Transportation and Taxes: What New Hampshire Residents Think About Maintaining Highways and Bridges

In this brief, authors Linda Fogg, Lawrence Hamilton, and Erin Bell share New Hampshire residents’ responses to questions on the state’s transportation infrastructure in surveys conducted by the University of New Hampshire’s Granite State Poll during 2016 and 2017. They report that only 36 percent of state residents are aware of the worsening conditions of New Hampshire highways and bridges. A thin majority support increased spending on public transportation, while 42 percent support more spending on highway maintenance and environmental protection. Disaster preparation and stormwater management are seen as lower priorities. There is little agreement on the main source of funds—for example, tolls, gas taxes, per-mile assessments—to maintain highways and bridges. Majorities would support a gas tax increase of 10 cents or somewhat more if needed to maintain state highways and bridges. Both awareness of infrastructure conditions and willingness to support tax increases to maintain highways and bridges vary by party affiliation

Views of the Highway: Infrastructure Reality, Perceptions, and Politics

Transportation infrastructure such as highways and bridges requires upgrades and maintenance. In many U.S. regions, these requirements have surpassed current funding, so new solutions are needed. One obvious though imperfect source is gasoline taxes, but raising these is politically risky, regardless of need. To illuminate this conflict, we analyze data from four random-sample telephone surveys (2016–2018, n = 2,035) that asked residents in the U.S. state of New Hampshire about their perceptions of highway and bridge conditions, and support for gas tax increases. About one third of the respondents counterfactually reported that highway and bridge conditions had improved compared with 10 or 20 years ago. At the county level, subjective perceptions correlate well with actual pavement and bridge conditions. Majorities of respondents also said they would support tax increases of 5 of 10 cents, although support falls off at higher amounts. Support for a tax increase varies not only with the proposed amount, but also with individual characteristics—especially political identity. In a structural equation model, infrastructure perceptions serve as an intervening variable between ideology and tax support: if infrastructure is falsely seen as improving, that supports an ideologically favored rejection of taxes. Partisan differences in perceptions of physical conditions, noted previously in other domains such as climate change, pose an unexpected challenge in building public support for transportation infrastructure

Molecular determinants of origin discrimination by Orc1 initiators in archaea

Unlike bacteria, many eukaryotes initiate DNA replication from genomic sites that lack apparent sequence conservation. These loci are identified and bound by the origin recognition complex (ORC), and subsequently activated by a cascade of events that includes recruitment of an additional factor, Cdc6. Archaeal organisms generally possess one or more Orc1/Cdc6 homologs, belonging to the Initiator clade of ATPases associated with various cellular activities (AAA+) superfamily; however, these proteins recognize specific sequences within replication origins. Atomic resolution studies have shown that archaeal Orc1 proteins contact double-stranded DNA through an N-terminal AAA+ domain and a C-terminal winged-helix domain (WHD), but use remarkably few base-specific contacts. To investigate the biochemical effects of these associations, we mutated the DNA-interacting elements of the Orc1-1 and Orc1-3 paralogs from the archaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus, and tested their effect on origin binding and deformation. We find that the AAA+ domain has an unpredicted role in controlling the sequence selectivity of DNA binding, despite an absence of base-specific contacts to this region. Our results show that both the WHD and ATPase region influence origin recognition by Orc1/Cdc6, and suggest that not only DNA sequence, but also local DNA structure help define archaeal initiator binding sites

Gestational Age at Birth and Risk of Developmental Delay: The Upstate KIDS Study

Objective—To model the association between gestational age at birth and early child development through 3 years of age. Study Design—Development of 5868 children in Upstate KIDS (New York State; 2008–2014) was assessed at 7 time-points using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ). The ASQ was implemented using gestational age corrected dates of birth at 4, 8, 12, 18, 24, 30, and 36 months. Whether children were eligible for developmental services from the Early Intervention Program (EIP) was determined through linkage. Gestational age was based on vital records. Statistical models adjusted for covariates including sociodemographic factors, maternal smoking and plurality. Results——Compared to gestational age of 39 weeks, adjusted odds ratios (aOR) and 95% confidence intervals of failing the ASQ for children delivered at \u3c 32, 32–34, 35–36, 37, 38, and 40 weeks gestational age were: 5.32 (3.42, 8.28), 2.43 (1.60, 3.69), 1.38 (1.00, 1.90), 1.37 (0.98, 1.90), 1.29 (0.99, 1.67), 0.73 (0.55, 0.96), and 0.51 (0.32, 0.82). Similar risks of being eligible for EIP services were observed (aOR: 4.19, 2.10, 1.29, 1.20, 1.01, 1.00 (ref), 0.92, 0.78, respectively for \u3c 32, 32–34, 37, 38, 39 (ref), 40, 41 weeks). Conclusion—Gestational age was inversely associated with developmental delays for all gestational ages. Evidence from our study is potentially informative for low-risk deliveries at 39 weeks but it is notable that deliveries at 40 weeks exhibited further lower risk

Examining the Prevalence Rates of Preexisting Maternal Medical Conditions and Pregnancy Complications by Source: Evidence to Inform Maternal and Child Research

