Stability of and change in substance use risk personality:Gender differences and smoking cigarettes among early adolescents

OBJECTIVE: Adolescents show a steadily increasing inclination toward health risk behaviors, including smoking cigarettes. There is ample evidence that personality traits are related to smoking behavior. However, less is known about the stability of and change in these personality traits during early adolescence and whether smoking behavior affects the developmental trajectories. Moreover, less is known about the influence of gender on the course of personality. METHOD: Longitudinal data of three waves were used from 1121 early adolescents. To measure personality, the Substance Use Risk Profile Scale was used. Individual growth curve models were conducted to measure the stability, mean-level change and individual differences in change for personality. RESULTS: Stability of personality was moderate for boys and ranged from moderate to high for girls. On average early adolescents became more impulsive and more sensation seeking over a period of 18 months. Furthermore, hopelessness for girls increased and the increase in sensation seeking was higher for girls than for boys. Third, smoking behavior was related to all personality traits, indicating that smoking adolescents are more anxious, hopeless, impulsive and sensation seeking than non-smoking adolescents. CONCLUSIONS: Our results are in line with the disruption hypothesis, i.e., during early adolescence there is a dip in personality maturity. There are clear differences between girls and boys in stability of and change in personality traits. Besides, although smoking behavior is related to personality, the change in personality is probably related to other variables

Patterns of transfusion burden in an unselected population of patients with myelodysplastic syndromes:A population-based study

BACKGROUND: Ineffective hematopoiesis in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) often results in transfusion dependence. The burden of frequent transfusions in the real-world MDS population is largely unknown.STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: An observational, retrospective, population-based study, using the HemoBase registry, was performed including all patients diagnosed with MDS between 2005 and 2017 in Friesland, a province in the Netherlands with approximately 650,000 inhabitants. Detailed clinical information was collected from the electronic health records. Transfusion burden was classified according to the International Working Group 2018 criteria: not transfusion dependent, low (LTB), or high transfusion burden (HTB). Univariate and multivariable regression analyses were performed.RESULTS: Of 292 patients, 136 (46.6%) had a HTB of ≥8 units/16 weeks and 17 (5.8%) had a LTB of 3-7 units/16 weeks. This was present in all types of MDS patients, but patients aged 75-84 years (odds ratio [OR] 4.02, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.84-8.82), high-risk MDS patients (OR 2.88, 95% CI: 1.08-7.68) and MDS-EB-2 patients (OR 7.07, 95% CI: 2.17-22.90) were particularly at risk for a HTB.DISCUSSION: This study provides a reliable estimate of the transfusion burden in real-world MDS patients, with almost half of the patients having a HTB. A HTB was observed in all MDS subtypes and both low- and high-risk MDS. Therefore, we conclude that the entire MDS population might benefit from novel agents that reduce the transfusion need and that might have beneficial effects on patient outcomes and healthcare utilization outcomes.</p

Zilte landbouw Texel : een voorbeeld transitieproject 2006-2010 : eindrapport

Het project Zilte Landbouw Texel is in mei 2006 van start gegaan op het perceel nabij ‘De Petten’ op Texel. Er is gekozen om een Zilte Proeftuin aan te leggen op een nabij gelegen perceel waar gedurende twee jaar ongeveer twintig verschillende potentiële zilte gewassen zijn onderzocht op hun groei onder zoute condities en hun marktpotentie. De focus van de werkzaamheden op Texel van de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam was gericht op Zeekool, Strandbiet, Hertshoornweegbree, Monniksbaard, Reukloze kamille en Wilde Rucola. Daarnaast heeft een langdurig onderzoek plaatsgevonden op de Afsluitdijk wat als referentie heeft gediend voor de natuurlijke groei van halofieten. In de kassen van VU zijn meerdere groei-experimenten onder gecontroleerde omstandigheden uitgevoerd, welke gebruikt zijn om de teelt van de verschillende gewassen op Texel verder te ontwikkelen. De teelt van vooral Zeekool, Zilte Rucola en Strandbiet is met succes opgeschaald en de producten zijn afgezet op de (lokale) markt. Door onder andere de promotie via verschillende kanalen en de unieke smaak van de zilte groenten is een vraag ontstaan naar de zilte gewassen die in veel gevallen het aanbod overtrof

Genuine Counterfactual Communication with a Nanophotonic Processor

In standard communication information is carried by particles or waves. Counterintuitively, in counterfactual communication particles and information can travel in opposite directions. The quantum Zeno effect allows Bob to transmit a message to Alice by encoding information in particles he never interacts with. The first suggested protocol not only required thousands of ideal optical components, but also resulted in a so-called "weak trace" of the particles having travelled from Bob to Alice, calling the scalability and counterfactuality of previous proposals and experiments into question. Here we overcome these challenges, implementing a new protocol in a programmable nanophotonic processor, based on reconfigurable silicon-on-insulator waveguides that operate at telecom wavelengths. This, together with our telecom single-photon source and highly-efficient superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors, provides a versatile and stable platform for a high-fidelity implementation of genuinely trace-free counterfactual communication, allowing us to actively tune the number of steps in the Zeno measurement, and achieve a bit error probability below 1%, with neither post-selection nor a weak trace. Our demonstration shows how our programmable nanophotonic processor could be applied to more complex counterfactual tasks and quantum information protocols.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Experimental nonlocal and surreal Bohmian trajectories

