The effects of latent variables in the development of comorbidity among common mental disorders

Background: Although numerous studies have examined the role of latent predispositions to internalizing and externalizing disorders in the structure of comorbidity among common mental disorders, none examined latent predispositions in predicting development of comorbidity. Methods: A novel method was used to study the role of latent variables in the development of comorbidity among lifetime DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Surveys. Broad preliminary findings are briefly presented to describe the method. The method used survival analysis to estimate time-lagged associations among 18 lifetime DSM-IV anxiety, mood, behavior, and substance disorders. A novel estimation approach examined the extent to which these predictive associations could be explained by latent canonical variables representing internalizing and externalizing disorders. Results: Consistently significant positive associations were found between temporally primary and secondary disorders. Within-domain time-lagged associations were generally stronger than between-domain associations. The vast majority of associations were explained by a model that assumed mediating effects of latent internalizing and externalizing variables, although the complexity of this model differed across samples. A number of intriguing residual associations emerged that warrant further investigation. Conclusions: The good fit of the canonical model suggests that common causal pathways account for most comorbidity among the disorders considered. These common pathways should be the focus of future research on the development of comorbidity. However, the existence of several important residual associations shows that more is involved than simple mediation. The method developed to carry out these analyses provides a unique way to pinpoint these significant residual associations for subsequent focused study. Depression and Anxiety, 2011. (c) 2011 Wiley-Liss, Inc

Recent KTEV Results

Preliminary KTEV results are presented based on the 1997 data set, and include an improved measurement of Re(e'/e), CPT tests, and precise measurements of Tau_S and Delta M.Comment: Proceedings for Lepton Photon 200

Missing Records: Holes in Background Check System Allow Illegal Buyers to Get Guns

This report takes a look at the state of the background check system in the wake of the most lethal gun crime in American history -- one with direct relevance to the troubles with the background check system. An illegal buyer, Seung-Hui Cho, was able to pass a background check because his data was missing from the system. He purchased two firearms which he used to kill 32 people and wound 29 others at Virginia Tech University. In this report, we conclude that the background check system is better and more accurate than five years ago, but still deeply flawed, particularly in certain areas like mental health disqualifications. Dangerous holes in the system remain because states have not adequately completed the important tasks of collecting and automating all of the records necessary to disqualify illegal gun buyers from passing a check to obtain a firearm. On the positive side, the records of those who have committed felony crimes or have directed violence toward women have shown significant improvement. On the negative side, it is still virtually impossible to stop a person who has been involuntarily committed to a mental institution from passing a background check and buying a gun

Latinas in the Kitchen: The Rhetoric of Food and Desire

Abstract: Even though the commodification of women by linking them erotically to food has been accepted for decades and used by women themselves to manipulate men and their desires, this has, in turn, led to behavioral and psychological problems. Using feminist as well as psychoanalytical criticism and theory by authors such as Nancy Chodorow, Nydia Garcia-Preto, Elspeth Probyn, Sigmund Freud, and others, “Latinas in the Kitchen: The Rhetoric of Food and Desire” explores how addiction to food and sex leads to unsuitable ways to satisfy one’s needs. Beginning with untreated emotional abuse that leads to inappropriate behavior between a father and daughter and that was caused by emotional abandonment by the daughter’s mother, readers can begin to develop an image of why a child grows into a woman who has an insatiable need for both sex and food. And even if a woman recognizes that she has a problem, failure to seek help from a psychiatrist can lead to a life of misery and an inability to understand why she behaves the way she does. This article argues that Lourdes Puentes, the major character in Christina Garcia’s novel Dreaming in Cuban, employs dysfunctional eating habits as sublimation of her sexual desire, and the text reveals rhetoric associated with the desire for both food and sex to disguise Lourdes Puentes’s sexual repression and her inability to solve personal problems

Monte Carlo Study of Ordering and Domain Growth in a Class of fcc-Alloy Models

Ordering processes in fcc-alloys with composition A_3B (like Cu_3Au, Cu_3Pd, CoPt_3 etc.) are investigated by Monte Carlo simulation within a class of lattice models based on nearest-neighbor (NN) and second-neighbor (NNN) interactions. Using an atom-vacancy exchange algorithm, we study the growth of ordered domains following a temperature quench below the ordering spinodal. For zero NNN-interactions we observe an anomalously slow growth of the domain size L(t) \sim t^\alpha, where \alpha \sim 1/4 within our accessible timescales. With increasing NNN-interactions domain growth becomes faster and \alpha gradually approaches the value 1/2 as predicted by the conventional Lifshitz-Allen-Cahn theory.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Holomorphic shadows in the eyes of model theory

