A Conversation on Building Resilience and Protecting Children: An Evidence-Based Family Strengthening Approach

This Article summarizes a presentation to child mental health scientists, child development experts, neuroscientists, and child health practitioners at a 2017 conference entitled “The Developing Brain: New Directions in Science, Policy, and Law.” We presented an evidence-based approach to strengthening families, referred to as the “4Rs and 2Ss Family Strengthening Program,” as an option for protecting children and enhancing their overall development. We presented data that found child and family outcomes, including child behavior regulation and functioning, and parent depression and stress, improved among families who participated in the intervention. We also found several intervention innovations that were developed as a result of intensive collaboration with adult caregivers, child mental health providers and services researchers. These innovations include: 1) a multiple family group format composed of up to eight families, and in which at least two generations of each family attend the group; 2) family advocates (trained caregivers that have cared for a child with mental health problems) as group co-facilitators; 3) an intervention protocol that is shared with providers and families; and 4) content that increases transparency of the evidence-based principles including establishing family rules, fostering healthy parent/child relationships, enhancing caregiver social support and decreasing stress. Evidence-based interventions that support parenting and family processes offer opportunities to meet challenges threatening positive development. Such challenges may include emerging mental health issues and struggles with behavioral regulation. These interventions may be particularly critical during childhood when conduct-related challenges commonly emerge with associated impairments in key areas of functioning at school, home and in the community

Solutions Still Searching for a Problem: A Call for Relevant Data to Support Evergreening Allegations

For years pharmaceutical policymaking discussions have been revolving around allegations of supposed “evergreening” by pharmaceutical companies, and policymakers have considered a range of significant policy reforms — including to antitrust law and drug regulatory law — to address this purported problem. This paper evaluates empirical data offered to substantiate “evergreening” and explains that these data — though mostly accurate — do not support proposed policy changes.The “evergreening” claim is that by securing additional patents and FDA-related exclusivities after approval of their new drugs, brand drug companies enjoy a period of exclusivity in the market that is longer than the initial patent(s) and exclusivity on the drug would have provided and longer than acceptable as a normative matter. Policymakers have been invited to consider a database, hosted by the University of California Hastings College of Law, that counts patents and exclusivities associated with new drugs, identifies the earliest and latest expiring patent or exclusivity for each, and calculates the number of months between those dates. Our audit of more than 200 entries concludes that the underlying raw dataset can be a useful tool for policymakers, filling a gap that exists because early FDA publications have not been digitized. But our audit raises questions about inferences drawn in and from the secondary database that interprets the dataset.If the policymaking goal is to ensure that current patent and exclusivity policies do not prevent brand products from facing generic competition for “too long” — whatever “too long” might mean — the key questions are (1) when do brand products actually face this competition, and (2) what exactly drives the timing of this competition. For every new chemical entity we examined, a generic drug was commercially available before the date represented in the database as the “latest” expiry date, i.e., the date that — the database claims — reflects the “additional time for which a company may have limited generic competition and monopolized a drug product.” Indeed, within our dataset, generic competition launched on average 84 months (seven years) before the Hastings Database implies it would. The 79 new chemical entities in our dataset experienced generic competition on average 68 months (or more than five years) before the date the Hastings Database implies they would.Our claim, therefore, is that the latest expiration date of the various protections applicable to a specific new drug application is — QED — not the most relevant data point for policymaking that means to focus on ensuring timely generic competition with new drugs. Patients, healthcare providers, insurers, and the innovating and generic industries share an interest in evidence-based policymaking. But it is not enough for advocates of reform to offer data; the data must be not only accurate but also relevant. A study designed to produce relevant data would consider the market entry date of the first generic drug based on any brand product containing a particular new active ingredient and would actually determine the factors driving that market entry date. And if a more relevant dataset would more precisely document (or rule out, or add nuance to) a supposed problem that is said to justify reform, it is incumbent on supporters of reform to generate those data. Legislative change before relevant data are generated would be premature

The influence of the self in partner behavior interpretation

This study examined how aspects of the self (i.e. self-concept clarity, self-expansion, and inclusion of the other in the self) influence relationship attributions. A sample of 92 (20 males, 72 females) college students in a relationship received a series of surveys assessing their levels of self-concept clarity, self-expansion, and inclusion of the other in the self Additionally, they completed a survey assessing whether they make relationship enhancing attributions when interpreting behavior. Self expansion and inclusion of the other in the self positively correlated with relationship enhancing attributions. However, there was no significant relationship between self-concept clarity and relationship enhancing attributions. Regression analyses revealed that self-expansion was more important for making relationship enhancing attributions than inclusion of the other in the self. Overall, results suggest that those high on self-expansion and inclusion of the other in the self will make attributions that enhance their relationship

Results from an industrial size biogas-fed SOFC plant (the DEMOSOFC project)

