“Rebuilding our community”: Hearing silenced voices on Aboriginal youth suicide

This paper brings forth the voices of adult Aboriginal First Nations community members who gathered in focus groups to discuss the problem of youth suicide on their reserves. Our approach emphasizes multilevel (e.g., individual, family, and broader ecological systems) factors viewed by participants as relevant to youth suicide. Wheaton’s conceptualization of stressors (1994; 1999) and Evans-Campbell’s (2008) multilevel classification of the impacts of historical trauma are used as theoretical and analytic guides. Thematic analysis of qualitative data transcripts revealed a highly complex intersection of stressors, traumas, and social problems seen by community members as underlying mechanisms influencing heightened levels of Aboriginal youth suicidality. Our multilevel coding approach revealed that suicidal behaviors were described by community members largely as a problem with deep historical and contemporary structural roots as opposed to being viewed as individualized pathology

Adenoviral Gene Transfer Restores Lysyl Hydroxylase Activity in Type VI Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

Type VI Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is a disease characterized by disturbed lysine hydroxylation of collagen. The disease is caused by mutations in lysyl hydroxylase 1 gene and it affects several organs including the cardiovascular system, the joint and musculoskeletal system, and the skin. The skin of type VI Ehlers-Danlos syndrome patients is hyperelastic, scars easily, and heals slowly and poorly. We hypothesized that providing functional lysyl hydroxylase 1 gene to the fibroblasts in and around wounds in these patients would improve healing. In this study we tested the feasibility of transfer of the lysyl hydroxylase 1 gene into fibroblasts derived from rats and a type VI Ehlers-Danlos syndrome patient (in vitro) and into rat skin (in vivo). We first cloned human lysyl hydroxylase 1 cDNA into a recombinant adenoviral vector (Ad5RSV-LH). Transfection of human type VI Ehlers-Danlos syndrome fibroblasts (about 20% of normal lysyl hydroxylase 1 activity) with the vector increased lysyl hydroxylase 1 activity in these cells to near or greater levels than that of wild type, unaffected fibroblasts. The adenoviral vector successfully transfected rat fibroblasts producing both β-galactosidase and lysyl hydroxylase 1 gene activity. We next expanded our studies to a rodent model. Intradermal injections of the vector to the abdominal skin of rats produced lysyl hydroxylase 1 mRNA and elevated lysyl hydroxylase 1 activity, in vivo. These data suggest the feasibility of gene replacement therapy to modify skin wound healing in type VI Ehlers-Danlos syndrome patients

Conjoint adolescent developmental trajectories of alcohol and marijuana use and early adult outcomes among North American Indigenous people

Objective: The current study examined the developmental interrelationships between alcohol and marijuana use trajectories from ages 10 to 18 years in a sample of North American Indigenous adolescents. Distinct co-use groups were formed to create profiles of young adult outcomes.Method: Dual group-based trajectory models of marijuana and alcohol frequency were estimated using data from a longitudinal community-based participatory study of Indigenous adolescents from the upper Midwest and Canada. Joint probabilities were used to create co-use groups, and profiles were created using early adult (Mean Age - 26.28 years) outcomes.Results: Four joint trajectory groups were identified: 1) no marijuana and no/low alcohol use (34.4%), 2) mid-onset alcohol only (14%), 3) mid-onset co-use starting at age 13 (24%), and 4) early-onset co-use starting at age 11 (22%). High probabilities existed that adolescents would use marijuana early if they began drinking alcohol at the youngest ages, and that adolescents would not use marijuana if they drank infrequently or delayed drinking until mid-adolescence. Adult outcomes were poorer for the early- and mid-onset co-use groups, but there were few differences between the no/low use and alcohol-only groups.Conclusion: Co-use of marijuana and alcohol was associated with poorer outcomes in early adulthood, particularly for the group with an earlier age of onset. Abstaining from either substance in adolescence was associated with better outcomes.Peer reviewedSociolog

The role of body-esteem in academic functioning problems associated with eating disturbances

Objective: To explore the role of body-esteem and self-esteem in the occurrence of academic functioning problems associated with eating disturbances. Participants: 330 university students (aged 16-53 years) in Finland in 2016. Method: Interference with academic functioning measured with the Eating and Body Image Academic Interference Scale. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were performed to describe the relationship of body-esteem, global self-esteem, and age with academic functioning problems associated with eating disturbances. Results: The level of academic functioning problems was low. High appearance-esteem (OR = 0.26; 95% CI [0.14-0.48]) and a five-year increase in age (OR = 0.68; 95% CI [0.52-0.89]) provided protection against academic functioning problems, whereas high evaluations attributed to others about one's body and appearance increased the odds of such problems (OR = 2.25; 95% CI [1.41-3.59]). Conclusion: Problems in academic functioning may relate to problems in eating behavior, body image, and feelings about appearance

Task-oriented reading efficiency: interplay of general cognitive ability, task demands, strategies and reading fluency

The associations among readers’ cognitive skills (general cognitive ability, reading skills, and attentional functioning), task demands (easy versus difficult questions), and process measures (total fixation time on relevant and irrelevant paragraphs) was investigated to explain task-oriented reading accuracy and efficiency (number of scores in a given time unit). Structural equation modeling was applied to a large dataset collected with sixth-grade students, which included samples of dysfluent readers and those with attention difficulties. The results are in line with previous findings regarding the dominant role of general cognitive ability in the accuracy of task-oriented reading. However, efficiency in task-oriented reading was mostly explained by the shorter viewing times of both paragraph types (i.e., relevant and irrelevant), which were modestly explained by general cognitive ability and reading fluency. These findings suggest that high efficiency in task orientation is obtained by relying on a selective reading strategy when reading both irrelevant and relevant paragraphs. The selective reading strategy seems to be specifically learned, and this potentially applies to most students, even those with low cognitive abilities

Individual response to different forms of resistance training in school-aged boys

The aim of this study was to examine individual responses to different forms of resistance training on measures of jumping and sprinting performance in school-aged boys. Eighty boys were categorized into two maturity groups (pre- or post-PHV) and randomly assigned to a plyometric training, resistance training, combined training, or control group. Intervention groups participated in training twice weekly for six weeks, with measures of acceleration, maximal running velocity, squat jump height and reactive strength index collected pre and post intervention. In the pre-PHV cohort, plyometric training and combined training resulted in significantly more positive responders than the other two groups in both sprint variables (standardized residual values > 1.96). In the post-PHV cohort, significantly more positive responders for acceleration and squat jump height resulted from traditional strength training and combined training groups, compared with other groups. Conversely, plyometric training and combined training resulted in a significantly greater number of positive responders than the other two groups for maximal velocity and reactive strength index. Control participants rarely demonstrated meaningful changes in performance over the six-week period. Irrespective of maturation, it would appear that combined training provides the greatest opportunity for most individuals to make short-term improvements in jump and sprint performance. Taking maturation into account, our data show that a plyometric training stimulus is important for individuals in the pre-PHV stage of development, whether as a standalone method or in combination with traditional strength training, when attempting to improve jumping and sprinting ability. However, individuals in the post-PHV stage require a more specific training stimulus depending on the performance variable that is being targeted for improvement

Spatial and Temporal Scales of Sverdrup Balance

Sverdrup balance underlies much of the theory of ocean circulation and provides a potential tool for describing the interior ocean transport from only the wind stress. Using both a model state estimate and an eddy-permitting coupled climate model, this study assesses to what extent and over what spatial and temporal scales Sverdrup balance describes the meridional transport. The authors find that Sverdrup balance holds to first order in the interior subtropical ocean when considered at spatial scales greater than approximately 5°. Outside the subtropics, in western boundary currents and at short spatial scales, significant departures occur due to failures in both the assumptions that there is a level of no motion at some depth and that the vorticity equation is linear. Despite the ocean transport adjustment occurring on time scales consistent with the basin-crossing times for Rossby waves, as predicted by theory, Sverdrup balance gives a useful measure of the subtropical circulation after only a few years. This is because the interannual transport variability is small compared to the mean transports. The vorticity input to the deep ocean by the interaction between deep currents and topography is found to be very large in both models. These deep transports, however, are separated from upper-layer transports that are in Sverdrup balance when considered over large scales

