Challenging the Evidence Base: The Impact of Teen Pregnancy Prevention Curricula on Disconnected Youth

Rates of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections are substantially higher for youth in foster care, juvenile detention, homeless shelters and substance use rehabilitation facilities. However, these "disconnected youth" face multiple barriers in accessing sexual health information. This study uses data from a multi-site federally funded project to examine the usefulness and effectiveness of teen pregnancy prevention evidence based programs (EBPs) with youth in high risk setting

Texas Early Childhood Care and Education Professional Preparation – Survey Data Report

This study was designed to broaden our understanding of the capacity of Texas Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) early childhood care and education (ECCE) programs to effectively prepare Texas early childhood professionals for the workforce.University of Texas Health Science Center and Texas Early Learning CouncilRay Marshall Center for the Study of Human Resource

Frontolimbic Circuits, Dopamine, and Attentional Bias to Alcohol Cues

The excess allocation of attention toward addiction-related stimuli has been widely reported across a wide variety of addictions, including alcohol use disorders (AUDs). This phenomenon is defined as addiction attentional bias (AB) and is thought to reflect Pavlovian conditioning processes associated with the repeated pairing of sensory stimuli with the rewarding properties of reinforcing substances. AB to alcohol related stimuli has been reported in alcohol addicted and heavy social drinking populations. The presence of addiction AB is of clinical importance as it has been reported to correlate with drug craving, addiction severity, and treatment outcomes. A more recent study found that another form of AB, generalized reward (non-drug related), AB was also heightened in addicted individuals. In a population of substance abuse users (SUDs) generalized AB reflected an increase allocation of attention to a monetary reward. This phenomenon of generalized reward AB is true for healthy young adults with no SUD history. The presence of heightened addiction and generalized AB in addicted and healthy populations may suggest individual differences in susceptibility to reward conditioning. Preclinical models of addiction have reported marked individual differences in the responses to reward conditioned stimuli and that a tendency toward greater sensitivity to reward conditioning is a risk factor for addiction. However, these individual differences have not been greatly explored in humans, and not been investigated in at-risk social drinking populations. Moreover, very few studies to date have investigated the neural mechanisms of addiction and generalized reward AB. Thus the overall goal of this dissertation was to characterize alcohol and generalized reward attentional bias in a social drinking sample and the neural mechanisms that contributes to the expression of these behavioral phenomena. Specifically, we investigated two distinct forms of alcohol AB in heavy, binge and moderate social drinkers and assessed the role of current and past binge drinking behavior on alcohol AB. To probe the underlying mechanisms of alcohol AB, we assessed sensitivity to reward conditioning, a process that may potentially underlie AB and investigated the role of adolescent binge alcohol exposure on sensitivity to reward conditioning. To further explore the neural mechanisms of AB, we probed the role of dopamine (DA) in alcohol AB and reward conditioning. Using a phenylalanine/ tyrosine (P/T) depleted amino acid (AA) beverage to pharmacologically manipulate DA levels, we assessed changes in AB and functional connectivity of the frontolimbic network, a key network for reward conditioning in heavy, binge and moderate social drinking males. Our investigations of AB revealed a significant difference in alcohol AB on one of our tasks, but with moderate drinkers showing greater AB than our hypothesized heavy, binge drinkers. Current and adolescent binge drinking measures negatively correlated with alcohol AB on this task as well. We also found that alcohol AB was inversely related to the magnitude of AB toward a reward-conditioned cue in a reward conditioning task. Furthermore, in a subset of female participants, we detected a significant relationship between frequency of adolescence binge drinking and reward conditioning. Specifically, a greater frequency of binge drinking before age 18 predicted significantly greater expression of reward conditioning, independent of current binge alcohol use. Finally, our investigations of the role of DA and the frontolimbic network revealed that frequency of binge drinking prior to age 18 negatively correlated with changes in alcohol AB after dopamine depletion. Current and past binge drinking significantly predicted changes in alcohol AB but only in heavy drinkers. Furthermore, current binge drinking was directly related to alcohol AB while adolescent binge drinking was inversely related. Our neuroimaging analysis revealed a significant relationship between the change in functional connectivity and alcohol AB. Specifically, increased AB was positively correlated with increased functional connectivity of the VTA and executive region of the Striatum and the VTA and DLPFC. Taken together, these studies contribute to our understanding of alcohol related attentional bias, generalized reward conditioning and the role of dopamine and frontolimbic neurocircuitry in these behavioral phenomenon and emphasis the importance of investigating individual differences to AB and reward conditioning in humans.Doctor of Philosoph

