Incremental and Predictive Validity of the Antisocial Process Screening Device in a Community Sample of Male and Female Ethnic Minority and Caucasian Youth

The Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD) is a well-supported tool for assessing psychopathic features in youth. However, most research with the APSD has been derived from clinical and forensic samples comprised mainly of male Caucasian and African American adolescents. In this prospective study, the incremental and predictive validity of the self-report APSD for violent and non-violent offending was examined in an ethnically diverse community sample of male and female youth (N = 335) aged 12 to 14. High-school students from a moderate sized city in Western Canada completed the self-report APSD and then completed the Self-Report of Offending 6 months later. Receiver Operating Characteristics analysis indicated that APSD total and subscale scores were predictive of violent and non-violent offending at 6-month follow-up with moderate to large effect sizes. In addition, total scores on the APSD added incremental predictive utility above and beyond traditional criminogenic predictors of youth offending (i.e., prior offending, delinquent peer affiliation, poor school achievement, substance use, low parental monitoring). Although sex differences emerged in the predictive utility of the Impulsivity subscale of the APSD vis-à-vis violent offending, sex did not moderate the relationship between APSD total, Narcissism, or Callous/Unemotional scores and offending. In addition, the predictive utility of the APSD did not vary as a function of the youth’s ethnic background. These findings suggest that: (1) the self-report APSD may have utility for risk or threat assessment with normative school populations, (2) APSD findings from higher risk samples generalize to a lower risk sample of high-school youth, and (3) predictive utility of APSD total scores do not differ across male and female Caucasian and ethnic minority youth. &nbsp

Student gambling, erroneous cognitions, and awareness of treatment in Scotland

Rates of probable pathological gambling in colleges and universities across Scotland were investigated with a nationally distributed sample consisting of students (n = 1,483) and members of staff (n = 492). Gambling-related erroneous cognitions (Gambling Beliefs Questionnaire [GBQ]) and gambling severity (South Oaks Gambling Screen [SOGS]) were measured, with additional questions enquiring about awareness of treatments available for gambling problems. Rates of past-year problem and probable pathological gambling for students were 4.0% and 3.9%, respectively. An exploratory factor analysis of the GBQ resulted in a 24-item five-factor model, with gambling severity (as indicated by SOGS scores), indices of increasing gambling involvement (gambling frequency and number of gambling activities), and male gender being positively correlated with higher levels of erroneous cognitions, suggesting erroneous cognitions may not be prominent for females with gambling problems. Less than a fifth of students were aware of where to go to receive help for gambling-related problems

XBP1, Downstream of Blimp-1, Expands the Secretory Apparatus and Other Organelles, and Increases Protein Synthesis in Plasma Cell Differentiation

AbstractThe differentiation of B cells into immunoglobulin-secreting plasma cells is controlled by two transcription factors, Blimp-1 and XBP1. By gene expression profiling, we defined a set of genes whose induction during mouse plasmacytic differentiation is dependent on Blimp-1 and/or XBP1. Blimp-1-deficient B cells failed to upregulate most plasma cell-specific genes, including xbp1. Differentiating xbp1-deficient B cells induced Blimp-1 normally but failed to upregulate genes encoding many secretory pathway components. Conversely, ectopic expression of XBP1 induced a wide spectrum of secretory pathway genes and physically expanded the endoplasmic reticulum. In addition, XBP1 increased cell size, lysosome content, mitochondrial mass and function, ribosome numbers, and total protein synthesis. Thus, XBP1 coordinates diverse changes in cellular structure and function resulting in the characteristic phenotype of professional secretory cells

Phenotype Harmonization in the GLIDE2 Oral Health Genomics Consortium

Genetic risk factors play important roles in the etiology of oral, dental, and craniofacial diseases. Identifying the relevant risk loci and understanding their molecular biology could highlight new prevention and management avenues. Our current understanding of oral health genomics suggests that dental caries and periodontitis are polygenic diseases, and very large sample sizes and informative phenotypic measures are required to discover signals and adequately map associations across the human genome. In this article, we introduce the second wave of the Gene-Lifestyle Interactions and Dental Endpoints consortium (GLIDE2) and discuss relevant data analytics challenges, opportunities, and applications. In this phase, the consortium comprises a diverse, multiethnic sample of over 700,000 participants from 21 studies contributing clinical data on dental caries experience and periodontitis. We outline the methodological challenges of combining data from heterogeneous populations, as well as the data reduction problem in resolving detailed clinical examination records into tractable phenotypes, and describe a strategy that addresses this. Specifically, we propose a 3-tiered phenotyping approach aimed at leveraging both the large sample size in the consortium and the detailed clinical information available in some studies, wherein binary, severity-encompassing, and ?precision,? data-driven clinical traits are employed. As an illustration of the use of data-driven traits across multiple cohorts, we present an application of dental caries experience data harmonization in 8 participating studies (N = 55,143) using previously developed permanent dentition tooth surface?level dental caries pattern traits. We demonstrate that these clinical patterns are transferable across multiple cohorts, have similar relative contributions within each study, and thus are prime targets for genetic interrogation in the expanded and diverse multiethnic sample of GLIDE2. We anticipate that results from GLIDE2 will decisively advance the knowledge base of mechanisms at play in oral, dental, and craniofacial health and disease and further catalyze international collaboration and data and resource sharing in genomics research

