Publications by authors named "N Dalton Fitzgerald"

Background And Aims: Public perceptions of alcohol and its related harms and policies are shaped by multiple discourses and can influence behaviour and policy support. As part of a FrameWorks-informed project to test framing approaches to improve public understanding and support for evidence-based alcohol policies in the UK, this research aimed to (i) summarise relevant evidence; (ii) compare how public understanding of alcohol harms differs from those of academic and charity experts; and (iii) develop novel framing approaches.

Methods: (1) a literature review including systematic, scoping and targeted components to understand previous evidence on effective framing from behaviour change, UK alcohol policy and FrameWorks literatures; (2) comparison of public views of alcohol harms and policies from four focus groups (n = 20) with those of public health experts; (3) an iterative process involving workshops and stakeholder consultation to develop 12 novel framing approaches.

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Objective: Develop and validate an evaluation questionnaire for sixth-12th grade Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) participants.

Design: Five-step process: domain concept prioritization, question generation, question pretesting, reliability testing, and criterion validity testing.

Setting: Community sites in 4 states and New Jersey EFNEP secondary program data.

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The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has supercharged innovation in the field of molecular diagnostics and led to the exploration of systems that permit the autonomous identification of airborne infectious agents. Airborne virus detection is an emerging approach for determining exposure risk, although current methods limit intervention timeliness. Here, we explore reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) assays for one-pot detection of Severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) (SCV2) run on membrane filters suitable for micro-air-filtration of airborne viruses.

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In urban to peri-urban watersheds such as those surrounding San Francisco Bay, stormwater runoff is a major pathway by which contaminants enter aquatic ecosystems. We evaluated the occurrence of 154 organic contaminants liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry, including organophosphate esters (OPEs), bisphenols, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), and a suite of novel urban stormwater tracers (SWCECs; , vehicle-derived chemicals, pesticides, pharmaceuticals/personal care products, benzothiazoles/benzotriazoles). Time-averaged composite sampling focused on storms in highly developed watersheds over four wet seasons, with complementary sampling in less-urban reference watersheds, near-shore estuarine sites, and the open Bay.

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Article Synopsis
  • Generalization helps us apply past experiences to new situations, and the infralimbic (IL) area in the brain is important for this process, although how it works is still not fully understood.
  • In an experiment with mice, it was found that manipulating the IL's activity affected their defensive behaviors in response to ambiguous threats: silencing the IL increased generalized freezing, while stimulating it encouraged more vigilant behavior.
  • Additionally, researchers identified specific groups of neurons (ensembles) in the IL that were linked to these generalized responses, revealing that these neuronal ensembles help control the degree of generalization when facing uncertain dangers.
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