An evaluation of two alcohol education courses in a military setting : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University

An evaluation of two alcohol education courses conducted in a military setting for a supposedly "high risk" group in terms of alcohol related problems, formed the basis of the present study. The two courses differed in length (3 x 2 hour lessons, 2 x 2 hour lessons), and comprized a combination of lecture, film, question-answer and discussion group instructional methods. Pre and post questionnaire responses of the two groups of course participants (n = 28,26) and of a control group (n = 28) were analysed. In addition a follow-up measure was taken of one group of participants four months after programme completion. Results indicated a significant gain in the course participants' knowledge as a result of the programme, but no change in attitudes, or skills-related responses. Despite a small positive post course reaction to the programme, the subjects self-reported alcohol consumption remained unaffected by the course, and on average placed the sample in the top 35% of the New Zealand population in terms of self-reported alcohol consumption. These results were considered to be reflective of the theoretical and practical distances between the concepts and processes of education, prevention and evaluation, by the present author

Creating an Effective Regional Alignment Strategy for the U.S. Army

View the Executive SummaryAs the war in Afghanistan draws to a close, the Army increasingly is focused upon “regionally aligning” its forces. To do so effectively, however, it must undertake several initiatives. First, the Army must acknowledge and liberate the unique productive capabilities (talents) of each individual. Second, it must shift from process-oriented, industrial age personnel management to productivity-focused, information age talent management. Third, the Army must foster enduring human relationships between its organizations and the governments, militaries, and populations to which they are regionally aligned. Hand in hand with this, it must redesign its Force Generation Model to create regional expertise at both individual and organizational levels. Finally, the Army must ensure that regional alignment does not degrade the worldwide “flex” capabilities of its forces.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1474/thumbnail.jp

Acclimation, Adaptation, Traits and Trade-Offs in Plankton Functional Type Models: Reconciling Terminology for Biology and Modelling

We propose definitions in terminology to enhance ongoing collaborations between biologists and modellers on plankton ecology. Organism functional type should refer to commonality in ecology not biogeochemistry; the latter is largely an emergent property of the former, while alignment with ecology is also consistent with usage in terrestrial science. Adaptation should be confined, as in genetics, to consideration of species inter-generational change; most so-called adaptive plankton models are thus acclimative, modifying vital rates in response to stimuli. Trait trade-off approaches should ideally only be considered for describing intra-generational interactions; in applications between generations, and certainly between unrelated species, such concepts should be avoided. We suggest that systems biology approaches, through to complex adaptive/acclimative systems modelling, with explicit modelling of feedback processes (which we suggest should define mechanistic models), would provide realistic and flexible bases upon which to develop descriptions of functional type models

Does culture shape face perception in autism? Cross-cultural evidence of the own-race advantage from the UK and Japan

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are associated with face perception atypicalities, and atypical experience with faces has been proposed as an underlying explanation. Studying the own‐race advantage (ORA) for face recognition can reveal the effect of experience on face perception in ASD, although the small number of studies in the area present mixed findings. The current study probed the ORA in ASD by comparing two cultural groups simultaneously for the first time. Children with ASD in the UK (N=16) and Japan (N=26) were compared to age and ability matched TD children in the UK (N=16) and Japan (N=26). Participants completed a two‐alternative forced‐choice task, whereby they had to recognise a just‐seen face from a foil which was manipulated in one of four ways (IC: identity change; EE: easy eyes; HE: hard eyes; HM: hard mouth). Face stimuli were Asian and Caucasian, and thus the same stimuli were own and other‐race depending on the cultural group. The ASD groups in the UK and Japan did not show impaired face recognition abilities, or impairments with recognising faces depending on manipulations to the eye region, and importantly they showed an ORA. There was considerable heterogeneity in the presence of the ORA in ASD and TD and also across cultures. Children in Japan had higher accuracy than children in the UK, and TD children in Japan did not show an ORA. The present cross‐cultural study challenges the view that atypical experiences with faces lead to a reduced/absent ORA in ASD

