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Substance Use Prevention Programs for Indigenous Adolescents in the United States of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand: Protocol for a Systematic Review
Get PDFOriginally published in JMIR Research Protocols (http://www.researchprotocols.org), 01.02.2018. This is an open-access
article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR
Research Protocols, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on
http://www.researchprotocols.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.Indigenous adolescents are at a higher risk of experiencing harms related to substance use compared with their
non-Indigenous counterparts as a consequence of earlier onset and higher rates of substance use. Early onset of substance use has
been identified as a risk factor for future substance use problems and other health, social, and family outcomes. Therefore,
prevention of substance use among adolescents has been identified as a key area to improve health of Indigenous Peoples. Evidence
exists for the effectiveness of prevention approaches for adolescents in mainstream populations and, most recently, for the use
of computer- and Internet-delivered interventions to overcome barriers to implementation. However, there is currently no conclusive
evidence about the effectiveness of these approaches for Indigenous adolescents.
Objective: The purpose of this review is to synthesize the international evidence regarding the effectiveness of substance use
prevention programs for Indigenous adolescents in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Methods: A total of 8 peer-reviewed databases and 20 gray literature databases will be searched, using search terms in line with
the aims of this review and based on previous relevant reviews of substance use prevention. Studies will be included if they
evaluate a substance use prevention program with Indigenous adolescents (aged 10 to 19 years) as the primary participant group
and are published between January 1, 1990 and August 31, 2017.
Results: A narrative synthesis will be provided about the effectiveness of the programs, the type of program (whether culture-based,
adapted, or unadapted), delivery of the program (computer- and Internet-delivered or traditional), and the setting in which the
programs are delivered (community, school, family, clinical, or a combination).
Conclusions: The study will identify core elements of effective substance use prevention programs among Indigenous adolescents
and appraise the methodological quality of the studies. This review will provide researchers, policy makers, and program developers
with evidence about the potential use of prevention approaches for Indigenous adolescents.This study was funded by the Australian Government Department of Health
Two sugar beet chitinase genes, BvSP2 and BvSE2, analysed with SNP Amplifluor-like markers, are highly expressed after Fusarium root rot inoculations and field susceptibility trial
Get PDFThis article is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Background: The pathogens from Fusarium species can cause Fusarium root rot
(RR) and other diseases in plant species including sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.), and
they have a strong negative impact on sugar beet yield and quality.
Methods: A total of 22 sugar beet breeding lines were evaluated for the symptoms of
RR after inoculation with Fusarium oxysporum Sch., isolate No. 5, and growth in a
field trial. Two candidate genes for RR resistance, BvSP2 and BvSE2, encoding
chitinases Class IV and III, respectively, were previously identified in sugar beet, and
used for genotyping using modern Amplifluor-like single nucleotide polymorphism
(SNP) genotyping approach. The qPCR expression analysis was used to verify
responses of the candidate genes for RR infections.
Results: A strong association of two SNP markers for BvSP2 and BvSE2 with
resistance to RR in sugar beet was found in our study. Very high BvSP2 expression
(100-fold compared to Controls) was observed in three RR resistant accessions
(2182, 2236 and KWS2320) 14 days after inoculation which returned to the control
level on Day 18. RR sensitive breeding line 2210 showed a delay in mRNA level,
reaching maximal expression of BvSP2 18 days after inoculation. The gene BvSE2,
showed a strong expression level in leaf samples from the infected field trial only in
the breeding line 2236, which showed symptoms of RR, and this may be a response
to other strains of F. oxysporum.This research was supported by Grant 4785/GF4, the Program 217 “Development of Science,” Sub-program 102 “Grant Research Funding,” from the Ministry of Education and Science, Kazakhstan
Eye movements during everyday behavior predict personality traits
No full textThis is an open-access
article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC
BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided
the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original
publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice.
