Alcohol and cannabis use among adolescents in Flemish secondary school in Brussels: effects of type of education

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Research regarding socio-economic differences in alcohol and drug use in adolescence yields mixed results. This study hypothesizes that (1) when using education type as a proxy of one's social status, clear differences will exist between students from different types of education, regardless of students' familial socio-economic background; (2) and that the effects of education type differ according to their cultural background.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data from the Brussels youth monitor were used, a school survey administered among 1,488 adolescents from the 3rd to 6th year of Flemish secondary education. Data were analyzed using multilevel logistic regression models.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Controlling for their familial background, the results show that native students in lower educational tracks use alcohol and cannabis more often than students in upper educational tracks. Such a relationship was not found for students from another ethnic background.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Results from this study indicate that research into health risks should take into account both adolescents' familial background and individual social position as different components of youngsters' socio-economic background.</p

Derivation of consistent hard rock (1000<Vs<3000 m/s) GMPEs from surface and down-hole recordings: Analysis of KiK-net data

A key component in seismic hazard assessment is the estimation of ground motion for hard rock sites, either for applications to installations built on this site category, or as an input motion for site response computation. Empirical ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs) are the traditional basis for estimating ground motion while VS30 is the basis to account for site conditions. As current GMPEs are poorly constrained for VS30 larger than 1000 m/s, the presently used approach for estimating hazard on hard rock sites consists of “host-to-target” adjustment techniques based on VS30 and κ0 values. The present study investigates alternative methods on the basis of a KiK-net dataset corresponding to stiff and rocky sites with 500 < VS30 < 1350 m/s. The existence of sensor pairs (one at the surface and one in depth) and the availability of P- and S-wave velocity profiles allow deriving two “virtual” datasets associated to outcropping hard rock sites with VS in the range [1000, 3000] m/s with two independent corrections: 1/down-hole recordings modified from within motion to outcropping motion with a depth correction factor, 2/surface recordings deconvolved from their specific site response derived through 1D simulation. GMPEs with simple functional forms are then developed, including a VS30 site term. They lead to consistent and robust hard-rock motion estimates, which prove to be significantly lower than host-to-target adjustment predictions. The difference can reach a factor up to 3–4 beyond 5 Hz for very hard-rock, but decreases for decreasing frequency until vanishing below 2 Hz

European Lung Cancer Working Party Clinical Practice Guidelines. Small Cell Lung Cnacer: IV. Limited disease

The present guidelines on the management of limited disease small cell lung cancer (SCLC) were formulated by the ELCWP in April 2007. They are designed to answer the following seven questions: 1) What is the definition of limited disease? 2) Should chest radiotherapy be provided and what are the benefits? 3) What is the optimal timing and mode of administration of chest irradiation? 4) Which are the optimal radiotherapy parameters: dose, fractionation, target volume? 5) What is the optimal chemotherapy regimen for limited disease SCLC? 6) Should prophylactic cranial irradiation be provided, when and for which patients? 7) What is the additional role of thoracic surgery in early SCLC

Female senior secondary physics students’ engagement in science: a qualitative study of constructive influences

Background: Prompted by fewer females compared to males enrolling in physics and advanced mathematics at both secondary and university levels, our research investigated the views and experiences of female students currently studying upper secondary school physics. We interviewed 18 female students about influences they considered important to their own science education, interest in science, and future science-related aspirations. Our purpose was to identify the experiences that these students most strongly associated with the generation and maintenance of their engagement in science, particularly represented in this research by their enrolment in upper secondary physics. Results: The research team used a systematic, iterative process to identify the main themes in the transcribed interview data. We identified the influence each girl reported as the strongest (ranked first). We also combined all influences that the participants had nominated, regardless of their ranking, to further examine all factors participants suggested as influential in their sustained engagement in school science (represented by their decision to study upper secondary physics). Systematic analysis of the interview data confirms that the influences on these females’ choices to study physics at upper secondary originate from a combination of their teachers, their school’s science culture, members of their family, the participants themselves and their peers. Conclusions: The interviews highlighted the idiographic complexities in understanding the wide range of important influences on these students studying physics at upper secondary school and their engagement in science. The unique contribution of this work is giving voice to the participants and reflecting on what these high achieving females have to say about the influential factors in their decisions to pursue science. Supportive teachers and the school science culture play essential roles, and other cultural and/or social factors such as family members and peers are identified as important. References to the culture and expectations of the school, family holidays, and conversations with siblings are support factors that seem to interact and overlap. At the same time, the importance of policy-amenable factors such as competent and caring science teachers, and science-supportive school cultures should be emphasised and encouraged

AIDS knowledge and sexual activity among Flemish secondary school students: a multilevel analysis of the effects of type of education

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The behavior of adolescents puts them at an increased risk for HIV and other STIs, and their knowledge about HIV/AIDS is often inadequate. An understanding of how AIDS knowledge and sexual activity co-vary among Flemish secondary school students and of how education type, specifically, affects these students is limited. This study addresses the question of whether the effects of education type on HIV/AIDS knowledge and sexual activity are independent of the socio-demographic characteristics of the students.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data from the Flemish Educational Assessment survey, which collected data from a large representative sample of third- and fifth-grade high school students (<it>N </it>= 11,872), were used. Data were analyzed using multilevel logistic and Poisson regression techniques.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There is an indication that type of education affects both an adolescent's sexual activity and his/her AIDS knowledge; these effects prove robust for differences in socio-economic backgrounds. Students in lower status education types are more likely to be sexually active and to have poorer AIDS knowledge. The relationship between AIDS knowledge and sexual activity is, however, more complex. Although students in education types with poorer AIDS knowledge are more sexually active, within each of these groups the sexually active have better AIDS knowledge than the non-sexually active. There is also evidence of active information seeking by sexually active students, which leads to improved AIDS knowledge.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These findings are consistent with the literature on the role of the educational system in the reproduction of social inequalities. Students from lower status education types are at increased sexual risk compared to those from higher status types. There is also evidence of active information seeking by sexually active students, which leads to improved AIDS knowledge.</p

