WWU Lifestyles Project Follow-up: Patterns of Alcohol and Drug Consumption and Consequences among Western Washington University Students

Executive Summary: In response to both internal and national findings and concerns, the first Western Washington University Lifestyles Project Survey of alcohol and drug usage among Western students was conducted in 1992 as part of the University\u27s on-going effort (a) to investigate students\u27 college experience both in and out of the classroom; (b) to enhance those experiences which lead to personal and academic success; and (c) to reduce risk factors jeopardizing student success. The 1995 WWU Lifestyles Project Survey follow-up has the same goals as its predecessor. Both surveys were administered to random samples of students across all years in school (freshmen through senior). Demographically, the 1995 survey cohort of 489 respondents I mirrored the overall population of 1995 Western students by gender, ethnicity, and age. In the 1992 report, researchers concluded that three patterns of alcohol use existed among Western students: 1) a sizable number reported no-to-low drinking patterns, with nearly a quarter reporting not drinking at all; 2) among drinkers only, about a third reported typical drinking patterns best described as moderate; and 3) also among drinkers only, patterns emerged that would be considered heavy drinking, with nearly a third of drinkers indicating they binged on typical occasions, and nearly two-thirds indicating they binged on peak occasions. For the most part, national findings were similar. Generally, drinking patterns changed little between 1992 and 1995; however, there were some encouraging trends to note. For one, though students in 1995 did not report drinking any less frequently, they did appear to be drinking in lesser quantities than they were in 1992. For instance, the percentage of students who drank seven or more drinks on typical occasions fell 1.7% (from 16.3% in 1992 to 14.6% in 1995), while the percentage of students who drank seven or more drinks on peak occasions fell 6.8% (from 40.6% in 1992 to 33.8% in 1995). Furthermore, the percentage of students who had five or more drinks on typical occasions remained nearly the same (33.8% in 1992 vs. 34.1% in 1995). These changes in the quantity of student drinking come at a time when the use of alcohol is beginning to see increases at the high school level. For instance, findings from Western\u27s 1995 was the first year since 1981 that there increases rather than decreases in the percentage of college-bound high school seniors indicating they had drank beer, wine, or liquor. For alcohol and drug abuse prevention programs, such trends might forebode even harder work ahead. The 1995 Lifestyles Survey found that not as many students indicated experiencing a negative effect due to drinking--down 3.0% from 1992. Promising also was the higher percentage of students indicating that they had never driven after two, or after four drinks. However, even though fewer students in 1995 indicated experiencing no negative effects due to alcohol use, certain findings indicated that those who did experience negative effects may have had more negative experiences than students in 1992; for instance, the Rutgers Alcohol Problem Inventory (RAPI) mean, a measure of overall negative effects due to alcohol, was up slightly from 4.3 in 1992 to 4.5 in 1995. It may be, however, that current survey students who experienced and possibly had slightly more negative effects due to alcohol use may continue, like they did in 1992, to be unable to recognize the negative effect alcohol may be having in their lives. Findings from the 1995 survey indicated that while only 3.1% of respondents indicated any likelihood of drinking impairing their ability to complete homework assignments, 18.1% indicated that they had experienced at least one incident where they were unable to study for a test or complete homework due to drinking. This percentage of difference of 15.0% was higher than the 12.4% discrepancy found for 1992 survey respondents. There is, in other words, some indication that students have a blind spot when it comes to their perception of how alcohol may impair their academics. Regarding drug usage, the most important finding that emerged was that more students in 1995 indicated they had used marijuana than in 1992. At this point, use remains relatively infrequent, with only 6.4% indicating they used marijuana more often than 2-3 times a month. Yet like alcohol use, there appears to be more acceptance of marijuana use than there has been in the past. Findings from Western\u27s 1995 survey of in-coming freshmen indicated the highest percentage of freshmen since 1976 support the idea of legalizing marijuana (44.2% compared to the all-time low of 16.4% in 1989). Regarding sexual activity, students continue to feel that they are not particularly at risk of either sexually transmitted diseases (STD\u27s) or pregnancy. Well over forty percent of students indicated they never used condoms when they had sexual intercourse, and well over sixty percent did not use a condom during their most recent sexual intercourse. And while few students indicated that they had had unwanted sex, for those students who had, most were females. On those occasions when a student had unwanted sex, alcohol was involved about a third of the time

WWU Lifestyles Project: Patterns of Alcohol and Drug Consumption and Consequences among Western Washington University Students

Executive Summary: This report, besides presenting the Lifestyles Project findings, summaries and discussion, contains two important Appendices. Appendix A consists of Western\u27s Comprehensive Plan to Combat Student Alcohol Abuse, Including Underage Drinking, as as submitted to the Higher Education Coordinating Board. Appendix B consists of preliminary findings on the effectiveness of the Wellness Hall. The executive summary includes summaries of all three of these sections. Lifestyles Project Findings The WWU Lifestyles Project surveyed a randomly selected, stratified sample of 2500 students enrolled at Western during spring quarter, 1992, regarding their use of alcohol and drugs, the consequences of using, and motivation to change patterns of use. Completed questionnaires were received from 1217 students for a nearly 50% return rate Overall, the results of the survey suggested that a large proportion of the student population (76.6 %), including those under the legal age, drink alcohol at least once a month. While factors such as class standing and age affected level of alcohol consumption, differences by gender were the most dramatic. Generally speaking, while males and females keep pace in their frequency and quantity of alcohol consumption up to a point, at higher levels of consumption men tend to drink more often and in larger quantities than females. Moreover, males tend to report the highest rates of at risk drinking; that is, drinking at a binge level (5+ drinks at one setting) and higher. At Western, as nationwide, alcohol is the drug of choice for college students, with survey respondents reporting relatively scant use of drugs like cocaine and LSD, and low use of marijuana. Patterns of alcohol use at Western appear threefold: 1) nearly a quarter of survey respondents reported no drinking at all in the previous month; 2) of respondents indicating any frequency of drinking whatsoever (about three-quarters of the survey population), 31.3% reported drinking 1-2 drinks and 22.7% reported drinking 3-4 drinks on typical occasions, which places them in a low to moderate drinking norm; and 3) of respondents indicating any frequency of drinking whatsoever, 29.8% reported binge drinking on typical occasions and 57.2% reported binge drinking on peak occasions. This last drinking pattern suggests that an alcohol environment may exist at Western that contributes to substantial social and academic risks for Western students. Issues of concern include that a substantial percentage (67.4%) of those who report any frequency of drinking whatsoever were under the legal drinking age, and that well over half of the respondents overall (64.0%) reported at least one alcohol-related problem in the last six months. Of particular relevance to the academic mission of university life are the discrepancies found between students\u27 perception for risk of negative academic consequences due to alcohol-related effects and the actual occurrence of those outcomes. Actual occurrences were nearly double and sometimes treble that of perceived risk. These findings suggest that perception of vulnerability to negative alcohol effects may differ enough from actual occurrences of negative alcohol effects to pose a threat to students\u27 academic success and persistence. Although the university has raised awareness of campus alcohol and drug policies and programs--nearly two-thirds of respondents reported they knew of such efforts—most respondents stated that official university policies and programs do not effect their own personal levels of use. Comprehensive Plan to Combat Student Alcohol Abuse In response to the alcohol predicament on campus, WWU has developed a comprehensive plan for combating student alcohol abuse and its consequent negative academic, health, and social outcomes. WWU\u27s plan anticipates improvement in reducing the incidence of student alcohol abuse both on and around campus because it is based on the public health model, which views both individual students who drink and the environments in which they drink as the targets for major interventions. Based on the systems approach inherent within the public health model, WWU will utilize four major strategies to decrease both individual problem use of alcohol and the drinking norms on campus: 1) primary prevention seeks to reduce risk for alcohol problems or prevent the occurrence of alcohol abuse and/or underage drinking before those problems occur; 2) secondary prevention programs seek to halt, reverse, or retard alcohol abuse problems after they have occurred, but before they lead to life-altering or life-threatening consequences; 3) tertiary prevention efforts seek to reduce the risks of severe alcohol abuse, and 4) health promotion efforts seek to develop positive environments and community policies, rules, and norms that support and encourage students who are already making choices not to abuse alcohol or to drink illegally thereby leading to the creation of a new critical mass who do not view alcohol abuse as a typical and expected feature of college life. (See Appendix A.) Wellness Hall: Preliminary Findings University Residences and the Primary Prevention and Wellness Center collaborated to open the wellness residence hall at WWU in Fall Quarter, 1993. The creating of four floors of Nash Hall as an alcohol and drug free zone was made possible by a FIPSE grant. Participating students signed substance-free living agreements, thereby voluntarily committing to abstain from the use of alcohol, tobacco or drugs while residing on campus. During its first quarter of existence, there were no violations of this voluntary code. Furthermore, some preliminary information--reduced vandalism and fewer alcohol related incidents--suggests that students in the wellness community are consuming less alcohol than their counterparts in a correspondent freshmen residence hall. An initial administration of the CORE alcohol and drug survey also suggests that students residing in the wellness community are choosing to consume less alcohol

