Experiences and perceptions of how community-based interventions can promote young adults\u27 resilience to suicide within rural/regional communities

In the literature, both statistics and studies have noted that suicide in rural/regional young adults\u27 is an important concern. Recent research suggests, that to facilitate a primary approach to suicide prevention in young people, there is a need to promote the protective construct of resilience at a community level, highlighting strategies such as connectedness, and decreasing the stigma related to mental illness and health-seeking behaviour (Commonwealth Department of Health & Aged Care, 2005; Injury Control Council of Western Australia, 2006). However, there is a need to investigate and identify the links or mediating factors that promote individual resilience within a person, in relation to broad community-interventions (Niner et al., 2009). Therefore, this phenomenological study undertaken within a rural/regional context, explored resilience and how this may protect in regard to the problem of suicide among young adults\u27. Specifically, the experiences and perceptions of young adults\u27 and those that work with youth in a rural setting were explored, to aid identifying how young adults\u27 define resilience to the problem of suicide, and discover what community strategies are needed within rural/regional areas, to promote resilience for young adults\u27. Ten informants, 7 young adults ( 4 female and 3 male) and 3 older adults, located in rural/regional areas in the South West of Western Australia; volunteered to participate in a semi-structured interview, exploring the construct of resilience and how this may protect in regard to the problem of suicide. The semi-structured interviews were analysed at both an individual level for each informant and a higher level of generalisation, to aid in the identification and extraction of themes and sub-themes from the complete data (Becker, 1992). Five major themes were identified as a result, which informants\u27 perceived to be important to defining or promoting resilience within the context of suicide. These included; support, awareness of internal processes, stepping stones, acceptance, and suicide education. These findings suggest that individual, relational, contextual and cultural aspects are important factors for rural young adults\u27 experiences and perceptions of resilience, especially when considered within the context of suicide. Thus, supporting Ungar and colleague\u27s (2007) perspective of resilience, which emphasises the importance of both an individual\u27s abilities, and the capacity of an individual\u27s ecology to provide the resources needed to promote resilience and well-being

Social skills intervention for young children with visual impairment and additional disabilities.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate three different teaching approaches that might improve the social functioning of young children with visual impairment and additional disabilities. These three methods included: (1) the arrangement of ecological variables (child-selected play materials), (2) peer-mediated training procedures, and (3) teacher-directed prompting strategies to promote and reinforce social behaviors. Of the four children studied, two failed to show changes in verbal and physical interactive behaviors across baseline and peer-mediated conditions. However, these same two students demonstrated increases albeit highly variable, during the teacher-prompting phase. For the other two students, physical and verbal interactive behaviors increased during both peer and teacher prompting conditions when contrasted to baseline phases. Overall, these findings suggest that teacher-prompting procedures may be an effective teaching method to improve social skills of young children with vision impairment and additional disabilities

Developing an International Framework and Agenda for Agricultural Communications Research

Timely, effective research is becoming a vital tool for communicators to use in the dynamic setting of the information age. Increasingly, it can support effective communications and decision-making related to agriculture. The authors report results of their recent efforts as members of a national project to envision a framework and agenda for agricultural communications research during the next 5 years. Noting the emergence and dynamics of the information age, they emphasize the centrality and resilience of agriculture. They observe how the agriculture-related sectors - food, fiber, natural resources, bio-based energy, nutrition and health, rural development, and others - tend to transform themselves and adapt over time and across societies. Similarly, the roles of communicators are adapting beyond that of the historical town crier. Increasingly, communicators are helping people gather and share information, deliberate, sort through the mountains of information, select what they need, and make decisions. The authors identify 4 research priority areas and 18 key questions for research that communicators can use to address such challenges. They also suggest agricultural knowledge management as an integrative, international framework for strengthening this research agenda

The Spitzer c2d Survey of Nearby Dense Cores. IX. Discovery of a Very Low Luminosity Object Driving a Molecular Outflow in the Dense Core L673-7

We present new infrared, submillimeter, and millimeter observations of the dense core L673-7 and report the discovery of a low-luminosity, embedded Class 0 protostar driving a molecular outflow. L673-7 is seen in absorption against the mid-infrared background in 5.8, 8, and 24 micron Spitzer images, allowing for a derivation of the column density profile and total enclosed mass of L673-7, independent of dust temperature assumptions. Estimates of the core mass from these absorption profiles range from 0.2-4.5 solar masses. Millimeter continuum emission indicates a mass of about 2 solar masses, both from a direct calculation assuming isothermal dust and from dust radiative transfer models constrained by the millimeter observations. We use dust radiative transfer models to constrain the internal luminosity of L673-7, defined to be the luminosity of the central source and excluding the luminosity from external heating, to be 0.01-0.045 solar luminosities, with 0.04 solar luminosities the most likely value. L673-7 is thus classified as a very low luminosity object (VeLLO), and is among the lowest luminosity VeLLOs yet studied. We calculate the kinematic and dynamic properties of the molecular outflow in the standard manner, and we show that the expected accretion luminosity based on these outflow properties is greater than or equal to 0.36 solar luminosities. The discrepancy between this expected accretion luminosity and the internal luminosity derived from dust radiative transfer models indicates that the current accretion rate is much lower than the average rate over the lifetime of the outflow. Although the protostar embedded within L673-7 is consistent with currently being substellar, it is unlikely to remain as such given the substantial mass reservoir remaining in the core.Comment: 19 pages, 14 figures. Accepted by Ap

Effective ecodesign: finding a way forward for industry

This paper states the findings and highlights the questions which have arisen from the initial stages of a collaborative research project in ecodesign, between Cranfield University and Electrolux UK. It discusses the initial findings arising from combining a critical analysis of the literature in this area with observations of industrial practice at Electrolux UK. It concludes that ecodesign at industrial design stages has under-utilised business potential. Future research should attempt to determine how ecodesign can be incorporated into industrial design and be managed through a structured process, such as the Integrated Product Development Process at Electrolux

Patterns of Tumor Necrosis Factor Inhibitor (TNFi) Biosimilar Use Across United States Rheumatology Practices.

