Binge drinking: not the word of choice

Educators and researchers strive to use terms that reflect a replicable measure of behavior. A term commonly used to describe drinking of a problematic nature is binge drinking. Binge drinking defines behavior by a number of drinks of an alcoholic beverage consumed in a space of time. The authors argue that the term does not describe drinking behavior that students believe is problematic. They claim that students define problem drinking not in terms of quantity, but rather by the outcome (and occasionally by frequency), and attribute different negative connotations to the term binge. They suggest using a term that has shared meaning with students, such as dangerous drinking, to describe the drinking behavior that results in undesirable or unintended consequences.     

Human Variability in Susceptibility to Toxic Chemicals— A Preliminary Analysis of Pharmacokinetic Data from Normal Volunteers

The tenfold "uncertainty" factor traditionally used to guard against human interindividual differences in susceptibility to toxicity is not based on human observations. To begin to build a basis for quantifying an important component of overall variability in susceptibility to toxicity, a data base has been constructed of individual measurements of key pharmacokinetic parameters for specific substances (mostly drugs) in groups of at least five healthy adults. 72 of the 101 data sets studied were positively skewed, indicating that the distributions are generally closer to expectations for log-normal distributions than for normal distributions. Measurements of interindividual variability in elimination half-lives, maximal blood concentrations, and AUC (area under the curve of blood concentration by time) have median values of log10 geometric standard deviations in the range of 0.11-0.145. For the median chemical, therefore, a tenfold difference in these pharmacokinetic parameters would correspond to 7-9 standard deviations in populations of normal healthy adults. For one relatively lipophilic chemical, however, interindividual variability in maximal blood concentration and AUC was 0.4--implying that a tenfold difference would correspond to only about 2.5 standard deviations for those parameters in the human population. The parameters studied to date are only components of overall susceptibility to toxic agents, and do not include contributions from variability in exposure- and response-determining parameters. The current study also implicitly excludes most human interindividual variability from age and illness. When these other sources of variability are included in an overall analysis of variability in susceptibility, it is likely that a tenfold difference will correspond to fewer standard deviations in the overall population, and correspondingly greater numbers of people at risk of toxicity.     

A winner determination problem of tendering transportation services

Summary  For the tendering of long-term transportation contracts in the bulk industry, shippers use bidbooks that specify for each lane the load location, the destination, the product and the volume that has to be transported over the next so many years. Bidbooks are sent out to a preselected group of carriers, who subsequently quote a price for each of the lanes. After the return of the bidbooks, the shipper determines the winning carriers. The winner determination problem is the problem of finding an allocation of the lanes to the carriers so as to minimize total transportation costs. The winner determination problem is NP-hard in the strong sense. We model the winner determination problem as an integer linear programming (ILP) problem and try and solve the model by use of CPLEX, a state-of-the-art ILP solver. It turns out, that the model can solve problems optimally with no more than 270 lanes. We also develop a fast randomized heuristic, and we show that it performs remarkably well, with a gap of no more than 0.8% from optimality.

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Zusammenfassung  Zum Abschluss langfristiger Transportvertr?ge in der Massengüterindustrie bedienen sich die Spediteure bestimmter Angebotsbücher, in denen für jede Tour die Ladestation, der Zielort, sowie die zu transportierende Produktart und deren Volumen für die n?chsten Jahre spezifiziert werden. Die Angebotsbücher werden an eine ausgew?hlte Gruppe von Transportunternehmen geschickt, die dann für jede Tour einen Preis angeben. Auf dieser Grundlage bestimmt der Spediteur dann die Transportunternehmen, die die Zuteilung der Touren erhalten. Dabei wird die Verteilung der Touren auf die Transportunternehmen in der Weise vorgenommen, dass die gesamten Transportkosten minimiert werden. Das Auswahlproblem ist NP-hard in strengem Sinne. Wir modellieren das Auswahlproblem als ganzzahliges lineares Programmierungsproblem (ILP) und testen bzw. l?sen es mit Hilfe mit CPLEX, einem Standardl?sungsansatz für ganzzahlige lineare Programmierung. Dabei zeigt sich, dass Modelle bis zu 270 Touren optimal gel?st werden k?nnen. Zugleich wird auch eine Heuristik entwickelt und vorgestellt, deren L?sung nur unwesentlich von der Optimall?sung entfernt liegt.

