A Systematic Review of Family Meal Frequency and Risk Taking Behaviors in Adolescence

poster abstractThe purpose of this systematic review is to examine the association between adolescent health behaviors (alcohol use, cigarette smoking and marijuana use) and family meal routines. Following the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses by Mosher and colleagues, the search was conducted using select databases (CINAHL, Medline, PSYCHINFO, and Social Science Index). Keywords were family meals and adolescence. The search parameters were set to include adolescent’s ages 9-18, English language and journal articles only. The preliminary search generated 169 articles and one article was added from the reference lists. A total of 11 articles met the criteria for the review after 159 articles were excluded due to duplication and initial review. Three of seven studies that examined the relationship between tobacco use and family meals found an inverse relationship between the two for both male and females. Seven articles examined family meal frequency and marijuana use. Four of those articles found an association between an increased frequency of meals and a decreased use of marijuana in females but not males. Three of seven articles found an inverse relationship between alcohol use and family meal routines. Family meals appear to be a protective factor for adolescent risky health behaviors, however, more research is needed to examine the quality and quantity of family meals. The “dosage” would be important in developing guidelines for education and intervening with families

Epigenetics as a mechanism driving polygenic clinical drug resistance

Aberrant methylation of CpG islands located at or near gene promoters is associated with inactivation of gene expression during tumour development. It is increasingly recognised that such epimutations may occur at a much higher frequency than gene mutation and therefore have a greater impact on selection of subpopulations of cells during tumour progression or acquisition of resistance to anticancer drugs. Although laboratory-based models of acquired resistance to anticancer agents tend to focus on specific genes or biochemical pathways, such 'one gene : one outcome' models may be an oversimplification of acquired resistance to treatment of cancer patients. Instead, clinical drug resistance may be due to changes in expression of a large number of genes that have a cumulative impact on chemosensitivity. Aberrant CpG island methylation of multiple genes occurring in a nonrandom manner during tumour development and during the acquisition of drug resistance provides a mechanism whereby expression of multiple genes could be affected simultaneously resulting in polygenic clinical drug resistance. If simultaneous epigenetic regulation of multiple genes is indeed a major driving force behind acquired resistance of patients' tumour to anticancer agents, this has important implications for biomarker studies of clinical outcome following chemotherapy and for clinical approaches designed to circumvent or modulate drug resistance

Measurements of single top quark production cross sections and |Vtb| in ppbar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV

We present measurements of production cross sections of single top quarks in \ppbar collisions at $\sqrt{s}=1.96\;\rm TeV$ in a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $5.4\;\rm fb^{-1}$ collected by the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. We select events with an isolated electron or muon, an imbalance in transverse energy, and two, three, or four jets, with one or two of them containing a bottom hadron. We obtain an inclusive cross section of \sigma({\ppbar}{\rargap}tb+X, tqb+X) = 3.43\pm^{0.73}_{0.74}\;\rm pb and use it to extract the CKM matrix element $0.79 < |V_{tb}| \leq 1$ at the 95% C.L. We also measure \sigma({\ppbar}{\rargap}tb+X) = 0.68\pm^{0.38}_{0.35}\;\rm pb and \sigma({\ppbar}{\rargap}tqb+X) = 2.86\pm^{0.69}_{0.63}\;\rm pb when assuming, respectively, $tqb$ and $tb$ production rates as predicted by the standard model.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

A search for the standard model Higgs boson in the missing energy and acoplanar b-jet topology at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV

We report a search for the standard model Higgs boson in the missing energy and acoplanar b-jet topology, using an integrated luminosity of 0.93 inverse femtobarn recorded by the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. The analysis includes signal contributions from pp->ZH->nu nu b b, as well as from WH production in which the charged lepton from the W boson decay is undetected. Neural networks are used to separate signal from background. In the absence of a signal, we set limits on the cross section of pp->VH times the branching ratio of H->bb at the 95% C.L. of 2.6 - 2.3 pb, for Higgs boson masses in the range 105 - 135 GeV, where V=W,Z. The corresponding expected limits range from 2.8 pb - 2.0 pb.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. Letter

Observation of ZZ production in ppbar collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV

We present an observation for ZZ -> l+l-l'+l'- (l, l' = e or mu) production in ppbar collisions at a center-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV. Using 1.7 fb-1 of data collected by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider, we observe three candidate events with an expected background of 0.14 +0.03 -0.02 events. The significance of this observation is 5.3 standard deviations. The combination of D0 results in this channel, as well as in ZZ -> l+l-nunubar, yields a significance of 5.7 standard deviations and a combined cross section of sigma(ZZ) = 1.60 +/- 0.63 (stat.) +0.16 -0.17 (syst.) pb.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables Modified slightly following review proces

Precise measurement of the top quark mass in the dilepton channel at D0

We measure the top quark mass (mt) in ppbar collisions at a center of mass energy of 1.96 TeV using dilepton ttbar->W+bW-bbar->l+nubl-nubarbbar events, where l denotes an electron, a muon, or a tau that decays leptonically. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 5.4 fb-1 collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. We obtain mt = 174.0 +- 1.8(stat) +- 2.4(syst) GeV, which is in agreement with the current world average mt = 173.3 +- 1.1 GeV. This is currently the most precise measurement of mt in the dilepton channel.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure