Extrapulmonary tuberculosis, human immunodeficiency virus, and foreign birth in North Carolina, 1993 – 2006

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The proportion of extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB) reported in the United States has been gradually increasing. HIV infection and foreign birth are increasingly associated with tuberculosis and understanding their effect on the clinical presentation of tuberculosis is important.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Case-control study of 6,124 persons with tuberculosis reported to the North Carolina Division of Public health from January 1, 1993 to December 31, 2006. Multivariate logistic regression was used to obtain adjusted odds ratios measuring the associations of foreign birth region and US born race/ethnicity, by HIV status, with EPTB.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Among all patients with tuberculosis, 1,366 (22.3%) had EPTB, 563 (9.2%) were HIV co-infected, and 1,299 (21.2%) were foreign born. Among HIV negative patients, EPTB was associated with being foreign born (adjusted ORs 1.36 to 5.09, depending on region of birth) and with being US born, Black/African American (OR 1.84; 95% CI 1.42, 2.39). Among HIV infected patients, EPTB was associated with being US born, Black/African American (OR 2.60; 95% CI 1.83, 3.71) and with foreign birth in the Americas (OR 5.12; 95% CI 2.84, 9.23).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Foreign born tuberculosis cases were more likely to have EPTB than US born tuberculosis cases, even in the absence of HIV infection. Increasing proportions of foreign born and HIV-attributable tuberculosis cases in the United States will likely result in a sustained burden of EPTB. Further research is needed to explore why the occurrence and type of EPTB differs by region of birth and whether host genetic and/or bacterial variation can explain these differences in EPTB.</p

Individual Shrink Wrapping of Zucchini Fruit Improves Postharvest Chilling Tolerance Associated with a Reduction in Ethylene Production and Oxidative Stress Metabolites

We have studied the effect of individual shrink wrapping (ISW) on the postharvest performance of refrigerated fruit from two zucchini cultivars that differ in their sensitivity to cold storage: Sinatra (more sensitive) and Natura (more tolerant). The fruit was individually shrink wrapped before storing at 4°C for 0, 7 and 14 days. Quality parameters, ethylene and CO2 productions, ethylene gene expression, and oxidative stress metabolites were assessed in shrink wrapped and non-wrapped fruit after conditioning the fruit for 6 hours at 20°C. ISW decreased significantly the postharvest deterioration of chilled zucchini in both cultivars. Weight loss was reduced to less than 1%, pitting symptoms were completely absent in ISW fruit at 7 days, and were less than 25% those of control fruits at 14 days of cold storage, and firmness loss was significantly reduced in the cultivar Sinatra. These enhancements in quality of ISW fruit were associated with a significant reduction in cold-induced ethylene production, in the respiration rate, and in the level of oxidative stress metabolites such as hydrogen peroxide and malonyldialdehyde (MDA). A detailed expression analysis of ethylene biosynthesis, perception and signaling genes demonstrated a downregulation of CpACS1 and CpACO1 genes in response to ISW, two genes that are upregulated by cold storage. However, the expression patterns of six other ethylene biosynthesis genes (CpACS2 to CpACS7) and five ethylene signal transduction pathway genes (CpCTR1, CpETR1, CpERS1, CpEIN3.1 and CpEN3.2), suggest that they do not play a major role in response to cold storage and ISW packaging. In conclusion, ISW zucchini packaging resulted in improved tolerance to chilling concomitantly with a reduction in oxidative stress, respiration rate and ethylene production, as well as in the expression of ethylene biosynthesis genes, but not of those involved in ethylene perception and sensitivity.This work was supported by grants AGL2011-30568-C02/ALI from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, and AGR1423 from the Consejería de Economía, Innovación y Ciencia, Junta de Andalucía, Spain. Z.M. acknowledges FPU program scholarships from MEC, Spain. S.M. is funded by grant PTA2011-479-I from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation

