Adolescents' and mothers' affect during their daily interactions: an examination in the United States and China

Research conducted in the United States indicates that daily conflicts between parents and children show a modest increase across the transition to adolescence, along with heightened reciprocal negative affect. However, this mild "storm and stress" may be less typical in non-Western countries such as China. This is perhaps because East Asian cultures traditionally value minimization of emotional expression as a way to preserve social harmony, which may dampen the affect Chinese adolescents and mothers elicit in each other during their daily interactions. This study examined adolescents and mothers' daily affective experiences in interacting with one another in the United States and China as a possible source of later differences in European American and Chinese adolescents’ emotional intensity. A second key endeavor was to elucidate the downstream implications of American and Chinese children’s affective experiences in interacting with mothers. Using daily interviews and longitudinal surveys among a sample of 80 European American mothers and their children (n = 39 girls, Mage = 12.88 years) and 71 Chinese mothers and their children (n = 35 girls, Mage = 12.73 years), I found that Chinese adolescents consistently experienced less intense emotions – both positive and negative – than did European Americans. The present findings suggest that, through their interactions with their mothers, adolescents acquire the rules governing emotion that are appropriate in their cultures, impacting their broader emotional experiences a year later. Thus, differences in the intensity of European American and Chinese adolescents’ later affective experiences may be partially learned in and sustained by their interactions with their mothers

Protein profiling in hepatocellular carcinoma by label-free quantitative proteomics in two west african populations.

Background Hepatocellular Carcinoma is the third most common cause of cancer related death worldwide, often diagnosed by measuring serum AFP; a poor performance stand-alone biomarker. With the aim of improving on this, our study focuses on plasma proteins identified by Mass Spectrometry in order to investigate and validate differences seen in the respective proteomes of controls and subjects with LC and HCC. Methods Mass Spectrometry analysis using liquid chromatography electro spray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight was conducted on 339 subjects using a pooled expression profiling approach. ELISA assays were performed on four significantly differentially expressed proteins to validate their expression profiles in subjects from the Gambia and a pilot group from Nigeria. Results from this were collated for statistical multiplexing using logistic regression analysis. Results Twenty-six proteins were identified as differentially expressed between the three subject groups. Direct measurements of four; hemopexin, alpha-1-antitrypsin, apolipoprotein A1 and complement component 3 confirmed their change in abundance in LC and HCC versus control patients. These trends were independently replicated in the pilot validation subjects from Nigeria. The statistical multiplexing of these proteins demonstrated performance comparable to or greater than ALT in identifying liver cirrhosis or carcinogenesis. This exercise also proposed preliminary cut offs with achievable sensitivity, specificity and AUC statistics greater than reported AFP averages. Conclusions The validated changes of expression in these proteins have the potential for development into high-performance tests usable in the diagnosis and or monitoring of HCC and LC patients. The identification of sustained expression trends strengthens the suggestion of these four proteins as worthy candidates for further investigation in the context of liver disease. The statistical combinations also provide a novel inroad of analyses able to propose definitive cut-offs and combinations for evaluation of performance

Predictors of applicant pool racial and ethnic diversity among physician assistant education programs: a national cross-sectional cohort study

Abstract Background Numerous studies have demonstrated that the increasing racial and ethnic diversity of the US population benefits from access to healthcare providers from similarly diverse backgrounds. Physician assistant (PA) education programs have striven to increase the diversity of the profession, which is predominantly non-Hispanic white, by focusing on admitting students from historically excluded populations. However, strategies such as holistic admissions are predicated on the existence of racially and ethnically diverse applicant pools. While studies have examined correlates of matriculation into a medical education program, this study looks earlier in the pipeline and investigates whether applicant – not matriculant – pool diversity varies among PA programs with different characteristics. Methods Data were drawn from the 2017–2018 Central Application Service for PAs admissions cycle. Applications to programs with pre-professional tracks and applicants missing race/ethnicity data were excluded, resulting in data from 26,600 individuals who applied to 189 PA programs. We summarized the racial and ethnic diversity of each program’s applicant pools using: [1]the proportion of underrepresented minority (URM) students, [2]the proportion of students with backgrounds underrepresented in medicine (URiM), and [3]Simpson’s diversity index of a 7-category race/ethnicity combination. We used multiple regressions to model each diversity metric as a function of program characteristics including class size, accreditation status, type of institution, and other important features. Results Regardless of the demographic diversity metric examined, we found that applicant diversity was higher among provisionally accredited programs and those receiving more applications. We also identified trends suggesting that programs in more metropolitan areas were able to attract more diverse applicants. Programs that did not require the GRE were also able to attract more diverse applicants when considering the URM and SDI metrics, though results for URiM were not statistically significant. Conclusions Our findings provide insights into modifiable (e.g., GRE requirement) and non-modifiable (e.g., provisionally accredited) program characteristics that are associated with more demographically diverse applicant pools

Erratum to: Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (3rd edition) (Autophagy, 12, 1, 1-222, 10.1080/15548627.2015.1100356

non present