A Comparison of Sociodemographic Correlates of Cigarette, Alcohol, and Energy Drink Consumption among High School Students in the United States, 2010-2015

OBJECTIVE: Despite growing awareness about the harmful physiological effects of energy drinks, especially among young people, there is little regulation governing the marketing and sale of these products to adolescents. Thus, in contrast to substances such as cigarettes and alcohol, energy drinks are readily available to adolescents, and widely consumed. It is not known if the easy availability of energy drinks has the effect of increasing usage of these substances among adolescents, and reducing sociodemographic differences in the consumption of energy drinks. In this study, we use pooled data (2010-2015) from the nationally representative Monitoring the Future survey (n=43,283), to compare consumption of energy drinks with other substance use, and to compare the sociodemographic correlates of energy drink consumption among high school students (10th and 12th grade) with those of cigarette and alcohol consumption. METHODS: Covariate-adjusted estimates for prevalence of consumption of energy drinks, cigarettes, and alcohol for each of different sociodemographic strata were obtained via logistic regression analysis. Additional analyses examined the extent to which socioeconomic disparities in prevalence of consumption of energy drinks are predicated by cigarette smoking and alcohol use. RESULTS: While the patterning of differences in energy drink use by sex, grade, race and parental education (as a measure of socioeconomic status) were similar to those seen in cigarette smoking and ever-use of alcohol, the magnitude of differences across subgroups varied across these behaviors. Racial/ethnic, socioeconomic and age differences were smaller in the case of energy drink use compared to alcohol or cigarette use. Gender differences were larger than in the case of cigarette smoking. In all cases, energy drink use were higher among students who were current users of alcohol or cigarettes, but there was little evidence that sociodemographic variables were differentially associated with energy drink use within these strata. CONCLUSIONS: Ready availability of energy drinks has resulted in elevated use of these products relative to cigarette smoking and alcohol, and some narrowing of socioeconomic differentials in use. Regardless of socioeconomic status, use of energy drinks is higher among current users of cigarettes and / or alcohol

Infections Complicating Orthotopic Liver Transplantation: A Study Emphasizing Graft-Related Septicemia

In 93 recipients of 102 orthotopic liver homografts, the incidence of bacteremia or fungemia exceeded 70%. The graft itself was usually an entry site for systemic infection after both immunologic and nonimmunologic parenchymal injury, especially if there was defective biliary drainage. The role of the homograft itself as the special infectious risk factor has prompted increased use of defunctionalized jejunal Roux limbs to reduce graft contamination. It has also stimulated very aggressive postoperative diagnostic efforts to rule out remedial mechanical complications of the transplant. © 1976, American Medical Association. All rights reserved

Use of Archives by Catholic Historians, 2010-2012: A Citation Study

This article reports on a citation study examining the use of archives by researchers in the field of Catholic history. The authors collected citation data from three Catholic history journals published from 2010 through 2012. They analyzed two citation attributes: the type of materials cited and, for archival materials, the type of repository. This article presents results and observations from the study and discusses them in the context of archival practice. The authors discuss how findings from this study can inform collection development and archival description as well as ideas for further research

Separating the Wheat from the Chaff: Intensive Deselection to Enable Preservation and Access

In 2014, the Marian Library at the University of Dayton completed a long overdue revision of its collection development policy. The new document more clearly defined the scope of the library’s collections, and was intended to guide new acquisition decisions. However, this new document had the unexpected benefit of providing a framework for deselection projects that enabled preservation and improved access to the collections. This paper will discuss and analyze two of these projects, and demonstrate how the revised collection development policy laid the foundation for successful deselection outcomes. In the first case study, legacy collections of genre-based ephemera were heavily weeded to remove photocopies, internet printouts, duplicates, and other out-of-scope materials. Both the challenges and benefits of weeding legacy reference files will be discussed. The second case study will examine a comprehensive review of the library’s inactive periodical holdings, consisting of over five hundred titles that were largely uncatalogued. Removing titles outside of the library’s collection scope transformed the collection into a manageable project for the cataloging staff to tackle. This formerly hidden collection, including rare periodicals not found elsewhere in the United States, is now in the process of being cataloged. Both projects transformed local practices and improved utilization of the library’s limited resources in staffing, time, space, and funding. Faced with legacy practices that compromised physical and intellectual control of materials, librarians leveraged a well-defined collection development policy to undertake two successful deselection projects. The policy was used to justify and guide deselection, ultimately improving both preservation and access

