A Sociopolitical View of Mental Health: An Exploration of the Lived Experiences of Policymakers Regarding their Perspectives Surrounding Mental Health Policy Construction

A substantial gap exists between those who are considered experts on mental health (e.g., academics, mental health professionals) and those in charge of constructing mental health policies (e.g., legislators, Senators). This gap is in areas of both knowledge and professional relations. Mental health professionals are not adequately trained to engage in policy advocacy and reform efforts and have little to no policy advocacy training (Smith, Reynolds, & Rovnak, 2009). Policymakers lack necessary knowledge related to mental health for effective mental health policy construction (Corrigan, Druss, & Perlick, 2014; Lee, Smith, & Henry, 2013). As a result of this gap, mental health policies are ineffective, and many mental health professionals lack understanding and experience in the area of policy advocacy (Smith et al., 2009; Tanenbaum, 2005). This qualitative study aimed to contribute to filling this gap by exploring the perspectives of policymakers with the purpose of gaining a better understanding of the mental health policy construction and reform process. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perspectives and lived experiences of state-level, practicing policymakers regarding their decision-making processes related to mental health policy construction in efforts to reveal a clearer understanding of how to participate in effective policy reform.A phenomenological qualitative research design and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach was used to explore the lived experiences and perspectives of a total of eight state-level practicing policymakers surrounding the mental health policy construction process. After securing IRB approval, all eight participants participated in face-to-face individual, semi-structured interviews. The interviews were audio recorded and ranged from 45 to 90 minutes. Data was then analyzed using IPA data analysis methods. The final data analysis product included three super ordinate themes and related themes and subthemes

A Sociopolitical View of Mental Health: An Exploration of the Lived Experiences of Policymakers Regarding their Perspectives Surrounding Mental Health Policy Construction

A substantial gap exists between those who are considered experts on mental health (e.g., academics, mental health professionals) and those in charge of constructing mental health policies (e.g., legislators, Senators). This gap is in areas of both knowledge and professional relations. Mental health professionals are not adequately trained to engage in policy advocacy and reform efforts and have little to no policy advocacy training (Smith, Reynolds, & Rovnak, 2009). Policymakers lack necessary knowledge related to mental health for effective mental health policy construction (Corrigan, Druss, & Perlick, 2014; Lee, Smith, & Henry, 2013). As a result of this gap, mental health policies are ineffective, and many mental health professionals lack understanding and experience in the area of policy advocacy (Smith et al., 2009; Tanenbaum, 2005). This qualitative study aimed to contribute to filling this gap by exploring the perspectives of policymakers with the purpose of gaining a better understanding of the mental health policy construction and reform process. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perspectives and lived experiences of state-level, practicing policymakers regarding their decision-making processes related to mental health policy construction in efforts to reveal a clearer understanding of how to participate in effective policy reform.A phenomenological qualitative research design and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach was used to explore the lived experiences and perspectives of a total of eight state-level practicing policymakers surrounding the mental health policy construction process. After securing IRB approval, all eight participants participated in face-to-face individual, semi-structured interviews. The interviews were audio recorded and ranged from 45 to 90 minutes. Data was then analyzed using IPA data analysis methods. The final data analysis product included three super ordinate themes and related themes and subthemes

Housing insecurity, homelessness and populism : evidence from the UK

Homelessness and precarious living conditions are on the rise across much of the Western world. This paper exploits exogenous variation in the affordability of rents due to a cut that substantially lowered housing benefit -- a welfare benefit aimed at helping low income households pay rent. Before April 2011, local housing allowance covered up to the median level of market rents; from April 2011 onwards, only rents lower than the 30th percentile were covered. We exploit that the extent of cuts significantly depend on statistical noise due to estimation of percentiles. We document that the affordability shock caused a significant increase in: evictions; individual bankruptcies; property crimes; share of households living in insecure temporary accommodation; statutory homelessness and actual rough sleeping. The fiscal savings of the cut are much smaller than anticipated. We estimate that for every pound saved by the central government, council spending to meet statutory obligations for homelessness prevention increases by 53 pence. We further document political effects: the housing benefit cut causes lower electoral registration rates and is associated with lower turnout and higher support for Leave in the 2016 EU referendum, most likely driven by its unequal impact on the composition of those that engage with democratic processes

SGXTuner: Performance Enhancement of Intel SGX Applications via Stochastic Optimization

Intel SGX has started to be widely adopted. Cloud providers (Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, Alibaba Cloud) are offering new solutions, implementing data-in-use protection via SGX. A major challenge faced by both academia and industry is providing transparent SGX support to legacy applications. The approach with the highest consensus is linking the target software with SGX-extended libc libraries. Unfortunately, the increased security entails a dramatic performance penalty, which is mainly due to the intrinsic overhead of context switches, and the limited size of protected memory. Performance optimization is non-trivial since it depends on key parameters whose manual tuning is a very long process. We present the architecture of an automated tool, called SGXTuner, which is able to find the best setting of SGX-extended libc library parameters, by iteratively adjusting such parameters based on continuous monitoring of performance data. The tool is to a large extent algorithm agnostic. We decided to base the current implementation on a particular type of stochastic optimization algorithm, specifically Simulated Annealing. A massive experimental campaign was conducted on a relevant case study. Three client-server applications Memcached, Redis, and Apache were compiled with SCONE's sgx-musl and tuned for best performance. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of SGXTuner

