Student Perspectives on how Trauma Experiences Manifest in the Classroom: Engaging Court-Involved Youth in the Development of a Trauma-Informed Teaching Curriculum

This study explores how the lived experience of court-involved youth impacts learning and school culture, and solicits youth voice in creating a trauma-informed intervention to improve student educational well-being. Thirty-nine female students, ages 14 to 18, participated in focus groups to describe externalizing behaviors that they have both witnessed and personally struggled with in the classroom, discuss the perceived causes of these behaviors, and their suggestions for improving school culture to reduce these behavior manifestations in the classroom. Two major categories of behavior were identified, including: “anger emotions” and “aggressive actions.” Students described the causes of behavior as, “environmental influences” and “triggers.” The most common solutions that students gave to reduce externalizing behaviors in school settings included “encouraging respect of others” and “improving behavior management to enhance student engagement.” An additional solution suggested by the students included the “monarch room as support.” The Monarch Room is an alternative intervention to traditional suspension/expulsion polices that provides students in need of specific emotional support an opportunity to redirect/de-escalate externalizing behavior or mood in the school setting. This study highlights the need for trauma-informed approaches in school settings, and the importance of the inclusion of a youth voice in developing and implementing these intervention models

Prevention of Problem Gambling: A Comprehensive Review of the Evidence and Identified Best Practices

The past 15 years has seen a considerable amount of interest and effort being put into developing strategies to prevent problem gambling. Unfortunately, the development, implementation, and evaluation of most of these initiatives has been a haphazard process. Most have been put in place because they ‘seemed like good ideas’ and/or were being used in other jurisdictions, rather than having demonstrated scientific efficacy or being derived from a good understanding of effective practices in prevention.The primary purpose of the present document is to help change this state of affairs. More specifically, by: Proposing an etiological framework for understanding how problem gambling develops based on the available evidence and drawing from established models of addictive behaviour. Comprehensively evaluating the effectiveness of the various initiatives that have been used around the world to prevent problem gambling based on their demonstrated efficacy and/or their similarity to initiatives that are empirically effective in preventing other addictive behaviour. Based on this etiological framework and this critical review of the research, identifying current ‘best practices’ for the prevention of problem gambling.Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre and the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Car

Prevention of Problem Gambling: A Comprehensive Review of the Evidence

Made available courtesy of Elsevier Publishing Inc. A shorter and earlier version of this paper appears in G. Smith, D. Hodgins, and R. J. Williams (Eds.), Research and Measurement Issues in Gambling Studies, copyright 2007 Elsevier Inc.The purpose of this paper is to comprehensively review what is known about the nature and effectiveness of educational and policy initiatives to prevent problem gambling.Ye

Microbial impacts on 99mTc migration through sandstone under highly alkaline conditions relevant to radioactive waste disposal

Geological disposal of intermediate level radioactive waste in the UK is planned to involve the use of cementitious materials, facilitating the formation of an alkali-disturbed zone within the host rock. The biogeochemical processes that will occur in this environment, and the extent to which they will impact on radionuclide migration, are currently poorly understood. This study investigates the impact of biogeochemical processes on the mobility of the radionuclide technetium, in column experiments designed to be representative of aspects of the alkali-disturbed zone. Results indicate that microbial processes were capable of inhibiting 99mTc migration through columns, and X-ray radiography demonstrated that extensive physical changes had occurred to the material within columns where microbiological activity had been stimulated. The utilisation of organic acids under highly alkaline conditions, generating H2 and CO2, may represent a mechanism by which microbial processes may alter the hydraulic conductivity of a geological environment. Column sediments were dominated by obligately alkaliphilic H2-oxidising bacteria, suggesting that the enrichment of these bacteria may have occurred as a result of H2 generation during organic acid metabolism. The results from these experiments show that microorganisms are able to carry out a number of processes under highly alkaline conditions that could potentially impact on the properties of the host rock surrounding a geological disposal facility for intermediate level radioactive waste

Strategic contingency management to enhance treatment outcomes for problem gamblers

xi, 186 leaves ; 29 cm. --Problem gambling is best understood from a biopsychosocial perspective, whereby multifaceted biological, psychological, and socio-environmental factors interact in ways that may lead to individual risk. Reinforcement contingencies and operant conditioning appear to play particularly important etiological roles. Theoretically, operant conditioning approaches should therefore comprise particularly effective treatment strategies. While operant conditioning in the form of contingency management is known to be an effective treatment for alcohol and substance abuse, it has never been applied by clinical practitioners in community-based treatment for problem gambling. The present pilot study explored the utility of adding concrete reward contingencies to community outpatient treatment, from the perspectives of clinical effectiveness and client/counsellor experiences. At 3-month follow-up, clinical outcomes compared well to typical treatment outcomes, and treatment retention appeared to be superior. Participating clients perceived concrete rewards to be moderately effective in the change process, while active therapist acceptance of this technique appeared to be limited

QLS front-line retention manual: methods for achieving a 94% cohort retention rate in longitudinal research

Permission to include the report granted by Gary O’Connor, Chief Executive Officer, ONTARIO PROBLEM GAMBLING RESEARCH CENTREThis Front-Line Manual, written mainly by and from the perspective of the QLS front-line staff describes how they developed, tested, and put into practice the methodology to achieve their extremely high retention rate. By discussing the underlying rationale for different approaches and tools, as well as providing numerous specific practical examples, this manual will hopefully assist other longitudinal studies in improving retention rates, and thus the strength of the results of those studies.Ye

Quinte longitudinal study of gambling and problem gambling

The Quinte Longitudinal Study (QLS) is a prospective study of gambling and problem gambling conducted in the Quinte region of Ontario, Canada from 2006 to 2011. A sample of 4,121 adults, 17 and older, was recruited via random digit telephone dialing with 26% of the sample overselected for higher levels of gambling involvement. The sample was roughly representative of the demographic profile of the Canadian adult population, and the geographic region had very similar gambling opportunities to the rest of Canada. The cohort was assessed annually over 5 years. Assessments were computerized and self-administered and were completed either online at the person’s home or at the QLS office in Belleville. The assessment collected comprehensive information on demographics, gambling behaviour, physical health, mental health, substance use and abuse, stressors, personal values, social functioning, personality, leisure activity, and intelligence. An exceptionally high retention rate of 93.9% after 5 years was achieved

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead