Vaping Prevalence on College Campuses

Vaping Prevalence on College Campuses Purpose and Background/Significance: The college-aged demographic is especially at risk for adverse effects surrounding usage of electronic vaping devices given the deficit in published research regarding the use of vaping products (Kenne, Fishbein, Tan, & Banks, 2017). Vaping rates in college students have more than doubled between 2017 – 2018 (vaping nicotine from 6% to 16%; and marijuana 5% to 11%); the greatest one-year increase for any substance since 1975 (Monitoring the Future, 2019). The objectives of this qualitative study are to assess attitudes and beliefs about the use of electronic vaping devices held by college students and to better understand the use despite adverse health effects. Method: 800 undergraduate students were invited to participate in an online survey conducted through Survey Monkey. Data were collected and analyzed in order to further understand relationships and opinions existing between college students and the use of electronic vaping devices. Results: Of the 800 students that received the email to participate, 487 responded (60.87% response rate). When asked if the participants used an electronic vaping device in the last thirty days, 17.85% responded “yes”. All questions following this item were directed towards those participants who responded “yes” to vaping in the last thirty days. Future Research: Future research will include focus groups which will allow in-depth analysis of the attitudes, thoughts, and beliefs held by current undergraduate students. Information is being collected as a means to implement health promotion interventions on campus to decrease usage of electric vaping devices

HadISD: a quality-controlled global synoptic report database for selected variables at long-term stations from 1973--2011

[Abridged] This paper describes the creation of HadISD: an automatically quality-controlled synoptic resolution dataset of temperature, dewpoint temperature, sea-level pressure, wind speed, wind direction and cloud cover from global weather stations for 1973--2011. The full dataset consists of over 6000 stations, with 3427 long-term stations deemed to have sufficient sampling and quality for climate applications requiring sub-daily resolution. As with other surface datasets, coverage is heavily skewed towards Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes. The dataset is constructed from a large pre-existing ASCII flatfile data bank that represents over a decade of substantial effort at data retrieval, reformatting and provision. These raw data have had varying levels of quality control applied to them by individual data providers. The work proceeded in several steps: merging stations with multiple reporting identifiers; reformatting to netCDF; quality control; and then filtering to form a final dataset. Particular attention has been paid to maintaining true extreme values where possible within an automated, objective process. Detailed validation has been performed on a subset of global stations and also on UK data using known extreme events to help finalise the QC tests. Further validation was performed on a selection of extreme events world-wide (Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the cold snap in Alaska in 1989 and heat waves in SE Australia in 2009). Although the filtering has removed the poorest station records, no attempt has been made to homogenise the data thus far. Hence non-climatic, time-varying errors may still exist in many of the individual station records and care is needed in inferring long-term trends from these data. A version-control system has been constructed for this dataset to allow for the clear documentation of any updates and corrections in the future.Comment: Published in Climate of the Past, www.clim-past.net/8/1649/2012/. 31 pages, 23 figures, 9 pages. For data see http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadis

Vaping Prevalence on College Campuses

Vaping Prevalence on College Campuses Purpose and Background/Significance: The college-aged demographic is especially at risk for adverse effects surrounding usage of electronic vaping devices given the deficit in published research regarding the use of vaping products (Kenne, Fishbein, Tan, & Banks, 2017). Vaping rates in college students have more than doubled between 2017 – 2018 (vaping nicotine from 6% to 16%; and marijuana 5% to 11%); the greatest one-year increase for any substance since 1975 (Monitoring the Future, 2019). The objectives of this qualitative study are to assess attitudes and beliefs about the use of electronic vaping devices held by college students and to better understand the use despite adverse health effects. Method: 800 undergraduate students were invited to participate in an online survey conducted through Survey Monkey. Data were collected and analyzed in order to further understand relationships and opinions existing between college students and the use of electronic vaping devices. Results: Of the 800 students that received the email to participate, 487 responded (60.87% response rate). When asked if the participants used an electronic vaping device in the last thirty days, 17.85% responded “yes”. All questions following this item were directed towards those participants who responded “yes” to vaping in the last thirty days. Future Research: Future research will include focus groups which will allow in-depth analysis of the attitudes, thoughts, and beliefs held by current undergraduate students. Information is being collected as a means to implement health promotion interventions on campus to decrease usage of electric vaping devices

A Qualitative Study: Caregiver Experience of Dementia

Purpose and Background/Significance: Dementia affects an estimated 5.5 million Americans (Czekanski, 2017) and has ramifications for those affected with the disease as well as their caregivers. More than 15 million Americans currently care for individuals with dementia without pay, most provided by their loved ones (Czekanski, 2017). Caring for a loved one with dementia is associated with emotional, physical, and financial repercussions (Warchol-Biedermann et al., 2014). The objectives of this qualitative study were to assess effects of being a caregiver for someone with dementia and the impact of using an adult day service. Theoretical/Conceptual Framework: Caregiver resilience is the successful use of coping strategies that emphasize the perspective of resilience rather than burden (Roberts & Struckmeyer, 2018). Fitting with the conceptualization of resilience, caregivers experience subtle but long-term role changes, both physical and emotional (Roberts & Struckmeyer). Method: The sample consisted of caregivers of people attending an adult day center. Undergraduate nursing research assistants conducted two focus groups of 6-8 participants each to assess the caregivers’ experiences with their loved one. Data were collected through a series of structured, open-ended questions. Each session was audio recorded and transcribed verbatim for analysis. All recordings and transcripts were destroyed after dissemination of the data. Conclusion: Results demonstrated that caregivers experience role overload, role strain, and variable levels of burden depending on their resiliency to manage the care that is needed. Using an adult day service assists with role strain and provide respite for the caregiver

