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In response to the diverse number of child sexual abuse (CSA) prevention programs currently implemented in school contexts, this paper examines key considerations for selecting such initiatives and the multiplicity of understandings required to inform facilitation of contextually relevant prevention curriculum. First, the paper examines concerns about the lack of explicit professional development for educators concerning child protection, and the need to develop understandings about prevention program best practices within pre-service and in-service training. Second, drawing on a systematic review of literature, the paper identifies five key considerations to inform teachers' selection and facilitation of CSA prevention curriculum in school contexts. Third, the paper advances calls by Wurtele (2009) and presents CSA prevention "best practices" overview and "model programs" list for professionals such as teachers. (Contains 1 table.)

Biological control with specialist, nonindigenous, herbivorous insects is an important option for controlling invasive exotic plants in wildlands and nature reserves. It is assumed that biological control agents will reduce the dominance of the target weed, thereby increasing the native diversity of the associated plant community. However, this hypothesis has rarely been tested. We introduced Aphthona nigriscutis into grassland sites infested with the invasive exotic species Euphorbia esula L. on a nature reserve in Montana (U.S.A.). Two sites with better soil had been treated previously with herbicide, whereas two other sites had not. We measured the density and biomass of Euphorbia vegetative and flowering stems and number of native and exotic shrubs, grass-like plants, and forbs in 48 microplots in Aphthona release and control macroplots at each site. After 5 years, Aphthona release was associated with a 33–39% decline in Euphorbia aboveground biomass compared with controls at all sites. Other effects of the biocontrol depended on the site. Biocontrol slowed the recovery of species diversity at the sites previously treated with herbicide but slowed the loss of diversity at sites without a history of herbicide. Biocontrol introduction was not associated with a disproportionate increase in nontarget exotic species. Release of Aphthona caused a decline in the biomass of flowering stems relative to controls at good-soil, previous-herbicide sites but was associated with a relative increase in flower stem mass at poor-soil, no-herbicide sites. Our results suggest that biocontrol reductions in weed dominance will not always be associated with increased species diversity. More emphasis should be placed on conserving desirable communities and less on simple weed control. Monitoring of community-level effects should accompany biocontrol introductions on nature reserves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main threats to world order are terrorist and extremist activities. On the world stage, countries unite into a coalition with the aim to increase the efficiency of the fight against terrorism. At the local level, the terrorist threat is fought by the security services. In order to prevent global human victims, which may arise as a result of terrorist attacks, the government is taking a number of normative legal acts, which prevent the activities of militants. The main problem that arises in the preparation of the law is the lack of a clear understanding of what the "terrorism" and "extremism" are. Therefore, in this paper, a complete analysis of these terms will be made on the basis of normative legal acts of some countries such as the USA, Russia, Kazakhstan, and scientists specialized in the subject. Research of the terms "extremism" and "terrorism" has shown that these concepts are different, but at the same time interconnected. This relationship is expressed in the fact that terrorism is a continuation of extremism, its next step. The disengagement of these concepts will allow the legislator to create more specific laws, that will cover the entire field of criminal activities.

This article focuses on such a highly relevant subject as the prevention and correction of deviant behavior in the adolescent environment. The study revealed the main vectors for the development of the modern science of deviant behavior, identified the main causes of deviations and carried out a comparative analysis of the work on the prevention of deviant behavior in the CIS countries and abroad. This paper proved that the key factor in the prevention and correction of deviant behavior should be, firstly, the family as the primary and the most important institution of identity formation, and secondly, the pedagogically controlled environment of educational institutions serving as a condition for socialization and personal development for children and adolescents.

Grade inflation is a global phenomenon that has garnered widespread condemnation among educators, researchers, and the public. Yet, few have deliberated over the ethics of grading, let alone the ethics of grade inflation. The purpose of this paper is to map out and examine the ethics of grade inflation. By way of beginning, we clarify why grade inflation is a problem of practical ethics embedded in contemporary social practice. Then, we illuminate three different aspects of grade inflation--longitudinal, compressed, and comparative--and explore the ethical dilemmas that each one raises. We demonstrate how these three aspects may be seen as corresponding to three different victims of grade inflation--individuals, institutions, and society--and hence also to three potential agents of harm--teachers, schools, and educational systems. Next, we reflect upon various compelling reasons that these agents inflate grades, whether from an ethic of care, fiduciary responsibility, or simple self-preservation. Subsequently, we consider a variety of means of combatting grade inflation, and invite more educators and philosophers to delve into the complex practical ethics of grade inflation.