Objectives—We sought to examine whether there are systematic differences in ascertainment of preexisting maternal medical conditions and pregnancy complications from three common data sources used in epidemiologic research Methods—Diabetes mellitus, chronic hypertension, gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), gestational hypertensive disorders (GHD), placental abruption and premature rupture of membranes (PROM) among 4821 pregnancies were identified via birth certificates, maternal self-report at approximately 4 months postpartum and by discharge codes from the Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS), a mandatory New York State hospital reporting system. The kappa statistic (k) was estimated to ascertain beyond chance agreement of outcomes between birth certificates with either maternal self-report or SPARCS Results—GHD was under-ascertained on birth certificates (5.7 %) and more frequently indicated by maternal report (11 %) and discharge data (8.2 %). PROM was indicated more on birth certificates (7.4 %) than maternal report (4.5 %) or discharge data (5.7 %). Confirmation across data sources for some outcomes varied by maternal age, race/ethnicity, prenatal care utilization, preterm delivery, parity, mode of delivery, infant sex, use of infertility treatment and for multiple births. Agreement between maternal report and discharge data with birth certificates was generally poor (kappa \u3c 0.4) to moderate (0.4 ≤ kappa \u3c 0.75) but was excellent between discharge data and birth certificates for GDM among women who underwent infertility treatment (kappa = 0.79, 95 % CI 0.74, 0.85). Conclusions for Practice—Prevalence and agreement of conditions varied across sources. Condition-specific variations in reporting should be considered when designing studies that investigate associations between preexisting maternal medical and pregnancy-related conditions with health outcomes over the life-course

Comparison of Body Composition Measurements using a New Caliper, Two Established Calipers, Hydrostatic Weighing, and BodPod

Purposes: (1) To compare the Lafayette Instruments (LI) skinfold caliper to the Lange (L) and Harpenden (H) calipers using a diverse subject population. (2) To determine the validity of the LI caliper in a subset of subjects by comparing body compositions from skinfold thicknesses to those measured by hydrostatic weighing (HW) and air displacement plethysmography (ADP). (3) To compare measurements obtained by experienced (EX) and inexperienced (IX) technicians using all three calipers. Methods: Skinfold measurements were performed by both EX and IX technicians using three different calipers on 21 younger (21.2 ± 1.5 yrs) and 20 older (59.2 ± 4 yrs) subjects. Body compositions were calculated using the Jackson-Pollock seven-site and three-site formulas. HW and ADP tests were performed on a subset of subjects (10 younger, 10 older). Results: No significant differences existed between LI and L or H when measurements were made by EX. Further, the LI-EX measurements were highly correlated to both H-EX and L-EX. No significant differences existed in the subgroup between LI-EX and HW or ADP. Skinfold determinations made by EX and IX were similar. Conclusions: Similar body compositions determined using LI, H, and L suggest that LI determines body composition as effectively as H and L. High correlations between the three calipers support this notion. Similar results between LI and HW/ADP subgroup suggest that the LI caliper may be a valid method of measuring body composition. Overall, performance by IX was similar to EX and suggests similar ease of use for all three calipers

Oil disturbance reduces infaunal family richness but does not affect phylogenetic diversity

Infaunal organisms are susceptible to disturbances such as hypoxia and sediment contamination; changes in infaunal community structure are therefore often used as indicators of anthropogenic disturbance. Susceptibility to disturbance varies across taxa, either due to physiological factors or to behaviors or functional roles that increase exposure. Both sources of variability are likely to be heritable and shared among related taxa. Thus, we would expect oil disturbance to disproportionately affect related taxa and therefore decrease phylogenetic diversity (PD). We test this hypothesis for a shallow water marine infaunal community using a simulation approach that iteratively removes clades with shared vulnerability to oil exposure. Infauna were sampled at two sites in the Chandeleur Islands, LA, that reflect different exposures to crude oil after the Deepwater Horizon event. Seagrass and adjacent bare sediment habitats were sampled in 2015, 5 years after initial oil exposure, and again in 2016 after an acute re-oiling event. We found that strong correlation between PD and family richness masked any detectable PD patterns with oil exposure. For our full community tree, sensitivity analysis indicated that the removal of larger clades did not disproportionately reduce PD, against our prediction. For this pair of sites, PD did not provide a better metric for assessing the impacts of oil exposure than family richness alone. It is possible, however, that finer-scale taxonomic resolution of infaunal communities may better decouple PD from taxonomic richness. More work is needed to fully evaluate the impacts of disturbance on PD

Green salad intake is associated with improved oral cancer survival and lower soluble CD44 levels

Deficiencies in fruit and vegetable intake have been associated with oral cancer (oral cavity and oropharyngeal). Salivary rinses contain measurable biomarkers including soluble CD44 (solCD44) and total protein, which are known markers of oral cancer risk. This study investigates the effect of nutritional factors on solCD44 and protein levels to evaluate oral cancer risk and survival. We evaluated solCD44 and protein levels from 150 patients with oral and oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma and 150 frequency-matched controls. We subsequently characterized the effect of food group consumption and these biomarkers on progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). Patients reported eating fewer servings of salad (p = 0.015), while controls reported eating fewer servings of potatoes (p \u3c 0.001). Oral cancer patients who consumed at least one serving per week of green salad were found to have significantly lower CD44 levels than those who ate salad less frequently (mean of log2[solCD44]1.73 versus 2.25, p = 0.014). Patients who consumed at least one serving per week of “salad or other vegetables” had significantly longer PFS (median 43.5 versus 9.1 months, p = 0.003, adjusted hazard ratio (HR) = 0.39 p = 0.014) and OS (median 83.6 versus 10 months, p = 0.008, adjusted HR = 0.04 p = 0.029). These findings suggest that dietary factors, namely greater green salad and vegetable intake, may be associated with lower CD44 levels and better prognosis in oral cancer patients