ACRP Design Competition

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, there have been approximately two-hundred thousand civil aircraft collisions with wildlife during the last three decades in the United States alone. Ninety-seven percent of these collisions occurred during takeoff or landing. As of this writing, there is no definitive method used in order to prevent these “bird strikes”, which cause nearly one billion dollars in damages per year in the United States. The team aims to solve this problem. The goal is to integrate an autonomous drone into the daily workings of a local Rhode Island airport. The drone will patrol a designated route along the perimeter of airport grounds and deter birds from foraging or nesting in the area. The drone will be equipped with lights and sounds that are tuned specifically to disrupt bird behavior and communication, thus making the area undesirable. The specific lights and sounds integrated in the drones design are based upon information researched using web-based literary resources. The objective is to not only deter birds from airport grounds, but also to limit the distraction to pilots and airport staff. Implementing ultraviolet lights in the design helps to achieve this goal. Ultraviolet lights give off only trace amounts of light that can be seen by a human eye, but these wavelengths are fully within the bird’s visual spectrum. Therefore, it is possible to minimize the distraction to pilots and staff. Using the drone provided to the team by Professor Nassersharif, the team performed various tests to determine the most effective method of deterring birds. Equipping the drone with UV lights as well as a speaker that emits predatory bird sounds has proven to be the most efficient method. A flight path was also incorporated into the software to make the drone autonomous

Addressing Facilitators and Barriers Related to Early Childhood Obesity Prevention in Rural Appalachian Communities

Through a community-focused needs assessment conducted in rural Appalachia, we gauged perceptions of facilitators and barriers related to healthful eating and physical activity for young children and identified suggestions for improvement. Thirty-seven key informant interviews and three caregiver focus group sessions were coded and analyzed for key themes. Limited community resources emerged as a barrier to both healthful eating and physical activity. Suboptimal communication about existing opportunities was also identified. Community members reviewed the needs assessment data and implemented initiatives to address identified needs. The importance of Extension-facilitated needs assessments in rural settings to shape health initiatives to local contexts is highlighted

Opportunities for Impact: Health Promotion in Rural Early Care and Education Environments

Early care and education settings are essential partners in the battle against childhood obesity. We describe an Extension-facilitated early childhood obesity prevention intervention conducted in 25 rural early care and education settings. A total of 148 policy, systems, or environmental changes were achieved, reaching approximately 450 young children. Systems changes were the most prevalent outcome achieved. The experiences of Extension professionals in promoting policy, systems, and environmental changes are highlighted as are implications for other Extension systems and professionals promoting policy, systems, or environmental changes in early care and education settings

Impact of changing US cigarette smoking patterns on incident cancer: Risks of 20 smoking-related cancers among the women and men of the NIH-AARP cohort

Background: Historically, US women started smoking at a later age than men and had lower relative risks for smoking-related cancers. However, more recent birth cohorts of women and men have similar smoking histories and have now reached the high-risk age for cancer. The impact of these changes on cancer incidence has not been systematically examined. Methods: Relative risks (RR), 95% confidence intervals (CI) and attributable fractions were calculated for cigarette smoking and incidence of 20 smoking-related cancers in 186 057 women and 266 074 men of the National Institutes of Health-AARP cohort, aged 50 to 71 years in 1995 and followed for 11 years. Results: In the cohort, which included participants born between 1924 and 1945, most women and men started smoking as teenagers. RRs for current vs never smoking were similar in women and men for the following cancers: lung squamous-cell (RR women: 121.4, 95% CI: 57.3–257.4; RR men:114.6, 95% CI: 61.2–214.4), lung adenocarcinoma (RR women: 11.7, 95% CI: 9.8–14.0; RR men: 15.6, 95% CI: 12.5–19.6), laryngeal (RR women: 37.0, 95% CI: 14.9–92.3; RR men: 13.8, 95% CI: 9.3–20.2), oral cavity-pharyngeal (RR women:4.4, 95% CI: 3.3–6.0; RR men: 3.8, 95% CI: 3.0–4.7), oesophageal squamous cell (RR women: 7.3, 95% CI: 3.5–15.5; RR men: 6.2, 95% CI: 2.8–13.7), bladder (RR women: 4.7, 95% CI: 3.7–5.8; RR men: 4.0, 95% CI: 3.5–4.5), colon (RR women: 1.3, 95% CI: 1.2–1.5; RR men: 1.3, 95% CI: 1.1–1.4), and at other sites, with similar attributable fractions. Conclusions: RRs for current smoking and incidence of many smoking-related cancers are now similar in US women and men, likely reflecting converging smoking patterns

Early Childhood Obesity Prevention in Rural West Virginia Extension’s Role and Lessons Learned

The Cooperative Extension system is uniquely positioned to lead rural community efforts to prevent obesity in early childhood. This article explores best practices in promoting healthy weights among young children and shares examples and resources relevant to Extension programming. The West Virginia (WV) Healthy Children Project aims to improve community, home, and early care and education (ECE) environments by promoting healthy eating, physical activity, outdoor play, and reduced screen time. This project primarily focuses on interventions with ECE providers serving 2-5-year-old children in three rural counties. Comprehensive assessments informed the interventions and guided Community Advisory Committees. ECE providers were trained in “I Am Moving, I Am Learning” (IMIL) and “Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care” (Go NAP SACC) best practices and were supported with technical assistance and classroom resources. Garden-based learning, natural playscapes, painted playgrounds, and farm-to-ECE further enhanced the environments and experiences. Community leaders were engaged in advisory committees, transformative projects, and local family-focused activities. The efficacy of these practices was tracked using quantitative and qualitative evaluation strategies conducted throughout the project, including observations, ripple effects mapping, and questionnaires. This article describes the overall project strategies and reveals the lessons learned and the challenges encountered

