David Collins - US grants

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Teen prescription drug abuse is a significant and growing problem. The latest national figures show that over 15% of 12th graders in the U.S. used at least one type of prescription drug for non-medical use in the past year. Research has shown that prescription drugs that can be abused are often readily available to teens either from family members in the home or from friends. This R21 application builds on previous research and proposes a two-year feasibility study to adapt and implement an integrated community prevention model (to include community mobilization, a home environmental strategy, and a medical environmental strategy) to reduce the availability of prescription drugs in the home for abuse by teens. The research setting will be one county in Southern Appalachian Tennessee in which prescription drug abuse is reported to be a problem. Our proposed environmental strategies will incorporate learnings from a recent NIDA-funded integrated community prevention model that was implemented in Alaska to reduce availability of harmful legal products (inhalants, over-the-counter drugs, household products, and prescription drugs). The specific aims are to (1) adapt and implement an integrated community prescription drug abuse prevention model that targets prescription drug abuse among teens, and (2) assess change in proximal outcomes (community engagement, advocacy by physicians'office and pharmacy staff, and the availability of prescription drugs in the home) believed to mediate intervention effects on teen prescription drug abuse. We will also assess what aspects of implementation quality (e.g., reach, dosage, fidelity) may explain the change. The research design for assessing change in the proximal outcome of teens'perceived availability of prescription drugs for abuse is a pre-post intervention-group-only design that will utilize data from a panel of students in grades 5, 7, 9, and 11 at baseline who will be surveyed at two time points in consecutive school years. Analyses of the other proximal outcomes will utilize data from participating parents, physicians'office staff, and pharmacy staff who participate in environmental strategies. Activities in both the home environmental strategy and the medical environmental strategy will be directed toward reducing availability of prescription drugs for abuse by teens in the home. Based on learnings from previous research, key contributing factors are posited to be norms, including concern over the problem of teen prescription drug abuse, and rules, regulations and policies. Our proposed set of complementary approaches, including a medical environmental strategy designed to support the home environmental strategy, represents a new and innovative prevention approach to the problem of teen prescription abuse. The significance of this study is its potential to adapt an integrated community prevention model to help prevent teens'abuse of prescription drugs. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Prescription drug abuse among teens is a significant and growing problem. This study seeks to adapt and implement an integrated community prevention model including community mobilization and environmental strategies (a medical environmental strategy designed to support a home environmental strategy) focused on reducing availability of these drugs in the home. If the approach is successful, it could help address this serious public health problem.

0922814
McRoberts

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).

Funds from this grant will support the acquisition of a powder x-ray diffractometer (XRD) to facilitate research and research training in the Departments of Geology and Chemistry at the State University of New York at Cortland (SUNY-Cortland). The XRD will be used for phase identification of clay minerals in Mesozoic Paleoclimate studies and crystallographic characterization of novel metal-organic compounds. Two Co-I?s (Collins and Downey) are both early career scientists and new investigators to the NSF proposal process. The XRD will fill a gap in the analytical infrastructure at SUNY-Cortland, an institution that currently ranks in the top nine institutions in the U.S. that produce the largest numbers of K-12 teachers. Students exposed to modern methods of materials characterization and imparted with an understanding of data interpretation, potential error sources and analysis technique limitations are well prepared to disseminate a healthy understanding of the scientific process in our nation?s school systems.

