A Night to Remember: A Harm-Reduction Birthday Card Intervention Reduces High-Risk Drinking During 21st Birthday Celebrations

Objective In collaboration with Residence Life, the Heads UP research team developed a 21st birthday card program to help reduce the risky drinking often associated with these celebrations. Participants 81 students (28 males, 53 females) completed a post-21st birthday survey. Of these, 74 reported drinking during their 21st birthday and were included in the analyses. Methods During the 2005–2006 school year, the authors assigned students celebrating 21st birthdays to either receive an alcohol risk-reduction birthday card or to a no-card condition. The students completed a survey after their birthday. Results Students who received the card consumed fewer drinks and reached lower blood alcohol content (BAC) levels on their birthday than did students who did not receive it. Female students who received the card consumed 40% fewer drinks and reached nearly 50% lower BAC levels than women who did not receive it. Conclusion This program is easily replicated, inexpensive, and may be used by universities to reduce risk related to celebratory alcohol consumption

Sexual Experience and Risky Alcohol Consumption among Incoming First-Year College Females

This study examines the relationship between sexual experience and various drinking measures in 550 incoming first-year college females. During this transition period, sexually experienced participants reported stronger alcohol expectancies and endorsed higher drinking motives, and drank more frequently and in greater quantities than sexually inexperienced participants. Sexual status was also a significant predictor of alcohol-related nonsexual consequences, over and above amount consumed. Furthermore, controlling for drinking, sexual status moderated the relationship between coping motives and consequences. Among women who endorsed strong coping motives for drinking, sexual experience was linked to greater nonsexual alcohol-related consequences. Implications for prevention and intervention are discussed

Family History of Alcohol Abuse Associated With Problematic Drinking Among College Students

Studies examining family history of alcohol abuse among college students are not only conflicting, but have suffered various limitations. The current report investigates family history of alcohol abuse (FH+) and its relationship with alcohol expectancies, consumption, and consequences. In the current study, 3753 student participants (35% FH+), completed online assessments. Compared to FH−same-sex peers, FH+ males and FH+ females endorsed greater overall positive expectancies, consumed more drinks per week, and experienced more alcohol-related negative consequences. Further, FH+ females evaluated the negative effects of alcohol to be substantially worse than FH− females. An ANCOVA, controlling for age, GPA, race, and alcohol expectancies, resulted in family history main effects on both drinking and consequences. An interaction also emerged between gender and family history, such that FH+ males were especially vulnerable to high levels of alcohol consumption. Results reveal the scope of FH+ individuals in the college environment and the increased risk for these students, particularly male FH+ students, suggesting a need for researchers and college health personnel to focus attention and resources on this issue

Reducing Alcohol Risk in Adjudicated Male College Students: Further Validation of a Group Motivational Enhancement Intervention

This study examined the effectiveness of a single-session group motivational enhancement alcohol intervention on adjudicated male college students. Over two sequential academic years, 230 students sanctioned by the university for alcohol-related infractions attended a 60- to 75-minute group intervention. The intervention consisted of a timeline followback, social norms education, decisional balance for behavioral change, blood alcohol content (BAC) information, expectancy challenge, and generation of behavioral goals. Participants were followed weekly for three months and showed reductions in drinking (29%) and alcohol-related consequences (32%) at three-month follow-up. The intervention was successful in reducing drinking for both first-year students and upperclassmen, with reductions appearing to be a function of the intervention and not the citation itself. Furthermore, a post hoc control condition revealed that those participants randomly assigned to the intervention group condition reduced drinking (19%) and alcohol-related consequences (44%) more than participants in the control condition over one month. These results provide continued evidence of the effectiveness of group motivational enhancement interventions with adjudicated male college students

PLUTONIUM IMMOBILIZATION CAN-IN-CANISTER HARDWARE DEVELOPMENT/SELECTION (U)

ABSTRACT The Plutonium Immobilization Project (PIP) is a program funded by the U.S. Department of Energy to develop technology to disposition excess weapons usable plutonium. This program introduces the "Can-in-Canister" (CIC) technology that immobilizes the plutonium by encapsulating it in ceramic forms (or pucks) and ultimately surrounding the forms with highlevel waste glass to provide a deterrent to recovery. Since there are significant radiation, contamination and security concerns, the project team is developing unique technologies to remotely perform plutonium immobilization tasks. This paper covers the design, development and testing of the magazines (cylinders containing cans of ceramic pucks) and the rack that holds them in place inside the waste glass canister. Several magazine and rack concepts were evaluated to produce a design that gives the optimal balance between resistance to thermal degradation and facilitation of remote handling. This paper also reviews the effort to develop a jointed robotic arm that can remotely load seven magazines into defined locations inside a stationary canister working only through the 4" (102mm) diameter canister throat