Exploring the dynamics of compliance with community penalties

In this paper, we examine how compliance with community penalties has been theorized hitherto and seek to develop a new dynamic model of compliance with community penalties. This new model is developed by exploring some of the interfaces between existing criminological and socio-legal work on compliance. The first part of the paper examines the possible definitions and dimensions of compliance with community supervision. Secondly, we examine existing work on explanations of compliance with community penalties, supplementing this by drawing on recent socio-legal scholarship on private individuals’ compliance with tax regimes. In the third part of the paper, we propose a dynamic model of compliance, based on the integration of these two related analyses. Finally, we consider some of the implications of our model for policy and practice concerning community penalties, suggesting the need to move beyond approaches which, we argue, suffer from compliance myopia; that is, a short-sighted and narrowly focused view of the issues

Dietary lignan and proanthocyanidin consumption and colorectal adenoma recurrence in the Polyp Prevention Trial

Lignans and proanthocyanidins are plant polyphenols that have shown protective properties against colorectal neoplasms in some human studies. Using logistic regression, we estimated odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to prospectively evaluate the association between lignan and proanthocyanidin intake, estimated from databases linked to a food frequency questionnaire, and adenoma recurrence in 1,859 participants of the Polyp Prevention Trial. Overall, individual or total lignans or proanthocyanidins were not associated with colorectal adenoma recurrence. However, in sex-specific analyses, total lignan intake was positively associated with any adenoma recurrence in women (highest vs. lowest lignan intake quartile OR = 2.07, 95% CI: 1.223.52, p trend = 0.004) but not in men (p interaction = 0.04). To conclude, dietary lignan and proanthocyanidin consumption were not generally related to colorectal adenoma recurrence; however, high lignan intake may increase the risk of adenoma recurrence in women.This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by Wiley and can be found at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/.Keywords: Proanthocyanidins, Lignans, Cancer prevention, Colorectal cancer, Colorectal adenom

Receipt of medications for opioid use disorder among youth engaged in primary care: data from 6 health systems

PURPOSE: Little is known about prevalence and treatment of OUD among youth engaged in primary care (PC). Medications are the recommended treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD) for adolescents and young adults (youth). This study describes the prevalence of OUD, the prevalence of medication treatment for OUD, and patient characteristics associated with OUD treatment among youth engaged in PC. METHODS: This cross-sectional study includes youth aged 16-25 years engaged in PC. Eligible patients had ≥ 1 PC visit during fiscal years (FY) 2014-2016 in one of 6 health systems across 6 states. Data from electronic health records and insurance claims were used to identify OUD diagnoses, office-based OUD medication treatment, and patient demographic and clinical characteristics in the FY of the first PC visit during the study period. Descriptive analyses were conducted in all youth, and stratified by age (16-17, 18-21, 22-25 years). RESULTS: Among 303,262 eligible youth, 2131 (0.7%) had a documented OUD diagnosis. The prevalence of OUD increased by ascending age groups. About half of youth with OUD had documented depression or anxiety and one third had co-occurring substance use disorders. Receipt of medication for OUD was lowest among youth 16-17 years old (14%) and highest among those aged 22-25 (39%). CONCLUSIONS: In this study of youth engaged in 6 health systems across 6 states, there was low receipt of medication treatment, and high prevalence of other substance use disorders and mental health disorders. These findings indicate an urgent need to increase medication treatment for OUD and to integrate treatment for other substance use and mental health disorders

Identification and monitoring of metabolite markers of dry bean consumption in parallel human and mouse studies

SCOPE: Aim of the study was to identify and monitor metabolite markers of dry bean consumption in parallel human and mouse studies that each had shown chemopreventive effects of dry bean consumption on colorectal neoplasia risk. METHODS and RESULTS: Using LC/mass spectroscopy ± ESI and GC/mass spectroscopy, serum metabolites of dry beans were measured in 46 men before and after a 4-week dry bean enriched diet (250 g/day) and 12 mice that received a standardized diet containing either 0 or 10% navy bean ethanol extract for 6 weeks; we also investigated fecal metabolites in the mice. The serum metabolites identified in these controlled feeding studies were then investigated in 212 polyp-free participants from the Polyp Prevention Trial who self-reported either increased (≥+31 g/day from baseline), high dry bean intake of ≥42 g/day in year 3 or low, unchanged dry bean consumption of <8 g/day; serum was analyzed from baseline and year 3. Serum pipecolic acid and S-methyl cysteine were elevated after dry bean consumption in human and mouse studies and reflected dry bean consumption in the Polyp Prevention Trial. CONCLUSION: Serum levels of pipecolic acid and S-methyl cysteine are useful biomarkers of dry bean consumption.Keywords: Pipecolic acid, Dry bean consumption, Metabolomics, S-methyl cysteine, Biomarker