Child Maltreatment Victimization and Adolescent Weapon Carrying: Exploring the Role of In-Home Firearm Access and Parent-Child Relationships

Youth violence is a widespread public health problem affecting thousands of adolescents ages 10-24 each year. Violence-exposed youth have greater risk for negative physical and mental health outcomes. Adolescent weapon carrying is a form of delinquent behavior associated with youth violence. Child maltreatment (CM) has been identified as a risk factor for weapon carrying. This study sought to elucidate the relationship between CM and weapon carrying by exploring three potential mediators at the interpersonal level of the social-ecological model: in-home firearm access, quality of relationship with father, and quality of relationship with mother. Data were from the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect, which followed 1,354 children at risk for CM from approximately age 4 to age 18. The exploratory mediational hypotheses were not supported. However, results found that a positive association between child protective services-substantiated physical abuse history and adolescent weapon carrying, after controlling for child gender, annual family income, study site, and propensity score (B=0.12, 95% CI: -0.006, 0.22, p=.04). No other CM types were significantly related to adolescent weapon carriage in adjusted models. These results underscore the importance of child physical abuse prevention in preventing this type of delinquent behavior in adolescence

Unequal Chances: Family Background and Economic Success

Is the United States "the land of equal opportunity" or is the playing field tilted in favor of those whose parents are wealthy, well educated, and white? If family background is important in getting ahead, why? And if the processes that transmit economic status from parent to child are unfair, could public policy address the problem? Unequal Chances provides new answers to these questions by leading economists, sociologists, biologists, behavioral geneticists, and philosophers. New estimates show that intergenerational inequality in the United States is far greater than was previously thought. Moreover, while the inheritance of wealth and the better schooling typically enjoyed by the children of the well-to-do contribute to this process, these two standard explanations fail to explain the extent of intergenerational status transmission. The genetic inheritance of IQ is even less important. Instead, parent-offspring similarities in personality and behavior may play an important role. Race contributes to the process, and the intergenerational mobility patterns of African Americans and European Americans differ substantially. Following the editors' introduction are chapters by Greg Duncan, Ariel Kalil, Susan E. Mayer, Robin Tepper, and Monique R. Payne; Bhashkar Mazumder; David J. Harding, Christopher Jencks, Leonard M. Lopoo, and Susan E. Mayer; Anders Björklund, Markus Jäntti, and Gary Solon; Tom Hertz; John C. Loehlin; Melissa Osborne Groves; Marcus W. Feldman, Shuzhuo Li, Nan Li, Shripad Tuljapurkar, and Xiaoyi Jin; and Adam Swift.family background, economic success, education, status, public policy, inequality, genetic inheritance, intergenerational mobility

Effects of Decentering and Non-judgement on Body Dissatisfaction and Negative Affect Among Young Adult Women

This dataset provides cross-sectional, quantitative data from 330 female participants aged 18–35 years with respect to demographics (age, gender, ethnicity, BMI, experience with mindfulness, meditation, or contemplative prayer); self-reported trait mindfulness, weight and shape concerns, and difficulties in emotion regulation; and self-reported state body dissatisfaction (weight dissatisfaction, shape dissatisfaction, appearance dissatisfaction) and negative affect at 3 timepoints (baseline, post-media exposure, and final [after engaging in a strategy focused on decentering, non-judgement, or rest]). It also includes qualitative data files that specify participants' self-reported thoughts and behaviour during the strategy, how participants responded to any negative thoughts and feelings, how participants might use the strategy in everyday life, and any further comments about taking part in the study. One qualitative file contains the raw data only, and the other includes our codes and rationale for rating each participant with respect to their degree of adherence to the strategy instructions.This dataset was created through online data collection using Qualtrics. Demographics and trait/state variables were assessed using validated self-report measures and visual analogue scales.Microsoft Word and SPSS Statistics software is required to view the data

Reference Guide to Mouse Models of Spinal Muscular Atrophy

This resource manual summarizes The Jackson Laboratory\u27s extensive resources for SMA (Spinal Muscular Atrophy) research. Its purpose is to guide you through your selection of the best model for your studies. For accurate interpretation of results, it is essential to understand the differences that exist in the spectrum of disease as it is modeled by a mouse - not only on a phenotypic level but on the molecular defect level as well, and recognize that not all phenotypes displayed by mouse models may be relevant in the clinic. Nonetheless, mouse models have proven essential in both basic research and preclinical discovery for bringing promising therapeutics to the clinic for SMA patients