ObjectiveIt is unclear if biosimilars of biologics for inflammatory arthritis are realizing their promise to increase competition and improve accessibility. This study evaluates biosimilar tumor necrosis factor inhibitor (TNFi) utilization across rheumatology practices in the United States and compares whether patients initiating biosimilars remain on these treatments at least as long as new initiators of bio-originators.MethodsWe identified a cohort of patients initiating a TNFi biosimilar between January 2017 and September 2018 from an electronic health record registry containing data from 218 rheumatology practices and over 1 million rheumatology patients in the United States. We also identified a cohort of patients who initiated the bio-originator TNFi during the same period. We calculated the proportion of biosimilar prescriptions compared with other TNFi's and compared persistence on these therapies, adjusting for age, sex, diagnoses codes, and insurance type.ResultsWe identified 909 patients prescribed the biosimilar infliximab-dyyb, the only biosimilar prescribed, and 4413 patients with a new prescription for the bio-originator infliximab. Biosimilar patients tended to be older, have a diagnosis code for rheumatoid arthritis, and covered by Medicare insurance. Over the study period, biosimilar prescriptions reached a maximum of 3.5% of all TNFi prescriptions. Patients persisted on the biosimilar at least as long as the bio-originator infliximab (hazard ratio [HR] 0.83, P = 0.07).ConclusionThe uptake of biosimilars in the United States remains low despite persistence on infliximab-dyyb being similar to the infliximab bio-originator. These results add to clinical studies that should provide greater confidence to patients and physicians regarding biosimilar use

The Spitzer c2d Survey Of Nearby Dense Cores. X. Star Formation In L673 And Cb188

L673 and CB188 are two low-mass clouds isolated from large star-forming regions that were observed as part of the Spitzer Legacy Project "From Molecular Clouds to Planet Forming disks" (c2d). We identified and characterized all the young stellar objects (YSOs) of these two regions and modeled their spectral energy distributions (SEDs) to examine whether their physical properties are consistent with values predicted from the theoretical models and with the YSO properties in the c2d survey of larger clouds. Overall, 30 YSO candidates were identified by the c2d photometric criteria, 27 in L673 and 3 in CB188. We confirm the YSO nature of 29 of them and remove a false Class III candidate in L673. We further present the discovery of two new YSO candidates, one Class 0 and another possible Class I candidate in L673, therefore bringing the total number of YSO candidates to 31. Multiple sites of star formation are present within L673, closely resembling other well-studied c2d clouds containing small groups such as B59 and L1251B, whereas CB188 seems to consist of only one isolated globule-like core. We measure a star formation efficiency (SFE) of 4.6%, which resembles the SFE of the larger c2d clouds. From the SED modeling of our YSO sample we obtain envelope masses for Class I and Flat spectrum sources of 0.01-1.0 M-circle dot. The majority of Class II YSOs show disk accretion rates from 3.3 x 10(-10) to 3 x 10(-8) M-circle dot yr(-1) and disk masses that peak at 10(-4) to 10(-3) M-circle dot. Finally, we examined the possibility of thermal fragmentation in L673 as the main star-forming process. We find that the mean density of the regions where significant YSO clustering occurs is of the order of similar to 10(5) cm(-3) using 850 mu m observations and measure a Jeans Length that is greater than the near-neighbor YSO separations by approximately a factor of 3-4. We therefore suggest that other processes, such as turbulence and shock waves, may have had a significant effect on the cloud's filamentary structure and YSO clustering.University of SouthamptonNASA 1279198, 1288806, 1365763Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of TechnologyAstronom

Observational Constraints on Submillimeter Dust Opacity

Infrared extinction maps and submillimeter dust continuum maps are powerful probes of the density structure in the envelope of star-forming cores. We make a direct comparison between infrared and submillimeter dust continuum observations of the low-mass Class 0 core, B335, to constrain the ratio of submillimeter to infrared opacity (κ_(smm)/κ_(ir)) and the submillimeter opacity power-law index (κ ∝ λ–β). Using the average value of theoretical dust opacity models at 2.2 μm, we constrain the dust opacity at 850 and 450 μm. Using new dust continuum models based upon the broken power-law density structure derived from interferometric observations of B335 and the infall model derived from molecular line observations of B335, we find that the opacity ratios are ^κ_(850)_κ_(2.2) = (3.21 - 4.80)^(+0.44)_(-0.30) x 10^(-4) ^κ_(450)_κ(2.0) = (12.8-24.8)^(+2.4)_(-1.3) x 10^(-4) with a submillimeter opacity power-law index of β_(smm) = (2.18-2.58)^(+0.30)_(–0.30). The range of quoted values is determined from the uncertainty in the physical model for B335. For an average 2.2 μm opacity of 3800 ± 700 cm^2 g^(–1), we find a dust opacity at 850 and 450 μm of κ_(850) = (1.18-1.77)^9+0.36)_(–0.24) and κ_(450) = (4.72-9.13)^(+1.9)_(–0.98) cm^2 g^(–1) of dust. These opacities are from (0.65-0.97)κ^(OH5)_(850) of the widely used theoretical opacities of Ossenkopf and Henning for coagulated ice grains with thin mantles at 850 μm