Do Masculinity and Perceived Condom Barriers Predict Heterosexual HIV Risk Behaviors Among Black Substance Abusing Men?

Although HIV prevention during substance abuse treatment is ideal, existing HIV risk-reduction interventions are less effective among Black and other ethnic minority substance abusers. The Sexual Health Model (SHM) and the Person, Extended Family and Neighborhood-3 model (PEN-3) both highlight the importance of increasing our understanding of the relationship of sociocultural factors to sexual-decision making as a step towards developing more HIV prevention interventions for ethnic minorities. However, few studies examine sociocultural factors in the sexual decision-making process of Black substance abusing men. This secondary analysis of data collected in an evaluation of Real Men Are Safe (REMAS), a HIV prevention intervention, in the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network (CTN) addressed this gap by examining the relation of two specific sociocultural factors (i.e., masculinity and perceived barriers to condom use) to the self-reported sexual behaviors of Black substance abusing men with their main and casual female partners. Analyses of the baseline data of 126 Black men entering substance abuse treatment revealed that the endorsement of both personal and social masculinity predicted more unprotected sexual occasions (USO) with casual partners. The perception that condoms decreased sexual pleasure also predicted higher USO rates with casual partners. However, fewer partner barriers was not associated with USO among casual partners as expected. Neither the endorsement of social or personal masculinity or perceived condom barriers predicted USO with main partners. The findings suggest that interventions that depict condom use as both pleasurable and congruent with Black male perceptions of masculinity may be more effective with Black substance abusing men

Development and evaluation of lessons for class and group situations in grade one

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

National Aeronautics and Space Administration Biological Specimen Repository

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Biological Specimen Repository (Repository) is a storage bank that is used to maintain biological specimens over extended periods of time and under well-controlled conditions. Samples from the International Space Station (ISS), including blood and urine, will be collected, processed and archived during the preflight, inflight and postflight phases of ISS missions. This investigation has been developed to archive biosamples for use as a resource for future space flight related research. The International Space Station (ISS) provides a platform to investigate the effects of microgravity on human physiology prior to lunar and exploration class missions. The storage of crewmember samples from many different ISS flights in a single repository will be a valuable resource with which researchers can study space flight related changes and investigate physiological markers. The development of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Biological Specimen Repository will allow for the collection, processing, storage, maintenance, and ethical distribution of biosamples to meet goals of scientific and programmatic relevance to the space program. Archiving of the biosamples will provide future research opportunities including investigating patterns of physiological changes, analysis of components unknown at this time or analyses performed by new methodologies

The New Face of Data Accessibility

Management of medical and research data at NASA's Johnson Space Center has been addressed with two separate, independent systems: the Lifetime Surveillance of Astronaut Health (formerly, The Longitudinal Study of Astronaut Health) (LSAH) and the Life Sciences Data Archive (LSDA). Project management for these has been autonomous with little or no cross-over of goals, objectives or strategy. The result has been limited debate and discussion regarding how contents from one repository might impact or guide the direction of the other. It is decidedly more efficient to use existing data and information than to re-generate them. Ensuring that both clinical and research data / information are accessible for review is a central concept to the decision to unify these repositories. In the past, research data from flight and ground analogs has been held in the LSDA and medical data held in the Electronic Medical Record or in console flight surgeon logs and records. There was little cross-pollination between medical and research findings and, as a result, applicable research was not being fully incorporated into clinical, in-flight practice. Conversely, findings by the console surgeon were not being picked up by the research community. The desired life cycle for risk mitigation was not being fully realized. The goal of unifying these repositories and processes is to provide a closely knit approach to handling medical and research data, which will not only engender discussion and debate but will also ensure that both categories of data and information are used to enhance the use of medical and research data to reduce risk and promote the understanding of space physiology, countermeasures and other mitigation strategie

