Assessing the psychometric and ecometric properties of neighborhood scales using adolescent survey data from urban and rural Scotland

This work was supported by NHS Health Scotland and the University of St Andrews.Background:  Despite the well-established need for specific measurement instruments to examine the relationship between neighborhood conditions and adolescent well-being outcomes, few studies have developed scales to measure features of the neighborhoods in which adolescents reside. Moreover, measures of neighborhood features may be operationalised differently by adolescents living in different levels of urban/rurality. This has not been addressed in previous studies. The objectives of this study were to: 1) establish instruments to measure adolescent neighborhood features at both the individual and neighborhood level, 2) assess their psychometric and ecometric properties, 3) test for invariance by urban/rurality, and 4) generate neighborhood level scores for use in further analysis. Methods:  Data were from the Scottish 2010 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Survey, which included an over-sample of rural adolescents. The survey responses of interest came from questions designed to capture different facets of the local area in which each respondent resided. Intermediate data zones were used as proxies for neighborhoods. Internal consistency was evaluated by Cronbach’s alpha. Invariance was examined using confirmatory factor analysis. Multilevel models were used to estimate ecometric properties and generate neighborhood scores. Results:  Two constructs labeled neighborhood social cohesion and neighborhood disorder were identified. Adjustment was made to the originally specified model to improve model fit and measures of invariance. At the individual level, reliability was .760 for social cohesion and .765 for disorder, and between .524 and .571 for both constructs at the neighborhood level. Individuals in rural areas experienced greater neighborhood social cohesion and lower levels of neighborhood disorder compared with those in urban areas. Conclusions:  The scales are appropriate for measuring neighborhood characteristics experienced by adolescents across urban and rural Scotland, and can be used in future studies of neighborhoods and health. However, trade-offs between neighborhood sample size and reliability must be considered.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Формы и системы оплаты труда работникам предприятия (на примере ОАО «Гомельхлебпром» филиал «Мозырский хлебозавод»)

Ligands for identifying protein aggregates are of great interest as such deposits are the pathological hallmark of a wide range of severe diseases including Alzheimers and Parkinsons disease. Here we report the synthesis of an azide functionalized fluorescent pentameric oligothiophene that can be utilized as a ligand for multimodal detection of disease-associated protein aggregates. The azide functionalization allows for attachment of the ligand to a surface by conventional click chemistry without disturbing selective interaction with protein aggregates and the oligothiophene-aggregate interaction can be detected by fluorescence or surface plasmon resonance. In addition, a methodology where the oligothiophene ligand is employed as a capturing molecule selective for aggregated proteins in combination with an antibody detecting a distinct peptide/protein is also presented. We foresee that this methodology will offer the possibility to create a variety of multiplex sensing systems for sensitive and selective detection of protein aggregates, the pathological hallmarks of several neurodegenerative diseases.Funding Agencies|Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research; Ehrling Persson Foundation; ERC Starting Independent Researcher grant (Project: MUMID)</p

Optimal values of rovibronic energy levels for triplet electronic states of molecular deuterium

Optimal set of 1050 rovibronic energy levels for 35 triplet electronic states of $D_2$ has been obtained by means of a statistical analysis of all available wavenumbers of triplet-triplet rovibronic transitions studied in emission, absorption, laser and anticrossing spectroscopic experiments of various authors. We used a new method of the analysis (Lavrov, Ryazanov, JETP Letters, 2005), which does not need any \it a priory \rm assumptions concerning the molecular structure being based on only two fundamental principles: Rydberg-Ritz and maximum likelihood. The method provides the opportunity to obtain the RMS estimates for uncertainties of the experimental wavenumbers independent from those presented in original papers. 234 from 3822 published wavenumber values were found to be spurious, while the remaining set of the data may be divided into 20 subsets (samples) of uniformly precise data having close to normal distributions of random errors within the samples. New experimental wavenumber values of 125 questionable lines were obtained in the present work. Optimal values of the rovibronic levels were obtained from the experimental data set consisting of 3713 wavenumber values (3588 old and 125 new). The unknown shift between levels of ortho- and para- deuterium was found by least squares analysis of the $a^3\Sigma_g^+$, $v = 0$, $N = 0 \div 18$ rovibronic levels with odd and even values of $N$. All the energy levels were obtained relative to the lowest vibro-rotational level ($v = 0$, $N = 0$) of the $a^3\Sigma_g^+$ electronic state, and presented in tabular form together with the standard deviations of the empirical determination. New energy level values differ significantly from those available in literature.Comment: 46 pages, 9 picture