A statistical framework for cross-tissue transcriptome-wide association analysis

Transcriptome-wide association analysis is a powerful approach to studying the genetic architecture of complex traits. A key component of this approach is to build a model to impute gene expression levels from genotypes by using samples with matched genotypes and gene expression data in a given tissue. However, it is challenging to develop robust and accurate imputation models with a limited sample size for any single tissue. Here, we first introduce a multi-task learning method to jointly impute gene expression in 44 human tissues. Compared with single-tissue methods, our approach achieved an average of 39% improvement in imputation accuracy and generated effective imputation models for an average of 120% more genes. We describe a summary-statistic-based testing framework that combines multiple single-tissue associations into a powerful metric to quantify the overall gene–trait association. We applied our method, called UTMOST (unified test for molecular signatures), to multiple genome-wide-association results and demonstrate its advantages over single-tissue strategies

FDI in hot labour markets: The implications of the war for talent

This paper highlights an inherent contradiction that exists within investment promotion activities in rich countries. Since the financial crisis, many inward investment agencies have shifted their activities from job creation per se to seeking to attract investment in high-tech activities. Such knowledge-intensive sectors are engaged in what has become referred to as “the war for talent”, so locations need to understand their value proposition to firms, especially where labour is tight. This paper explores the implications of this, in terms of the impact on employment and earnings of high skilled labour. We show that, because skill shortages already exist in many of these sectors, seeking to attract inward investment in these sectors simply causes the earnings of such workers to be bid up, and employment in the incumbent sector to fall. We highlight the over-riding importance that firms place on the availability of skilled labour when determining locations, and how policies which promote labour market flexibility, particularly through investment in skills to address skill shortages, can significantly mitigate the adverse effects, which tend to be more keenly felt in poorer regions of Europe where skilled labour is in even shorter supply

Meta-analysis of genetic association with diagnosed Alzheimer’s disease identifies novel risk loci and implicates Abeta, Tau, immunity and lipid processing

