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Purpose This paper compares and contrasts the implementation of pharmacist-led services for 3 different sexual and gender minority populations across California, Mississippi, and Florida. Summary Implementation of pharmacist-led services tailored to sexual and gender minorities may be a potential mechanism to address health disparities in these populations. Clinical pharmacists have the potential to provide care with cultural humility and improve health outcomes by optimizing medication regimens, reducing adverse drug events, enhancing medication acquisition, and improving medication adherence. Conclusion The services provided by clinical pharmacists varied across sites and included management of gender-affirming hormone therapy, HIV antiretroviral medication adherence programming, primary care and chronic disease state management, and involvement in care related to mental health, psychiatry, and substance use as well as sexual health. Various legislative and regulatory barriers and differences in scope of practice for pharmacists were also identified. This paper advocates for the expansion of pharmacy-led services and the adoption of a culturally humble approach to patient care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, the major thrust of plant physiology research is to identify and understand the regulation of genes that might be relevant in plant development and growth. The dominance of a genocentric view of plant behaviour has, unfortunately, resulted in the development of major disconnects in the classical view of plant physiology as a partnership between fundamental and practical research contributing to improved plant production. One disconnect is that much of the genocentric research appears to be organized and executed without regard to the practical needs of enhancing plant performance under applied conditions. Although practical benefits from genocentric research are often claimed, basic assumptions guiding much research and the experimental protocols used are commonly not relevant for real-world plant production. A second disconnect is a failure fully to appreciate the lessons learned in 40 years of classical plant physiology research concerning the role of physiological processes in altering whole plant performance. Regulation of plant systems has proved to be complex and redundant. Alteration of a single physiological process is compensated or dampened so that commonly very little change in plant growth and yield results from modification of a single physiological process. Based on a few successful projects employing classical plant physiology to achieve crop yield increase, key characteristics for research projects that truly seek to increase plant performance in production systems are identified. Basically, the partnership between the fundamental and practical research long espoused for plant physiology needs to be re-established in an intimate and meaningful way. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Calls for professional papers for presentation at the mid-year Clinical Meeting of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists in Orlando, Florida. Changes in the submission process to improve the quality of the presentations; Deadline for Management Case Study, professional, student and resident poster submissions; Selection criteria that will be used by a blinded peer review panel.

Predatory mites are effective natural enemies of small arthropods, including pest mites and insects, which provide biological control of several crop pests worldwide. The family Phytoseiidae (Acari: Mesostigmata) is a diverse group of predators found in cultivated crops and other habitats containing natural vegetation. Although some phytoseiid species are commercialized and widely used in biological control programs, the determination of natural populations and identification of the species is a vital first step in understanding their interactions with the crop, environment, and pests. The citrus crop is a diverse agroecosystem colonized by a variety of pests including mites and warrants an understanding of the complex of predators. We collected predatory mites from multiple citrus groves in Florida, to find and identify species for biological control in citrus crops. The examination of the specimens involved the use of Olympus CX-41 microscope, and drawings were prepared with the help of the attached camera Lucida. Any needed corrections were made using tracing paper, rapidograph pen, and Adobe Photoshop version CS6. Neoseiulus hexaporus sp. nov. is described and illustrated as a new species based on its distinct morphology compared with previously described species in paspalivorus group. We also provide a complementary redescription of Neoseiulus mumai (Denmark), including an important diagnostic character of leg chaetotaxy which had led to the description of a new species, Neoseiulus kikuyu Ma, Fan & Zhang. We also provide new illustrations of N. mumai to facilitate its diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents an update on the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR) as of September 2002. The most important prize of WAPOR, the Helen Dinerman Award, was awarded to Roger Tourangeau at this year's annual conference in Saint Petersburg, Florida. Tourangeau is currently the head of the Joint Program in Survey Methodology at the University of Maryland/University of Michigan. The Naomi C. Turner Award for the best student paper was given to Seung-Ahn Nah and Hernando Rojas of the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the paper: New Paths to Political Participation: A Comparative Analysis of Effects of Interpersonal Communication Networks and Media Use of Offline and Online Political Participation. Dietram A. Scheufele and William Eveland, was given the Robert Worcester Award for the best article in the International Journal of Public Opinion Research, for their article Perceptions of Public Opinion and Public Opinion Expression. Past-president Miguel Basanez, acting as chair of the electoral commission, announces the results of recent WAPOR elections. Professor Allan McCutcheon of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln was elected secretary-treasurer. The next WAPOR Annual Conference will be held in Prague, Czech Republic, during the month of September 2003.

