunger, increased fullness and energy (3-h incremental AUC, all P < 0·05), with no effect on postprandial glucose. This 30+ plant blend represents a simple strategy to modify gut microbiome composition and benefit gastrointestinal symptoms in healthy adults.

This article analyzes Southern cotton interests and the agricultural politics within the Roosevelt Administration, offering insights into how market conditions can shape reform agendas and the considerable opportunities for capture that accompany ambitious reform agendas that rely on interested experts. It shows that Southern cotton interests within the Administration were divided into interest groups, depending on their market position, that mapped onto a broader national constellation of agricultural interest groups. These groups competed among themselves for capture of a reform agenda that was adjudicated by the responses of the cotton market to different interventions.

Institutions and organisations providing institutional food services are important in ensuring sustainability throughout the food supply chain and promoting sustainable and healthy eating among consumers. This study evaluated the relationships between food literacy, sustainable and healthy eating behaviours and diet quality of institutional food service staff. The participants in the study were 173 volunteer staff (cooks, assistant cooks, waiters, dishwashers and cleaners) aged 19–64 years working in kitchens and dining halls affiliated with a university in Ankara (Türkiye). Sociodemographic information, the Sustainable and Healthy Eating (SHE) Behaviors Scale, the Self-Perceived Food Literacy (SPFL) Scale and a 24-h dietary recall were collected through face-to-face method questionnaire administration. The quality of the diet was evaluated via the Healthy Eating Index-2020 (HEI-2020), derived from 24-h dietary recall data. A moderate positive association existed between the total score on the SHE Behavior Scale and the total score on the SPFL Scale (r: 0·584, P < 0·001). Weak positive correlation was found between the total SPFL and the total HEI-2020 scores (r: 0·160, P = 0·036). The mean SPFL score for production personnel, including cooks and assistant cooks, exceeded that of support personnel, which includes waiters, dishwashers and cleaners (P = 0·006). None of the participants had a good diet quality. Food literacy levels should be enhanced so that food service personnel may develop sustainable and healthy eating behaviours and improve the quality of their diets. Considering that the food service personnel participating in the study did not have an ideal diet, strategies to improve diet quality should be developed.