Beyond Collective Efficacy: New Brief Measures to Assess the Outer Layers of the Social Ecology

Abstract Introduction: Community support can be a valuable interpersonal resource anywhere, yet past research has largely been focused on adults in urban neighborhoods. Because communities are no longer solely defined by a shared physicality, we offer psychometric data on three new measures to assess other communal resources: informal community support, support for community youth, and workplace integration. Methods: Participants (N=1706) from a largely rural, low-income Southern region completed a computer-assisted questionnaire as part of a larger study on character development and personal strength. Ages range from 11 to 70 years old (M=29.3 years; SD=12.3 years); 63% of participants are female. Results: Internal consistency was good for our 3 new measures, .70 to .86 and each scale comprised a single factor in exploratory factor analyses. Correlations with collective efficacy (convergent validity) were all positive and significant and range from .18 to .57. Correlations with measures of subjective well-being range from .21 to .29, and correlations with mental and physical health outcomes ranged from .14 to .23. Implications: Studying communities in addition to individuals and families can potentially shed light on the variety of ways in which community ties can foster well-being and resilience. The three new measures presented here assess important but understudied aspects of communities

Differential Impacts of Yeasts on Feeding Behavior and Development in Larval Drosophila suzukii (Diptera:Drosophilidae)

Partial funding for Open Access provided by the UMD Libraries' Open Access Publishing Fund.Larval Drosophila encounter and feed on a diverse microbial community within fruit. In particular, free-living yeast microbes provide a source of dietary protein critical for development. However, successional changes to the fruit microbial community may alter host quality through impacts on relative protein content or yeast community composition. For many species of Drosophila, fitness benefits from yeast feeding vary between individual yeast species, indicating differences in yeast nutritional quality. To better understand these associations, we evaluated how five species of yeast impacted feeding preference and development in larval Drosophila suzukii. Larvae exhibited a strong attraction to the yeast Hanseniaspora uvarum in pairwise yeast feeding assays. However, larvae also performed most poorly on diets containing H. uvarum, a mismatch in preference and performance that suggests differences in yeast nutritional quality are not the primary factor driving larval feeding behavior. Together, these results demonstrate that yeast plays a critical role in D. suzukii’s ecology and that larvae may have developed specific yeast associations. Further inquiry, including systematic comparisons of Drosophila larval yeast associations more broadly, will be necessary to understand patterns of microbial resource use in larvae of D. suzukii and other frugivorous species

Pediatric endocrine society survey of diabetes practices in the United States: What is the current state?

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144633/1/pedi12677.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144633/2/pedi12677_am.pd

Leptogenesis Bound on Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking of Global Lepton Number

We propose a new class of leptogenesis bounds on the spontaneous symmetry breaking of global lepton number. These models have a generic feature of inducing new lepton number violating interactions, due to the presence of the Majorons. We analyzed the singlet Majoron model with right-handed neutrinos and find that the lepton number should be broken above 10^5 GeV to realize a successful leptogenesis because the annihilations of the right-handed neutrinos into the massless Majorons and into the standard model Higgs should go out of equilibrium before the sphaleron process is over. We then argue that this type of leptogenesis constraint should exist in the singlet-triplet Majoron models as well as in a class of R-parity violating supersymmetric Majoron models.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Parameter uncertainty and sensitivity in a liquid-effluent dose model

Radioactive materials which are released into streams on the Savannah River Site (SRS) eventually flow into the Savannah River. Tritium, 90 Sr, 137 Cs, and 239 Pu account for the majority of the radiation dose received by users of the Savannah River. This paper focuses on the dose uncertainties originating from variability in parameters describing the transport and uptake of these nuclides. Parameter sensitivity has also been determined for each liquid pathway exposure model. The models used here to estimate radiation dose to an exposed individual provide a range of possible dose estimates that span approximately one order of magnitude. A pathway analysis reveals that aquatic food and water consumption account for more than 95% of the total dose to an individual.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/42692/1/10661_2004_Article_BF00547126.pd

Adapting the Chumbley Score to Match Striae on Land Engraved Areas (LEAs) of Bullets

The same‐source problem remains a major challenge in forensic toolmark and firearm examination. Here, we investigate the applicability of the Chumbley method (J Forensic Sci, 2018, 63, 849; J Forensic Sci, 2010, 55, 953) (10,12), developed for screwdriver markings, for same‐source identification of striations on bullet LEAs. The Hamby datasets 44 and 252 measured by NIST and CSAFE (high‐resolution scans) are used here. We provide methods to identify parameters that minimize error rates for matching of LEAs, and a remedial algorithm to alleviate the problem of failed tests, while increasing the power of the test and reducing error rates. For 85,491 land‐to‐land comparisons (84,235 known nonmatches and 1256 known matches), the adapted test does not provide a result in 176 situations (originally more than 500). The Type I and Type II error rates are 7.2% (6105 out of 84,235) and 21.4% (271 out of 1256), respectively. This puts the proposed method on similar footing as other single‐feature matching approaches in the literature

Serum amyloid A primes microglia for ATP-dependent interleukin-1\u3b2 release

Acute-phase response is a systemic reaction to environmental/inflammatory insults and involves production of acute-phase proteins, including serum amyloid A (SAA). Interleukin-1\u3b2 (IL-1\u3b2), a master regulator of neuroinflammation produced by activated inflammatory cells of the myeloid lineage, in particular microglia, plays a key role in the pathogenesis of acute and chronic diseases of the peripheral nervous system and CNS. IL-1\u3b2 release is promoted by ATP acting at the purinergic P2X7 receptor (P2X7R) in cells primed with toll-like receptor (TLR) ligands

A prospective cohort study of postoperative complications in the management of perforated peptic ulcer

BACKGROUND: With dwindling rates of postoperative mortality in perforated peptic ulcer that is attributable to H(2)-receptor blocker usage, there is a need to shift the focus towards the prevention of postoperative morbidity. Further, the simultaneous contribution of several putative clinical predictors to this postoperative morbidity is not fully appreciated. Our objective was to assess the predictors of the risk, rate and number of postoperative complications in surgically treated patients of perforated peptic ulcer. METHODS: In a prospective cohort study of 96 subjects presenting as perforated peptic ulcer and treated using Graham's omentoplatsy patch or gastrojejunostomy (with total truncal vagotomy), we assessed the association of clinical predictors with three domains of postoperative complications: the risk of developing a complication, the rate of developing the first complication and the risk of developing higher number of complications. We used multiple regression methods – logistic regression, Cox proportional hazards regression and Poisson regression, respectively – to examine the association of the predictors with these three domains. RESULTS: We observed that the risk of developing a postoperative complication was significantly influenced by the presence of a concomitant medical illness [odds ratio (OR) = 8.9, p = 0.001], abdominal distension (3.8, 0.048) and a need of blood transfusion (OR = 8.2, p = 0.027). Using Poisson regression, it was observed that the risk for a higher number of complications was influenced by the same three factors [relative risk (RR) = 2.6, p = 0.015; RR = 4.6, p < 0.001; and RR = 2.4, p = 0.002; respectively]. However, the rate of development of complications was influenced by a history suggestive of shock [relative hazards (RH) = 3.4, p = 0.002] and A(- )blood group (RH = 4.7, p = 0.04). CONCLUSION: Abdominal distension, presence of a concomitant medical illness and a history suggestive of shock at the time of admission warrant a closer and alacritous postoperative management in patients of perforated peptic ulcer