     

The use of metaevaluation to plan evaluations of conservation programs

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is sponsoring and will be required to evaluate a wide range of conservation programs. The development of evaluation plans for such programs can often be improved by reviewing evaluations that have been done on similar programs. The Residential Conservation Service (RCS), sponsored by DOE, is discussed as an example of how conducting metaevaluations can improve evaluation planning. Many utilities have sponsored programs that are similar to the RCS. A review of the utility program evaluations suggested key methodological issues and data problems that should be considered in the development of an RCS evaluation plan. The implications of these metaevaluation findings for an RCS evaluation plan are discussed.     

The development of preferences for specific body shapes

Research with adults has shown a preference for average-weight female figures with waist-to-hip ratios (WHR) of 0.7, and average weight male figures with waist-to-hip ratios of 0.9. This study investigated the development of preferences for WHR sizes as well as preferences for specific body weights. Five-hundred eleven children ranging in age from 6 to 17 were presented with drawings of 12 male and 12 female silhouettes varying in weight and WHR and asked to select one they thought looked the nicest or most attractive. The youngest children showed preferences for the underweight figures, changing to consistent preferences for the average weight figures in the teenage years. The developmental curves for waist-to-hip ratio preferences were linear, changing gradually over time to become more adult-like. Potential developmental models for the development of preferences for specific body shapes are considered in relation to these data.     

Educating women about the hidden dangers of alcohol

1. There is mounting research evidence that alcohol use and abuse affects women much differently than men. 2. Research indicates that women absorb and metabolize alcohol differently than men, partly due to body composition differences and the production of less gastric alcohol dehydrogenase by women. 3. Women of child-bearing age who engage in binge drinking are at increased risk of bearing children with fetal alcohol syndrome or alcohol-related neurological deficits. 4. Psychiatric nurses are often in the position to provide education and counseling to women regarding the hidden dangers of alcohol use and abuse.     

The family's role in person-centered care: practice considerations

Effective implementation of person-centered care requires a shared understanding and commitment to make it a reality by administrative personnel, direct care providers, and residents and their family members. Long-term care facilities must seek ways to engage residents' families in person-centered care through its training, policies, care planning, and documentation. Doing so may require revisions to policies and work practices, and ongoing leadership efforts to maintain this care framework within the realities of staff turnover and regulatory requirements. Developing protocols and procedures that facilitate family members' communication with staff and build consensus and shared values will result in a system that represents and honors the unique perspectives, values, and needs of each resident receiving care. It is important for facility leadership to set the tone for acknowledging the importance of family involvement in person-centered care by modeling acceptance of concerns and criticisms as valid and by acknowledging that direct care providers, residents, and their family members have a voice in care decisions. Such an approach has the greatest chance of success in promoting person-centered care and the shared values necessary to ensure its successful implementation.     

Rate of perceived exertion as a tool to monitor cycling exercise intensity in older adults

The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of rate of perceived exertion (RPE) to monitor exercise intensity in older adults. Middle-aged (46.9 +/- 7.0 years, n = 24) and older women (75.5 +/- 3.8 years, n = 29) performed a graded maximal exercise test on a cycle ergometer while RPE, oxygen uptake, heart rate, and blood lactate levels were measured. The Pearson's product moment correlation coefficient between RPE and oxygen uptake for each stage of the graded exercise test was calculated for each participant. The mean coefficient for the older group (r =.954) was similar to that of middle-aged group (r =.963). The autocorrelation coefficient was much lower (r =.411) in the older group than in the middle-aged group (r =.871). Variability in RPE through the graded exercise test was similar between the two groups. In conclusion, RPE was strongly associated with oxygen uptake in the older group. These results indicate that RPE is effective in monitoring exercise intensity in older adults.