Context: The Cuban medical education and health care systems provide powerful lessons to athletic training educators, clinicians, and researchers to guide educational reform initiatives and professional growth. Objective: The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief overview of the Cuban medical education system to create parallels for comparison and growth strategies to implement within athletic training in the United States. Background: Cubans have experienced tremendous limitations in resources for decades yet have substantive success in medical education and health care programs. As a guiding practice, Cubans focus on whole-patient care and have established far-reaching research networks to help substantiate their work. Synthesis: Cuban medical education programs emphasize prevention, whole-patient care, and public health in a unique approach that reflects disablement models recently promoted in athletic training in the United States. Comprehensive access and data collection provide meaningful information for quality improvement of education and health care processes. Active community engagement, education, and interventions are tailored to meet the biopsychosocial needs of individuals and communities. Results: Cuban medical education and health care systems provide valuable lessons for athletic training programs to consider in light of current educational reform initiatives. Strong collaborations and rich integration of disablement models in educational programs and clinical practice may provide meaningful outcomes for athletic training programs. Educational reform should be considered an opportunity to expand the athletic training profession by embracing the evolving role of the athletic trainer in the competitive health care arena. Recommendation(s): Through careful consideration of Cuban medical education and health care initiatives, athletic training programs can better meet the contract with society as health care professionals by integrating the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education's core competencies of patient care, medical knowledge, practice-based learning and improvement, interpersonal and communication skills, professionalism, and systems-based practice now promoted in the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education's "2020 Standards for Accreditation of Professional Athletic Training Programs." Conclusion(s): Educational and health care outcomes drive change. Quality improvement efforts transcend both education and health care. Athletic training can learn valuable lessons from the Cubans about innovation, preventative medicine, patient-centered community outreach, underserved populations, research initiatives, and globalization. Not unlike Cuba, athletic training has a unique opportunity to embrace the challenges associated with change to create a better future for athletic training students and professionals.

In the last 30 years, the application of the Delphi technique has been increasing. With the recent availability and established popularity of Internet-based research tools, the Internet has been identified as a means for mitigating Delphi limitations, maximizing its advantages, and expanding the breadth of its application. The discourse on the application of "e-Delphi" has been speculative in nature, however, with pragmatic analysis of Internet-based Delphi administration being limited in scope. Concomitantly, methodological guidance for conducting the e-Delphi in health education is limited, with best-practice implementation strategies yet to emerge. This paper advances the understanding of the e-Delphi technique, contributes to the evolution of this Internet-based research methodology, and provides guidance for the e-Delphi researcher in health education. Further, it offers a contribution to the discourse about Internet-based inquiry generally, and on using the e-Delphi technique in health education specifically. The authors illustrate that e-Delphi has a range of benefits that are effective and efficient in assuaging traditional Delphi limitations; nevertheless, a set of methodological issues remain unaddressed and make apparent the need for future research investments to better understand and alleviate challenges presented for e-Delphi research in health education. (Contains 1 figure and 2 tables.)

An increase in interest in crimes against people with developmental disabilities (PWDD) has been observed in the past decade. However, little attention has been given to intrafamilial homicides of PWDD. This paper provides a preliminary description of these types of homicides as they affect PWDD. Content analysis of media accounts of intrafamilial homicides of PWDD describes the characteristics of those involved and the circumstances of the homicides. This study examined a subset of data of 1967 homicides of PWDD and found 308 cases of intrafamilial homicide representing the deaths of 314 PWDD. These homicides represented 15.96% of overall homicides of PWDD obtained in the original study. A similar number of homicides of male and female victims were reported. Compared to other family members, biological parents were most frequently implicated in the deaths of PWDD, with biological mothers, acting alone, implicated most often. Biological mothers were most frequently implicated in the deaths of daughters, while biological fathers were most frequently implicated in the deaths of sons. The majority of PWDD who were killed were four years of age or younger. Beating, shooting, neglect, asphyxia, burns, and poisoning were the most common causes of death. Discussion focuses on media representation of homicides, intrafamilial homicide, and prevention. (Contains 4 tables.)