A Platform-Independent Method for Detecting Errors in Metagenomic Sequencing Data: DRISEE

We provide a novel method, DRISEE (duplicate read inferred sequencing error estimation), to assess sequencing quality (alternatively referred to as “noise” or “error”) within and/or between sequencing samples. DRISEE provides positional error estimates that can be used to inform read trimming within a sample. It also provides global (whole sample) error estimates that can be used to identify samples with high or varying levels of sequencing error that may confound downstream analyses, particularly in the case of studies that utilize data from multiple sequencing samples. For shotgun metagenomic data, we believe that DRISEE provides estimates of sequencing error that are more accurate and less constrained by technical limitations than existing methods that rely on reference genomes or the use of scores (e.g. Phred). Here, DRISEE is applied to (non amplicon) data sets from both the 454 and Illumina platforms. The DRISEE error estimate is obtained by analyzing sets of artifactual duplicate reads (ADRs), a known by-product of both sequencing platforms. We present DRISEE as an open-source, platform-independent method to assess sequencing error in shotgun metagenomic data, and utilize it to discover previously uncharacterized error in de novo sequence data from the 454 and Illumina sequencing platforms

Equal opportunities: Do shareable interfaces promote more group participation than single users displays?

Computers designed for single use are often appropriated suboptimally when used by small colocated groups working together. Our research investigates whether shareable interfaces–that are designed for more than one user to inter-act with–can facilitate more equitable participation in colocated group settings compared with single user displays. We present a conceptual framework that characterizes Shared Information Spaces (SISs) in terms of how they constrain and invite participation using different entry points. An experiment was conducted that compared three different SISs: a physical-digital set-up (least constrained), a multitouch tabletop (medium), and a laptop display (most constrained). Statistical analyses showed there to be little difference in participation levels between the three conditions other than a predictable lack of equity of control over the interface in the laptop condition. However, detailed qualitative analyses revealed more equitable participation took place in the physical-digital condition in terms of verbal utterances over time. Those who spoke the least contributed most to the physical design task. The findings are discussed in relation to the conceptual framework and, more generally, in terms of how to select, design, and combine different display technologies to support collaborative activities

LSST Science Book, Version 2.0

A survey that can cover the sky in optical bands over wide fields to faint magnitudes with a fast cadence will enable many of the exciting science opportunities of the next decade. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will have an effective aperture of 6.7 meters and an imaging camera with field of view of 9.6 deg^2, and will be devoted to a ten-year imaging survey over 20,000 deg^2 south of +15 deg. Each pointing will be imaged 2000 times with fifteen second exposures in six broad bands from 0.35 to 1.1 microns, to a total point-source depth of r~27.5. The LSST Science Book describes the basic parameters of the LSST hardware, software, and observing plans. The book discusses educational and outreach opportunities, then goes on to describe a broad range of science that LSST will revolutionize: mapping the inner and outer Solar System, stellar populations in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, the structure of the Milky Way disk and halo and other objects in the Local Volume, transient and variable objects both at low and high redshift, and the properties of normal and active galaxies at low and high redshift. It then turns to far-field cosmological topics, exploring properties of supernovae to z~1, strong and weak lensing, the large-scale distribution of galaxies and baryon oscillations, and how these different probes may be combined to constrain cosmological models and the physics of dark energy.Comment: 596 pages. Also available at full resolution at http://www.lsst.org/lsst/sciboo

