Acceptable access to health services for adults on the autism spectrum

Background: People with autism may experience higher rates of mental health difficulty, yet access to appropriate mental health support and services has been recognised as challenging. Aims: This study aimed to explore whether components of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) could explain variance in IAPT clinicians’ intention to carry out interventions for mental health difficulties in people with High functioning autism (HFA) or Asperger’s syndrome (AS). It also explored the effect on intention of past experience of carrying out these interventions. Method: There were two stages to the study. The first stage involved a qualitative elicitation study, which investigated attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control factors in carrying out the interventions. The second stage was a questionnaire-based study. The questionnaire was created following content analysis of the qualitative data, and was completed by clinicians currently working in Improving Access to Psychological Therapy (IAPT) services (n=88). The data were then analysed using multiple regression. Results: The theory of planned behavioural model predicted 56.5% of the variance in intention to carry out interventions for mental health difficulties for people with (Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASCs). The most significant components in predicting intention were indirect attitude measures, direct measures of perceived behavioural control, and indirect subjective normative referents. Past experience of carrying out these interventions was significantly associated with intention when the individual had no experience of working with people with ASCs previously. Conclusion: Further explorations of unaccounted variables impacting on intention to carry out interventions for mental health difficulties with people with ASCs could be valuable. Clinical implications include additional training for therapists in ASCs and development of adapted materials if part of the intervention. Future research could focus on therapy efficacy other than for cognitive behavioural therapy and in-depth accounts from therapists and service users with ASCs as to their therapeutic experiences

Promoting Success: Self-Accommodating Techniques for Collegiate Student Athletes

Making the transition from high school to the university setting is often difficult for many incoming freshmen including collegiate student athletes. Failure in initial classes may appear to be the result of inadequate mastery of the content presented in the course; however, additional factors may be involved. Many students both with disabilities as well as without documented learning disabilities may fail to master the content of college courses due to a lack of knowledge of their own learning needs or intrinsic processing behaviors. Student athletes both with and without documented disabilities were asked to voluntarily complete a self-report on their intrinsic processing skills as identified by the LDDI. Two students profiles were chosen representing both learning disabled and non-disabled populations. The profiles were randomly selected. This article examined two student athletes and outlined a process that was used to facilitate the development of knowledge about personal intrinsic processing needs. Self-report information was analyzed and self-accomodating techniques were cleveloped for the student to improve their performance in the university classroom. As a final step, ADA accommodations for the collegiate setting were also developed using the self-report information about intrinsic processing needs delineated by the student with learning disabilities

Soil pH governs production rate of calcium carbonate secreted by the earthworm Lumbricus terrestris

Lumbricus terrestris earthworms exposed to 11 soils of contrasting properties produced, on average, 0.8 ± 0.1 mgCaCO3 earthworm−1 day−1 in the form of granules up to 2 mm in diameter. Production rate increased with soil pH (r2 = 0.68, p < 0.01). Earthworms could be a significant source of calcite in soils

Real-time lattice boltzmann shallow waters method for breaking wave simulations

We present a new approach for the simulation of surfacebased fluids based in a hybrid formulation of Lattice Boltzmann Method for Shallow Waters and particle systems. The modified LBM can handle arbitrary underlying terrain conditions and arbitrary fluid depth. It also introduces a novel method for tracking dry-wet regions and moving boundaries. Dynamic rigid bodies are also included in our simulations using a two-way coupling. Certain features of the simulation that the LBM can not handle because of its heightfield nature, as breaking waves, are detected and automatically turned into splash particles. Here we use a ballistic particle system, but our hybrid method can handle more complex systems as SPH. Both the LBM and particle systems are implemented in CUDA, although dynamic rigid bodies are simulated in CPU. We show the effectiveness of our method with various examples which achieve real-time on consumer-level hardware.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Accidental Releases of Sour Gas From Wells and Collection Pipelines in the Overthrust Belt: Calculating and Assessing Potential Health and Environmental Risks

Parts of the Overthrust Belt of western Wyoming and adjoining areas in Utah and Idaho contain geologic formations with significant accumulations of oil and natural gas. Some of these formations, though, yield gas that is contaminated with toxic hydrogen sulfide. As a consequence, the development of these so-called sour-gas reservoirs requires special safety procedures and technologies in order to prevent accidental releases of gas to the atmosphere that could cause adverse occupational and public health effects. To improve the analysis and assessment of wells and collection pipelines completed on lands leased from the Federal Government, the Minerals Management Service, Onshore Operations, now part of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), asked Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to conduct a study to test methods to the analysis of the potential risks associated with the development of sour-gas resources located near Evanston, Wyoming. The process of assessing the health risks of a potential sour-gas release involves estimation of the emission rate of hydrogen sulfide, specification of how the gas is released (e.g., vertically into the atmosphere or horizontally), prediction of downwind concentrations of the gas, analysis of the potential health effects, and finally, review of safety methods required to minimize the potential health risks. The first part of the report includes an analysis of data on the health effects of hydrogen sulfide to determine the nature of its dose-response relationship. Following that review is a study of the different methods of quantifying the emission rate of gas from wells and pipelines. Data on the frequency of accidental releases from those facilities are also analyzed. To assess the health risks of an accidental release from a well under BLM supervision located near Evanston, we collected meteorological data for 1 yr from four stations in that area. Our analysis of a worst-case release scenario (i.e., a gas plume that is near the surface) using those data indicates that the greatest risks of incurring an acute health effect (e.g., unconsciousness, respiratory arrest, pulmonary edema, or death) are located in the northwest sector downwind from the well because of the occurrence of stable atmospheric conditions along with slow winds from the southeast. The risks of an acute health effect in that northwest sector over the 20-yr operation of the well were on the order of 10 -4 to 10 -5 -- similar to the risk of accidental death caused by a natural disaster over the same period