Background: Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a devastating autoimmune disease, and its rising prevalence in the United States and around the world presents a critical problem in public health. While some treatment options exist for patients already diagnosed, individuals considered at risk for developing T1D and who are still in the early stages of their disease pathogenesis without symptoms have no options for any preventive intervention. This is because of the uncertainty in determining their risk level and in predicting with high confidence who will progress, or not, to clinical diagnosis. Biomarkers that assess one's risk with high certainty could address this problem and will inform decisions on early intervention, especially in children where the burden of justifying treatment is high. Single omics approaches (e.g., genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, etc.) have been applied to identify T1D biomarkers based on specific disturbances in association with the disease. However, reliable early biomarkers of T1D have remained elusive to date. To overcome this, we previously showed that parallel multi-omics provides a more comprehensive picture of the disease-associated disturbances and facilitates the identification of candidate T1D biomarkers. Methods: This paper evaluated the use of machine learning (ML) using data augmentation and supervised ML methods for the purpose of improving the identification of salient patterns in the data and the ultimate extraction of novel biomarker candidates in integrated parallel multi-omics datasets from a limited number of samples. We also examined different stages of data integration (early, intermediate, and late) to assess at which stage supervised parametric models can learn under conditions of high dimensionality and variation in feature counts across different omics. In the late integration scheme, we employed a multi-view ensemble comprising individual parametric models trained over single omics to address the computational challenges posed by the high dimensionality and variation in feature counts across the different yet integrated multi-omics datasets. Results: the multi-view ensemble improves the prediction of case vs. control and finds the most success in flagging a larger consistent set of associated features when compared with chance models, which may eventually be used downstream in identifying a novel composite biomarker signature of T1D risk. Conclusions: the current work demonstrates the utility of supervised ML in exploring integrated parallel multi-omics data in the ongoing quest for early T1D biomarkers, reinforcing the hope for identifying novel composite biomarker signatures of T1D risk via ML and ultimately informing early treatment decisions in the face of the escalating global incidence of this debilitating disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Skin cancer is an increasing problem in Europe, America and Australasia, although largely preventable by avoiding excessive ultraviolet (UV) exposure. This paper presents the findings of a systematic review of qualitative research about the prevention of skin cancer attributable to UV exposure. The aim is to understand elements that may contribute to the successful or unsuccessful conveyance of skin cancer prevention messages and their uptake by the public. A systematic review was undertaken using evidence identified through searching electronic bibliographic databases and Web sites and reference list checks. Predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria were used. Sixteen study reports (relating to 15 separate studies) were included from the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Each included study was quality appraised, and the findings were extracted into an evidence table. A coding scheme, framed by the Health Belief Model, was developed by the reviewers and informed analysis and synthesis. This showed that most people perceived their susceptibility to skin cancer, and its severity, as low. While benefits of adopting changed behaviour were acknowledged, there were substantial barriers to this, including positive perceptions of a tan as healthy and attractive and the hassle of covering up or using sunscreen. Peers, parents and media may offer "cues to action" that encourage adoption of preventative behaviour and finally self-efficacy or the perceived ability to make such changes. Effective health education messages will need to address the barriers to adopting protective behaviours identified through this review.

This paper evaluates a recent innovation in regulating risk called management-based regulation. Traditionally, risk regulation has either specified a particular means of achieving a risk-reduction goal or specified the goal and left the means of achieving that goal up to the regulated entity. In contrast, management-based regulation neither explicitly imposes the means, nor the ends. Rather, what is required is that each regulated entity review its production processes and develop a set of goals and procedures that will reduce risk. I evaluate the effectiveness of management-based regulation by taking advantage of policy variation that occurred when 14 states adopted such regulations for toxic chemical control in the 1990s. Using panel data for just over 31,000 manufacturing plants in the United States, I investigate whether facilities subject to management-based regulations had larger changes in total quantities of toxic chemical releases, engaged in more pollution prevention activities, or reported fewer toxic chemicals to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). The results indicate that management-based regulation has had a measurable positive effect on the environmental performance of manufacturing plants. In particular, plants subject to management-based regulation experienced larger decreases in total pounds of toxic chemicals released and were more likely to engage in source reduction activities.

The Ohio Substance Abuse Monitoring Network (OSAM) is designed to provide accurate, timely, qualitatively-oriented epidemiologic descriptions of substance abuse trends and emerging problems in the state's major urban and rural areas. Use of qualitative methods in identifying and assessing substance abuse practices in local communities is one of the main assets of OSAM Network. Qualitative methods are sensitive to local contextual variability, flexible enough to capture emergent trends, and can be implemented with limited financial resources. This paper describes how qualitative epidemiologic methods, like those used by the OSAM Network, could be applied to inform substance abuse prevention activities, particularly those directed at adolescents.

Unintentional firearm injury in children is a problem in the United States that warrants attention. Recent research has identified several risk factors for such injuries and has developed prevention strategies for reducing their occurrence. Many of these programs, however, have not been evaluated or have been shown to be ineffective. Research on the prevention of other childhood injuries, on the other hand, has shown behavioral skills training to be successful for teaching protective behaviors to children for a variety of injury threats. This paper examines risk factors for firearm-injury in children, briefly reviews existing protection programs and their limitations, provides a brief overview of research on effective childhood injury prevention, and concludes with a description of the components of an effective injury prevention program and directions for future research.

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a life-threatening condition. Given the nature of the disease and associated complications with high mortality and morbidity rates, it is imperative that patients are diagnosed in early infancy, are established with specialists and general pediatric care immediately, and receive continuity in care. A percentage of patients diagnosed with SCD fall within a vulnerable, at-risk population. This population may face greater social barriers that lead to missed or late diagnosis and therefore delayed management, significantly increasing the risk of morbidity and mortality. Screening tools such as state newborn screens help to identify the diagnosis early. However, patients in vulnerable, at-risk populations who are not established in the health care system may not receive timely communication about their illness and necessary next steps for care. We present a case of a 12-month-old female who is an example of one of the many patients who despite having undergone newborn screening, fell through the cracks due to social barriers including housing instability, food insecurity, and lack of access to transportation. This paper emphasizes the need for and provides a real example of the benefit of access to longitudinal primary care for vulnerable patients. We also demonstrate the role of primary care in clearing the care gaps and coordinating services quickly to ultimately prevent life-threatening complications specifically for children with previously undiagnosed chronic illnesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous papers discussing the effectiveness of injurious wildlife listings under 18 U.S.C. 42(a) of the Lacey Act have emphasized failures while ignoring the many successes. We looked at the 120-year history of injurious listing and then determined the effectiveness of the listings since the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) gained the listing authority in 1940. We measured success by the effectiveness of listing relative to the stage of the invasion process - that is, whether or not a species was established at the time of listing, if it since established, and if it subsequently spread to other States. The USFWS started listing preemptively with its first rule in 1952 and has added the majority of species preemptively since then. We analyzed the 307 species that were listed for invasiveness (excluding species listed for other injurious reasons). Of those species, 288 (94%) were listed preemptively (before they became established). Although we acknowledge that other factors may play a role, we consider species that were listed before establishment and remained not established as "very effective" listings. All 288 remained not established - a 100% prevention rate when listed preemptively. Only 19 of the 307 species (6%) were listed after establishment, and they remain established. The listings are considered "effective" for the 4% that remained within the State(s) they were established in at listing and "ineffective" or "not applicable" for the 2% that spread to other States. The rationale for listing established species is explained herein. We conclude that injurious species listings can be effective at any stage, but prohibiting the importation into the United States of high-risk species prior to their introduction and establishment into U.S. environments is very effective in preventing invasions, and this success has heretofore been overlooked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL), one of the deadliest parasitic diseases in the world, causes more than 50,000 human deaths each year and afflicts millions of people throughout South America, East Africa, South Asia, and Mediterranean Region. In 2015 the World Health Organization classified VL as a neglected tropical disease (NTD), prompting concentrated study of the VL epidemic using mathematical and simulation models. This paper reviews literature related to prevalence and prevention control strategies. More than thirty current research works were reviewed and classified based on VL epidemic study methods, including modeling approaches, control strategies, and simulation techniques since 2013. A summarization of these technical methods, major findings, and contributions from existing works revealed that VL epidemic research efforts must improve in the areas of validating and verifying VL mathematical models with real-world epidemic data. In addition, more dynamic disease control strategies must be explored and advanced simulation techniques must be used to predict VL pandemics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous studies find that criminal court judges issue racially disparate sentences, but whether these patterns reflect tastes for discrimination remains unclear. An alternative explanation is statistical discrimination, which implies that judges rely on race to predict a felon's latent criminality in the absence of perfect information. This paper uses an empirical approach that distinguishes between taste-based and statistical discrimination. The intuition is that if the rank order of judicial incarceration rates depends on race, then this is symptomatic of taste-based discrimination. The rank-order test results imply that we cannot reject the null hypothesis of no taste-based discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper places America's "war on drugs" in perspective in order to develop a new metaphor for control of drug misuse. A brief and focused history of America's experience with substance use and substance use policy over the past several hundred years provides background and a framework to compare the current Pharmacological Revolution with America's Nineteenth Century Industrial Revolution. The paper concludes with cautions about growing challenges and provides suggestions for navigating this revolution and reducing its negative impact on individuals and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests competing theoretical explanations for the passage of corporate charter antitakeover amendments. The managerial entrenchment hypothesis suggests that antitakeover amendments are adopted by incumbent management to obtain job security at stockholders' expense. An alternative hypothesis is that antitakeover amendments are proposed in order to enable the management of the target firm to extract a higher price from the bidding firm and thereby benefit stockholders. Our event study from a sample of 409 firms that adopted antitakeover amendments in the 1974--88 period indicates a strongly negative effect on stockholder wealth, in support of the managerial entrenchment hypothesis that antitakeover amendments are adopted by managers at the expense of stockholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It's been more than five years after the beginning of the global financial crisis and its