Religious Identity, Religious Attendance, and Parental Control

Using a national sample of adolescents aged 10–18 years and their parents (N = 5,117), this article examines whether parental religious identity and religious participation are associated with the ways in which parents control their children. We hypothesize that both religious orthodoxy and weekly religious attendance are related to heightened levels of three elements of parental control: monitoring activities, normative regulations, and network closure. Results indicate that an orthodox religious identity for Catholic and Protestant parents and higher levels of religious attendance for parents as a whole are associated with increases in monitoring activities and normative regulations of American adolescents

Molecularly guided therapy versus chemotherapy after disease control in unfavourable cancer of unknown primary (CUPISCO):an open-label, randomised, phase 2 study

Background: Patients with unfavourable subset cancer of unknown primary (CUP) have a poor prognosis when treated with standard platinum-based chemotherapy. Whether first-line treatment guided by comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) can improve outcomes is unknown. The CUPISCO trial was designed to inform a molecularly guided treatment strategy to improve outcomes over standard platinum-based chemotherapy in patients with newly diagnosed, unfavourable, non-squamous CUP. The aim of the trial was to compare the efficacy and safety of molecularly guided therapy (MGT) versus standard platinum-based chemotherapy in these patients. This was to determine whether the inclusion of CGP in the initial diagnostic work-up leads to improved outcomes over the current standard of care. We herein report the primary analysis. Methods: CUPISCO was a phase 2, prospective, randomised, open-label, active-controlled, multicentre trial done at 159 sites in 34 countries outside the USA. Patients with central eligibility review-confirmed disease (acceptable histologies included adenocarcinoma and poorly differentiated carcinoma) and an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status of 0 or 1, evaluated by CGP, who reached disease control after three cycles of standard first-line platinum-based chemotherapy were randomly assigned 3:1 via a block-stratified randomisation procedure to MGT versus chemotherapy continuation for at least three further cycles. The primary endpoint was investigator-assessed progression-free survival in the intention-to-treat population. The study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03498521, and follow-up is ongoing. Findings: From July 10, 2018, to Dec 9, 2022, 636 (42%) of 1505 screened patients were enrolled. Median follow-up in the treatment period was 24·1 months (IQR 11·6–35·6). Of 438 patients who reached disease control after induction chemotherapy, 436 were randomly assigned: 326 (75%) to the MGT group and 110 (25%) to the chemotherapy group. Median progression-free survival in the intention-to-treat population was 6·1 months (95% CI 4·7–6·5) in the MGT group versus 4·4 months (4·1–5·6) in the chemotherapy group (hazard ratio 0·72 [95% CI 0·56–0·92]; p=0·0079). Related adverse event rates per 100-patient-years at risk were generally similar or lower with MGT versus chemotherapy. Interpretation: In patients with previously untreated, unfavourable, non-squamous CUP who reached disease control after induction chemotherapy, CGP with subsequent MGTs resulted in longer progression-free survival than standard platinum-based chemotherapy. On the basis of these results, we recommend that CGP is performed at initial diagnosis in patients with unfavourable CUP. Funding: F Hoffmann-La Roche.</p

A comparison of backwater profile computation

Bakhmeteff\u27s, Von Seggern\u27s, and the Standard Step methods were chosen for a comparative study of backwater profile determinations made with the assistance of a digital computer. This study concentrated on the M-l type of curves for different kind of prismatic channels; i.e. rectangular, trapezoidal, and parabolic channels. From the results obtained by each method for different channels, the consistency between the several methods and their applicability to all shapes of channel had been studied. Also the effect of the number of reaches used in flow profile determinations, the effect of the use of an average value of (1-ß), hydraulic exponents n and m in Bakhmeteff\u27s and Von Seggern\u27s methods, were investigated. In order to explore the possibility of approximating a river profile by means of an assumed prismatic channel, prismatic channels were assumed from the Missouri River cross sections. The effect of the change of width in rectangular channels with steady flow was studied for an M-3 profile. The effect of the different methods of evaluating the change in kinetic energy used by Bakhmeteff and Von Seggern become distinctive in rapid flow profile determinations --Abstract, page ii

Hydraulic Transient Analysis for the Culver-Goodman Tunnel Rochester, New York

This report describes a mixed-flow hydraulic transient model for the Culver-Goodman Tunnel of Rochester, New York. The model is based on the one-dimensional unsteady partial differential equations for open channels and closed conduits. These differential equations are solved numerically using the method of characteristics. Thus, the model is capable of dealing with the rapidly changing water hammer pressures and surges in a complex system. Hydrographs at 18 dropshafts due to a 5 year storm are used as the inputs. Outflow hydrographs, storage, depth or piezometric head, and velocity at 104 stations at small time intervals are obtained as output.Lozier Engineers, Inc

Population responses of the endangered white-breasted thrasher Ramphocinclus brachyurus to a tourist development in Saint Lucia - conservation implications from a spatial modelling approach

Tourism development is one of the main contemporary drivers of habitat loss and fragmentation within the Caribbean Islands biodiversity hotspot. In Saint Lucia, construction of a hotel and golf course within coastal dry forest is directly threatening the largest known subpopulation of the Endangered White-breasted Thrasher Ramphocinclus brachyurus. Understanding how the species is responding to ongoing landscape change and identifying priority sites for conservation are imperative for planning its long-term conservation. In this study, a four year White-breasted Thrasher monitoring dataset (2006–2009) and landscape-scale environmental variables were used to: a) identify, characterise and map spatio-temporal patterns of White-breasted Thrasher encounter rate (an abundance proxy) within and outside the tourist development site; b) determine landscape-scale environmental variables that influence such patterns, and c) produce an island-wide predictive map of potentially suitable habitat. Observed patterns in encounter rates within and outside the development site were consistent with thrashers being displaced from cleared areas of forest and crowding into intact forest patches to the north and west of the golf course. A year after the period of the most extensive habitat clearance, White-breasted Thrasher numbers declined markedly leading to a 55% reduction in encounter rate within the development site over the four years of the study. The habitat suitability model predicted that a range of sites outside of the known geographic range of the thrasher are potentially suitable, some of which merit further surveys for potentially undetected populations. Given these findings, it is vital that patches of suitable dry forest adjacent to the tourist development are protected and contiguous natural habitat inside the tourist development is preserved