Impact of Scottish smoke-free legislation on smoking quit attempts and prevalence

<p><b>Objectives:</b> In Scotland, legislation was implemented in March 2006 prohibiting smoking in all wholly or partially enclosed public spaces. We investigated the impact on attempts to quit smoking and smoking prevalence.</p> <p><b>Methods:</b> We performed time series models using Box-Jenkins autoregressive integrated moving averages (ARIMA) on monthly data on the gross ingredient cost of all nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) prescribed in Scotland in 2003–2009, and quarterly data on self-reported smoking prevalence between January 1999 and September 2010 from the Scottish Household Survey.</p> <p><b>Results:</b> NRT prescription costs were significantly higher than expected over the three months prior to implementation of the legislation. Prescription costs peaked at £1.3 million in March 2006; £292,005.9 (95% CI £260,402.3, £323,609, p<0.001) higher than the monthly norm. Following implementation of the legislation, costs fell exponentially by around 26% per month (95% CI 17%, 35%, p<0.001). Twelve months following implementation, the costs were not significantly different to monthly norms. Smoking prevalence fell by 8.0% overall, from 31.3% in January 1999 to 23.7% in July–September 2010. In the quarter prior to implementation of the legislation, smoking prevalence fell by 1.7% (95% CI 2.4%, 1.0%, p<0.001) more than expected from the underlying trend.</p> <p><b>Conclusions:</b> Quit attempts increased in the three months leading up to Scotland's smoke-free legislation, resulting in a fall in smoking prevalence. However, neither has been sustained suggesting the need for additional tobacco control measures and ongoing support.</p&gt

Sensory over-responsivity: parent report, direct assessment measures, and neural architecture

BACKGROUND: Sensory processing difficulties are common across neurodevelopmental disorders. Thus, reliable measures are needed to understand the biological underpinnings of these differences. This study aimed to define a scoring methodology specific to auditory (AOR) and tactile (TOR) over-responsivity. Second, in a pilot cohort using MRI Diffusion Tensor Imaging, we performed a proof of concept study of whether children with AOR showed measurable differences in their white matter integrity. METHODS: This study included children with AOR and TOR from a mixed neurodevelopmental disorder cohort including autism and sensory processing dysfunction (n = 176) as well as neurotypical children (n = 128). We established cohorts based on sensory over-responsivity using parent report (Short Sensory Profile (SSP)) and direct assessment (Sensory Processing-Three Dimensions: Assessment (SP-3D:A)) measures. With a subset of the children (n = 39), group comparisons, based on AOR phenotype, were conducted comparing the white matter fractional anisotropy in 23 regions of interest. RESULTS: Using direct assessment, 31% of the children with neurodevelopmental disorders had AOR and 27% had TOR. The inter-test agreement between SSP and SP-3D:A for AOR was 65% and TOR was 50%. Children with AOR had three white matter tracts showing decreased fractional anisotropy relative to children without AOR. CONCLUSIONS: This study identified cut-off scores for AOR and TOR using the SSP parent report and SP-3D:A observation. A combination of questionnaire and direct observation measures should be used in clinical and research settings. The SSP parent report and SP-3D:A direct observation ratings overlapped moderately for sensory related behaviors. Based on these preliminary structural neuroimaging results, we suggest a putative neural network may contribute to AOR

Improving SNR and reducing training time of classifiers in large datasets via kernel averaging

Kernel methods are of growing importance in neuroscience research. As an elegant extension of linear methods, they are able to model complex non-linear relationships. However, since the kernel matrix grows with data size, the training of classifiers is computationally demanding in large datasets. Here, a technique developed for linear classifiers is extended to kernel methods: In linearly separable data, replacing sets of instances by their averages improves signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and reduces data size. In kernel methods, data is linearly non-separable in input space, but linearly separable in the high-dimensional feature space that kernel methods implicitly operate in. It is shown that a classifier can be efficiently trained on instances averaged in feature space by averaging entries in the kernel matrix. Using artificial and publicly available data, it is shown that kernel averaging improves classification performance substantially and reduces training time, even in non-linearly separable data

The Role of Anorexia in Resistance and Tolerance to Infections in Drosophila

Infections initiate a signaling loop in which sick animals become anorexic, and the resulting change in diet alters the body's ability to fight infections in good and bad ways

