Bar-Ilan University

About: Bar-Ilan University is a education organization based out in Ramat Gan, Israel. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 12835 authors who have published 34964 publications receiving 995648 citations. The organization is also known as: Bar Ilan University & BIU.

School-based obesity prevention programs: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Abstract: Objective Attempts have been made to reduce childhood obesity through school-based programs Systematic reviews of studies until 2006 reported a lack of consistency about effectiveness of such programs Presented is an updated systematic review and meta-analysis Design and Methods Replication of methodology used in previous comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials of school-based obesity prevention programs covering studies until 2006 to review studies thru January 2012 Results Based on 32 studies (n = 52,109), programs were mildly effective in reducing BMI relative to controls not receiving intervention Studies of children had significant intervention effects, those of teenagers did not, though the difference between the two groups was not statistically significant Meta-regression showed a significant linear hierarchy of studies with the largest effects for comprehensive programs more than 1 year long that aimed to provide information on nutrition and physical activity, change attitudes, monitor behavior, modify environment, involve parents, increase physical activity and improve diet, particularly among children Conclusions Unlike earlier studies, more recent studies showed convincing evidence that school-based prevention interventions are at least mildly effective in reducing BMI in children, possibly because these newer studies tended to be longer, more comprehensive and included parental support

Counting and the Mass/Count Distinction

Abstract: This article offers an account of the mass/count distinction and the semantics of count nouns, and argues that it is not based on an atomic/non-atomic nor on a homogeneous/non-homogeneous distinction. I propose that atomicity in the count domain is atomicity relative to a context k, where k is a set of entities that count as atoms (i.e. count as one) in a particular context. Assuming for simplicity Chierchia's (1998a) and Rothstein's (2004) theory of mass nouns, in which they denote atomic Boolean semi-lattices closed under the complete join operation, we define an operation COUNT k that applies to the mass noun denotation N mass and derives the count noun meaning: a set of ordered pairs where d is a member of N ∩ k and k is the context k relative to which the operation applied. So, there is a typal distinction between mass nouns, which are of type , and count nouns, which are of type . The grammatical differences between count and mass nouns follow from this typal distinction. This allows us to encode grammatically the distinction between semantic atomicity, that is, atomicity relative to a context k, and natural atomicity, that is, inherent individuability. We show a number of ways in which this distinction is grammatically relevant.