Family and peer modeling of alcohol use in African American college students [abstract]

Abstract only availableFamily influences on alcohol consumption have received considerable research attention. However relatively little research has examined this aspect of the alcoholism risk process for African Americans. This study tested whether familial influences on participant drinking differed as a function of socioeconomic status. The study sample consisted of 141 African American college students (mean age = 21.89, SD = 1.24; 41% male). The association between participant report of family drinking (father, mother, sibling), peer drinking and personal drinking levels were tested. Next, tests were ran to determine whether these associations differed by socioeconomic status. Results indicated that mother, sibling, and peer drinking were associated with participant drinking, but father drinking and socioeconomic status were not. There was evidence for moderation, with socioeconomic status having a greater impact on participant drinking for those reporting high maternal drinking. These results highlight the need for more complex models to test the effect of contextual factors, such as family drinking and socioeconomic status on alcohol use

First time stroke survivors' perceptions of their health status and their goals for recovery

Stroke is an intensely individual, complex and life changing experience. Stroke recovery has many dimensions, and perceptions of health status are thought to affect recovery. The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe patients' perceptions of their health status and their goals for recovery from early post stroke. Following ethical approval, semi structured interviews were conducted with patients (n=10) diagnosed with a first incident of stroke. Time following stroke onset ranged from 4 to 7 days. Gender difference was equal, and mean age of participants was 77 years. Participants considered themselves to be active and in excellent health prior to the stroke onset. All participants perceived that their health had declined since the stroke onset, but they were hopeful for the future. Two distinct themes emerged; "sudden fear and helplessness" and "regaining control in life". Participants reported wanting to quickly return to doing everyday things and identified individual goals for recovery. The patients' experience should be considered early post stroke to provide a complete picture of their role in recovery. Participants believed that the greatest challenge would be testing themselves at home. This study reinforces the importance of engaging with patients early post stroke so that recovery goals are identified that help restore meaning through the re-establishment of previous activities. Patient goals for recovery need to be discussed and devised in conjunction with health care professionals

Optical fibers and optical fiber sensors used in radiation monitoring

peer-reviewedBy their very nature, optical fibers and, by extension, intrinsic and extrinsic optical fiberbased sensors are promising devices to be used in very different and complex environments considering their characteristics such as: capabilities to work under strong electromagnetic fields; possibility to carry multiplexed signals (time, wavelength multiplexing); small size and low mass; ability to handle multi-parameter measurements in distributed configuration; possibility to monitor sites far away from the controller; their availability to be incorporated into the monitored structure; wide bandwidth for communication applications. In the case of the optical fibers, the possibility to be incorporated into various types of sensors and actuators, free of additional hazards (i.e. fire, explosion), made them promising candidates to operate in special or adverse conditions as those required by space or terrestrial applications (spacecraft on board instrumentation, nuclear facilities, future fusion installations, medical treatment and diagnostics premises, medical equipment sterilization). Major advantages to be considered in using optical fibers/optical fiber sensors for radiation detection and monitoring refer to: real-time interrogation capabilities, possibility to design spatially resolved solutions (the capability to build array detectors), in-vivo investigations (i.e. inside the body measurements).PUBLISHEDpeer-reviewe

Association between overall rate of change in rising breath alcohol concentration and the magnitude of acute tolerance of subjective intoxication via the Mellanby method

ObjectiveThe magnitude of acute tolerance is a strong predictor of the development of longerâ term chronic tolerance and plays a decisive role in risky decisions (e.g., driving after drinking). Therefore, it is important to identify factors that increase the magnitude of this adaptive process. This study explored whether acute tolerance magnitude varied as a function of the overall rate of increase in breath alcohol concentration (BrAC).MethodsTwentyâ nine young adult social drinkers (M age = 22.55, SD = 3.10; 62.1% women) consumed a moderate dose of alcohol (men: 0.86 g/kg, women: 0.75 g/kg) in a controlled laboratory setting. Subjective intoxication was assessed at matched BrACs (~0.060 g/dl) on each limb of the BrAC curve.ResultsHierarchical regression results indicated that faster overall increases in BrAC on the ascending limb were associated with greater acute tolerance for subjective intoxication ratings (p < .01, R2 = .29).ConclusionsThese results present some of the first evidence that faster increases in BrAC may be associated with greater acute tolerance, as indicated by greater reduction in subjective intoxication across the limbs of the BrAC curve. This greater reduction may, in turn, promote heavier drinking and/or engagement in behaviors for which one is unfit (e.g., driving after drinking).Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135992/1/hup2565_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135992/2/hup2565.pd

The acoustics of place of articulation in English plosives

PhD ThesisThis thesis investigates certain aspects of the acoustics of plosives’ place of articulation that have not been addressed by most previous studies, namely: 1. To test the performance of a technique for collapsing F2onset and F2mid into a single attribute, termed F2R. Results: F2R distinguishes place with effectively the same accuracy as F2onset+F2mid, being within ±1 percentage point of F2onset+F2mid at its strongest over most of the conditions examined. 2. To compare the strength of burst-based attributes at distinguishing place of articulation with and without normalization by individual speaker. Results: Lobanov normalization on average boosted the classification of individual attributes by 1.4 percentage points, but this modest improvement shrank or disappeared when the normalized attributes were combined into a single classification. 3. To examine the effect of different spectral representations (Hz-dB, Bark-phon, and Bark-sone) on the accuracy of the burst attributes. The results are mixed but mostly suggest that the choice between these representations is not a major factor in the classification accuracy of the attributes (mean difference of 1 to 1.5 percentage points); the choice of frequency region in the burst (mid versus high) is a far more important factor (13 percentage-point difference in mean classification accuracy). 4. To compare the performance of some traditional-phonetic burst attributes with the first 12 coefficients of the discrete cosine transform (DCT). The motivation for this comparison is that phonetic science has a long tradition of developing burst attributes that are tailored to the specific task of extracting place-of-articulation information from the burst, whereas automatic speech recognition (ASR) has long used attributes that are theoretically expected to capture more of the variance in the burst. Results: the DCT coefficients yielded a higher burst classification accuracy than the traditional phonetic attributes, by 3 percentage points.Economic and Social Research Counc

Developing a framework for mobile payments integration

This paper derives a theoretical framework for consideration of both the technologically driven dimensions of mobile payment solutions, and the associated value proposition for customers. Banks promote traditional payment instruments whose value proposition is the management of risk for both consumers and merchants. These instruments are centralised, costly and lack decision support functionality. The ubiquity of the mobile phone has provided a decentralised platform for managing payment processes in a new way, but the value proposition for customers has yet to be elaborated clearly. This inertia has stalled the design of sustainable revenue models for a mobile payments ecosystem. Merchants and consumers in the meantime are being seduced by the convenience of on-line and mobile payment solutions. Adopting the purchase and payment process as the unit of analysis, the current mobile payment landscape is reviewed with respect to the creation and consumption of customer value. From this analysis, a framework is derived juxtaposing customer value, related to what is being paid for, with payment integration, related to how payments are being made. The framework provides a theoretical and practical basis for considering the contribution of mobile technologies to the payment industry. The framework is then used to describe the components of a mobile payments pilot project being run on a trial population of 250 students on a campus in Ireland. In this manner, weaknesses in the value proposition for consumers and merchants were highlighted. Limitations of the framework as a research tool are also discussed

Estimating rainfall and water balance over the Okavango River Basin for hydrological applications

A historical database for use in rainfall-runoff modeling of the Okavango River Basin in Southwest Africa is presented. The work has relevance for similar data-sparse regions. The parameters of main concern are rainfall and catchment water balance which are key variables for subsequent studies of the hydrological impacts of development and climate change. Rainfall estimates are based on a combination of in-situ gauges and satellite sources. Rain gauge measurements are most extensive from 1955 to 1972, after which they are drastically reduced due to the Angolan civil war. The sensitivity of the rainfall fields to spatial interpolation techniques and the density of gauges was evaluated. Satellite based rainfall estimates for the basin are developed for the period from 1991 onwards, based on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) data sets. The consistency between the gauges and satellite estimates was considered. A methodology was developed to allow calibration of the rainfall-runoff hydrological model against rain gauge data from 1960-1972, with the prerequisite that the model should be driven by satellite derived rainfall products for the 1990s onwards. With the rain gauge data, addition of a single rainfall station (Longa) in regions where stations earlier were lacking was more important than the chosen interpolation method. Comparison of satellite and gauge rainfall outside the basin indicated that the satellite overestimates rainfall by 20%. A non-linear correction was derived used by fitting the rainfall frequency characteristics to those of the historical rainfall data. This satellite rainfall dataset was found satisfactory when using the Pitman rainfall-runoff model (Hughes et al., this issue). Intensive monitoring in the region is recommended to increase accuracy of the comprehensive satellite rainfall estimate calibration procedur