Dietary fat and the prevalence of hand osteoarthritis: data from the osteoarthritis initiative

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of total dietary fat intake on the prevalence of hand osteoarthritis (HOA) utilizing data collected in the Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI) study cohort. METHODS: This is an observational cross-sectional study. Subjects from the OAI cohort with hand radiographs were analyzed for HOA, defined as a Kellgren-Lawrence score of ≥2 in two or more joints on different fingers. Dietary data and socioeconomic factors were collected from the baseline study visit. Logistic regression analysis assessed the association of total fat intake and disease prevalence. Odds ratios were calculated from the coefficients and confidence intervals were calculated with log-likelihood. RESULTS: HOA was prevalent in 1,106 out of the 2,993 participants (37%). Total fat intake did not show a significant relationship to disease prevalence when adjusted for age, education, income, race, smoking, BMI, prescription NSAID use, calcium intake, protein intake, total calories, saturated/monounsaturated fats, and alcohol consumption. There was a significant association of HOA with age, sex, education, race, total calories, and alcohol intake. Sex was analyzed independently to assess for effect modification, showing an association with age (P<0.01) OR (95%CI) 1.03 (1.02,1.03), race (P<0.01) 1.16 (1.09,1.23), and alcohol consumption (P<0.01) 1.06 (1.02,1.09) among only female subjects. Male subjects showed a strong association with age (P<0.01) 1.02 (1.01,1.02). CONCLUSION: Total fat intake does not show a significant association with HOA prevalence with the study sample from the OAI cohort. Age, race, and alcohol consumption showed significant associations depending on sex. More research is needed to further investigation these associations among different groups

The Molecular Analysis of Hawaiian Bird Diets

The aim of this project is to utilize high-throughput molecular methods to investigate the diets of three non-native and one native Hawaiian bird species. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) has made it possible to produce thousands of sequencing reads of DNA in a relatively short amount of time. This metabarcoding technology has been used to identify a range of different taxa, from bacteria in the human gut to fungi in the soil. More recently, this approach has been used to identify insects in the diets of birds and other species, including bees and bats. Samples underwent genomic sequencing using a targeted approach of the cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene, a region that is present in all insects. DNA was extracted from bird feces and stomach contents using protocols designed for fecal material and a genomic region was amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using universal COI primers. The resulting amplified sequences were compared to an online reference database of millions of insect sequences for taxonomic identification. Data were analyzed for diet variation within and between each species of bird, as well as were compared to arthropods sampled from areas where these birds were observed foraging. The results showed there were a large variety of insects and spiders consumed by birds. There was overlap of insect order between the species of birds, but when diets were examined at a species level, bird species were preying on different insects

Leading Ways: Preliminary Research on LEF Leadership for the Public Education Network

In the early 1980s, public schools, particularly in urban areas, were struggling with changing demographics and a need for greater community commitment to public education. Small independent community-based organizations, called local education funds (LEFs), were first established at this time by community leaders to bridge the gap between communities and their schools. Twenty years later, the Public Education Network (PEN), the national organization of more than 70 of the country's LEFs, is championing LEFs' unique contributions to educational reform and planning new methods to continue to support their work. One important aspect of PEN's efforts is the development of a research agenda around LEF leadership and effectiveness.The Urban Institute has supported the emerging research on LEF leadership in several ways. First, in 2001, researchers administered and analyzed results of a survey of all current LEF executive directors. The results provided a snapshot of leadership characteristics and attitudes. Second, in 2002, researchers reviewed existing literature on LEFs and nonprofit leadership and interviewed several individuals about the founding of LEFs. Third, also in 2002, researchers conducted 60-to 90-minute telephone interviews with 10 founding directors of early LEFs.This report describes efforts by the Urban Institute and PEN to better understand and describe leadership in LEFs. The research conducted to date reveals the following common features of LEF leadership:LEF leaders create a space for sustained collaboration in communities. Founders, in particular, see their work as establishing unique and lasting forums in their communities.LEF leadership fits well in an adaptive leadership framework, in which the director educates him or herself about community values and exposes issues that must be resolved through collaborative action. Adaptive leaders mobilize others around a community consensus rather than dictate a solution. In the case of LEFs, developing key relationships contributes to successful leadership.These relationships involve community members, principals, government officials, local businesses, and other stakeholders. Because LEFs are meant to provide a permanent venue for collaboration, these relationships are not only instrumental but also ends in themselves.Although LEF leaders are extremely invested in their communities in terms of socioeconomic status and race, they are not typically representative of the communities their LEFs serve. This gap in constituency and representation leads to uncertainty about whether LEFs effectively engage all segments of the community in their work. More inclusive leadership, then, is an issue worth exploring.LEF leadership appears to involve making strategic choices in an environment of constraints. With limited human and financial resources, LEFs must attempt to achieve their goals through a complex interaction with their communities and schools. Key stages in LEF development include the shift to greater community engagement and systemic reform. However, not all LEFs follow the same developmental pattern

The Public Education Network Study of LEF Leadership: Report on Baseline Survey Findings

Many nonprofit organizations seek to make change. To that end, much needed "capital" -- variously described as social, public, professional, and human -- is being brought to bear upon pressing social issues. Researchers across the country are attempting to understand how these resources are being generated, deployed, and administered, and to what avail. Of particular interest here are local education funds (LEFs) and their leaders. LEFs are a set of voluntary, intermediate, and mission-driven organizations, conceived by the Ford Foundation in 1983, which sit strategically at the nexus of educational and civic capacity building. This report provides the results of the first phase of the Public Education Network (PEN) leadership study, a baseline survey administered to 59 LEF executive directors.The survey had two purposes: to provide a snapshot of leadership characteristics and perceptions of executive directors -- information never before compiled and examined -- and to gather contextual information on the LEFs and the communities they serve. The results will be used as a foundation for subsequent research on LEF leadership. In time, the findings from this research will assist PEN in its efforts to nurture and sustain LEF leadership

Hom Quandles

If $A$ is an abelian quandle and $Q$ is a quandle, the hom set $\mathrm{Hom}(Q,A)$ of quandle homomorphisms from $Q$ to $A$ has a natural quandle structure. We exploit this fact to enhance the quandle counting invariant, providing an example of links with the same counting invariant values but distinguished by the hom quandle structure. We generalize the result to the case of biquandles, collect observations and results about abelian quandles and the hom quandle, and show that the category of abelian quandles is symmetric monoidal closed.Comment: 15 pages; revision 1 removes an incorrect remark; revision 2 corrects some small typos. To appear in J. Knot Theory Ramification

Crossed modules of racks

We generalize the notion of a crossed module of groups to that of a crossed module of racks. We investigate the relation to categorified racks, namely strict 2-racks, and trunk-like objects in the category of racks, generalizing the relation between crossed modules of groups and strict 2-groups. Then we explore topological applications. We show that by applying the rack-space functor, a crossed module of racks gives rise to a covering. Our main result shows how the fundamental racks associated to links upstairs and downstairs in a covering fit together to form a crossed module of racks.Comment: 25 pages, 1 figure, accepted in Homology, Homotopy and Application

The distribution of UK household expenditure, 1979-92

The rapid growth in income inequality in the UK over the 1980s has excited a good deal of interest and concern. A primary reason for this concern has been the widely- drawn conclusion that the living standards of the very poorest have at best failed to keep pace with the living standards of the rest of society. This report sheds new light on the living standards debate, by considering how household expenditure has changed over the period 1979-92. Examination of the expenditure of households appearing in the Family Expenditure Surveys of 1979-92 reveals some rather different trends from the well-documented changes in household incomes.