Effectiveness of Prevention Interventions with Youth at High Risk of Drug Abuse

A recent report describes three types of prevention programs: universal, selected, and indicated (Institute of Medicine 1994). Universal prevention approaches are those that serve the entire population who share a general risk to the disorder without regard to specific risk status. Selected prevention approaches serve those whose precursors of problem behaviors are elevated but who have not yet manifested the problem behavior to be prevented. Indicated prevention approaches serve those who have initiated the problem behavior to be prevented but have not yet developed a serious or chronic behavior problem and do not warrant at that time a clinical diagnosis of the disorder according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III-R or DSM-IV). The effects of universally applied prevention approaches for substance abuse and other problems are well documented in the literature (Hansen et al. 1990; Hawkins et al. 1992; Moskowitz 1989). Less attention has been given to the effects of prevention approaches with selected youth whose specific characteristics put them at higher risk. This chapter first examines several definitions of high-risk youth and chooses one based on youths’ exposure to consistently identified, longitudinal correlates or risk factors for substance abuse. This discussion is followed by a selective review of prevention program research studies chosen for their demonstrated effectiveness of program promise for reducing risk among high-risk populations

Accounting for quality improvement during the conduct of embedded pragmatic clinical trials within healthcare systems: NIH Collaboratory case studies

Embedded pragmatic clinical trials (ePCTs) and quality improvement (QI) activities often occur simultaneously within healthcare systems (HCSs). Embedded PCTs within HCSs are conducted to test interventions and provide evidence that may impact public health, health system operations, and quality of care. They are larger and more broadly generalizable than QI initiatives, and may generate what is considered high-quality evidence for potential use in care and clinical practice guidelines. QI initiatives often co-occur with ePCTs and address the same high-impact health questions, and this co-occurrence may dilute or confound the ability to detect change as a result of the ePCT intervention. During the design, pilot, and conduct phases of the large-scale NIH Collaboratory Demonstration ePCTs, many QI initiatives occurred at the same time within the HCSs. Although the challenges varied across the projects, some common, generalizable strategies and solutions emerged, and we share these as case studies. KEY LESSONS: Study teams often need to monitor, adapt, and respond to QI during design and the course of the trial. Routine collaboration between ePCT researchers and health systems stakeholders throughout the trial can help ensure research and QI are optimally aligned to support high-quality patient-centered care

Influence of Uranium on Bacterial Communities: A Comparison of Natural Uranium-Rich Soils with Controls

This study investigated the influence of uranium on the indigenous bacterial community structure in natural soils with high uranium content. Radioactive soil samples exhibiting 0.26% - 25.5% U in mass were analyzed and compared with nearby control soils containing trace uranium. EXAFS and XRD analyses of soils revealed the presence of U(VI) and uranium-phosphate mineral phases, identified as sabugalite and meta-autunite. A comparative analysis of bacterial community fingerprints using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) revealed the presence of a complex population in both control and uranium-rich samples. However, bacterial communities inhabiting uraniferous soils exhibited specific fingerprints that were remarkably stable over time, in contrast to populations from nearby control samples. Representatives of Acidobacteria, Proteobacteria, and seven others phyla were detected in DGGE bands specific to uraniferous samples. In particular, sequences related to iron-reducing bacteria such as Geobacter and Geothrix were identified concomitantly with iron-oxidizing species such as Gallionella and Sideroxydans. All together, our results demonstrate that uranium exerts a permanent high pressure on soil bacterial communities and suggest the existence of a uranium redox cycle mediated by bacteria in the soil

Planck 2013 results. XXIII. Isotropy and statistics of the CMB

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Planck intermediate results XXV : The Andromeda galaxy as seen by Planck

The Andromeda galaxy (M 31) is one of a few galaxies that has sufficient angular size on the sky to be resolved by the Planck satellite. Planck has detected M 31 in all of its frequency bands, and has mapped out the dust emission with the High Frequency Instrument, clearly resolving multiple spiral arms and sub-features. We examine the morphology of this long-wavelength dust emission as seen by Planck, including a study of its outermost spiral arms, and investigate the dust heating mechanism across M 31. We find that dust dominating the longer wavelength emission (greater than or similar to 0.3 mm) is heated by the diffuse stellar population (as traced by 3.6 mu m emission), with the dust dominating the shorter wavelength emission heated by a mix of the old stellar population and star-forming regions (as traced by 24 mu m emission). We also fit spectral energy distributions for individual 5' pixels and quantify the dust properties across the galaxy, taking into account these different heating mechanisms, finding that there is a linear decrease in temperature with galactocentric distance for dust heated by the old stellar population, as would be expected, with temperatures ranging from around 22 K in the nucleus to 14 K outside of the 10 kpc ring. Finally, we measure the integrated spectrum of the whole galaxy, which we find to be well-fitted with a global dust temperature of (18.2 +/- 1.0) K with a spectral index of 1.62 +/- 0.11 (assuming a single modified blackbody), and a significant amount of free-free emission at intermediate frequencies of 20-60 GHz, which corresponds to a star formation rate of around 0.12 M-circle dot yr(-1). We find a 2.3 sigma detection of the presence of spinning dust emission, with a 30 GHz amplitude of 0.7 +/- 0.3 Jy, which is in line with expectations from our Galaxy.Peer reviewe

Planck 2013 results. I. Overview of products and scientific results

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The personal and contextual contributors to school belongingness among primary school students

School belongingness has gained currency among educators and school health professionals as an important determinant of adolescent health. The current cross-sectional study presents the 15 most significant personal and contextual factors that collectively explain 66.4% (two-thirds) of the variability in 12-year old students' perceptions of belongingness in primary school. The study is part of a larger longitudinal study investigating the factors associated with student adjustment in the transition from primary to secondary school. The study found that girls and students with disabilities had higher school belongingness scores than boys, and their typically developing counterparts respectively; and explained 2.5% of the variability in school belongingness. The majority (47.1% out of 66.4%) of the variability in school belongingness was explained by student personal factors, such as social acceptance, physical appearance competence, coping skills, and social affiliation motivation; followed by parental expectations (3% out of 66.4%), and school-based factors (13.9% out of 66.4%) such as, classroom involvement, task-goal structure, autonomy provision, cultural pluralism, and absence of bullying. Each of the identified contributors of primary school belongingness can be shaped through interventions, system changes, or policy reforms