Social Impacts of Popular Culture During the Vietnam War

In this paper, I will argue that popular culture is imperative to a population overcoming and learning from a time of economical, political, and social turmoil. Focusing on the Vietnam War, I will demonstrate how common it is for people to rely on popular culture for hope and education during times of crises and it is often that music, movies, or artwork are those outlets. By dissecting the messages of other popular songs recorded during the Vietnam War while also examining books like The Vietnam War and American Music written by David James and Songs of the Vietnam Conflict by James Perone, I deliver evidence on the importance of popular culture when it is needed most. In addition, I use the films produced depicting the war to demonstrate the ways pop culture can serve as a learning tool after a crisis

Comparing gravitational waveform models for binary black hole mergers through a hypermodels approach

The inference of source parameters from gravitational-wave signals relies on theoretical models that describe the emitted waveform. Different model assumptions on which the computation of these models is based could lead to biases in the analysis of gravitational-wave data. In this work, we sample directly on four state-of-the-art binary black hole waveform models from different families, in order to investigate these systematic biases from the 13 heaviest gravitational-wave sources with moderate to high signal-to-noise ratios in the third Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC- 3). All models include spin-precession as well as higher-order modes. Using the "hypermodels" technique, we treat the waveform models as one of the sampled parameters, therefore directly getting the odds ratio of one waveform model over another from a single parameter estimation run. From the joint odds ratio over all 13 sources, we find the model NRSur7dq4 to be favoured over SEOBNRv4PHM, with an odds ratio of 29.43; IMRPhenomXPHM and IMRPhenomTPHM have an odds ratio, respectively, of 4.70 and 5.09 over SEOBNRv4PHM. However, this result is mainly determined by three events that show a strong preference for some of the models and that are all affected by possible data quality issues. If we do not consider these potentially problematic events, the odds ratio do not exhibit a significant preference for any of the models. Although further work studying a larger set of signals will be needed for robust quantitative results, the presented method highlights one possible avenue for future waveform model development

BioGRID: a general repository for interaction datasets

Access to unified datasets of protein and genetic interactions is critical for interrogation of gene/protein function and analysis of global network properties. BioGRID is a freely accessible database of physical and genetic interactions available at . BioGRID release version 2.0 includes >116 000 interactions from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila melanogaster and Homo sapiens. Over 30 000 interactions have recently been added from 5778 sources through exhaustive curation of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae primary literature. An internally hyper-linked web interface allows for rapid search and retrieval of interaction data. Full or user-defined datasets are freely downloadable as tab-delimited text files and PSI-MI XML. Pre-computed graphical layouts of interactions are available in a variety of file formats. User-customized graphs with embedded protein, gene and interaction attributes can be constructed with a visualization system called Osprey that is dynamically linked to the BioGRID

DUSP15 expression is reduced in the hippocampus of Myrf knock-out mice but attention and object recognition memory remain intact

The atypical protein tyrosine phosphatase enzyme, dual-specificity phosphate 15 (DUSP15) is thought to be activated by myelin regulatory factor (MyRF) and to have a role in oligodendrocyte differentiation. Here, we assess whether Dusp15 is reduced in the hippocampus of mice with conditional knock-out of Myrf in oligodendrocyte precursor cells. Using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) we found that Dusp15 expression was indeed lower in these mice. Alterations in myelin have been associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Symptoms of these disorders can include impairments of object recognition and attention. We, therefore tested the mice in the object recognition task (ORT) and 5-choice serial reaction time task (5CSRTT). However, we did not find behavioural impairments indicating that attentional abilities and object recognition are not impacted by reduced oligodendrogenesis and hippocampal Dusp15 expression. Gaining insight into the role of newly formed oligodendrocytes and Dusp15 expression is helpful for the development of well targeted treatments for myelin dysregulation

Clinical and budget impacts of changes in oral anticoagulation prescribing for atrial fibrillation

OBJECTIVE: To assess temporal clinical and budget impacts of changes in atrial fibrillation (AF)-related prescribing in England. METHODS: Data on AF prevalence, AF-related stroke incidence and prescribing for all National Health Service general practices, hospitals and registered patients with hospitalised AF-related stroke in England were obtained from national databases. Stroke care costs were based on published data. We compared changes in oral anticoagulation prescribing (warfarin or direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs)), incidence of hospitalised AF-related stroke, and associated overall and per-patient costs in the periods January 2011-June 2014 and July 2014-December 2017. RESULTS: Between 2011-2014 and 2014-2017, recipients of oral anticoagulation for AF increased by 86.5% from 1 381 170 to 2 575 669. The number of patients prescribed warfarin grew by 16.1% from 1 313 544 to 1 525 674 and those taking DOACs by 1452.7% from 67 626 to 1 049 995. Prescribed items increased by 5.9% for warfarin (95% CI 2.9% to 8.9%) but by 2004.8% for DOACs (95% CI 1848.8% to 2160.7%). Oral anticoagulation prescription cost rose overall by 781.2%, from £87 313 310 to £769 444 028, (£733,466,204 with warfarin monitoring) and per patient by 50.7%, from £293 to £442, giving an incremental cost of £149. Nevertheless, as AF-related stroke incidence fell by 11.3% (95% CI -11.5% to -11.1%) from 86 467 in 2011-2014 to 76 730 in 2014-2017 with adjustment for AF prevalence, the overall per-patient cost reduced from £1129 to £840, giving an incremental per-patient saving of £289. CONCLUSIONS: Despite nearly one million additional DOAC prescriptions and substantial associated spending in the latter part of this study, the decline in AF-related stroke led to incremental savings at the national level

Extreme glacial cooling likely led to hominin depopulation of Europe in the Early Pleistocene

The oldest known hominin remains in Europe [~1.5 to ~1.1 million years ago (Ma)] have been recovered from Iberia, where paleoenvironmental reconstructions have indicated warm and wet interglacials and mild glacials, supporting the view that once established, hominin populations persisted continuously. We report analyses of marine and terrestrial proxies from a deep-sea core on the Portugese margin that show the presence of pronounced millennial-scale climate variability during a glacial period ~1.154 to ~1.123 Ma, culminating in a terminal stadial cooling comparable to the most extreme events of the last 400,000 years. Climate envelope–model simulations reveal a drastic decrease in early hominin habitat suitability around the Mediterranean during the terminal stadial. We suggest that these extreme conditions led to the depopulation of Europe, perhaps lasting for several successive glacial-interglacial cycles