Parent training for preschool ADHD: a randomized controlled trial of specialized and generic programs

BackgroundThe New Forest Parenting Package' (NFPP), an 8-week home-based intervention for parents of preschoolers with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), fosters constructive parenting to target ADHD-related dysfunctions in attention and impulse control. Although NFPP has improved parent and laboratory measures of ADHD in community samples of children with ADHD-like problems, its efficacy in a clinical sample, and relative to an active treatment comparator, is unknown. The aims are to evaluate the short- and long-term efficacy and generalization effects of NFPP compared to an established clinic-based parenting intervention for treating noncompliant behavior [Helping the Noncompliant Child' (HNC)] in young children with ADHD. MethodsA randomized controlled trial with three parallel arms was the design for this study. A total of 164 3-4-year-olds, 73.8% male, meeting DSM-IV ADHD diagnostic criteria were randomized to NFPP (N=67), HNC (N=63), or wait-list control (WL, N=34). All participants were assessed at post-treatment. NFPP and HNC participants were assessed at follow-up in the next school year. Primary outcomes were ADHD ratings by teachers blind to and uninvolved in treatment, and by parents. Secondary ADHD outcomes included clinician assessments, and laboratory measures of on-task behavior and delay of gratification. Other outcomes included parent and teacher ratings of oppositional behavior, and parenting measures. (Trial name: Home-Based Parent Training in ADHD Preschoolers; Registry: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01320098; URL: ). ResultsIn both treatment groups, children's ADHD and ODD behaviors, as well as aspects of parenting, were rated improved by parents at the end of treatment compared to controls. Most of these gains in the children's behavior and in some parenting practices were sustained at follow-up. However, these parent-reported improvements were not corroborated by teacher ratings or objective observations. NFPP was not significantly better, and on a few outcomes significantly less effective, than HNC. ConclusionsThe results do not support the claim that NFPP addresses putative dysfunctions underlying ADHD, bringing about generalized change in ADHD, and its underpinning self-regulatory processes. The findings support documented difficulties in achieving generalization across nontargeted settings, and the importance of using blinded measures to provide meaningful assessments of treatment effects

Developing and sustainably utilize the coastal mudflat areas in China

Coastalmudflat areas are regarded as the important reserve land resource in China. Rational exploitation and development of the mudflat areas can relieve the stress of inadequate land resources. Probing into the developing models of resource exploitation of coastal tidal mudflats is one of the important components of achieving the sustainable development in the coastal areas. Therefore, the development history of coastal mudflats after 1950s in China is briefly introduced in this paper. Then, the status in quo of the modes of development and utilization of coastal mudflat in China the paper is reviewed with a special attention payed to the agricultural use of coastal resource, especially halophytes and improved salt-tolerant varieties planting, agricultural dyke pond and coastal saline-alkali soil remediation. Based on related research frontier, sustainable developmental prospects of these coastal areas are presented as well. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V

Accumulation capacity of ions in cabbage (Brassica oleracea L.) supplied with sea water

Cabbage seedlings were grown hydroponically to study the effects of different concentrations of seawater on the seedling growth, ion content under one-fourth strength Hoagland's nutrient solution in the greenhouse. The biomass of various organs of cabbage seedlings as well as the whole plants was significantly higher in the treatments with 1 g and 2 g sea salt/L than the no-salt control, but the treatments with 4, 5 or 6 g sea salt/L caused a decrease in growth. Root/shoot ratio remained at the level of control regardless of the sea salt treatment. Na+ and Cl- concentration in different parts of cabbage seedlings increased significantly, whereas K+ and Ca2+ concentration generally increased at low concentrations of sea salt and then decreased with increasing seawater concentration. Sodium and K+ concentrations were significantly higher in the stems than roots and leaves regardless of the sea salt treatment. The sea salt treatment increased Mg2+ concentration in stems and leaves of cabbage seedlings. An increase in Na+ and Cl- concentration in roots, stems and leaves of cabbage seedlings was the main contributor to declining ratios of K+/Na+, Ca2+/Na+ and Mg2+/Na+. The obtained data suggest that cabbage seedlings have strong ability to sustain seawater stress by the regulation of transport and distribution of ions

