Predictors of Resilient Outcomes among Juvenile Offenders

Research on resilience has almost completely bypassed the juvenile justice literature. Using data on 1,354 youth from the Pathways to Desistance study, the present study examined associations between individual, community, and familial risk and promotive factors and resilient outcomes, specifically gainful activity, in juvenile offenders. Results of both logistic and hierarchical regression models indicated significant associations between resilient outcomes in each domain: specifically individual (age at first arrest, motivation to succeed), community (geographic location, exposure to violence), and family (socioeconomic status, parental monitoring) predictors. Finally, this paper discusses reasons for non-significant findings and directions for future research on resilience among youth involved in the juvenile justice system

Community Reentry and Juvenile Justice: The Role of Developmental Science in Legislative Decision-Making

The goals of the present study were to examine federal and selected state legislation for reentry initiatives within the juvenile justice system using content analysis, including determining if bill language utilized terminology reflecting research or developmental science. Thematic analysis was used to examine publicly available federal documents focused on juvenile justice reentry to understand how policymakers were promoting reentry initiatives. Federal bills and documents from April 1, 2008 to December 31, 2019 and state bills from January 1, 2015 to December 31, 2019 for Virginia, North Carolina, Iowa, Missouri, Maryland, New Jersey, Kansas, and Georgia that referenced juvenile justice and reentry were reviewed. Federal documents revealed four main foci, centering on financial support, providing resources, the person, and a need for systemic change. Findings showed that enacted legislation has not employed the use of developmental terminology in bill language but did utilize research language. Additionally, enacted legislation was broadly reentry focused, addressing system efficiencies and educational improvements, but largely did not remove individual barriers justice-involved youth face. There was a dearth of legislation at the state level and a very small percentage of enacted legislation at the federal level, with only 4.7% of reentry bills moving through the legislative process. Policy and research implications are discussed in relation to future research being more person-centered as well as using more concise, precise language when providing policymakers with research outcomes for legislative initiatives

Adolescent Expressive Reluctance Exacerbates Risk for Substance Use Following Daily Hassles

Previous research has established a link between adolescent’s perceived daily hassles and subsequent adjustment, but less is known about factors that exacerbate this relationship. The purpose of the present study was to identify if adolescent’s reluctance to express emotions moderated the association between their perceived daily hassles and subsequent substance use (i.e., alcohol, marijuana, tobacco). Cross-sectional data were obtained from a larger study that examined the effects of exposure to community violence among low-income, urban adolescents (N = 260, Mage = 14.14, SD = 1.62 years; 92% African American; 54% female). Linear regression analyses controlling for adolescent age, biological sex, and previous levels of drug use and daily hassles revealed that expressive reluctance moderated the association between perceived daily hassles and adolescent substance use. Specifically, for adolescents who were least likely to express their emotions, increases in perceived daily hassles were associated with significant increases in substance use. Further examination of domain-specific hassles revealed that expressive reluctance moderated the effects of academic, parental, and general neighborhood hassles on drug use, while no significant effects were detected for hassles related to friends or neighborhood danger. The present findings clarify which perceived daily hassles adversely affect adolescents, and how emotional expression can play an integral role in determining risk for poor coping behaviors.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/uresposters/1280/thumbnail.jp

Protection of innate immunity by C5aR antagonist in septic mice

Innate immune functions are known to be compromised during sepsis, often with lethal consequences. There is also evidence in rats that sepsis is associated with excessive complement activation and generation of the potent anaphylatoxin C5a. In the presence of a cyclic peptide antagonist (C5aRa) to the C5a receptor (C5aR), the binding of murine 125Iâ C5a to murine neutrophils was reduced, the in vitro chemotactic responses of mouse neutrophils to mouse C5a were markedly diminished, the acquired defect in hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) production of C5aâ exposed neutrophils was reversed, and the lung permeability index (extravascular leakage of albumin) in mice after intrapulmonary deposition of IgG immune complexes was markedly diminished. Mice that developed sepsis after cecal ligation/puncture (CLP) and were treated with C5aRa had greatly improved survival rates. These data suggest that C5aRa interferes with neutrophil responses to C5a, preventing C5aâ induced compromise of innate immunity during sepsis, with greatly improved survival rates after CLP.â Huberâ Lang, M. S., Riedeman, N. C., Sarma, J. V., Younkin, E. M., McGuire, S. R., Laudes, I. J., Lu, K. T., Guo, R.â F., Neff, T. A., Padgaonkar, V. A., Lambris, J. D., Spruce, L., Mastellos, D., Zetoune, F. S., Ward, P. A. Protection of innate immunity by C5aR antagonist in septic mice. FASEB J. 16, 1567â 1574 (2002)Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154360/1/fsb2fj020209com.pd

