"Risk homeostasis"or "teachable moment"? the interaction between smoking behavior and lung cancer screening in the Mayo Lung Project

The chest X-ray lung cancer screening program of Mayo Lung Project (MLP) yielded mixed results of improved lung case survival but no improvement in lung cancer mortality. This paper analyzes the smoking patterns of study participants in order to examine possible behavioral ramifications of periodic lung cancer screening. Using a longitudinal difference-of-difference model, we compared the smoking behavior, in terms of current smoker status among all subjects and the intensity of smoking among those continuing smokers, between those who received periodic lung cancer screening and those who received usual-care. In both arms of this lung cancer screening trial, there was a sizable decline in cigarette smoking one year after participants received baseline prevalence screening. There was no significant difference in current smoker status between the intervention group receiving periodic X-ray screening and the control group receiving usual care. While we detect that the continuing smokers in the intervention group smoked more than their counterparts in the control group, the magnitude of the difference is not sufficient to explain a substantial difference in lung cancer incidence between the two groups. Our study shows that periodic lung screening in MLP did not decrease smoking behavior beyond the observed decline following the initial prevalence screening conducted at baseline for both the intervention and control groups. Our results also indicate, paradoxically, that participants assigned to the intervention group smoked more cigarettes per day on average than those in the control group. Lung cancer screening programs need additional cessation components to sustain the abstinence effect typically observed following initial lung screening

Still Kicking: Aging Performing Artists in NYC and LA Metro Areas: Information on Artists IV

No one has tackled the unique and urgent needs of artists as they grow old. While foundations and other funders have long directed their largesse to emerging and even mid-career artists, notably few have concerned themselves with the artist as s/he matures into old age—artistically, emotionally, financially and chronologically. Special attention to aging artists is important for material support and policy-making and is made more urgent in a time of scarce resources when the baby boomer generation is about to enter the ranks of the retired. In 2007, the Research Center for Arts and Culture at Columbia University’s Teachers College (RCAC) conducted its pioneering study, Information on Artists III: Special Focus: New York City Aging Artists (IOA III Aging).1 Published as ABOVE GROUND, this study’s purpose was to understand how artists—who often reach artistic maturity and artistic satisfaction as they age—are supported and integrated within their communities, and how their network structures change over time. That pilot was the basis for this study: Information on Artists IV: Aging Performing Artists (IOA IV Aging) in the US metro areas of Los Angeles and New York. In 2000, the RCAC became the first investigator in the arts to use a new method to locate hard-to-find populations called Respondent-driven sampling (RDS). This method, developed by sociologist Douglas Heckathorn from Cornell University and used for our National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)-commissioned Study of the Worklife of Jazz Musicians (www.tc.edu/rcac), yields important data and information that may otherwise remain undetected by other research methods. RDS effectively identifies and verifies the social networks of the hidden populations studied. Capitalizing on both its track record with our earlier study of visual artists and this new method, in 2010, the RCAC interviewed 230 NYC metro area performing artists 62 or over, 219 of whom are professionals: 140 NYC actors, 7 NYC choreographers, 28 NYC dancers, 17 NYC musicians and 27 NYC singers. In the LA metro area we interviewed 52 performing artists 62+, 51 of whom are professionals: 37 actors, 3 choreographers, 3 dancers, 4 musicians and 4 singers. This analysis is based on results from the 219 professional performing artists in NYC and the 51 in Los Angeles. Because of the small number of interviews in the LA metro area, our discussions below are based on the aggregate of 51; in some cases, we break out the data on different kinds of performers, but these findings should be viewed with caution

An Assessment of U.S. Drug Problems and Policy

This PDF document was made available from www.rand.org as a public service of the RAND Corporation. Jump down to document6 INTERNATIONAL AFFAIR

Low-Frequency Heroin Injection among Out-of-Treatment, Street-Recruited Injection Drug Users

In this paper, we explore the understudied phenomenon of "low-frequency" heroin injection in a sample of street-recruited heroin injectors not in drug treatment. We conducted a cross-sectional study of 2,410 active injection drug users (IDUs) recruited in San Francisco, California from 2000 to 2005. We compare the sociodemographic characteristics and injection risk behaviors of low-frequency heroin injectors (low-FHI; one to 10 self-reported heroin injections in the past 30 days) to high-frequency heroin injectors (high-FHI; 30 or more self-reported heroin injections in the past 30 days). Fifteen percent of the sample met criteria for low-FHI. African American race, men who have sex with men (MSM) behavior, and injection and noninjection methamphetamine use were independently associated with low-FHI. Compared to high-FHI, low-FHI were less likely to report syringe sharing and nonfatal heroin overdose. A small but significant proportion of heroin injectors inject heroin 10 or less times per month. Additional research is needed to qualitatively examine low-frequency heroin injection and its relationship to drug use trajectories

An Overview of the 2014 ALMA Long Baseline Campaign

A major goal of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is to make accurate images with resolutions of tens of milliarcseconds, which at submillimeter (submm) wavelengths requires baselines up to ~15 km. To develop and test this capability, a Long Baseline Campaign (LBC) was carried out from September to late November 2014, culminating in end-to-end observations, calibrations, and imaging of selected Science Verification (SV) targets. This paper presents an overview of the campaign and its main results, including an investigation of the short-term coherence properties and systematic phase errors over the long baselines at the ALMA site, a summary of the SV targets and observations, and recommendations for science observing strategies at long baselines. Deep ALMA images of the quasar 3C138 at 97 and 241 GHz are also compared to VLA 43 GHz results, demonstrating an agreement at a level of a few percent. As a result of the extensive program of LBC testing, the highly successful SV imaging at long baselines achieved angular resolutions as fine as 19 mas at ~350 GHz. Observing with ALMA on baselines of up to 15 km is now possible, and opens up new parameter space for submm astronomy.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, 2 tables; accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters; this version with small changes to affiliation

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13

Search for direct stau production in events with two hadronic tau-leptons in root s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of the supersymmetric partners ofτ-leptons (staus) in final stateswith two hadronically decayingτ-leptons is presented. The analysis uses a dataset of pp collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of139fb−1, recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LargeHadron Collider at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. No significant deviation from the expected StandardModel background is observed. Limits are derived in scenarios of direct production of stau pairs with eachstau decaying into the stable lightest neutralino and oneτ-lepton in simplified models where the two staumass eigenstates are degenerate. Stau masses from 120 GeV to 390 GeV are excluded at 95% confidencelevel for a massless lightest neutralino

Search for chargino-neutralino production with mass splittings near the electroweak scale in three-lepton final states in √s=13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for supersymmetry through the pair production of electroweakinos with mass splittings near the electroweak scale and decaying via on-shell W and Z bosons is presented for a three-lepton final state. The analyzed proton-proton collision data taken at a center-of-mass energy of √s=13  TeV were collected between 2015 and 2018 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139  fb−1. A search, emulating the recursive jigsaw reconstruction technique with easily reproducible laboratory-frame variables, is performed. The two excesses observed in the 2015–2016 data recursive jigsaw analysis in the low-mass three-lepton phase space are reproduced. Results with the full data set are in agreement with the Standard Model expectations. They are interpreted to set exclusion limits at the 95% confidence level on simplified models of chargino-neutralino pair production for masses up to 345 GeV