Differential Drinking Patterns of Family History Positive and Family History Negative First Semester College Females

Objective This study compares the natural drinking patterns of family history positive and family history negative women during their first semester of college, a transitional period known to coincide with considerable alcohol-related risks. Method Seventy-two incoming undergraduate females, approximately half of whom reported a family history of alcohol misuse, completed initial questionnaires as well as Timeline Followback assessments. In addition, participants completed five successive weeks of online behavioral diaries measuring three categories of prospective alcohol consumption: total drinks, maximum drinks, and heavy episodic drinking events. Repeated measures ANCOVA models, controlling for prior alcohol consumption, examined participants’ drinking behavior. Results Over the course of the five assessed weeks, first semester females with a genetic predisposition to alcohol problems were found to consume significantly more total drinks (p \u3c .05), maximum drinks (p \u3c .05), and were more likely to drink heavily (p \u3c .05) than family history negative peers. Conclusions Findings highlight increased alcohol-related risks faced by incoming first-year college females with a reported family history of problematic drinking and, thus, emphasize the need for early interventions targeted toward this at-risk group

Reevaluation of Vitrified High-Level Waste Form Criteria for Potential Cost Savings at the Defense Waste Processing Facility -13598

ABSTRACT At the Savannah River Site (SRS) the Defense Waste Processing Facility (DWPF) has been immobilizing SRS's radioactive high level waste (HLW) sludge into a durable borosilicate glass since 1996. Currently the DWPF has poured over 3,500 canisters, all of which are compliant with the U. S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Waste Acceptance Product Specifications for Vitrified High-Level Waste Forms (WAPS) and therefore ready to be shipped to a federal geologic repository for permanent disposal. Due to DOE petitioning to withdraw the Yucca Mountain License Application (LA) from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 2010 and thus no clear disposal path for SRS canistered waste forms, there are opportunities for cost savings with future canister production at DWPF and other DOE producer sites by reevaluating high-level waste form requirements and compliance strategies and reducing/eliminating those that will not negatively impact the quality of the canistered waste form

Evaluation of Striped Bass Stocks in Virginia: Monitoring and Tagging Studies, 2015-2019 : Progress Report 1 September 2015 - 31 August 2016

This report presents the results of striped bass (Morone saxatilis) tagging and monitoring activities in Virginia during the period 1 September 2015 through 31 August 2016. It includes an assessment of the biological characteristics of striped bass taken from the 2016 spring spawning run, estimates of annual survival and fishing mortality based on annual spring tagging, and the results of the study that documents the prevalence of mycobacterial infections of striped bass in Chesapeake Bay. Also included is an investigation on the potential use of close-kin analyses to determine the size of the spawning stock in the Rappahannock River. The information contained in this report is required by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and is used to implement a coordinated management plan for striped bass in Virginia, and along the eastern seaboard

Evaluation of Striped Bass Stocks in Virginia: Monitoring and Tagging Studies, 2015-2019 Progress Report 1 September 2016 - 31 November 2017

This report presents the results of striped bass (Morone saxatilis) tagging and monitoring activities in Virginia during the period 1 September 2016 through 31 August 2017. It includes an assessment of the biological characteristics of striped bass taken from the 2017 spring spawning run and estimates of annual survival and fishing mortality based on annual spring tagging. Also included is an investigation on the potential use of close-kin analyses to determine the size of the spawning stock in the Rappahannock River and an evaluation of mortality rates associated with the bacterial dermal disease mycobacteriosis in relation to water temperatures and dissolved oxygen. The information contained in this report is required by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and is used to implement a coordinated management plan for striped bass in Virginia, and along the eastern seaboard

The Virtual Climate Data Server (vCDS): An iRODS-Based Data Management Software Appliance Supporting Climate Data Services and Virtualization-as-a-Service in the NASA Center for Climate Simulation

Scientific data services are becoming an important part of the NASA Center for Climate Simulation's mission. Our technological response to this expanding role is built around the concept of a Virtual Climate Data Server (vCDS), repetitive provisioning, image-based deployment and distribution, and virtualization-as-a-service. The vCDS is an iRODS-based data server specialized to the needs of a particular data-centric application. We use RPM scripts to build vCDS images in our local computing environment, our local Virtual Machine Environment, NASA s Nebula Cloud Services, and Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud. Once provisioned into one or more of these virtualized resource classes, vCDSs can use iRODS s federation capabilities to create an integrated ecosystem of managed collections that is scalable and adaptable to changing resource requirements. This approach enables platform- or software-asa- service deployment of vCDS and allows the NCCS to offer virtualization-as-a-service: a capacity to respond in an agile way to new customer requests for data services