The Low Beta Anomaly: A Decomposition into Micro and Macro Effects

Low beta stocks have offered a combination of low risk and high returns. We decompose the anomaly into micro and macro components. The micro component comes from the selection of low beta stocks. The macro component comes from the selection of low beta countries or industries. The two parts both contribute to the low beta anomaly, with important implications for the construction of managed volatility portfolios

Neural Correlates of Treatment in Adolescents with Generalized Anxiety Disorder: A Preliminary Investigation

Objective: Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is a prevalent and debilitating psychiatric condition in adolescence. Two effective forms of treatment are cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. This pilot study examined changes in brain function following each type of treatment in GAD. Method: Subjects were 14 youth with GAD (7 had CBT, 7 received fluoxetine) and 10 age- and gender-matched healthy peers. FMRI scans were acquired before and after treatment for patients, and over two comparable time points for controls. During fMRI acquisition, a probe detection task with emotional (angry, happy) and neutral faces allowed for assessment of neural response to threat. Following previous research, region of interest analyses were performed in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC). Results: FMRI results showed increased VLPFC activation, relative to controls, in the medication (t(15) = 3.01, p \u3c 0.01) and CBT (t(15) = 3.22, p \u3c 0.01) groups following treatment. Conclusions: This study shows significant increase in VLPFC activation in response to angry faces following treatment with CBT or fluoxetine for GAD. This is consistent with previous research indicating that the VLPFC may facilitate effective responding to underlying neural correlates of anxiety in other brain regions, such as the amygdala

Attention bias for food is independent of restraint in healthy weight individuals—An eye tracking study.

a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o Objective: Restrained eating style and weight status are highly correlated. Though both have been associated with an attentional bias for food cues, in prior research restraint and BMI were often confounded. The aim of the present study was to determine the existence and nature of an attention bias for food cues in healthy-weight female restrained and unrestrained eaters, when matching the two groups on BMI. Method: Attention biases for food cues were measured by recordings of eye movements during a visual probe task with pictorial food versus non-food stimuli. Healthy weight high restrained (n = 24) and low restrained eaters (n = 21) were matched on BMI in an attempt to unconfound the effects of restraint and weight on attention allocation patterns. Results: All participants showed elevated attention biases for food stimuli in comparison to neutral stimuli, independent of restraint status. Discussion: These findings suggest that attention biases for food-related cues are common for healthy weight women and show that restrained eating (per se) is not related to biased processing of food stimuli, at least not in healthy weight participants

Amygdala and Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex Activation to Masked Angry Faces in Children and Adolescents with Generalized Anxiety Disorder

1. Context. Vigilance to threat is a key feature of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). The amygdala and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex comprise a neural circuit that is responsible for detection of threats. Disturbed interactions between these structures may underlie pediatric anxiety. To date, no study has selectively examined responses to briefly-presented threats (e.g. less than 50 msec) in GAD or in pediatric anxiety. 2. Objective. To investigate amygdala and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex activation during processing of briefly-presented threats in pediatric GAD. 3. Design. Case-control study. 4. Setting. Government clinical research institute. 5. Participants. Youth volunteers, 17 with GAD and 12 diagnosis-free. 6. Main Outcome Measures. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure blood oxygenation level-dependent signal. During imaging, subjects performed an attention orienting task with rapidly presented (17 msec), masked emotional (angry or happy) and neutral faces. 7. Results. When viewing masked angry faces, GAD youth, relative to comparison subjects, showed greater right amygdala activation that positively correlates with anxiety disorder severity. Moreover, in a functional connectivity (psychophysiological interaction) analysis, right amygdala and right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex showed strong negative coupling specifically to masked angry faces. This negative coupling tended to be weaker in GAD youth than in comparisons. Conclusions. GAD youth have hyper-activation of the amygdala to briefly-presented, masked threats. The presence of threat-related negative connectivity between the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and amygdala suggests that the prefrontal cortex modulates amygdala response to threat. In pediatric GAD, hyper-amygdala response occurs in the absence of a compensatory increase in modulation by ventrolateral prefrontal cortex

Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex Activation and Attentional Bias in Response to Angry Faces in Adolescents with Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Objective: While adolescent anxiety disorders represent prevalent, debilitating conditions, few studies explore their brain physiology. Using event-related functional MRI (fMRI) and a behavioral measure of attention to angry faces, we evaluated differences in response between healthy adolescents and adolescents with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Method: In the primary trials of interest, 18 adolescents with GAD and 15 comparisons of equivalent age/gender/IQ viewed angry/neutral face pairs during fMRI acquisition. Following the presentation of each face pair, subjects pressed a button to a probe that was either on the same (congruent) or opposite (incongruent) side as the angry face. Reaction time differences between congruent and incongruent face-trials provided a measure of attention bias to angry faces. Results: Relative to controls, patients with GAD manifested greater right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) activation to trials containing angry faces. Compared with controls, patients with GAD also showed greater attentional bias away from angry faces. VLPFC activation differences were independent of differences in attentional bias. Conclusions: Adolescents with GAD show greater right VLPFC activation and attentional bias away from angry faces than controls. Enhanced VLPFC engagement may directly relate to anxiety, or may regulate abnormal functioning in another region

Emotional orientation, brain function and genetics in adults and children : implications for development, and psychopathology

The ability to attend or avoid emotional stimuli is important to our survival. Attending to potential threats can help us avoid danger; while attending to positive stimuli is important for our social function. For example, when we see a man with a knife it is important to run away, or avoid the threat so we are not harmed. Just as the knife warns us of the threatening stiuation, a smiling face indicates a friendly person. We are drawn to this cue to possibly receive a rewarding social interaction. Attention orientation to both negative and positive stimuli may be impacted by development, psychopathology and genetics. The dot probe task yields both behavioral and neural indices of attention biases towards or away from an emotional cue (angry or happy face). This thesis includes three studies to determine the effects of development, psychopathology, and genetics on attention orientating. In Study I, we examined age-related correlations in attention-orienting biases to negative and positive faces in a healthy sample using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a dot probe task. Behavioral response data indicated a positive correlation between age and attention bias towards happy faces, such that younger participants showed less bias towards happy, relative to neutral, faces, than older subjects. Attention bias towards angry faces did not correlate with age. Relative to older, younger participants demonstrated greater activation in the left cuneus and left caudate on the contrast of trials used to assess happy-face attention bias. In Study II, using the dot probe task in a home setting, we studied parents that were highly exposed to the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 and their children. We found that psychiatrically healthy parents who experienced severe trauma showed greater attention bias towards threat than parents experiencing no such trauma, but trauma experienced by parents did was not predictive of attention bias in their children. In Study III, using an fMRI on 5-HTTLPR genotyped adults performing dot probe task; we compared amygdala response to threat bias contrasts. The 5- HTTLPR has been previously linked to amygdala reactivity and the amygdala has been implicated in the orienting of attention towards threat. Behavioral data indicated no difference between the two genotyped subject populations for the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism (l/l and s-carrier). However, fMRI data did reveal between-group differences in the amygdala activation. Specifically, relative to l/l, s-carriers showed greater right amygdala activation to trials with angry faces. Because similar levels of threat bias were found in the two genotype groups, these findings suggest that s-carriers exhibit a lower threshold for engaging the amygdala within the context of the task. In total, these three studies explore the effect of both the environment and genes on behavior and brain function. Studies I and II focus on environment, specifically, how their environment affects their emotional orientation. On the genetic side, Study III focuses on the effect of genetics on emotional orientation

THE DISTANCE TO THE MASSIVE GALACTIC CLUSTER WESTERLUND 2 FROM A SPECTROSCOPIC AND HST PHOTOMETRIC STUDY , ,

We present a spectroscopic and photometric determination of the distance to the young Galactic open cluster Westerlund 2 using WFPC2 imaging from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and ground-based optical spectroscopy. HST imaging in the F336W, F439W, F555W, and F814W filters resolved many sources previously undetected in ground-based observations and yielded photometry for 1136 stars. We identified 15 new O-type stars, along with two probable binary systems, including MSP 188 (O3 + O5.5). We fit reddened spectral energy distributions based on the Padova isochrones to the photometric data to determine individual reddening parameters RV and AV for O-type stars in Wd2. We find average values RV = 3.77 ± 0.09 and AV = 6.51 ± 0.38 mag, which result in a smaller distance than most other spectroscopic and photometric studies. After a statistical distance correction accounting for close unresolved binaries (factor of 1.08), our spectroscopic and photometric data on 29 O-type stars yield that Westerlund 2 has a distance d = 4.16 ± 0.07 (random) +0.26 (systematic) kpc. The cluster's age remains poorly constrained, with an upper limit of 3 Myr. Finally, we report evidence of a faint mid-IR polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon ring surrounding the well-known binary candidate MSP 18, which appears to lie at the center of a secondary stellar grouping within Westerlund 2

Protocol for the Prognosticating Delirium Recovery Outcomes Using Wakefulness and Sleep Electroencephalography (P-DROWS-E) study: A prospective observational study of delirium in elderly cardiac surgical patients

INTRODUCTION: Delirium is a potentially preventable disorder characterised by acute disturbances in attention and cognition with fluctuating severity. Postoperative delirium is associated with prolonged intensive care unit and hospital stay, cognitive decline and mortality. The development of biomarkers for tracking delirium could potentially aid in the early detection, mitigation and assessment of response to interventions. Because sleep disruption has been posited as a contributor to the development of this syndrome, expression of abnormal electroencephalography (EEG) patterns during sleep and wakefulness may be informative. Here we hypothesise that abnormal EEG patterns of sleep and wakefulness may serve as predictive and diagnostic markers for postoperative delirium. Such abnormal EEG patterns would mechanistically link disrupted thalamocortical connectivity to this important clinical syndrome. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: P-DROWS-E (Prognosticating Delirium Recovery Outcomes Using Wakefulness and Sleep Electroencephalography) is a 220-patient prospective observational study. Patient eligibility criteria include those who are English-speaking, age 60 years or older and undergoing elective cardiac surgery requiring cardiopulmonary bypass. EEG acquisition will occur 1-2 nights preoperatively, intraoperatively, and up to 7 days postoperatively. Concurrent with EEG recordings, two times per day postoperative Confusion Assessment Method (CAM) evaluations will quantify the presence and severity of delirium. EEG slow wave activity, sleep spindle density and peak frequency of the posterior dominant rhythm will be quantified. Linear mixed-effects models will be used to evaluate the relationships between delirium severity/duration and EEG measures as a function of time. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: P-DROWS-E is approved by the ethics board at Washington University in St. Louis. Recruitment began in October 2018. Dissemination plans include presentations at scientific conferences, scientific publications and mass media. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT03291626

Quantifying and addressing the prevalence and bias of study designs in the environmental and social sciences

Building trust in science and evidence-based decision-making depends heavily on the credibility of studies and their findings. Researchers employ many different study designs that vary in their risk of bias to evaluate the true effect of interventions or impacts. Here, we empirically quantify, on a large scale, the prevalence of different study designs and the magnitude of bias in their estimates. Randomised designs and controlled observational designs with pre-intervention sampling were used by just 23% of intervention studies in biodiversity conservation, and 36% of intervention studies in social science. We demonstrate, through pairwise within-study comparisons across 49 environmental datasets, that these types of designs usually give less biased estimates than simpler observational designs. We propose a model-based approach to combine study estimates that may suffer from different levels of study design bias, discuss the implications for evidence synthesis, and how to facilitate the use of more credible study designs.Fil: Christie, Alec P.. University of Cambridge; Reino UnidoFil: Abecasis, David. Universidad de Algarve. Centro de Ciencias del Mar; PortugalFil: Adjeroud, Mehdi. Université de Perpignan; Francia. Institut de Recherche Pour Le Developpement; FranciaFil: Alonso, Juan Carlos. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales; EspañaFil: Amano, Tatsuya. University of Queensland; AustraliaFil: Anton, Alvaro. Universidad del País Vasco. Facultad de Educación de Bilbao; EspañaFil: Baldigo, Barry P.. United States Geological Survey; Estados UnidosFil: Barrientos, Rafael. Universidad Complutense de Madrid; EspañaFil: Bicknell, Jake E.. University of Kent; Reino UnidoFil: Buhl, Deborah A.. United States Geological Survey; Estados UnidosFil: Cebrian, Just. Mississippi State University; Estados UnidosFil: Ceia, Ricardo S.. Universidad de Coimbra; PortugalFil: Cibils Martina, Luciana. Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Fisicoquímicas y Naturales. Departamento de Ciencias Naturales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba; ArgentinaFil: Clarke, Sarah. Marine Institute; IrlandaFil: Claudet, Joachim. Universite de Paris; Francia. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; FranciaFil: Craig, Michael D.. University of Western Australia; Australia. Murdoch University; AustraliaFil: Davoult, Dominique. Sorbonne University; FranciaFil: De Backer, Annelies. Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food; BélgicaFil: Donovan, Mary K.. University of California; Estados Unidos. University of Hawaii at Manoa; Estados UnidosFil: Eddy, Tyler D.. University of South Carolina; Estados Unidos. Memorial University of Newfoundland; Canadá. Victoria University of Wellington; Nueva ZelandaFil: França, Filipe M.. Lancaster University; Reino UnidoFil: Gardner, Jonathan P. A.. Victoria University of Wellington; Nueva ZelandaFil: Harris, Bradley P.. Alaska Pacific University; Estados UnidosFil: Huusko, Ari. Natural Resources Institute Finland; FinlandiaFil: Jones, Ian L.. Memorial University of Newfoundland; CanadáFil: Kelaher, Brendan P.. Southern Cross University; AustraliaFil: Kotiaho, Janne S.. Universidad de Jyvaskyla; FinlandiaFil: López Baucells, Adrià. Universidad de Lisboa; Portugal. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute; Panamá. Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Instituto de Investigaciones Amazonicas; Colombia. Museo de Ciencias Naturales de Granollers; EspañaFil: Major, Heather L.. University of New Brunswick; CanadáFil: Mäki Petäys, Aki. Voimalohi Oy; Finlandia. University of Oulu; Finlandi

C13orf31 (FAMIN) is a central regulator of immunometabolic function.

Single-nucleotide variations in C13orf31 (LACC1) that encode p.C284R and p.I254V in a protein of unknown function (called 'FAMIN' here) are associated with increased risk for systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis, leprosy and Crohn's disease. Here we set out to identify the biological mechanism affected by these coding variations. FAMIN formed a complex with fatty acid synthase (FASN) on peroxisomes and promoted flux through de novo lipogenesis to concomitantly drive high levels of fatty-acid oxidation (FAO) and glycolysis and, consequently, ATP regeneration. FAMIN-dependent FAO controlled inflammasome activation, mitochondrial and NADPH-oxidase-dependent production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), and the bactericidal activity of macrophages. As p.I254V and p.C284R resulted in diminished function and loss of function, respectively, FAMIN determined resilience to endotoxin shock. Thus, we have identified a central regulator of the metabolic function and bioenergetic state of macrophages that is under evolutionary selection and determines the risk of inflammatory and infectious disease.Supported by the European Research Council under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Grant agreement 260961, the Wellcome Trust (investigator award 106260/Z/14/Z; a PhD fellowship for clinicians; and a Career Re-Entry Fellowship), the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, the US National Institutes of Health (5U420D011174 and 5U54HG006348), the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the National Institute for Health Research Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation and the Swedish Medical Research Council and the Olle Engkvist foundation.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Publishing Group via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ni.353