We define a subset of an almost complex manifold (M,J) to be a holomorphic shadow if it is the image of a J-holomorphic map from a compact complex manifold. Notice that a J-holomorphic curve is a holomorphic shadow, and so is a complex subvariety of a compact complex manifold. We show that under some conditions on an almost complex structure J on a manifold M, the holomorphic shadows in the Cartesian products of (M,J) form a Zariski-type structure. Checking this leads to non-trivial geometric questions and results. We then apply the work of Hrushovski and Zilber on Zariski-type structures. We also restate results of Gromov and McDuff on J-holomorphic curves in symplectic geometry in the language of shadows structures.Comment: Changed and added conten

The Impact of Covid-19 on Future Higher-Age Mortality

Covid-19 has predominantly affected mortality at high ages. It kills by inflaming and clogging the air sacs in the lungs, depriving the body of oxygen ‒ inducing hypoxia ‒ which closes down essential organs, in particular the heart, kidneys and liver, and causes blood clots (which can lead to stroke or pulmonary embolism) and neurological malfunction. Evidence from different countries points to the fact that people who die from Covid-19 are often, but not always, much less healthy than the average for their age group. This is true for England & Wales – the two countries we focus on in this study. The implication is that the years of life lost through early death are less than the average for each age group, with how much less being a source of considerable debate. We argue that many of those who die from coronavirus would have died anyway in the relatively near future due to their existing frailties or co-morbidities. We demonstrate how to capture this link to poorer-than-average health using a model in which individual deaths are ‘accelerated’ ahead of schedule due to Covid-19. The model structure and its parameterization build on the observation that Covid-19 mortality by age is approximately proportional to all-cause mortality. This, in combination with current predictions of total deaths, results in the important conclusion that, everything else being equal, the impact of Covid-19 on the mortality rates of the surviving population will be very modest. Specifically, the degree of anti-selection is likely to be very small, since the life expectancy of survivors does not increase by a significant amount over pre-pandemic levels. We also analyze the degree to which Covid-19 mortality varies with socio-economic status. Headline statistics suggest that the most deprived groups have been disproportionately affected by Covid-19. However, once we control for regional differences in mortality rates, Covid-19 deaths in both the most and least deprived groups are also proportional to the all-cause mortality of these groups. However, the groups in between have approximately 10-15% lower Covid-19 deaths compared with their all-cause mortality. We argue that useful lessons about the potential pattern of accelerated deaths from Covid-19 can be drawn from examining deaths from respiratory diseases, especially at different age ranges. We also argue that it is possible to draw useful lessons about volatility spikes in Covid-19 deaths from examining past seasonal flu epidemics. However, there is an important difference. Whereas the spikes in seasonal flu increase with age, our finding that Covid-19 death rates are approximately proportional to all-cause mortality suggests that any spike in Covid-19 mortality in percentage terms would be similar across all age ranges. Finally, we discuss some of the indirect consequences for future mortality of the pandemic and the ‘lockdown’ measures governments have imposed to contain it. For example, there is evidence that some surviving patients at all ages who needed intensive care could end up with a new impairment, such as organ damage, which will reduce their life expectancy. There is also evidence that many people in lockdown did not seek a timely medical assessment for a potential new illness, such as cancer, or deferred seeking treatment for an existing serious illness, with the consequence that non-Covid-19-related mortality rates could increase in future. Self-isolation during lockdown has contributed to an increase in alcohol and drug consumption by some people which might, in turn, reduce their life expectancy. If another consequence of the pandemic is a recession and/or an acceleration in job automation, resulting in long-term unemployment, then this could lead to so-called ‘deaths of despair’ in future. Other people, by contrast, might permanently change their social behaviour or seek treatments that delay the impact or onset of age-related diseases, one of the primary factors that make people more susceptible to the virus – both of which could have the effect of increasing their life expectancy. It is, however, too early to quantify these possibilities, although it is conceivable that these indirect consequences could have a bigger impact on future average life expectancy than the direct consequences measured by the accelerated deaths model