Children reading to dogs: a systematic review of the literature

Background Despite growing interest in the value of human-animal interactions (HAI) to human mental and physical health the quality of the evidence on which postulated benefits from animals to human psychological health are based is often unclear. To date there exist no systematic reviews on the effects of HAI in educational settings specifically focussing on the perceived benefits to children of reading to dogs. With rising popularity and implementation of these programmes in schools, it is essential that the evidence base exploring the pedagogic value of these initiatives is well documented. Methods Using PRISMA guidelines we systematically investigated the literature reporting the pedagogic effects of reading to dogs. Because research in this area is in the early stages of scientific enquiry we adopted broad inclusion criteria, accepting all reports which discussed measurable effects related to the topic that were written in English. Multiple online databases were searched during January-March 2015; grey literature searches were also conducted. The search results which met the inclusion criteria were evaluated, and discussed, in relation to the Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine levels of evidence; 27 papers were classified as Level 5, 13 as Level 4, 7 as Level 2c and 1 as Level 2b. Conclusion The evidence suggests that reading to a dog may have a beneficial effect on a number of behavioural processes which contribute to a positive effect on the environment in which reading is practiced, leading to improved reading performance. However, the evidence base on which these inferences are made is of low quality. There is a clear need for the use of higher quality research methodologies and the inclusion of appropriate controls in order to draw causal inferences on whether or how reading to dogs may benefit children’s reading practices. The mechanisms for any effect remain a matter of conjectur

Socio-demographic factors associated with pet ownership amongst adolescents from a UK birth cohort

Background: In developed nations, pet ownership is common within families. Both physical and psychological health benefits may result from owning a pet during childhood and adolescence. However, it is difficult to determine whether these benefits are due to pet ownership directly or to factors linked to both pet ownership and health. Previous research found associations between a range of socio-demographic factors and pet ownership in seven-year-old children from a UK cohort. The current study extends this research to adolescence, considering that these factors may be important to consider in future Human-Animal Interaction (HAI) research across childhood.Results:The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) collected pet ownership data prospectively via maternal reports from gestation up to age 10 years old and via self-report retrospectively at age 18 for ages 11(n= 3063) to 18 years old (n= 3098) on cats, dogs, rabbits, rodents, birds, fish, tortoise/turtles and horses. The dataset also contains a wide range of potential confounders, including demographic and socio-economic variables.The ownership of all pet types peaked at age 11 (80%) and then decreased during adolescence, with the exclusion of cats which remained constant (around 30%), and dogs which increased through 11–18 years (26–37%). Logistic regression was used to build multivariable models for ownership of each pet type at age 13 years, and the factors identified in these models were compared to previously published data for 7 year-olds in the same cohort. There was some consistency with predictors reported at age 7. Generally sex, birth order, maternal age, maternal education, number of people in the household, house type, and concurrent ownership of other pets were associated with pet ownership at both 7 and 13 years (the direction of association varied according to pet type).Factors that were no longer associated with adolescent pet ownership included child ethnicity, paternal education,and parental social class.Conclusions:A number of socio-demographic factors are associated with pet ownership in childhood and adolescence and they differ according to the type of pet, and age of child. These factors are potential confounders that must be considered in future HAI studies

Predicting Protein Phenotypes Based on Protein-Protein Interaction Network

BACKGROUND: Identifying associated phenotypes of proteins is a challenge of the modern genetics since the multifactorial trait often results from contributions of many proteins. Besides the high-through phenotype assays, the computational methods are alternative ways to identify the phenotypes of proteins. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here, we proposed a new method for predicting protein phenotypes in yeast based on protein-protein interaction network. Instead of only the most likely phenotype, a series of possible phenotypes for the query protein were generated and ranked according to the tethering potential score. As a result, the first order prediction accuracy of our method achieved 65.4% evaluated by Jackknife test of 1,267 proteins in budding yeast, much higher than the success rate (15.4%) of a random guess. And the likelihood of the first 3 predicted phenotypes including all the real phenotypes of the proteins was 70.6%. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The candidate phenotypes predicted by our method provided useful clues for the further validation. In addition, the method can be easily applied to the prediction of protein associated phenotypes in other organisms

Investigation of the effect of temper rolling on the texture evolution and mechanical behavior of IF steels using multiscale simulation

The main objective of this study is to simulate texture and deformation during the temper-rolling process. To this end, a rate-independent crystal plasticity model, based on the self-consistent scale-transition scheme, is adopted to predict texture evolution and deformation heterogeneity during temper-rolling process. For computational efficiency, a decoupled analysis is considered between the polycrystalline plasticity model and the finite element analysis for the temper rolling. The elasto-plastic finite element analysis is first carried out to determine the history of velocity gradient during the numerical simulation of temper rolling. The thus calculated velocity gradient history is subsequently applied to the polycrystalline plasticity model. By following some appropriately selected strain paths (i.e., streamlines) along the rolling process, one can predict the texture evolution of the material at the half thickness of the sheet metal as well as other parameters related to its microstructure. The numerical results obtained by the proposed strategy are compared with experimental data in the case of IF steels.French program “Investment in the future” operated by the National Research Agency (ANR)-11-LABX-0008-01, LabEx DAMAS (LST)