Learning from Las Vegas: Unions and post-industrial urbanisation

Las Vegas is often portrayed as the apogee of postmodern urbanism, but we argue that you cannot understand Las Vegas without understanding the role of unions in the City’s political economy. By focusing on the social relations surrounding workplace, class, and gender we highlight alternative versions of Las Vegas’ history. The Culinary Union, a UNITE HERE local, has introduced new institutional forms and played an active role in the local growth coalition. They have set standards around work intensity, training, and job ladders. Highlighting the ability of the union to affect these issues contributes to a counter-narrative about the City which stresses the agency of labour to actively produce Las Vegas’ cultural and economic landscapes. The postmodern narrative about Las Vegas hides these important lessons. Learning from Las Vegas can transform issues of signs and symbolism to issues of union organising and institutional structures in the post-industrial economy. This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available via SAGE at http://usj.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/06/16/0042098014536787

Wisdom of artificial crowds feature selection in untargeted metabolomics: An application to the development of a blood-based diagnostic test for thrombotic myocardial infarction

Introduction: Heart disease remains a leading cause of global mortality. While acute myocardial infarction (colloquially: heart attack), has multiple proximate causes, proximate etiology cannot be determined by a blood-based diagnostic test. We enrolled a suitable patient cohort and conducted a non-targeted quantification of plasma metabolites by mass spectrometry for developing a test that can differentiate between thrombotic MI, non-thrombotic MI, and stable disease. A significant challenge in developing such a diagnostic test is solving the NP-hard problem of feature selection for constructing an optimal statistical classifier. Objective: We employed a Wisdom of Artificial Crowds (WoAC) strategy for solving the feature selection problem and evaluated the accuracy and parsimony of downstream classifiers in comparison with traditional feature selection techniques including the Lasso and selection using Random Forest variable importance criteria. Materials and methods: Artificial Crowd Wisdom was generated via aggregation of the best solutions from independent and diverse genetic algorithm populations that were initialized with bootstrapping and a random subspaces constraint. Results/Conclusions: Strong evidence was observed that a statistical classifier utilizing WoAC feature selection can discriminate between human subjects presenting with thrombotic MI, non-thrombotic MI, and stable Coronary Artery Disease given abundances of selected plasma metabolites. Utilizing the abundances of twenty selected metabolites, a leave-one-out cross-validation estimated misclassification rate of 2.6% was observed. However, the WoAC feature selection strategy did not perform better than the Lasso over the current study

Association Between Residential Greenness and Cardiovascular Disease Risk

Background Exposure to green vegetation has been linked to positive health, but the pathophysiological processes affected by exposure to vegetation remain unclear. To study the relationship between greenness and cardiovascular disease, we examined the association between residential greenness and biomarkers of cardiovascular injury and disease risk in susceptible individuals. Methods and Results In this cross-sectional study of 408 individuals recruited from a preventive cardiology clinic, we measured biomarkers of cardiovascular injury and risk in participant blood and urine. We estimated greenness from satellite-derived normalized difference vegetation index ( NDVI ) in zones with radii of 250 m and 1 km surrounding the participants' residences. We used generalized estimating equations to examine associations between greenness and cardiovascular disease biomarkers. We adjusted for residential clustering, demographic, clinical, and environmental variables. In fully adjusted models, contemporaneous NDVI within 250 m of participant residence was inversely associated with urinary levels of epinephrine (-6.9%; 95% confidence interval, -11.5, -2.0/0.1 NDVI ) and F2-isoprostane (-9.0%; 95% confidence interval, -15.1, -2.5/0.1 NDVI ). We found stronger associations between NDVI and urinary epinephrine in women, those not on β-blockers, and those who had not previously experienced a myocardial infarction. Of the 15 subtypes of circulating angiogenic cells examined, 11 were inversely associated (8.0-15.6% decrease/0.1 NDVI ), whereas 2 were positively associated (37.6-45.8% increase/0.1 NDVI ) with contemporaneous NDVI . Conclusions Independent of age, sex, race, smoking status, neighborhood deprivation, statin use, and roadway exposure, residential greenness is associated with lower levels of sympathetic activation, reduced oxidative stress, and higher angiogenic capacity

ERP correlates of error processing during performance on the HalsteadCategory Test

The Halstead Category Test (HCT) is a neuropsychological test that measures a person's ability to formulate and apply abstract principles. Performance must be adjusted based on feedback after each trial and errors are common until the underlying rules are discovered. Event-related potential (ERP) studies associated with the HCT are lacking. This paper demonstrates the use of amethodology inspired on Singular SpectrumAnalysis (SSA) applied to EEG signals, to remove high amplitude ocular andmovement artifacts during performance on the test. This filtering technique introduces no phase or latency distortions, with minimum loss of relevant EEG information. Importantly, the test was applied in its original clinical format, without introducing adaptations to ERP recordings. After signal treatment, the feedback-related negativity (FRN) wave, which is related to error-processing, was identified. This component peaked around 250ms, after feedback, in fronto-central electrodes. As expected, errors elicited more negative amplitudes than correct responses. Results are discussed in terms of the increased clinical potential that coupling ERP informationwith behavioral performance data can bring to the specificity of theHCT in diagnosing different types of impairment in frontal brain function.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Presence of multiple coronary angiographic characteristics for the diagnosis of acute coronary thrombus

