Helping you helps me: giving and receiving social support in recovery groups for problem gamblers

Mutual aid fellowships are the most accessible and widely used treatments for different addictive behaviors including problem gambling, yet how and why such treatments may be effective remains underexplored. The present research investigated the relationships between recovery group identification, social support received and provided to the recovery group, and important recovery-related outcomes among people attending Gamblers Anonymous (GA). Recovery group identification was associated with increased abstinence self-efficacy and decreased perceived risk in gambling-related ‘trigger’ situations and these relationships were mediated by the perceived provision of social support but not its receipt. The findings suggest that mutual aid fellowships such as GA may be effective in part because they provide opportunities for members to not only receive social support from similar others but also to make a meaningful contribution to other people’s recovery through the provision of social support, which can aid their own recovery

A Study of CNVs As Trait-Associated Polymorphisms and As Expression Quantitative Trait Loci

We conducted a comprehensive study of copy number variants (CNVs) well-tagged by SNPs (r2≥0.8) by analyzing their effect on gene expression and their association with disease susceptibility and other complex human traits. We tested whether these CNVs were more likely to be functional than frequency-matched SNPs as trait-associated loci or as expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) influencing phenotype by altering gene regulation. Our study found that CNV–tagging SNPs are significantly enriched for cis eQTLs; furthermore, we observed that trait associations from the NHGRI catalog show an overrepresentation of SNPs tagging CNVs relative to frequency-matched SNPs. We found that these SNPs tagging CNVs are more likely to affect multiple expression traits than frequency-matched variants. Given these findings on the functional relevance of CNVs, we created an online resource of expression-associated CNVs (eCNVs) using the most comprehensive population-based map of CNVs to inform future studies of complex traits. Although previous studies of common CNVs that can be typed on existing platforms and/or interrogated by SNPs in genome-wide association studies concluded that such CNVs appear unlikely to have a major role in the genetic basis of several complex diseases examined, our findings indicate that it would be premature to dismiss the possibility that even common CNVs may contribute to complex phenotypes and at least some common diseases.</p

A Study of CNVs As Trait-Associated Polymorphisms and As Expression Quantitative Trait Loci

We conducted a comprehensive study of copy number variants (CNVs) well-tagged by SNPs (r2≥0.8) by analyzing their effect on gene expression and their association with disease susceptibility and other complex human traits. We tested whether these CNVs were more likely to be functional than frequency-matched SNPs as trait-associated loci or as expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) influencing phenotype by altering gene regulation. Our study found that CNV–tagging SNPs are significantly enriched for cis eQTLs; furthermore, we observed that trait associations from the NHGRI catalog show an overrepresentation of SNPs tagging CNVs relative to frequency-matched SNPs. We found that these SNPs tagging CNVs are more likely to affect multiple expression traits than frequency-matched variants. Given these findings on the functional relevance of CNVs, we created an online resource of expression-associated CNVs (eCNVs) using the most comprehensive population-based map of CNVs to inform future studies of complex traits. Although previous studies of common CNVs that can be typed on existing platforms and/or interrogated by SNPs in genome-wide association studies concluded that such CNVs appear unlikely to have a major role in the genetic basis of several complex diseases examined, our findings indicate that it would be premature to dismiss the possibility that even common CNVs may contribute to complex phenotypes and at least some common diseases

Harper operators, Fermi curves, and Picard-Fuchs equations

This paper is a continuation of the work on the spectral problem of Harper operator using algebraic geometry. We continue to discuss the local monodromy of algebraic Fermi curves based on Picard-Lefschetz formula. The density of states over approximating components of Fermi curves satisfies a Picard-Fuchs equation. By the property of Landen transformation, the density of states has a Lambert series as the quarter period. A $q$-expansion of the energy level can be derived from a mirror map as in the B-model.Comment: v2, 13 pages, minor changes have been mad

Constructing Synchronously Rotating Double White Dwarf Binaries

We have developed a self-consistent-field technique similar to the one described by Hachisu, Eriguchi, & Nomoto (1986b) that can be used to construct detailed force-balanced models of synchronously rotating, double white dwarf (DWD) binaries that have a wide range of total masses, mass ratios, and separations. In addition to providing a computational tool that can be used to provide quiet initial starts for dynamical studies of the onset of mass transfer in DWD systems, we show that this SCF technique can be used to construct model sequences that mimic the last portion of the detached inspiral phase of DWD binary evolutions, and semi-detached model sequences that mimic a phase of conservative mass transfer.Comment: 51 pages, 10 figures, submitted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Supplement Serie

An algebraic characterization of injectivity in phase retrieval

A complex frame is a collection of vectors that span $\mathbb{C}^M$ and define measurements, called intensity measurements, on vectors in $\mathbb{C}^M$. In purely mathematical terms, the problem of phase retrieval is to recover a complex vector from its intensity measurements, namely the modulus of its inner product with these frame vectors. We show that any vector is uniquely determined (up to a global phase factor) from $4M-4$ generic measurements. To prove this, we identify the set of frames defining non-injective measurements with the projection of a real variety and bound its dimension.Comment: 11 page

Cosmic x ray physics

The annual progress report on Cosmic X Ray Physics is presented. Topics studied include: the soft x ray background, proportional counter and filter calibrations, the new sounding rocket payload: X Ray Calorimeter, and theoretical studies