Barriers and solutions to addressing tobacco dependence in addiction treatment programs.

Despite the high prevalence of tobacco use among people with substance use disorders, tobacco dependence is often overlooked in addiction treatment programs. Several studies and a meta-analytic review have concluded that patients who receive tobacco dependence treatment during addiction treatment have better overall substance abuse treatment outcomes compared with those who do not. Barriers that contribute to the lack of attention given to this important problem include staff attitudes about and use of tobacco, lack of adequate staff training to address tobacco use, unfounded fears among treatment staff and administration regarding tobacco policies, and limited tobacco dependence treatment resources. Specific clinical-, program-, and system-level changes are recommended to fully address the problem of tobacco use among alcohol and other drug abuse patients

Paradoxical exploitation of protected fishes as bait for anglers: evaluating the lamprey bait market in Europe and developing sustainable and ethical solutions

A reoccurring conservation problem is the resolution of consumptive use of threatened wildlife and is especially difficult to defend when it occurs for recreational practices. We explored the commercial capture and supply of threatened European river lamprey (Lampetra fluviatilis) to anglers, to determine the extent of exploitation and seek opportunities for improved conservation. The trade began in 1995 from England, but by 2012 involved sale of lamprey from England, The Netherlands and Estonia, including from protected populations. Lamprey are sold frozen for the capture of predatory fish, mostly in freshwater. In the year 2011/2012 9 tonnes (>90,000 lampreys) of river lamprey were supplied, almost exclusively to British anglers. Although annual catches in the main English lamprey fishery (River Ouse) have varied widely since 1995, catch per unit effort did not decline between 2000 and 2012. Conservation actions since 2011 have included a cap on fishing licenses, catch quotas and restricted fishing seasons. Now, 86% of lamprey bait is imported to Britain. Most bait sellers interviewed would not stock lamprey if they knew they were from threatened populations; many felt their trade would not be impacted if lamprey were not stocked. This facilitates opportunities to enter into dialogue with anglers over alternative baits to threatened lamprey. The study emphasises the need to inform stakeholders about conservation species subjected to market-driven exploitation

DP-EM: Differentially Private Expectation Maximization

The iterative nature of the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm presents a challenge for privacy-preserving estimation, as each iteration increases the amount of noise needed. We propose a practical private EM algorithm that overcomes this challenge using two innovations: (1) a novel moment perturbation formulation for differentially private EM (DP-EM), and (2) the use of two recently developed composition methods to bound the privacy “cost” of multiple EM iterations: the moments accountant (MA) and zero-mean concentrated differential privacy (zCDP). Both MA and zCDP bound the moment generating function of the privacy loss random variable and achieve a refined tail bound, which effectively decrease the amount of additive noise. We present empirical results showing the benefits of our approach, as well as similar performance between these two composition methods in the DP-EM setting for Gaussian mixture models. Our approach can be readily extended to many iterative learning algorithms, opening up various exciting future directions

In Situ Contaminated Sediments Project – Work Package 1A Report

Project aims Defra is seeking to understand the magnitude of risks (e.g. to aquatic ecology and human health) or impacts (e.g. on the way that water bodies are managed) posed by contaminated sediment in England, as part of its work towards meeting its environmental objectives. In the context of this project, in-situ contaminated sediment is defined as: Chemically contaminated sediment within the water column, bed, banks and floodplain of a surface water body that has been transported alongside the normal sediment load and deposited by fluvial or coastal processes. This project considers the risk posed by non-agricultural diffuse pollution sources in England that result in the contamination of in-situ sediments (for example, contamination from toxic metals, hydrocarbons and surfactants). The scope encompasses both freshwater and marine sediments in England and extends to one nautical mile off-shore (the seaward limit of coastal waters under the Water Framework Directive (WFD) in England). Previous national strategies, including the 2007 Defra UK Strategy for Managing Contaminated Marine Sediments (CDMS), focussed on characterising the risks associated with contaminated sediments in the marine environment. However, while extensive research has been carried out in many locations (including as part of WFD implementation studies) and for particular sources of contamination (e.g. historical metal mining; Environment Agency, 2008) there has not been a comprehensive overview of sediment contamination on a national scale. This project seeks to build on the existing evidence base, drawing together information on the freshwater environment to complement that already gathered for marine waters. This project’s overall aim is to provide a sound evidence base on the contamination of in-situ sediments, which can underpin the development of tools and methods that will help Defra, the Environment Agency and other bodies engaged in regulation and protection of water quality

Integrating tobacco dependence treatment and tobacco-free standards into addiction treatment: New Jersey\u27s experience

New Jersey was the first State to require that all residential addiction treatment programs assess and treat patients for tobacco dependence and maintain tobacco-free facilities (including grounds). An evaluation of this policy change found that tobacco dependence treatment can be successfully integrated into residential substance abuse treatment programs through policy regulation, training, and the provision of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) (Williams et al. 2005). Many other addiction treatment agencies (both residential and outpatient) around the country now have implemented or are planning to implement similar policies to ensure that their patients receive appropriate assessment and treatment of their tobacco dependence while receiving treatment for addiction to other substances. This paper aims to summarize the lessons learned from the experience in New Jersey

Expanding the scope and implications of energy research: A guide to key themes and concepts from the Social Sciences and Humanities

This paper provides an overview of key themes and concepts within energy-related Social Sciences and Humanities (energy-SSH) research in Europe. It aims to use this overview as an introduction for those producing strategies and interventions to advance energy and sustainability transitions in practice as well as for newcomers to the field of energy-SSH research, such as Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) researchers. This paper builds on four extensive literature reviews from the EU Horizon 2020 SHAPE ENERGY project on four energy topics derived from the EU's Strategic Energy Technology Plan (EU SET-Plan) priorities: energy efficiency, low-carbon energy supply, energy system optimisation and transport decarbonisation. Based on a cross-cutting analysis of these four literature reviews, this paper discusses the evolution of and recent developments across energy-SSH research. It highlights two interrelated stories of scholarly expansion concerning the role of people in low-carbon energy transitions, illustrated with an example on demand-side management, and points towards future energy-SSH research and policy priorities