What Works in School-Based Programs for Child Abuse Prevention? The Perspectives of Young Child Abuse Survivors

Previous research has shown that youth consider school-based child abuse prevention programs as one of the most important strategies for preventing child abuse and neglect. This study asked young child abuse survivors how school-based child abuse prevention programs should be shaped and what program components they perceive as essential. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 Dutch young adults that were a victim of child abuse or neglect. A literature review that resulted in 12 potential program components was used to guide the interviews. All young adults agreed that school-based child abuse prevention programs are important and have positive effects on children’s awareness of child abuse. Teaching children that they are never to blame for child abuse occurrences was considered one of the most important components of school-based programs, next to teaching children how to escape from threatening situations and to find help, increasing children’s social–emotional skills, promoting child abuse related knowledge, recognizing risky situations, and increasing children’s self-esteem. Further, the participants found it important to provide children with aftercare when a school program has ended. Overall, young child abuse survivors have a strong view on what should be addressed in school-based child abuse prevention programs to effectively prevent child abuse

A Dose of Nature:Two three-level meta-analyses of the beneficial effects of exposure to nature on children's self-regulation

There is growing evidence that exposure to nature, as opposed to a built environment, is associated with better health. Specifically in children, more exposure to nature seems to be associated with better cognitive, affective, and behavioral self-regulation. Because studies are scattered over different scientific disciplines, it is difficult to create a coherent overview of empirical findings. We therefore conducted two meta-analyses on the effect of exposure to nature on self-regulation of schoolchildren (Mage = 7.84 years; SD = 2.46). Our 3-level meta-analyses showed small, but significant positive overall associations of nature with self-regulation in both correlational (15 studies, r = .10; p < .001) and (quasi-) experimental (16 studies, d = .15; p < .01) studies. Moderation analyses revealed no differential associations based on most sample or study characteristics. However, in correlational studies the type of instrument used to measure exposure to nature (index score of nature vs. parent-reported exposure) significantly moderated the association between nature and self-regulation. Stronger associations were found when exposure to nature was assessed via parent-reports than via an index such as by a normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). Our findings suggest that nature may be a promising tool in stimulating children's self-regulation, and possibly preventing child psychopathology. However, our overview also shows that we are in need of more rigorous experimental studies, using theoretically based conceptualizations of nature, and validated measures of nature and its putative outcomes

Chemical and Physical Changes in a Hydrolyzed Poly(ester urethane)

Hydrolytic degradation has been shown to be a significant problem for poly(ester urethane) elastomers exposed to high humidity environments. The ester group in the soft segment is particularly susceptible to hydrolysis. One of the products of this reaction is a carboxylic acid group that catalyses further hydrolysis. The resulting reduction in molecular weight leads to deterioration of the elastomer's mechanical properties. In this paper we have measured the extent of the hydrolysis reaction by {sup 13}C NMR spectroscopy. In addition we have measured the spin-spin relaxation time of the soft phase and followed the increase in mobility of these segments. Both measurements were performed on the solid polymer. These measurements provide an excellent monitoring tool of the chemical and physical state of polymer during the aging process

Comparison of co-located independent ground-based middle atmospheric wind and temperature measurements with numerical weather prediction models

High-resolution, ground-based and independent observations including co-located windradiometer, lidar stations, and infrasound instruments are used to evaluate the accuracy of general circulationmodels and data-constrained assimilation systems in the middle atmosphere at northern hemispheremidlatitudes. Systematic comparisons between observations, the European Centre for Medium-Range WeatherForecasts (ECMWF) operational analyses including the recent Integrated Forecast System cycles 38r1 and 38r2,the NASA’s Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) reanalyses, and thefree-running climate Max Planck Institute–Earth System Model–Low Resolution (MPI-ESM-LR) are carried out inboth temporal and spectral dom ains. We find that ECMWF and MERRA are broadly consistent with lidar and windradiometer measurements up to ~40 km. For both temperature and horizontal wind components, deviationsincrease with altitude as the assimilated observations become sparser. Between 40 and 60 km altitude, thestandard deviation of the mean difference exceeds 5 K for the temperature and 20 m/s for the zonal wind. Thelargest deviations are observed in winter when the variability from large-scale planetary waves dominates.Between lidar data and MPI-ESM-LR, there is an overall agreement in spectral amplitude down to 15–20 days. Atshorter time scales, the variability is lacking in the model by ~10 dB. Infrasound observations indicate a generalgood agreement with ECWMF wind and temperature products. As such, this study demonstrates the potentialof the infrastructure of the Atmospheric Dynamics Research Infrastructure in Europe project that integratesvarious measurements and provides a quantitative understanding of stratosphere-troposphere dynamicalcoupling for numerical weather prediction applications