A feasibility trial to examine the social norms approach for the prevention and reduction of licit and illicit drug use in European University and college students.

Background: Incorrect perceptions of high rates of peer alcohol and tobacco use are predictive of increased personal use in student populations. Correcting misperceptions by providing feedback has been shown to be an effective intervention for reducing licit drug use. It is currently unknown if social norms interventions are effective in preventing and reducing illicit drug use in European students. The purpose of this paper is to describe the design of a multi-site cluster controlled trial of a web-based social norms intervention aimed at reducing licit and preventing illicit drug use in European university students. Methods/Design: An online questionnaire to assess rates of drug use will be developed and translated based on existing social norms surveys. Students from sixteen universities in seven participating European countries will be invited to complete the questionnaire. Both intervention and control sites will be chosen by convenience. In each country, the intervention site will be the university that the local principal investigator is affiliated with. We aim to recruit 1000 students per site (baseline assessment). All participants will complete the online questionnaire at baseline. Baseline data will be used to develop social norms messages that will be included in a web-based intervention. The intervention group will receive individualized social norms feedback. The website will remain online during the following 5 months. After five months, a second survey will be conducted and effects of the intervention on social norms and drug use will be measured in comparison to the control site. Discussion: This project is the first cross-national European collaboration to investigate the feasibility of a social norms intervention to reduce licit and prevent illicit drug use among European university students. Final trial registration number DRKS00004375 on the ‘German Clinical Trials Register’.This study is funded by the European Commission, Directorate General Justice, Freedom and Security (JLS/2009-2010/DPIP/AG

Comments on black holes I: The possibility of complementarity

We comment on a recent paper of Almheiri, Marolf, Polchinski and Sully who argue against black hole complementarity based on the claim that an infalling observer 'burns' as he approaches the horizon. We show that in fact measurements made by an infalling observer outside the horizon are statistically identical for the cases of vacuum at the horizon and radiation emerging from a stretched horizon. This forces us to follow the dynamics all the way to the horizon, where we need to know the details of Planck scale physics. We note that in string theory the fuzzball structure of microstates does not give any place to 'continue through' this Planck regime. AMPS argue that interactions near the horizon preclude traditional complementarity. But the conjecture of 'fuzzball complementarity' works in the opposite way: the infalling quantum is absorbed by the fuzzball surface, and it is the resulting dynamics that is conjectured to admit a complementary description.Comment: 34 pages, 6 figures, v3: clarifications & references adde

The Pioneer Anomaly

Radio-metric Doppler tracking data received from the Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft from heliocentric distances of 20-70 AU has consistently indicated the presence of a small, anomalous, blue-shifted frequency drift uniformly changing with a rate of ~6 x 10^{-9} Hz/s. Ultimately, the drift was interpreted as a constant sunward deceleration of each particular spacecraft at the level of a_P = (8.74 +/- 1.33) x 10^{-10} m/s^2. This apparent violation of the Newton's gravitational inverse-square law has become known as the Pioneer anomaly; the nature of this anomaly remains unexplained. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge of the physical properties of the anomaly and the conditions that led to its detection and characterization. We review various mechanisms proposed to explain the anomaly and discuss the current state of efforts to determine its nature. A comprehensive new investigation of the anomalous behavior of the two Pioneers has begun recently. The new efforts rely on the much-extended set of radio-metric Doppler data for both spacecraft in conjunction with the newly available complete record of their telemetry files and a large archive of original project documentation. As the new study is yet to report its findings, this review provides the necessary background for the new results to appear in the near future. In particular, we provide a significant amount of information on the design, operations and behavior of the two Pioneers during their entire missions, including descriptions of various data formats and techniques used for their navigation and radio-science data analysis. As most of this information was recovered relatively recently, it was not used in the previous studies of the Pioneer anomaly, but it is critical for the new investigation.Comment: 165 pages, 40 figures, 16 tables; accepted for publication in Living Reviews in Relativit

Evolutionary relationships between Rhynchosporium lolii sp. nov. and other Rhynchosporium species on grass.

