Safe using messages may not be enough to promote behaviour change amongst injecting drug users who are ambivalent or indifferent towards death

Health promotion strategies ultimately rely on people perceiving the consequences of their behaviour as negative. If someone is indifferent towards death, it would logically follow that health promotion messages such as safe using messages would have little resonance. This study aimed to investigate attitudes towards death in a group of injecting drug users (IDUs) and how such attitudes may impact upon the efficacy/relevance of \u27safe using\u27 (health promotion) messages.<br /

Research indepedence matters for practitioners and researchers in the addictions

As governments, industry bodies, and other interest groups become more adept at influencing the conduct and dissemination of research, it is increasingly important that the alcohol and other drug (AOD) sector maintains and protects the integrity of its evidence base. This commentary discusses the level and type of influence being exerted on the research process by different interest groups within the field. It explores the impact and influence of funding bodies, other interest groups, and social systems on addiction and recovery using relevant examples to identify questions for practitioners and researchers to consider when encountering interested parties in their day-to-day practice. Ultimately, it is service users and clinicians at the &quot;front line&quot; of recovery who have the most to lose from research findings that have been unduly influenced. The best protection against bias in these forms is to practice critical self-reflection and to keep openly and honestly debating those things that we find most challenging.<br /

On the stability analysis of periodic sine-Gordon traveling waves

We study the spectral stability properties of periodic traveling waves in the sine-Gordon equation, including waves of both subluminal and superluminal propagation velocities as well as waves of both librational and rotational types. We prove that only subluminal rotational waves are spectrally stable and establish exponential instability in the other three cases. Our proof corrects a frequently cited one given by Scott.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figure

Enhancement of primary production in the North Atlantic outside of the spring bloom, identified by remote sensing of ocean colour and temperature

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Alcohol Price Considerations on alcohol and Illicit Drug Use in University Students

BackgroundThis study investigates alcohol price and proposed substance use amongst Australian tertiary students.MethodsParticipants were recruited in 2009 via facebook, and were asked to complete a 34-item internetbased survey. 512 people took part, 485 fit the inclusion criteria.ResultsThe sample consisted predominately of young (mean age 20.3 years), female (66%) university students. Higher alcohol prices resulted in increased consideration of illicit substances as an alternative indicating a substitution effect, although the majority (60%) of respondents would never consider using ecstasy.ConclusionResults indicate substantial room to increase the price of alcohol to achieve alcohol consumption reduction without likely substitution behavior

The hard quiescent spectrum of the neutron-star X-ray transient EXO 1745-248 in the globular cluster Terzan 5

We present a Chandra observation of the globular cluster Terzan 5 during times when the neutron-star X-ray transient EXO 1745-248 located in this cluster was in its quiescent state. We detected the quiescent system with a (0.5-10 keV) luminosity of ~2 x 10^{33} ergs/s. This is similar to several other neutron-star transients observed in their quiescent states. However, the quiescent X-ray spectrum of EXO 1745--48 was dominated by a hard power-law component instead of the soft component that usually dominates the quiescent emission of other neutron-star X-ray transients. This soft component could not conclusively be detected in EXO 1745-248 and we conclude that it contributed at most 10% of the quiescent flux in the energy range 0.5-10 keV. EXO 1745-248 is only the second neutron-star transient whose quiescent spectrum is dominated by the hard component (SAX J1808.4-3658 is the other one). We discuss possible explanations for this unusual behavior of EXO 1745-248, its relationship to other quiescent neutron-star systems, and the impact of our results on understanding quiescent X-ray binaries. We also discuss the implications of our results on the way the low-luminosity X-ray sources in globular clusters are classified.Comment: Accepted by ApJ Main Journal, September 22, 2004. Figure 2 is a color figur

Measurement of loss in superconducting microstrip at millimeter-wave frequencies

We have developed a new technique for accurate measurement of the loss of superconducting microstrips at mm-wave frequencies. In this technique, we optically couple power to slot antenna, which is connected to one port of a hybrid coupler. One of the output ports of the hybrid delivers power to a series of mm-wave microstrip resonators which are capacitively coupled to a feedline followed by an MKID (microwave kinetic inductance detector) that measures the transmitted power. Two other MKIDs are connected to the remaining ports of the hybrid to measure the total incident optical power and the power reflected from the mm-wave resonators, allowing |S_(21)|^2 and |S_(11)|^2 to be accurately determined and resonance frequency fr and quality factor Q to be retrieved. We have fabricated such a Nb/SiO_2/Nb microstrip loss test device which contains several mm- wave resonators with f_r~100 GHz and measured it at 30 mK. All the resonators have shown internal quality factor Qi~500–2000, suggesting a loss tangent of ~5×10^(−4)−2×10^(−3) for the SiO_2 in use. For comparison, we have also fabricated a 5 GHz microstrip resonator on the same chip and measured it with a network analyzer. The loss tangent at 5 GHz derived from fitting the f_0 and Q data to the two-level system (TLS) model is 6×10^(−4), about the same as from the mm-wave measurement. This suggests that the loss at both microwave and mm-wave frequencies is probably dominated by the TLS in SiO_2. Our results are of direct interest to mm/submm direct detection applications which use microstrip transmission lines (such as antenna-coupled MKIDs and transition-edge sensors), and other applications (such as on-chip filters). Our measurement technique is applicable up to approximately 1 THz and can be used to investigate a range of dielectrics

Dancing with death : the grey area between suicide related behavior, indifference and risk behaviors of heroin users

Suicide-related behavior (SRB) among heroin users is a complex and multifaceted continuum, including such fringe areas as indifference and &quot;risky&quot; behavior. The article investigates the nuances and intersections of SRB, using qualitative semi-structured interviews with 60 regular heroin users recruited primarily from syringe programs in Geelong, Australia. Twenty-eight percent of interviewees reported a previous suicide attempt and 45% reported serious consideration of it. Types of SRB reported included: Suicide attempts, instrumental suicide-related behaviors, suicidal ideation, indifference and risk-taking thoughts and behaviors. Heroin users engage in much behavior which inhabits a grey area of SRB. The use of a nomenclature which addresses the elements of lethality and intent improves the ability of research to properly define and categorize SRB in drug-using populations. But the categories should not be overinclusive; indifferent attitudes towards death and risk-taking behaviors can sometimes be a functional response to the risk environment of heroin users.<br /

An investigation of benthic recovery and climate change resilience in the Englishman River estuary

SNAPSHOT: A benthic monitoring program will be added in 2018 to the ongoing Englishman River Estuary recovery study, situated on the east coast of Vancouver Island. This will complement investigations which have been ongoing, prior to and following the removal of a berm during 2017. Changes in salinity patterns, flow regimes, channel morphology, elevation, sediment size, and vegetation distribution are being assessed and these variables will be used to map distinctive areas of the estuary. Benthic samples will be collected from representative areas and monitored over the long term. Relative and total abundance, species diversity, biomass, and various derivatives of these data, such as mean body weight, dominant faunal groups by weight and abundance, and species diversity/richness indices will be used to assess changes in the benthos following berm removal, and to determine community resiliency to climate change. The study will be used to develop protocol for a BC coastal wide estuary monitoring program investigating ecosystem resilience to climate change. It is being led by members of the West Coast Conservation Land Management Program and is supported by The Nature Trust of BC, The Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, BC Conservation Foundation and stewardship groups