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Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Two impulsivity-related traits, negative and positive urgency (i.e., the tendency to act rashly in the face of extreme negative and positive emotions, respectively) are important risk factors for alcohol use escalation during college and for problematic and disordered level alcohol use, in part through increasing motives for alcohol use. The majority of research to date has focused on the causal direction from trait to motives to alcohol consumption. The goal of the current study was to conduct an initial test of how continued and escalating alcohol use may drive increases and shifts in positive and negative urgency, and how such changes drive subsequent increased drinking motives over the first year of college. Data were analyzed using an archival dataset of 418 first-year college students (age 18-21) enrolled in an introduction to psychology course at a large Midwestern university. Participants were sampled at three timepoints: at the beginning of the fall semester, the end of the fall semester, and the end of the spring semester. A series of hierarchical multiple regression and mediation analyses were used to test study hypotheses. Changes in alcohol use did not predict later changes in positive and negative urgency. Results did replicate previous research showing that changes in positive and negative urgency predicted later changes in drinking motives. Finally, there was some evidence that alcohol use at baseline predicted changes in enhancement drinking motives through changes in positive urgency; but this pattern was not seen with negative urgency. This work extends existing work with urgency theory, which has primarily focused on the effects of urgency on subsequent alcohol consumption and not the inverse. The fact that alcohol use drives subsequent changes in positive urgency and drinking motives can help to better identify mechanisms contributing increased risk for transition to problematic levels of alcohol consumption, can lead to better identification of those at risk for problematic alcohol use and can set the stage to better integrate urgency theory with other well-established alcohol risk models.

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Three studies were conducted to investigate dispositional and environmental factors related to alcohol consumption during 21st birthday celebrations, and test an internet-based intervention designed to reduce alcohol consumption during 21st birthday celebrations (21BDCs). Results of Study 1 indicated the majority of alcoholic beverages (79.3%) are consumed rapidly. Rapid consumption was positively related to drinking history and normative perceptions, and negatively related to perceptions of behavioral control. The relation between sociocultural beliefs and rapid consumption are mediated by normative perceptions and perceptions of behavioral control. The major objectives of Study 2 were to explore: a) 21BDC planning behaviors and the physical and social 21BDC environment, b) the relation between intoxication and planning behaviors, celebratory behaviors, and the 21BDC environment, and c) the frequency of various alcohol-related negative outcomes. Results indicate 26.4% of the participants exceeded an eBAL of .26. Intoxication during 21BDCs is enabled by the availability of free drinks, and having a friend to look after oneself or monitor alcohol consumption does not lead to lower levels of intoxication. The most frequent negative outcomes were hangovers, blackouts and vomiting, with 50% of celebrants experiencing at least one of these outcomes. Study 3 tested a web-based intervention designed to reduce intoxication and negative outcomes during 21BDCs. The intervention was implemented four weeks before the 21st birthday, was designed to: a) change perceptions of drinking norms during 21st birthday celebrations, b) increase perceptions of behavioral control over alcohol consumption, and c) counter social pressures to consumer alcohol during the weeks leading up to the celebration. Results indicated no significant reductions in number of alcoholic beverages consumed, intoxication or negative outcomes, as compared to a traditional 21st birthday card intervention and no-intervention controls. While students were not motivated to implement many of the suggested harm-reduction strategies, there was a significant increase in the consumption of food and non-alcoholic beverages among participants receiving the web-based intervention. Development and implementation of effective interventions to reduce intoxication during 21BDC remains a significant challenge. / Ph. D.

OF THE THESIS Name: Bc. Veronika Coufalová, DiS. Specialization: Adictology Head of the thesis: Mgr. Jaroslav Vacek Opponent: Ing., Mgr., Bc. Vendula Běláčková Pages: 83 The name of the thesis: EFFECT OF PARTIAL PROHIBITION ON RESTAURANTS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF EMPLOYEES: A QUALITATIVE INVESTIGATION This thesis deals with how the prohibition reflected in the attitudes and behavior of employees and the behavior of consumers in restaurants and bars. The theoretical part is focused on the main substances alcohol and methanol, next on the related topics methanol cases and related facts in criminology. Another chapter is aimed at the prohibition in the country. The research was carried out through qualitative methods of data collection, which was formulated in the form of interviews, which were designed according to the draft of the questionnaire. This research was anonymous, respondents were informed of the ethical rules and the possibility of withdrawing from the research file. Next were used methods expert estimates for research changes in behavior and the method of triangulation. In the research was included 30 restaurants and bars selected nomination technique. Results are evaluated on the basis of data transferred from the audio recording into Excel spreadsheets, where it was possible to insert...

Excessive alcohol is the third leading lifestyle-related cause of death in the United States. Alcohol intoxication has a significant effect on how the human body operates, and is especially harmful to the human brain and heart. To help individuals to monitor their alcohol intoxication, several methods have been proposed to detect alcohol consumption levels including direct Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) measurement by breathalyzers and various wearable sensor devices. More recently, Arnold et al proposed a machine-learning-based method of passively inferring intoxication levels from gait data by classifying smartphone accelerometer readings. Their work utilized 11 smartphone accelerometer features in the time and frequency domains, achieving a classification accuracy of 57%. This thesis extends the work of Arnold et al by extracting and comparing the efficacy of a more comprehensive list of 27 signal processing features in the time, frequency, wavelet, statistical and information theory domains, evaluating how much using them improves the accuracy of supervised BAC classification of accelerometer gait data. Correlation-based Feature Selection (CFS) is used to identify and rank features most correlated with alcohol-induced gait changes. 22 of the 27 features investigated showed statistically significant correlations with BAC levels. The most correlated features were then used to classify labeled samples of intoxicated gait data in order to test their detection accuracy. Statistical features had the best classification accuracy of 83.89%, followed by time domain features and frequency domain features follow with accuracies of 83.22% and 82.21%, respectively. Classification using all 22 statistically significant signal processing features yielded an accuracy of 84.9% for the Random Forest classifier.