Purpose of the study: To examine (a) whether the content of caregiving tasks (i.e., nursing vs. personal care) contributes to variation in caregivers’ strain and (b) whether the level of complexity of nursing tasks contributes to variation in strain among caregivers providing help with such tasks. Design and methods: The data came from the Cash and Counseling Demonstration and Evaluation study conducted in Arkansas, Florida, and New Jersey. The paper analyzes the physical and emotional strain of 1,926 paid American caregivers who helped adult Medicaid recipients with personal and nursing care in the home. Results: Over 80% of home caregivers were providing assistance with nursing care, and over 50% of those were providing help with moderate or high complexity tasks. Caregivers who were providing any type of nursing care reported significantly more strain than caregivers who were providing only personal care. Those providing highly or moderately complex nursing care exhibited more caregiver strain than did those providing low-complexity nursing care. Implications: Medical complexity is an important contributor to caregiver strain. Policymakers should consider medical complexity in the development of practices to assist the caregivers of Medicaid long-term care recipients, especially through consumer-directed supportive service programs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper proposes a simple new model for stationary time series of integer counts. Previous work has focused on thinning methods and classical time series autoregressive moving-average difference equations; in contrast, our methods use a renewal process to generate a correlated sequence of Bernoulli trials. By superpositioning independent copies of such processes, stationary series with binomial, Poisson, geometric or any other discrete marginal distribution can be readily constructed. The model class proposed is parsimonious, non-Markov and readily generates series with either short- or long-memory autocovariances. The model can be fitted with linear prediction techniques for stationary series. As an example, a stationary series with binomial marginal distributions is fitted to the number of rainy days in 210 consecutive weeks at Key West, Florida. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Previous research has shown that mass perceptions about the sizes of minority populations are influenced by sociodemographic, threat, and context variables. This paper extends the analysis to a population group that has thus far received only limited attention, gays and lesbians. Our analysis of a statewide survey of Florida residents in 2002 shows that people in sociodemographic groups associated with low levels of political knowledge were more likely to report higher estimates of the gay population. Threat variables and objective context had relatively little impact, but estimates also were higher among individuals who reported personal contact with gays and lesbians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 12th annual meeting of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco was held February 15–18, 2006, in Orlando, Florida, at the Disney Coronado Springs Hotel. Before the official program started, we were pleased to have two preconference symposia, one focused on the National Cooperative Drug Discovery Groups for Nicotine Addiction and the other on a national forum of how to address tobacco use in health care. The formal scientific program covered all three major areas of the SRNT (preclinical, clinical, and public health/epidemiology research), with many sessions emphasizing an integration across disciplines and levels of analysis. The program benefited from a distinguished keynote address, plenary theme lectures, symposia, oral paper sessions, and poster presentations, all of which played a critical role in the exchange of information at our annual meeting. The meeting was brought to order by SRNT president David Balfour, who provided opening remarks and introduced the 2006 keynote speaker, Robert West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last three decades have brought clear recognition that many populations of animals are experiencing severe declines or local and global extinctions. Many examples have become common knowledge to the general public, such as worldwide declines in amphibian populations and extensive loss of coral reefs. The mechanisms underlying these and other changes are poorly understood. However, a growing literature indicates that a wide array of chemical contaminants have the potential to disrupt normal cell-to-cell signaling mechanisms. A global pollutant of most aquatic systems, nitrate has the potential to be an endocrine disrupting contaminant. This paper reviews studies performed on vertebrates demonstrating that nitrate and/or nitrite have the potential to alter endocrine function. Further, a retrospective study of our work on alligators from various lakes in Florida suggests that nitrate could contribute to some of the altered endocrine parameters previously reported in juvenile animals. We propose hypotheses suggesting that nitrate could alter steroidogenesis by 1) conversion to nitrite and nitric oxide in the mitochondria, the site of initial steroid synthesis, 2) altering Cl- ion concentrations in the cell by substituting for Cl- in the membrane transport pump or 3) binding to the heme region of various P450 enzymes associated with steroidogenesis and altering enzymatic action. Future studies are needed to examine the endocrine disruptive action of this ubiquitous pollutant. A growing literature indicates that all biologists studying natural systems, whether they choose to or not, must now consider contaminant exposure as a direct influence on their studies. That is, ubiquitous global contamination has the potential to alter the endocrine, nervous and immune systems of all organisms with resulting changes in gene expression and phenotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides information on the 2002 annual membership meeting called to order by outgoing American Association for Public Opinion Research president Don Dillman at Saint Pete Beach, Florida in May. Secretary-treasurer Rob Santos reported that the financial status is good. The association has a surplus of $40,000. In the membership committee report, Dawn Nelson reported that the association have 1,378 members. A variety of outreach efforts were made, including sending e-mails and letters and making phone calls to lapsed members. Scott Keeter reported that the Standards Committee was enlarged to include members from each chapter and Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics and Consortium of Social Science Associations representatives. Diane O'Rourke, chair of the Endowment Committee, asked the members present to review the conference program booklet. They show the goals of the endowment, the status of the funds and the names of the members and organizations who have contributed since the inception of the fund in October 2000. Dick Kulta, reported that despite concerns about attendance after September 11, 2001, numbers were fine. He received 332 submissions resulting in 229 papers, 59 sessions, 10 roundtable discussions and 3 poster sessions.

