Smoking Behaviors and Abstinence in Low-Income Pregnant Women

Background: Despite efforts to educate individuals about the hazards of smoking, pregnant women continue to smoke. In the literature, there is less evidence about successful abstinence strategies for low-income women. The purpose of this pilot study was to assess smoking behaviors and factors that support smoking abstinence in low-income pregnant women. Methods: Using a longitudinal design, quantitative and qualitative data were collected from pregnant women at a low-income community prenatal clinic. Based on the Transtheoretical model, all subjects received information about the harmful effects of smoking and secondhand exposure, while current smokers were given a “quit kit” and contacted up to one year post-delivery to evaluate smoking behaviors. Results: All subjects (N = 135) ranged in age from 18 to 41; 75% were not married; 78% had household incomes \u3c $30,000; and the majority were African American (40%). Fifty-five (40.7%) never smoked while 77(57%) had a smoking history, of these 18(23%) were spontaneous quitters. Data indicated that 36% reported smoking during pregnancy, with the majority in pre-contemplation. After one year, 18% of current smokers quit. Conclusions: Without a specific plan, the majority were unable to successfully abstain. Rate of abstinence may have been further influenced because subjects began smoking at an early age and were unsuccessful at previous quit attempts. Providers must continue to educate pregnant women but also evaluate strategies that require few provider visits, are cost effective, focus on relapse prevention, and can successfully influence smoking abstinence in low-income pregnant women

The Status of Middle Schools in the Southeastern United States: Perceptions and Implementation of the Middle School Model

For more than 100 years, education communities have debated how best to educate the young adolescent. Proponents of both the junior high school model and the current middle school model have advocated for a specialized approach to educating adolescents that emphasizes the developmental needs of students. To accomplish this, various organizational structures and instructional approaches are recommended. This survey study examines the perceptions of these middle school practices and the implementation of those practices in middle schools in the Southeastern region of the United States. We note several key trends in our results and highlight key differences in perception of importance and implementation of middle school components and strategies compared to the most recent large scale survey administered by McEwin and Greene (2011)

IGUANA Architecture, Framework and Toolkit for Interactive Graphics

IGUANA is a generic interactive visualisation framework based on a C++ component model. It provides powerful user interface and visualisation primitives in a way that is not tied to any particular physics experiment or detector design. The article describes interactive visualisation tools built using IGUANA for the CMS and D0 experiments, as well as generic GEANT4 and GEANT3 applications. It covers features of the graphical user interfaces, 3D and 2D graphics, high-quality vector graphics output for print media, various textual, tabular and hierarchical data views, and integration with the application through control panels, a command line and different multi-threading models.Comment: Presented at the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics (CHEP03), La Jolla, Ca, USA, March 2003, 6 pages LaTeX, 4 eps figures. PSN MOLT008 More and higher res figs at http://iguana.web.cern.ch/iguana/snapshot/main/gallery.htm

A Shared Vision? Exploring the Perceptions of Principals and Teachers Regarding the Middle School Concept

From decades of recommendations, middle school advocates have recommended various organizational structures and instructional practices to meet the specific educational needs of young adolescents. Several notable national studies have sought to assess and report the status of implementation of these recommended practices, though largely from the perspective of the building principal. The purpose of this study was to examine both teachers’ and principals’ perceptions concerning the middle school concept. Based on responses of over 1,600 teachers and principals from all 50 states, findings indicate support for components of the middle school concept related to curriculum and instruction as well as school culture; however, support for components related to middle school philosophy and organizational structures received the lowest levels of support from principals and teachers. While reported support for middle school students was encouraging, the waning support for the philosophical and organizational components often considered foundational to the middle school concept was concerning

America’s Middle Schools: Examining Context, Organizational Structures, and Instructional Practices

The education of the young adolescent has consistently posed a challenge to the educational community. While the general belief is this age group (10-15-year-old children) would benefit from a specialized educational approach, historically, both the junior high school model of the early 1900s and the more current middle school concept have struggled to be fully implemented and embraced by the educational community. With almost a decade passing since the last national survey focused on middle grades schools (McEwin & Greene, 2010, 2011), researchers seek to reassess the context, organizational structures, and instructional practices of middle schools in the United States. Over 1,600 responses from principals and teachers to the national survey indicate the status of middle schools is largely unchanged since the McEwin and Greene (2010, 2011) study. Specific recommendations for moving forward are shared

Enhancing the heavy Higgs signal with jet-jet profile cuts

The jet-jet profile, or detailed manner, in which transverse energy and mass are distributed around the jet-jet system resulting from the hadronic decay of a $Z$ boson in the process Higgs$\to ZZ$ at a proton-proton collider energy of 40\tev is carefully examined. Two observables are defined that can be used to help distinguish the $\ell^+\ell^-$-jet-jet signal from Higgs decay from the ``ordinary'' QCD background arising from the large transverse momentum production of single $Z$ bosons plus the associated jets. By making cuts on these observables, signal to background enhancement factors greater than $100$ can be obtained.Comment: 16 pages, Univ. Florida IFT-93-

Phylogenetic Relationships of Malvatheca (Bombacoideae and Malvoideae; Malvaceae sensu lato) as Inferred from Plastid DNA Sequences

Previous molecular phylogenetic analyses have revealed that elements of the former families Malvaceae sensu stricto and Bombacaceae together form a well-supported clade that has been named Malvatheca. Within Malvatheca, two major lineages have been observed; one, Bombacoideae, corresponds approximately to the palmate-leaved Bombacaceae, and the other, Malvoideae, includes the traditional Malvaceae (the mallows or Eumalvoideae). However, the composition of these two groups and their relationships to other elements of Malvatheca remain a source of uncertainty. Sequence data from two plastid regions, ndhF and trnK/matK, from 34 exemplars of Malvatheca and six outgroups were analyzed. Parsimony, likelihood, and Bayesian analyses of the sequence data provided a well-resolved phylogeny except that relationships among five lineages at the base of Malvatheca are poorly resolved. Nonetheless, a 6-bp insertion in matK suggests that Fremontodendreae is sister to the remainder of Malvatheca. Our results suggest that the Malvoideae originated in the Neotropics and that a mangrove taxon dispersed across the Pacific from South America to Australasia and later radiated out of Australasia to give rise to the ca. 1,700 living species of Eumalvoideae. Local clock analyses imply that the plastid genome underwent accelerated molecular evolution coincident with the dispersal out of the Americas and again with the radiation into the three major clades of Eumalvoideae