California's Most Vulnerable Parents: When Maltreated Children Have Children

This report takes an in-depth look at the intersection between teen births, child maltreatment, and involvement with the child protection system. Putnam-Hornstein, along with other researchers at USC and the University of California, Berkeley, linked and then analyzed roughly 1.5 million California birth records and 1 million CPS records, with a second phase of research focusing on the maltreatment risk of children born to adolescent mothers.In 2012, California became one of the first states in the nation to extend foster youth status until age 21. Different programs and services will likely be required to adequately respond to the needs and circumstances of non-minor youth who remain in the foster care system, particularly in the area of parenting supports. This report finds that as many as one in three female youth in California may be parenting by the time they exit the foster care system on their 21st birthday

Exploring Racial Disproportionalities and Disparities for Black Families Involved with the Child Welfare System

Background: The overrepresentation of Black families in child welfare systems across the various geographical locations (e.g. America, Canada, United Kingdom) is a growing concern. There are competing explanations for the causes of overrepresentation and recommendations for eliminating racial disproportionalities and disparities in child welfare system. This systemic scoping review will provide a succinct synthesis of the current literature on Black disproportionality and disparity in child welfare. Methods/Design: This systemic scoping review will employ Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) five stage framework. This will direct our search of the seven academic databases (EBSCO: Criminal Justice Abstracts OVID: Social Work Abstracts Pro Quest: PsychINFO, ERIC, Sociological Abstracts, International Bibliography of Social Sciences and Web of Science Core Collections). These seven databases have been chosen due to their interdisciplinary resources on the issue of overrepresentation of Black families in the child welfare sector. The thematic findings will be systemically synthesized using qualitative analysis and presented visually through a chart. Eligible articles for this scoping review include literature that speaks directly to the experiences of Black families involved with the child welfare system. The results of this scoping review will increase the understanding of how racial disproportionalities and disparities emerge, common outcomes and ways to begin tackling this phenomenon for Black families. Discussion: In order to tackle this gap in knowledge regarding the overrepresentation of Black families in the child welfare system, this comprehensive scoping review will systematically organize the literature in order to understand how this issue manifests and to fill this gap in research. This methodological approach will allow for the development of practical and intentional methods to move forward in mitigating this issue

Setting policy priorities to address eating disorders and weight stigma: views from the field of eating disorders and the US general public

Background: The prevalence and health consequences of eating disorders and weight stigmatization have prompted increasing discussion of potential policy actions to address these public health issues. The present study aimed to assess support for policy strategies to address eating disorders and weight stigmatization among the general public and relevant health professionals. Methods: An Internet survey was fielded to a national sample of 944 US adults and 1,420 members of professional organizations specializing in eating disorders to examine their support for 23 potential policy strategies to address eating disorders and weight stigma. Participants also rated policy actions according to their potential for positive impact and feasible implementation. Results: Support for the majority of health and social policies was high in both samples. For example, strategies to 1) improve school-based health curriculum to include content aimed at preventing eating disorders, 2) require training for educators and health providers on the prevention and early identification of eating disorders, and 3) implement school-based anti-bullying policies that that protect students from being bullied about their weight, were supported by over two-thirds of participants. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that both health and social policy actions will be important in broader policy initiatives to address eating disorders and weight stigma

Tribology of piston skirt conjunction

Frictional losses in the piston skirt to cylinder liner conjunction account for approximately 2.5% of the energy supplied to the modern car [1]. These losses are contributed by viscous shear of the lubricant and asperity interactions on the contiguous surfaces. However, for most of the piston cycle the regime of lubrication is dominated by elastohydrodynamics or hydrodynamics. Hence, friction due to viscous shear is dominant. Most idealistic analyses employ a “cold” piston skirt shape and use either a measured profile or by approximated polynomials as the input shape [2-4]. In reality, however, pistons are subject, not only to contact forces, but also thermo-mechanical distortion. These are as the result of thermal expansion of the piston as well as its global mechanical deformation in situ. They alter the pistonliner conjunctional gap. The piston structure is designed in such a way as to prevent gross localised wear in service by means of skirt profile and structural stiffness modification [5]. Considering the combined effect of global as well as local deformation of the skirt under the influence of contact force, it is vital to take into account the effect of shape and rigidity of both the piston and liner structures in an integrated thermoelastic and elastohydrodynamic analysis. This approach is more representative of the in situ “hot” skirt condition as noted by McClure [6]. This paper shows the significant differences observed in the generated pressures, film thickness and friction by comparing “cold” piston profiles; disregarding large scale global deformation and “hot” thermo-elastically deformed skirt conjunctions with representative skirt stiffness

A Pilot Study Exploring the Potential of Improv in Strengthening Youth–Adult Partnerships

This study qualitatively explored the potential of improv for strengthening youth–adult partnerships. Seven members of a youth-adult research collaborative participated in a 2-hour professionally facilitated improv workshop. Participants provided insights about their experiences through a follow-up qualitative interview questionnaire. Participants indicated that improv assisted in dismantling power differentials that often exist in youth–adult partnership contexts, also noting that improv helped them to express their true selves more readily, along with helping them to see new and more “human” sides to their team members. Participants were enthusiastic about accessing further improv opportunities, noting that improv should be embedded into other youth–adult partnership efforts, as such approaches were deemed particularly helpful in building relationships and trust. The further inclusion of improv activities in youthserving intervention and prevention efforts would benefit from additional exploration as ways by which youth–adult collaborations might be innovated and strengthened

