Reducing Alcohol Use Among High School Athletes: A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Brief, Web-Based Personalized Normative Feedback Intervention

High school athletes are at risk for heavy alcohol use, which is associated with consequences that may negatively impact performance and eligibility to participate in sports. This study evaluated the efficacy of a web-based personalized normative feedback intervention on reducing alcohol use among high school athletes in their senior year. Class periods were randomized to the intervention or an assessment-only control group. Athletes completed surveys at baseline and at a 6-week follow-up. They were classified as high-risk or low-risk drinkers based on baseline reports of binge drinking. Results indicated that for athletes classified as high-risk drinkers, those in the intervention group reported significantly greater reductions in quantity of weekly drinking and peak drinking quantity compared with those in the assessment-only control group. There were no significant intervention effects for frequency of alcohol use. Findings support the efficacy of web-based personalized normative feedback intervention for reducing alcohol use among high school senior athletes

Therapist and client discussions of drinking and coping: a sequential analysis of therapy dialogues in three evidence-based alcohol use disorder treatments.

Research into the active ingredients of behavioral interventions for alcohol use disorders (AUD) has focused upon treatment-specific factors, often yielding disappointing results. The present study examines common factors of change in motivational enhancement therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy and 12-Step facilitation therapy by (1) estimating transitional probabilities between therapist behaviors and subsequent client Change (CT) and Sustain (ST) Talk and (2) examining therapist skillfulness as a potential predictor of transition probability magnitude. Secondary data analysis examined temporal associations in therapy dialogues. United States: data were from Project MATCH (Matching Alcoholism Treatments to Client Homogeneity) (1997). One hundred and twenty-six participants who received motivational enhancement therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy or 12-Step facilitation therapy. Therapist behaviors were measured in three categories (exploring, teaching, connecting) and client statements included five categories (CT-distal, ST-distal, CT-proximal, ST-proximal, neutral). Therapist skillfulness was measured using a five-point ordinal scale. Relative to chance, therapist exploratory behaviors predicted subsequent client discussion of distal, drinking behavior [odds ratio (OR) = 1.37-1.78, P < 0.001] while suppressing discussion of proximal coping and neutral content (OR = 0.83-0.90, P < 0.01). Unexpectedly, therapist teaching suppressed distal drinking language (OR = 0.48-0.53, P < 0.001) and predicted neutral content (OR = 1.45, P < 0.001). Connecting behaviors increased both drinking and coping language, particularly language in favor of change (CT OR = 1.15-1.84, P < 0.001). Analyses of exploring and connecting skillfulness revealed that high skillfulness maximized these behaviors effect on client responses, but not teaching skillfulness. In motivational enhancement therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and 12-Step facilitation therapy for alcohol use disorders, the therapists who explore and connect with clients appear to be more successful at eliciting discussion about change than therapists who engage in teaching behavior. Therapists who are more skilled achieve better results than those who are less skilled

Change Talk During Brief Motivational Intervention With Young Adult Males: Strength Matters.

Client change talk (CT) during motivational interviewing (MI) has been described as a predictor of change in alcohol use. We examined the predictive validity of different strength levels of CT within a brief MI session for 174 young men from the general population screened as hazardous drinkers. CT was measured using the MI Skill Code (MISC 2.1) and categorized with positive (toward change) and negative (against change) valence and 3 strength levels (1=low, 2=medium, 3=high). Analyses included linear regression models predicting drinking at 3-month follow-up, while controlling for baseline drinking. Frequency of overall negative CT (i.e., sum of -1, -2, -3) significantly predicted poorer drinking outcomes. In a multivariate model entering frequency of CT utterances at each level of strength (i.e. +1, +2, +3, -1, -2, -3), the directionality of negative strength ratings was consistently in the expected direction, but only CT-2 was statistically significant. In contrast, overall CT positive (i.e., sum of +1, +2, +3) was not a significant predictor of less alcohol use, but the multivariate model showed that the presence of CT+3 significantly predicted less drinking at 3-month follow-up. Averaged strength summary score (i.e. on the scale from -3 to +3) was a significant predictor of better outcome, while percent positive CT was not. Moderation analyses showed that young men with lower baseline readiness to change or lower alcohol problem severity had higher follow-up drinking when they expressed more CT+1 or CT+2, while the opposite pattern was observed with those reporting higher baseline readiness to change or higher alcohol problem severity. Mixed findings for varying levels of positive CT strength might explain previous studies showing poor predictive validity of positive client language in MI. Together with other studies in similar settings, these findings suggest the importance of advanced MI techniques to shape client language to soften negative change talk (also known as sustain talk) and elicit positive CT verbalized with high intensity

