“You Shouldn’t Worry Walking a Block and a Half to Your Car”: Perceptions of Crime and Community Norms in the Bakken Oil Play

The Bakken oil play experienced substantial population growth from oil and gas development over the last decade, resulting in disruption to social norms at the community level. We surveyed residents in a county in Montana and a county in North Dakota about their perceptions of crime resulting from the most recent boom, finding that residents perceived high levels of various types of crimes resulting from the boom and that many also changed their daily behavior out of fear of such crime. In addition, we asked about current perceptions of community norms and find evidence that perceived levels of helping and trust are lower in the boomtown context than in other similar types of rural areas. We also show how these perceptions matter for other important community-level issues; those who perceived high levels of crime were more likely to see energy development as negative and those who saw community norms as weaker and were less involved in community organizations were more likely to plan to leave. A better understanding of how residents perceive social disruption resulting from energy development and the implications of these perceptions can help leaders in rural boomtowns make better decisions related to natural resource development

The STOP COVID 2 study: Fluvoxamine vs placebo for outpatients with symptomatic COVID-19, a fully remote randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Prior randomized clinical trials have reported benefit of fluvoxamine ≥200 mg/d vs placebo for patients infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). METHODS: This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, fully remote multisite clinical trial evaluated whether fluvoxamine prevents clinical deterioration in higher-risk outpatients with acute coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Between December 2020 and May 2021, nonhospitalized US and Canadian participants with confirmed symptomatic infection received fluvoxamine (50 mg on day 1, 100 mg twice daily thereafter) or placebo for 15 days. The primary modified intent-to-treat (mITT) population included participants who started the intervention within 7 days of symptom onset with a baseline oxygen saturation ≥92%. The primary outcome was clinical deterioration within 15 days of randomization, defined as having both (1) shortness of breath (severity ≥4 on a 0-10 scale or requiring hospitalization) RESULTS: A total of 547 participants were randomized and met mITT criteria (n = 272 fluvoxamine, n = 275 placebo). The Data Safety Monitoring Board recommended stopping early for futility related to lower-than-predicted event rates and declining accrual concurrent with vaccine availability in the United States and Canada. Clinical deterioration occurred in 13 (4.8%) participants in the fluvoxamine group and 15 (5.5%) participants in the placebo group (absolute difference at day 15, 0.68%; 95% CI, -3.0% to 4.4%; log-rank CONCLUSIONS: This trial did not find fluvoxamine efficacious in preventing clinical deterioration in unvaccinated outpatients with symptomatic COVID-19. It was stopped early and underpowered due to low primary outcome rates. CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04668950

Covariance and correlation analysis of resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging data acquired in a clinical trial of mindfulness-based stress reduction and exercise in older individuals

We describe and apply novel methodology for whole-brain analysis of resting state fMRI functional connectivity data, combining conventional multi-channel Pearson correlation with covariance analysis. Unlike correlation, covariance analysis preserves signal amplitude information, which feature of fMRI time series may carry physiological significance. Additionally, we demonstrate that dimensionality reduction of the fMRI data offers several computational advantages including projection onto a space of manageable dimension, enabling linear operations on functional connectivity measures and exclusion of variance unrelated to resting state network structure. We show that group-averaged, dimensionality reduced, covariance and correlation matrices are related, to reasonable approximation, by a single scalar factor. We apply this methodology to the analysis of a large, resting state fMRI data set acquired in a prospective, controlled study of mindfulness training and exercise in older, sedentary participants at risk for developing cognitive decline. Results show marginally significant effects of both mindfulness training and exercise in both covariance and correlation measures of functional connectivity

Anti-Transforming Growth Factor ß Antibody Treatment Rescues Bone Loss and Prevents Breast Cancer Metastasis to Bone

Breast cancer often metastasizes to bone causing osteolytic bone resorption which releases active TGFβ. Because TGFβ favors progression of breast cancer metastasis to bone, we hypothesized that treatment using anti-TGFβ antibody may reduce tumor burden and rescue tumor-associated bone loss in metastatic breast cancer. In this study we have tested the efficacy of an anti-TGFβ antibody 1D11 preventing breast cancer bone metastasis. We have used two preclinical breast cancer bone metastasis models, in which either human breast cancer cells or murine mammary tumor cells were injected in host mice via left cardiac ventricle. Using several in vivo, in vitro and ex vivo assays, we have demonstrated that anti-TGFβ antibody treatment have significantly reduced tumor burden in the bone along with a statistically significant threefold reduction in osteolytic lesion number and tenfold reduction in osteolytic lesion area. A decrease in osteoclast numbers (p = 0.027) in vivo and osteoclastogenesis ex vivo were also observed. Most importantly, in tumor-bearing mice, anti-TGFβ treatment resulted in a twofold increase in bone volume (p<0.01). In addition, treatment with anti-TGFβ antibody increased the mineral-to-collagen ratio in vivo, a reflection of improved tissue level properties. Moreover, anti-TGFβ antibody directly increased mineralized matrix formation in calverial osteoblast (p = 0.005), suggesting a direct beneficial role of anti-TGFβ antibody treatment on osteoblasts. Data presented here demonstrate that anti-TGFβ treatment may offer a novel therapeutic option for tumor-induced bone disease and has the dual potential for simultaneously decreasing tumor burden and rescue bone loss in breast cancer to bone metastases. This approach of intervention has the potential to reduce skeletal related events (SREs) in breast cancer survivors