Introduction Late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD, onset age > 60 years) is the most prevalent dementia in the elderly 1 , and risk is partially driven by genetics 2 . Many of the loci responsible for this genetic risk were identified by genome-wide association studies (GWAS) 3–8 . To identify additional LOAD risk loci, the we performed the largest GWAS to date (89,769 individuals), analyzing both common and rare variants. We confirm 20 previous LOAD risk loci and identify four new genome-wide loci ( IQCK , ACE , ADAM10 , and ADAMTS1 ). Pathway analysis of these data implicates the immune system and lipid metabolism, and for the first time tau binding proteins and APP metabolism. These findings show that genetic variants affecting APP and Aβ processing are not only associated with early-onset autosomal dominant AD but also with LOAD. Analysis of AD risk genes and pathways show enrichment for rare variants ( P = 1.32 × 10 −7 ) indicating that additional rare variants remain to be identified.ADGC. The National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging (NIH-NIA) supported this work through the following grants: ADGC, U01 AG032984, RC2 AG036528; Samples from the National Cell Repository for Alzheimer’s Disease (NCRAD), which receives government support under a cooperative agreement grant (U24 AG21886) awarded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), were used in this study. We thank contributors who collected samples used in this study, as well as patients and their families, whose help and participation made this work possible; Data for this study were prepared, archived, and distributed by the National Institute on Aging Alzheimer’s Disease Data Storage Site (NIAGADS) at the University of Pennsylvania (U24-AG041689-01); NACC, U01 AG016976; NIA LOAD (Columbia University), U24 AG026395, U24 AG026390, R01AG041797; Banner Sun Health Research Institute P30 AG019610; Boston University, P30 AG013846, U01 AG10483, R01 CA129769, R01 MH080295, R01 AG017173, R01 AG025259, R01 AG048927, R01AG33193, R01 AG009029; Columbia University, P50 AG008702, R37 AG015473, R01 AG037212, R01 AG028786; Duke University, P30 AG028377, AG05128; Emory University, AG025688; Group Health Research Institute, UO1 AG006781, UO1 HG004610, UO1 HG006375, U01 HG008657; Indiana University, P30 AG10133, R01 AG009956, RC2 AG036650; Johns Hopkins University, P50 AG005146, R01 AG020688; Massachusetts General Hospital, P50 AG005134; Mayo Clinic, P50 AG016574, R01 AG032990, KL2 RR024151; Mount Sinai School of Medicine, P50 AG005138, P01 AG002219; New York University, P30 AG08051, UL1 RR029893, 5R01AG012101, 5R01AG022374, 5R01AG013616, 1RC2AG036502, 1R01AG035137; North Carolina A&T University, P20 MD000546, R01 AG28786-01A1; Northwestern University, P30 AG013854; Oregon Health & Science University, P30 AG008017, R01 AG026916; Rush University, P30 AG010161, R01 AG019085, R01 AG15819, R01 AG17917, R01 AG030146, R01 AG01101, RC2 AG036650, R01 AG22018; TGen, R01 NS059873; University of Alabama at Birmingham, P50 AG016582; University of Arizona, R01 AG031581; University of California, Davis, P30 AG010129; University of California, Irvine, P50 AG016573; University of California, Los Angeles, P50 AG016570; University of California, San Diego, P50 AG005131; University of California, San Francisco, P50 AG023501, P01 AG019724; University of Kentucky, P30 AG028383, AG05144; University of Michigan, P50 AG008671; University of Pennsylvania, P30 AG010124; University of Pittsburgh, P50 AG005133, AG030653, AG041718, AG07562, AG02365; University of Southern California, P50 AG005142; University of Texas Southwestern, P30 AG012300; University of Miami, R01 AG027944, AG010491, AG027944, AG021547, AG019757; University of Washington, P50 AG005136, R01 AG042437; University of Wisconsin, P50 AG033514; Vanderbilt University, R01 AG019085; and Washington University, P50 AG005681, P01 AG03991, P01 AG026276. The Kathleen Price Bryan Brain Bank at Duke University Medical Center is funded by NINDS grant # NS39764, NIMH MH60451 and by Glaxo Smith Kline. Support was also from the Alzheimer’s Association (LAF, IIRG-08-89720; MP-V, IIRG-05-14147), the US Department of Veterans Affairs Administration, Office of Research and Development, Biomedical Laboratory Research Program, and BrightFocus Foundation (MP-V, A2111048). P.S.G.-H. is supported by Wellcome Trust, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Canadian Institute of Health Research. Genotyping of the TGEN2 cohort was supported by Kronos Science. The TGen series was also funded by NIA grant AG041232 to AJM and MJH, The Banner Alzheimer’s Foundation, The Johnnie B. Byrd Sr. Alzheimer’s Institute, the Medical Research Council, and the state of Arizona and also includes samples from the following sites: Newcastle Brain Tissue Resource (funding via the Medical Research Council, local NHS trusts and Newcastle University), MRC London Brain Bank for Neurodegenerative Diseases (funding via the Medical Research Council),South West Dementia Brain Bank (funding via numerous sources including the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), Alzheimer’s Research Trust (ART), BRACE as well as North Bristol NHS Trust Research and Innovation Department and DeNDRoN), The Netherlands Brain Bank (funding via numerous sources including Stichting MS Research, Brain Net Europe, Hersenstichting Nederland