Establishing and maintaining a low-cost zebrafish breeding and behavioral research facility

The purpose of this paper is to describe how to establish and maintain a low-cost zebrafish facility that can be used for both teaching and research purposes. The cost of the facility ranges from about 250 to250 to 1,000, depending on the size of the facility and the experiments that will be conducted. The facility plan presented here also has the advantage that it can be disassembled so that it need not function year-round. A detailed list of supplies and materials is provided, along with detailed instructions on how to set up and maintain the adult and breeding portions of the facility. Finally, there is discussion of some of the general uses of a zebrafish facility, including a variety of procedures that are currently being used in behavioral research with this species.     

Discriminative facility and its role in the perceived quality of interactional experiences

Discriminative facility refers to an individual's sensitivity to subtle cues about the psychological meaning of a situation. This research aimed at examining (a) the conceptual distinctiveness of discriminative facility, (b) the situation-appropriate aspect of this construct, and (c) the relationship between discriminative facility and interpersonal experiences. Discriminative facility was assessed by a new measure of situation-appropriate behaviors across a variety of novel stressful situations. Results from study 1 showed that discriminative facility had weak positive relationships with cognitive complexity and nonsignificant relationships with self-monitoring and social desirability, indicating that discriminative facility is a unique construct. Results from Study 2 revealed that higher levels of discriminative facility were associated with higher levels of perceived social support and a greater number of pleasant interpersonal events experienced, thus providing support for the theoretical proposition that discriminative facility is an aspect of social intelligence.     

Direct‐Supervision and Remote‐Supervision Jails: A Comparative Study of Psychosocial Factors1

The direct‐supervision style correctional facility has been offered as a design that provides a better atmosphere for staff and inmates. Prior research has shown minor support in favor of the general environment created by direct‐supervision facilities. However, the claims of benefits associated with direct supervision far outweigh the number of empirical research studies on the design. This research examined corrections officers' and inmates' feelings of boredom, perceived control, aggression, attitudes toward each other, and stress in a direct‐supervision style facility and a remote‐supervision style facility. Results from 164 inmates and 82 correctional officers showed that staff in the direct‐supervision facility reported elevated levels of perceived control, less anger and hostility, and less boredom.     

Community integration of the mentally III in residential facilities

Much of the empirical research on the social adjustment of the mentally ill has focused on client variables. More recently, recognition of environmental factors as influences on behavior has led to attempts to determine environmental factors that may play a role in former mental patients' community integration. The secondary data analysis of 87 former state hospital patients in residential facilities suggests that while client characteristics are important in explaining community integration, facility, and community characteristics, particularly the level of skills training offered in the facility, size of city, and level of depersonalization of residents, have a significant impact. Results indicating the major importance of informal interactions between staff and clients are discussed, with implications for facility staff noted.     

Facility-level characteristics associated with serious suicide attempts and deaths from suicide in juvenile justice residential facilities

Little is known about how facility-level characteristics affect the risk of suicide and suicide attempts in juvenile justice residential facilities. This leaves facility administrators and mental health providers without evidence-based guidance on how the facility itself affects risks. The current study uses data from two recently developed censuses of juvenile justice facilities in the United States to examine the relationship between facility-level characteristics and the likelihood of a facility reporting serious suicide attempts and deaths from suicide. Results suggest highest risks for facilities housing larger populations of Black young people and for facilities locking sleeping room doors. Lower risks are found for facilities screening all young people within 24 hours of arrival.     

Human use regulatory affairs advisor (HURAA): learning about research ethics with intelligent learning modules.

The Human Use Regulatory Affairs Advisor (HURAA) is a Web-based facility that provides help and training on the ethical use of human subjects in research, based on documents and regulations in United States federal agencies. HURAA has a number of standard features of conventional Web facilities and computer-based training, such as hypertext, multimedia, help modules, glossaries, archives, links to other sites, and page-turning didactic instruction. HURAA also has these intelligent features: (1) an animated conversational agent that serves as a navigational guide for the Web facility, (2) lessons with case-based and explanation-based reasoning, (3) document retrieval through natural language queries, and (4) a context-sensitive Frequently Asked Questions segment, called Point & Query. This article describes the functional learning components of HURAA, specifies its computational architecture, and summarizes empirical tests of the facility on learners.     

Factors associated with juvenile detention truancy

Factors influencing truancy from a juvenile court treatment facility were investigated. Youth born in 1962 (N = 124) who were placed in the facility were compared for number of truancies, background, and personality variables. Results showed that males with prior adjudication for home or school truancy had a 65% probability of eloping from the court facility as compared to a 34% probability for youth adjudicated for other offenses. Most females were adjudicated for truancy offenses and showed a 62% probability of truancy while in the court facility. Further, for females who eloped and were returned, the probability of a subsequent truancy was above 80%. Personality characteristics of truants varied with sex: male truants were more likely to be conduct disordered youth for which impulsivity and disregard for social norms is prevalent; female truants appear more likely to be in conflict over autonomy issues.     