Abstract The EU-funded DEMOSOFC project aims to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of operating a 174 kWe Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) in a wastewater treatment plant. The fuel for the three SOFC modules (3 × 58 kWe) is biogas, which is available on-site from the anaerobic digestion of sludge collected from treated wastewater. The integrated biogas-SOFC plant includes three main units: 1) the biogas cleaning and compression section, 2) the three SOFC power modules, and 3) the heat recovery loop. Main advantages of the proposed layout are the net electric efficiency of the SOFC, which is in the range 50–55%, and the near-zero emissions. A specific focus of the demonstration project is the deep and reliable removal of harmful biogas contaminants. The presented work is related to the design of the SOFC system integrated into the wastewater treatment plant, followed by the analysis of the first results from the plant operation. We analyzed the biogas yearly profile to determine the optimal SOFC capacity to install that is 3 SOFC modules. The rational is to maintain high the capacity factor while minimizing the number of shutdown per year (due to biogas unavailability). First results from plant operation are also presented. The first SOFC module was activated in October 2017 and the second in October 2018. The measured SOFC efficiency from compressed biogas to AC power has always been higher than 50–52%, with peaks of 56%. Dedicated emissions measurements have been performed onsite during December 2017. Results on real biogas operation show NO

NW Adriatic Sea variability in relation to chlorophyll-<I>a</I> dynamics in the last 20 years (1986?2005)

International audienceThis paper presents a long-term time series (1986?2005) of hydrological and biogeochemical data, both published and unpublished. Data were collected in the north-western area of the Adriatic Sea, at two stations that are considered hydrodynamically and trophically different. The time series have been statistically and graphically investigated on a monthly scale in order to find not only possible chlorophyll-a trends over time, but also links between the concentrations of chlorophyll-a and the variability in the environment, as well as trophic differences between the two areas. Basically, in both cases the statistical test results show no significant trends in either the average chlorophyll-a values or in dispersion of the data, in contrast with significant trends in temperature and salinity. The two areas have similar hydrological features, yet they present significant differences in the amount of nutrient inputs: these are in fact higher at the coastal site, which is characterized by a prevalence of surface blooms, while they are lower at the offshore station, which is mainly affected by intermediate blooms. Nonetheless, throughout the whole water column, chlorophyll-a concentrations are only slightly different. Both areas are affected by riverine discharge, though in the first case considered chlorophyll-a concentrations are also driven strongly by the seasonal cycle. Finally, the results show that the two stations are not trophically different, although some controlling factors, such as zooplankton grazing in one case and light attenuation in the other, may regulate the growth of phytoplankton

NW Adriatic Sea biogeochemical variability in the last 20 years (1986–2005)

International audience; This paper presents a long-term time series (1986?2005) of hydrological and biogeochemical data, both published and unpublished. Data were collected in the north-western area of the Adriatic Sea, at two stations that are considered hydrodynamically and trophically different. The time series have been statistically and graphically analysed on a monthly scale in order to study the annual climatologies, links between the concentrations of chlorophyll-a and the variability in the environment, trophic differences between the two areas and chlorophyll-a trends over time. Basically, the two areas have similar hydrological features, yet they present significant differences in the amount of nutrient inputs: these are in fact higher at the coastal site, which is characterized by a prevalence of surface blooms, while they are lower at the offshore station, which is mainly affected by blooms at intermediate depths. Nonetheless, throughout the whole water column, chlorophyll-a concentrations are only slightly different. Both areas are affected by riverine discharge, though chlorophyll-a concentrations are also driven strongly by the seasonal cycle at the station closer to the coast. Results show that the two stations are not trophically different, although some controlling factors, such as zooplankton grazing in one case and light attenuation in the other, may further regulate the growth of phytoplankton. In both cases no significant trends are detected in either the average chlorophyll-a values or in dispersion of the data, in contrast with significant trends in temperature and salinity

NW Adriatic Sea biogeochemical variability in the last 20 years (1986–2005)

This paper presents a long-term time series (1986–2005) of hydrological and biogeochemical data, both published and unpublished. Data were collected in the north-western area of the Adriatic Sea, at two stations that are considered hydrodynamically and trophically different. The time series have been statistically and graphically analysed on a monthly scale in order to study the annual climatologies, links between the concentrations of chlorophyll-a and the variability in the environment, trophic differences between the two areas and chlorophyll-a trends over time. Basically, the two areas have similar hydrological features, yet they present significant differences in the amount of nutrient inputs: these are in fact higher at the coastal site, which is characterized by a prevalence of surface blooms, while they are lower at the offshore station, which is mainly affected by blooms at intermediate depths. Nonetheless, throughout the whole water column, chlorophyll-a concentrations are only slightly different. Both areas are affected by riverine discharge, though chlorophyll-a concentrations are also driven strongly by the seasonal cycle at the station closer to the coast. Results show that the two stations are not trophically different, although some controlling factors, such as zooplankton grazing in one case and light attenuation in the other, may further regulate the growth of phytoplankton. In both cases no significant trends are detected in either the average chlorophyll-a values or in dispersion of the data, in contrast with significant trends in temperature and salinity