No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these
terms.Besides allowing us to perceive our surroundings, eye movements are also a window
into our mind and a rich source of information on who we are, how we feel, and
what we do. Here we show that eye movements during an everyday task predict
aspects of our personality. We tracked eye movements of 42 participants while they
ran an errand on a university campus and subsequently assessed their personality
traits using well-established questionnaires. Using a state-of-the-art machine learning
method and a rich set of features encoding different eye movement characteristics,
we were able to reliably predict four of the Big Five personality traits (neuroticism,
extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness) as well as perceptual curiosity only from
eye movements. Further analysis revealed new relations between previously neglected
eye movement characteristics and personality. Our findings demonstrate a considerable
influence of personality on everyday eye movement control, thereby complementing
earlier studies in laboratory settings. Improving automatic recognition and interpretation
of human social signals is an important endeavor, enabling innovative design of
human–computer systems capable of sensing spontaneous natural user behavior to
facilitate efficient interaction and personalization.This work was funded, in part, by the Australian Research
Council, the Cluster of Excellence on Multimodal Computing
and Interaction (MMCI) at Saarland University, Germany, as
well as a Ph.D. scholarship by the German National Academic
Foundation
Brain Transcriptome Profiling Analysis of Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) Under Long-Term Hypersaline Stress
Get PDFNote: This article was submitted to
Aquatic Physiology,
a section of the journal
Frontiers in Physiology. This is an open-access
article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC
BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided
the original author(s) and the copyright owner are credited and that the original
publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice.
No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these
terms.The fish brain plays an important role in controlling growth, development, reproduction,
and adaptation to environmental change. However, few studies stem from the
perspective of whole transcriptome change in a fish brain and its response to long-term
hypersaline stress. This study compares the differential transcriptomic responses of
juvenile Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) maintained for 8 weeks in brackish water (16
practical salinity units, psu) and in freshwater. Fish brains from each treatment were
collected for RNA-seq analysis to identify potential genes and pathways responding
to hypersaline stress. A total of 27,089 genes were annotated, and 391 genes
were expressed differently in the salinity treatment. Ten pathways containing 40
differentially expressed genes were identified in the tilapia brain. Antigen processing and
presentation and phagosome were the two principally affected pathways in the immune
system. Thirty-one of 40 genes were involved in various expressions associated with
environmental information processing pathways such as neuroactive ligand-receptor
interaction, cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, the Jak-STAT signaling pathway,
cell adhesion molecules (CAMs), and the PI3K-Akt signaling pathway, which are the
upstream pathways for modulation of immunity and osmoregulation. The most-changed
genes (>5-fold) were all down-regulated, including four growth hormone/prolactin gene
families, i.e., prolactin precursor (−10.62), prolactin-1 (−11), somatotropin (−10.15),
somatolactin-like (−6.18), and two other genes [thyrotropin subunit beta (−7.73) and
gonadotropin subunit beta-2 (−5.06)] that stimulated prolactin release in tilapia. The
downregulation pattern of these genes corroborates the decrease in tilapia immunity with
increasing salinity and reveals an adaptive mechanism of tilapia to long-term hypersaline
stress. Ovarian steroidogenesis, isoquinoline alkaloid biosynthesis, and phenylalanine
metabolism are the three important pathways in the response of the fish to long-term
hypersaline stress. This study has identified several pathways and relevant genes that are
involved in salinity regulation in a euryhaline fish and provides insight into understanding
regulatory mechanisms of fish to salinity change.This research was supported by the Major State Basic
Research Development Program of China (973 Program) (No.