Search for Tensor, Vector, and Scalar Polarizations in the Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background

The detection of gravitational waves with Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo has enabled novel tests of general relativity, including direct study of the polarization of gravitational waves. While general relativity allows for only two tensor gravitational-wave polarizations, general metric theories can additionally predict two vector and two scalar polarizations. The polarization of gravitational waves is encoded in the spectral shape of the stochastic gravitational-wave background, formed by the superposition of cosmological and individually unresolved astrophysical sources. Using data recorded by Advanced LIGO during its first observing run, we search for a stochastic background of generically polarized gravitational waves. We find no evidence for a background of any polarization, and place the first direct bounds on the contributions of vector and scalar polarizations to the stochastic background. Under log-uniform priors for the energy in each polarization, we limit the energy densities of tensor, vector, and scalar modes at 95% credibility to Ω0T<5.58×10-8, Ω0V<6.35×10-8, and Ω0S<1.08×10-7 at a reference frequency f0=25 Hz. © 2018 American Physical Society

Search for gravitational waves from Scorpius X-1 in the second Advanced LIGO observing run with an improved hidden Markov model

We present results from a semicoherent search for continuous gravitational waves from the low-mass x-ray binary Scorpius X-1, using a hidden Markov model (HMM) to track spin wandering. This search improves on previous HMM-based searches of LIGO data by using an improved frequency domain matched filter, the J-statistic, and by analyzing data from Advanced LIGO's second observing run. In the frequency range searched, from 60 to 650 Hz, we find no evidence of gravitational radiation. At 194.6 Hz, the most sensitive search frequency, we report an upper limit on gravitational wave strain (at 95% confidence) of h095%=3.47×10-25 when marginalizing over source inclination angle. This is the most sensitive search for Scorpius X-1, to date, that is specifically designed to be robust in the presence of spin wandering. © 2019 American Physical Society

Erratum: "A Gravitational-wave Measurement of the Hubble Constant Following the Second Observing Run of Advanced LIGO and Virgo" (2021, ApJ, 909, 218)

[no abstract available

Search for Gravitational Waves Associated with Gamma-Ray Bursts Detected by Fermi and Swift during the LIGO-Virgo Run O3b

We search for gravitational-wave signals associated with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) detected by the Fermi and Swift satellites during the second half of the third observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo (2019 November 1 15:00 UTC-2020 March 27 17:00 UTC). We conduct two independent searches: A generic gravitational-wave transients search to analyze 86 GRBs and an analysis to target binary mergers with at least one neutron star as short GRB progenitors for 17 events. We find no significant evidence for gravitational-wave signals associated with any of these GRBs. A weighted binomial test of the combined results finds no evidence for subthreshold gravitational-wave signals associated with this GRB ensemble either. We use several source types and signal morphologies during the searches, resulting in lower bounds on the estimated distance to each GRB. Finally, we constrain the population of low-luminosity short GRBs using results from the first to the third observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. The resulting population is in accordance with the local binary neutron star merger rate. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society

Narrowband Searches for Continuous and Long-duration Transient Gravitational Waves from Known Pulsars in the LIGO-Virgo Third Observing Run

Isolated neutron stars that are asymmetric with respect to their spin axis are possible sources of detectable continuous gravitational waves. This paper presents a fully coherent search for such signals from eighteen pulsars in data from LIGO and Virgo's third observing run (O3). For known pulsars, efficient and sensitive matched-filter searches can be carried out if one assumes the gravitational radiation is phase-locked to the electromagnetic emission. In the search presented here, we relax this assumption and allow both the frequency and the time derivative of the frequency of the gravitational waves to vary in a small range around those inferred from electromagnetic observations. We find no evidence for continuous gravitational waves, and set upper limits on the strain amplitude for each target. These limits are more constraining for seven of the targets than the spin-down limit defined by ascribing all rotational energy loss to gravitational radiation. In an additional search, we look in O3 data for long-duration (hours-months) transient gravitational waves in the aftermath of pulsar glitches for six targets with a total of nine glitches. We report two marginal outliers from this search, but find no clear evidence for such emission either. The resulting duration-dependent strain upper limits do not surpass indirect energy constraints for any of these targets. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society