negative effects can still be felt in the present. Almost all countries in the world have been affected by this crisis to some extent. Authorities' responses depended not only on the specific conditions of their economies, but also by the different political and economic vision of the decision makers. This paper proposes a brief analysis of the effectiveness of different types of anti-crisis measures, focusing on common mistakes made by authorities around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper surveys the role of the Federal Reserve within the financial regulatory system, with particular attention to the interaction of the Fed's role as both a supervisor and a lender-of-last-resort. The institutional design of the Federal Reserve System was aimed at preventing banking panics, primarily due to the permanent presence of the discount window. This new system was successful at preventing a panic in the early 1920s, after which the Fed began to discourage the use of the discount window and intentionally create 'stigma' for window borrowing-policies that contributed to the panics of the Great Depression. The legislation of the New Deal era centralized Fed power in the Board of Governors, and over the next 75 years the Fed expanded its role as a supervisor of the largest banks. Nevertheless, prior to the recent crisis the Fed had large gaps in its authority as a supervisor and as lender of last resort, with the latter role weakened further by stigma. The Fed was unable to prevent the recent crisis, during which its lender of last resort function expanded significantly. As the Fed begins its second century, there are still great challenges to fulfilling its original intention of panic prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bystander programs implemented to meet federal requirements to reduce sexual assaults on college campuses in the United States must include primary prevention. Survey data (n = 280) and interview data (n = 20) presented in this paper explore students’ hypothetical and actual willingness to intervene as bystanders. Although most students surveyed (57%) claim they would be very likely to intervene, fewer than half would be very suspicious of someone leading away an intoxicated individual at a party (45% of women and 28% of men: p < 0.01). Interview data reveal how students perceive risk factors at college parties and what types of bystander measures they attempt, including ”distractions”, a nonconfrontational tactic in which bystanders avoid more direct but socially risky interventions. Subsumed in many current bystander programs is an invisible element of valorizing harmony. Condoning bystanders’ unwillingness to directly confront seemingly predatory individuals could make change seem out of reach and could also embolden offenders whose behavior is observed and only temporarily thwarted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: "Neglected Tropical Diseases" (NTDs) affect millions of people in Africa, Asia and South America. The two primary ways of strategic interventions are "preventive chemotherapy and transmission control" (PCT), and "innovative and intensified disease management" (IDM). In the last 5 years, phenomenal progress has been achieved. However, it is crucial to intensify research effort into NTDs, because of the emerging drug resistance. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the term NTDs covers 17 diseases, namely buruli ulcer, Chagas disease, dengue, dracunculiasis, echinococcosis, trematodiasis, human African trypanosomiasis, leishmaniasis, leprosy, lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, rabies, schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminthes, taeniasis, trachoma, and yaws. The aim of this study is to map out research and development (R&D) landscape through patent analysis of these identified NTDs. To achieve this, analysis and evaluation have been conducted on patenting trends, current legal status of patent families, priority countries by earliest priority years and their assignee types, technological fields of patent families over time, and original and current patent assignees.Main Body: Patent families were extracted from Patseer, an international database of patents from over 100 patent issuing authorities worldwide. Evaluation of the patents was carried out using the combination of different search terms related to each identified NTD. In this paper, a total number of 12,350 patent families were analyzed. The main countries with sources of inventions were identified to be the United States (US) and China. The main technological fields covered by NTDs patent landscape are pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, organic fine chemistry, analysis of biological materials, basic materials chemistry, and medical technology. Governmental institutions and universities are the primary original assignees. Among the NTDs, leishmaniasis, dengue, and rabies received the highest number of patent families, while human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), taeniasis, and dracunciliasis received the least. The overall trend of patent families shows an increase between 1985 and 2008, and followed by at least 6 years of stagnation.Conclusion: The filing pattern of patent families analyzed undoubtedly reveals slow progress on research and development of NTDs. Involving new players, such as non-governmental organizations may help to mitigate and reduce the burden of NTDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a discussion of monetary efficiency, monetary safety, and the relation of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act to both. It contains speculation about whether a modified version of the Act could have postponed or prevented the crisis of 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smoke-free policies have been an important tobacco control intervention. As recently as 20 years ago, few communities required workplaces and hospitality venues to be smoke-free, but today approximately 11% of the world's population live in countries with laws that require these places to be smoke-free. This paper briefly summarises important milestones in the history of indoor smoke-free policies, the role of scientific research in facilitating their adoption, a framework for smoke-free policy evaluation and industry efforts to undermine regulations. At present, smoke-free policies centre on workplaces, restaurants and pubs. In addition, many jurisdictions are now beginning to implement policies in outdoor areas and in shared multi-unit housing settings. The future of smoke-free policy development depends on credible scientific data that documents the health risks of secondhand smoke exposure. Over the next 20 year smoke-free policies will very likely extend to outdoor and private areas, and changes in the types of tobacco products that are consumed may also have implications for the nature and scope of the smoke-free policies of the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the literature on smoking cessation interventions, with a focus on the last 20 year(1991 to 2010). These two decades witnessed major development in a wide range of cessation interventions, from pharmacotherapy to tobacco price increases. It was expected that these interventions would work conjointly to increase the cessation rate on the population level. This paper examines population data from the USA, from 1991 to 2010, using the National Health Interview Surveys. Results indicate there is no consistent trend of increase in the population cessation rate over the last two decades. Various explanations are presented for this lack of improvement, and the key concept of impact ¼ effectiveness 3 reach is critically examined. Finally, it suggests that the field of cessation has focused so much on developing and promoting interventions to improve smokers' odds of success that it has largely neglected to investigate how to get more smokers to try to quit and to try more frequently. Future research should examine whether increasing the rate of quit attempts would be key to improving the population cessation rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hundreds of fish species enter the United States through human intervention (e.g., importation) and some of these fishes pose a substantial risk to the nation's assets and ecosystems. Prevention, early detection, and rapid response (EDRR) are vital to stop species invasions, but time and resources to manage the large suite of fish species that enter the nation are limited. Evaluating the risk of a species' invasion in a location is one way to prioritize among many species for management action. Species risk assessments are often associated with information systems or are published within grey literature or peer-reviewed journal articles. Improving access to available risk assessments could help in prioritizing management action for the most potentially invasive fish species. We aggregated fish species risk assessments, synthesizing the current knowledge on the risk of fish invasions in the United States. To accomplish this, we searched information systems and conducted a literature review. We then summarized risk assessment results along with the importation statuses of fish species and identified if imported, high-risk species are managed under federal or state policy. Within the scope of the conterminous U.S., we found 98 high-risk fish species. Eighteen of these species are imported to the country, but only three species have been recently prohibited from importation according to the Lacey Act. We observed similar patterns at the scales of the Great Lakes region and Florida. Collectively, our work provides a baseline estimate of the high-risk fish invaders that enter the U.S. through importation, underscoring species to consider for priority management action, as well as a benchmark of species that lack risk assessments. Insights from this work can be enriched when joined with other invasive species information, which could be accomplished through a national EDRR information system, an information sharing hub in development by the U.S. Geological Survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is considerable evidence that a healthy lifestyle consisting of physical activity, healthy diet, and weight control is associated with reduced risk of morbidity and mortality after cancer. However, these behavioral interventions are not widely adopted in practice or community settings. Integrating heath behavior change interventions into standard survivorship care for the growing number of cancer survivors requires an understanding of the current state of the science and a coordinated scientific agenda for the future with focused attention in several priority areas. To facilitate this goal, this paper presents trends over the past decade of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) research portfolio, fiscal year 2004 to 2014, by funding mechanism, research focus, research design and methodology, primary study exposures and outcomes, and study team expertise and composition. These data inform a prioritized research agenda for the next decade focused on demonstrating value and feasibility and creating desire for health behavior change interventions at multiple levels including the survivor, clinician, and healthcare payer to facilitate the development and implementation of appropriately targeted, adaptive, effective, and sustainable programs for all survivors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many years the Federal Trade Commission has sought to prevent deceptive advertising under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act. The FTC's focus has encompassed not only false advertising claims, but also advertising claims that, while literally true, tend to deceive consumers. "Up to" claims fall under this scrutiny since they can be misunderstood as promising consumer benefits (e.g. "up to 50% savings") that might not be realized by all consumers. This paper presents the results of research conducted with 600+ members of a commercial consumer panel to evaluate a variant of this type of claim, the "As Low As" claim, and to extend prior research by examining how interpretation of the claim varies with audience characteristics. Implications for advertising practitioners are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The field of interpretation is increasingly acknowledging the potential for strategic health promotion. The purpose of this paper is to introduce Go Sun Smart (GSS) Resorts, a sun safety program directed to guests recreating outdoors at destination resorts and parks in the United States and Canada. This paper aims to present a sun safety intervention thatwas designed to promote advanced sun safety practices to the field of interpretation. With a foundation in Diffusion of Innovations Theory and Transportation Theory this paper will present the intervention materials and strategies developed by GSS to showcase the potential to promote health behaviors. Intervention materials that were developed include posters, tip cards, a Public Service Announcement (PSA) video, additional electronic and print materials, employee trainings, GSS certification, and an interpretive script for use prior to various outdoor activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One strategy for disinflation prescribes a deliberate path toward low inflation. A contrasting opportunistic approach eschews deliberate action and instead waits for unforeseen shocks to reduce inflation. This paper compares the ability of these two approaches to achieve disinflation--and at what cost. We analyze these issues using the Federal Reserve's FRB/US model, which allows