Copyright: 2013 King et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedThe fungal genus Rhynchosporium (causative agent of leaf blotch) contains several host-specialised species, including R. commune (colonising barley and brome-grass), R. agropyri (couch-grass), R. secalis (rye and triticale) and the more distantly related R. orthosporum (cocksfoot). This study used molecular fingerprinting, multilocus DNA sequence data, conidial morphology, host range tests and scanning electron microscopy to investigate the relationship between Rhynchosporium species on ryegrasses, both economically important forage grasses and common wild grasses in many cereal growing areas, and other plant species. Two different types of Rhynchosporium were found on ryegrasses in the UK. Firstly, there were isolates of R. commune that were pathogenic to both barley and Italian ryegrass. Secondly, there were isolates of a new species, here named R. lolii, that were pathogenic only to ryegrass species. R. lolii was most closely related to R. orthosporum, but exhibited clear molecular, morphological and host range differences. The species was estimated to have diverged from R. orthosporum ca. 5735 years before the present. The colonisation strategy of all of the different Rhynchosporium species involved extensive hyphal growth in the sub-cuticular regions of the leaves. Finally, new species-specific PCR diagnostic tests were developed that could distinguish between these five closely related Rhynchosporium species.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Human leukocyte antigen supertype matching after myeloablative hematopoietic cell transplantation with 7/8 matched unrelated donor allografts: a report from the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research

The diversity of the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I and II alleles can be simplified by consolidating them into fewer supertypes based on functional or predicted structural similarities in epitope-binding grooves of HLA molecules. We studied the impact of matched and mismatched HLA-A (265 versus 429), -B (230 versus 92), -C (365 versus 349), and -DRB1 (153 versus 51) supertypes on clinical outcomes of 1934 patients with acute leukemias or myelodysplasia/myeloproliferative disorders. All patients were reported to the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research following single-allele mismatched unrelated donor myeloablative conditioning hematopoietic cell transplantation. Single mismatched alleles were categorized into six HLA-A (A01, A01A03, A01A24, A02, A03, A24), six HLA-B (B07, B08, B27, B44, B58, B62), two HLA-C (C1, C2), and five HLA-DRB1 (DR1, DR3, DR4, DR5, DR9) supertypes. Supertype B mismatch was associated with increased risk of grade II-IV acute graft-versus-host disease (hazard ratio =1.78, P=0.0025) compared to supertype B match. Supertype B07-B44 mismatch was associated with a higher incidence of both grade II-IV (hazard ratio=3.11, P=0.002) and III-IV (hazard ratio=3.15, P=0.01) acute graft-versus-host disease. No significant associations were detected between supertype-matched versus -mismatched groups at other HLA loci. These data suggest that avoiding HLA-B supertype mismatches can mitigate the risk of grade II-IV acute graft-versus-host disease in 7/8-mismatched unrelated donor hematopoietic cell transplantation when multiple HLA-B supertype-matched donors are available. Future studies are needed to define the mechanisms by which supertype mismatching affects outcomes after alternative donor hematopoietic cell transplantation

Bridging the gaps among research, policy and practice in ten low- and middle-income countries: Development and testing of a questionnaire for health-care providers

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The reliability and validity of instruments used to survey health-care providers' views about and experiences with research evidence have seldom been examined.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Country teams from ten low- and middle-income countries (China, Ghana, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Laos, Mexico, Pakistan, Senegal and Tanzania) participated in the development, translation, pilot-testing and administration of a questionnaire designed to measure health-care providers' views and activities related to improving their clinical practice and their awareness of, access to and use of research evidence, as well as changes in their clinical practice that they attribute to particular sources of research evidence that they have used. We use internal consistency as a measure of the questionnaire's reliability and, whenever possible, we use explanatory factor analyses to assess the degree to which questions that pertain to a single domain actually address common themes. We assess the questionnaire's face validity and content validity and, to a lesser extent, we also explore its criterion validity.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The questionnaire has high internal consistency, with Cronbach's alphas between 0.7 and 0.9 for 16 of 20 domains and sub-domains (identified by factor analyses). Cronbach's alphas are greater than 0.9 for two domains, suggesting some item redundancy. Pre- and post-field work assessments indicate the questionnaire has good face validity and content validity. Our limited assessment of criterion validity shows weak but statistically significant associations between the general influence of research evidence among providers and more specific measures of providers' change in approach to preventing or treating a clinical condition.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our analysis points to a number of strengths of the questionnaire - high internal consistency (reliability) and good face and content validity - but also to areas where it can be shortened without losing important conceptual domains.</p