Parental safety concerns and active school commute: correlates across multiple domains in the home-to-school journey

Abiodun O. Oluyomi, Eileen Nehme, and Deanna M. Hoelscher are with The Michael and Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living, UT School of Public Health, Austin Regional Campus, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Austin, TX USA -- Chanam Lee is with the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning, College of Architecture, Texas AM University, College Station, TX USA -- Diane Dowdy and Marci G. Ory are with the School of Rural Public Health, Texas AM HeaBackground: Empirical evidence of the relationship between safety concerns and walking to school (WTS) is growing. However, current research offers limited understanding of the multiple domains of parental safety concerns and the specific mechanisms through which parents articulate safety concerns about WTS. A more detailed understanding is needed to inform environmental and policy interventions. This study examined the relationships between both traffic safety and personal safety concerns and WTS in the U.S. Methods: This cross-sectional analysis examined data from the Texas Childhood Obesity Prevention Policy Evaluation (T-COPPE) project, an evaluation of state-wide obesity prevention policy interventions. All study data were from the survey (n = 830) of parents with 4th grade students attending 81 elementary schools across Texas, and living within two miles from their children's schools. Traffic safety and personal safety concerns were captured for the home neighborhood, en-route to school, and school environments. Binary logistic regression analysis was used to assess the odds of WTS controlling for significant covariates. Results: Overall, 18% of parents reported that their child walked to school on most days of the week. For traffic safety, students were more likely to walk to school if their parent reported favorable perceptions about the following items in the home neighborhood environment: higher sidewalk availability, well maintained sidewalks and safe road crossings. For the route to school, the odds of WTS were higher for those who reported "no problem" with each one of the following: traffic speed, amount of traffic, sidewalks/pathways, intersection/crossing safety, and crossing guards, when compared to those that reported "always a problem". For personal safety in the en-route to school environment, the odds of WTS were lower when parents reported concerns about: stray or dangerous animals and availability of others with whom to walk. Conclusions: Findings offered insights into the specific issues that drive safety concerns for elementary school children’s WTS behaviors. The observed associations between more favorable perceptions of safety and WTS provide further justification for practical intervention strategies to reduce WTS barriers that can potentially bring long-term physical activity and health benefits to school-aged children.Public [email protected]

Implementation of Strategies to Increase Adolescents' Access to Fruit And Vegetables at School: Process Evaluation Findings from the Boost Study

Access to fruit and vegetables (FV) is associated with adolescents' FV consumption. However, little is known about implementation of strategies to increase access to FV at schools. We examined the implementation of two environmental components designed to increase access to FV at Danish schools. Methods: We used data from 20 intervention schools involved in the school-based multicomponent Boost trial targeting 13-year-olds' FV consumption. The environmental components at school included daily provision of free FV and promotion of a pleasant eating environment. Questionnaire data was collected by the end of the nine-month intervention period among 1,121 pupils (95%), from all school principals (n = 20) and half way through the intervention period and by the end of the intervention among 114 teachers (44%). The implementation of the components was examined descriptively using the following process evaluation measures; fidelity, dose delivered, dose received and reach. Schools with stable high implementation levels over time were characterised by context, intervention appreciation and implementation of other components. Results: For all process evaluation measures, the level of implementation varied by schools, classes and over time. Dose received: 45% of pupils (school range: 13-72%, class range: 7-77%) ate the provided FV daily; 68% of pupils (school range: 40-93%, class range: 24-100%) reported that time was allocated to eating FV in class. Reach: The intake of FV provided did not differ by SEP nor gender, but more girls and low SEP pupils enjoyed eating FV together. Dose delivered: The proportion of teachers offering FV at a daily basis decreased over time, while the proportion of teachers cutting up FV increased over time. Schools in which high proportions of teachers offered FV daily throughout the intervention period were characterized by being: small; having a low proportion of low SEP pupils; having a school food policy; high teacher-and pupil intervention appreciation; having fewer teachers who cut up FV; and having high implementation of educational components. Conclusions: The appliance of different approaches and levels of analyses to describe data provided comprehension and knowledge of the implementation process. This knowledge is crucial for the interpretation of intervention effect.TrygFondenCenter for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research in Underserved Population