alternative assumptions to be made about expectations held by agents in the economy; hence, the credibility of the central bank can be considered in assessing the cost of deliberate and opportunistic disinflations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The awareness of the impact of education on a successful future for American Indian youth is not one that is missed by the Tribes. This paper focuses on tribes in the state of Maine. It references extensive research published by Education World in 2000 to provide an important perspective into the history of the development of an educational approach and programs to divert youth from criminal conduct. Research presented in this article was conducted, with the assistance of Maine State tribal members, in June of 2012. This research determined that the mainstream approach recommended by Education World had little effect on the education or retention of Native American youth in public secondary schools. However, the inclusion of traditional values and culture which includes Native approaches within systems of mainstream education does appear to increase the retention of American Indian youth in high school and affects their subsequent educational progress. The multiple prospects of this research have created excitement among those who work Maine and in Indian Country. The evidence also affirms that more research is needed on the topic. Additional research will further the ability of scholars and educators to determine which forms of traditional and cultural approaches show the most beneficial outcomes in furthering educational success and reducing the alienation and criminal behavior of tribal youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The NICE guideline for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) emphasises the need for an early diagnosis in primary care with management tailored to patient needs. However, GPs can be reluctant to make a diagnosis and are unsure how to manage people with the condition. Methods: A meta synthesis of published qualitative studies was conducted, producing a multi-perspective description of barriers to the diagnosis and management of CFS/ME, and the ways that some health professionals have been able to overcome them. Analysis provided second-order interpretation of the original findings and developed third-order constructs to provide recommendations for the medical curriculum. Results: Twenty one qualitative studies were identified. The literature shows that for over 20 years health professionals have reported a limited understanding of CFS/ME. Working within the framework of the biomedical model has also led some GPs to be sceptical about the existence of the condition. GPs who provide a diagnosis tend to have a broader, multifactorial, model of the condition and more positive attitudes towards CFS/ME. These GPs collaborate with patients to reach agreement on symptom management, and use their therapeutic skills to promote self care. Conclusions: In order to address barriers to the diagnosis and management of CFS/ME in primary care, the limitations of the biomedical model needs to be recognised. A more flexible bio-psychosocial approach is recommended where medical school training aims to equip practitioners with the skills needed to understand, support and manage patients and provide a pathway to refer for specialist input. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We question the justice of using prison sentences to control hate speech. It is argued that prison sentences should be used only to deter offensive and hateful speech that harms others. However, the harm requirement cannot be satisfied merely by demonstrating theoretical harm in the abstract, as Jeremy Waldron does in his recent book. Instead, factual harm has to be demonstrated because prison is in fact very harmful for the expresser of the offensive and hateful speech. There is noting wrong with penal measures being used to deter this kind of speech, but harmful prison sentences should not be used to deter harmless speech. Waldron asserts that the United States should follow the British model, among others, of using prison to control and chill free (hate) speech. Waldron wants a model of unfree speech for some. We aim to show that the United States should resist enacting hate speech laws similar to the unjust laws found in Britain, where people have received long prison sentences for uttering offensive and hateful thoughts. To use prison sentences is to use a sledgehammer to crack a walnut: it is a grossly disproportionate and unjust penal response. Particular issue is taken with Waldron's harm theory. The core element of the paper is the Waldron debate, because the type of vacuous harm theory he puts forward has the potential to be used by lawmakers to justify unjust penal responses such as harmful prison sentences for harmless (even though grossly offensive) speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The concept of reserve was established to account for the observation that a given degree of neurodegenerative pathology may result in varying degrees of symptoms in different individuals. There is a large amount of evidence on epidemiological risk and protective factors for neurodegenerative diseases and dementia, yet the biological mechanisms that underpin the protective effects of certain lifestyle and physiological variables remain poorly understood, limiting the development of more effective preventive and treatment strategies. Additionally, different definitions and concepts of reserve exist, which hampers the coordination of research and comparison of results across studies.Discussion: This paper represents the consensus of a multidisciplinary group of experts from different areas of research related to reserve, including clinical, epidemiological and basic sciences. The consensus was developed during meetings of the working groups of the first International Conference on Cognitive Reserve in the Dementias (24-25 November 2017, Munich, Germany) and the Alzheimer's Association Reserve and Resilience Professional Interest Area (25 July 2018, Chicago, USA). The main objective of the present paper is to develop a translational perspective on putative mechanisms underlying reserve against neurodegenerative disease, combining evidence from epidemiological and clinical studies with knowledge from animal and basic research. The potential brain functional and structural basis of reserve in Alzheimer's disease and other brain disorders are discussed, as well as relevant lifestyle and genetic factors assessed in both humans and animal models.Conclusion: There is an urgent need to advance our concept of reserve from a hypothetical model to a more concrete approach that can be used to improve the development of effective interventions aimed at preventing dementia. Our group recommends agreement on