Mitigating Negative Impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences: A Strength-Based Approach

Mitigating Negative Impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences: A Strength-Based Approach Nicholas Montello, RN Purpose: Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are common among Vermont youth, and Vermont has insufficient treatment resources to address their negative impacts. A strength-based approach (SBA) mitigates the negative impacts of ACEs by using a person’s assets to build resilience to ACEs. This project is designed to increase healthcare worker and patient/caregiver knowledge of ACEs via the SBA. Methods: An evidence-based quality improvement intervention was implemented at a pediatric primary care office in rural Vermont, based on the Bodega Model for a strength-based approach. Healthcare worker knowledge and use of the SBA was assessed after an educational intervention. Materials with information on the SBA were set up for patients in the waiting room. Surveys assessed patient knowledge and perceptions of the SBA. Results: 62% of healthcare workers reported increased knowledge of SBA elements after the educational intervention, and workers reported a 50% increase in usage of SBA elements in the 3 months after the educational intervention. 60% of healthcare workers saw the SBA as cost effective. 100% of surveyed patients reported confidence in using the SBA. All patients who responded to surveys believed that the SBA could help them deal with adversity. Conclusions: The SBA can be effective in primary care for mitigating the negative impacts of ACEs, as noted by health care workers, patients and caregivers. Healthcare workers increased their usage of this evidence-based intervention after the educational session, suggesting that lack of knowledge of the SBA could be a prior barrier to use

Stylolites: characteristics and origin

Stylolites are alternating interpenetrating columns of stone that form irregular interlocking partings or sutures in rock strata. They are most common along bedding planes of limestone but some are oblique or even perpendicular to bedding . Although the vast majority of stylolites occur in calcareous rocks, stylolites have been found in sandstone, quartzite and gypsum. The word "stylolite" refers to each individual column of stone. Across section of a group of stylolites parallel to their length presents a rough, jagged line called a "stylolite seam" that resembles the sutures of a human skull. Stylolites always have a dark colored "clay" cap at the ends of the columns. The sides of the columns are typically discolored with a thin film of clay and show parallel flutings or striations that parallel their length. The shapes of individual stylolites vary greatly from broad flat-topped columns to pointed, jagged and tapering forms. After much controversy concerning the origin of stylolites, it is generally believed that they form by a process of chemical solution under pressure in lithified rock along some crack or seam. The interteething is produced because of differential solubilities and pressures within the rock unit. The clay cap on the stylolites is the non-soluble residue of the dissolved rock. Stylolites are only one of the possible end products in the spectrum of limestone responses to stress. They form in limestone units that have structural resistance to stress and contain relatively little clay or silt. Stylolites may play a major role in initiating or preserving oil accumulations in limestone. Where they are formed due to tectonic compression, stylolites may be useful in providing information on paleo-stress patterns.No embarg

Using virtual environments to investigate wayfinding in 8- to 12-year-olds and adults

Wayfinding is the ability to learn and recall a route through an environment. Theories of wayfinding suggest that for children to learn a route successfully, they must have repeated experience of it, but in this experiment we investigated whether children could learn a route after only a single experience of the route. A total of 80 participants from the United Kingdom in four groups of 20 8-year-olds, 10-year-olds, 12-year-olds, and adults were shown a route through a 12-turn maze in a virtual environment. At each junction, there was a unique object that could be used as a land- mark. Participants were ‘‘walked” along the route just once (with- out any verbal prompts) and then were asked to retrace the route from the start without any help. Nearly three quarters of the 12- year-olds, half of the 10-year-olds, and a third of the 8-year-olds retraced the route without any errors the first time they traveled it on their own. This finding suggests that many young children can learn routes, even with as many as 12 turns, very quickly and without the need for repeated experience. The implications for theories of wayfinding that emphasize the need for extensive experience are discussed

Aflatoxina M1 em leite: um risco para a saúde pública.