Shear Wave Splitting Analysis to Estimate Fracture Orientation and Frequency Dependent Anisotropy

Shear wave splitting is a well-known method for indication of orientation, radius, and length of fractures in subsurface layers. In this paper, a three component near offset VSP data acquired from a fractured sandstone reservoir in southern part of Iran was used to analyse shear wave splitting and frequency-dependent anisotropy assessment. Polarization angle obtained by performing rotation on radial and transverse components of VSP data was used to determine the direction of polarization of fast shear wave which corresponds to direction of fractures. It was shown that correct implementation of shear wave splitting analysis can be used for determination of fracture direction. During frequency- dependent anisotropy analysis, it was found that the time delays in shear- waves decrease as the frequency increases. It was clearly demonstrated throughout this study that anisotropy may have an inverse relationship with frequency. The analysis presented in this paper complements the studied conducted by other researchers in this field of research

Gate-tunable black phosphorus spin valve with nanosecond spin lifetimes

Two-dimensional materials offer new opportunities for both fundamental science and technological applications, by exploiting the electron spin. While graphene is very promising for spin communication due to its extraordinary electron mobility, the lack of a band gap restricts its prospects for semiconducting spin devices such as spin diodes and bipolar spin transistors. The recent emergence of 2D semiconductors could help overcome this basic challenge. In this letter we report the first important step towards making 2D semiconductor spin devices. We have fabricated a spin valve based on ultra-thin (5 nm) semiconducting black phosphorus (bP), and established fundamental spin properties of this spin channel material which supports all electrical spin injection, transport, precession and detection up to room temperature (RT). Inserting a few layers of boron nitride between the ferromagnetic electrodes and bP alleviates the notorious conductivity mismatch problem and allows efficient electrical spin injection into an n-type bP. In the non-local spin valve geometry we measure Hanle spin precession and observe spin relaxation times as high as 4 ns, with spin relaxation lengths exceeding 6 um. Our experimental results are in a very good agreement with first-principles calculations and demonstrate that Elliott-Yafet spin relaxation mechanism is dominant. We also demonstrate that spin transport in ultra-thin bP depends strongly on the charge carrier concentration, and can be manipulated by the electric field effect

The Conley Conjecture and Beyond

This is (mainly) a survey of recent results on the problem of the existence of infinitely many periodic orbits for Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms and Reeb flows. We focus on the Conley conjecture, proved for a broad class of closed symplectic manifolds, asserting that under some natural conditions on the manifold every Hamiltonian diffeomorphism has infinitely many (simple) periodic orbits. We discuss in detail the established cases of the conjecture and related results including an analog of the conjecture for Reeb flows, the cases where the conjecture is known to fail, the question of the generic existence of infinitely many periodic orbits, and local geometrical conditions that force the existence of infinitely many periodic orbits. We also show how a recently established variant of the Conley conjecture for Reeb flows can be applied to prove the existence of infinitely many periodic orbits of a low-energy charge in a non-vanishing magnetic field on a surface other than a sphere.Comment: 34 pages, 1 figur

Differences in the gas and dust distribution in the transitional disk of a sun-like young star, PDS 70