Background Acute Respiratory tract infections (ARI) are infections involving the upper respiratory tract. Most ARIs are viral in nature and self-limited in which most of the times antibiotic treatment is unnecessary. A recent VA medication utilization evaluation conducted in 28 medical centers identified high rates of unnecessary antibiotic prescribing for ARI. Based on these analyses the VA National Academic Detailing Service (VANADS) created the ARI campaign, providing materials for VA systems to employ as the seek to improve ARI management. Our project consists of implementation of the ARI Campaign in a South Florida Veteran Affairs HealthCare System (Miami VAHS). Methods We utilized VANADS resources for our campaign. Activities included assessing ARI prescribing patterns, garnering stakeholder support, identifying pharmacist and physician champions, providing targeted academic detailing, handing out provider ARI guidance documents (in paper and electronically), disseminating provider-specific feedback with peer comparison, order-set development with advertisement, promoting appropriate coding, and reporting to the Miami VAHS antimicrobial stewardship program (ASP) subcommittee. Campaign activities were initiated in October 2017. The ARI Campaign was selected as the priority item for FY-2019, from our annual ASP risk assessment with a goal of reducing antibiotic prescribing for ARI diagnosis to below 40%. We present the data up to March 2019. Results Baseline data from October 2015 through September 2017 revealed an antibiotic was prescribed to 1,651 of 2,843 (58%) encounters in which an ARI diagnosis was made in our system. In the months following ARI Campaign initiation, a decline in antibiotic prescribing for ARI diagnosis was found. In the most recent quarter (January–March 2019), the prescribing rate was 39%. Figure 1 shows system-wide vs. Florida region prescribing rates. Table 1 provides data by major site and for the top 10 priority providers we identified. Conclusion Implementation of a multifaceted ARI Campaign at a single-center resulted in a substantial reduction in antibiotic prescriptions. Future work is warranted investigating which activities are most impactful for reducing unnecessary antibiotic prescribing for ARI. Disclosures All authors: No reported disclosures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information the sixtieth annual conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR). The 2005 conference of the AAPOR was held during May 12-15 at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida, and set records in several categories. First, there were 913 registrants, easily topping last year's record attendance of 843 in Phoenix, Arizona. Among these attendees were five Burns "Bud" Roper Fellows, whose expenses were covered by AAPOR member Elmo Burns Roper's generous endowment to AAPOR. Second, there was also a record number of papers and authors--a total of 318 oral presentations and 75 posters with about 1,450 authors. Third, another record was surpassed with 25 exhibitors participating. Likewise, the AAPOR book exhibit, organized by Patricia Moy, associate conference chair-elect, had volumes from 12 publishers. Fourth, Karl Feld, member of conference operations committee at AAPOR, led the effort in recruiting nearly double the level of sponsorships of last year's conference.

The article discusses the highlights of the 24th annual conference Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) held in Orlando, Florida on July 8-12, 2016. Special interest group meetings and satellite meetings are included in the ISMB conference. Particular focus is given to the review process for conference papers. Also included are charts about themes, areas associated with each theme and submission statistics.

Information about several papers discussed at a meeting sponsored by the National Foundation for Infectious Disease at the Halifax Medical Center in Daytona Beach, Florida, Colorado is presented. The event focused on the isolation of Atlanta lawyer Andrew Speaker for the treatment of multidrug-resistant tubercolosis. The meeting featured several speakers including pulmonary specialist Michael Iseman.

Presents news briefs on public health as of September 1999. Actions taken by a Florida court against tobacco companies; Information on a white paper on public health released by the British government in July 1999; Views of medical examiner Steven Karch on the availability of cocaine in Europe.

Supervised visitation programs allow parents who may be a risk to their children or to another parent to experience parent–child contact while in the presence of an appropriate third party. Use of a “neutral third party” to oversee such contact has long been recognized as essential in child maltreatment cases in which the child has been removed from the home. This paper presents the results of an exploratory study of the structural and functional characteristics of 47 supervised visitation programs in Florida. Findings indicated that programs are typically operated on small budgets, with the related challenges of limited hours of operation, delayed or denied services to families in need, small and/or unpaid staff, and inadequate security measures. Recommendations for stable and sufficient funding as well as statutory legitimization are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an abstract of a paper entitled `Functional Outcome Survey: Attitudes and Opinions of Florida Physical Therapy Association Members,' by S. Bernstein, T. Ball et al, presented at the Physical Therapy `97: Scientific Meeting and Exposition of the American Physical Therapy Association.