Breinbrekend Werk, International Parkinson Fonds, Internationale Stiching Alzheimer Onderzoek), Institut de Neuropatologia, Servei Anatomia Patologica, Universitat de Barcelona. ADNI data collection and sharing was funded by the National Institutes of Health Grant U01 AG024904 and Department of Defense award number W81XWH-12-2-0012. ADNI is funded by the National Institute on Aging, the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, and through generous contributions from the following: AbbVie, Alzheimer’s Association; Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation; Araclon Biotech; BioClinica, Inc.; Biogen; Bristol-Myers Squibb Company; CereSpir, Inc.; Eisai Inc.; Elan Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Eli Lilly and Company; EuroImmun; F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd and its affiliated company Genentech, Inc.; Fujirebio; GE Healthcare; IXICO Ltd.; Janssen Alzheimer Immunotherapy Research & Development, LLC.; Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development LLC.; Lumosity; Lundbeck; Merck & Co., Inc.; Meso Scale Diagnostics, LLC.; NeuroRx Research; Neurotrack Technologies; Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation; Pfizer Inc.; Piramal Imaging; Servier; Takeda Pharmaceutical Company; and Transition Therapeutics. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research is providing funds to support ADNI clinical sites in Canada. Private sector contributions are facilitated by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (www.fnih.org). The grantee organization is the Northern California Institute for Research and Education, and the study is coordinated by the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study at the University of California, San Diego. ADNI data are disseminated by the Laboratory for Neuro Imaging at the University of Southern California. We thank Drs. D. Stephen Snyder and Marilyn Miller from NIA who are ex-officio ADGC members. EADI. This work has been developed and supported by the LABEX (laboratory of excellence program investment for the future) DISTALZ grant (Development of Innovative Strategies for a Transdisciplinary approach to ALZheimer’s disease) including funding from MEL (Metropole européenne de Lille), ERDF (European Regional Development Fund) and Conseil Régional Nord Pas de Calais. This work was supported by INSERM, the National Foundation for Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders, the Institut Pasteur de Lille and the Centre National de Génotypage, the JPND PERADES, GENMED, and the FP7 AgedBrainSysBio. The Three-City Study was performed as part of collaboration between the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (Inserm), the Victor Segalen Bordeaux II University and Sanofi- Synthélabo. The Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale funded the preparation and initiation of the study. The 3C Study was also funded by the Caisse Nationale Maladie des Travailleurs Salariés, Direction Générale de la Santé, MGEN, Institut de la Longévité, Agence Française de Sécurité Sanitaire des Produits de Santé, the Aquitaine and Bourgogne Regional Councils, Agence Nationale de la Recherche, ANR supported the COGINUT and COVADIS projects. Fondation de France and the joint French Ministry of Research/INSERM “Cohortes et collections de données biologiques” programme. Lille Génopôle received an unconditional grant from Eisai. The Three-city biological bank was developed and maintained by the laboratory for genomic analysis LAG-BRC - Institut Pasteur de Lille. This work was further supported by the CoSTREAM project (http://www.costream.eu/) and funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement 667375. Belgium samples: Research at the Antwerp site is funded in part by the Belgian Science Policy Office Interuniversity Attraction Poles program, the Belgian Alzheimer Research Foundation, the Flemish government-initiated Flanders Impulse Program on Networks for Dementia Research (VIND) and the Methusalem excellence program, the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), and the University of Antwerp Research Fund, Belgium. The Antwerp site authors thank the personnel of the VIB Neuromics Support Facility, the Biobank of the Institute Born-Bunge and neurology departments at the contributing hospitals. The authors acknowledge the members of the BELNEU consortium for their contributions to the clinical and pathological characterization of Belgium patients and the personnel of the Diagnostic Service Facility for the genetic testing. Finish sample collection: Financial support for this project was provided by Academy of Finland (grant number 307866), Sigrid Jusélius Foundation and the Strategic Neuroscience Funding of the University of Eastern Finland. Swedish sample collection: Financially supported in part by the Swedish Brain Power network, the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Research Council (521-2010-3134, 2015-02926), the King Gustaf V and Queen Victoria’s Foundation of Freemasons, the Regional Agreement on Medical Training and Clinical Research (ALF) between Stockholm County Council and the Karolinska Institutet, the Swedish Brain Foundation and the Swedish Alzheimer Foundation”. CHARGE. Infrastructure for the CHARGE Consortium is supported in part by National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute grant HL105756 (Psaty) and RC2HL102419 (Boerwinkle) and the neurology working group by grants from the National Institute on Aging, R01 AG033193, U01 AG049505 and U01AG52409. Rotterdam (RS). This study was funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMW) as part of the Joint Programming for Neurological Disease (JPND)as part of the PERADES Program (Defining Genetic Polygenic, and Environmental Risk for Alzheimer’s disease using multiple powerful cohorts, focused Epigenetics and Stem cell metabolomics), Project number 733051021. This work was funded also by the European Union Innovative Medicine Initiative (IMI) programme under grant agreement No. 115975 as part of the Alzheimer’s Disease Apolipoprotein Pathology for Treatment Elucidation and Development (ADAPTED, https://www.imi-adapted.eu);and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme as part of the Common mechanisms and pathways in Stroke and Alzheimer’s disease CoSTREAM project (www.costream.eu, grant agreement No. 667375). The current study is supported by the Deltaplan Dementie and Memorabel supported by ZonMW (Project number 733050814) and Alzheimer Nederland. The Rotterdam Study is funded by Erasmus Medical Center and Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands Organization for the Health Research and Development (ZonMw), the Research Institute for Diseases in the Elderly (RIDE), the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Sports, the European Commission (DG XII), and the Municipality of Rotterdam. The authors are grateful to the study participants, the staff from the Rotterdam Study and the participating general practitioners and pharmacists. The generation and management of GWAS genotype data for the Rotterdam Study (RS-I, RS-II, RS-III) was executed by the Human Genotyping Facility of the Genetic Laboratory of the Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The GWAS datasets are supported by the Netherlands Organization of Scientific Research NWO Investments (Project number 175.010.2005.011, 911-03-012), the Genetic Laboratory of the Department of Internal Medicine, Erasmus MC, the Research Institute for Diseases in the Elderly (014-93-015; RIDE2), the Netherlands Genomics Initiative (NGI)/Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) Netherlands Consortium for Healthy Aging (NCHA), project number 050-060-810. We thank Pascal Arp, Mila Jhamai, Marijn Verkerk, Lizbeth Herrera and Marjolein Peters, MSc, and Carolina Medina-Gomez, MSc, for their help in creating the GWAS database, and Karol Estrada, PhD, Yurii Aulchenko, PhD, and Carolina Medina-Gomez, MSc, for the creation and analysis of imputed data. AGES. The AGES study has been funded by NIA contracts N01-AG-12100 and HHSN271201200022C with contributions from NEI, NIDCD, and NHLBI, the NIA Intramural Research Program, Hjartavernd (the Icelandic Heart Association), and the Althingi (the Icelandic Parliament). Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS). This research was supported by contracts HHSN268201200036C, HHSN268200800007C, N01HC55222, N01HC85079, N01HC85080, N01HC85081, N01HC85082, N01HC85083, and N01HC85086 and grant U01HL080295 and U01HL130114 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), with additional contribution from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). Additional support was provided by R01AG033193, R01AG023629, R01AG15928, and R01AG20098 and by U01AG049505 from the National Institute on Aging (NIA). The provision of genotyping data was supported in part by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, CTSI grant UL1TR000124, and National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disease Diabetes Research Center (DRC) grant DK063491 to the Southern California Diabetes Endocrinology Research Center. A full list of CHS principal investigators and institutions can be found at https://chs-nhlbi.org/. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the US National Institutes of Health. Framingham Heart Study. This work was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Framingham Heart Study (contracts N01-HC-25195 and HHSN268201500001I). This study was also supported by grants from the National Institute on Aging: R01AG033193, U01AG049505, U01AG52409, R01AG054076 (S. Seshadri). S. Seshadri and A.L.D. were also supported by additional grants from the National Institute on Aging (R01AG049607, R01AG033040) and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01- NS017950, NS100605). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the US National Institutes of Health. GR@ACE cohort. Fundació ACE We would like to thank patients and controls who participated in this project. Genome Resesarch @ Fundació ACE project (GR@ACE) is supported by Fundación bancaria “La Caixa”, Grifols SA, Fundació ACE and ISCIII. We also want to thank other private sponsors supporting the basic and clinical projects of our institution (Piramal AG, Laboratorios Echevarne, Araclon Biotech S.A. and Fundació ACE). We are indebted to Trinitat Port-Carbó legacy and her family for their support of Fundació ACE research programs. Fundació ACE collaborates with the Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red sobreEnfermedades Neurodegenerativas (CIBERNED, Spain) and is one of the participating centers of the Dementia Genetics Spanish Consortium (DEGESCO). A.R. and M.B. are receiving support from the European