Moria del kiwi: alterazione della struttura anatomica e morfologica delle radici di actinidia sottoposte a condizioni di asfissia del suolo

produzione negli ultimi anni a causa della diffusione della sindrome del declino dell’actinidia (KVDS/moria). Sintomi simili al KVDS sono stati osservati in diversi ambienti e vengono spesso associati a ristagno idrico e asfissia radicale, con conseguente marciume radicale. Nell'ambito del progetto Zespri “Water and soil management of G3 in Italy”, nel 2020 è stata avviata la sperimentazione in actinidieti colpiti da moria a Latina (Lazio, - ET0 732 mm) al fine di indagare sulle possibili cause e suggerire delle soluzioni per contrastare questa fisiopatia. Sono stati raccolti campioni di radici da piante sane e confrontati con campioni raccolti da piante affette da KVDS. Per l’analisi microscopica, le radici sono state fissate in formalina al 10%, disidratate e incluse in paraffina. Ogni singolo campione è stato sezionato in sezioni dello spessore di 5 μm e colorate con diverse metodiche. Macroscopicamente, le radici affette da KVDS sono risultate marcescenti, mostrando una perdita di rizoderma e parenchima corticale. L’analisi microscopica ha rilevato danneggiamenti del sistema radicale con rottura e decomposizione tissutale, sfaldamento di rizoderma, area corticale con evidente perdita di turgore cellulare, disfacimento iniziale della stele ed evidente distacco della corteccia dai tessuti conduttori centrali. Nel campione di controllo, le radici hanno presentato un rizoderma con spessore di 13 μm e una dimensione media di cellule del parenchima di 44,5 μm, a differenza del campione KVDS, in cui lo spessore del rizoderma, quasi assente, è stato di 8,3 μm e la dimensione media delle cellule di 34,7 μm. Dall’analisi dei gas tellurici è emerso che, conseguentemente all'insorgenza del ristagno idrico nel suolo, nei suoli attorno alle piante colpite da KVDS, il potenziale redox, parametro inversamente correlato alla concentrazione di ossigeno, è risultato essere significativamente più basso (+331 vs. +368 mV; media 0-90 cm di profondità), mentre sono state riscontrate concentrazioni più elevate di CO2 (7467 vs. 5870 ppm; media 0-90 cm di profondità), un indicatore di condizioni anossiche del suolo. Per migliorare le qualità fisica del suolo e assicurare una crescita ottimale delle radici di actinidia, sarà applicata una gestione innovativa del suolo volta ad aumentarne la sostanza organica e ridurre la compattazione, facilitando il movimento orizzontale e verticale dell'acqua nel terreno per fornire alle radici di actinidia l'ossigeno necessario per mitigare gli effetti di microrganismi potenzialmente patogeni, molti dei quali proliferano in ambienti anaerobi. Sarà, infine, ottimizzata la gestione della chioma e dell’apparato radicale per bilanciare il rapporto tra radici e foglie e migliorare la capacità delle piante di riprendersi da questo declino fisiologico

Inducible and reversible inhibition of mirna-mediated gene repression in vivo

Although virtually all gene networks are predicted to be controlled by miRNAs, the contribution of this important layer of gene regulation to tissue homeostasis in adult animals remains unclear. Gain and loss of function experiments have provided key insights into the specific function of individual miRNAs, but effective genetic tools to study the functional consequences of global inhibition of miRNA activity in vivo are lacking. Here we report the generation and characterization of a genetically engineered mouse strain in which miRNA-mediated gene repression can be reversibly inhibited without affecting miRNA biogenesis or abundance. We demonstrate the usefulness of this strategy by investigating the consequences of acute inhibition of miRNA function in adult animals. We find that different tissues and organs respond differently to global loss of miRNA function. While miRNA-mediated gene repression is essential for the homeostasis of the heart and the skeletal muscle, it is largely dispensable in the majority of other organs. Even in tissues where it is not required for homeostasis, such as the intestine and hematopoietic system, miRNA activity can become essential during regeneration following acute injury. These data support a model where many metazoan tissues primarily rely on miRNA function to respond to potentially pathogenic events