Challenges in the clinical assessment of novel tuberculosis drugs

To effectively tackle the global TB epidemic, novel treatment strategies are critically needed to shorten the duration of TB therapy and treat drug-resistant TB. Drug development for TB, stymied for decades, has enjoyed a renaissance over the past several years. However, development of new TB regimens is hindered by the limitations in our understanding and use of preclinical models; the paucity of accurate, early surrogate markers of cure, and challenges in untangling the individual contributions of drugs to multidrug regimens in a complex, multi-compartment disease. Lack of profit motive, advocacy, and imagination has contributed mightily to the dearth of drugs we have on the shelf to treat this ancient disease. Areas that will speed the development of new regimens for TB include novel murine and in vitro pharmacodynamics models, clinical endpoints that are not culture-based, innovative clinical trial designs, and an infusion of much-needed funding

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Social support, physical activity and sedentary behavior among 6(th)-grade girls: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Despite the importance of social support in promoting physical activity, little is known about the relative influence of the type or source of social support on adolescent girls' physical activity and sedentary behaviors. This study examined the associations of two types of social support (social participation in and social encouragement for physical activity) and two social support sources (family and friends) with self-reported daily minutes of physical activity and sedentary behavior among sixth-grade girls in Texas. METHODS: A secondary analysis of 718 sixth-grade girls between the ages of 10 to 14 was performed using cross-sectional baseline data from an osteoporosis prevention intervention study. Physical activity and sedentary behaviors (television-video viewing and computer-video game playing) were assessed using 3 administrations of the Self-Administered Physical Activity Checklist; social support indicators were assessed with Likert-type items from a psychosocial questionnaire. RESULTS: In multiple linear regression analyses, friend physical activity participation (partial correlation coefficient (r) = 0.10, p = .009) and friend (r = 0.12) and family encouragement (r = 0.11) (p < .01, respectively) were positively related to moderate-to-vigorous physical activity in the full model with other support variables, BMI and ethnicity; friend encouragement was the only variable positively related to vigorous physical activity (r = 0.11, p = .005). Family participation in physical activity had the strongest negative correlation with total minutes of television-video viewing and computer-video playing (r = -0.08, p < .05). CONCLUSION: Findings lend support to the importance of social support for physical activity among adolescent girls but suggest that the source and type of social support may differ for physical activity and sedentary behaviors. Further research is needed to assess the causal or reciprocal relation between the roles of friends and family in promoting physical activity and of family physical activity in decreasing sedentary behaviors among early adolescent girls

fRegGAN with K-space Loss Regularization for Medical Image Translation

Generative adversarial networks (GANs) have shown remarkable success in generating realistic images and are increasingly used in medical imaging for image-to-image translation tasks. However, GANs tend to suffer from a frequency bias towards low frequencies, which can lead to the removal of important structures in the generated images. To address this issue, we propose a novel frequency-aware image-to-image translation framework based on the supervised RegGAN approach, which we call fRegGAN. The framework employs a K-space loss to regularize the frequency content of the generated images and incorporates well-known properties of MRI K-space geometry to guide the network training process. By combine our method with the RegGAN approach, we can mitigate the effect of training with misaligned data and frequency bias at the same time. We evaluate our method on the public BraTS dataset and outperform the baseline methods in terms of both quantitative and qualitative metrics when synthesizing T2-weighted from T1-weighted MR images. Detailed ablation studies are provided to understand the effect of each modification on the final performance. The proposed method is a step towards improving the performance of image-to-image translation and synthesis in the medical domain and shows promise for other applications in the field of image processing and generation