Human use regulatory affairs advisor (HURAA): Learning about research ethics with intelligent learning modules

The Human Use Regulatory Affairs Advisor (HURAA) is a Web-based facility that provides help and training on the ethical use of human subjects in research, based on documents and regulations in United States federal agencies. HURAA has a number of standard features of conventional Web facilities and computer-based training, such as hypertext, multimedia, help modules, glossaries, archives, links to other sites, and page-turning didactic instruction. HURAA also has these intelligent features: (1) an animated conversational agent that serves as a navigational guide for the Web facility, (2) lessons with case-based and explanation-based reasoning, (3) document retrieval through natural language queries, and (4) a context-sensitive Frequently Asked Questions segment, calledPoint & Query. This article describes the functional learning components of HURAA, specifies its computational architecture, and summarizes empirical tests of the facility on learners.     

Comorbid Substance Use and Anxiety Disorders in Adolescents

To explore the coexistence of substance use disorders and anxiety disorders in adolescents, we assessed adolescents presenting for treatment to an inpatient substance abuse treatment facility (SUH), an inpatient psychiatric treatment facility (IPH), and a community-based psychiatric facility (CMHC) for comorbid substance use and psychiatric diagnoses. Thirty subjects from each facility (N=90) were interviewed using the revised Child Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (K-SADS) and the Structured Clinical Interview DSM-III-R (SCID-R) for substance use diagnoses. Overall, comorbidity (anxiety and substance use disorders) prevalence was 67% (20/30) of adolescents in the SUH group, 33% (10/30) of the CMHC adolescents, and 33% (10/30) of the IPH adolescents. Alcohol and marijuana were the most frequently abused substances. Anxiety disorders commonly coexist with substance use disorders in adolescents. Early identification and treatment of anxiety disorders may in fact prevent substance abuse in this population.     

Some experiments with computer synthesized speech

The generation of satisfactory artificial speech involves a great variety of semantic, linguistic, and articulatory factors. Many of these complex elements are as yet unknown, and computers are used extensively for their investigation. An account of an on-line, interactive computer facility used for such research at Bell Laboratories is given. The use of this facility for exploring the duration and pitch correlates of stress in English sentences is described.     

Increasing volunteering at a residential facility: An experimental evaluation of a volunteer assistance program

A helpful component for comprehensive residential services for developmentally disabled persons is volunteer assistance. This investigation involved the evaluation of a program developed to increase the amount of volunteer assistance provided to a public residential facility. The program consisted of three types of related procedures: systematic volunteer recruitment steps, specific volunteer activities at the facility, and consequence/recognition for the volunteer assistance. The program was successively implemented to involve students as volunteers from two local universities, and resulted in an increase in new students volunteering from both universities. Additionally, the frequency with which the students volunteered at the residential facility increased substantially from both universities relative to control periods during which the volunteer program was not in effect. Results are discussed in terms of the benefits of volunteers and continued research to increase involvement of other prospective groups of volunteers.     

“Visiting Day” at Rikers Island

Wacquant (2002) calls for ethnography to meet the jailhouse on its own terms, noting the dearth of first-hand writing from the carceral facility. This article describes a creative representation of qualitative research made by the author and two creative collaborators that both meets Wacquant’s call and problematizes it; meets it, as we depict the functioning of the visitation process at Rikers Island based on our first-hand experience on both sides of the bars, and problematizes it, as we chose for our medium the zine, a creative form common to prison writing, yet not sufficiently academic by Wacquant’s standards. I offer a novel definition of the zine form grounded in the academic literature, describe the visitation process at Rikers and the making of the “Visiting Day” zine, and reflect on challenges to the binary of inside/outside the carceral facility, as well as the political stakes of this theoretical formulation.     

Terrorism-related risk management for health care facilities

Clinicians should have a basic understanding of the physical and financial risk to mental health facilities related to external threat, such as (but not necessarily limited to) terrorism. Patient care and accessibility to mental health services rest not only on clinical skills, but on a place to practice them and an organized system supported by staff, physical facilities and funding. Clinicians who have some familiarity with the non-clinical requirements for care are in a position to support non-clinical staff in preventing care from being interrupted by external threats or events such as terrorist activity, and/or serving at the interface of facility operations and direct clinical care. Readers should note that this article is an introduction to the topic and cannot address all local, state, and national standards for hospital safety, or insurance providers' individual facility requirements.     