A solanesyl-diphosphate synthase localizes in glycosomes of Trypanosoma cruzi

Fil: Ferella, Marcela. ANLIS Dr. C. G. Malbrán. Instituto Nacional de Parasitología "Dr. M. Fatala Chabén" (INP); Argentina.Fil: Montalvetti, Andrea. University of Illinois. Department of Pathobiology; Estados Unidos.Fil: Rohloff, Peter. University of Illinois. Department of Pathobiology; Estados Unidos.Fil: Miranda, Kildare. University of Georgia. Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases. Department of Cellular Biology; Estados Unidos.Fil: Fang, Jianmin. University of Georgia. Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases. Department of Cellular Biology; Estados Unidos.Fil: Reina, Silvia. ANLIS Dr. C. G. Malbrán. Instituto Nacional de Parasitología "Dr. M. Fatala Chabén" (INP); Argentina.Fil: Kawamukai, Makoto. University Matsue. Faculty of Life and Environmental Science. Department of Applied Bioscience and Biotechnology; Japón.Fil: Bua, Jacqueline. ANLIS Dr. C. G. Malbrán. Instituto Nacional de Parasitología "Dr. M. Fatala Chabén" (INP); Argentina.Fil: Nilsson, Daniel. Karolinska Institute. Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics; Suecia.Fil: Pravia, Carlos. ANLIS Dr. C. G. Malbrán. Instituto Nacional de Parasitología "Dr. M. Fatala Chabén" (INP); Argentina.Fil: Katzin, Alejandro. Universidade de Sao Paulo. Instituto de Ciencias Biomédicas. Departamento de Parasitologia; Brasil.Fil: Casera, María B. Universidade de Sao Paulo. Instituto de Ciencias Biomédicas. Departamento de Parasitologia; Brasil.Fil: Áslund, Lena. Uppsala University. Department of Genetics and Pathology; Suecia.Fil: Andersson, Björn. Karolinska Institute. Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics; Suecia.Fil: Docampo, Roberto. University of Illinois. Department of Pathobiology; Estados Unidos.Fil: Bontempi, Esteban. ANLIS Dr. C. G. Malbrán. Instituto Nacional de Parasitología "Dr. M. Fatala Chabén"; Argentina.We report the cloning of a Trypanosoma cruzi gene encoding a solanesyl-diphosphate synthase, TcSPPS. The amino acid sequence (molecular mass ∼ 39 kDa) is homologous to polyprenyl-diphosphate synthases from different organisms, showing the seven conserved motifs and the typical hydrophobic profile. TcSPPS preferred geranylgeranyl diphosphate as the allylic substrate. The final product, as determined by TLC, had nine isoprene units. This suggests that the parasite synthesizes mainly ubiquinone-9 (UQ-9), as described for Trypanosoma brucei and Leishmania major. In fact, that was the length of the ubiquinone extracted from epimastigotes, as determined by high-performance liquid chromatography. Expression of TcSPPS was able to complement an Escherichia coli ispB mutant. A punctuated pattern in the cytoplasm of the parasite was detected by immunofluorescence analysis with a specific polyclonal antibody against TcSPPS. An overlapping fluorescence pattern was observed using an antibody directed against the glycosomal marker pyruvate phosphate dikinase, suggesting that this step of the isoprenoid biosynthetic pathway is located in the glycosomes. Co-localization in glycosomes was confirmed by immunogold electron microscopy and subcellular fractionation. Because UQ has a central role in energy production and in reoxidation of reduction equivalents, TcSPPS is promising as a new chemotherapeutic target

On determination of electronic-vibro-rotational term values of diatomic molecules from measured wavenumbers

A method is proposed for determining rovibronic term values of diatomics from experimental data on the wavenumbers of electronic-vibro-rotational spectral lines. In contrast to existing techniques, the new one is based on the Rydberg-Ritz principle only. It is shown that a link between a set of rovibronic term values and a set of wavenumbers of observed rovibronic spectral lines appears when three and more different electronic-vibrational states are pairwise-connected by radiative transitions. The method differs from known techniques in several aspects, namely, it: 1) doesn't need any assumptions concerning an internal structure of a molecule; 2) doesn't involve any intermediate parameters (as molecular constants in traditional techniques); 3) gives an opportunity to use in one-stage optimization procedure all available experimental data obtained for various band systems, by various authors, and in various works; 4) provides in an interactive mode the opportunity to select the experimental values, eliminating rough errors, to revise wrong identifications of spectral lines and to compare various sets of experimental data for mutual consistency; 5) allows to obtain not only an optimal set of rovibronic term values, but also the error bars depending on quantity and quality of existing experimental data. Necessary precondition for use of this method is a preliminary identification of electronic-vibro-rotational lines to certain electronic-vibro-rotational radiative transitions. For this purpose one has to use traditional methods of the analysis of molecular spectra.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, in Russia

Socioeconomic status and antisocial behaviour among children and adolescents: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Previous research on the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and child and adolescent antisocial behaviour has produced mixed findings showing variation in the strength of association. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to summarise evidence on the relationship between socioeconomic status and broadly conceptualised antisocial behaviour, investigating variation across a range of antisocial subtypes and other potential moderators, including age, sex and informant. We identified 133 studies containing data suitable for effect size calculation, and 139 independent effect sizes were analysed (total N = 339868). The global meta-analysis showed that lower family socioeconomic status was associated with higher levels of antisocial behaviour. Moderation analyses revealed this relationship was stronger where callous–unemotional traits were the outcome, and where antisocial behaviour was reported by parents or teachers rather than self-reported. The relationship between family SES and antisocial behaviour, however, was independent of higher-level constructs such as national income inequality. These results indicate that SES can be considered a robust correlate of broadly conceptualised antisocial behaviour but the strength of this relationship may depend on the antisocial subtype under investigation and the design of the stud

Radical Right Populist Politics in Hungary: Reinventing the Magyars through Sport

Given the contemporary growth of ‘populist’ political parties and movements in a number of highly-developed democratic states in Europe and North America, there has been a resurgence in academic interest around the various causes for the groundswell of support for political populism. Given this broader political context, this paper explores the interconnection between sport and populist politics in Hungary, with a particular emphasis on the appropriation of sport by ‘right-wing’ populist political actors. In particular, this paper will examine the politics – sport interconnection by discussing Victor Orbán’s, Hungary’s Prime Minister, use of football, and sport more broadly, and the ways in which the Hungarian government have attempted to reinvent a strong nation and national identity through sport and related political populism. These attempts have been influenced by the interaction between forces of Westernisation and the country’s continuing post-communist transition, with the view to (re)inventing the Hungarian nation