Pork on the Farm: Dressing - Curing - Canning

The most popular meat in our South Dakota farm homes is pork. Hogs are produced in all sections of the state and for many of our farm families the hog provides the bulk of the year\u27s meat supply. Every farm family could well afford to get its supply of meat from the livestock produced on the farm. Whenever the farmers of South Dakota market their fat hogs and then buy what pork is needed in the home, they are overlooking an opportunity of saving several dollars and of providing their table with good meat products that can readily be had through the proper dressing, curing and canning of pork on the farm. The hog is an efficient meat producer; he makes more economical gains and provides a larger per cent of edible products than any other meat animal. From the pork carcass farm families may provide themselves not only with fresh meat but with a variety of cured and canned meat and meat products

Examining National Trends in Educational Placements for Students with Significant Disabilities

Using the least restrictive environments (LRE) data from annual Reports to Congress, this study examined national trends in placement between 2000-2014 for school-aged students considered to have significant disabilities from among the categories of autism (ASD), intellectual disability (ID), multiple disabilities (MD), and deaf-blindness (DB). Educational placement trends were calculated using a log ratio index, and students with significant disabilities were compared to groups of students from the other disability groups. Results confirmed that access to general education settings is lacking for this group of students. Implications for policies and practices as well as suggested future research are provided

A Prospective Surveillance Study of Candidaemia : Epidemiology, Risk Factors, Antifungal Treatment and Outcome in Hospitalized Patients

Funding This work was supported by the Wellcome Trust Strategic Award for Medical Mycology and Fungal Immunology 097377/Z/11/Z. Data collection was supported by a grant from Pfizer. GR was also supported by a research fellowship grant from Gilead Sciences. The collection of the isolates was funded by a Gilead Fellowship to GR. Acknowledgments We are grateful to microbiology colleagues throughout Scotland for submitting isolates. Antimicrobial sensitivity testing was performed by the Mycology Reference Laboratory, Public Health England, Bristol.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

An Evaluation into Pilot Proficiency Assessment and the Current State of Training in the Industry

Pilot proficiency assessment has been a debated topic, especially in recent years. Determining effective ways to assess proficiency has been the focus of many industries, including similar high-risk industries such as health care and nuclear power industries. For the purposes of this paper, a comprehensive investigation into the current state of pilot training was conducted to analyze and compare curriculum components, proficiency levels, assessment methods and overall safety outcomes of each instructional program. This analysis includes pilot training programs from the United States, Australia and the European Union, as they relate to pilot licensing. As flight training technology and hour requirements increase, alternate methods of instruction have become more prominent in the industry worldwide. Evaluating the mechanisms that comprise the various international instructional programs, such as the training devices and hours accrued in these devices, is important in understanding how they affect and influence proficiency levels and safety

Pilot Perceptions on Impact of Crew Rest Regulations on Safety and Fatigue

The risk of fatigue on pilot performance and safety is well recognized in aviation. In response to increased safety concerns, the Federal Aviation Administration addressed fatigue risk for passenger airline pilots in Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 117, which included accommodations to address fatigue related risk-factors such as circadian rhythm and the phenomenon commonly described as jet-lag. The rule became effective in January 2014. A survey was conducted in March and April of 2014 to better understand pilot perceptions of the new Part 117 rule. This study analyzed survey responses from 92 self-identified pilots to determine the effect of these new regulations on pilot perception of safety and level of fatigue. The analysis of survey responses to 5-point Likert-scale questions suggested that 43% of pilots felt a positive impact on overall safety, contrasted to 30% of pilots who felt a negative impact on overall safety. Twenty-seven percent of pilots indicated that Part 117 did not have an impact on safety. For perceived level of fatigue, 35% of participants felt a positive impact of Part 117, whereas 33% of participants indicated a negative impact on their fatigue level. Thirty-three percent of participants felt no impact of Part 117 on their overall fatigue level. When asked if cargo operations should be included in the new regulations, 79% of respondents agreed. A qualitative analysis of open-ended comments provided by pilots revealed that negative perceptions of the new regulations were most frequently mentioned

A simple all-microwave entangling gate for fixed-frequency superconducting qubits

We demonstrate an all-microwave two-qubit gate on superconducting qubits which are fixed in frequency at optimal bias points. The gate requires no additional subcircuitry and is tunable via the amplitude of microwave irradiation on one qubit at the transition frequency of the other. We use the gate to generate entangled states with a maximal extracted concurrence of 0.88 and quantum process tomography reveals a gate fidelity of 81%