Behavioral risk profiles of homeschooled adolescents in the United States: a nationally representative examination of substance use related outcomes

BACKGROUND: The homeschool population continues to grow in size and now accounts for 3.4% of all students in the United States. OBJECTIVE: Given the heterogeneous nature of the population, this study examines the relationship between different types of homeschoolers and a number of substance use related outcomes. METHODS: To conduct this study, we used pooled data (2002–2013) from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). Respondents aged 12–17 who reported they had been homeschooled at any time during the previous 12 months were classified as homeschoolers (N = 1,321). Latent profile analysis (LPA) was conducted to identify latent subgroups of homeschoolers and multinomial regression was executed to assess the relationship between the subgroups and perceived substance use risk, availability, and past 12-month use. RESULTS: The LPA yielded four subgroups, which were summarized as (1) highly religious and engaged, (2) limited parental monitoring, (3) high parental warmth and support, and (4) secular permissive. Of these, the highly religious and engaged subgroup was the least likely to report using substances. CONCLUSION: The results underscore the variation that exists among homeschoolers and the importance of examining the relationship between different types of homeschoolers and outcomes of interest

Military service and crime: new evidence

BACKGROUND: Evidence indicates that a substantial proportion of military personnel are involved in high-risk and antisocial behaviors that place them at jeopardy for criminal justice system involvement. However, prior research on military service and crime has disproportionately focused on veterans from the Vietnam War era (1955–1975), and has tended to focus on either current or former military members. METHODS: This study employed data from a population-based study (i.e., National Study on Drug Use and Health [NSDUH] between 2002 and 2014). It systematically examines the prevalence of self-reported antisocial behaviors, criminal justice system involvement, and substance abuse among the US civilian population and military service members, including reservists (n = 2206) and those who reported having been separated or retired from military service (n = 20,551). These factors are further examined across the developmental spectrum of adulthood (ages 18–34, 35–49, and 50–64). RESULTS: Results showed that military members were more prone to lifetime arrests and overall substance misuse. However, additional findings emerged suggesting that, while the military population overall seems to be positively associated with higher criminal activity than that found in the civilian population, these findings were based on a specific subgroup of the veteran population. This subgroup is comprised of individuals who likely did not fit in with the military culture and were discharged from the military early in their careers. CONCLUSION: Additional research on identifying this subgroup of military members is encouraged to better concentrate on prevention and treatment measures

Impact of streamflow variability on the Colorado River system operation

May 2007.Includes bibliographical references (pages 80-81).The water supply provided by the Colorado River system is critical to millions of residents in the arid and semiarid western United States. Understanding the response of the system to possible hydrologic occurrences is important to water planners and managers for short, medium, and long term planning and operation of the system. A long sequence of historical streamflow records is available for the river system; however, this sequence is not sufficient to capture the complex temporal and spatial variability of the river system. The overall objective of the study is to determine the effect of alternative possible future hydrologic scenarios on water supply availability throughout the entire river system. Another objective is to estimate the sustainable yield of the Upper Colorado River basin. This study demonstrates that the traditional definition of the Upper Basin's sustainable yield must be reevaluated in order to determine any sort of sustainable yield volume under stochastic simulation

KPZ Formulas for Weyl-Invariant Induced Gravity and Topologically Massive Gravity

I discuss the applicability in Weyl-invariant induced gravity and topologically massive gravity of certain formulas originally derived by Knizhnik, Polyakov, and Zamolodchikov in the context of diffeomorphism-invariant induced gravity.Comment: 4 pages, LaTex. (Contribution to the Proceedings of the 2nd Topical Meeting on Constrained Dynamics and Quantum Gravity.

Environmental Chamber for in Situ Dynamic Control of Temperature and Relative Humidity During X-Ray Scattering

We have designed, constructed, and evaluated an environmental chamber that has in situ dynamic control of temperature (25 to 90 °C) and relative humidity (0% to 95%). The compact specimen chamber is designed for x-ray scattering in transmission with an escape angle of 2θ = ±30°. The specimen chamber is compatible with a completely evacuated system such as the Rigaku PSAXS system, in which the specimen chamber is placed inside a larger evacuated chamber (flight path). It is also compatible with x-ray systems consisting of evacuated flight tubes separated by small air gaps for sample placement. When attached to a linear motor (vertical displacement), the environmental chamber can access multiple sample positions. The temperature and relative humidity inside the specimen chamber are controlled by passing a mixture of dry and saturated gas through the chamber and by heating the chamber walls. Alternatively, the chamber can be used to control the gaseous environment without humidity. To illustrate the value of this apparatus, we have probed morphology transformations in Nafion® membranes and a polymerized ionic liquid as a function of relative humidity in nitrogen

Profiles of acculturation among Hispanics in the United States: links with discrimination and substance use

Recent research suggests that acculturation is a multifaceted construct with implications for substance use among Hispanics. However, few, if any, studies examining profiles of acculturation have been conducted using national samples. Moreover, no cluster-based studies have examined how acculturation relates to discrimination and substance use disorders among Hispanics in the United States

Molecular Insights into Division of Single Human Cancer Cells in On-Chip Transparent Microtubes.

In vivo, mammalian cells proliferate within 3D environments consisting of numerous microcavities and channels, which contain a variety of chemical and physical cues. External environments often differ between normal and pathological states, such as the unique spatial constraints that metastasizing cancer cells experience as they circulate the vasculature through arterioles and narrow capillaries, where they can divide and acquire elongated cylindrical shapes. While metastatic tumors cause most cancer deaths, factors impacting early cancer cell proliferation inside the vasculature and those that can promote the formation of secondary tumors remain largely unknown. Prior studies investigating confined mitosis have mainly used 2D cell culture systems. Here, we mimic aspects of metastasizing tumor cells dividing inside blood capillaries by investigating single-cell divisions of living human cancer cells, trapped inside 3D rolled-up, transparent nanomembranes. We assess the molecular effects of tubular confinement on key mitotic features, using optical high- and super-resolution microscopy. Our experiments show that tubular confinement affects the morphology and dynamics of the mitotic spindle, chromosome arrangements, and the organization of the cell cortex. Moreover, we reveal that membrane blebbing and/or associated processes act as a potential genome-safety mechanism, limiting the extent of genomic instability caused by mitosis in confined circumstances, especially in tubular 3D microenvironments. Collectively, our study demonstrates the potential of rolled-up nanomembranes for gaining molecular insights into key cellular events occurring in tubular 3D microenvironments in vivo.The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC grant agreement no. 311529 (S.S.) and the Volkswagen Foundation no. 86 362 (S.S. and W.X.), a FEBS Return-to-Europe fellowship (C.K.S.), the Wellcome Trust (092096/Z/10/Z for N.L.; 094587/Z/10/Z for R.B.), and a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Researcher Grant (R.E.C.-S.; SYSGRO). O.G.S. acknowledges financial support from the DFG Research Unit 1713 “Sensorische Mikro und Nanosysteme”. D.H.G. acknowledges funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the U.S. National Science Foundation (Grants: CMMI 1200241 and CBET-1442014). Research in the S.P.J. laboratory is funded by Cancer Research U.K., the ERC, and the European Community Seventh Framework Programme (DDResponse), with core infrastructure provided by Cancer Research U.K. and the Wellcome Trust.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from the American Chemical Society via http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.6b0046

Multiobjective design of wearable sensor systems for electrocardiogram monitoring

Wearable sensor systems will soon become part of the available medical tools for remote and long term physiological monitoring. However, the set of variables involved in the performance of these systems are usually antagonistic, and therefore the design of usable wearable systems in real clinical applications entails a number of challenges that have to be addressed first. This paper describes a method to optimise the design of these systems for the specific application of cardiac monitoring. The method proposed is based on the selection of a subset of 5 design variables, sensor contact, location, and rotation, signal correlation, and patient comfort, and 2 objective functions, functionality and wearability. These variables are optimised using linear and nonlinear models to maximise those objective functions simultaneously. The methodology described and the results achieved demonstrate that it is possible to find an optimal solution and therefore overcome most of the design barriers that prevent wearable sensor systems from being used in normal clinical practice.This work was supported by the Departamento Administrativo de Ciencia, Tecnologia e Innovacion, COLCIENCIAS, Republic of Colombia, under Grant nos. 511 and 523.Martinez-Tabares, FJ.; Costa-Salas, YJ.; Cuesta Frau, D.; Castellanos-Dominguez, G. (2016). Multiobjective design of wearable sensor systems for electrocardiogram monitoring. Journal of Sensors. (2418065):1-15. https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/2418065115241806