Parenting and the Adjustment of Children Born to Gay Fathers Through Surrogacy

Findings are presented on a study of 40 gay father families created through surrogacy and a comparison group of 55 lesbian mother families created through donor insemination with a child aged 3–9 years. Standardized interview, observational and questionnaire measures of stigmatization, quality of parent–child relationships, and children's adjustment were administered to parents, children, and teachers. Children in both family types showed high levels of adjustment with lower levels of children's internalizing problems reported by gay fathers. Irrespective of family type, children whose parents perceived greater stigmatization and children who experienced higher levels of negative parenting showed higher levels of parent-reported externalizing problems. The findings contribute to theoretical understanding of the role of family structure and family processes in child adjustment.The research was supported by a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award (097857/Z/11/Z)

Exiting the Anthropocene : Achieving personal and planetary health in the 21st century

Planetary health provides a perspective of ecological interdependence that connects the health and vitality of individuals, communities, and Earth's natural systems. It includes the social, political, and economic ecosystems that influence both individuals and whole societies. In an era of interconnected grand challenges threatening health of all systems at all scales, planetary health provides a framework for cross-sectoral collaboration and unified systems approaches to solutions. The field of allergy is at the forefront of these efforts. Allergic conditions are a sentinel measure of environmental impact on human health in early life-illuminating how ecological changes affect immune development and predispose to a wider range of inflammatory noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). This shows how adverse macroscale ecology in the Anthropocene penetrates to the molecular level of personal and microscale ecology, including the microbial systems at the foundations of all ecosystems. It provides the basis for more integrated efforts to address widespread environmental degradation and adverse effects of maladaptive urbanization, food systems, lifestyle behaviors, and socioeconomic disadvantage. Nature-based solutions and efforts to improve nature-relatedness are crucial for restoring symbiosis, balance, and mutualism in every sense, recognizing that both personal lifestyle choices and collective structural actions are needed in tandem. Ultimately, meaningful ecological approaches will depend on placing greater emphasis on psychological and cultural dimensions such as mindfulness, values, and moral wisdom to ensure a sustainable and resilient future.Peer reviewe

Multi-Omics Analysis of Multiple Glucose-Sensing Receptor Systems in Yeast

The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae has long been used to produce alcohol from glucose and other sugars. While much is known about glucose metabolism, relatively little is known about the receptors and signaling pathways that indicate glucose availability. Here, we compare the two glucose receptor systems in S. cerevisiae. The first is a heterodimer of transporter-like proteins (transceptors), while the second is a seven-transmembrane receptor coupled to a large G protein (Gpa2) that acts in coordination with two small G proteins (Ras1 and Ras2). Through comprehensive measurements of glucose-dependent transcription and metabolism, we demonstrate that the two receptor systems have distinct roles in glucose signaling: the G-protein-coupled receptor directs carbohydrate and energy metabolism, while the transceptors regulate ancillary processes such as ribosome, amino acids, cofactor and vitamin metabolism. The large G-protein transmits the signal from its cognate receptor, while the small G-protein Ras2 (but not Ras1) integrates responses from both receptor pathways. Collectively, our analysis reveals the molecular basis for glucose detection and the earliest events of glucose-dependent signal transduction in yeast

HACA3: A Unified Approach for Multi-site MR Image Harmonization

The lack of standardization is a prominent issue in magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. This often causes undesired contrast variations due to differences in hardware and acquisition parameters. In recent years, MR harmonization using image synthesis with disentanglement has been proposed to compensate for the undesired contrast variations. Despite the success of existing methods, we argue that three major improvements can be made. First, most existing methods are built upon the assumption that multi-contrast MR images of the same subject share the same anatomy. This assumption is questionable since different MR contrasts are specialized to highlight different anatomical features. Second, these methods often require a fixed set of MR contrasts for training (e.g., both Tw-weighted and T2-weighted images must be available), which limits their applicability. Third, existing methods generally are sensitive to imaging artifacts. In this paper, we present a novel approach, Harmonization with Attention-based Contrast, Anatomy, and Artifact Awareness (HACA3), to address these three issues. We first propose an anatomy fusion module that enables HACA3 to respect the anatomical differences between MR contrasts. HACA3 is also robust to imaging artifacts and can be trained and applied to any set of MR contrasts. Experiments show that HACA3 achieves state-of-the-art performance under multiple image quality metrics. We also demonstrate the applicability of HACA3 on downstream tasks with diverse MR datasets acquired from 21 sites with different field strengths, scanner platforms, and acquisition protocols

Baseline Serum Biomarkers Predict Response to a Weight Loss Intervention in Older Adults with Obesity: A Pilot Study