Union/EFPIA Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking ADAPTED and MOPEAD projects (Grants No. 115975 and 115985 respectively). M.B. and A.R. are also supported by national grants PI13/02434, PI16/01861 and PI17/01474. Acción Estratégica en Salud integrated in the Spanish National R + D + I Plan and funded by ISCIII (Instituto de Salud Carlos III)-Subdirección General de Evaluación and the Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER- “Una manera de Hacer Europa”). Control samples and data from patients included in this study were provided in part by the National DNA Bank Carlos III (www.bancoadn.org, University of Salamanca, Spain) and Hospital Universitario Virgen de Valme (Sevilla, Spain) and they were processed following standard operating procedures with the appropriate approval of the Ethical and Scientific Committee. GERAD/PERADES. We thank all individuals who participated in this study. Cardiff University was supported by the Wellcome Trust, Alzheimer’s Society (AS; grant RF014/164), the Medical Research Council (MRC; grants G0801418/1, MR/K013041/1, MR/L023784/1), the European Joint Programme for Neurodegenerative Disease (JPND, grant MR/L501517/1), Alzheimer’s Research UK (ARUK, grant ARUK-PG2014-1), Welsh Assembly Government (grant SGR544:CADR), a donation from the Moondance Charitable Foundation, and the UK Dementia Research Institute at Cardiff. Cambridge University acknowledges support from the MRC. ARUK supported sample collections at the Kings College London, the South West Dementia Bank, Universities of Cambridge, Nottingham, Manchester and Belfast. King’s College London was supported by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health and Biomedical Research Unit for Dementia at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Kings College London and the MRC. Alzheimer’s Research UK (ARUK) and the Big Lottery Fund provided support to Nottingham University. Ulster Garden Villages, AS, ARUK, American Federation for Aging Research, NI R&D Office and the Royal College of Physicians/Dunhill Medical Trust provided support for Queen’s University, Belfast. The University of Southampton acknowledges support from the AS. The MRC and Mercer’s Institute for Research on Ageing supported the Trinity College group. DCR is a Wellcome Trust Principal Research fellow. The South West Dementia Brain Bank acknowledges support from Bristol Research into Alzheimer’s and Care of the Elderly. The Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust supported the OPTIMA group. Washington University was funded by NIH grants, Barnes Jewish Foundation and the Charles and Joanne Knight Alzheimer’s Research Initiative. Patient recruitment for the MRC Prion Unit/UCL Department of Neurodegenerative Disease collection was supported by the UCLH/UCL Biomed- ical Centre and their work was supported by the NIHR Queen Square Dementia BRU. LASER-AD was funded by Lundbeck SA. The Bonn group would like to thank Dr. Heike Koelsch for her scientific support. The Bonn group was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF): Competence Network Dementia (CND) grant number 01GI0102, 01GI0711, 01GI0420. The AgeCoDe study group was supported by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research grants 01 GI 0710, 01 GI 0712, 01 GI 0713, 01 GI 0714, 01 GI 0715, 01 GI 0716, 01 GI 0717. Genotyping of the Bonn case-control sample was funded by the German centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Germany. The GERAD Consortium also used samples ascertained by the NIMH AD Genetics Initiative. HH was supported by a grant of the Katharina-Hardt-Foundation, Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, Germany. The KORA F4 studies were financed by Helmholtz Zentrum München; German Research Center for Environmental Health; BMBF; German National Genome Research Network and the Munich Center of Health Sciences. The Heinz Nixdorf Recall cohort was funded by the Heinz Nixdorf Foundation (Dr. Jur. G.Schmidt, Chairman) and BMBF. Coriell Cell Repositories is supported by NINDS and the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute on Aging. We acknowledge use of genotype data from the 1958 Birth Cohort collection, funded by the MRC and the Wellcome Trust which was genotyped by the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium and the Type-1 Diabetes Genetics Consortium, sponsored by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International. The Bonn samples are part of the German Dementia Competance Network (DCN) and the German Research Network on Degenerative Dementia (KNDD), which are funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (grants KND: 01G10102, 01GI0420, 01GI0422, 01GI0423, 01GI0429, 01GI0431, 01GI0433, 04GI0434; grants KNDD: 01GI1007A, 01GI0710, 01GI0711, 01GI0712, 01GI0713, 01GI0714, 01GI0715, 01GI0716, 01ET1006B). Markus M Nothen is a member of the German Research Foundation (DFG) cluster of excellence ImmunoSensation. Funding for Saarland University was provided by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), grant number 01GS08125 to Matthias Riemenschneider. The University of Washington was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (R01-NS085419 and R01-AG044546), the Alzheimer’s Association (NIRG-11-200110) and the American Federation for Aging Research (Carlos Cruchaga was recipient of a New Investigator Award in Alzhei