The khmer software package: enabling efficient nucleotide sequence analysis [version 1; referees: 2 approved, 1 approved with reservations]

The khmer package is a freely available software library for working efficiently with fixed length DNA words, or k-mers. khmer provides implementations of a probabilistic k-mer counting data structure, a compressible De Bruijn graph representation, De Bruijn graph partitioning, and digital normalization. khmer is implemented in C++ and Python, and is freely available under the BSD license at https://github.com/dib-lab/khmer/

Modeling the interactions between river morphodynamics and riparian vegetation

The study of river-riparian vegetation interactions is an important and intriguing research field in geophysics. Vegetation is an active element of the ecological dynamics of a floodplain which interacts with the fluvial processes and affects the flow field, sediment transport, and the morphology of the river. In turn, the river provides water, sediments, nutrients, and seeds to the nearby riparian vegetation, depending on the hydrological, hydraulic, and geomorphological characteristic of the stream. In the past, the study of this complex theme was approached in two different ways. On the one hand, the subject was faced from a mainly qualitative point of view by ecologists and biogeographers. Riparian vegetation dynamics and its spatial patterns have been described and demonstrated in detail, and the key role of several fluvial processes has been shown, but no mathematical models have been proposed. On the other hand, the quantitative approach to fluvial processes, which is typical of engineers, has led to the development of several morphodynamic models. However, the biological aspect has usually been neglected, and vegetation has only been considered as a static element. In recent years, different scientific communities (ranging from ecologists to biogeographers and from geomorphologists to hydrologists and fluvial engineers) have begun to collaborate and have proposed both semiquantitative and quantitative models of river-vegetation interconnections. These models demonstrate the importance of linking fluvial morphodynamics and riparian vegetation dynamics to understand the key processes that regulate a riparian environment in order to foresee the impact of anthropogenic actions and to carefully manage and rehabilitate riparian areas. In the first part of this work, we review the main interactions between rivers and riparian vegetation, and their possible modeling. In the second part, we discuss the semiquantitative and quantitative models which have been proposed to date, considering both multi- and single-thread river

Modelling of the effect of ELMs on fuel retention at the bulk W divertor of JET

Effect of ELMs on fuel retention at the bulk W target of JET ITER-Like Wall was studied with multi-scale calculations. Plasma input parameters were taken from ELMy H-mode plasma experiment. The energetic intra-ELM fuel particles get implanted and create near-surface defects up to depths of few tens of nm, which act as the main fuel trapping sites during ELMs. Clustering of implantation-induced vacancies were found to take place. The incoming flux of inter-ELM plasma particles increases the different filling levels of trapped fuel in defects. The temperature increase of the W target during the pulse increases the fuel detrapping rate. The inter-ELM fuel particle flux refills the partially emptied trapping sites and fills new sites. This leads to a competing effect on the retention and release rates of the implanted particles. At high temperatures the main retention appeared in larger vacancy clusters due to increased clustering rate

European clinical guidelines for Tourette syndrome and other tic disorders. Part II: pharmacological treatment

To develop a European guideline on pharmacologic treatment of Tourette syndrome (TS) the available literature was thoroughly screened and extensively discussed by a working group of the European Society for the Study of Tourette syndrome (ESSTS). Although there are many more studies on pharmacotherapy of TS than on behavioral treatment options, only a limited number of studies meets rigorous quality criteria. Therefore, we have devised a two-stage approach. First, we present the highest level of evidence by reporting the findings of existing Cochrane reviews in this field. Subsequently, we provide the first comprehensive overview of all reports on pharmacological treatment options for TS through a MEDLINE, PubMed, and EMBASE search for all studies that document the effect of pharmacological treatment of TS and other tic disorders between 1970 and November 2010. We present a summary of the current consensus on pharmacological treatment options for TS in Europe to guide the clinician in daily practice. This summary is, however, rather a status quo of a clinically helpful but merely low evidence guideline, mainly driven by expert experience and opinion, since rigorous experimental studies are scarce