Observational study on the consumption of recreational drugs and alcohol by Swiss travelers.

BACKGROUND: Studies carried out on specific travelers' groups such as students describe an increase in the consumption of alcohol and drugs during travel and vacation time. The present study investigates the risk behaviors (alcohol and drugs) in a general adult population in Switzerland travelling abroad who visited a travel clinic before departure. METHODS: This retrospective study was conducted in a travel clinic between January 2006 and December 2008. 14,496 patients came to the clinic for a pre-travel consultation. 3,537 of them answered a questionnaire about their life habits in Switzerland and during their last trip. The only exclusion criterion was an age inferior to 18 years old.The consumption habits of drugs and at-risk alcohol intake (8 standard drinks (SD) per week for women and 15 SD for men) was analyzed according to gender, sex, destination and profession. Predictors of adopting a risky behavior between habits in Switzerland and during their previous trip were also analyzed. RESULTS: 7% (229/3477) of participants declared having at-risk alcohol consumption in Switzerland and 14% (473/3275 [95% CI 13-16]) during their trip. 9% (332/3527) of the participants used drugs in Switzerland and 5% (178/3481) during their trip. Risk factors for at-risk alcohol consumption during a trip were: at-risk alcohol consumption in Switzerland (OR 31[95% CI 21-45]), smoking (1.7 [95% CI 1-2]), use of drugs in Switzerland (OR 2.2 [95% CI 2-3]), leisure travel (OR 1.6 [95% CI 1-2]) and managerial professions (OR 1.8 [95% CI 1-3]). Risk factors for the use of drugs during a trip were: alcohol consumption in Switzerland (OR 2.1 [95% CI 1-4]), smoking (OR 1.9 [95% CI 1-3]), and use of drugs in Switzerland (OR 29.7 [95% CI 19-45]). CONCLUSIONS: At-risk alcohol consumption and, to a lesser extent, use of drugs, affect a large number of travelers which expose them to health problems during a trip. Exploring the alcohol and drugs consumption patterns of people visiting a travel clinic should be part of the pre-travel routine consultation and would allow to identifying people who would benefit most from a specific prevention

The relationship of intervention acceptability and integrity in general classroom interventions

Increasing emphasis is being placed on providing educational interventions for children with learning and behavioral problems in the least restrictive environment (LRE). This results in greater pressure on teachers, who have often had little or no specialized training in classroom management and individualized educational needs. Efforts to assist teachers working with students having difficulty usually involve teachers using a problem-solving process to develop individualized interventions. However, little applied research has been conducted to confirm the critical factors important in developing and implementing interventions to achieve positive student outcomes in school settings;Several factors suggested as important in intervention implementation include intervention acceptability, integrity, and effectiveness. Both intervention acceptability and integrity are hypothesized to influence intervention implementation and effectiveness. Most school-based intervention plans do not include assessment of these factors. Little research has been completed to examine interventions in applied settings to determine if the hypothesized relationship between the components exists;The overall purpose of this project was to assess the relationships between intervention acceptability, intervention integrity, and the effectiveness of classroom interventions using two studies. The first study involved observing interventions as they were implemented in elementary classroom settings. The second study used a survey to ask elementary teachers in 11 states about their experiences and perceptions of interventions they have implemented for students;Findings from both studies indicated that teachers tended to receive assistance when developing the interventions, but then implemented the interventions alone. In general, individualized interventions plans did not describe the specific steps to be completed as part of the intervention. In both studies, most teachers rated the interventions that they implemented from moderate to very acceptable. Implementation integrity was found to be high in the observation study. Teachers in the survey indicated more use of formal efforts to maintain intervention integrity than did teachers in the observation study. Further findings and implications are also discussed