Sourcing Technological Knowledge Through Foreign Inward Licensing to Boost the Performance of Indian Firms: The Contingent Effects of Internal R&D and Business Group Affiliation

Sourcing technological knowledge from abroad is becoming a popular strategy among emerging market firms (EMFs). Combining the Knowledge-Based View and the Resource Dependence Theory, we argue that augmenting technological knowledge through foreign licensing enables EMFs to access state-of-the-art technological knowledge, reduce operational costs and risks associated to the innovation process, and develop a knowledge-based competitive advantage, ultimately boosting their financial performance. Using data about Indian firms observed from 2001 to 2013, we find that firms with a higher share of foreign inward technology licenses report better financial performance. However, the positive impact of technological knowledge accessed through inward licensing on firm performance is contingent upon: (1) the internal knowledge developed through R&D activity, and (2) the affiliation with business groups. While Indian firms with higher level of internal R&D are able to better leverage the value of foreign technological knowledge, thus reaching higher performance, firms affiliated to business groups gain fewer benefits from licensed foreign technological knowledge than non-business-group affiliated firms

A novel Alzheimer disease locus located near the gene encoding tau protein.

APOE ɛ4, the most significant genetic risk factor for Alzheimer disease (AD), may mask effects of other loci. We re-analyzed genome-wide association study (GWAS) data from the International Genomics of Alzheimer's Project (IGAP) Consortium in APOE ɛ4+ (10 352 cases and 9207 controls) and APOE ɛ4- (7184 cases and 26 968 controls) subgroups as well as in the total sample testing for interaction between a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and APOE ɛ4 status. Suggestive associations (P<1 × 10(-4)) in stage 1 were evaluated in an independent sample (stage 2) containing 4203 subjects (APOE ɛ4+: 1250 cases and 536 controls; APOE ɛ4-: 718 cases and 1699 controls). Among APOE ɛ4- subjects, novel genome-wide significant (GWS) association was observed with 17 SNPs (all between KANSL1 and LRRC37A on chromosome 17 near MAPT) in a meta-analysis of the stage 1 and stage 2 data sets (best SNP, rs2732703, P=5·8 × 10(-9)). Conditional analysis revealed that rs2732703 accounted for association signals in the entire 100-kilobase region that includes MAPT. Except for previously identified AD loci showing stronger association in APOE ɛ4+ subjects (CR1 and CLU) or APOE ɛ4- subjects (MS4A6A/MS4A4A/MS4A6E), no other SNPs were significantly associated with AD in a specific APOE genotype subgroup. In addition, the finding in the stage 1 sample that AD risk is significantly influenced by the interaction of APOE with rs1595014 in TMEM106B (P=1·6 × 10(-7)) is noteworthy, because TMEM106B variants have previously been associated with risk of frontotemporal dementia. Expression quantitative trait locus analysis revealed that rs113986870, one of the GWS SNPs near rs2732703, is significantly associated with four KANSL1 probes that target transcription of the first translated exon and an untranslated exon in hippocampus (P ⩽ 1.3 × 10(-8)), frontal cortex (P ⩽ 1.3 × 10(-9)) and temporal cortex (P⩽1.2 × 10(-11)). Rs113986870 is also strongly associated with a MAPT probe that targets transcription of alternatively spliced exon 3 in frontal cortex (P=9.2 × 10(-6)) and temporal cortex (P=2.6 × 10(-6)). Our APOE-stratified GWAS is the first to show GWS association for AD with SNPs in the chromosome 17q21.31 region. Replication of this finding in independent samples is needed to verify that SNPs in this region have significantly stronger effects on AD risk in persons lacking APOE ɛ4 compared with persons carrying this allele, and if this is found to hold, further examination of this region and studies aimed at deciphering the mechanism(s) are warranted