Assessing Texas School Social Work Practice: Findings from the First Statewide Conference Survey

Abstract Aims: To examine the characteristics, perceived barriers, special student populations, and school-based tasks performed by Texas\u27s school social workers in comparison to other Specialized Instructional Services Providers (SISP) professionals in schools. Methods: A convenience sample from a survey of 212 school social workers and school services providers from the Texas School Social Workers Conference. The survey was developed using previous surveys and practice knowledge and assessed (a) demographics, (b) characteristics of school social work practice, (c) types of tasks, (d) special population served, (e) types of barriers), and (f) the tools and training that are most needed. Results: The roles of Texas School social workers are similar to school social workers nationally. There were significant differences between the roles, tasks, and barriers to practice for school social workers than other SISP providers. School social workers more frequently served on the frontlines with high-needs students and special populations, assisted teachers in classroom management and contributed to in-service training for the school than other SISP professionals. Practice Implications: School social workers make significant and sustained contributions to K-12, public schools, magnet schools, and charter schools. School social workers play a key role in serving a school’s high-needs students and specialized populations; better implementation of state standards, professional development, and opportunities for networking are needed

Community Seismic Network

The article describes the design of the Community Seismic Network, which is a dense open seismic network based on low cost sensors. The inputs are from sensors hosted by volunteers from the community by direct connection to their personal computers, or through sensors built into mobile devices. The server is cloud-based for robustness and to dynamically handle the load of impulsive earthquake events. The main product of the network is a map of peak acceleration, delivered within seconds of the ground shaking. The lateral variations in the level of shaking will be valuable to first responders, and the waveform information from a dense network will allow detailed mapping of the rupture process. Sensors in buildings may be useful for monitoring the state-of-health of the structure after major shaking

The Caltech CSN project collects sensor data from thousands of personal devices for realtime response to dangerous earthquakes

The proliferation of smartphones and other powerful sensor-equipped consumer devices enables a new class of Web application: community sense and response (CSR) systems, distinguished from standard Web applications by their use of community-owned commercial sensor hardware. Just as social networks connect and share human-generated content, CSR systems gather, share, and act on sensory data from users' Internet-enabled devices. Here, we discuss the Caltech Community Seismic Network (CSN) as a prototypical CSR system harnessing accelerometers in smartphones and consumer electronics, including the systems and algorithmic challenges of designing, building, and evaluating a scalable network for real-time awareness of dangerous earthquakes

Community Sense and Response Systems: Your Phone as Quake Detector

The proliferation of smartphones and other powerful sensor-equipped consumer devices enables a new class of Web application: community sense and response (CSR) systems, distinguished from standard Web applications by their use of community-owned commercial sensor hardware. Just as social networks connect and share human-generated content, CSR systems gather, share, and act on sensory data from users' Internet-enabled devices. Here, we discuss the Caltech Community Seismic Network (CSN) as a prototypical CSR system harnessing accelerometers in smartphones and consumer electronics, including the systems and algorithmic challenges of designing, building, and evaluating a scalable network for real-time awareness of dangerous earthquakes

Antibodies against endogenous retroviruses promote lung cancer immunotherapy

B cells are frequently found in the margins of solid tumours as organized follicles in ectopic lymphoid organs called tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS)$^{1,2}$. Although TLS have been found to correlate with improved patient survival and response to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB), the underlying mechanisms of this association remain elusive$^{1,2}$. Here we investigate lung-resident B cell responses in patients from the TRACERx 421 (Tracking Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer Evolution Through Therapy) and other lung cancer cohorts, and in a recently established immunogenic mouse model for lung adenocarcinoma$^{3}$. We find that both human and mouse lung adenocarcinomas elicit local germinal centre responses and tumour-binding antibodies, and further identify endogenous retrovirus (ERV) envelope glycoproteins as a dominant anti-tumour antibody target. ERV-targeting B cell responses are amplified by ICB in both humans and mice, and by targeted inhibition of KRAS(G12C) in the mouse model. ERV-reactive antibodies exert anti-tumour activity that extends survival in the mouse model, and ERV expression predicts the outcome of ICB in human lung adenocarcinoma. Finally, we find that effective immunotherapy in the mouse model requires CXCL13-dependent TLS formation. Conversely, therapeutic CXCL13 treatment potentiates anti-tumour immunity and synergizes with ICB. Our findings provide a possible mechanistic basis for the association of TLS with immunotherapy response