Convergent Validity of Infant/Toddler Developmental Progress Monitoring Tools

Background Using progress monitoring data to make effective and timely decisions in early intervention (EI) requires high quality assessment. Infant/toddler individual growth and development indicators (I/T IGDIs) have been developed to be brief, reliable and engaging progress monitoring tools that are sensitive to change over short time periods (Greenwood et al. in J Early Interv 33:254–267, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1177/1053815111428467). Objective The current study examined the convergent validity of IGDIs in three developmental areas: the early communication indicator, early problem solving indicator (EPSI), and the early movement indicator (EMI), with standardized criterion measures. In addition, growth patterns in the current study of children receiving EI services were examined. Method One hundred twenty-three children along with their service provider practitioners (N = 50) participated in the study. Practitioners administered IGDIs with children on their regular caseloads; data were examined for comparison with criterion measures and growth patterns. Results Significant relationships were found between I/T IGDIs and corresponding domains on the Battelle Developmental Inventory-2nd edition and the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales-2nd edition. Linear and quadratic growth trajectory patterns from the current study resembled those of comparable samples from prior studies, where available. Conclusions Results supported the convergent validity of these I/T IGDIs with established criterion measures. Growth trajectory patterns for key skills and total scores were similar to those in prior studies, where available, with a few exceptions. Growth trajectory patterns for the EPSI and EMI with children from EI programs were demonstrated for the first time and supported hypothesized patterns

Gaining or losing perspective for convex multivariate functions on box domains

MINLO (mixed-integer nonlinear optimization) formulations of the disjunction between the origin and a polytope via a binary indicator variable is broadly used in nonlinear combinatorial optimization for modeling a fixed cost associated with carrying out a group of activities and a convex cost function associated with the levels of the activities. The perspective relaxation of such models is often used to solve to global optimality in a branch-and-bound context, but it typically requires suitable conic solvers and is not compatible with general-purpose NLP software in the presence of other classes of constraints. This motivates the investigation of when simpler but weaker relaxations may be adequate. Comparing the volume (i.e., Lebesgue measure) of the relaxations as a measure of tightness, we lift some of the results related to the simplex case to the box case. In order to compare the volumes of different relaxations in the box case, it is necessary to find an appropriate concave upper bound that preserves the convexity and is minimal, which is more difficult than in the simplex case. To address the challenge beyond the simplex case, the triangulation approach is used.Comment: To appear in Mathematical Programming, Series

A Glass Bead Sequence for South America Based on Collections from Brazil and Guyana

Glass trade bead assemblages recovered during archaeological investigations at nine sites by Smithsonian archaeologists Betty Meggers and Clifford Evans in Brazil in 1948 and 1949 and Guyana in 1952 and 1953 date to multiple time periods, including the early 17th, mid-18th, mid-19th, and mid-20th centuries. The assemblages are used to show that the glass bead chronologies developed in North America are directly applicable to South America and that there is a global glass bead sequence related to European colonialism. White drawn glass beads were independently dated by comparison with known composition changes through time in how the glass was made opaque. Compositions were determined using pXRF

Extended formulations for a class of polyhedra with bimodular cographic constraint matrices

We are motivated by integer linear programs (ILPs) defined by constraint matrices with bounded determinants. Such matrices generalize the notion of totally-unimodular matrices. When the determinants are bounded by $2$, the matrix is called bimodular. Artmann et al. give a polynomial-time algorithm for solving any ILP defined by a bimodular constraint matrix. Complementing this result, Conforti et al. give a compact extended formulation for a particular class of bimodular-constrained ILPs, namely those that model the stable set polytope of a graph with odd cycle packing number $1$. We demonstrate that their compact extended formulation can be modified to hold for polyhedra such that (1) the constraint matrix is bimodular, (2) the row-matroid generated by the constraint matrix is cographic and (3) the right-hand side is a linear combination of the columns of the constraint matrix. This generalizes the important special case from Conforti et al. concerning 4-connected graphs with odd cycle transversal number at least four. Moreover, our results yield compact extended formulations for a new class of polyhedra

A Glass Bead Sequence for South America Based on Collections from Brazil and Guyana

Glass trade bead assemblages recovered during archaeological investigations at nine sites by Smithsonian archaeologists Betty Meggers and Clifford Evans in Brazil in 1948 and 1949 and Guyana in 1952 and 1953 date to multiple time periods, including the early 17th, mid-18th, mid-19th, and mid-20th centuries. The assemblages are used to show that the glass bead chronologies developed in North America are directly applicable to South America and that there is a global glass bead sequence related to European colonialism. White drawn glass beads were independently dated by comparison with known composition changes through time in how the glass was made opaque. Compositions were determined using pXRF