A multi-disciplinary expert group met to discuss vitamin D deficiency in the UK and strategies for improving population intakes and status. Changes to UK Government advice since the 1st Rank Forum on Vitamin D (2009) were discussed, including rationale for setting a reference nutrient intake (10 µg/d; 400 IU/d) for adults and children (4+ years). Current UK data show inadequate intakes among all age groups and high prevalence of low vitamin D status among specific groups (e.g. pregnant women and adolescent males/females). Evidence of widespread deficiency within some minority ethnic groups, resulting in nutritional rickets (particularly among Black and South Asian infants), raised particular concern. Latest data indicate that UK population vitamin D intakes and status reamain relatively unchanged since Government recommendations changed in 2016. Vitamin D food fortification was discussed as a potential strategy to increase population intakes. Data from dose–response and dietary modelling studies indicate dairy products, bread, hens’ eggs and some meats as potential fortification vehicles. Vitamin D3 appears more effective than vitamin D2 for raising serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration, which has implications for choice of fortificant. Other considerations for successful fortification strategies include: (i) need for ‘real-world’ cost information for use in modelling work; (ii) supportive food legislation; (iii) improved consumer and health professional understanding of vitamin D’s importance; (iv) clinical consequences of inadequate vitamin D status and (v) consistent communication of Government advice across health/social care professions, and via the food industry. These areas urgently require further research to enable universal improvement in vitamin D intakes and status in the UK population.

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Sodium (Na) intake can elevate blood pressure and is a factor in developing chronic kidney disease (CKD). Twenty-four-hour urinary Na (24hUNa) is the gold standard for assessing Na intake but is burdensome. Validated equations estimate 24hUNa (e24hUNa) from a spot urine sample, but these estimations are not validated against a known Na intake in CKD. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: The current study is a secondary analysis of a 9-day controlled feeding study in moderate CKD patients matched to healthy adults. Only CKD patients were used for the current analyses (n = 8). Participants consumed a controlled diet for 9 days, providing ~2400 mg Na/d as determined by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP). On days 7 and 8, participants collected all urine in an inpatient setting, beginning with a fasting sample on day 7. Urine sample mineral analyses were performed by ICP and urinary creatinine by the Jaffe reaction. The day 7 fasting urine sample was used to calculate e24hUNa using 6 published equations. Log-transformed Na intake, measured 24hUNa, and e24hUNa were compared by repeated-measures ANOVA with planned contrasts using SAS. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Fifty percent of the CKD patients (n = 4) were female; 63% (n = 5) were white, and 37% (n = 3) were black. On average, participants were aged 56.6 ± 13.8 y with a BMI of 31.7 ± 9.4 kg/m2 and eGFR of 40.7 ± 7.9 mL/min. Based on actual food intake, average Na intake on day 7 was 2024 ± 388 mg. Average measured 24hUNa was 2529 ± 1334 mg. The main ANOVA was significant (p = 0.02). Results from the planned contrasts found that e24hUNa from the SALTED cohort, an equation developed specifically for CKD patients, was significantly higher than both Na intake (p<0.001) and measured 24hUNa (p = 0.007). For the remaining 5 equations, e24hUNa was not significantly different from measured 24hUNa nor dietary Na intake. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT : Our results suggest that e24hUNa calculated using most published equations may provide a reliable and low-burden method of assessing dietary Na intake in moderate CKD patients. These findings should be confirmed in larger samples. Additional studies are needed to validate or dispute the use of the SALTED equation for estimating Na intake.

Free cortisol was investigated in BPD patients and healthy controls. A positive association was found between cortisol and depression scores, while the number of PTSD symptoms was negatively correlated with cortisol release. These findings suggest that alterations in cortisol release in BPD are strongly associated with the severity of psychopathology.

A decorative scheme applied to the internal gable wall at the ‘high’ end of the hall of Oakham Castle, in Rutland, has been the subject of recent investigation, with the removal of later over-painting. Analysis indicates that the scheme is original Romanesque work dating from the 1180s, an exceptional survival for a secular building. Very unusually, the decoration was produced with self-coloured plaster rather than paint. The scheme, of which quite extensive sections survive, consisted of a large semi-circular arch with voussoirs (similar to the hall’s main stone arcade), and a lattice pattern simulating opus reticulatum in the tympanum below. The pattern was created by laying white lime strips over a buff-coloured plaster background. The only comparable example yet identified – at Chepstow Castle, in Monmouthshire – is on a smaller scale and a century earlier. The scheme seems to have survived because the interior of the hall has been little disturbed, with a tradition since the fifteenth century of displaying outsized horseshoes on the walls.

Western Australian growers are adopting no-tillage farming systems, which have a greater reliance on integrated weed management systems that include competitive cultivars, high seeding rates, strategic fertilizer placement, and narrow row spacing. At the same time, they are sowing more of their barley area to cultivars with a semidwarf habit. This study compared six two-row, spring malting barley cultivars with different morphological traits at two dates of planting and three crop densities, with nil-added and added rigid ryegrass at five sites. Four cultivars, ‘Buloke’, ‘Flagship’, ‘Hamelin’, and ‘Vlamingh’, had an erect early growth habit; the other two, ‘Baudin’ and ‘Gairdner’, had a prostrate, semidwarf early growth habit. Increasing the density of rigid ryegrass plants from 16 to 125 plants/m2 decreased barley grain yield by reducing crop biomass production, tiller number, grain number, and harvest index. Average grain weight was also reduced at most sites. The impact of competition on grain yield varied across sites and cultivars, but did not interact with date of planting. Baudin, Flagship, and Hamelin were more competitive with rigid ryegrass than Buloke, Gairdner, and Vlamingh. Differences in competitiveness between cultivars did not appear to be strongly related to morphological traits that affect light interception such as canopy closure, plant height, and tiller number. Differences in cultivar competitiveness were cultivar-specific and not generic. Rigid ryegrass productivity (dry matter and tiller number) tended to be lower under the more competitive cultivars. Increasing barley plant density increased grain yield, and reduced both rigid ryegrass dry matter and tiller number. Barley density had a larger impact on rigid ryegrass productivity than crop cultivar. The impact of barley density on reducing rigid ryegrass tiller number was larger with the first planting date than the second, and higher in the added rigid ryegrass plots than the nil-added plots. This study highlights the importance of high barley seeding rate for the integrated management of rigid ryegrass.

Eastern hemlock [Tsuga canadensis (L.) Carrière] is a valuable component of Allegheny Plateau forests in northwestern Pennsylvania and western New York. Since the 1950s, hemlock forests throughout the Central Appalachians have been under threat from a nonnative forest insect pest, the hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae Annand). In 2012, to address this threat at the most meaningful scale, the United States Forest Service and The Nature Conservancy organized a diverse partnership to develop a strategy for landscape-level conservation of hemlock on the High Allegheny Unglaciated Plateau. The main goal of the partnership was to locate hemlock across the landscape regardless of land ownership and prioritize the hemlock for monitoring and protection from the adelgid. The priority Hemlock Conservation Areas that were identified by this partnership provide a guide for focusing limited financial and personnel resources, with the goal of protecting at least a portion of these areas from the impacts of the adelgid until more long-term management techniques are identified. To protect the important hemlock forests identified in this prioritization, a partnership of private and public land managers are forming a Cooperative Pest Management Area to continue this important collaboration, allocate scarce resources across the area, and allow private partners access to public funding for protection of priority hemlock on their lands.

Environmental Practice 18: 94–105 (2016)

The objectives were to conduct a meta-analysis in accordance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) standards to determine effect sizes (Cohen's d) for cognitive dysfunction in adults with type 2 diabetes, relative to nondiabetic controls, and to obtain effect sizes for the most commonly reported neuropsychological tests within domains. Twenty-four studies, totaling 26,137 patients (n = 3351 with diabetes), met study inclusion criteria. Small to moderate effect sizes were obtained for five of six domains: motor function (3 studies, n = 2374; d = −0.36), executive function (12 studies, n = 1784; d = −0.33), processing speed (16 studies, n = 3076; d = −0.33), verbal memory (15 studies, n = 4,608; d = −0.28), and visual memory (6 studies, n = 1754; d = −0.26). Effect size was smallest for attention/concentration (14 studies, n = 23,143; d = −0.19). The following tests demonstrated the most notable performance decrements in diabetes samples: Grooved Pegboard (dominant hand) (d = −0.60), Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (immediate) (d = −0.40), Trails B (d = −0.39), Rey-Osterreith Complex Figure (delayed) (d = −0.38), Trails A (d = −0.34), and Stroop Part I (d = −0.28). This study provides effect sizes to power future epidemiological and clinical diabetes research studies examining cognitive function and to help inform the selection of neuropsychological tests. (JINS, 2014, 20, 1–14)

The clinic attendance of 100 consecutive referrals to child psychiatry is described. Only 47 cases ended in agreed discharge. Different factors were found to be associated with attrition at different stages in the treatment-uptake process. Of referrals offered an appointment, 16% failed to attend at all; this was significantly associated with parents being against referral. Of cases offered a subsequent appointment, 40% dropped out. Continued attendance was associated with a presenting problem of general anxiety and with consultation to the referrer. Dropping out was associated with parents who were separated.