Consumer Socialization and the Role of Branding in Hazardous Adolescent Drinking

This study examines the relationship between alcohol marketing and consumer socialization to alcohol brands (assessed here using aided and unaided brand recognition and brand saliency), and the associated relationship between consumer socialization and hazardous alcohol consumption among a cohort of adolescents surveyed in Scotland. The research addresses gaps in the consumer socialization literature, by examining how marketing influences brand consumer socialization, and how brand consumer socialization influences subsequent hazardous consumption behavior over time, using a robust longitudinal design that assesses causal relationships while controlling for a wide range of important confounding variables. The results demonstrate the contribution of marketing to adolescents’ brand socialization to alcohol and the impact of this socialization on subsequent drinking behaviors. Implications for marketing managers, parents, policymakers, and consumer researchers are discussed, together with suggestions for future consumer research

Adding 6 months of androgen deprivation therapy to postoperative radiotherapy for prostate cancer: a comparison of short-course versus no androgen deprivation therapy in the RADICALS-HD randomised controlled trial

Background Previous evidence indicates that adjuvant, short-course androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) improves metastasis-free survival when given with primary radiotherapy for intermediate-risk and high-risk localised prostate cancer. However, the value of ADT with postoperative radiotherapy after radical prostatectomy is unclear. Methods RADICALS-HD was an international randomised controlled trial to test the efficacy of ADT used in combination with postoperative radiotherapy for prostate cancer. Key eligibility criteria were indication for radiotherapy after radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer, prostate-specific antigen less than 5 ng/mL, absence of metastatic disease, and written consent. Participants were randomly assigned (1:1) to radiotherapy alone (no ADT) or radiotherapy with 6 months of ADT (short-course ADT), using monthly subcutaneous gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogue injections, daily oral bicalutamide monotherapy 150 mg, or monthly subcutaneous degarelix. Randomisation was done centrally through minimisation with a random element, stratified by Gleason score, positive margins, radiotherapy timing, planned radiotherapy schedule, and planned type of ADT, in a computerised system. The allocated treatment was not masked. The primary outcome measure was metastasis-free survival, defined as distant metastasis arising from prostate cancer or death from any cause. Standard survival analysis methods were used, accounting for randomisation stratification factors. The trial had 80% power with two-sided α of 5% to detect an absolute increase in 10-year metastasis-free survival from 80% to 86% (hazard ratio [HR] 0·67). Analyses followed the intention-to-treat principle. The trial is registered with the ISRCTN registry, ISRCTN40814031, and ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT00541047. Findings Between Nov 22, 2007, and June 29, 2015, 1480 patients (median age 66 years [IQR 61–69]) were randomly assigned to receive no ADT (n=737) or short-course ADT (n=743) in addition to postoperative radiotherapy at 121 centres in Canada, Denmark, Ireland, and the UK. With a median follow-up of 9·0 years (IQR 7·1–10·1), metastasis-free survival events were reported for 268 participants (142 in the no ADT group and 126 in the short-course ADT group; HR 0·886 [95% CI 0·688–1·140], p=0·35). 10-year metastasis-free survival was 79·2% (95% CI 75·4–82·5) in the no ADT group and 80·4% (76·6–83·6) in the short-course ADT group. Toxicity of grade 3 or higher was reported for 121 (17%) of 737 participants in the no ADT group and 100 (14%) of 743 in the short-course ADT group (p=0·15), with no treatment-related deaths. Interpretation Metastatic disease is uncommon following postoperative bed radiotherapy after radical prostatectomy. Adding 6 months of ADT to this radiotherapy did not improve metastasis-free survival compared with no ADT. These findings do not support the use of short-course ADT with postoperative radiotherapy in this patient population

Duration of androgen deprivation therapy with postoperative radiotherapy for prostate cancer: a comparison of long-course versus short-course androgen deprivation therapy in the RADICALS-HD randomised trial

