Healthy Skin is In: Effects of a Multifaceted Sun Safety Program for Adolescents

Skin cancer is a common, potentially life threatening disease notably on the rise among young Americans. A substantial portion of lifetime exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation, the greatest modifiable risk factor for skin cancer development, occurs during childhood and adolescence. Schools infrequently integrate sun safety education into the classroom and many lack essential sun safety policies. The purpose of this EBP project was to implement a multifaceted educational intervention providing middle school students with the knowledge behavioral skills needed to minimize the risk of developing skin cancer. The Health Belief Model and ACE Star Model of evidence-based practice guided this project. A convenience sample of seventh and eighth grade science students attending a local middle school in Northwest Indiana during the fall of 2012 were recruited. Interventions included two 50-minute educational sessions utilizing PowerPoint, video-clips, nurse practitioner led discussion, in-class group activities focusing on the impact of UV radiation, and appearance-focused evaluations with a skin viewing device. Informational packets for parents and school policy recommendations for administrators were developed and distributed. Questionnaires were administered to participants immediately before, immediately following, and one month following implementation of the project. Three major outcomes were evaluated: knowledge of sun safety, intentions to practice sun-protective behaviors, and attitudes toward sun-protection. While 169 students received the educational component of the program, only 125 students ages 12-14 years (M = 12.8) participated in the completion of all three questionnaires. The project demonstrated significant improvements in students’ knowledge on sun safety and UV radiation (p \u3c .001), attitudes toward tanning and skin cancer (p \u3c .001), and self-reported intentions to change sun-protective behaviors (p \u3c .001). Improvements were maintained over time from pre-test to post-test two. School nurses, administrators, and community leaders can use findings from this project to initiate policy revisions supporting a sun safe environment and the implementation of sun safety education across all grade levels

A Complete Redesign of Freshmen Engineering Course

This interactive session will provide the audience with a full description of the redesign of the freshmen engineering course at Fairfield University. In addition, participants will be led through several of the active learning experiences similar to those used in the course, thus having the opportunity to experience the class first hand. The session will cover: the history of the class, the backward design process used to revitalize the course, the linkages made between course outcomes, course goals, accreditation requirements, and the University’s core pathways, and, finally, it will conclude with results and feedback on how effective the redesign was. Participants will also get to have some time for small and large group reflection on what was learned

Financing sustainable agriculture and mitigation

Key messages: - Smallholder farmers and forestry producers have a crucial role to play in food security, sustainable land use and emissions reductions initiatives. - Producers and investors alike require appropriate incentive structures to facilitate participation in sustainable land use initiatives. - A networked financing approach—Inari—may provide an innovative response to financing sustainable land use via intelligent diversification and addressing the finance needs of smallholders. - Diversification requires the development of a more holistic risk model for investment in smallholder agriculture and forestry, which will be tested in a number of developing countries in 2013 and 2014

Evaluation of Three Pour Training Procedures for Beer, Wine, and Liquor

The purpose of this study was to determine if stimulus fading, verbal feedback, and superimposition training would improve college students’ acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of accurate pours of beer, wine, and liquor. Twenty participants were assigned to stimulus fading (n = 5), verbal feedback (n = 5), superimposition training (n = 5), or a repeated-pouring condition (n = 5). Pour accuracy served as the primary dependent measure and was defined as pouring within 10% of a standard serving of each alcohol type. Pour accuracy was assessed before training, immediately after training, and 1 week and 30 days following training using single-subject designs. Data was then analyzed at the group level to detect patterns across participants. Results show participants poured each alcohol type accurately after one or two rounds of training, but evidence of maintenance and generalization were infrequently observed. Implications for future assessments, training, and alcohol education programs are discussed

Making sense of ultrahigh-resolution movement data: A new algorithm for inferring sites of interest

Decomposing the life track of an animal into behavioral segments is a fundamental challenge for movement ecology. The proliferation of high‐resolution data, often collected many times per second, offers much opportunity for understanding animal movement. However, the sheer size of modern data sets means there is an increasing need for rapid, novel computational techniques to make sense of these data. Most existing methods were designed with smaller data sets in mind and can thus be prohibitively slow. Here, we introduce a method for segmenting high‐resolution movement trajectories into sites of interest and transitions between these sites. This builds on a previous algorithm of Benhamou and Riotte‐Lambert (2012). Adapting it for use with high‐resolution data. The data’s resolution removed the need to interpolate between successive locations, allowing us to increase the algorithm’s speed by approximately two orders of magnitude with essentially no drop in accuracy. Furthermore, we incorporate a color scheme for testing the level of confidence in the algorithm's inference (high = green, medium = amber, low = red). We demonstrate the speed and accuracy of our algorithm with application to both simulated and real data (Alpine cattle at 1 Hz resolution). On simulated data, our algorithm correctly identified the sites of interest for 99% of “high confidence” paths. For the cattle data, the algorithm identified the two known sites of interest: a watering hole and a milking station. It also identified several other sites which can be related to hypothesized environmental drivers (e.g., food). Our algorithm gives an efficient method for turning a long, high‐resolution movement path into a schematic representation of broadscale decisions, allowing a direct link to existing point‐to‐point analysis techniques such as optimal foraging theory. It is encoded into an R package called SitesInterest, so should serve as a valuable tool for making sense of these increasingly large data streams

