Family and Peer Influences on Substance Attitudes and Use among Juvenile Justice-Involved Youth

Juvenile justice-involved youth experience high rates of substance use, which is concerning given associated negative consequences, including health and functional deficits. Family and peer factors are associated with a high risk of substance use among justice-involved youth. It is hypothesized that this risk process operates through pro-drug attitudes. However, limited research has been conducted on the mechanisms through which family and peer factors increase risk for substance use among juvenile justice involved youth. The current study examined both the direct and indirect effects of family and peer substance use on youth's substance use (alcohol and illicit drug use). We also examined whether this relationship differs by race. 226 detained youth (81.9% male; 74.3% Black) were recruited from an urban county in the Midwest and completed a clinical interview and substance use assessment battery. A direct effect of family/peer risk on illicit drug use was found for all youth, though the effect was stronger among White youth. Results also supported the indirect effect pathway from family/peer risk to both illicit drug use and alcohol use through pro-drug attitudes. This pathway did not vary by race. These findings suggest that interventions should focus on targeting both family/peer risk and pro-drug attitudes to reduce substance use. Given the racial difference in the direct effect of family/peer risk on illicit drug use, there may be other factors that influence risk more strongly for White youth, which warrants further investigation

Teaching and Doing Strategy as an Intentional Strategic Innovation Mindset

There are many important keys in learning, teaching, and doing strategy today. We propose rethinking the learning strategies employed at the MBA level to make the degree more relevant. Recent calls from academia and practice indicate the need to stress adaptability using soft knowledge and skills to make MBA courses more aligned with the realities of strategic decision-making in today’s business environments. We emphasize that while traditional strategic framework models and diagrams have their place, today’s professionals must be prepared to make decisions in unstructured and highly ambiguous situations that traditional models do not address

Building a Sports Marketing Program in a College or School of Business

The purpose of this paper is to serve as one roadmap for helping marketing and business faculty understand better how to build a Sports Marketing program within a college or school of business. Specifically, this paper lays out specific coursework that can comprise a robust and industry-relevant sports marketing program and provides connected sports business and sports analytics classes and content that can undergird and support a new or growing sports marketing program. This business education development solves a curriculum problem related often to the need for new, innovative, and industry-relevant business curriculum and new occupational pathways for business students. Finally, this paper lays out a blueprint for intentional collegiality and partnership amongst marketing and business faculty, alumni, advisory board members, and industry partners in helping a newly created sports marketing program not only grow, but be connected to strong industry internships, job placements, and newly related occupational pathways for business students

The Structure of a Bacterial DUF199/WhiA Protein: Domestication of an Invasive Endonuclease

SummaryProteins of the DUF199 family, present in all Gram-positive bacteria and best characterized by the WhiA sporulation control factor in Streptomyces coelicolor, are thought to act as genetic regulators. The crystal structure of the DUF199/WhiA protein from Thermatoga maritima demonstrates that these proteins possess a bipartite structure, in which a degenerate N-terminal LAGLIDADG homing endonuclease (LHE) scaffold is tethered to a C-terminal helix-turn-helix (HTH) domain. The LHE domain has lost those residues critical for metal binding and catalysis, and also displays an extensively altered DNA-binding surface as compared with homing endonucleases. The HTH domain most closely resembles related regions of several bacterial sigma70 factors that bind the −35 regions of bacterial promoters. The structure illustrates how an invasive element might be transformed during evolution into a larger assemblage of protein folds that can participate in the regulation of a complex biological pathway

Poly-use of cannabis and other substances among juvenile-justice involved youth: variations in psychological and substance-related problems by typology

Background: Adolescent cannabis use is associated with increased risk for psychological problems, with evidence for more severe problems among youth who use cannabis in combination with other substances (i.e., polysubstance use). Juvenile offenders engage in both cannabis use and polysubstance use at higher rates than the general adolescent population. Yet, limited research has examined the relationship between cannabis poly-use (e.g., cannabis and alcohol use) and functional or psychological problems among juvenile offenders. Objectives: The current study addresses this gap by examining the association of polysubstance use of cannabis compared to cannabis only use with cognitive functioning, psychological distress, and substance-related problems among juvenile detainees. Methods: Participants were 238 detained youth ages 12–18 (80.4% male, 77.3% non-White) who completed assessments of substance use, intellectual functioning, psychological symptoms, and substance-related problems. Youth were also assessed by a clinical psychologist for substance use disorder. Results: Four cannabis-use typologies were identified; cannabis and alcohol use was the largest class, followed by cannabis only use, cannabis, alcohol and other drug use, then cannabis and other drug use. Polysubstance use was associated with lower scores on measures of intellectual functioning, more externalizing and internalizing symptomology, and more substance-related problems relative to cannabis only use. However, the relationship between polysubstance use and problems varied by typology. Conclusions: Findings suggest that justice-involved youth engaged in polysubstance use may be at greater need for concurrent academic, affective, and behavioral support in their rehabilitation and transition back to the community