This project seeks answers to several pressing questions about the formation and evolution of galaxies. It does so by using the Blue Waters supercomputer to perform a suite of sophisticated supercomputer simulations. The investigators will address such questions as: (i) How did the earliest progenitors of the Milky Way galaxy form, and where can we find their stellar remnants today? (ii) How does the ionizing radiation produced by massive stars escape from galaxies, and how does it affect the properties of neighboring galaxies? (iii) How does the gas that is critical for star formation get from the cosmic web into the central regions of galaxies, and how is gas returned to the intergalactic medium? (iv) How are magnetic fields seeded and amplified in galaxies, and how are they ejected into (or amplified in) the intergalactic medium?
The team includes experts in astrophysics as well as in high performance computing, and is united in the use of a sophisticated numerical tool (the Enzo AMR code) that has already demonstrated its performance on Blue Waters. The team will work with observational astronomer collaborators to apply these simulations to the interpretation of measurements of both local and distant galaxies from current astronomical surveys, and to motivate future observations by the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope.
The proposed work promises to have significant impact on scientists in training, who will learn to use cutting-edge numerical tools at the largest possible scale. The project will involve undergraduate students at Michigan State University (through MSU?s REU program, which targets women and under-represented minorities) and postdoctoral researchers in the research efforts. Scientific results from this program will be visualized by staff at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and will be disseminated to the public via pre-existing collaborations with planetaria and museums, and via the Internet. In addition, these visualizations will be used as part of outreach talks given by members of this project. Finally, the simulation data produced as a result of this project will be used in computational science courses at Michigan State University, where it will be used to train students in scientific visualization and data analysis techniques. The resulting curricular materials will be made available to the public via the World Wide Web.


The specific research methods used in this project include the creation of an extensive library of simulated Milky Way-like galaxies and their environments that can be used to explore a wide range of observable astrophysical phenomena. This will be the first study to perform cosmological simulations of galaxy formation and evolution that include self-consistent treatments of radiation transport and/or magnetohydrodynamics for a statistically significant number of galaxies, and to apply these calculations to the interpretation of recent observations relating to the intergalactic and circumgalactic medium, galactic and extragalactic magnetic fields, and high redshift galaxy formation. Furthermore, the simulation data produced during the course of this project, as well as a wide range of data products, will be made publicly available via the nascent National Data Service. This data will be usable by the astrophysical research community, and will enable researchers to address a much broader range of questions regarding galaxy formation and evolution than can be done as a part of this project alone, thus leveraging the computational resources available on Blue Waters.

Stars form out of giant clouds of hydrogen, but the details of the collapse are still unclear. The investigators will use computer models to simulate the collapses of clouds to form stars. The investigator seeks to answer three important questions concerning star formation. (1) How much of a cloud turns into stars? (2) How fast does this happen? (3) Are magnetic fields the most important force on collapsing gas? The investigator will produce a series of synthetic observations to hunt for the very first signature of collapsing gas. Star formation of takes millions of years. Astronomer's observations of many clouds in our galaxy are snap shots of the history of star formation. The computer models allow astronomers to organize all these observations into a single story of the birth of stars.

The investigator will produce a sequence of synthetic, all-galaxy, maps of molecules and hot gas in our galaxy. The numerical models use adaptive mesh refinement and include the effects of magnetic fields, radiation feedback, and models for the chemical composition of the clouds. The open source code ENZO will be used for the simulations. The simulations have a physical scale of 1000 pc and resolution of 100 astronomical units. The investigator will start with initial conditions similar to those seen in the stratified galactic disk. At higher linear resolution, the simulation will be concentrated on molecular clouds and the dense cores that harbor young stars. The complete assembly history of forces and observational signatures will be produced.

Studying the cosmological expansion of the Universe requires precise determination of distances to faraway galaxies. One of the ways that astronomers do this is by using a certain type of supernova (SN), or exploding star, in a galaxy as a measuring stick. A Type Ia SN results from the detonation of an old, small white dwarf (WD) star, and because WD stars are fairly similar in size, the observable features of Type Ia SNe are similar, meaning that the relative difference in brightness between two Type Ia SNe in different galaxies is primarily due to a difference in distance. For this method to work properly to advance cosmology, it is essential that astronomers have a better understanding of the details of Type Ia SNe and the differences among them. A research group at Florida State University (FSU) will further this understanding by studying in detail the various Type Ia explosion scenarios, the structure of WD stars, the thermodynamics of the explosions, and the role of magnetic fields in supernovae. They will do this through sophisticated computer models that produce simulated SNe to compare to observations. The research team will include both graduate and undergraduate students, and the principal investigator and his team will develop and present shows at the FSU planetarium about SNe, cosmology, and related astronomy topics.

