Collaborative Outcomes from the Youth Justice and Employment Community of Practice

Established in mid-2021, the Youth Justice and Employment Community of Practice (CoP) is a partnership of the Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF), the National Youth Employment Coalition (NYEC), and Pretrial Justice Institute (PJI) formed to improve outcomes for youth with justice involvement by increasing collaboration among local workforce and juvenile justice systems. The CoP began during the middle of COVID-19 at a time when counterparts in each jurisdiction were seeking to reestablish pandemic-disrupted communication and collaboration. CoP participants met monthly to share knowledge and expertise on topics of importance to both systems. Based on work from the CoP, participating cities and counties produced notable improvements in building relationships, expanding partnerships, and promoting investments that benefit justice-involved young people in their communities. This report documents successes and offers recommendations for others seeking to improve outcomes for these young people

Identifying Gaps in Youth Employment Programs Capacity to Address Mental Health Needs

National Youth Employment Coalition (NYEC), in partnership with its member agencies, youth providers, academic institutions, and other partners, deployed a national survey in March 2022 to understand the readiness of youth programs across the US to respond to the youth mental health crisis; the processes and systems providers have in place to fight the crisis; and what supports they need to combat this ongoing, life-threatening challenge. This report identifies the many challenges practitioners face on micro and macro levels, insights into what young people are experiencing, and the types of interventions and support that are needed

Central Executive Dysfunction and Deferred Prefrontal Processing in Veterans with Gulf War Illness.

Gulf War Illness is associated with toxic exposure to cholinergic disruptive chemicals. The cholinergic system has been shown to mediate the central executive of working memory (WM). The current work proposes that impairment of the cholinergic system in Gulf War Illness patients (GWIPs) leads to behavioral and neural deficits of the central executive of WM. A large sample of GWIPs and matched controls (MCs) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging during a varied-load working memory task. Compared to MCs, GWIPs showed a greater decline in performance as WM-demand increased. Functional imaging suggested that GWIPs evinced separate processing strategies, deferring prefrontal cortex activity from encoding to retrieval for high demand conditions. Greater activity during high-demand encoding predicted greater WM performance. Behavioral data suggest that WM executive strategies are impaired in GWIPs. Functional data further support this hypothesis and suggest that GWIPs utilize less effective strategies during high-demand WM

Understanding Blind People's Experiences with Computer-Generated Captions of Social Media Images

ABSTRACT Research advancements allow computational systems to automatically caption social media images. Often, these captions are evaluated with sighted humans using the image as a reference. Here, we explore how blind and visually impaired people experience these captions in two studies about social media images. Using a contextual inquiry approach (n=6 blind/visually impaired), we found that blind people place a lot of trust in automatically generated captions, filling in details to resolve differences between an image's context and an incongruent caption. We built on this in-person study with a second, larger online experiment (n=100 blind/visually impaired) to investigate the role of phrasing in encouraging trust or skepticism in captions. We found that captions emphasizing the probability of error, rather than correctness, encouraged people to attribute incongruence to an incorrect caption, rather than missing details. Where existing research has focused on encouraging trust in intelligent systems, we conclude by challenging this assumption and consider the benefits of encouraging appropriate skepticism

Physician decision making in selection of second-line treatments in immune thrombocytopenia in children.

Immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) is an acquired autoimmune bleeding disorder which presents with isolated thrombocytopenia and risk of hemorrhage. While most children with ITP promptly recover with or without drug therapy, ITP is persistent or chronic in others. When needed, how to select second-line therapies is not clear. ICON1, conducted within the Pediatric ITP Consortium of North America (ICON), is a prospective, observational, longitudinal cohort study of 120 children from 21 centers starting second-line treatments for ITP which examined treatment decisions. Treating physicians reported reasons for selecting therapies, ranking the top three. In a propensity weighted model, the most important factors were patient/parental preference (53%) and treatment-related factors: side effect profile (58%), long-term toxicity (54%), ease of administration (46%), possibility of remission (45%), and perceived efficacy (30%). Physician, health system, and clinical factors rarely influenced decision-making. Patient/parent preferences were selected as reasons more often in chronic ITP (85.7%) than in newly diagnosed (0%) or persistent ITP (14.3%, P = .003). Splenectomy and rituximab were chosen for the possibility of inducing long-term remission (P < .001). Oral agents, such as eltrombopag and immunosuppressants, were chosen for ease of administration and expected adherence (P < .001). Physicians chose rituximab in patients with lower expected adherence (P = .017). Treatment choice showed some physician and treatment center bias. This study illustrates the complexity and many factors involved in decision-making in selecting second-line ITP treatments, given the absence of comparative trials. It highlights shared decision-making and the need for well-conducted, comparative effectiveness studies to allow for informed discussion between patients and clinicians

Oligodendrocyte Nf1 Controls Aberrant Notch Activation and Regulates Myelin Structure and Behavior

The RASopathy neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is one of the most common autosomal dominant genetic disorders. In NF1 patients, neurological issues may result from damaged myelin, and mice with a neurofibromin gene (Nf1) mutation show white matter (WM) defects including myelin decompaction. Using mouse genetics, we find that altered Nf1 gene-dose in mature oligodendrocytes results in progressive myelin defects and behavioral abnormalities mediated by aberrant Notch activation. Blocking Notch, upstream mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), or nitric oxide signaling rescues myelin defects in hemizygous Nf1 mutants, and pharmacological gamma secretase inhibition rescues aberrant behavior with no effects in wild-type (WT) mice. Concomitant pathway inhibition rescues myelin abnormalities in homozygous mutants. Notch activation is also observed in Nf1+/− mouse brains, and cells containing active Notch are increased in NF1 patient WM. We thus identify Notch as an Nf1 effector regulating myelin structure and behavior in a RASopathy and suggest that inhibition of Notch signaling may be a therapeutic strategy for NF1

Individual size, sex and rearing environment impact on aggression in newly weaned seals

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A Bayesian Belief Network to assess rate of changes in coral reef ecosystems

It is crucial to identify sources of impacts and degradation to maintain functions and services that the physical structure of coral reef provides. Here, a Bayesian Network approach is used to evaluate effects that anthropogenic and climate change disturbances have on coral reef structure. The network was constructed on knowledge derived from the literature and elicited from experts, and parameterised on independent data. Evaluation of the model was conducted through sensitivity analyses and data integration was fundamental to obtain a balanced dataset. Scenario analyses, conducted to assess the effects of stressors on the reef framework state, suggested that calcifying organisms and carbonate production, rather than bioerosion, had the largest influence on the reef carbonate budgetary state. Despite the overall budget remaining positive, anthropogenic pressures, particularly deterioration of water quality, affected reef carbonate production, representing a warning signal for potential changes in the reef state