On the equivalence between the effective cosmology and excursion set treatments of environment

In studies of the environmental dependence of structure formation, the large scale environment is often thought of as providing an effective background cosmology: e.g. the formation of structure in voids is expected to be just like that in a less dense universe with appropriately modified Hubble and cosmological constants. However, in the excursion set description of structure formation which is commonly used to model this effect, no explicit mention is made of the effective cosmology. Rather, this approach uses the spherical evolution model to compute an effective linear theory growth factor, which is then used to predict the growth and evolution of nonlinear structures. We show that these approaches are, in fact, equivalent: a consequence of Birkhoff's theorem. We speculate that this equivalence will not survive in models where the gravitational force law is modified from an inverse square, potentially making the environmental dependence of clustering a good test of such models.Comment: 4 pages, 0 figures, accepted to MNRA

Evaluating Tidal Marsh Sustainability in the Face of Sea-Level Rise: A Hybrid Modeling Approach Applied to San Francisco Bay

Tidal marshes will be threatened by increasing rates of sea-level rise (SLR) over the next century. Managers seek guidance on whether existing and restored marshes will be resilient under a range of potential future conditions, and on prioritizing marsh restoration and conservation activities.Building upon established models, we developed a hybrid approach that involves a mechanistic treatment of marsh accretion dynamics and incorporates spatial variation at a scale relevant for conservation and restoration decision-making. We applied this model to San Francisco Bay, using best-available elevation data and estimates of sediment supply and organic matter accumulation developed for 15 Bay subregions. Accretion models were run over 100 years for 70 combinations of starting elevation, mineral sediment, organic matter, and SLR assumptions. Results were applied spatially to evaluate eight Bay-wide climate change scenarios.Model results indicated that under a high rate of SLR (1.65 m/century), short-term restoration of diked subtidal baylands to mid marsh elevations (-0.2 m MHHW) could be achieved over the next century with sediment concentrations greater than 200 mg/L. However, suspended sediment concentrations greater than 300 mg/L would be required for 100-year mid marsh sustainability (i.e., no elevation loss). Organic matter accumulation had minimal impacts on this threshold. Bay-wide projections of marsh habitat area varied substantially, depending primarily on SLR and sediment assumptions. Across all scenarios, however, the model projected a shift in the mix of intertidal habitats, with a loss of high marsh and gains in low marsh and mudflats.Results suggest a bleak prognosis for long-term natural tidal marsh sustainability under a high-SLR scenario. To minimize marsh loss, we recommend conserving adjacent uplands for marsh migration, redistributing dredged sediment to raise elevations, and concentrating restoration efforts in sediment-rich areas. To assist land managers, we developed a web-based decision support tool (www.prbo.org/sfbayslr)

Patterns of adolescent gun carrying and gun-related crime arrests in Indianapolis, Indiana over an 11-year time period

Adolescent males are disproportionately affected by homicide as both victims and offenders. Indianapolis has seen increases in youth homicides over the past few years; gun carrying increases an individual's risk for involvement in firearm violence. It is unclear how often youth are arrested for gun carrying and gun-related crimes. Examining these patterns may identify an opportunity for intervention. This study is a descriptive epidemiology analysis that examines patterns of gun carrying and gun-related crime arrests among justice involved youth in Marion County (Indianapolis), Indiana. We accessed juvenile court records from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2016 on all individuals arrested for a gun carrying offense (i.e., illegal possession of a firearm or gun; n = 711) and all individuals arrested for a gun-related crime (i.e., homicide, robbery, aggravated assault; n = 150). Data were analyzed in fall 2019. Proportions of juvenile arrests for both gun carrying (47.0 per 1000 arrests) and gun-related crime (25.4 per 1000 arrests) have substantially increased compared to ten-years ago (4.5 per 1000 arrests and 2.0 per 1000 arrests, respectively). Of those arrested, 27.7 per 100,000 population were arrested for a repeated gun-related offense; of which 21.5 per 100,000 were first arrested for gun carrying and 6.2 per 100,000 were arrested for a gun-related crime. The majority of gun-related repeat offenders were first arrested for gun carrying; therefore, these gun-carrying arrests may be an opportunity to intervene on an individual level by providing treatment, other needed resources, and discussing safe firearm storage with families and communities