The role of religiousness on substance-use disorder treatment outcomes: a comparison of black and white adolescents

This study compares 41 Black and 124 White adolescents at intake and discharge from a residential treatment program for substance-use disorders. Study data were obtained as part of a larger study (N = 195) that sought to assess the relationship of helping behavior and addiction recovery. This post-hoc analysis aims to identify cultural strengths that may be associated with recovery from substance-use disorders among Black adolescents. Using regression analyses and controlling for the severity of substance use and background variables that distinguish racial groups, religious practices and behaviors at intake were examined. Specifically, Black youth and White youth were compared on treatment outcomes, including alcohol or drug use during treatment, drug craving, 12-Step work, and 12-Step helping. The burden of health and socioeconomic disparities at intake did not disproportionately disfavor Black adolescents. Outcomes related to 12-Step measures were similar between Black and White youth. White adolescents reported higher craving scores at discharge, and Black adolescents were more likely to use drugs during treatment. High levels of religiousness at treatment intake were linked to greater 12-Step work and greater 12-Step helping at discharge. High levels of religiousness at intake were not related to drug use during treatment or to craving scores at discharge. The relationship between intake levels of religiousness and treatment-related outcomes did not differ by race.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3437261/Accepted manuscrip

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Evaluating global climate models for the Pacific island region

While the practice of reporting multi-model ensemble climate projections is well established, there is much debate regarding the most appropriate methods of evaluating model performance, for the purpose of eliminating and/or weighting models based on skill. The CMIP3 model evaluation undertaken by the Pacific Climate Change Science Program (PCCSP) is presented here. This includes a quantitative assessment of the ability of the models to simulate 3 climate variables: (1) surface air temperature, (2) precipitation and (3) surface wind); 3 climate features: (4) the South Pacific Convergence Zone, (5) the Intertropical Convergence Zone and (6) the West Pacific Monsoon; as well as (7) the El Niño Southern Oscillation, (8) spurious model drift and (9) the long term warming signal. For each of 1 to 9, it is difficult to identify a clearly superior subset of models, but it is generally possible to isolate particularly poor performing models. Based on this analysis, we recommend that the following models be eliminated from the multi-model ensemble, for the purposes of calculating PCCSP climate projections: INM-CM3.0, PCM and GISS-EH (consistently poor performance on 1 to 9); INGV-SXG (strong model drift); GISS-AOM and GISS-ER (poor ENSO simulation, which was considered a critical aspect of the tropical Pacific climate). Since there are relatively few studies in the peer reviewed literature that have attempted to combine metrics of model performance pertaining to such a wide variety of climate processes and phenomena, we propose that the approach of the PCCSP could be adapted to any region and set of climate model simulations

An integrative review of systematic reviews related to the management of breathlessness in respiratory illnesses

Background: breathlessness is a debilitating and distressing symptom in a wide variety of diseases and still a difficult symptom to manage. An integrative review of systematic reviews of non-pharmacological and pharmacological interventions for breathlessness in non-malignant disease was undertaken to identify the current state of clinical understanding of the management of breathlessness and highlight promising interventions that merit further investigation.Methods: systematic reviews were identified via electronic databases between July 2007 and September 2009. Reviews were included within the study if they reported research on adult participants using either a measure of breathlessness or some other measure of respiratory symptoms.Results: in total 219 systematic reviews were identified and 153 included within the final review, of these 59 addressed non-pharmacological interventions and 94 addressed pharmacological interventions. The reviews covered in excess of 2000 trials. The majority of systematic reviews were conducted on interventions for asthma and COPD, and mainly focussed upon a small number of pharmacological interventions such as corticosteroids and bronchodilators, including beta-agonists. In contrast, other conditions involving breathlessness have received little or no attention and studies continue to focus upon pharmacological approaches. Moreover, although there are a number of non-pharmacological studies that have shown some promise, particularly for COPD, their conclusions are limited by a lack of good quality evidence from RCTs, small sample sizes and limited replication.Conclusions: more research should focus in the future on the management of breathlessness in respiratory diseases other than asthma and COPD. In addition, pharmacological treatments do not completely manage breathlessness and have an added burden of side effects. It is therefore important to focus more research on promising non-pharmacological intervention

SMARCB1-mediated SWI/SNF complex function is essential for enhancer regulation

SMARCB1 (SNF5/INI1/BAF47), a core subunit of the SWI/SNF (BAF) chromatin remodeling complex1,2, is inactivated in nearly all pediatric rhabdoid tumors3–5. These aggressive cancers are among the most genomically stable6–8, suggesting an epigenetic mechanism by which SMARCB1 loss drives transformation. Here, we show that despite indistinguishable mutational landscapes, human rhabdoid tumors show distinct enhancer H3K27ac signatures, which reveal remnants of differentiation programs. We show that SMARCB1 is required for the integrity of SWI/SNF complexes and that its loss alters enhancer targeting – markedly impairing SWI/SNF binding to typical enhancers, particularly those required for differentiation, while maintaining SWI/SNF binding at super-enhancers. We show that these retained super-enhancers are essential for rhabdoid tumor survival, including some that are shared across all subtypes, such as SPRY1, and other lineage-specific super-enhancers, like SOX2 in brain-derived rhabdoid tumors. Taken together, our findings reveal a novel chromatin-based epigenetic mechanism underlying the tumor suppressive activity of SMARCB1