Integrating basic research with prevention/intervention to reduce risky substance use among college students

Too often basic research on etiological processes that contribute to substance use outcomes is disconnected from efforts to develop prevention and intervention programming. Substance use on college campuses is an area of concern where translational efforts that bring together basic scientists and prevention/intervention practitioners have potential for high impact. We describe an effort at a large, public, urban university in the United States to bring together researchers across the campus with expertise in college behavioral health with university administration and health/wellness practitioners to address college student substance use and mental health. The project “Spit for Science” examines how genetic and environmental influences contribute to behavioral health outcomes across the college years. We argue that findings coming out of basic research can be used to develop more tailored prevention and intervention programming that incorporates both biologically and psychosocially influenced risk factors. Examples of personalized programming suggest this may be a fruitful way to advance the field and reduce risky substance use

Modelling landscape controls on dissolved organic carbon sources and fluxes to streams

Acknowledgments We thank the Natural Environment Research Council NERC (project NE/K000268/1) for funding. Iain Malcolm and staff at Marine Scotland (Pitlochry) are also thanked for the provision of data from the AWS as are the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency and British Atmospheric Data Centre for the provision of meteorological data.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Landscape influence on small-scale water temperature variations in a moorland catchment

Acknowledgements Iain Malcolm and staff at Marine Scotland (Pitlochry) are thanked for the provision of data from the AWS. Finally, the two anonymous reviewers are greatly acknowledged for their constructive comments.Peer reviewedPostprin

Persistence in Mathematics by Underrepresented Students: Experiences of a Math Excel Program

Success in mathematics by underrepresented and nontraditional college students is measured not only by academic performance (grades), but also by the continued participation and persistence of these students in mathematics coursework. The Math Excel program at Oregon State University attempts to build learning communities with a sharp academic focus in support of students concurrently taking introductory level mathematics courses. The Math Excel program is based heavily on Uri Treisman\u27s Emerging Scholars Workshop model of collaborative problem solving. In this article, we examine the experience of minority students in the Educational Opportunities Program participating in the Math Excel program. While the program had appeared successful in terms of improving academic performance in the concurrent mathematics course, the continued participation and persistence of these students in mathematics was disappointing. On a trial basis, structural changes were made to build a much stronger identification of the Math Excel learning community with a section of College Algebra. In the next term, there was a much higher incidence of participation in the subsequent Precalculus using the same Math Excel structure. While the collaborative problem solving activity provided in Math Excel was crucial to students\u27 successful academic performance, these results suggest that subtle issues related to students\u27 recognition of and identification with a learning community may be critically important to underrepresented and nontraditional students\u27 continued persistence in mathematics

Absorption and emission spectroscopies of homogeneous and inhomogeneously broadened multilevel systems in strong light fields

A method is introduced to calc., for a model set of mol. levels, the spectral line shapes expected for a variety of conventional laser expts. including absorption, hole burning, fluorescence line narrowing, and Raman scattering. The method allows the incident laser field to have arbitrary intensity. Furthermore, the effects of model gaussian or lorenzian inhomogeneous distributions are readily incorporated. Earlier results for a 2-level system are easily obtained and new results are presented for inhomogeneously broadened 2- and 3-level systems, and for the effects of pure dephasing on the strong field spectra. The differences between fluorescence and Raman in strong fields, and the effect of strong fields on the spontaneous emission of inhomogeneously broadened transitions were described. Some predictions are made regarding line narrowing expts. in the strong-field limit

SMIL State: an architecture and implementation for adaptive time-based web applications

In this paper we examine adaptive time-based web applications (or presentations). These are interactive presentations where time dictates which parts of the application are presented (providing the major structuring paradigm), and that require interactivity and other dynamic adaptation. We investigate the current technologies available to create such presentations and their shortcomings, and suggest a mechanism for addressing these shortcomings. This mechanism, SMIL State, can be used to add user-defined state to declarative time-based languages such as SMIL or SVG animation, thereby enabling the author to create control flows that are difficult to realize within the temporal containment model of the host languages. In addition, SMIL State can be used as a bridging mechanism between languages, enabling easy integration of external components into the web application. Finally, SMIL State enables richer expressions for content control. This paper defines SMIL State in terms of an introductory example, followed by a detailed specification of the State model. Next, the implementation of this model is discussed. We conclude with a set of potential use cases, including dynamic content adaptation and delayed insertion of custom content such as advertisements. © 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

Stream water age distributions controlled by storage dynamics and nonlinear hydrologic connectivity : Modeling with high-resolution isotope data

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Brans-Dicke DGP Brane Cosmology

We consider a five dimensional DGP-brane scenario endowed with a non-minimally coupled scalar field within the context of Brans-Dicke theory. This theory predicts that the mass appearing in the gravitational potential is modified by the addition of the mass of the effective intrinsic curvature on the brane. We also derive the effective four dimensional field equations on a 3+1 dimensional brane where the fifth dimension is assumed to have an orbifold symmetry. Finally, we discuss the cosmological implications of this setup, predicting an accelerated expanding universe with a value of the Brans-Dicke parameter $\omega$ consistent with values resulting from the solar system observations.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, to appear in JCA