Lawmakers\u27 Use of Scientific Evidence Can Be Improved

Core to the goal of scientific exploration is the opportunity to guide future decision-making. Yet, elected officials often miss opportunities to use science in their policymaking. This work reports on an experiment with the US Congress-evaluating the effects of a randomized, dual-population (i.e., researchers and congressional offices) outreach model for supporting legislative use of research evidence regarding child and family policy issues. In this experiment, we found that congressional offices randomized to the intervention reported greater value of research for understanding issues than the control group following implementation. More research use was also observed in legislation introduced by the intervention group. Further, we found that researchers randomized to the intervention advanced their own policy knowledge and engagement as well as reported benefits for their research following implementation

Potential predictive markers of chemotherapy resistance in stage III ovarian serous carcinomas

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Chemotherapy resistance remains a major obstacle in the treatment of women with ovarian cancer. Establishing predictive markers of chemoresponse would help to individualize therapy and improve survival of ovarian cancer patients. Chemotherapy resistance in ovarian cancer has been studied thoroughly and several non-overlapping single genes, gene profiles and copy number alterations have been suggested as potential markers. The objective of this study was to explore genetic alterations behind chemotherapy resistance in ovarian cancer with the ultimate aim to find potential predictive markers.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>To create the best opportunities for identifying genetic alterations of importance for resistance, we selected a homogenous tumor material concerning histology, stage and chemotherapy. Using high-resolution whole genome array comparative genomic hybridization (CGH), we analyzed the tumor genomes of 40 fresh-frozen stage III ovarian serous carcinomas, all uniformly treated with combination therapy paclitaxel/carboplatin. Fisher's exact test was used to identify significant differences. Subsequently, we examined four genes in the significant regions (<it>EVI1</it>, <it>MDS1</it>, <it>SH3GL2</it>, <it>SH3KBP1</it>) plus the <it>ABCB1 </it>gene with quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (QPCR) to evaluate the impact of DNA alterations on the transcriptional level.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We identified gain in 3q26.2, and losses in 6q11.2-12, 9p22.3, 9p22.2-22.1, 9p22.1-21.3, Xp22.2-22.12, Xp22.11-11.3, and Xp11.23-11.1 to be significantly associated with chemotherapy resistance. In the gene expression analysis, <it>EVI1 </it>expression differed between samples with gain versus without gain, exhibiting higher expression in the gain group.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In conclusion, we detected specific genetic alterations associated with resistance, of which some might be potential predictive markers of chemotherapy resistance in advanced ovarian serous carcinomas. Thus, further studies are required to validate these findings in an independent ovarian tumor series.</p

Lawmakers' use of scientific evidence can be improved.

Core to the goal of scientific exploration is the opportunity to guide future decision-making. Yet, elected officials often miss opportunities to use science in their policymaking. This work reports on an experiment with the US Congress-evaluating the effects of a randomized, dual-population (i.e., researchers and congressional offices) outreach model for supporting legislative use of research evidence regarding child and family policy issues. In this experiment, we found that congressional offices randomized to the intervention reported greater value of research for understanding issues than the control group following implementation. More research use was also observed in legislation introduced by the intervention group. Further, we found that researchers randomized to the intervention advanced their own policy knowledge and engagement as well as reported benefits for their research following implementation

Assessment of variation in immunosuppressive pathway genes reveals TGFBR2 to be associated with risk of clear cell ovarian cancer.

BACKGROUND: Regulatory T (Treg) cells, a subset of CD4+ T lymphocytes, are mediators of immunosuppression in cancer, and, thus, variants in genes encoding Treg cell immune molecules could be associated with ovarian cancer. METHODS: In a population of 15,596 epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) cases and 23,236 controls, we measured genetic associations of 1,351 SNPs in Treg cell pathway genes with odds of ovarian cancer and tested pathway and gene-level associations, overall and by histotype, for the 25 genes, using the admixture likelihood (AML) method. The most significant single SNP associations were tested for correlation with expression levels in 44 ovarian cancer patients. RESULTS: The most significant global associations for all genes in the pathway were seen in endometrioid ( p = 0.082) and clear cell ( p = 0.083), with the most significant gene level association seen with TGFBR2 ( p = 0.001) and clear cell EOC. Gene associations with histotypes at p < 0.05 included: IL12 ( p = 0.005 and p = 0.008, serous and high-grade serous, respectively), IL8RA ( p = 0.035, endometrioid and mucinous), LGALS1 ( p = 0.03, mucinous), STAT5B ( p = 0.022, clear cell), TGFBR1 ( p = 0.021 endometrioid) and TGFBR2 ( p = 0.017 and p = 0.025, endometrioid and mucinous, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Common inherited gene variation in Treg cell pathways shows some evidence of germline genetic contribution to odds of EOC that varies by histologic subtype and may be associated with mRNA expression of immune-complex receptor in EOC patients

A communal catalogue reveals Earth's multiscale microbial diversity

Our growing awareness of the microbial world's importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth's microbial diversity.Peer reviewe

A communal catalogue reveals Earth’s multiscale microbial diversity

Our growing awareness of the microbial world’s importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth’s microbial diversity