The Patterns of Drug and Alcohol Use and Associated Problems Over 30 Years in 397 Men

BackgroundAlcohol and drug use disorders (AUDs and SUDs) and their combination are relatively common and often occur together. However, the relationships of potential early life correlates of alcohol and drug disorders to the combined diagnoses have rarely been evaluated in long-term prospective studies or in populations at high risk of one of these diagnoses but not the other.MethodsData were analyzed from 397 males (half with an alcohol-dependent father) who had no AUDs or SUDs at age 20 and who were followed approximately every 5 years for 3 decades. Early life correlates and the course of AUDs, SUDs, and combined disorders were evaluated for 4 groups of subjects based on subsequent alcohol and/or drug diagnoses.ResultsWhile the overall rates of the development of AUDs and SUDs were 41 and 21%, respectively, the rates of the second substance-related diagnosis were almost 2-fold higher for individuals who had the first condition. Among potential risk factors, scores for externalizing traits were elevated for men with AUDs, SUDs, and their combination, but a low level of response (low LR) to alcohol was associated only with the risk of AUDs, even when observed in the context of SUDs. The same earlier life characteristics that related to AUDs and to SUDs also related to the combination of these diagnoses in the same person. Finally, in this prospective study, subjects with both AUDs and SUDs had a more severe course than subjects with either condition alone.ConclusionsThis prospective evaluation of a group at high risk of AUDs confirmed the selective impact of the low LR on the risk of AUDs, the relationship of externalizing characteristics to both AUDs and SUDs and confirmed the more severe clinical course for both conditions when seen together

Balance in Family Triads:How Intergenerational Relationships Affect the Adult Sibling Relationship

In order to understand the interdependency between intergenerational and adult sibling relationships, a family systems perspective is applied to identify a smaller?empirically analyzable?relational unit of analysis, that is, the sibling?parent?sibling triad. Using balance theory, triadic configurations are derived that represent enhancement, compensation, and loyalty conflicts. The hypotheses are tested for three relational dimensions: support exchange, contact, and conflict. Multilevel analyses of 549 sibling?parent?sibling triads from the Netherlands Kinship Panel data show strong evidence for enhancement, whereas some indication was obtained for sibling relationships being affected by loyalty conflicts. The results underscore and substantiate interdependency between intergenerational and adult sibling relationships

No alignment of cattle along geomagnetic field lines found

This paper presents a study of the body orientation of domestic cattle on free pastures in several European states, based on Google satellite photographs. In sum, 232 herds with 3412 individuals were evaluated. Two independent groups participated in our study and came to the same conclusion that, in contradiction to the recent findings of other researchers, no alignment of the animals and of their herds along geomagnetic field lines could be found. Several possible reasons for this discrepancy should be taken into account: poor quality of Google satellite photographs, difficulties in determining the body axis, selection of herds or animals within herds, lack of blinding in the evaluation, possible subconscious bias, and, most importantly, high sensitivity of the calculated main directions of the Rayleigh vectors to some kind of bias or to some overlooked or ignored confounder. This factor could easily have led to an unsubstantiated positive conclusion about the existence of magnetoreception.Comment: Added electronic supplement with source dat

Underwater robots equipped with artificial electric sense for the exploration of unconventional aquatic niches

International audienceThis article presents different use of the electric field perception in the context of underwater robot navigation. To illustrate the developed navigation behaviours we will introduce a recently launched european project named subCULTron and will show some simulation and experimentation results. The project sub- CULTron aims at achieving long-term collective robot exploration and monitoring of underwater environments. The demonstration will take place in the lagoon of Venice, a large shallow embayment composed of salt turbib water that represents a challenging environment for underwater robots as common sensor like vision or acoustic are difficult to handle. To overcome turbidity and confinement problems our robots will be equipped with artificial electric sensors that will be used as the main sensorial modality for navigation. Electric sense is a bio-inspired sense that has been developed by several species of fish living in turbib and confined underwater environment. In this paper, many different robotic behaviours based on the electric field perception will be presented, in particular we will address reactive navigation, object/robots detection, and object localization and estimation

A new model for magnetoreception

Certain migratory birds can sense the earth's magnetic field. The nature of this process is not yet properly understood. Here we offer a simple explanation according to which birds literally `see' the local magnetic field: Our model relates the well-established radical pair hypothesis to the phenomenon of Haidinger's brush, a capacity to see the polarisation of light. This new picture explains recent surprising experimental data indicating long lifetimes for the radical pair. Moreover there is a clear evolutionary path toward this field sensing mechanism: it is an enhancement of a weak effect that may be present in many species.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, version of final published pape

A prospective study on cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate, and cognitive function in the elderly

The objective of this study was to investigate the relation between the peripheral concentrations of the adrenal steroid hormones cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) and cognitive impairment and decline. A prospective study design was used. The setting was a suburb of Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The study population consisted of a sample of 189 healthy participants from the population-based Rotterdam Study, aged 55-80 yr, who were invited for an additional examination. Follow-up examinations took place 1.9 yr after baseline, on the average. We determined fasting blood levels of DHEAS before dexamethasone administration and of cortisol and corticosteroid-binding globulin before and after the administration of 1 mg dexamethasone overnight. The 30-point Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) was used to assess cognition. The associations with cognitive impairment (MMSE score of <26; 6% of the sample) and cognitive decline (drop in MMSE score of >1 point