The Role of Differential Ablation and Dynamic Detachment in Driving Accelerating Mass Loss From a Debris-Covered Himalayan Glacier

Sustained mass loss from Himalayan glaciers is causing supraglacial debris to expand and thicken, with the expectation that thicker debris will suppress ablation and extend glacier longevity. However, debris-covered glaciers are losing mass at similar rates to clean-ice glaciers in High Mountain Asia. This rapid mass loss is attributed to the combined effects of; (a) low or reversed mass balance gradients across debris-covered glacier tongues, (b) differential ablation processes that locally enhance ablation within the debris-covered section of the glacier, for example, at ice cliffs and supraglacial ponds, and (c) a decrease in ice flux from the accumulation area in response to climatic warming. Adding meter-scale spatial variations in supraglacial debris thickness to an ice-flow model of Khumbu Glacier, Nepal, increased mass loss by 47% relative to simulations assuming a continuous debris layer over a 31-year period (1984–2015 CE) but overestimated the reduction in ice flux. Therefore, we investigated if simulating the effects of dynamic detachment of the upper active glacier from the debris-covered tongue would give a better representation of glacier behavior, as suggested by observations of change in glacier dynamics and structure indicating that this process occurred during the last 100 years. Observed glacier change was reproduced more reliably in simulations of the active, rather than entire, glacier extent, indicating that Khumbu Glacier has passed a dynamic tipping point by dynamically detaching from the heavily debris-covered tongue that contains 20% of the former ice volume

Does sexual orientation vary between disabled and non-disabled men? findings from a population-based study of men in Australia

Some research suggests that disabled people are more likely to be sexual minorities than non-disabled people, but this evidence comes mainly from younger or older populations. We used data from a large survey of Australian men aged 18–55 to examine the relationship between disability and minority sexual orientations. Results from our statistical analyses suggest that a larger proportion of disabled than non-disabled men are sexual minorities. Our estimates showed that disabled men were at least twice as likely as non-disabled men to be attracted to females and males, not experience sexual attraction, identify as bisexual, identify as homosexual and have female and male sexual partners—relative to the likelihood of female-only attraction, heterosexual identity and female-only sexual partners. Findings provide new information about sexual diversity in disabled versus non-disabled Australian men, which can help inform inclusive service provision and identify avenues for future research about sexual minority disabled people

Seawater softening of suture zones inhibits fracture propagation in Antarctic ice shelves

Suture zones are abundant on Antarctic ice shelves and widely observed to impede fracture propagation, greatly enhancing ice-shelf stability. Using seismic and radar observations on the Larsen C Ice Shelf of the Antarctic Peninsula, we confirm that such zones are highly heterogeneous, consisting of multiple meteoric and marine ice bodies of diverse provenance fused together. Here we demonstrate that fracture detainment is predominantly controlled by enhanced seawater content in suture zones, rather than by enhanced temperature as previously thought. We show that interstitial seawater can reduce fracture-driving stress by orders of magnitude, promoting both viscous relaxation and the development of micro cracks, the incidence of which scales inversely with stress intensity. We show how simple analysis of viscous buckles in ice-penetrating radar data can quantify the seawater content of suture zones and their modification of the ice-shelf’s stress regime. By limiting fracture, enhancing stability and restraining continental ice discharge into the ocean, suture zones act as vital regulators of Antarctic mass balance

Human Papillomavirus Risk Perceptions Among Young Adult Sexual Minority Cisgender Women and Nonbinary Individuals Assigned Female at Birth

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148405/1/psrh12087_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148405/2/psrh12087.pd

Quaternary evolution of the northern North Sea margin through glacigenic debris-flow and contourite deposition

The Norwegian Channel Ice Stream of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet extended across the northern North Sea margin during the mid- to late Quaternary, eroding older sediment from the continental shelf. Consequently, little is known about early Quaternary sedimentation on this margin. We use two- and three-dimensional seismic-reflection data to investigate changing sediment volumes and sources in the northern North Sea through the Quaternary. The northern North Sea Basin was infilled during the early Quaternary by intercalated glacigenic debris-flows and contourites, which provide a record of the delivery of glacigenic sediment to the slope and the intensity of North Atlantic thermohaline circulation during early Quaternary glacial-interglacial cycles. The infilling of the basin reduced accommodation and led to the deflection of mid- to late Quaternary sediments into the Norwegian Sea, forming the North Sea Fan. Close to the onset of the mid-Quaternary, the south-western Scandinavian Ice Sheet margin was drained by an ice stream located beneath Måløy Plateau, 60 km east of the Last Glacial Maximum Norwegian Channel Ice Stream. The southward-flowing Norwegian Sea Bottom Water current was directed into the partially filled northern North Sea Basin during the early Quaternary, and deflected progressively northwards as the basin became infilled.During this work, C. L. Batchelor was in receipt of a Junior Research Fellowship at Newnham College, Cambridge