a common dictionary of terms referring to different aspects of reserve, the improvement of opportunities for data sharing across individual cohorts, harmonising research approaches across laboratories and groups to reduce heterogeneity associated with human data, global coordination of clinical trials to more effectively explore whether reducing epidemiological risk factors leads to a reduced burden of neurodegenerative diseases in the population, and an increase in our understanding of the appropriateness of animal models for reserve research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonmarital births have sharply increased over time, and teenage births remain a significant problem in the United States, both of which are correlated with negative social outcomes. Reviewing evidence on efficacy, or the ability to follow through on the intention to avoid pregnancy, this paper concludes that equal attention should also be paid to strengthening the intention of young adults to avoid pregnancy before they can handle the emotional, legal, and financial consequences. The paper argues that current sexual education programs, which aim to increase participants' knowledge of how to delay sexual activity and effectively use contraception, should be paired with child support education, which emphasizes the economic, emotional, and legal realities of parenting. The Office of Adolescent Health should pilot and evaluate a comprehensive pregnancy prevention curriculum, featuring both sexual education and child support education components, in the form of a mandatory high school program incorporated into existing health classes. The author believes that such a program, which emphasizes both the 'why' and the 'how' of pregnancy prevention, will provide participating young adults with the tools necessary to make informed family planning decisions for years to come, reducing teenage pregnancy rates in the short term, as well as having a greater impact than sexual education alone on nonmarital pregnancy rates in the longer term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the health impacts of a signature initiative of the War on Poverty: the introduction of the modern Food Stamp Program (FSP). Using variation in the month FSP began operating in each U.S. county, we find that pregnancies exposed to FSP three months prior to birth yielded deliveries with increased birth weight, with the largest gains at the lowest birth weights. We also find small but statistically insignificant improvements in neonatal mortality. We conclude that the sizable increase in income from FSP improved birth outcomes for both whites and African Americans, with larger impacts for African American mothers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid-1990s, a number of initiatives intended to address gang, gun and drug-related violence have arisen and demonstrated promise in reducing levels of violent crime. These initiatives have employed some combination of focused deterrence and problem-solving processes. These strategies formed the basis for Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a national program implemented by the Department of Justice and coordinated by US Attorneys’ Offices. This paper is an initial attempt to assess the potential impact of the nationally implemented PSN initiative through an analysis of violent crime trends in all US cities with a population of 100,000 or above. While a number of site specific studies exist examining the potential impact of locally implemented PSN programs, to date no national-level study has examined whether PSN may have had an impact on violent crime trends. Cities included in the current study are distinguished on the basis of whether they were considered a treatment city by the PSN task force and by the level of implementation dosage of the PSN program. This allowed a comparison of 82 treatment cities and 170 non-treatment cities as well as a variable of dosage level. Hierarchical Generalized Linear Models (HGLM) were developed that controlled for other factors that may have affected the level of violent crime across the sample of cities. The results suggested that PSN treatment cities in higher dosage contexts experienced statistically significant, though modest, declines in violent crime whereas non-target cities and low dosage contexts experienced no significant changes in violent crime during the same period. The limitations of this initial analysis are noted but the evidence seems to suggest that the multi-agency, focused deterrence, problem solving approach holds promise for reducing levels of violent crime. At a minimum, these findings call for continued programmatic experimentation with data-driven, highly focused, deterrence-based violence reduction strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HEALTHY was a 3-year middle school-based primary prevention trial to reduce modifiable risk factors for type 2 diabetes in youth. The study was conducted at seven centers across the country. This paper describes the recruitment and retention activities employed in the study. Schools and students were the focus of recruitment and retention. Each center was responsible for the recruitment of six schools; eligibility was based on ability to enroll a sufficient number of predominately minority and lower socioeconomic status students. Study staff met with district superintendents and school principals to verify the eligibility of schools, and to ascertain how appropriate the school would be for conducting the trial. Sixth grade students were recruited employing a variety of techniques; students and their parents did not know whether their school was randomized to the intervention or control arm. This cohort was followed through sixth, seventh and eighth grades. In the eighth grade, an additional sample of students who were not originally enrolled in the study was recruited in a similar manner to participate in data collection to allow for cross-sectional and dose-response secondary analyses. Parents signed informed consent forms and children signed informed assent forms, as per the needs of the local Institutional Review Board. Parents received a letter describing the results of the health screening for their children after data collection in sixth and eighth grades. Retention of schools and students was critical for the success of the study and was encouraged through the use of financial incentives and other strategies. To a large extent, student withdrawal due to out-migration (transfer and geographical relocation) was beyond the ability of the study to control. A multi-level approach that proactively addressed school and parent concerns was crucial for the success of recruitment and retention in the HEALTHY study.International Journal of Obesity (2009) 33, S21–S28; doi:10.1038/ijo.2009.113 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]