Cross-syndrome comparison of real-world executive functioning and problem solving using a new problem-solving questionnaire

Background. Individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders like Williams syndrome and Down syndrome exhibit executive function impairments on experimental tasks (Lanfranchi, Jerman, Dal Pont, Alberti, & Vianello, 2010; Menghini, Addona, Costanzo, & Vicari, 2010), but the way that they use executive functioning for problem solving in everyday life has not hitherto been explored. The study aim is to understand cross-syndrome characteristics of everyday executive functioning and problem solving. Methods. Parents/carers of individuals with Williams syndrome (n=47) or Down syndrome (n=31) of a similar chronological age (m =17 years 4 months and 18 years respectively) as well as those of a group of younger typically developing children (n=34; m=8 years 3 months) completed two questionnaires: the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF; Gioia, Isquith, Guy, & Kenworthy, 2000) and a novel Problem-Solving Questionnaire. Results. The rated likelihood of reaching a solution in a problem solving situation was lower for both syndromic groups than the typical group, and lower still for the Williams syndrome group than the Down syndrome group. The proportion of group members meeting the criterion for clinical significance on the BRIEF was also highest for the Williams syndrome group. While changing response, avoiding losing focus and maintaining perseverance were important for problem-solving success in all groups, asking for help and avoiding becoming emotional were also important for the Down syndrome and Williams syndrome groups respectively. Keeping possessions in order was a relative strength amongst BRIEF scales for the Down syndrome group. Conclusion. Results suggest that individuals with Down syndrome tend to use compensatory strategies for problem solving (asking for help and potentially, keeping items well ordered), while for individuals with Williams syndrome, emotional reactions disrupt their problem- solving skills. This paper highlights the importance of identifying syndrome-specific problem-solving strengths and difficulties to improve effective functioning in everyday life

Are American Homeowners Locked into Their Houses? The Impact of Housing Market Conditions on State-to-State Migration

U.S. policymakers are concerned that negative home equity arising from the severe housing market decline may be constraining geographic mobility and consequently serving as a factor in the nation's persistently high unemployment rate. Indeed, the widespread drop in house prices since 2007 has increased the share of homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages. At the same time, migration across states and among homeowners has fallen sharply. Using a logistic regression framework to analyze data from the Internal Revenue Service on state-to-state migration between 2006 and 2009, the authors discover evidence that house lock decreases mobility but find it has a negligible impact on the national unemployment rate. A one-standard deviation increase in the share of underwater nonprime households in the origin state reduces the outflow of migrants from the origin to the destination state by 2.9 percent. When aggregated across the United States, this decrease in mobility reduces the national state-to-state migration rate by 0.05 percentage points, resulting in roughly 110,000 to 150,000 fewer individuals migrating across state lines in any given year. Assuming that all of these discouraged migrants were job-seekers who were previously unemployed before relocating and then found a job in their new state would reduce the nation's unemployment rate by at most one-tenth of a percentage point in a given year. The cumulative effect over this period would yield an unemployment rate of 9.0 percent versus 9.3 percent in 2009. Recognizing that not all state-to-state migrants are job-seekers, not all job-seekers were previously unemployed, and not all previously unemployed job-seekers will successfully find work in their new location yields an unemployment rate that is virtually unchanged from the actual one that prevailed from 2006 to 2009

A united statement of the global chiropractic research community against the pseudoscientific claim that chiropractic care boosts immunity.

