Food insecurity among college students: Administrators' perspective.

Objective: An estimated 21% to 58.8% of U.S. college student populations experience food insecurity (FI)-that is, limited or uncertain access to adequate food. Ameliorating this FI requires the involvement of college administrations. This study seeks to explore campus administrators' understanding of-and support for-students who experience FI. Participants: Thirty administrators at a university on the West Coast participated in semi-structured interviews. Methods: All interviews were transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were analyzed using the grounded theory approach. Results: Though participants understood the concept of FI, the majority underestimated the scope of the problem and didn't believe it had been treated as a priority. They identified competing resources and concerns, along with other factors like low awareness, as barriers to addressing FI. Conclusion: Although administrators were aware of the existence of FI on their campus, this study's results allude to the importance of providing further necessary FI education for administrators.

The role of group orientation and descriptive norms on water conservation attitudes and behaviors.

Social norms have been shown to impact behaviors, but with mixed results. The theory of normative social behavior delineates factors that moderate the relationship between descriptive norms and behaviors, and it addresses the attributes of behaviors that make them susceptible to normative influence. This study tests whether group orientation moderates the impact of descriptive norms on water conservation attitudes and behavioral intentions. Findings indicate a consistent pattern of interactions for descriptive norms and group orientation on both attitudes and behavioral intent. Implications for normative theory and campaign design are addressed.

Determination of mercury by cold vapor atomic absorption spectrophotometer in Tongkat Ali preparations obtained in Malaysia.

The DCA (Drug Control Authority), Malaysia, has implemented the phase 3 registration of traditional medicines on 1 January 1992, with special emphasis on the quality, efficacy, and safety (including the presence of heavy metals) in all pharmaceutical dosage forms of traditional medicine preparations. As such, a total of 100 products in various pharmaceutical dosage forms of a herbal preparation, containing Tongkat Ali, were analyzed for mercury content using cold vapor atomic absorption spectrophotometer. Results showed that 36% of the above products possessed 0.52 to 5.30 ppm of mercury and, therefore, do not comply with the quality requirement for traditional medicines in Malaysia. Out of these 36 products, 5 products that possessed 1.05 to 4.41 ppm of mercury were in fact have already registered with the DCA, Malaysia. However, the rest of the products that contain 0.52 to 5.30 ppm of mercury still have not registered with the DCA, Malaysia. Although this study showed that only 64% of the products complied with the quality requirement for traditional medicines in Malaysia pertaining to mercury, they cannot be assumed safe from mercury contamination because of batch-to-batch inconsistency.