Non-Violent Resistance parent training and adolescent substance misuse

Adolescent substance misuse is increasingly being viewed as a systemic problem and several studies have shown the benefit of increased parental involvement. This article describes the evaluation of a ten-week Non-Violent Resistance (NVR) group parent training programme delivered within a Young People’s Specialist Substance Misuse Treatment Service. Eighteen participants completed questionnaires before and after the programme, and at follow-up. Eight participants also took part in semi-structured interviews. Parents reported experiencing the programme as unique and helpful, and highlighted some challenges. Measures of parental self-efficacy and goal-based outcomes showed significant improvement at the end of the programme, and improvement in parental self-efficacy remained significant at follow-up. This evaluation provides preliminary evidence that NVR parent training may be a useful intervention in this context. However, the generalisability of the data is limited and further research is needed. Practitioner points: Non-Violent Resistance parent training helps parents resist their child’s behaviour, manage their own emotional reactions, and recruit supporters from their wider network Qualitative data suggests that parents who have attended this programme experience additional benefits to those found in qualitative evaluations of other parenting interventions A group training programme delivered within a Young People’s Specialist Substance Misuse Treatment Service improves parents’ self-efficacy and helps them achieve their goals for their children.</p

Non-Violent Resistance parent training and adolescent substance misuse

Adolescent substance misuse is increasingly being viewed as a systemic problem and several studies have shown the benefit of increased parental involvement. This article describes the evaluation of a ten-week Non-Violent Resistance (NVR) group parent training programme delivered within a Young People’s Specialist Substance Misuse Treatment Service. Eighteen participants completed questionnaires before and after the programme, and at follow-up. Eight participants also took part in semi-structured interviews. Parents reported experiencing the programme as unique and helpful, and highlighted some challenges. Measures of parental self-efficacy and goal-based outcomes showed significant improvement at the end of the programme, and improvement in parental self-efficacy remained significant at follow-up. This evaluation provides preliminary evidence that NVR parent training may be a useful intervention in this context. However, the generalisability of the data is limited and further research is needed. Practitioner points: Non-Violent Resistance parent training helps parents resist their child’s behaviour, manage their own emotional reactions, and recruit supporters from their wider network Qualitative data suggests that parents who have attended this programme experience additional benefits to those found in qualitative evaluations of other parenting interventions A group training programme delivered within a Young People’s Specialist Substance Misuse Treatment Service improves parents’ self-efficacy and helps them achieve their goals for their children.</p

Palaeoenvironment and taphonomy of the <i>Hypsilophodon </i>Bed, Lower Cretaceous Wessex Formation, Isle of Wight

The ‘Hypsilophodon Bed’ occurs at the top of the Wessex Formation (Early Cretaceous, Barremian) on the Isle of Wight, England. Numerous remains of the small ornithopod dinosaur Hypsilophodon foxii have been recovered from the bed since the mid-19th century. Previous theories for these fossil occurrences have focused on catastrophic mass death events including miring and flood-related mortality. However, only limited sedimentological and taphonomic analyses of the horizon and its fossil assemblage have been undertaken, hindering efforts to evaluate different theories for how the assemblage formed.Here, we undertake a sedimentological study of the bed to constrain its depositional environment, examine matrix from Hypsilophodon fossils to identify where they were collected from within the bed, and undertake taphonomic investigation of Hypsilophodon specimens. Results reveal a floodplain which became a marsh and then mudflats at the edge of a lagoon. Hypsilophodon fossils are spatially and stratigraphically distributed throughout the bed. Specimens are largely incomplete and unabraded suggesting most perished on or near to the floodplain and may have lain exposed for some time prior to burial. Overall, evidence suggests the fossil assemblage of the Hypsilophodon Bed formed as an accumulation of remains over time

The global subject of precarity

Peer reviewedPostprin

Gold Mining in the Peruvian Amazon: Global Prices, Deforestation, and Mercury Imports

Many factors such as poverty, ineffective institutions and environmental regulations may prevent developing countries from managing how natural resources are extracted to meet a strong market demand. Extraction for some resources has reached such proportions that evidence is measurable from space. We present recent evidence of the global demand for a single commodity and the ecosystem destruction resulting from commodity extraction, recorded by satellites for one of the most biodiverse areas of the world. We find that since 2003, recent mining deforestation in Madre de Dios, Peru is increasing nonlinearly alongside a constant annual rate of increase in international gold price (∼18%/yr). We detect that the new pattern of mining deforestation (1915 ha/year, 2006–2009) is outpacing that of nearby settlement deforestation. We show that gold price is linked with exponential increases in Peruvian national mercury imports over time (R2 = 0.93, p = 0.04, 2003–2009). Given the past rates of increase we predict that mercury imports may more than double for 2011 (∼500 t/year). Virtually all of Peru's mercury imports are used in artisanal gold mining. Much of the mining increase is unregulated/artisanal in nature, lacking environmental impact analysis or miner education. As a result, large quantities of mercury are being released into the atmosphere, sediments and waterways. Other developing countries endowed with gold deposits are likely experiencing similar environmental destruction in response to recent record high gold prices. The increasing availability of satellite imagery ought to evoke further studies linking economic variables with land use and cover changes on the ground

