In recent years, natural health products in food formats with higher levels of added vitamins and minerals, amino acids, herbal ingredients and bioactives sought and were granted market access in Canada. Since these food products, referred to as supplemented foods (SFs), are sold alongside conventional foods and lack features that clearly distinguish them from other foods, there is a potential for confusion among consumers as to the appropriate use of these products. There is no research evaluating the nutrition labelling approaches for these foods, and what consumers need in a labelling approach to be able to identify these food products and distinguish them from other foods, determine what the supplemental ingredients are and understand any directions or cautions for use of these foods. To determine key components of an appropriate labelling approach, interviews and discussion groups were conducted in the National Capital Region and the surrounding area to assess consumer access, understanding and appraisal of these foods, using current and tested labelling strategies. Consumer feedback consistently indicated that the current labelling is insufficient for awareness, understanding, appraisal and appropriate use of supplemented foods. Tested labelling components that facilitated awareness, understanding, and appraisal of supplemented foods included a symbol based supplemented food product identifier with the wording “Supplemented” on the front of the package, a “Supplemented” information box containing a listing of the name and amount of each supplemental ingredient and cautionary labelling in proximity to the supplemental ingredient labelling. These key labelling components are to be integrated into a web-based mock-package trial that will objectively test these labelling tools on a large sample of Canadian consumers (n=4000).

Supplemental feeding is commonly practiced to enhance available nutrition for white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). The effects of supplemental feeding on the surrounding vegetative community may be related to herbivory, trampling, and seed dispersal. I evaluated how these potential mechanisms affect vegetative communities using a matched-pair design (fed and ecologically equivalent unfed sites) during 2018-2020. In a short-term manipulative portion of the study, I sampled the vegetation prior to feeding and during two years of feeding. In a long-term retrospective study, I sampled feeders established 5-7 years previously. Feeders increased daily detection rate of deer and seed dispersing non-target wildlife, percentage of browsed plants, bare ground, and seed deposition. Plant communities diverged increasingly more from year 1 through years 5-7. Supplemental feeding directly affects local understory plant communities due to increased herbivory and trampling, while seed dispersal by non-target wildlife and increased bare ground may facilitate invasion of non-desirable plant species.

No description available.

No description available.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed) is an extension of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that aims to promote living healthier lifestyles for low-income participants of SNAP with limited resources. This thesis aims to investigate the effectiveness of Virginia's adult SNAP-Ed program through a cost-effective analysis (CEA) for fiscal year 2013 which requires the separation of the into the costs and the effects of the program. The costs for the program are categories as the labor, capital, material, and utility costs that are required to implement the adult SNAP-Ed program. The effects are measured as the number of participants who start, graduate, and improve from the start to the end of the program. The effects were measured on a retrospective self-assessment that measured both if a participant graduated and their magnitude of improvement. The analysis showed that as the state of Virginia the adult SNAP-Ed program incurred a cost of $2,488,170.07 with 6,759 participants starting the program and 3,704 of those that graduated in fiscal year 2013. Participants that improved on at least one of the questions by a score of one were 3,609 of the 3,704 that graduated. For the state of Virginia the cost effective ratio (CER) for starting a participant was $368 and CER of $672 for each graduated participant. An improvement on at least one question saw a CER value of $689. These findings show patterns that can be used for future policy implementation and the focus of the program. / Master of Science

Objective: To assess the reliability of the Kids' Activity and Nutrition Questionnaire (KAN-Q) as part of a tiered process for developing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education tools. Methods: The KAN-Q was administered at 2 time points to assess internal consistency using standardized values of Cronbach alpha and test-retest reliability using the intraclass correlation coefficient for continuous variables, Cohen's kappa (k) statistic for categorical variables, and the weighted k statistic for ordinal data. Results: Data were collected from 119 fourth graders. Cronbach a was adequate for behavior (.71) and knowledge (.72) scales and nutrition behavior (.78) and nutrition knowledge (.75) subscales. Test-retest reliability was generally acceptable, with intraclass correlation coefficients from 0.40 to 0.75 and k coefficients showing fair to substantial agreement (0.30 to 0.72). Conclusions and Implications: The KAN-Q is a practical and reliable questionnaire for school-based administration that aligns directly with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education evaluation priorities.

The purpose of this investigation was to observe the effect of supplemental art activities on classroom management. Supplemental art activities are assignments designed to replace "busy work" with meaningful, interesting learning projects for students. The supplemental activities allowed students who completed their regular work to direct free time to developing appropriate work habits and creative thinking. The investigation showed that additional prepared learning activities help to reduce classroom discipline problems. Students were required to continue the normal learning routine without surpassing the slower members of the class. Planned activities did not solve all classroom problems but did serve to educationally involve the faster students.

