Accuracy and reliability of forensic handwriting comparisons.

Forensic handwriting examination involves the comparison of writing samples by forensic document examiners (FDEs) to determine whether or not they were written by the same person. Here we report the results of a large-scale study conducted to assess the accuracy and reliability of handwriting comparison conclusions. Eighty-six practicing FDEs each conducted up to 100 handwriting comparisons, resulting in 7,196 conclusions on 180 distinct comparison sets, using a five-level conclusion scale.

Addressing the Antinomy Between Health Education and Health Literacy in Advancing Personal Health and Public Health Outcomes.

Background: Health literacy evolved from a standard of English language proficiency designed to promote patient compliance into an inferential for promoting positive health decision-making and health outcomes. In turn, the United States relegated health literacy as a national strategy to improve personal health and health care outcomes as well as reduce national health care expenditures.

Methods: We reviewed the literature to assess the empirical research about health literacy and health behavior and health status outcomes.

Pedagogical patronizing of the pharmacodynamic promises of illicit drugs.

A review of popular drug education textbooks and curricula indicated most juxtapose the physiologic effects of licitly manufactured drugs under headings representing illicitly prepared drugs. This misrepresentation ignores the literature, which is undivided, in reporting that illicit drugs contain adulterants and substitutes such as: sodium acetate, sodium cyclamate, dolomite, acetaminophen, gypsum, mannitol, inositol, lidocaine, amydricaine, benzocaine, caffeine, ephedrine, intercaine, phenylpropanolamine, piperocaine, procainamide, azopyridine, bromodiphenhydramine, ibuprofen, methaqualone, phenobarital trazodone, acetylcodine, codeine, quinine, quinidine, thallium, arsenic and strychnine. The temptation to extrapolate the results of licitly pure drug lots administered at precisely measured doses to represent the pharmacodynamics of illegally prepared drug lots administered at indiscernible doses must be avoided in drug educational resources.

Achieving sex education program outcomes: points of view from students and alumni.

Several inherent limitations to secondary school sex education program evaluations are: limited generalizability, lack of longitudinal research, and no clear consensus of program outcomes. With a Bureau of Health Education, Center for Disease Control study as the criterion for program outcomes, a study was undertaken to examine the immediate and long-term impact of sex education upon program participants. Two of the 20 schools in the CDC study identified as having exemplary sex education programs provided access to their students and alumni.

Teacher stress and burnout: implications for school health personnel.

Recent literature indicates teachers experience considerable stress in the workplace, and that such stress is associated with an increased frequency of physical illnesses and somatic complaints. This study was conducted to identify the relationship between reported levels of stress and somatic complaints and selected illnesses. The Maslach Burnout Inventory and the Teacher Somatic Complaints and Illness Inventory were distributed to 428 teachers in public schools in Southern Illinois.

A reciprocating, single-needle hemodialyzer with bidirectional flow of sorbent suspension.

Previous theoretical analysis has indicated that adequate mass transfer is possible in a dialyzer with reciprocating membrane motion provided that the dialysate concentration of uremic substances is kept low. Earlier models have utilized a collection of sorbents (charcoal, urease, and a cation exchanger) constrained next to the dialyzer membranes. We have designed a new dialyzer with a sorbent suspension having free access from a reservoir to the spaces between membrane packages.