Phase behavior and oil recovery investigations using mixed and alkaline-enhanced surfactant systems

The results of an evaluation of different mixed surfactant and alkaline-enhanced surfactant systems for enhanced oil recovery are described. Several mixed surfactant systems have been studies to evaluate their oil recovery potential as well as improved adaptability to different ranges of salinity, divalent ion concentrations, and temperature. Several combinations of screening methods were used to help identify potential chemical formulations and determine conditions where particular chemical systems can be applied. The effects of different parameters on the behavior of the overall surfactant system were also studied. Several commercially available surfactants were tested as primary components in the mixtures used in the study. These surfactants were formulated with different secondary as well as tertiary components, including ethoxylated and non-ethoxylated sulfonates and sulfates. Improved salinity and hardness tolerance was achieved for some of these chemical systems. The salinity tolerance of these systems were found to be dependent on the molecular weight, surfactant type, and concentration of the surfactant components

Human α2β1HI CD133+VE epithelial prostate stem cells express low levels of active androgen receptor

Stem cells are thought to be the cell of origin in malignant transformation in many tissues, but their role in human prostate carcinogenesis continues to be debated. One of the conflicts with this model is that cancer stem cells have been described to lack androgen receptor (AR) expression, which is of established importance in prostate cancer initiation and progression. We re-examined the expression patterns of AR within adult prostate epithelial differentiation using an optimised sensitive and specific approach examining transcript, protein and AR regulated gene expression. Highly enriched populations were isolated consisting of stem (α(2)β(1)(HI) CD133(+VE)), transiently amplifying (α(2)β(1)(HI) CD133(-VE)) and terminally differentiated (α(2)β(1)(LOW) CD133(-VE)) cells. AR transcript and protein expression was confirmed in α(2)β(1)(HI) CD133(+VE) and CD133(-VE) progenitor cells. Flow cytometry confirmed that median (±SD) fraction of cells expressing AR were 77% (±6%) in α(2)β(1)(HI) CD133(+VE) stem cells and 68% (±12%) in α(2)β(1)(HI) CD133(-VE) transiently amplifying cells. However, 3-fold lower levels of total AR protein expression (peak and median immunofluorescence) were present in α(2)β(1)(HI) CD133(+VE) stem cells compared with differentiated cells. This finding was confirmed with dual immunostaining of prostate sections for AR and CD133, which again demonstrated low levels of AR within basal CD133(+VE) cells. Activity of the AR was confirmed in prostate progenitor cells by the expression of low levels of the AR regulated genes PSA, KLK2 and TMPRSS2. The confirmation of AR expression in prostate progenitor cells allows integration of the cancer stem cell theory with the established models of prostate cancer initiation based on a functional AR. Further study of specific AR functions in prostate stem and differentiated cells may highlight novel mechanisms of prostate homeostasis and insights into tumourigenesis

Forces Sauces and Eggs for Soldiers: food, nostalgia, and the rehabilitation of the British military

This article identifies, and considers the political implications of, the association of the contemporary British military and British soldiers with nostalgia. This aspect of the discursive project of rehabilitating the British military post-Iraq has not hitherto been theorized. The article analyses a set of exemplifying texts, four military charity food brands (Eggs for Soldiers, Forces Sauces, Red Lion Foods, and Rare Tea Company Battle of Britain Tea) to ask how nostalgic rehabilitation of the British military unfolds at the intersections of militarization, commemoration, and post-2008 “conscience capitalism”. I outline how military charity food brands are a form of “conscience capitalism” through which the perpetuation of militarized logics are produced as a notionally apolitical social “cause”, rendered intelligible within the terms of existing commoditized discourses of post-2008 vintage nostalgia. I then ask what understandings of British soldiers and the British military are constituted within the discourse of nostalgic rehabilitation, and secondly what forms of commemoration are entailed. I argue that a nostalgic generalization of soldiers and the military nullifies the potential unruliness of individual soldiers and obscures the specifics of recent, controversial, wars. Secondly nostalgic civil–military engagement entails a commemorative logic in which forms of quasi-military service are brought into the most banal spaces of everyday civilian life

Distinguishing post-treatment changes from recurrent disease in cholangiocarcinoma: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Three-dimensional techniques for radiotherapy have expanded possibilities for partial volume liver radiotherapy. Characteristic, transient radiographic changes can occur in the absence of clinical radiation-induced liver disease after hepatic radiotherapy and must be distinguished from local recurrence.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>In this report, we describe computed tomography changes after chemoradiotherapy for cholangiocarcinoma as an example of collaboration to determine the clinical significance of the radiographic finding.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Because of improved three-dimensional, conformal radiotherapy techniques, consultation across disciplines may be necessary to interpret post-treatment imaging findings.</p