A Qualitative Study: Caregiver Experience of Dementia

Purpose and Background/Significance: Dementia affects an estimated 5.5 million Americans (Czekanski, 2017) and has ramifications for those affected with the disease as well as their caregivers. More than 15 million Americans currently care for individuals with dementia without pay, most provided by their loved ones (Czekanski, 2017). Caring for a loved one with dementia is associated with emotional, physical, and financial repercussions (Warchol-Biedermann et al., 2014). The objectives of this qualitative study were to assess effects of being a caregiver for someone with dementia and the impact of using an adult day service. Theoretical/Conceptual Framework: Caregiver resilience is the successful use of coping strategies that emphasize the perspective of resilience rather than burden (Roberts & Struckmeyer, 2018). Fitting with the conceptualization of resilience, caregivers experience subtle but long-term role changes, both physical and emotional (Roberts & Struckmeyer). Method: The sample consisted of caregivers of people attending an adult day center. Undergraduate nursing research assistants conducted two focus groups of 6-8 participants each to assess the caregivers’ experiences with their loved one. Data were collected through a series of structured, open-ended questions. Each session was audio recorded and transcribed verbatim for analysis. All recordings and transcripts were destroyed after dissemination of the data. Conclusion: Results demonstrated that caregivers experience role overload, role strain, and variable levels of burden depending on their resiliency to manage the care that is needed. Using an adult day service assists with role strain and provide respite for the caregiver

The evolution of the Milky Way's thin disc radial metallicity gradient with K2 asteroseismic ages

The radial metallicity distribution of the Milky Way's disc is an important observational constraint for models of the formation and evolution of our Galaxy. It informs our understanding of the chemical enrichment of the Galactic disc and the dynamical processes therein, particularly radial migration. We investigate how the metallicity changes with guiding radius in the thin disc using a sample of red-giant stars with robust astrometric, spectroscopic and asteroseismic parameters. Our sample contains $668$ stars with guiding radii $4$ kpc < $R_\mathrm{g}$ < $11$ kpc and asteroseismic ages covering the whole history of the thin disc with precision $\approx 25\%$. We use MCMC analysis to measure the gradient and its intrinsic spread in bins of age and construct a hierarchical Bayesian model to investigate the evolution of these parameters independently of the bins. We find a smooth evolution of the gradient from $\approx -0.07$ dex/kpc in the youngest stars to $\approx -0.04$ dex/kpc in stars older than $10$ Gyr, with no break at intermediate ages. Our results are consistent with those based on asteroseismic ages from CoRoT, with that found in Cepheid variables for stars younger than $1$ Gyr, and with open clusters for stars younger than $6$ Gyr. For older stars we find a significantly lower metallicity in our sample than in the clusters, suggesting a survival bias favouring more metal-rich clusters. We also find that the chemical evolution model of Chiappini (2009) is too metal-poor in the early stages of disc formation. Our results provide strong new constraints for the growth and enrichment of the thin disc and radial migration, which will facilitate new tests of model conditions and physics.Comment: 15 pages, 16 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Investigating Gaia EDR3 parallax systematics using asteroseismology of Cool Giant Stars observed by Kepler, K2, and TESS I. Asteroseismic distances to 12,500 red-giant stars

Gaia EDR3 has provided unprecedented data that generate a lot of interest in the astrophysical community, despite the fact that systematics affect the reported parallaxes at the level of ~ 10 muas. Independent distance measurements are available from asteroseismology of red-giant stars with measurable parallaxes, whose magnitude and colour ranges more closely reflect those of other stars of interest. In this paper, we determine distances to nearly 12,500 red-giant branch and red clump stars observed by Kepler, K2, and TESS. This is done via a grid-based modelling method, where global asteroseismic observables, constraints on the photospheric chemical composition, and on the unreddened photometry are used as observational inputs. This large catalogue of asteroseismic distances allows us to provide a first comparison with Gaia EDR3 parallaxes. Offset values estimated with asteroseismology show no clear trend with ecliptic latitude or magnitude, and the trend whereby they increase (in absolute terms) as we move towards redder colours is dominated by the brightest stars. The correction model proposed by Lindegren et al. (2021) is not suitable for all the fields considered in this study. We find a good agreement between asteroseismic results and model predictions of the red clump magnitude. We discuss possible trends with the Gaia scan law statistics, and show that two magnitude regimes exist where either asteroseismology or Gaia provides the best precision in parallax.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, Accepted for publication in A&

Chronologically dating the early assembly of the Milky Way

The standard cosmological model predicts that galaxies are built through hierarchical assembly on cosmological timescales1,2. The Milky Way, like other disk galaxies, underwent violent mergers and accretion of small satellite galaxies in its early history. Owing to Gaia Data Release 23 and spectroscopic surveys4, the stellar remnants of such mergers have been identified5,6,7. The chronological dating of such events is crucial to uncover the formation and evolution of the Galaxy at high redshift, but it has so far been challenging due to difficulties in obtaining precise ages for these oldest stars. Here we combine asteroseismology—the study of stellar oscillations—with kinematics and chemical abundances to estimate precise stellar ages (~11%) for a sample of stars observed by the Kepler space mission8. Crucially, this sample includes not only some of the oldest stars that were formed inside the Galaxy but also stars formed externally and subsequently accreted onto the Milky Way. Leveraging this resolution in age, we provide compelling evidence in favour of models in which the Galaxy had already formed a substantial population of its stars (which now reside mainly in its thick disk) before the infall of the satellite galaxy Gaia-Enceladus/Sausage5,6 around 10 billion years ago