Thermonuclear explosions of white dwarfs, SNe Ia, are key in cosmology due to their brightness and the apparent homogeneity of their light curves. However, the diversity of explosion scenarios and possible WD progenitor evolution with redshift pose a problem for high precision cosmology. Explosion scenarios may include a WD explosion close to the Chandrasekhar mass (M_Ch), a sub-M_Ch WD, and the dynamical merger of two WDs. For all scenarios, the team will use existing and new explosion models to calculate non-local thermodynamic equilibrium light curves, color-brightness relations, and near and mid-infrared spectra. They will use the radiation-hydro code HYDRA and include hydrodynamics and positron transport. Tools will be developed and employed for data analysis using existing observations as a benchmark.

PROJECT SUMMARY The mammalian prefrontal cortex (PFC) is known to be critical for cognitive control of thoughts and actions, as evidenced by the disruption of normal PFC activity in cognitive diseases such as schizophrenia. Sustained activation of the PFC during cognition appears to depend on input from higher-order thalamic nuclei. These nuclei project strongly to cortical layer 1 (L1), where they can engage both inhibitory neurons and pyramidal cell dendrites. Multiple classes of both dendrites and interneurons are positioned to receive L1 thalamic input, with important consequences for PFC activity. Connections from thalamic input onto pyramidal neuron dendrites could drive dendritic spikes in distinct sub-cellular compartments. Similarly, thalamic input onto locally- projecting vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP+) or neuron-derived neurotrophic factor (NDNF+) interneurons could drive unique patterns of inhibition within L1. The interaction of these excitatory and inhibitory responses will ultimately shape PFC processing and output. Despite the importance of interactions between the thalamus and PFC for cognitive behavior, the cell-type specific connectivity between them remains largely unknown. This proposal will explore the interaction between excitation and inhibition in L1 of the PFC evoked by input from the thalamus. Aim 1 will identify whether thalamic input to L1 generates spikes in particular dendritic compartments. Aim 2 will examine the responses of inhibitory interneurons in L1 to thalamic stimulation and compare those responses to nearby projection neurons. Aim 3 will test how that inhibition is directed locally onto pyramidal neuron dendrites or other classes of interneurons. Together, this work will provide necessary insights into the mechanisms that allow the thalamus to drive PFC dendritic activity during cognitive tasks that are disrupted in psychiatric illness.

Scientists in the 1960s first observed the background of cosmic microwaves left over from the Big Bang. In the coming decade, new and precise measurements may let astronomers use the cosmic microwave background to find faint signs of primordial gravitational waves. Theoretically, these waves should arise from quantum fluctuations as the Universe expanded rapidly in its first moments, and finding them would be a revolutionary confirmation of this idea. However, the signs of these gravitational waves will be obscured by two effects: gravitational lensing and Milky Way contamination. Lensing is the distortion of the microwave background's light by the gravitational pull of galaxies and dark matter throughout the Universe. Gas and dust in our own Milky Way galaxy then further contaminate our view. In this project researchers will model the gas and dust and investigate mitigation of the lensing distortions to aid future attempts at detection of primordial gravitational waves. The project will sponsor the research and training of students at the undergraduate and graduate level. To ensure that exciting developments in early-Universe research reach the broader community, this project focuses on attracting new students to STEM disciplines with public talks and events, college-level curriculum development, and high-quality STEM student mentoring.

The Milky Way foreground contamination is larger than the possible polarization ("B-mode") signal of gravitational waves but is too small and too faint to be well characterized by the Planck satellite. This project builds on the researcher?s current modeling of these foreground contaminants to characterize and avoid these problems. The effort will (1) continue development of an analytic filament-based foreground model and (2) use magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) computer simulations of the turbulent interstellar medium as a basis for realistic foreground simulations. These tools will be used to investigate the implications for B-mode measurements, lensing reconstruction, and delensing, and will enhance understanding of the physical basis for observed properties of the polarization foreground and the interstellar medium.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.