BACKGROUND: In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the International Chiropractors Association (ICA) posted reports claiming that chiropractic care can impact the immune system. These claims clash with recommendations from the World Health Organization and World Federation of Chiropractic. We discuss the scientific validity of the claims made in these ICA reports. MAIN BODY: We reviewed the two reports posted by the ICA on their website on March 20 and March 28, 2020. We explored the method used to develop the claim that chiropractic adjustments impact the immune system and discuss the scientific merit of that claim. We provide a response to the ICA reports and explain why this claim lacks scientific credibility and is dangerous to the public. More than 150 researchers from 11 countries reviewed and endorsed our response. CONCLUSION: In their reports, the ICA provided no valid clinical scientific evidence that chiropractic care can impact the immune system. We call on regulatory authorities and professional leaders to take robust political and regulatory action against those claiming that chiropractic adjustments have a clinical impact on the immune system

A Roadmap for HEP Software and Computing R&D for the 2020s

Particle physics has an ambitious and broad experimental programme for the coming decades. This programme requires large investments in detector hardware, either to build new facilities and experiments, or to upgrade existing ones. Similarly, it requires commensurate investment in the R&D of software to acquire, manage, process, and analyse the shear amounts of data to be recorded. In planning for the HL-LHC in particular, it is critical that all of the collaborating stakeholders agree on the software goals and priorities, and that the efforts complement each other. In this spirit, this white paper describes the R&D activities required to prepare for this software upgrade.Peer reviewe

Early life child micronutrient status, maternal reasoning, and a nurturing household environment have persistent influences on child cognitive development at age 5 years: Results from MAL-ED

Background: Child cognitive development is influenced by early-life insults and protective factors. To what extent these factors have a long-term legacy on child development and hence fulfillment of cognitive potential is unknown. Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the relation between early-life factors (birth to 2 y) and cognitive development at 5 y. Methods: Observational follow-up visits were made of children at 5 y, previously enrolled in the community-based MAL-ED longitudinal cohort. The burden of enteropathogens, prevalence of illness, complementary diet intake, micronutrient status, and household and maternal factors from birth to 2 y were extensively measured and their relation with the Wechsler Preschool Primary Scales of Intelligence at 5 y was examined through use of linear regression. Results: Cognitive T-scores from 813 of 1198 (68%) children were examined and 5 variables had significant associations in multivariable models: mean child plasma transferrin receptor concentration (β: −1.81, 95% CI: −2.75, −0.86), number of years of maternal education (β: 0.27, 95% CI: 0.08, 0.45), maternal cognitive reasoning score (β: 0.09, 95% CI: 0.03, 0.15), household assets score (β: 0.64, 95% CI: 0.24, 1.04), and HOME child cleanliness factor (β: 0.60, 95% CI: 0.05, 1.15). In multivariable models, the mean rate of enteropathogen detections, burden of illness, and complementary food intakes between birth and 2 y were not significantly related to 5-y cognition. Conclusions: A nurturing home context in terms of a healthy/clean environment and household wealth, provision of adequate micronutrients, maternal education, and cognitive reasoning have a strong and persistent influence on child cognitive development. Efforts addressing aspects of poverty around micronutrient status, nurturing caregiving, and enabling home environments are likely to have lasting positive impacts on child cognitive development.publishedVersio

Les droits disciplinaires des fonctions publiques : « unification », « harmonisation » ou « distanciation ». A propos de la loi du 26 avril 2016 relative à la déontologie et aux droits et obligations des fonctionnaires

The production of tt‾ , W+bb‾ and W+cc‾ is studied in the forward region of proton–proton collisions collected at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV by the LHCb experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.98±0.02 fb−1 . The W bosons are reconstructed in the decays W→ℓν , where ℓ denotes muon or electron, while the b and c quarks are reconstructed as jets. All measured cross-sections are in agreement with next-to-leading-order Standard Model predictions.The production of $t\overline{t}$, $W+b\overline{b}$ and $W+c\overline{c}$ is studied in the forward region of proton-proton collisions collected at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV by the LHCb experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.98 $\pm$ 0.02 \mbox{fb}^{-1}. The $W$ bosons are reconstructed in the decays $W\rightarrow\ell\nu$, where $\ell$ denotes muon or electron, while the $b$ and $c$ quarks are reconstructed as jets. All measured cross-sections are in agreement with next-to-leading-order Standard Model predictions