2014CB138600)
The use of circulating tumor DNA for prognosis of gastrointestinal cancers
Get PDFNote: This article was submitted to
Gastrointestinal Cancers,
a section of the journal
Frontiers in Oncology. This is
an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums
is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited
and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted
academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not
comply with these terms.Gastrointestinal cancers, including oesophageal, gastric and colorectal cancers (CRC)
have high rates of disease recurrence despite curative resection. There are a number
of recent studies that have investigated the use of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA)
for prognostic value in these cancers. We reviewed studies that had been published
prior to March 2018 that assessed the prognostic values of ctDNA in patients with
oesophageal and gastric cancers, gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) and CRC. We
identified 63 eligible clinical studies that focussed on recurrence and survival. Studies
assessed investigated various ctDNA biomarkers in patients with different stages of
cancer undergoing surgical resection, chemotherapy and no treatment. For oesophageal
squamous cell carcinoma and oesophageal adenocarcinoma, methylation of certain
genes such as APC and DAPK have been highlighted as promising biomarkers for
prognostication, but these studies are limited and more comprehensive research is
needed. Studies focusing on gastric cancer patients showed that methylation of ctDNA
in SOX17 and APC were independently associated with poor survival. Two studies
demonstrated an association between ctDNA and recurrence and survival in GIST
patients, but more studies are needed for this type of gastrointestinal cancer. A large
proportion of the literature was on CRC which identified both somatic mutations and
DNA methylation biomarkers to determine prognosis. ctDNA biomarkers that identified
somatic mutations were more effective if they were personalized based on mutations
found in the primary tumor tissue, but ctDNA methylation studies identified various
biomarkers that predicted increased risk of recurrence, poor disease free survival
and overall survival. While the use of non-invasive ctDNA biomarkers for prognosis is
promising, larger studies are needed to validate the clinical utility for optimizing treatment
and surveillance strategies to reduce mortality from gastrointestinal cancers.CK and GY are recipients of grant funding from Cancer Council
SA’s Beat Cancer Project on behalf of its donors and the State
Government of South Australia through the Department of
Health, and Flinders Foundation through the generous support
of its donors
Challenging Institutional Norms to Improve Local-Level Policy for Health and Health Equity. Comment on “Health Promotion at Local Level in Norway: The Use of Public Health Coordinators and Health Overviews to Promote Fair Distribution Among Social Groups”
Get PDFPublished by Kerman University of Medical Sciences. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.The article by Susanne Hagen and colleagues on Health Promotion at Local Level in Norway discusses actions by municipal governments to assess and address heath inequities within their respective regions, as required under the Norwegian Public Health Act (PHA). Although the broad intent of the Norwegian government is to encourage action on social determinants of health (SDH), Hagen et al find that many of the initiatives undertaken by municipalities ‘tend to cash out as single, targeted initiatives,’ and focus on individual behaviours. In this commentary, I use the concept of place-based policy and ideas from policy theory on the institutional behaviours of public policy agencies and services, to discuss reasons behind this narrowing of perspective and policy action. I argue in favour of an alternative approach involving public agencies and services supporting processes of community-led action and social change
The Concepts of Home and Statelessness in Palestinian Diaspora Fiction: Reflections in Randa Jarrar’s A Map of Home
Get PDFThe present paper examines the conceptualisation of home and statelessness in Palestinian diasporic narratives. Though the term ‘Palestinian diaspora’ is frequently debated and preference is given to terms such as ‘exile’ and ‘refugee’, the paper aims to reflect upon the correlation between ‘historic Palestine’ and the new conceptions of home that continue to evolve in contemporary Palestinian diaspora fiction. New generations of Palestinian exiles and diasporas find it difficult to imagine ‘historic Palestine’ as none have been physically there. Their sense of home/Palestine grows only as a collective narrative passed from one generation to the next. Thus, the paper attempts to reveal what home means to such a category with reference to Randa Jarrar’s novel A Map of Home. The paper also discusses the locations and dislocations of Palestinians and their journeys across borders
Review of Julian Meyrick, Robert Phiddian and Tully Barnett, What Matters?: Talking Value in Australian Culture (Monash University Publishing, 2018)
No full textReview of Biopolitics and Memory in Postcolonial Literature and Culture by Michael R. Griffith
Review of Poetry of the Earth: Mapuche Trilingual Anthology, edited by Jaime Luis Huenún Villa, Spanish into Mapudungun translation by Víctor Cifuentes Palacios, Spanish into English Translation by Juan Garrido Salgado, Steve Brock and Sergio Holas
Get PDFReview of Poetry of the Earth: Mapuche Trilingual Anthology, edited by Jaime Luis Huenún Villa, Spanish into Mapudungun translation by Víctor Cifuentes Palacios, Spanish into English Translation by Juan Garrido Salgado, Steve Brock and Sergio Hola