Improving the diagnosis and treatment of urinary tract infection in young children in primary care:results from the ‘DUTY’ prospective diagnostic cohort study

PURPOSE Up to 50% of urinary tract infections (UTIs) in young children are missed in primary care. Urine culture is essential for diagnosis, but urine collection is often difficult. Our aim was to derive and internally validate a 2-step clinical rule using (1) symptoms and signs to select children for urine collection; and (2) symptoms, signs, and dipstick testing to guide antibiotic treatment. METHODS We recruited acutely unwell children aged under 5 years from 233 primary care sites across England and Wales. Index tests were parent-reported symptoms, clinician-reported signs, urine dipstick results, and clinician opinion of UTI likelihood (clinical diagnosis before dipstick and culture). The reference standard was microbiologically confirmed UTI cultured from a clean-catch urine sample. We calculated sensitivity, specificity, and area under the receiver operator characteristic (AUROC) curve of coefficient-based (graded severity) and points-based (dichotomized) symptom/sign logistic regression models, and we then internally validated the AUROC using bootstrapping. RESULTS Three thousand thirty-six children provided urine samples, and culture results were available for 2,740 (90%). Of these results, 60 (2.2%) were positive: the clinical diagnosis was 46.6% sensitive, with an AUROC of 0.77. Previous UTI, increasing pain/crying on passing urine, increasingly smelly urine, absence of severe cough, increasing clinician impression of severe illness, abdominal tenderness on examination, and normal findings on ear examination were associated with UTI. The validated coefficient- and points-based model AUROCs were 0.87 and 0.86, respectively, increasing to 0.90 and 0.90, respectively, by adding dipstick nitrites, leukocytes, and blood. CONCLUSIONS A clinical rule based on symptoms and signs is superior to clinician diagnosis and performs well for identifying young children for noninvasive urine sampling. Dipstick results add further diagnostic value for empiric antibiotic treatment

French database of children and adolescents with Prader-Willi syndrome

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is a rare multisystem genetic disease leading to severe complications mainly related to obesity. We strongly lack information on the natural history of this complex disease and on what factors are involved in its evolution and its outcome. One of the objectives of the French reference centre for Prader-Willi syndrome set-up in 2004 was to set-up a database in order to make the inventory of Prader-Willi syndrome cases and initiate a national cohort study in the area covered by the centre.</p> <p>Description</p> <p>the database includes medical data of children and adolescents with Prader-Willi syndrome, details about their management, socio-demographic data on their families, psychological data and quality of life of the parents. The tools and organisation used to ensure data collection and data quality in respect of good clinical practice procedures are discussed, and main characteristics of our Prader-Willi population at inclusion are presented.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>this database covering all the aspects of PWS clinical, psychological and social profiles, including familial psychological and quality of life will be a powerful tool for retrospective studies concerning this complex and multi factorial disease and could be a basis for the design of future prospective multicentric studies. The complete database and the Stata.do files are available to any researcher wishing to use them for non-commercial purposes and can be provided upon request to the corresponding author.</p

Women bargaining with patriarchy in coastal Kenya:contradictions, creative agency and food provisioning

Gender analysts have long recognised that challenging existing patriarchal structures involves risks for women, who may lose both long-term support and protection from kin. However, understanding the specific ways in which they ‘bargain with patriarchy’ in particular contexts is relatively poorly understood. We focus on a Mijikenda fishing community in coastal Kenya to explore contradictions in gendered power relations and how women deploy these to reinterpret gendered practices without directly challenging local patriarchal structures. We argue that a more complex understanding of women’s creative agency can reveal both the value to women of culturally-specific gendered roles and responsibilities and the importance of subtle changes that they are able to negotiate in these. With reference to food provisioning, the analysis contributes to more nuanced understandings of gendered household food security and women’s creative approaches to maintaining long-term security in their lives

The Milky Way Bulge extra-tidal star survey: BH 261 (AL 3)

The Milky Way Bulge extra-tidal star survey (MWBest) is a spectroscopic survey with the goal of identifying stripped globular cluster stars from inner Galaxy clusters. In this way, an indication of the fraction of metal-poor bulge stars that originated from globular clusters can be determined. We observed and analyzed stars in and around BH 261, an understudied globular cluster in the bulge. From seven giants within the tidal radius of the cluster, we measured an average heliocentric radial velocity of = -61 +- 2.6 km/s with a radial velocity dispersion of \sigma = 6.1 +- 1.9 km/s. The large velocity dispersion may have arisen from tidal heating in the cluster's orbit about the Galactic center, or because BH 261 has a high dynamical mass as well as a high mass-to-light ratio. From spectra of five giants, we measure an average metallicity of = -1.1 +- 0.2 dex. We also spectroscopically confirm an RR Lyrae star in BH 261, which yields a distance to the cluster of 7.1 +- 0.4~kpc. Stars with 3D velocities and metallicities consistent with BH 261 reaching to ~0.5 degrees from the cluster are identified. A handful of these stars are also consistent with the spatial distribution of that potential debris from models focussing on the most recent disruption of the cluster.Comment: accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journa