Substance Use in Rural Areas: A Narrative Concerning the Care, Treatment, and Stigma of Rural Substance Users

Fatal drug overdoses have affected both urban and rural communities in recent years but is more pronounced in rural areas. In this narrative, a commentary regarding the increased maternal morbidity and mortality rates for rural women, the lack of access to appropriate medical and substance abuse treatment, and societal and intragroup stigma will be addressed, as these issues are plaguing rural substance users and their recovery. The narrative will include an in-depth discussion regarding the practices and policies being implemented in reducing rural fatal overdoses, including the implementation and underutilization of medication assisted treatment and harm reduction techniques, as well as the stigma surrounding rural substance users and some evidence-based practices, hindering care, treatment, and potential recovery for rural users

Correlational Impact of Workload, Teamwork and Retention Rate for Clinical Nursing Units

Healthcare organizations face an impending shortage of over one million nurses. Staff turnover adds costs to healthcare and decreases the morale of the unit. Teamwork has been shown to be related to engagement as engagement has been shown to be related to retention. Understanding how teamwork mitigates increasing workload at the unit level is critical to reducing turnover at the nursing unit level. This research explored relationships between teamwork and productivity and teamwork and retention rates for nurses. The Neuman Systems Model was used as the framework to guide this retrospective correlational analysis with teamwork as a flexible line of defense protecting nurse retention against the stress of increasing workload. Results indicates that teamwork was a relating factor but did not significantly correlate to productivity or retention rates directly. Of important note, units with lower productivity tended to have a stronger association with teamwork and retention rates

Examining Cyberstalking Victimization Using Routine Activities and Lifestyle-routine Activities Theories: A Critical Literature Review

Lifestyle and routine activities models are often used in criminological research to examine crime victimization. Routine activities and lifestyle-routine activities theories both propose crime occurs when there is a physical convergence of time and space between a motivated offender and a suitable target, with the absence of a capable guardian. However, crimes committed in cyberspace are without the proposed physical interaction. Due to the emergence of the Internet, stalking victimization has been rapidly occurring in the realm of cyberspace, which is a disorganized environment for crime to occur. In this critical literature review, a review of pertinent research will be detailed discussing the use of routine activities and lifestyle-routine activities framework, the theories’ key concepts and operationalizations used in cyberstalking research today, and the methods and research findings examining the theories adaptability to cyberspace. This critical literature review will conclude with suggestions for future research relating to routine activities and lifestyle-routine activities models on cyberstalking scholarship

Monovalent and divalent cation permeability and block of neuronal nicotinic receptor channels in rat parasympathetic ganglia

Acetylcholine-evoked currents mediated by activation of nicotinic receptors in rat parasympathetic neurons were examined using whole-cell voltage clamp. The relative permeability of the neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine (nACh) receptor channel to monovalent and divalent inorganic and organic cations was determined from reversal potential measurements. The channel exhibited weak selectivity among the alkali metals with a selectivity sequence of Cs+ \u3e K+ \u3e Rb+ \u3e Na+ \u3e Li+, and permeability ratios relative to Na+ (P(x)/P(Na)) ranging from 1.27 to 0.75. The selectivity of the alkaline earths was also weak, with the sequence of Mg2+ \u3e Sr2+ \u3e Ba2+ \u3e Ca2+, and relative permeabilities of 1.10 to 0.65. The relative Ca2+ permeability (P(Ca)/P(Na)) of the neuronal nACh receptor channel is ~ fivefold higher than that of the motor endplate channel (Adams, D. J., T. M. Dwyer, and B. Hille. 1980. Journal of General Physiology. 75:493-510). The transition metal cation, Mn2+ was permeant (P(x)/P(Na) = 0.67), whereas Ni2+, Zn2+, and Cd2+ blocked ACh-evoked currents with half-maximal inhibition (IC50) occurring at ~500 μM, 5 μM and 1 mM, respectively. In contrast to the muscle endplate AChR channel, that at least 56 organic cations which are permeable to (Dwyer et al. 1980), the majority of organic cations tested were found to completely inhibit ACh-evoked currents in rat parasympathetic neurons. Concentration-response curves for guanidinium, ethylammonium, diethanolammonium and arginine inhibition of ACh-evoked currents yielded IC50s of ~2.5-6.0 mM. The organic cations, hydrazinium, methylammonium, ethanolammonium and Tris, were measurably permeant, and permeability ratios varied inversely with the molecular size of the cation. Modeling suggests that the pore has a minimum diameter of 7.6 Å. Thus, there are substantial differences in ion permeation and block between the nACh receptor channels of mammalian parasympathetic neurons and amphibian skeletal muscle which represent functional consequences of differences in the primary structure of the subunits of the ACh receptor channel