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this recordThe American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. We present ALMA 0.87 mm continuum, HCO + J = 4-3 emission line, and CO J = 3-2 emission line data of the disk of material around the young, Sun-like star PDS 70. These data reveal the existence of a possible two-component transitional disk system with a radial dust gap of 0.″42 ±0.″05, an azimuthal gap in the HCO + J = 4-3 moment zero map, as well as two bridge-like features in the gas data. Interestingly these features in the gas disk have no analog in the dust disk making them of particular interest. We modeled the dust disk using the Monte Carlo radiative transfer code HOCHUNK3D using a two-disk component. We find that there is a radial gap that extends from 15 to 60 au in all grain sizes, which differs from previous work.This work is supported supported by the NASA XRP grants NNX17AF88G and NNX16AJ75G. MC thanks the support from the Centro de Astrofísica de Valparaíso. S.K. acknowledges support from an STFC Rutherford Fellowship (ST/J004030/1) and ERC Starting Grant (Grant Agreement No. 639889). This work is supported by the Astrobiology Center Program of National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) (Grant Number: AB281013) and by MEXT KAKENHI No. 17K05399 (EA). Y.H. is currently supported by Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract from NASA. This paper makes use of the following ALMA data: ADS/JAO.ALMA#2015.1.00888.S. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), MOST and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO, and NAOJ. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, In

The Effects of Personal Pharmacogenetic Testing on the Effects of Pharmacy Student Perceptions of Knowledge and Attitudes Towards Precision Medicine

Objective: To evaluate if pharmacy students’ participation in personal pharmacogenetic (Pgx) testing enhances their knowledge and attitude towards precision medicine (PM). Methods: First-year pharmacy students were offered personalized pharmacogenetic testing as a supplement to a required curricular pharmacogenomics course. Ninety-eight of 122 (80%) students completed pre- and post-course surveys assessing knowledge and attitudes regarding PM; 73 students also volunteered for personal pharmacogenetic testing of the following drug metabolizing enzymes (CYP2C19, CYP2D6, UGT1A1) and pharmacodynamics-relevant proteins (interleukin (IL)-28B & human lymphocyte antigen HLAB*5701). Results: Among the 122 students, we found that incorporating pharmacogenetic testing improved mean knowledge and attitude by 1.0 and 0.3 Likert points, respectively. We observed statistically significant improvements in 100% of knowledge and 70% of attitude-related statements for students who decided to undergo personal pharmacogenetic testing. Students who were enrolled in the course but did not partake in personalized pharmacogenetic testing had similar gains in knowledge and attitude. Conclusion: This study demonstrates the feasibility and importance of educating future pharmacists by incorporating pharmacogenetic testing into professional school curricula. Students who opt not to participate in genotyping may still benefit by learning vicariously through the shared learning environment created by genotyped students. Conflict of Interest We declare no conflicts of interest or financial interests that the authors or members of their immediate families have in any product or service discussed in the manuscript, including grants (pending or received), employment, gifts, stock holdings or options, honoraria, consultancies, expert testimony, patents and royalties.   Type: Student Projec

Sexuality, rights and personhood: tensions in a transnational world

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This article discusses what happens when normative ‘global’ discourses of rights and individuated sexual identity confront the messiness of ‘local’ realities. It considers the tensions that emerge when the relationship between sexual and social identities is not obvious and the implications of such tensions for public health and sexual rights activism. These questions are addressed through debates over the naming of male-to-male sexualities and desires in the context of globalization and the growth of a large NGO (non-governmental organization) sector in urban Bangladesh.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The material in the paper draws on a research project undertaken in 2008-9 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. A fundamental objective was to produce a contextualized understanding of sexuality in Dhaka city. Methods used included structured interviews, focus group discussions and informal conversations with a range of participants (students, factory workers, public health professionals and sexual minorities). The aim was to generate a conceptual and analytical framework around sexuality and rights rather than to undertake an empirical survey of any one population.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>As descriptors, globalized identity categories such as Men who have Sex with Men (MSM), used by public health providers, the state and donors; and gay/lesbian, invoked by human rights activists and transnational NGOs, are too narrow to capture the fluid and highly context-specific ways in which gender and sexually nonconforming persons understand themselves in Bangladesh. Further, class position mediates to a significant degree the reception, appropriation or rejection of transnational categories such as MSM and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT). The tension is reflected in the sometimes fraught relations between service providers to MSM, the people they serve and an emerging group who identify as LGBT.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>A simple politics of recognition will be inadequate to the task of promoting health and human rights for all; such a strategy would effectively exclude individuals who do not necessarily connect their sexual practices with a specific sexual or social identity.</p