Tidigare forskning som undersökt relationen mellan alkoholkonsumtion, Big Five personlighetsfaktorerna samt känsla av sammanhang utfördes med fokus på riskbruk eller på populationer utanför Sverige. Därför testade denna studie samband mellan alkoholkonsumtion och (a) Big Five personlighetsfaktorerna, (b) KASAM, (c) utbildning samt demografiska variablerna (d) kön och ålder bland högskolestudenter i Sverige. Resultatet kan bidra till forskning om alkoholkonsumtion samt vara av intresse för initiativ som försöker begränsa alkoholkonsumtion. Urvalet bestod av 115 deltagare (64 kvinnor, 50 män och 1 ospecificerad. M = 24.64 år SD 4.27 år). Alkoholkonsumtion mättes med AUDIT-C, Big Five mättes med BFM och KASAM mättes med SOC-13. Alkoholkonsumtion korrelerade signifikant endast med en variabel, extravertion. Negativa korrelationer fanns mellan variabeln riskbruk av alkohol och variablerna KASAM och kön, i riskgruppen fanns fler kvinnor än män. Eftersom urvalet i riskgruppen var lågt hade det varit intressant för framtida forskning att undersöka denna relation igen med högre deltagarantal.

This dissertation attempts to uncover the causal relationship between alcohol abuse and both income growth and crime. These two research questions are investigated in three essays: Essay I investigates the relationship between alcohol abuse and income growth in the United States; Essay II examines the impact of alcohol abuse on income growth at the international level; Essay III investigates the effect of alcohol abuse on crime in the united states. Essay I of this dissertation uses state level data from the United States for the period 1970-1998 to estimate the impact of alcohol abuse on income growth by utilizing per capita beer consumption as the measure of alcohol abuse. Results suggest that, even though generally small, there is a negative relationship between alcohol abuse and income growth once the endogeneity between income growth and per capita beer consumption is addressed by utilizing levels of excise alcohol taxes and the Minimum Drinking Age Law of 21 as instruments. These results indirectly favor the previous research on two dimensions: First, alcohol abuse generates a significant burden on the economy; Second, increases in excise alcohol taxes would be efficient in terms of income growth. Essay II of this dissertation uses data from 72 countries for the period 1960-1995 to estimate the impact of alcohol abuse on income growth by utilizing per capita beer, wine, liquor, and total ethanol consumption as the measures of alcohol abuse. Results suggest that, even though generally small, there is a negative significant relationship between per capita beer consumption and income growth once the endogeneity between income growth and per capita beer consumption is addressed with system GMM dynamic panel estimators. These results show that per capita beer consumption is the medium of alcohol abuse not only in the United States, but also around the world. Moreover, these results favor the previous research on the fact that alcohol abuse generates a significant burden on economies. Essay III of this dissertation uses state level data from the United States for the period 1982-2000 to investigate the relationship between crime and alcohol abuse by utilizing per capita beer consumption as the measure of alcohol abuse. Potential endogeneity between per capita beer consumption and crime is addressed by using excise beer taxes and alcohol control measures as instruments. Results show that alcohol abuse seems to have a positive impact overall on the crime rate. Nevertheless, the effect is not uniform among different crime types. In the case of property crime types, results suggest that alcohol abuse plays a more important role in crime types that require a lesser degree of organization and more spontaneity (i.e., larceny theft versus burglary and motor vehicle theft). In the case of violent crime types, results suggest that the impact of alcohol abuse is more pressing in non-murder crime types versus murder. These results have policy implications: excise alcohol taxes and alcohol control policies may play a role in reducing certain crime types, which are larceny theft, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, but not the other crime types, which are burglary, motor vehicle theft, and murder.

Recent studies indicate that alcohol consumption may affect economic outcomes through its effects on health capital and social capital. If, in fact, differences in economic outcomes are causally linked to differences in alcohol consumption, then lack of adequate insight into such connectivity may adversely affect the labor market and retirement outcomes of some groups of individuals in society. In two essays, this dissertation examines the impact of alcohol consumption on wealth at retirement using data from the RAND Health and Retirement Study (HRS) from 1992 through 2002; and the effects of alcohol consumption on employment duration and earnings using the Geocode version of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY1979) micro dataset from 1984 through 1996. This dissertation relies on Grossman's 1972 health capital model. Empirically, the research relies on panel data methods and duration analysis to determine whether differences in economic outcomes can be explained by differences in alcohol consumption. The results indicate that drinking is positively related to improved socioeconomic outcomes as compared to total abstention, when endogeneity has not been taken into account under both duration analysis and panel data methods. When endogeneity is taken into account, alcohol consumption tends to shorten the duration of employment via survival analysis. Also, estimation via instrumental variables approach indicates that the relationship between alcohol consumption and socioeconomic outcomes (retirement wealth and earnings) is rather an inverted U-shaped for some panel data specifications. Moreover, the effects of alcohol consumption on retirement wealth and earnings tend to diminish with instrumental variables approach. These findings did not change even with abstainers partitioned into lifetime abstainers and infrequent or light drinkers (less than one drinking day per week).

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