Ascent to altitude presents a significant challenge to the human body. Specifically, it is associated with an increased ventilation and pulmonary vasoconstriction. In healthy subjects these are related such that a high ventilatory drive is associated with blunted pulmonary vasoconstriction. Adults born prematurely and given supplemental oxygen at birth have a blunted ventilatory response to hypoxia. We hypothesized that the hypoxic ventilatory and pulmonary vasoconstrictor responses would be unrelated following perinatal supplemental oxygen exposure. To test our hypothesis, we used a well-established rat model of 80% O2 (80%) exposure for 14 days post-natally, with 21% O2 exposure as a control (21%). We assessed the ventilatory response to graded hypoxia using barometric plethysmography 6-9 months post hyperoxia exposure. The left and right ventricles were catheterized to evaluate the hemodynamic response to 10 minutes of 12% O2 (hypoxia). To our surprise we found that 80% animals did not demonstrate a depressed ventilatory response to hypoxia. However, these animals experienced increased right ventricular systolic pressure in response to 12% O2. An increase in cardiac output was the primary driving force behind the increase in right ventricular end systolic pressure, not an increase in vascular resistance. We found no relationship between the hypoxic ventilatory drive and right ventricular pressure. In 21% animals exposed to hypoxia, the increase in right ventricular pressure was driven primarily by vasoconstriction and, as previous studies have shown, there was a relationship between the ventilatory and pressure responses. These data suggest that neonatal supplemental oxygen alters the hemodynamic response to hypoxia, possibly through enhanced sympathetic drive. The relationship between ventilation and pulmonary pressure may not translate to individuals born prematurely.

First-generation college students continue to have lower retention and success rates in colleges and universities, reducing their likelihood of staying above the poverty line. The study tested Bandura and Vygotsky's social cognitive theories of self-efficacy, self-regulation, and student ability to self-pace in the classroom. The purpose of this study was to explore if offering supplemental online materials to traditional class delivery, which can be self-regulated and self-paced, impacted students' success rates in the class and semester-to-semester retention. Using a quasi-experimental method, first-semester college students, in a small private liberal arts college (N = 678); were compared on use of supplemental online materials, parental college experience, and class success and the impact of these variables on student second-semester retention. Additional information was gathered on year-to-year retention, to consider if the independent variables had an impact on longer-term retention. Results of the chi-square test indicate a significant relationship between student success and student semester-to-semester and year-to-year retention (p < .001). Logistic regression analysis indicates a significant relationship between the number of online supplemental materials available and student retention rates (p =.033). These findings demonstrate that increasing students' success in classes and increased online material offerings significantly increase long-term undergraduate student retention. By increasing high-risk students' chance for academic success, this can create social change by increasing their retention and graduation rates and increasing the likelihood they will have higher income and are less at risk for long-term poverty and the challenges associated with it.

This research project sought to measure how students in large-classroom environments respond to supplemental, out-of-class learning options. Is their performance positively impacted by tutoring or by online, always-accessible lessons? Above and beyond demographics and skills, what motivates students to engage in use of supplemental learning options? Responding to theories of ?just-in-time? learning and the learner-centered philosophy of distributed learning, this study put three out-of-class tools in place during the course of a fall semester to allow the learner to decide what form of out-of-class aid he or she would rely upon. Those three options included tutoring services, streaming voice-over-PowerPoint lessons, and short YouTube.com-hosted videos featuring the instructor. Over the course of the fall 2008 semester, students responded to two surveys intended to (1) capture their motivational approach and preferred study strategies and learning styles; and (2) capture measures of their usage of these tools and their reported perception of the tools. In tests of data to determine what led to the most improvement in student scores and what led to students? highest reported levels of satisfaction and perceived value with the course, the short, lab instructor-created videos hosted on YouTube.com were the only significant predictor among all three supplemental learning options. This finding provides broad-based support for ?just-in-time? theories of learning, in which information and help are readily available just as students are seeking that information and extra guidance. Therefore, instructors seeking to improve student performance may serve their students well by preparing materials to facilitate any-time access to course content needed to complete major assignments or prepare for exams. But there is a caveat to simply making any form of content available online or available any-time, any-place. This study advances the theory of always-available resources and learner-centered environments by further refining what type of media stimulates the most improvement in performance. The answer, in part, seems to hinge on what is most appealing to students (video plus audio, shorter material, content geared toward assignment specifics rather than broad-based lectures), and warrants future study.