Are youth mentoring programs good value-for-money? An evaluation of the Big Brothers Big Sisters Melbourne Program

Background : The Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) program matches vulnerable young people with a trained, supervised adult volunteer as mentor. The young people are typically seriously disadvantaged, with multiple psychosocial problems.Methods : Threshold analysis was undertaken to determine whether investment in the program was a worthwhile use of limited public funds. The potential cost savings were based on US estimates of life-time costs associated with high-risk youth who drop out-of-school and become adult criminals. The intervention was modelled for children aged 10&ndash;14 years residing in Melbourne in 2004.Results : If the program serviced 2,208 of the most vulnerable young people, it would cost AUD 39.5 M. Assuming 50% were high-risk, the associated costs of their adult criminality would be AUD 3.3 billion. To break even, the program would need to avert high-risk behaviours in only 1.3% (14/1,104) of participants.Conclusion : This indicative evaluation suggests that the BBBS program represents excellent \u27value for money\u27.<br /

Possible interactions between bacterial diversity, microbial activity and supraglacial hydrology of cryoconite holes in Svalbard

The diversity of highly active bacterial communities in cryoconite holes on three Arctic glaciers in Svalbard was investigated using terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) of the 16S rRNA locus. Construction and sequencing of clone libraries allowed several members of these communities to be identified, with Proteobacteria being the dominant one, followed by Cyanobacteria and Bacteroidetes. T-RFLP data revealed significantly different communities in holes on the (cold) valley glacier Austre Brøggerbreen relative to two adjacent (polythermal) valley glaciers, Midtre Lovénbreen and Vestre Brøggerbreen. These population compositions correlate with differences in organic matter content, temperature and the metabolic activity of microbial communities concerned. No within-glacier spatial patterns were observed in the communities identified over the 2-year period and with the 1 km-spaced sampling. We infer that surface hydrology is an important factor in the development of cryoconite bacterial communities

Evaluating Sex and Age Differences in ADI-R and ADOS Scores in a Large European Multi-site Sample of Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Research on sex-related differences in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has been impeded by small samples. We pooled 28 datasets from 18 sites across nine European countries to examine sex differences in the ASD phenotype on the ADI-R (376 females, 1763 males) and ADOS (233 females, 1187 males). On the ADI-R, early childhood restricted and repetitive behaviours were lower in females than males, alongside comparable levels of social interaction and communication difficulties in females and males. Current ADI-R and ADOS scores showed no sex differences for ASD severity. There were lower socio-communicative symptoms in older compared to younger individuals. This large European ASD sample adds to the literature on sex and age variations of ASD symptomatology

Spatial Learning and Action Planning in a Prefrontal Cortical Network Model

The interplay between hippocampus and prefrontal cortex (PFC) is fundamental to spatial cognition. Complementing hippocampal place coding, prefrontal representations provide more abstract and hierarchically organized memories suitable for decision making. We model a prefrontal network mediating distributed information processing for spatial learning and action planning. Specific connectivity and synaptic adaptation principles shape the recurrent dynamics of the network arranged in cortical minicolumns. We show how the PFC columnar organization is suitable for learning sparse topological-metrical representations from redundant hippocampal inputs. The recurrent nature of the network supports multilevel spatial processing, allowing structural features of the environment to be encoded. An activation diffusion mechanism spreads the neural activity through the column population leading to trajectory planning. The model provides a functional framework for interpreting the activity of PFC neurons recorded during navigation tasks. We illustrate the link from single unit activity to behavioral responses. The results suggest plausible neural mechanisms subserving the cognitive “insight” capability originally attributed to rodents by Tolman & Honzik. Our time course analysis of neural responses shows how the interaction between hippocampus and PFC can yield the encoding of manifold information pertinent to spatial planning, including prospective coding and distance-to-goal correlates