Molecular gas freeze-out in the pre-stellar core L1689B

C17O (J=2-1) observations have been carried out towards the pre-stellar core L1689B. By comparing the relative strengths of the hyperfine components of this line, the emission is shown to be optically thin. This allows accurate CO column densities to be determined and, for reference, this calculation is described in detail. The hydrogen column densities that these measurements imply are substantially smaller than those calculated from SCUBA dust emission data. Furthermore, the C17O column densities are approximately constant across L1689B whereas the SCUBA column densities are peaked towards the centre. The most likely explanation is that CO is depleted from the central regions of L1689B. Simple models of pre-stellar cores with an inner depleted region are compared with the results. This enables the magnitude of the CO depletion to be quantified and also allows the spatial extent of the freeze-out to be firmly established. We estimate that within about 5000 AU of the centre of L1689B, over 90% of the CO has frozen onto grains. This level of depletion can only be achieved after a duration that is at least comparable to the free-fall timescale.Comment: MNRAS letters. 5 pages, 5 figure

Comparison of on-line and off-line methods to quantify reactive oxygen species (ROS) in atmospheric aerosols

Atmospheric aerosol particle concentrations have been linked with a wide range of pulmonary and cardio-vascular diseases but the particle properties responsible for these negative health effects are largely unknown. It is often speculated that reactive oxygen species (ROS) present in atmospheric particles lead to oxidative stress in, and ultimately disease of, the human lung. The quantification of ROS is highly challenging because some ROS components such as radicals are highly reactive and therefore short-lived. Thus, fast analysis methods are likely advantageous over methods with a long delay between aerosol sampling and ROS analysis. We present for the first time a detailed comparison of conventional off-line and fast on-line methods to quantify ROS in organic aerosols. For this comparison a new and fast on-line instrument was built and characterized to quantify ROS in aerosol particles with high sensitivity and a limit of detection of 4 nmol H2O2 equivalents per m3 air. ROS concentrations are measured with a time resolution of approximately 15 min, which allows the tracking of fast changing atmospheric conditions. The comparison of the off-line and on-line method shows that, in oxidized organic model aerosol particles, the majority of ROS have a very short lifetime of a few minutes whereas a small fraction is stable for a day or longer. This indicates that off-line techniques, where there is often a delay of hours to days between particle collection and ROS analysis, may severely underestimate true ROS concentrations and that fast on-line techniques are necessary for a reliable ROS quantification in atmospheric aerosol particles and a meaningful correlation with health outcomes.This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (NE/H52449X/1), the Velux Stiftung (Project 593) and an ERC starting grant (grant no. 279405).This is the accepted manuscript version. The final published version is available from Elsevier at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231014002787

Detailed in situ hot stage transmission electron microscope observations of the localized pinning of a mobile ferrite-austenite interface in a Fe-C-Mn alloy by a single oxidic particle

The current study reports the detailed analysis of an observation of the local pinning of a slowly moving austenite-ferrite interface by a single nanosized oxidic particle. The observations were made during an in situ cyclic partial phase transformation experiment on a Fe-0.1C-1.0Mn alloy close to the inversion stage at which the interface migrates at a rather low velocity. The low velocity allowed capturing the interface pinning effect over a period of no less than 16 seconds. From our observations, it was possible to follow the progression of the pinning effect from the initial stages all the way through to the release of the interface. The pinning force exerted by the individual particle having a diameter of 140 nm on the austenite-ferrite interface was estimated as 175 nJ m−1, while the maximum pinning length was approximately 750 nm to either side of the particle, leading to an interface line tension of 170 nJ m−1. The observed pinning behavior is compared with the most relevant models in the literature

X-ray mapping in a scanning transmission electron microscope of InGaAs quantum dots with embedded fractional monolayers of aluminium

We investigate AlGaAs/GaAs superlattices as well as InGaAs/GaAs quantum wells (QWs) and epitaxial quantum dots (QDs) where during the molecular beam epitaxy of InGaAs QDs the aluminium flux cell was opened briefly to incorporate fractional monolayers of Al into the InGaAs. We show that X-ray mapping with a large collection angle is capable to detect 0.3-0.4 fractional Al monolayers with a resolution of just under 1nm