Slip-controlled thin film dynamics

In this study, we present a novel method to assess the slip length and the viscosity of thin films of highly viscous Newtonian liquids. We quantitatively analyse dewetting fronts of low molecular weight polystyrene melts on Octadecyl- (OTS) and Dodecyltrichlorosilane (DTS) polymer brushes. Using a thin film (lubrication) model derived in the limit of large slip lengths, we can extract slip length and viscosity. We study polymer films with thicknesses between 50 nm and 230 nm and various temperatures above the glass transition. We find slip lengths from 100 nm up to 1 micron on OTS and between 300 nm and 10 microns on DTS covered silicon wafers. The slip length decreases with temperature. The obtained values for the viscosity are consistent with independent measurements.Comment: 4 figure

Barriers and Facilitators of Adherence to Pediatric Antiretroviral Therapy Regimens in Resource Limited Settings: A Systematic Review and Qualitative Research Plan

Introduction: Good adherence to ART is known to be extremely important for successful suppression of HIV viral load and to improve clinical outcomes in children. However, high rates of adherence, greater than 95%, are needed to achieve these goals. Therefore it is important that clinical and support staff who work with caregivers and their HIV children understand the importance of good adherence and convey this message to their patients. To do this, we need a foundation of knowledge with which to base an adherence theory on and an understanding of the barriers and facilitators to ART adherence. Though much work on understanding ART adherence has been done in developed settings, the majority on adults, there continues to be a paucity of research and lack of guiding theory regarding ART adherence in children in resource limited settings. This is a significant problem, as the number of children living with HIV in resource limited settings continues to grow, especially in places like sub-Saharan Africa which accounts for 90% of all children living with HIV. Recent scale-up efforts of ART to children in resource limited settings means that adherence has become a highly salient issue. Studies to date on pediatric ART adherence in resource limited settings incorporate a wide array of study populations, study designs, adherence measurement strategies, and definitions of adherence. Drawing conclusions from these studies and development of a culturally appropriate adherence theory has been difficult. Prior studies recommend that more qualitative, formative research will be helpful in the development of such an adherence theory and to help inform the design of more uniform future studies.Master of Public Healt

What Can Water Vapor Reveal About Past and Future Climate Change?: AGU Chapman Conference on Water Vapor and Its Role in Climate; Kailua‐Kona, Hawaii, 20–24 October 2008

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/95376/1/eost16773.pd

A Datalog Hammer for Supervisor Verification Conditions Modulo Simple Linear Arithmetic

The Bernays-Sch\"onfinkel first-order logic fragment over simple linear real arithmetic constraints BS(SLR) is known to be decidable. We prove that BS(SLR) clause sets with both universally and existentially quantified verification conditions (conjectures) can be translated into BS(SLR) clause sets over a finite set of first-order constants. For the Horn case, we provide a Datalog hammer preserving validity and satisfiability. A toolchain from the BS(LRA) prover SPASS-SPL to the Datalog reasoner VLog establishes an effective way of deciding verification conditions in the Horn fragment. This is exemplified by the verification of supervisor code for a lane change assistant in a car and of an electronic control unit for a supercharged combustion engine

Behavior of open grid steel bridge decks under service and fatigue loads

Open grid steel bridge decks have been in use for nearly a century. These open grid decks provide an economical and lightweight alternative to traditional reinforced concrete decks. As the transportation infrastructure continues to deteriorate, open grid decks can be used as a cost effective way to rehabilitate structurally deficient bridges. Open grid decks weigh less than conventional reinforced concrete decks and reduce the dead load on a bridge superstructure, thereby increasing the live load capacity. While modern bridge design specifications have evolved to LRFD principles, present design methods for open grid decks are mostly empirical and based on historic practice and performance. Further, fatigue limit states in practice tends to be controlled by cracking in the weak direction, for which no design provisions currently exist. A comprehensive research program was developed to address these issues. The results provide a better understanding of grid deck behavior, and will improve detailing and design provisions

SecureKeeper: confidential zooKeeper using intel SGX

Cloud computing, while ubiquitous, still suffers from trust issues, especially for applications managing sensitive data. Third-party coordination services such as ZooKeeper and Consul are fundamental building blocks for cloud applications, but are exposed to potentially sensitive application data. Recently, hardware trust mechanisms such as Intel's Software Guard Extensions (SGX) offer trusted execution environments to shield application data from untrusted software, including the privileged Operating System (OS) and hypervisors. Such hardware support suggests new options for securing third-party coordination services. We describe SecureKeeper, an enhanced version of the ZooKeeper coordination service that uses SGX to preserve the confidentiality and basic integrity of ZooKeeper-managed data. SecureKeeper uses multiple small enclaves to ensure that (i) user-provided data in ZooKeeper is always kept encrypted while not residing inside an enclave, and (ii) essential processing steps that demand plaintext access can still be performed securely. SecureKeeper limits the required changes to the ZooKeeper code base and relies on Java's native code support for accessing enclaves. With an overhead of 11%, the performance of SecureKeeper with SGX is comparable to ZooKeeper with secure communication, while providing much stronger security guarantees with a minimal trusted code base of a few thousand lines of code