Spirituality and substance use in a sample of Russian adolescents.

AIM: The aim was to examine the effects of spirituality on recent cigarette and alcohol use, intentions to use cigarette and alcohol, and perceived risks of cigarette/alcohol use in a sample of Russian adolescents. METHODS: Cross-sectional data were obtained from 362 10th graders from Ufa, Russia. RESULTS: Adolescents scoring higher on spirituality were significantly more likely to report lower levels of intentions to use cigarettes or alcohol. However, spirituality was not associated with recent cigarette/alcohol use or perceived risks. Analyzed separately for ethnic Russians and non-Russians, the relationship between spirituality and intentions were significant only among ethnic non-Russians. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggests that the protective effects of spirituality on substance use may not be universal and may depend on subjects' national, ethnic, or religious background.

HIV/AIDS prevention in the Nepalese context.

With their numbers now approaching almost 30 million, Nepalese feature importantly in the South Asian demography. Yet, it has been only 60 years since Nepal gained international recognition as a nation-state. Nepal at present is one of the world's poorest countries and is in dire need of development, especially in the area of health. Given the current civil instability coupled with rapid modernization, the health and well-being of the Nepalese people have been increasingly affected by newer threats, such as HIV/AIDS. The present study discusses the uniqueness of the Nepalese context in relation to HIV/AIDS prevention. The authors suggest that HIV/AIDS prevention programs in Nepal should now focus more on adolescents from rural regions. The authors also suggest the ways one may approach the task of developing a prevention program targeting rural youths.

Effectiveness of porous covers for control of ammonia, reduced sulfur compounds, total hydrocarbons, selected volatile organic compounds, and odor from hog manure storage lagoons.

Anaerobic lagoons are a major source of odor at concentrated animal feeding operations. Seven different kinds of artificial (geotextile and polyethylene foam) and natural (straw and redwood) permeable lagoon covers were evaluated for their potential to reduce odorous emissions generated by anaerobic waste lagoons. A novel floating sampling raft was constructed and used to simultaneously evaluate the effectiveness of lagoon covers on an operating swine waste lagoon. The air collected from the raft was evaluated for odor, total reduced sulfur (TRS) compounds, ammonia, total hydrocarbons, dimethyldisulfide, and trimethylamine. The emission rates from the lagoon were highly variable both temporally and spatially. All of the lagoon covers substantially reduced TRS emissions and odor. Geotextile fabric and a recycled foam cover exhibited the greatest reduction in total hydrocarbon emissions; natural covers were less effective. Because of consistently low emission rates of ammonia, no statistically significant reduction of ammonia emissions were observed from any of the lagoon covers.