Longitudinal changes in sedentary time and physical activity during adolescence

BACKGROUND: Low levels of physical activity and high time spent in sedentary activities have been associated with unfavourable health outcomes in adolescents. During adolescence, physical activity declines and sedentary time increases, however little is known about whether the magnitude of these changes differs within or between school-time, after-school time, or at weekends. METHODS: Adolescents (n = 363) participating in the PEACH (Personal and Environmental Associations with Children’s Health) project provided accelerometer data at 12 and 15 years of age. Data were collected in 2008/2009 and 2012/2013. Time spent sedentary (<100 cpm), in light physical activity (LPA (100-2295 cpm) and in moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA: ≥ 2296 cpm) were generated for school-time, after-school time and for weekends using school-specific start and finish times. All data were analysed in 2014. RESULTS: The proportion of time spent sedentary significantly increased during school (+8.23%, 95% CI = 7.35 to 9.13), after-school (+6.99%, 95% CI = 5.91 to 8.07) and at weekends (+6.86%, 95% CI = 5.10 to 8.62). A parallel decrease was found in the proportion of time spent in LPA during school (-7.62%, 95% CI = -8.26 to -6.98), after-school (-7.01%, 95% CI = -7.74 to -6.28) and at weekends (-6.72%, 95% CI = -7.80 to -5.65). The proportion of time spent in MVPA remained relatively stable during school (-0.64, 95% CI = -1.11 to -0.18), after-school (0.04%, 95% CI = -0.58 to 0.67) and at weekends (-0.14%, 95% CI = -1.18 to 0.90). CONCLUSIONS: Objectively measured sedentary time increased between 12 and 15 years of age during-school, after-school, and at weekends, suggesting that interventions aiming to reduce the age-associated changes in sedentary time are needed in all three time contexts. Future work should identify which sedentary activities change more than others to inform interventions which aim to minimise the increase in time spent sedentary during adolescence

Genotypic classification of patients with Wolfram syndrome: insights into the natural history of the disease and correlation with phenotype

Purpose: Wolfram syndrome is a degenerative, recessive rare disease with an onset in childhood. It is caused by mutations in WFS1 or CISD2 genes. More than 200 different variations in WFS1 have been described in patients with Wolfram syndrome, which complicates the establishment of clear genotype-phenotype correlation. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the role of WFS1 mutations and update the natural history of the disease. Methods: This study analyzed clinical and genetic data of 412 patients with Wolfram syndrome published in the last 15 years. Results: (i) 15% of published patients do not fulfill the current ­inclusion criterion; (ii) genotypic prevalence differences may exist among countries; (iii) diabetes mellitus and optic atrophy might not be the first two clinical features in some patients; (iv) mutations are nonuniformly distributed in WFS1; (v) age at onset of diabetes mellitus, hearing defects, and diabetes insipidus may depend on the patient"s genotypic class; and (vi) disease progression rate might depend on genotypic class. Conclusion: New genotype-phenotype correlations were established, disease progression rate for the general population and for the genotypic classes has been calculated, and new diagnostic criteria have been proposed. The conclusions raised could be important for patient management and counseling as well as for the development of treatments for Wolfram syndrome

High sample throughput genotyping for estimating C-lineage introgression in the dark honeybee: an accurate and cost-effective SNP-based tool

The natural distribution of the honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) has been changed by humans in recent decades to such an extent that the formerly widest-spread European subspecies, Apis mellifera mellifera, is threatened by extinction through introgression from highly divergent commercial strains in large tracts of its range. Conservation efforts for A. m. mellifera are underway in multiple European countries requiring reliable and cost-efficient molecular tools to identify purebred colonies. Here, we developed four ancestry-informative SNP assays for high sample throughput genotyping using the iPLEX Mass Array system. Our customized assays were tested on DNA from individual and pooled, haploid and diploid honeybee samples extracted from different tissues using a diverse range of protocols. The assays had a high genotyping success rate and yielded accurate genotypes. Performance assessed against whole-genome data showed that individual assays behaved well, although the most accurate introgression estimates were obtained for the four assays combined (117 SNPs). The best compromise between accuracy and genotyping costs was achieved when combining two assays (62 SNPs). We provide a ready-to-use cost-effective tool for accurate molecular identification and estimation oinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio