The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts

Presents findings from a survey that examines why some students do not complete their high school education, and what academic and personal supports would have helped them stay in school. Includes recommendations for improving graduation rates

Factors associated with pregnancy and STI among Aboriginal students in British Columbia.

BACKGROUND: Aboriginal adolescents are more likely to become pregnant and contract an STI than other Canadian adolescents. This study provides some of the first data on factors associated with these outcomes among Aboriginal adolescents. METHODS: A secondary analysis was conducted using 2003 data from a large cross-sectional survey of British Columbia secondary school students. 445 young women and 360 young men who identified as Aboriginal and reported ever having sex were included in analyses. Associations between self-reported pregnancy and STI and 11 exposure variables were examined using logistic regression. RESULTS: Of young women, 10.6% reported a pregnancy; 10.5% of young men reported causing a pregnancy. An STI diagnosis was reported by 4.2% of young women and 3.9% of young men. In multivariate analyses for young men, ever having been sexually abused was the strongest consistent risk factor for causing a pregnancy (AOR = 4.30, 95% CI 1.64-11.25) and STI diagnosis (AOR = 5.58, 95% CI 1.61-19.37). For young women, abuse was associated with increased odds of pregnancy (AOR = 10.37, 95% CI 4.04-26.60) but not STI. Among young women, substance use was the strongest consistent risk factor for both pregnancy (AOR = 3.36, 95% CI 1.25-9.08) and STI (AOR = 5.27, 95% CI 1.50-18.42); for young men, substance use was associated with higher odds of STI (AOR = 4.60, 95% CI 1.11-19.14). Factors associated with decreased risk included community, school and family involvement. CONCLUSIONS: Health care professionals, communities and policy-makers must urgently address sexual abuse and substance use. Exploring promotion of school and community involvement and family cohesion may be useful for sexual health interventions with Aboriginal students

Audio-guided mindfulness training in schools and its effect on academic attainment: Contributing to theory and practice

We report the results of a randomized trial (N = 337) examining the effectiveness of a daily audio-guided MBI in raising academic achievement in 16 volunteer classrooms across two socio-demographically diverse United States primary schools. The study's findings were that, over the intervention period, improvements in Math scores, Social Studies scores and Grade Point Averages (GPA) were generally higher for students in intervention classrooms. However, confidence intervals were wide and there was pre-existing variability between schools and grades, resulting in few significant differences as a result of the intervention and generally low effect sizes. Through a careful discussion of the study's results, the paper contributes to theory by generating a comprehensive agenda for follow-up research. The study also contributes to practice by reporting on the effectiveness of technology-enabled mindfulness training because participating teachers seemed able to implement the intervention with almost no further training or need for hiring external mindfulness experts

Elevation of the Diaphragm; Unilateral Phrenic Paralysis: A Radiological Study, with Special Reference to the Differential Diagnosis

My thesis is mainly a radiological study of Elevation of the diaphragm with some observations on the differential diagnosis. I have added to the title that of Unilateral phrenic paralysis for two reasons; firstly, I hope to show during the course of this paper that certain forms of congenital elevation of the diaphragm are probably due to a unilateral phrenic paralysis, and secondly, to present for consideration a number of cases in which paralysis of one or other leaflet of the diaphragm was caused by a definite pathological lesion involving the phrenic nerve in its pasage through the thorax

Drive mechanism for production of simulated human breath

Simulated breath drive mechanism was developed as subsystem to breathing metabolic simulator. Mechanism reproduces complete range of human breath rate, breath depth, and breath waveform, as well as independently controlled functional residual capacity. Mechanism was found capable of simulating various individual human breathing characteristics without any changes of parts

Using Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) to study dynamic stereoscopic depth perception

The parietal cortex has been widely implicated in the processing of depth perception by many neuroimaging studies, yet functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) has been an under-utilised tool to examine the relationship of oxy- ([HbO]) and de-oxyhaemoglobin ([HbR]) in perception. Here we examine the haemodynamic response (HDR) to the processing of induced depth stimulation using dynamic random-dot-stereograms (RDS). We used fNIRS to measure the HDR associated with depth perception in healthy young adults (n = 13, mean age 24). Using a blocked design, absolute values of [HbO] and [HbR] were recorded across parieto-occipital and occipital cortices, in response to dynamic RDS. Control and test images were identical except for the horizontal shift in pixels in the RDS that resulted in binocular disparity and induced the percept of a 3D sine wave that 'popped out' of the test stimulus. The control stimulus had zero disparity and induced a 'flat' percept. All participants had stereoacuity within normal clinical limits and successfully perceived the depth in the dynamic RDS. Results showed a significant effect of this complex visual stimulation in the right parieto-occipital cortex (p < 0.01, η(2) = 0.54). The test stimulus elicited a significant increase in [HbO] during depth perception compared to the control image (p < 0.001, 99.99 % CI [0.008-0.294]). The similarity between the two stimuli may have resulted in the HDR of the occipital cortex showing no significant increase or decrease of cerebral oxygenation levels during depth stimulation. Cerebral oxygenation measures of [HbO] confirmed the strong association of the right parieto-occipital cortex with processing depth perception. Our study demonstrates the validity of fNIRS to investigate [HbO] and [HbR] during high-level visual processing of complex stimuli