Locating a Waste Treatment Facility by Multicriteria Analysis

We describe an application of multicriteria decision aid to the location of a waste treatment facility in eastern Finland. In Finland, the Act on Environmental Impact Assessment Procedure requires that when the amount of waste to be dealt with in a facility exceeds 20,000 tons per year, the process of environmental impact assessment (EIA) must be performed. In addition, the opinions of citizens and different interest groups need to be heard. Generally, EIA requires many different factors to be dealt with. Therefore the use of some multicriteria decision aid may be helpful to preserve the information obtained through the EIA in the decision-making process. The alternative locations for the facility were considered based on 14 criteria by 28 decision makers. The present paper makes use of the PROMETHEE decision aid, which was found to fit well with certain constraints in this type of problem with multiple criteria and multiple decision makers. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Multi-Crit. Decis. Anal. 6 : 175–184 (1997) No. of Figures: 2. No. of Tables: 3. No. of References: 18.     

A follow-up study of psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents

The present study analyzes the effects of milieu treatment on 169 teenagers admitted to a midwestern state psychiatric facility. Pre- and post-hospitalization data for both males and females indicate improved functioning in all the areas studied.     

Nanoethics in a Nanolab: Ethics via Participation

A participant–observer who is both informed and interested in ethical issues, and is embedded within a nanotechnology research and development facility may be able to influence the ethical awareness of researchers in nanotechnology, and tease out the societal implications of the work being conducted. Two inter-disciplinary methods were employed: (1) regular involvement in the technical and scientific research at the facility by the participant–observer, and (2) repeated interactions and discussions between the participant–observer and the scientists. As a result of this qualitative approach, an ethics questionnaire was developed and tested. This questionnaire has been incorporated into the admissions procedures for researchers as they commence use of the nanotech facility. The questionnaire highlights the importance of ethical issues in nanotechnology research and draws researchers into an engagement with possible ethical consequences and with future societal implications of their work.     

Community and health facility influences on contraceptive method choice in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

CONTEXT: Although a growing number of studies have examined how community factors influence contraceptive use, few have explored how such factors affect method choice. METHODS: Data from the 1998 South Africa Demographic and Health Survey and the 1998 Eastern Cape Facility Survey were used to examine community and health facility influences on the method choices of 1,165 women aged 15-49 who lived in the Eastern Cape. Relative risk ratios from multilevel multinomial models assessed how method choice varied between communities. RESULTS: The likelihood of using the pill or a more permanent method rather than the injection rose with the proportion of women in a community who controlled their earnings (risk ratios, 3.2 and 3.8, respectively). In communities with higher proportions of females with only a primary education, women were less likely to use the pill instead of the injection (0.1). Higher doctor staffing levels were associated with a greater likelihood of using the pill or a more permanent method (1.5 and 1.4), and having more expired methods in stock was associated with increased use of a more permanent method (2.1). Several facility factors were associated with a decreased likelihood of using the pill rather than the injection: higher numbers of community health workers in an area and higher numbers of facility nurses who had received training on HIV/AIDS in the last year (0.9 for each). Yet a substantial amount of variation in method choice was not accounted for by these variables. CONCLUSION: Future research should emphasize the collection of community-level data on structural, behavioral and cultural factors to help explain the variation in method choice between communities.     

Factors Related to Recidivism Among Delinquent Youths in a State Correctional Facility

Identifying and remediating variables accounting for recidivism has been a persistent and often controversial challenge. We investigated factors that may be related to recidivism among delinquent youths committed to a state correctional facility. Data were collected by examining the records of 147 recidivists and 147 non-recidivists. Our findings are consistent with previous research showing age of first offense and first commitment differentiated recidivists and non-recidivists. Additional discriminant factors included deficits in basic skills, special education background, gang affiliation, and length of stay at the facility.     

Factors Related to Recidivism Among Delinquent Females at a State Correctional Facility

Although much of the research has focused on male delinquents, females are increasingly involved in violent crimes. We investigated factors that may be related to recidivism among delinquent females committed to a state correctional facility. The records of 238 female delinquents were examined and 96 were found to be recidivists. Our findings were consistent with previous research showing that age at first offense and first commitment differentiated recidivists from non-recidivists. Additional discriminant factors included deficits in basic math skills, gang affiliation, abuse, location of residence, and length of stay at the facility.     

Discriminative Facility in Perceptions of Control and Its Relation to Psychological Distress

This study explored the relationship between discriminative facility and distress. Individuals high in discriminative facility were characterized by high perceptions of primary control and high use of problem- relative to emotion-focused coping with controllable stressors and by low perceptions of primary control, high perceptions of compensatory control, and low use of problem- to emotion-focused coping with uncontrollable stressors. Participants provided information regarding their perceptions of control (control over outcome and control over one's feelings), how they coped, and their level of stressor-specific distress with three stressors, which varied in degree of controllability. They also provided information regarding their level of general distress. Problem-focused coping was found to be adaptive with the two most controllable stressors, but more so when perceptions of primary control were high. Control over one's feelings was helpful with all three stressors, but more so for individuals who had low perceptions of primary control. Finally, individuals high in discriminative facility were found to experience less distress than individuals low in discriminative facility.