Ohlone College

A graphical plot of drug stability-study data can be extrapolated to estimate the drug’s percent degradation and therefore its shelf-life beyond the time period of the study. However, after a statistical confidence limit is applied, that shelf-life estimate is significantly reduced. Such a reduction can be minimized by transforming the data so that it plots as close as possible to linearity, a process that is called reliability plotting. Reliability plotting seems to have been rarely if ever used on drug stability data, despite its being mentioned in relevant guidance documents and its ability to justify longer shelf-life at no additional cost. For example, an 18-month stability study resulted in a 19-month shelf-life using standard extrapolation methods but resulted in a 23 month shelf-life using reliability plotting.

Background: Young people in the United States know little about contraceptive options available to them, although method use is sensitive to individual preferences, and method switching is common. For young people to gain reproductive autonomy, a first step is to be aware of different contraceptives, including hormonal and nonhormonal methods. We tested whether an educational intervention delivered on community college campuses was effective in increasing contraceptive awareness. Materials and Methods: We developed a low-cost educational intervention featuring youth-friendly visual tools and tested its impact on method awareness and knowledge among 1,051 students of all genders, aged 18-25 years, at five community colleges. We used generalized estimating equations to test changes in awareness of a range of methods, including male and female (internal) condoms, the pill, patch, vaginal ring, shot, intrauterine devices, implant, and emergency contraception. Results: Over 90% of participants were aware of male condoms and the pill at baseline, but fewer had heard of other options (ranging from 31% to 76% for different methods). Across all methods, awareness increased to a mean of 88% among female participants and 82% among male participants postintervention. Awareness of the full range of methods increased from 31% to 55% (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]: 4.4, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 3.1-6.2]) among female participants and 11% to 36% (aOR: 10.8, 95% CI: 5.3-21.8) among male participants postintervention. The intervention was similarly effective by sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, nativity, or insurance coverage. Conclusion: This educational intervention significantly improved all students' awareness of a range of contraceptives, supporting one important aspect of reproductive health for young people in community settings.

This paper investigates a prominent issue in scholarship on one of the best known late Tang poets, Du Mu 杜牧 (803–ca. 852): his traditional image as a libertine, which has been overshadowed the rese...

Background and Purpose: Young adults who are 18 to 25 years old have the highest prevalence of depression (10.9%). Depression is a risk factor for suicide. Mental health literacy (MHL) is a key component in assessing recognition and help-seeking for depression with suicidal ideation. This study investigated MHL as it relates to help-seeking for depression with suicidal ideation. Methods: A crosssectional survey design was used. Participants were young adults (n= 430, ages 18 to 24 years old) who lived, worked, and/or attended school in San Francisco, California. Reavley and colleagues’ MHL survey was modified and made available in English, Spanish, and Chinese. Results: Several background factors were positively, though weakly, correlated to MHL, based on the r coefficient. Significant factors were: being female [r=.12, p

Carrie M. Dameron, MSN, RNBC, CNE, is an assistant professor of nursing and program director at Ohlone College in Fremont, California. She is the author of CARES: Reflections for Nurses. Check out http://blog.carriedameron.com for a discussion and comment about Christian Nursing 101 articles. The author declares no conflict of interest.

IN REPLY: Thank you for allowing us to respond to the Letter to the Editor highlighting our recently published article entitled, “The back squat: A proposed assessment of functional deficits and technical factors that limit performance. Strength Cond J 36: 4–27, 2014” (1). We thank Dr. Dan Cleather for his eagerness in emphasizing the importance of our commentary and continued discussions relative to its practical applications for practitioners. We agree with Dr. Cleather's contention that individual anthropometric variation in segments' length will influence technical focus in individuals, and thus, their optimal squat technique may vary with trunk lean and other coaching criterion discussed. We note that the target audience of our article are expert practitioners but rather coaches, educators, and parents who may lack depth of experience to teach technical performance of the squat. To capture this generalizability, our commentary discussed the “average” individual to allow for a more generic coaching cue that is to be adjusted to suit the individual. We remain encouraged by the stimulating ongoing discussions in the field to optimize coaching strategies for squatting performance. We thank Dr. Cleather for highlighting the relation of human anatomical variation to cueing, and we look forward to continued discussions in the shared pursuit of clinically meaningful solutions to optimizing squat performance in athletes of any age and size.

Carrie M. Dameron, MSN, RN-BC, is an advanced certified medical-surgical nurse and assistant professor of nursing at Ohlone College in Fremont, California. She is the author of www.nurses4him.org. and CARES: Reflections for Nurses. The author declares no conflict of interest.

The solution of linear systems of equations that arise when singularly perturbed partial differential equations are discretized can be difficult: direct solvers scale poorly, but are also known not to be robust with respect to the perturbation parameter, while the design of parameter robust preconditioners is not trivial, primarily due to the specialised layer adapted meshes used for such problems; see MacLachlan and Madden (SIAM J Sci Comput 35:A2225–A2254, 2013). Here we present a multigrid solver strategy that circumvents this problem by using a robust patched mesh method proposed by de Falco and O’Riordan (BAIL 2008—Boundary and Interior Layers vol. 69, pp. 117–127. Springer, Berlin, 2009), as well as permitting parallelization. Numerical results demonstrate the efficiency of the method.