Exploring the Prevalence of Adverse Childhood Experiences in Soldiers Seeking Behavioral Health Care During a Combat Deployment.

This exploratory study examines the prevalence of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in soldiers who sought behavioral health support during a combat deployment. We conducted a secondary analysis of data extracted from two studies on the basis of retrospective reviews of behavioral health records of soldiers deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. Of 162 clinical samples, 135 (83%) reported at least one type of childhood adversity. ACE scores ranged from 0 to 9 with a mean of 3 (standard deviation = 2.4) and mode of 0. A total of 65 (40%) experienced four or more ACEs. Parental divorce or separation was the most frequently reported childhood experience and was associated with witnessing domestic violence, having a member of the household abuse substances, and being physically and psychologically abused as a child. A sizeable proportion lived with a household member who had been in prison. Soldiers with an extensive history of ACEs may benefit from additional mentoring from frontline leaders and prevention measures instituted by unit behavioral health personnel.

Effect of psychological skills training during military survival school: a randomized, controlled field study.

In this randomized, controlled field study, we examined the effects of a brief psychological skills training (PST) intervention on stress responses during military survival school. A second purpose was to build upon prior research in this unique environment by extending the follow-up window to 3 months. Baseline subjective distress (dissociative) symptoms were measured in 65 male military subjects, who were then randomized either to PST or a control group that received no training beyond the normal survival school curriculum. PST received training in arousal control, mental imagery, goal setting, and positive self-talk in two separate 40-minute sessions before stressful field exercises. Stress symptoms were then assessed during a mock-captivity phase of training, as well as 24 hours, 1 month, and 3 months after completion of training. Repeated-measures analyses of variance with follow-up paired t tests examined differences between groups and across time. Survival training precipitated remarkable increases in subjective distress, but few substantive group differences emerged. This study extends prior work quantifying the human stress response to intense military training.

Restoration of foothills rough fescue grassland following pipeline disturbance in southwestern Alberta.

The effects of pipeline construction and reclamation techniques on the restoration of rough fescue plant communities following pipeline construction in southwestern Alberta, Canada were evaluated after 7-40 years. The pipeline construction right-of-way (ROW) sites varied from no recovery of rough fescue grassland to moderate recovery. The ROW sites had a higher proportion of introduced grasses and forbs, less topsoil, and poorer rangeland health than the adjacent undisturbed grassland. Within the ROW sites, less topsoil was present on those with larger diameter pipe and which had topsoil fully stripped from the ROW during construction. Introduced grasses, Festuca ovina (sheep fescue) and Poa compressa (Canada bluegrass), succeeded in establishment following seeding and persisted for at least 40 years. Poa pratensis (Kentucky bluegrass) dominated many of the ROW sites. Contributing factors to moderate recovery of rough fescue grassland were related to post-growing season pipeline construction, ideally, between August and March, summer or fall seeding, and minimum disturbance trench-only stripping. Reclamation practices appeared more important than time since restoration in the restoration of rough fescue grassland.

Urban stormwater quality control analysis with detention ponds.

This paper presents methodologies for the development of stormwater quality control measures based on the derived probability distribution approach. These stormwater control measures, such as the fraction of pollutant removed from storage facilities, are closed-form analytical models and can be effectively used to evaluate pollutant loads to receiving waters. In this study, a simple form of rainfall-runoff transformation with lumped parameters is first extended to take into account the spatial variations in model parameters. Second, the infiltration process is further incorporated to the rainfall-runoff transformation. This study demonstrates that analytical models can be developed with various levels of complexity based on different hydrologic considerations. The performance of the analytical models is evaluated in a case study, and the results indicate that, with an appropriately formulated rainfall-runoff transformation, analytical stormwater runoff models are capable of providing comparable results to continuous simulation models in the evaluation of the long-term performance of storage facilities.