Caloric restriction and aerobic and resistance exercise are safe and effective lifestyle interventions for achieving weight loss in the obese older population (>65 years) and may improve physical function and quality of life. However, individual responses are heterogeneous. Our goal was to explore the use of untargeted metabolomics to identify metabolic phenotypes associated with achieving weight loss after a multi-component weight loss intervention. Forty-two older adults with obesity (body mass index, BMI, ≥30 kg/m2) participated in a six-month telehealth-based weight loss intervention. Each received weekly dietitian visits and twice-weekly physical therapist-led group strength training classes with a prescription for aerobic exercise. We categorized responders’ weight loss using a 5% loss of initial body weight as a cutoff. Baseline serum samples were analyzed to determine the variable importance to the projection (VIP) of signals that differentiated the responder status of metabolic profiles. Pathway enrichment analysis was conducted in Metaboanalyst. Baseline data did not differ significantly. Weight loss was 7.2 ± 2.5 kg for the 22 responders, and 2.0 ± 2.0 kg for the 20 non-responders. Mummichog pathway enrichment analysis revealed that perturbations were most significant for caffeine and caffeine-related metabolism (p = 0.00028). Caffeine and related metabolites, which were all increased in responders, included 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine (VIP = 2.0, p = 0.033, fold change (FC) = 1.9), theophylline (VIP = 2.0, p = 0.024, FC = 1.8), paraxanthine (VIP = 2.0, p = 0.028, FC = 1.8), 1-methylxanthine (VIP = 1.9, p = 0.023, FC = 2.2), 5-acetylamino-6-amino-3-methyluracil (VIP = 2.2, p = 0.025, FC = 2.2), 1,3-dimethyl uric acid (VIP = 2.1, p = 0.023, FC = 2.3), and 1,7-dimethyl uric acid (VIP = 2.0, p = 0.035, FC = 2.2). Increased levels of phytochemicals and microbiome-related metabolites were also found in responders compared to non-responders. In this pilot weight loss intervention, older adults with obesity and evidence of significant enrichment for caffeine metabolism were more likely to achieve ≥5% weight loss. Further studies are needed to examine these associations in prospective cohorts and larger randomized trials

Learning while evaluating: the use of an electronic evaluation portfolio in a geriatric medicine clerkship

BACKGROUND: Electronic evaluation portfolios may play a role in learning and evaluation in clinical settings and may complement other traditional evaluation methods (bedside evaluations, written exams and tutor-led evaluations). METHODS: 133 third-year medical students used the McGill Electronic Evaluation Portfolio (MEEP) during their one-month clerkship rotation in Geriatric Medicine between September 2002 and September 2003. Students were divided into two groups, one who received an introductory hands-on session about the electronic evaluation portfolio and one who did not. Students' marks in their portfolios were compared between both groups. Additionally, students self-evaluated their performance and received feedback using the electronic portfolio during their mandatory clerkship rotation. Students were surveyed immediately after the rotation and at the end of the clerkship year. Tutors' opinions about this method were surveyed once. Finally, the number of evaluations/month was quantified. In all surveys, Likert scales were used and were analyzed using Chi-square tests and t-tests to assess significant differences in the responses from surveyed subjects. RESULTS: The introductory session had a significant effect on students' portfolio marks as well as on their comfort using the system. Both tutors and students reported positive notions about the method. Remarkably, an average (± SD) of 520 (± 70) evaluations/month was recorded with 30 (± 5) evaluations per student/month. CONCLUSION: The MEEP showed a significant and positive effect on both students' self-evaluations and tutors' evaluations involving an important amount of self-reflection and feedback which may complement the more traditional evaluation methods

Harmonizing model organism data in the Alliance of Genome Resources.

The Alliance of Genome Resources (the Alliance) is a combined effort of 7 knowledgebase projects: Saccharomyces Genome Database, WormBase, FlyBase, Mouse Genome Database, the Zebrafish Information Network, Rat Genome Database, and the Gene Ontology Resource. The Alliance seeks to provide several benefits: better service to the various communities served by these projects; a harmonized view of data for all biomedical researchers, bioinformaticians, clinicians, and students; and a more sustainable infrastructure. The Alliance has harmonized cross-organism data to provide useful comparative views of gene function, gene expression, and human disease relevance. The basis of the comparative views is shared calls of orthology relationships and the use of common ontologies. The key types of data are alleles and variants, gene function based on gene ontology annotations, phenotypes, association to human disease, gene expression, protein-protein and genetic interactions, and participation in pathways. The information is presented on uniform gene pages that allow facile summarization of information about each gene in each of the 7 organisms covered (budding yeast, roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, fruit fly, house mouse, zebrafish, brown rat, and human). The harmonized knowledge is freely available on the alliancegenome.org portal, as downloadable files, and by APIs. We expect other existing and emerging knowledge bases to join in the effort to provide the union of useful data and features that each knowledge base currently provides

Eighth Annual Conference of inVIVO Planetary Health: From Challenges to Opportunities

inVIVO Planetary Health (inVIVO) is a progressive scientific movement providing evidence, advocacy, and inspiration to align the interests and vitality of people, place, and planet. Our goal is to transform personal and planetary health through awareness, attitudes, and actions, and a deeper understanding of how all systems are interconnected and interdependent. Here, we present the abstracts and proceedings of our 8th annual conference, held in Detroit, Michigan in May 2019, themed “From Challenges, to Opportunities”. Our far-ranging discussions addressed the complex interdependent ecological challenges of advancing global urbanization, including the biopsychosocial interactions in our living environment on physical, mental, and spiritual wellbeing, together with the wider community and societal factors that govern these. We had a strong solutions focus, with diverse strategies spanning from urban-greening and renewal, nature-relatedness, nutritional ecology, planetary diets, and microbiome rewilding, through to initiatives for promoting resilience, positive emotional assets, traditional cultural narratives, creativity, art projects for personal and community health, and exploring ways of positively shifting mindsets and value systems. Our cross-sectoral agenda underscored the importance and global impact of local initiatives everywhere by contributing to new normative values as part of a global interconnected grass-roots movement for planetary health

What Do We Know About Contracting Out in the United States? Evidence from Household and Establishment Surveys

A variety of evidence points to significant growth in domestic contracting out over the last two decades, yet the phenomenon is not well documented. In this paper, we pull together data from various sources to shed light on the extent of and trends in domestic outsourcing, the occupations in which it has grown, and the industries engaging in outsourcing for the employment services sector, which has been a particularly important area of domestic outsourcing. In addition, we examine evidence of contracting out of selected occupations to other sectors. We point to many gaps in our knowledge on trends in domestic outsourcing and its implications for employment patterns and to inconsistencies across data sets in the information that is available. We recommend steps to improve data in this area