Introdução. As Aflatoxinas. A Aflatoxina M1 (AFM1). Mecanismos de contaminação do leite por AFM1. Principais efeitos tóxicos. Relação de AFB1 ingerida e a concentração de AFM1, excretada no leite. Prevenção. Métodos de detecção e qualificação de Aflatoxina M1 em leite e derivados. Legislação. Referências bibliográficas.bitstream/item/79983/1/doc67-2005.pd

Active versus passive acquisition of spatial knowledge while controlling a vehicle in a virtual urban space in drivers and non-drivers

Historically real world studies have indicated a spatial learning advantage for active explorers of environments over those whose experience is more passive; a common contrast is made between car drivers and passengers. An experiment was conducted to explore the dual hypotheses that active explorers learn more about the layout of a virtual environment than passive observers and that real world car drivers will learn more regardless of their experimental Active/Passive status. Consistent with earlier studies in VEs, there was no benefit from activity (controlling exploration/movement), arguably because input control competes with spatial information acquisition. However, the results showed that Drivers were more accurate than Non-Drivers at indicating the positions of target locations on a map, in both active and passive conditions and had better route scores than Non-Drivers in the passive condition. It is argued that driving experience may convey a spatial learning advantage over and above activity per se

Rational Requirements for Moral Motivation: The Psychopath\u27s Open Question

Psychopaths pose a challenge to those who make claims about the strength of moral assessments. These individuals are entirely unmoved by the moral rules that they articulate and purportedly espouse. Psychopaths appear rationally intact but are emotionally broken. In some cases, they commit horrendous crimes yet show no guilt, no remorse. Sentimentalists claim that the empirical evidence about psychopaths’ affective deficits supports that moral judgment is rooted in emotion and that psychopaths do not make genuine moral judgments—they can’t. Here, I challenge an explanation of psychopathy that indicts psychopaths’ emotional impairments alone. I conclude that there are rational requirements for moral motivation and that psychological and neuroscientific research support that psychopaths do not make the grade

Challenges for identifying the neural mechanisms that support spatial navigation: the impact of spatial scale.

Spatial navigation is a fascinating behavior that is essential for our everyday lives. It involves nearly all sensory systems, it requires numerous parallel computations, and it engages multiple memory systems. One of the key problems in this field pertains to the question of reference frames: spatial information such as direction or distance can be coded egocentrically-relative to an observer-or allocentrically-in a reference frame independent of the observer. While many studies have associated striatal and parietal circuits with egocentric coding and entorhinal/hippocampal circuits with allocentric coding, this strict dissociation is not in line with a growing body of experimental data. In this review, we discuss some of the problems that can arise when studying the neural mechanisms that are presumed to support different spatial reference frames. We argue that the scale of space in which a navigation task takes place plays a crucial role in determining the processes that are being recruited. This has important implications, particularly for the inferences that can be made from animal studies in small scale space about the neural mechanisms supporting human spatial navigation in large (environmental) spaces. Furthermore, we argue that many of the commonly used tasks to study spatial navigation and the underlying neuronal mechanisms involve different types of reference frames, which can complicate the interpretation of neurophysiological data

Tracing a Route and Finding a Shortcut: The Working Memory, Motivational, and Personality Factors Involved

Wayfinding (WF) is the ability to move around efficiently and find the way from a starting point to a destination. It is a component of spatial navigation, a coordinate and goal-directed movement of one\u2019s self through the environment. In the present study, the relationship between WF tasks (route tracing and shortcut finding) and individual factors were explored with the hypothesis that WF tasks would be predicted by different types of cognitive, affective, motivational variables, and personality factors. A group of 116 university students (88 F.) were conducted along a route in a virtual environment and then asked first to trace the same route again, and then to find a shortcut between the start and end points. Several instruments assessing visuospatial working memory, mental rotation ability, self-efficacy, spatial anxiety, positive attitude to exploring, and personality traits were administered. The results showed that a latent spatial ability factor (measured with the visuospatial working memory and mental rotations tests) \u2013 controlled for gender \u2013 predicted route-tracing performance, while self-report measures of anxiety, efficacy, and pleasure in exploring, and some personality traits were more likely to predict shortcut-finding performance. We concluded that both personality and cognitive abilities affect WF performance, but differently, depending on the requirements of the task