X-Ray Spectroscopy of Stars

(abridged) Non-degenerate stars of essentially all spectral classes are soft X-ray sources. Low-mass stars on the cooler part of the main sequence and their pre-main sequence predecessors define the dominant stellar population in the galaxy by number. Their X-ray spectra are reminiscent, in the broadest sense, of X-ray spectra from the solar corona. X-ray emission from cool stars is indeed ascribed to magnetically trapped hot gas analogous to the solar coronal plasma. Coronal structure, its thermal stratification and geometric extent can be interpreted based on various spectral diagnostics. New features have been identified in pre-main sequence stars; some of these may be related to accretion shocks on the stellar surface, fluorescence on circumstellar disks due to X-ray irradiation, or shock heating in stellar outflows. Massive, hot stars clearly dominate the interaction with the galactic interstellar medium: they are the main sources of ionizing radiation, mechanical energy and chemical enrichment in galaxies. High-energy emission permits to probe some of the most important processes at work in these stars, and put constraints on their most peculiar feature: the stellar wind. Here, we review recent advances in our understanding of cool and hot stars through the study of X-ray spectra, in particular high-resolution spectra now available from XMM-Newton and Chandra. We address issues related to coronal structure, flares, the composition of coronal plasma, X-ray production in accretion streams and outflows, X-rays from single OB-type stars, massive binaries, magnetic hot objects and evolved WR stars.Comment: accepted for Astron. Astrophys. Rev., 98 journal pages, 30 figures (partly multiple); some corrections made after proof stag

The Coevolution of Virulence: Tolerance in Perspective

Coevolutionary interactions, such as those between host and parasite, predator and prey, or plant and pollinator, evolve subject to the genes of both interactors. It is clear, for example, that the evolution of pollination strategies can only be understood with knowledge of both the pollinator and the pollinated. Studies of the evolution of virulence, the reduction in host fitness due to infection, have nonetheless tended to focus on parasite evolution. Host-centric approaches have also been proposed—for example, under the rubric of “tolerance”, the ability of hosts to minimize virulence without necessarily minimizing parasite density. Within the tolerance framework, however, there is room for more comprehensive measures of host fitness traits, and for fuller consideration of the consequences of coevolution. For example, the evolution of tolerance can result in changed selection on parasite populations, which should provoke parasite evolution despite the fact that tolerance is not directly antagonistic to parasite fitness. As a result, consideration of the potential for parasite counter-adaptation to host tolerance—whether evolved or medially manipulated—is essential to the emergence of a cohesive theory of biotic partnerships and robust disease control strategies

Accommodating individual travel history and unsampled diversity in Bayesian phylogeographic inference of SARS-CoV-2

Spatiotemporal bias in genome sampling can severely confound discrete trait phylogeographic inference. This has impeded our ability to accurately track the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the availability of unprecedented numbers of SARS-CoV-2 genomes. Here, we present an approach to integrate individual travel history data in Bayesian phylogeographic inference and apply it to the early spread of SARS-CoV-2. We demonstrate that including travel history data yields i) more realistic hypotheses of virus spread and ii) higher posterior predictive accuracy compared to including only sampling location. We further explore methods to ameliorate the impact of sampling bias by augmenting the phylogeographic analysis with lineages from undersampled locations. Our reconstructions reinforce specific transmission hypotheses suggested by the inclusion of travel history data, but also suggest alternative routes of virus migration that are plausible within the epidemiological context but are not apparent with current sampling efforts.status: publishe

Monazite trumps zircon: applying SHRIMP U–Pb geochronology to systematically evaluate emplacement ages of leucocratic, low-temperature granites in a complex Precambrian orogen

Although zircon is the most widely used geochronometer to determine the crystallisation ages of granites, it can be unreliable for low-temperature melts because they may not crystallise new zircon. For leucocratic granites U–Pb zircon dates, therefore, may reflect the ages of the source rocks rather than the igneous crystallisation age. In the Proterozoic Capricorn Orogen of Western Australia, leucocratic granites are associated with several pulses of intracontinental magmatism spanning ~800 million years. In several instances, SHRIMP U–Pb zircon dating of these leucocratic granites either yielded ages that were inconclusive (e.g., multiple concordant ages) or incompatible with other geochronological data. To overcome this we used SHRIMP U–Th–Pb monazite geochronology to obtain igneous crystallisation ages that are consistent with the geological and geochronological framework of the orogen. The U–Th–Pb monazite geochronology has resolved the time interval over which two granitic supersuites were emplaced; a Paleoproterozoic supersuite thought to span ~80 million years was emplaced in less than half that time (1688–1659 Ma) and a small Meso- to Neoproterozoic supersuite considered to have been intruded over ~70 million years was instead assembled over ~130 million years and outlasted associated regional metamorphism by ~100 million years. Both findings have consequences for the duration of associated orogenic events and any estimates for magma generation rates. The monazite geochronology has contributed to a more reliable tectonic history for a complex, long-lived orogen. Our results emphasise the benefit of monazite as a geochronometer for leucocratic granites derived by low-temperature crustal melting and are relevant to other orogens worldwide