The Experience of Alcohol Use in Adolescence: A Hermeneutic Study

Alcohol use among adolescents has been a long-standing problem in the United States. This study was undertaken to gain a better understanding of what the experience of using alcohol as a teenager is like. For this hermeneutic study, three participants took part in an in-depth interview that focused on their experiences with alcohol. The main theme that emerged from the experiences was Maturing. This theme and two subthemes, Peer Influence and Risk Taking, were examined for deeper meaning. These findings suggest that professionals working with adolescents can further help their clients by keeping the door open for discussion of alcohol use. These finding also indicate that policies regarding prevention efforts may need to shift their focus from abstinence to responsible drinking

In-situ measurement of the permittivity of helium using microwave NbN resonators

By measuring the electrical transport properties of superconducting NbN quarter-wave resonators in direct contact with a helium bath, we have demonstrated a high-speed and spatially sensitive sensor for the permittivity of helium. In our implementation a $\sim10^{-3}$ mm$^3$ sensing volume is measured with a bandwidth of 300 kHz in the temperature range 1.8 to 8.8 K. The minimum detectable change of the permittivity of helium is calculated to be $\sim6\times$$10^{-11}$ $\epsilon_0$/Hz$^{1/2}$ with a sensitivity of order $10^{-13}$ $\epsilon_0$/Hz$^{1/2}$ easily achievable. Potential applications include operation as a fast, localized helium thermometer and as a transducer in superfluid hydrodynamic experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Immobilization of Adult Bull Bison With Etorphine

Between 1967 and 1972, 66 bison (Bison bison) (Linnaeus) bulls, 1 cow and 1 calf were dosed with the narcotic etorphine (M-99) on open range at Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge, Valentine, Nebraska and at Wind Cave National Park, Hot Springs, South Dakota. Etorphine administered at levels of 5 to 6.3 mcg/lb of body weight brought the animals to sternal recumbency. Underdosing was associated with long, difficult pursuit and considerable chance of not apprehending the drugged animal. Adding of methotrimeprazine (Levoprome) up to 74.88 mcg/lb of body weight to the etorphine dosages for some old bulls seemed to have no noticeable effect. The efficiency of antagonists for etorphine is indicated by the fact that dosages of diprenorphine brought 71 percent of 28 bison to their feet in less than I 0 minutes and all the animals in less than 20 minutes. Cyprenorphine brought 52 percent of 25 bison to their feet in less than 10 minutes, 84 percent in less than 20, and all within a period of 27 minutes

Plant Conservation in the Juan Fernandez Archipelago, Chile

Oceanic archipelagos often hold very specialized floras with high degrees of endemism. These floras are frequently highly vulnerable to disturbance by natural causes and human intervention. The Juan Fernandez Islands (Chile) in the Pacific Ocean are a small archipelago of only three islands. Since discovery in 1574 by Juan Fernandez, human activities have altered floristic composition and survival circumstances of the endemic species. In this paper we document past and present means of disturbance, both anthropogenic and natural, which have influenced the native vegetation. The most destructive past activities have been logging and .introduction of animals and plants, both deliberately and inadvertently. At the present time, exotic organisms are still introduced as pets, ornaments, or for soil conservation. All pose serious threats to the natural vegetation as shown by altered floristic composition, populational decline of endemic taxa, and even extinction. Weeds that form impenetrable thickets are Aristotelia chilensis, Rubus ulmifolius, and Ugni molinae. Recent introductions include the aggressive Lantana camara and Lonicera japonica. Examples of endemic taxa in need of conservation are Dendroseris, Lactoris, and Robinsonia. Previous studies reveal that island taxa frequently have low levels of genetic variation, a pattern also seen in many endemic taxa of the Juan Fernandez Islands. Conservation programs are urgently needed that emphasize physical and biological measures for controlling alien weeds and animals

The hetZ Gene Regulates Heterocyst Formation in Anabaena sp. strain PCC 7120

To form a complex multicellular organism, stem cells must differentiate into each cell/tissue type along proper spatiotemporal scales. The study of differentiation and organismal development has historically been conducted in prokaryotes due to their genetic and morphological simplicity. Anabaena sp. strain PCC 7120 is a multicellular filamentous cyanobacterium that differentiates a morphologically distinct secondary cell type, the heterocyst, in response to a lack of combined environmental nitrogen. Heterocysts are regularly spaced along filaments and fix atmospheric dinitrogen to maintain organismal viability in its absence. Previous work suggested that the hetZ gene is involved in heterocyst differentiation, but the insertional mutants created produced inconsistent phenotypes, so a specific role was not assigned. In this work, a clean hetZ mutant incapable of heterocyst differentiation was generated and the mutation was complemented with the reintroduction of hetZ alone. Overexpression of hetZ bypassed a mutation of hetR, the master regulator of heterocyst differentiation that controls biological pattern formation, but not a mutation of hetP, a regulator of commitment to a differentiated cell fate, which places hetZ roughly between these processes. A protein-protein interaction study showed that HetZ interacts with both HetR and itself. Assessment of transcriptional fusions between the hetZ, hetR, hetP, and patS (an inhibitor of HetR) promoter regions and GFP, and overexpression of HetR in a hetZ mutant resulted in the differentiation of heterocyst-like cells, together indicated that HetZ may act in concert with HetR as an early regulator of development. Taken together, these data describe a non-linear pathway of regulation leading to heterocyst development governed by both HetR and HetZ

Electronics and data acquisition demonstrator for a kinetic inductance camera

A prototype of digital frequency multiplexing electronics allowing the real time monitoring of kinetic inductance detector (KIDs) arrays for mm-wave astronomy has been developed. It requires only 2 coaxial cables for instrumenting a large array. For that, an excitation comb of frequencies is generated and fed through the detector. The direct frequency synthesis and the data acquisition relies heavily on a large FPGA using parallelized and pipelined processing. The prototype can instrument 128 resonators (pixels) over a bandwidth of 125 MHz. This paper describes the technical solution chosen, the algorithm used and the results obtained

Profiling Volatile Constituents of Homemade Preserved Foods Prepared in Early 1950s South Dakota (USA) Using Solid-Phase Microextraction (SPME) with Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) Determination

https://scholar.dsu.edu/research-symposium/1013/thumbnail.jp

Carbonic Anhydrase Inhibitors Suppress Platelet Procoagulant Responses and In Vivo Thrombosis

Carbonic anhydrase (CA) inhibitors have a long history of safe clinical use as mild diuretics, in the treatment of glaucoma and for altitude sickness prevention. In this study, we aimed to determine if CA inhibition may be an alternative approach to control thrombosis. We utilized a high-resolution dynamic imaging approach to provide mechanistic evidence that CA inhibitors may be potent anti-procoagulant agents in vitro and effective anti-thrombotics in vivo. Acetazolamide and methazolamide, while sparing platelet secretion, attenuated intracellular chloride ion entry and suppressed the procoagulant response of activated platelets in vitro and thrombosis in vivo. The chemically similar N-methyl acetazolamide, which lacks CA inhibitory activity, did not affect platelet procoagulant response in vitro. Outputs from rotational thromboelastometry did not reflect changes in procoagulant activity and reveal the need for a suitable clinical test for procoagulant activity. Drugs specifically targeting procoagulant remodeling of activated platelets, by blockade of carbonic anhydrases, may provide a new way to control platelet-driven thrombosis without blocking essential platelet secretion responses

Profiling Volatile Emissions from Sewage Sludge Land-Applied Across Washington State (USA) Using Headspace Sampling with Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) Determination

https://scholar.dsu.edu/research-symposium/1012/thumbnail.jp