Background Previous evidence supports androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) with primary radiotherapy as initial treatment for intermediate-risk and high-risk localised prostate cancer. However, the use and optimal duration of ADT with postoperative radiotherapy after radical prostatectomy remains uncertain. Methods RADICALS-HD was a randomised controlled trial of ADT duration within the RADICALS protocol. Here, we report on the comparison of short-course versus long-course ADT. Key eligibility criteria were indication for radiotherapy after previous radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer, prostate-specific antigen less than 5 ng/mL, absence of metastatic disease, and written consent. Participants were randomly assigned (1:1) to add 6 months of ADT (short-course ADT) or 24 months of ADT (long-course ADT) to radiotherapy, using subcutaneous gonadotrophin-releasing hormone analogue (monthly in the short-course ADT group and 3-monthly in the long-course ADT group), daily oral bicalutamide monotherapy 150 mg, or monthly subcutaneous degarelix. Randomisation was done centrally through minimisation with a random element, stratified by Gleason score, positive margins, radiotherapy timing, planned radiotherapy schedule, and planned type of ADT, in a computerised system. The allocated treatment was not masked. The primary outcome measure was metastasis-free survival, defined as metastasis arising from prostate cancer or death from any cause. The comparison had more than 80% power with two-sided α of 5% to detect an absolute increase in 10-year metastasis-free survival from 75% to 81% (hazard ratio [HR] 0·72). Standard time-to-event analyses were used. Analyses followed intention-to-treat principle. The trial is registered with the ISRCTN registry, ISRCTN40814031, and ClinicalTrials.gov , NCT00541047 . Findings Between Jan 30, 2008, and July 7, 2015, 1523 patients (median age 65 years, IQR 60–69) were randomly assigned to receive short-course ADT (n=761) or long-course ADT (n=762) in addition to postoperative radiotherapy at 138 centres in Canada, Denmark, Ireland, and the UK. With a median follow-up of 8·9 years (7·0–10·0), 313 metastasis-free survival events were reported overall (174 in the short-course ADT group and 139 in the long-course ADT group; HR 0·773 [95% CI 0·612–0·975]; p=0·029). 10-year metastasis-free survival was 71·9% (95% CI 67·6–75·7) in the short-course ADT group and 78·1% (74·2–81·5) in the long-course ADT group. Toxicity of grade 3 or higher was reported for 105 (14%) of 753 participants in the short-course ADT group and 142 (19%) of 757 participants in the long-course ADT group (p=0·025), with no treatment-related deaths. Interpretation Compared with adding 6 months of ADT, adding 24 months of ADT improved metastasis-free survival in people receiving postoperative radiotherapy. For individuals who can accept the additional duration of adverse effects, long-course ADT should be offered with postoperative radiotherapy. Funding Cancer Research UK, UK Research and Innovation (formerly Medical Research Council), and Canadian Cancer Society

Race and Verbal Description in Face Identification

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Stand Dynamics and Spatio-Temporal Patterns of Natural Disturbance in an Acadian Old-Growth Reserve

Old-growth forests, although rare, exhibit a unique set of qualities and provide us with a benchmark to which biological change, environmental change, and harvesting impacts can be compared. Old-growth in Maine’s Acadian forest affords us the opportunity to study unique assemblages of species and community types reflecting its location between the boreal forests of the north and the temperate northern hardwoods to the south and west. The information obtained from this study should be useful for forest managers looking for quantitative data for future biodiversity conservation efforts and to inform developing ecology-based silvicultural systems. In the first part of this study we identified multiple forest community types (including mixed wood forest, cedar swamps, cedar seepage forest, northern hardwood forest, red spruce-mixed wood forest, spruce forest, hemlock-mixed wood forest, and hemlock forest) in the Boody Brook Natural Area (BBNA) of northern Piscataquis County, Maine. To date, no other studies have synthesized multiple types of information regarding the “old-growthness” of this reserve. The community types were composed of shade tolerant to very tolerant species in the overstory, regeneration similar to overstory composition, abundant coarse woody material, trees of large diameters (\u3e60 cm dbh), a reverse J-shaped diameter distribution, and shade tolerant gap fillers. Values reported in the reserve were comparable to the nearby Big Reed Forest Reserve although tree maximum size was larger in the BBNA due to differences in site quality and the abundance of large eastern hemlock which is lacking at Big Reed. In the second part of this study, dendroecology was used to investigate the age dynamics and disturbances histories in the most common community types in the reserve. Dendroecological evidence indicated that stand replacing disturbances were absent and the average decadal percent canopy area disturbed varied between 5.9 and 11.2% in hardwood forests and spruce forests, respectively. No correlations were found between the average decadal disturbance rate in a given decade and composition, although communities with more red spruce tended to have a higher disturbance rate. Recruitment and disturbance rates were episodic and highest in the 1860s-1880s and 1920s-1940s. Higher recruitment and disturbance rates were linked to multiple host specific disturbance agents, such as birch dieback, spruce budworm, spruce bark beetle, and possibly selective harvesting. Beech bark disease was noted on all standing live and dead American beech trees. No evidence was found that linked any specific decades of recruitment and higher disturbances rates with hurricane-driven windthrow. Forest managers looking to develop disturbance-based silvicultural systems in the more common Acadian forest types should note the residual composition (shade tolerant spp.), live basal area (28.9-34.5 m2 ha-1), and volume of coarse woody material (79.7-155.6 m3 ha-1) following small gap- creating (4.7-121.8 m2) disturbances which occur every 88 to 169 years. Larger patch-creating disturbances like those affiliated with wind throw are infrequent

The Effects of Focus During Sentence Comprehension

127 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1993.In a series of experiments I investigated the effects of linguistic focus on people's memory for words in sentences. I tested whether using phrases like "It was the ... " and "There was this ... " to focus on a particular word, enhances memory for particular types of information about the word, including its identity and its phonological and semantic characteristics. In each of four experiments, subjects read sentences that varied according to whether or not they placed a single, critical word (the prime) in focus. Each sentence was followed, either immediately, or after a delay, by a target word that subjects responded to in a speeded recognition task (Experiments 1 and 4), a naming task (Experiment 3), or both (Experiment 2). The results indicated that the identity of a word was consistently better remembered when it had been focused (Experiments 1-4). Also, phonological information about the words was found to be better remembered for focused words in the naming task (Experiment 3) and in the delayed recognition task (Experiment 4), but not in the immediate recognition task (Experiment 1). Memory for semantic information about words was not affected by focus. The results suggest that placing a word in focus enhances memory not for semantic information, which is ordinarily well-remembered anyway, but for word-identity and phonological information, i.e., two types of information that ordinarily are not well-remembered.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD