Risk and protective factors for health behaviour in adolescence in Europe.

The purpose of the analysis was to identify the risk and protective factors for health behaviour in European adolescents from population health status and expenditure, mental health status, sexual life, social life and education indices and the existence of national strategies, programmes. National and international databases providing information on the presumed health behaviour predictors were used in the analysis. The existence of national health strategies, the level of health expenditure, the socioeconomic conditions, the level of education and literacy had significant influence on the health-risk behaviour of adolescents in the European societies. Six clusters of European countries were extracted by considering the health behaviour risks and health protection strategies. National health strategies combined with governmental support for health prevention and action plans have the most effective impact on the health-risk behaviour of adolescents.

A new monitoring system for nutritional status assessment in children at home.

Regular monitoring of children's nutritional status is essential to prevent micronutrient deficiencies, nutritional status abnormalities as stunting, wasting, overweight and obesity. Nutritional status assessment is usually performed by paediatricians by using anthropometry (body mass index, weight to height indices) and/or by body fat-mass measurement (bioimpedance analysis, dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, computer tomography, etc.). Parents are also interested in but usually fail to evaluate their child's nutritional status. To help the sufficient collaboration between the physician and parents a new nutritional status monitoring method is developed for families. The new monitoring system was developed under a paediatrician's supervision by considering national and international recommendations, references as well as the anthropometric measurement possibilities at home. The model requires age, sex, body mass, height, waist circumference and hand circumference as predictor (input) variables of nutritional status, while (1) the centile values of the measured body dimensions, (2) body fat percentage and the centile of body fat percentage, (3) the nutritional status category (undernutrition, normal nutritional status, overfat/obese) can be predicted (outcome variables) by the new method. The predictive accuracy of the model for nutritional status category was 94.88% in boys and 98.66% in girls. The new model was developed for nutritional status assessment in school-aged children and will be incorporated in the healthy lifestyle module of 'Teenage Survival Guide' educational package to be developed by the Health Promotion and Education Research Team, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary. The new monitoring system could help the families to identify the early signs of malnutrition in children. Nutritional status assessment in children at home is suggested twice a year, and in case of suspicious nutritional status abnormality it is recommended to visit the general practitioner.

The effect of easily degradable substrate feeding on the community structure of laboratory-scale wastewater sludge digesters.

The effect of several easily degradable substrates, such as protein, starch and sunflower oil was investigated on the bacterial community of a laboratory-scale biogas model system. Besides measuring gas yield, Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE), Phospholipids Fatty Acid Analysis (PLFA) for Bacteria and T-RFLP analysis of the mcrA gene for Archaea were used. The community of the examined biogas reactors adapted to the new substrates through a robust physiological reaction followed by moderate community abundance shifts. Gas yield data clearly demonstrated the physiological adaptation to substrate shifts. Statistical analysis of DNA and chemotaxonomic biomarkers revealed community abundance changes. Sequences gained from DGGE bands showed the dominance of the phyla Bacteroidetes and the presence of Firmicutes (Clostridia) and Thermotogae. This was supported by the detection of large amounts of branched 15-carbon non-hydroxy fatty acids in PLFA profiles, as common PLFA markers of the Bacteroidetes group. Minor abundance ratios changes were observed in the case of Archaea in accordance with changes of the fed substrates.

A simple and novel volumetric method to metre low gas flows from laboratory-scale bioreactors and its application on laboratory sludge digesters.

A novel, cheap and easy to use method has been developed to measure low gas yields in bioreactors, based on the principle of bubble counting via digital imaging techniques and pattern recognition. No external hardware control is required for the measurements, and the device can be turned into a multichannel tool without further detector accessories. The method proved to perform outstandingly according to the testing and calibrating measurements against standard gas flow and revealed a short periodicity in the gas yields of two parallel laboratory-scale mesophilic biogas reactors providing well analysable data about them. For exact characterization of the oscillation, the data were converted into Morell wavelet spectra, which showed that every feeding period had a characteristic and similarly shaped wavelet profile, thereby this rhythm must have had an immanent source in the community metabolism, and it was not an artefact.

Genetic variability of gag and env regions of HIV type 1 strains circulating in Slovenia.

The aim of this study was to investigate the genetic diversity of HIV-1 strains circulating in Slovenia. Proviral DNA isolated from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of 20 randomly selected HIV-1-infected individuals was classified into subtypes by sequence-based phylogenetic analysis of the env (C2V3) and gag (p24) regions of the viral genome. The phylogenetic tree based on env C2V3 sequences showed that 15 of the 20 samples were subtype B, two A1, one F1, one CRF01_AE, and one CRF02_AG. The phylogenetic analysis of the gag gene yielded identical results expect for one sample that had a discordant subtype; it was identified as subtype A1 in the env and AE in the gag region. Our study confirmed that although subtype B predominates, other subtypes and circulating recombinant forms (CRFs) are also present in Slovenia. The high intrasubtype genetic diversity of subtype B sequences suggests a multiple introduction of subtype B strains into Slovenia.