Weak measurement allows one to empirically determine a set of average trajectories for an ensemble of quantum particles. However, when two particles are entangled, the trajectories of the first particle can depend nonlocally on the position of the second particle. Moreover, the theory describing these trajectories, called Bohmian mechanics, predicts trajectories that were at first deemed “surreal” when the second particle is used to probe the position of the first particle. We entangle two photons and determine a set of Bohmian trajectories for one of them using weak measurements and postselection. We show that the trajectories seem surreal only if one ignores their manifest nonlocality.Full Tex

Closed timelike curves via post-selection: theory and experimental demonstration

Closed timelike curves (CTCs) are trajectories in spacetime that effectively travel backwards in time: a test particle following a CTC can in principle interact with its former self in the past. CTCs appear in many solutions of Einstein's field equations and any future quantum version of general relativity will have to reconcile them with the requirements of quantum mechanics and of quantum field theory. A widely accepted quantum theory of CTCs was proposed by Deutsch. Here we explore an alternative quantum formulation of CTCs and show that it is physically inequivalent to Deutsch's. Because it is based on combining quantum teleportation with post-selection, the predictions/retrodictions of our theory are experimentally testable: we report the results of an experiment demonstrating our theory's resolution of the well-known `grandfather paradox.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Pollen and spores as biological recorders of past ultraviolet irradiance

Solar ultraviolet (UV) irradiance is a key driver of climatic and biotic change. Ultraviolet irradiance modulates stratospheric warming and ozone production, and influences the biosphere from ecosystem-level processes through to the largest scale patterns of diversification and extinction. Yet our understanding of ultraviolet irradiance is limited because no method has been validated to reconstruct its flux over timescales relevant to climatic or biotic processes. Here, we show that a recently developed proxy for ultraviolet irradiance based on spore and pollen chemistry can be used over long (105 years) timescales. Firstly we demonstrate that spatial variations in spore and pollen chemistry correlate with known latitudinal solar irradiance gradients. Using this relationship we provide a reconstruction of past changes in solar irradiance based on the pollen record from Lake Bosumtwi in Ghana. As anticipated, variations in the chemistry of grass pollen from the Lake Bosumtwi record show a link to multiple orbital precessional cycles (19-21 thousand years). By providing a unique, local proxy for broad spectrum solar irradiance, the chemical analysis of spores and pollen offers unprecedented opportunities to decouple solar variability, climate and vegetation change through geologic time and a new proxy with which to probe the Earth system

The association of adolescents' smoking with the physical activity levels of their friends

Funding Information: This study is part of the SILNE-R project (Enhancing the Effectiveness of Programs and Strategies to Prevent Smoking by Adolescents: A Realist Evaluation Comparing Seven European Countries), which is supported by the European Union‘s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, under grant agreement 635,056. The funder was not involved and did not have any input in the design, analysis and reporting of this study. Publisher Copyright: © 2023Background: Smoking is inversely related to people's Physical Activity Level (PAL). As the behavior of friends may affect the choices and behavior of adolescents, having friends with a high PAL may potentially protect against adolescent smoking. This study aims to assess whether adolescents' smoking is associated with the PAL of their friends. Methods: SILNE-R survey data of 11.918 adolescents from 55 different schools in 7 European cities was used to determine weekly smoking, individual PAL, PAL of friends, school PAL, and smoking of friends. Multilevel, multivariable logistic regression analysis were used to assess the association between the PAL of friends and weekly smoking. Several socio-demographic variables were included as covariates in the analysis. Results: Our results indicated that 10.8% of the respondents was smoking weekly. Weekly smoking was most common among adolescents whose friends had a PAL of 0–42.0 min per day (14.5%). Respondents were significantly more likely to be smoking weekly if their friends were on average 0–42 min vs. 80–180 min physically active (OR 1.27 [95% CI 1.04–1.55]). This association existed independently of the individual PAL of respondents. Stratification for smoking of friends yielded equal results, although the association appeared to be somewhat stronger for those with smoking friends (OR 1.38 [95% CI 1.06–1.82]). Conclusion: Adolescents are less likely to smoke weekly if they associate with friends who spend >80 min per day on physical activity. Initiatives aimed at the prevention of smoking among adolescents may benefit from organizing group-based physical activity programs.publishersversionpublishe

Strengthening impact assessment: a call for integration and focus

We suggest that the impact assessment community has lost its way based on our observation that impact assessment is under attack because of a perceived lack of efficiency. Specifically, we contend that the proliferation of different impact assessment types creates separate silos of expertise and feeds arguments for not only a lack of efficiency but also a lack of effectiveness of the process through excessive specialisation and a lack of interdisciplinary practice. We propose that the solution is a return to the basics of impact assessment with a call for increased integration around the goal of sustainable development and focus through better scoping. We rehearse and rebut counter arguments covering silo-based expertise, advocacy, democracy, sustainability understanding and communication. We call on the impact assessment community to rise to the challenge of increasing integration and focus, and to engage in the debate about the means of strengthening impact assessment