Background The rapid increase of obesity and diabetes risk beginning in youth, particularly those from disadvantaged communities, calls for prevention efforts. Objective To examine the impact of a curriculum intervention, Choice, Control, and Change (C3), on the adoption of the energy balance related behaviors of decreasing sweetened drinks, packaged snacks, fast food, and leisure screen time, and increasing water, fruits and vegetables, and physical activity, and on potential psychosocial mediators of the behaviors. Design Ten middle schools in low-income New York City neighborhoods were randomly assigned within matched pairs to either intervention or comparison/ delayed control conditions during the 2007–2008 school year. Participants 562 inner city seventh grade students in the intervention condition, and 574 in the comparison condition. Intervention Students received the 24 C3 lessons that used science inquiry-based investigations to enhance motivation for action, and social cognitive and self-determination theories to increase personal agency and autonomous motivation to take action. Main outcome measures Self-report instruments to measure energy balance related behaviors targeted by the curriculum, and potential psychosocial mediators of the behaviors. Analyses ANCOVA with group (intervention/control) as a fixed factor and pre-test as covariate. Results Students in intervention schools compared to the delayed intervention controls reported consumption of significantly fewer sweetened drinks and packaged snacks, smaller sizes of fast food, increased intentional walking for exercise, and decreased leisure screen-time, but showed no increases in their intakes of water, fruits, and vegetables. They showed significant increases in positive outcome expectations about the behaviors, self-efficacy, goal intentions, competence, and autonomy. Conclusions The C3 curriculum was effective in improving many of the specifically targeted behaviors related to reducing obesity risk, indicating that combining inquiry-based science education and behavioral theory is a promising approach.

Medical errors account for ∼98,000 deaths per year in the United States. They increase disability and costs and decrease confidence in the health care system. We review several important types of medical errors and adverse events. We discuss medication errors, healthcare-acquired infections, falls, handoff errors, diagnostic errors, and surgical errors. We describe the impact of these errors, review causes and contributing factors, and provide an overview of strategies to reduce these events. We also discuss teamwork/safety culture, an important aspect in reducing medical errors.

No abstract

The reduction of tertiary phosphine oxides (TPOs) and sulfides with diisobutylaluminum hydride (DIBAL-H) has been studied in detail. An extensive solvent screen has revealed that hindered aliphatic ethers, such as MTBE, are optimum for this reaction at ambient temperature. Many TPOs undergo considerable reduction at ambient temperature and then stall due to inhibition. 31P and 13C NMR studies using isotopically labeled substrates as well as competition studies have revealed that the source of this inhibition is tetraisobutyldialuminoxane (TIBAO), which builds up as the reaction proceeds. TIBAO selectively coordinates the TPO starting material, preventing further reduction. Several strategies have been found to circumvent this inhibition and obtain full conversion with this extremely inexpensive reducing agent for the first time. Practical reduction protocols for these critical targets have been developed.

The Lyα line transfer in an extremely thick medium of neutral hydrogen is investigated by adopting an accelerating scheme in our Monte Carlo code to skip a large number of core or resonant scatterings. This scheme reduces computing time significantly with no sacrifice in the accuracy of the results. We applied this numerical method to the Lyα transfer in a static, uniform, dustless, and plane-parallel medium. Two types of photon sources have been considered, the midplane source and the uniformly distributed sources. The emergent profiles show double peaks and absorption trough at the line-center. We compared our results with the analytic solutions derived by previous researchers, and confirmed that both solutions are in good agreement with each other. We investigated the directionality of the emergent Lyα photons and found that limb brightening is observed in slightly thick media while limb darkening appears in extremely thick media. The behavior of the directionality is noted to follow that of the Thomson scattered radiation in electron clouds, because both Lyα wing scattering and Thomson scattering share the same Rayleigh scattering phase function. The mean number of wing scatterings just before escape is in exact agreement with the prediction of the diffusion approximation. The Lyα photons constituting

Background: Considering adolescents' heavy use of media, serious videogames may provide an engaging and innovative way to achieve positive impact on adolescents' diet and physical activity. The objective of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of playing a serious game, ''Creature-101'' (developed by Teachers College, Columbia University [New York, NY] and Stottler Henke Inc. [San Mateo, CA]), at promoting energy balancerelated behaviors (EBRBs) such as increasing fruits and vegetables intake, water intake, and physical activity and decreasing processed snacks intake, sweetened beverages intake, and recreational screen time. Subjects and Methods: This pre-post intervention-control study (n = 590) was conducted in New York City lowincome public middle schools. The students (11-13 years of age, 51.6 percent male) played ''Creature-101'' online in science/health education classes (seven sessions, 30 minutes each session for 1 month). ''Creature-101'' used behavioral theories as the framework for ''creature care'' in a world ''Tween.'' Students were provided with scientific evidence that promoted energy balance through minigames, educational videos, and slideshows and were motivated with interactive dialogues with game characters. Students also assessed their own behaviors, created their own ''real life'' food and activity goals, and reported their progress. A self-reported, validated, online instrument that measured frequency and amount of targeted behaviors was administered at baseline and post-intervention. Results: Analysis of covariance compared post-test means between groups with pretest scores as covariates. Intervention students reported significant decreases in frequency and amount of consumption of sweetened beverages and processed snacks compared with the controls. No changes were observed for the other behaviors. Conclusions: ''Creature-101'' was effective at reducing consumption of sweetened beverages and processed snacks, which are related to obesity risks, indicating that the game shows promise at promoting EBRBs.

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) of sulphur-containing amino acids and peptides (L-cysteine, L-cystine, L-methionine, L-methionylglycine and glycyl-L-methionine) in silver sol was investigated. The Raman signal was enhanced by a factor of about 10'. In the pH range 5-11, L-cysteine was found to absorb on the silver surface through the sulphur atom and also the carboxylate and amino groups. The changes in the SER spectrum of L-eysteine observed on lowering the pH of the sol solution below 5 suggested that the amino group was desorbed from the surface on protonation. The SER spectrum of L-cystine was similar to that of L-cysteine, indicating cleavage of the S-S bond on adsorption on the silver surface. L-Methionine, L-methionylglycine and glycyl-Lmethionine also seemed to adsorb via the sulphur atom and also the carboxylate and amino groups in the pH range 5-9. The SER spectra of these compounds showed no concentration dependence in the ranges investigated.

A general, efficient, and highly diastereoselective method for the synthesis of structurally and sterically diverse P-chiral phosphine oxides was developed. The method relies on sequential nucleophilic substitution on the versatile chiral phosphinyl transfer agent 1,3,2-benzoxazaphosphinine-2-oxide, which features enhanced and differentiated P-N and P-O bond reactivity toward nucleophiles. The reactivities of both bonds are fine-tuned to allow cleavage to occur even with sterically hindered nucleophiles under mild conditions.