Restrictive deterrence: Avoiding arrest in rural methamphetamine markets

A component of restrictive deterrence, arrest avoidance is the notion that offenders employ specific strategies to evade detection. Although research focuses on the tactics drug dealers use to avoid law enforcement detection in crack, heroin, and marijuana markets in urban locations, no studies explore these techniques in rural settings or methamphetamine markets. Based on interviews with 52 men and women involved in methamphetamine markets, this article explores the arrest avoidance strategies used during ingredient acquisition, manufacturing, and distribution of methamphetamine. This study also expands the restrictive deterrence literature by asking each participant if they experienced a methamphetamine related arrest and how their arrest avoidance strategies related to their arrests. When participants were arrested, they revealed that they were sometimes not using any strategies or that some unique situation (i.e. getting set up by a friend) was the reason for their arrest rather than ineffective avoidance tactics

Families Communicating with Children

This book offers a fresh and insightful introduction to children\u27s communication development that emphasizes how families help children learn to communicate optimally. Writing for communication students, parents, teachers, and all who care for children, the authors argue that optimal development of children\u27s communication competencies depends on family participation in everyday learning situations that challenge children\u27s skills and build communication confidence… [From Amazon.com]https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/communication_books/1014/thumbnail.jp

PERCEPTIONS SURROUNDING THE REALITY FOR WOMEN IN POVERTY IN SAUDI ARABIA: AN EXHAUSTIVE DESCRIPTION OF POOR WOMEN’S EXPERIENCES IN SAUDI ARABIA

This research analyzes perceptions surrounding the social reality for women in poverty in Saudi Arabia (K.S.A.) to assist policy-makers in the creation of programs better able to help women in poverty. This study may be considered the first of its kind that includes Saudi women and foreign-born females in the K.S.A. In this study, poor women in Saudi Arabia were examined using the phenomenological approach. Using open-ended questions, in-depth one-onone interviews with the participants were conducted. The findings indicate that the reasons behind their situations include the following key points: (1) dependency on women’s traditional roles, (2) poverty relating to more structural attributes than individual factors, (3) less decision-making power, (4) intersection of gender, citizenship, and tribe status, including occupational status, stateless or non-tribes, education, and age, where older and less educated women experienced more poverty, and (5) financial assistance from SSD and other charities that is not sufficient to leave poverty

Everyday Relating or “The Grout around the Tile”: Studying the Ordinary Aspects of Personal Relationships

In answering the call to explore everyday aspects of personal relationships, we planned a thematic symposium for the 1997 INPR [International Network on Personal Relationships] conference in Oxford, Ohio, titled, “‘Everyday Relating’: Studying the Ordinary Aspects of Personal Relationships.” We brought leading scholars together to facilitate discussion groups to explore how this diverse group would respond to the call to focus research attention on everyday relating. We asked the participants to consider: “How should we approach and study everyday relating in personal relationships?” We gathered panelists representing diverse disciplines, theoretical perspectives, and research methods. Panelists shared their perspectives and led discussions on three questions: (a) what aspects of everyday relating should we study, (b) what theoretical perspectives might we employ to study everyday relating, and (c) what research methods might we use to study everyday relating? Discussion groups were facilitated by Graham Allan, Valerian Derlega, Kathryn Dindia, Steve Duck, Mark Fine, Stanley Gaines, Mark Leary, Rowland Miller; Julia Wood, Paul Wright, and Julie Yingling. As evidence of the fertile nature of this topic, it was evident that these groups covered a wide range of thoughtful and important issues, perhaps raising more questions than they were able to answer. In this essay, we attempt to summarize the results of this symposium, hoping that it is not an endpoint, but a continuation of a dialogue begun by others before us. As we began to synthesize and report on the discussions, we realized that the discussions focused on four topics (rather than the three questions we had given groups to discuss): (a) what is everyday relating? (b) why study everyday relating? (c) what are important aspects of everyday relating to study? and (d) methodological considerations