The Association between the Preference for Active Play and Neurological Development in Toddlers: A Register-Based Study

Active play is regarded as physical activity during early childhood. Physical activity has many benefits for children’s physical and psychosocial health and wellbeing, as well as for their cognitive development. The aim of this study was to investigate associations between the preference for active play and neurological development in toddlers. The study was conducted as a register-based study, and the data were collected from a public-health clinic’s electronic health records. The register data about active play used in this study were originally assessed by parents at home and by early years teachers at nurseries. Neurological development was assessed by the public health nurses in public child-health clinics. The data eligible for this study were available from 717 toddlers aged 2.5–3.0 years old (mean: 2.5 years ± 2 months). The majority of toddlers (85%) showed a preference for active play, both at home and at the nursery. The prevalence of delays in the neurological development of toddlers varied in different developmental areas (by 1–15%). Delays in gross motor competence, auditory perception, and self-help skills were associated with a lower preference for active play in nursery settings, but none of the neurodevelopmental items were found to be associated with toddlers’ preference for active play at home. Nurseries need to encourage children to actively play and support their gross motor competence and self-help skills.</p

Dissociation of Cascadia margin gas hydrates in response to contemporary ocean warming

Gas hydrates, pervasive in continental margin sediments, are expected to release methane in response to ocean warming, but the geographic range of dissociation and subsequent flux of methane to the ocean are not well constrained. Sediment column thermal models based on observed water column warming trends offshore Washington (USA) show that a substantial volume of gas hydrate along the entire Cascadia upper continental slope is vulnerable to modern climate change. Dissociation along the Washington sector of the Cascadia margin alone has the potential to release 45–80 Tg of methane by 2100. These results highlight the importance of lower latitude warming to global gas hydrate dynamics and suggest that contemporary warming and downslope retreat of the gas hydrate reservoir occur along a larger fraction of continental margins worldwide than previously recognized

Empathy, engagement, entrainment: the interaction dynamics of aesthetic experience

A recent version of the view that aesthetic experience is based in empathy as inner imitation explains aesthetic experience as the automatic simulation of actions, emotions, and bodily sensations depicted in an artwork by motor neurons in the brain. Criticizing the simulation theory for committing to an erroneous concept of empathy and failing to distinguish regular from aesthetic experiences of art, I advance an alternative, dynamic approach and claim that aesthetic experience is enacted and skillful, based in the recognition of others’ experiences as distinct from one’s own. In combining insights from mainly psychology, phenomenology, and cognitive science, the dynamic approach aims to explain the emergence of aesthetic experience in terms of the reciprocal interaction between viewer and artwork. I argue that aesthetic experience emerges by participatory sense-making and revolves around movement as a means for creating meaning. While entrainment merely plays a preparatory part in this, aesthetic engagement constitutes the phenomenological side of coupling to an artwork and provides the context for exploration, and eventually for moving, seeing, and feeling with art. I submit that aesthetic experience emerges from bodily and emotional engagement with works of art via the complementary processes of the perception–action and motion–emotion loops. The former involves the embodied visual exploration of an artwork in physical space, and progressively structures and organizes visual experience by way of perceptual feedback from body movements made in response to the artwork. The latter concerns the movement qualities and shapes of implicit and explicit bodily responses to an artwork that cue emotion and thereby modulate over-all affect and attitude. The two processes cause the viewer to bodily and emotionally move with and be moved by individual works of art, and consequently to recognize another psychological orientation than her own, which explains how art can cause feelings of insight or awe and disclose aspects of life that are unfamiliar or novel to the viewer