Salve Regina University (Salve) is a private university in Newport, Rhode Island founded in 1934 by the Sisters of Mercy. The university is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education and enrolls more than 2,800 undergraduate and graduate students annually.Salve's 80-acre historical coastal campus is adjacent to the Newport Cliff Walk in the state of Rhode Island. The campus sits on seven contiguous Gilded Age estates, with over 21 structures of historic significance. The university is home to the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy, which is housed in the Young Building.Salve is a member of the NCAA Division III and in 2021 approximately 520 students – about 24% of the undergraduate student body – participated in intercollegiate athletics.
Drivers of population-level health in the United States (U.S.) are complex. This analysis refines an ecologic framework of health, employing artificial intelligence modeling to estimate the impact of slavery on present-day, population-level lifespan. This study utilized several U.S. county-level datasets with more than 40 predictive variables representing the ecological framework of health. A non-linear artificial intelligence statistical approach was used to assess the ability of these variables to predict county-level life expectancy, years of life lost and death rate. The R 2 values demonstrated that the overall predictive performance of the models for life expectancy, years of life lost and death rates were all very strong, with mean R 2 ≥ 0.71 in all 3 prediction models. The number of predictor variables retained in the models ranged from 31 to 46, with measures from each category of the ecological framework of health being retained. The historical prevalence of slavery on a county level was a significant, repetitive interactive term. Unhealthy lifestyle behaviors are a primary driver of chronic disease, ultimately leading to diminished quality of life and lifespan. These health challenges are not insurmountable if the true root causes and forcing factors of health are acknowledged, studied, and addressed.
This brief report examines how substance use moderates the effectiveness of the Date SMART intervention, a dating and sexual risk prevention program, in reducing adolescent dating violence (ADV) among juvenile justice-involved girls. 2023 Adolescent girls involved in the juvenile justice system (N = 240) were randomized into two groups: Date SMART, a cognitive-behavioral intervention, and a knowledge-only control group. Five assessments were conducted over 12 months. Multilevel models (MLM) were used to analyze whether baseline substance use moderated the intervention's effectiveness in reducing psychological and physical ADV. A series of multilevel models revealed a significant 3-way interaction between baseline substance use, assessment, and condition for psychological ADV. In the Date SMART condition, girls with higher baseline substance use showed greater reductions in psychological ADV involvement over time. This pattern was not replicated in the knowledge-only condition. No significant interactions emerged for physical ADV. The results suggest that girls with higher levels of substance use benefit more from skill-based interventions like Date SMART in reducing psychological ADV. These findings underscore the importance of tailoring interventions to address co-occurring risks.
Objectives What are the factors that set the stage for health status and outcomes in the United States (U.S.)? This complex question is rarely considered in a comprehensive way. The current study employs an artificial intelligence analysis to assess the accuracy of adding a measure of social capital (i.e., public trust) to the Ecological Framework of Population Health in predicting U.S. county-level life expectancy and COVID-19 mortality rates. Study design Descriptive, cross-sectional, retrospective analysis Methods The current study utilized several U.S. county-level datasets representing the Ecological Framework of Population Health, including measures of culture, politics, policy, socioeconomics, lifestyle behaviors, and both chronic disease risk factors and diagnoses. A social media generated index of social capital, i.e., public trust, was added to the framework as a crosscutting variable to determine its efficacy in predicting county-level life expectancy and COVID-19 mortality rates using a non-linear artificial intelligence statistical method. Results Analysis revealed significance in predicting both life expectancy (R2 = 0.803) and COVID-19 deaths (R2 = 0.548), with the optimal model employing 27 and 12 features, respectively. The public trust index was retained in both final models, ranking as the 5th and 6th most important predictors for life expectancy and COVID-19 mortality, respectively. Conclusions The present study expands the body of work exploring forcing factors of population health by demonstrating the potential utility of a measure of public trust, derived from social media posts and integrated into the Ecological Framework of Population Health, in predicting important U.S. county-level health outcomes.
United States-based Ukrainian activists sought separate Olympic representation and international recognition for Ukraine from 1956-1984 as a means of demonstrating Ukraine's political legitimacy and as part of their quest for Ukrainian independence from the Soviet Union. From the 1950s through the 1980s, activist groups, namely the Ukrainian Olympic Committee/Ukrainian World Committee for Sport Affairs and Smoloskyp Organization for the Defense of Human Rights fought for International Olympic Committee (IOC) recognition, framing their requests in the language of diplomacy and human rights. These activists, who carried out much of their work in the west, were ultimately unsuccessful; yet their work intersects with the efforts of other anti-Soviet protest groups who used the Olympic Movement similarly. US-based Ukrainian diaspora activism successfully drew attention to the Ukrainian independence issue in part because of its efforts to leverage the Olympic Movement and its associated media coverage, as they sought a broader audience by the 1980s. Ukrainian American activists understood that linking their cause to the Olympics could and did lead to increased mainstream media coverage.
Behavior analysts use a variety of strategies to help clients acquire meaningful skills, including stimulus prompting. Stimulus prompting is a strategy that increases the likelihood of correct responding by adding supplementary stimuli to a target stimulus that must eventually be removed to enable independent responding. However, traditional stimulus prompt fading methods may not always efficiently transfer stimulus control of supplementary stimuli to the target stimulus. This study evaluated the effects of alternating stimulus prompts on the acquisition of independent consonant–vowel–consonant (CVC) word identification during prompt fading with a participant diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The alternating prompt condition facilitated the acquisition of independent responding in fewer sessions than the single prompt and control conditions. Implications for clinical practice and future research are discussed.