Proteome-wide analysis and diel proteomic profiling in the cyanobacterium Arthrospira platensis PCC 8005

The filamentous cyanobacteriumArthrospira platensishas a long history of use as a food supply and it has been used by the European Space Agency in the MELiSSA project, an artificial microecosystem which supports life during long-term manned space missions. This study assesses progress in the field of cyanobacterial shotgun proteomics and light/dark diurnal cycles by focusing onArthrospira platensis. Several fractionation workflows including gel-free and gel-based protein/peptide fractionation procedures were used and combined with LC-MS/MS analysis, enabling the overall identification of 1306 proteins, which represents 21% coverage of the theoretical proteome. A total of 30 proteins were found to be significantly differentially regulated under light/dark growth transition. Interestingly, most of the proteins showing differential abundance were related to photosynthesis, the Calvin cycle and translation processes. A novel aspect and major achievement of this work is the successful improvement of the cyanobacterial proteome coverage using a 3D LC-MS/MS approach, based on an immobilized metal affinity chromatography, a suitable tool that enabled us to eliminate the most abundant protein, the allophycocyanin. We also demonstrated that cell growth follows a light/dark cycle inA. platensis. This preliminary proteomic study has highlighted new characteristics of theArthrospira platensisproteome in terms of diurnal regulation

The effect of information on the performance of negotiation models

Negotiation is an everyday task in economic processes; ranging from corporations to markets, from agents to nations, always there is the need to mediate between conflicting intents or expectations. Therefore, in the scientific literature and in practice, several negotiation procedures have been developed, each one elaborated to perform in a specific context and under particular assumptions, as, for example, voting systems, auction and fair division mechanisms, negotiation protocols, and so on. All these may seem disjoined from each other, as their contexts are; nevertheless they all share the same assumption that each subject pursues his own best utility. Moreover, despite their specialization, they all have some problems in practical use like, for example, the presence of a dictator, the lack of truthfulness, or the possibility of being manipulated by fictitious declarations. In this contribution we focus on the negotiation over continuous issues and in particular we analyze the jointly Improving Direction Method (IDM), which is known for its generality, since different other negotiation protocols can be seen as an its particular subclass, and also because it has the nice theoretical property of being Pareto efficient. Nevertheless it is easy to implement, which makes IDM the perfect candidate for an automated negotiation support system. Despite its theoretical properties, we show the practical inefficiency of this method (even in the simple case of just two negotiating parties), which reduces significantly its performance in the operative context. In particular we show that the main drawback of IDM is due to the possibility to retrieve information about other ones utilities during the negotiation steps and to exploit it to manipulate the negotiation itself. For better explaining this phenomenon we show the deep connection between negotiation and the social choice problem. The bridge we build allows to carry in this context the Arrow\u2019s Impossibility Theorem and the Gibbard-Satterthwaite Theorem, thus implying that each step of IDM (and of all the methods which it generalizes) may be affected by a dictatorial or a manipulatory party who can deviate the efficient Pareto frontier to get a better gain during the negotiation. In order to avoid the operative inefficiency of IDM, we propose a different negotiation paradigm, where the hypothesis that agents maximize their own utility is not modified, while the way they pursuit maximum satisfaction is substantially different, since each agent has to express a sub optimal choice, rather than his optimal one. In this context, the constraint of a sub optimal declaration by one side protects from information retrieval and by the other side it forces each party to leave to the others the possibility to improve their own gains in order to pursue his own best. The comparison of the performances with the IDM ones in different negotiation domains, both in terms of Pareto efficiency and manipulation resistance, shows the effectiveness of the proposed approach

Software: Automated Negotiating Agent

Nell'ambito della negoziazione elettronica, ed in particolare per quanto attiene il metodo IDM (Improving Direction Method) a due parti, il software realizza un agente in grado di manipolare a proprio vantaggio la negoziazione sfruttando le informazioni sulla controparte che il mediatore (deterministico) indirettamente fornisce ad ogni passo del processo di negoziazione