Operator Sequence Alters Gene Expression Independently of Transcription Factor Occupancy in Bacteria

A canonical quantitative view of transcriptional regulation holds that the only role of operator sequence is to set the probability of transcription factor binding, with operator occupancy determining the level of gene expression. In this work, we test this idea by characterizing repression in vivo and the binding of RNA polymerase in vitro in experiments where operators of various sequences were placed either upstream or downstream from the promoter in Escherichia coli. Surprisingly, we find that operators with a weaker binding affinity can yield higher repression levels than stronger operators. Repressor bound to upstream operators modulates promoter escape, and the magnitude of this modulation is not correlated with the repressor-operator binding affinity. This suggests that operator sequences may modulate transcription by altering the nature of the interaction of the bound transcription factor with the transcriptional machinery, implying a new layer of sequence dependence that must be confronted in the quantitative understanding of gene expression

Evaluating Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion activities within Creative Industries Clusters: A report from Creative Informatics

In 2018 UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) created the Creative Industries Clusters Programme (CICP), which has funded nine large-scale Creative Research and Development Partnerships (CRDPs) across the UK, including Creative Informatics. Creative Informatics (2018–2024) focuses on supporting the Creative Industries in Edinburgh and the South-East Scotland Region to use data to innovate in the production of goods and services. With a network of over 6000 people, and leading to 352 new and safeguarded jobs, Creative Informatics has had a huge impact on the creative industries in its region. But has this been done in a way that advances Equality, Diversity and Inclusion?This report evaluates the Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (ED&I) activities (based on data published up to July 2023) of Creative Informatics (CI) in the context of other funding, policy and research organisations also operating in the space of the Creative Industries. These organisations are Clwstwr, Bristol + Bath Creative Research + Development, and XR Stories and the associated Research England-funded project, SIGN, which are three other regional beneficiaries of the Creative Industries Clusters Programme (CICP), and the Creative Industries Policy & Evidence Centre, which is also part of the CICP. We also offer an overview of ED&I activities by Creative Scotland as a comparable Scottish funder of the Creative Industries.Each of these organisations publishes its own material about ED&I aims, priorities, actions, accountability and reporting, and in this report we introduce the organisations and their self-stated objectives and targets. We then discuss their data collection activities as part of their monitoring practices as well as their reasons for collecting specific data, their comparisons of these data against benchmarks, and how they incorporate intersectionality. Next we look at the collaborators and beneficiaries of projects funded by these organisations and finally we address three recurring issues raised by many of the organisations: how to achieve continued improvement, change at senior levels, and socio-economic inequalities. All of this is placed in the context of wider ED&I activities within the Creative Industries. After introducing this overview of each organisation's activities, our discussion section draws out some common themes and, finally, we offer some recommendations for how to expand upon the evidence and knowledge already circulating in the Creative Industries

A Cross Sectional Study of Mostly African- American Men Examining Mental Health and Child Behavior

Background: Home visiting receives bipartisan support at both the state and federal level, because several models have demonstrated significant results in both reduction of child maltreatment as well as parenting behavior modification. Yet, parenting research and services lack further engagement and involvement as a primary component. That is, even though research has shown that fathers play an integral role in child development, there is very little research done in which fathers are the primary focus; most of this research focuses on mothers. When it comes to serving children who are victims of child abuse and neglect, this is a problem at both the programmatic and legislative level. Methods: This study took place within the context of a broader NIH funded trial to examine the efficacy of an adapted (technologically enhanced) version of an evidence-based parenting program, SafeCare, for fathers. This was a cross-sectional examination of the results from a survey in which mostly African-American, at-risk fathers (n=84), reported on – using putative measures – parenting practices, mental health, and behavior of their children. This initial assessment used linear regression to examine the association between fathers’ mental health and their child’s externalizing and internalizing problem behaviors. Results: On average, higher levels of father depression and anxiety corresponded to higher scores for child behavior problems. That is, there was a significant correlation between the fathers’ anxiety and depression and the child’s problem behaviors. Conclusions: These findings suggest a need for acknowledging the father’s role in child development as well as any potential external factors that might have a pernicious effect on the father’s mental state[s]. In addition, more attention should be given to separating data within studies that examine both mothers and fathers in order to assess individual effects by each parent