Background: Coronary angiography is frequently employed to aid in the diagnosis of acute coronary thrombosis, but there is limited data to support its efficacy. The aim of the study was to evaluate sensitivity and specificity of five commonly used angiographic characteristics for diagnosis of acute coronary thrombosis: Ambrose complex lesion morphology; spherical, ovoid, or irregular filling defect; abrupt vessel cutoff; intraluminal staining; and any coronary filling defect. Methods: Coronary angiography of 80 acute myocardial infarction or stable coronary artery disease subjects were assessed in blinded fashion, for the presence or absence of five angiographic characteristics. Only lesions of ≥ 10% stenosis were included in the analysis. Presence or absence of each angiographic characteristic was compared between lesions with or without the following study defined outcomes: 1) histologically confirmed thrombus, 2) highly probable thrombus, and 3) highly unlikely thrombus. Results: A total of 323 lesions were evaluated. All studied angiographic characteristics were associated with histologically confirmed and highly probable thrombotic lesions vs. lesions not meeting criteria for these outcomes (p < 0.03), except for complex Ambrose morphology which was not associated with any of the study outcomes (p > 0.05). Specificity for identifying histologically confirmed or highly probable thrombotic lesion was high (92–100%), especially for spherical, ovoid, or irregular filling defect (99–100%) and intraluminal staining (99%). Sensitivity for identification of histologically confirmed or highly probable thrombotic lesions was low for all tested angiographic characteristics (17–60%). Conclusions: The presence of spherical, ovoid, or irregular filling defect or intraluminal staining was highly suggestive of coronary thrombus. However, none of the evaluated angiographic characteristics were useful for ruling out the presence of coronary thrombus. If confirmed in an independent cohort, these angiographic characteristic will be of significant value in confirming the diagnosis of acute coronary thrombosis.

National Trends in Cessation Counseling, Prescription Medication Use, and Associated Costs Among US Adult Cigarette Smokers

Importance: Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States. When used separately or in combination, smoking cessation counseling and cessation medications have been associated with increased cessation rates. Objectives: To present trends in self-reported receipt of physician advice to quit smoking and in use of prescription smoking cessation medication along with their associated expenditures among a nationally representative sample of active adult smokers in the United States. Design, Setting, and Participants: This repeated cross-sectional study of US adults aged 18 years or older was conducted from July 5, 2018, through August 15, 2018. Data were collected between January 1, 2006, and December 31, 2015, from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, an annual US survey of individuals and families, health care personnel, and employers. Participants (n = 29 106) were noninstitutionalized civilians who were randomly drawn from the respondents of the previous year’s National Health Interview Survey. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to examine the associations between sociodemographic factors and receipt of physician cessation advice and use of cessation prescription medication. A 2-part econometric model was used to assess health care expenditures. Main Outcomes and Measures: Trends in self-reported receipt of physician advice to quit and uptake of prescription smoking cessation medications with associated total and out-of-pocket expenditures. Results: The study sample consisted of 29 106 participants, with a mean (SD) age of 57 (10) years and a composition of 13 670 women (47.0%). The results were weighted to provide estimates for 31.2 million active adult cigarette smokers. The proportion of smokers who reported receiving physician advice to quit increased from 60.2% (95% CI, 58.5%-62.0%) in 2006 to 2007 to 64.9% (95% CI, 62.8%-66.9%) in 2014 to 2015, with a P for trend = .001. The odds of receiving physician cessation advice was statistically significantly higher in women (odds ratio [OR], 1.50; 95% CI, 1.39-1.59) and lower among uninsured participants (OR, 0.58; 95% CI, 0.52-0.65). Overall, prescription smoking cessation medication use decreased with a corresponding reduction in total expenditures from $146 million (out-of-pocket cost,$46 million) in 2006 to 2007 to $73 million (out-of-pocket cost,$9 million) in 2014 to 2015. Male (odds ratio [OR], 0.78; 95% CI, 0.66-0.91), uninsured (OR, 0.58; 95% CI, 0.41-0.83), and racial/ethnic minority (African American: OR, 0.51 [95% CI, 0.38-0.69]; Asian: OR, 0.31 [95% CI, 0.10-0.93]; Hispanic: OR, 0.53 [95% CI, 0.36-0.78]) participants were less likely to use prescription smoking cessation medications. Conclusions and Relevance: The lower rates of delivery of physician advice to quit smoking and the lower uptake of known prescription smoking cessation medications among men, younger adults, uninsured individuals, racial/ethnic minority groups, and those without smoking-associated comorbidities may be associated with the higher smoking rates among these subgroups despite an all-time low prevalence of smoking in the United States; this finding calls for a more targeted implementation of smoking cessation guidelines

Growing old in England: economic and social issues

This paper examines the economic and social impact of changes in the duration of working life for the 80 per cent of older adults living in urban England. While some people are experiencing extended retirement because of moving out of paid work in their fifties, a growing minority of those beyond the state retirement age continue in paid employment. This paper highlights the considerable challenges for urban policy makers in addressing the economic and social inclusion of all older adults