Mapping community determinants of heat vulnerability.

BACKGROUND: The evidence that heat waves can result in both increased deaths and illness is substantial, and concern over this issue is rising because of climate change. Adverse health impacts from heat waves can be avoided, and epidemiologic studies have identified specific population and community characteristics that mark vulnerability to heat waves. OBJECTIVES: We situated vulnerability to heat in geographic space and identified potential areas for intervention and further research. METHODS: We mapped and analyzed 10 vulnerability factors for heat-related morbidity/mortality in the United States: six demographic characteristics and two household air conditioning variables from the U.S. Census Bureau, vegetation cover from satellite images, and diabetes prevalence from a national survey. We performed a factor analysis of these 10 variables and assigned values of increasing vulnerability for the four resulting factors to each of 39,794 census tracts. We added the four factor scores to obtain a cumulative heat vulnerability index value. RESULTS: Four factors explained > 75% of the total variance in the original 10 vulnerability variables: a) social/environmental vulnerability (combined education/poverty/race/green space), b) social isolation, c) air conditioning prevalence, and d) proportion elderly/diabetes. We found substantial spatial variability of heat vulnerability nationally, with generally higher vulnerability in the Northeast and Pacific Coast and the lowest in the Southeast. In urban areas, inner cities showed the highest vulnerability to heat. CONCLUSIONS: These methods provide a template for making local and regional heat vulnerability maps. After validation using health outcome data, interventions can be targeted at the most vulnerable populations.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78516/1/ReidONeill2009_EnvironHealthPerspect.pd

Individual and neighborhood-level socioeconomic characteristics in relation to smoking prevalence among black and white adults in the Southeastern United States: a cross-sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Low individual-level socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with higher prevalence of cigarette smoking. Recent work has examined whether neighborhood-level SES may affect smoking behavior independently from individual-level measures. However, few comparisons of neighborhood-level effects on smoking by race and gender are available.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Cross-sectional data from adults age 40-79 enrolled in the Southern Community Cohort Study from 2002-2009 (19, 561 black males; 27, 412 black females; 6, 231 white males; 11, 756 white females) were used in Robust Poisson regression models to estimate prevalence ratios (PRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for current smoking in relation to individual-level SES characteristics obtained via interview and neighborhood-level SES characteristics represented by demographic measures from US Census block groups matched to participant home addresses.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Several neighborhood-level SES characteristics were modestly associated with increased smoking after adjustment for individual-level factors including lower percentage of adults with a college education and lower percentage of owner-occupied households among blacks but not whites; lower percentage of households with interest, dividends, or net rental income among white males; and lower percentage of employed adults among black females.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Lower neighborhood-level SES is associated with increased smoking suggesting that cessation programs may benefit from targeting higher-risk neighborhoods as well as individuals.</p

The impact of regional and neighbourhood deprivation on physical health in Germany: a multilevel study

Voigtländer S, Berger U, Razum O. The impact of regional and neighbourhood deprivation on physical health in Germany: a multilevel study. BMC Public Health. 2010;10(1): 403.Background There is increasing evidence that individual health is at least partly determined by neighbourhood and regional factors. Mechanisms, however, remain poorly understood, and evidence from Germany is scant. This study explores whether regional as well as neighbourhood deprivation are associated with physical health and to what extent this association can be explained by specific neighbourhood exposures. Methods Using 2004 data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) merged with regional and neighbourhood characteristics, we fitted multilevel linear regression models with subjective physical health, as measured by the SF-12, as the dependent variable. The models include regional and neighbourhood proxies of deprivation (i.e. regional unemployment quota, average purchasing power of the street section) as well as specific neighbourhood exposures (i.e. perceived air pollution). Individual characteristics including socioeconomic status and health behaviour have been controlled for. Results This study finds a significant association between area deprivation and physical health which is independent of compositional factors and consistent across different spatial scales. Furthermore the association between neighbourhood deprivation and physical health can be partly explained by specific features of the neighbourhood environment. Among these perceived air pollution shows the strongest association with physical health (-2.4 points for very strong and -1.5 points for strong disturbance by air pollution, standard error (SE) = 0.8 and 0.4, respectively). Beta coefficients for perceived air pollution, perceived noise and the perceived distance to recreational resources do not diminish when including individual health behaviour in the models. Conclusions This study highlights the difference regional and in particular neighbourhood deprivation make to the physical health of individuals in Germany. The results support the argument that specific neighbourhood exposures serve as an intermediary step between deprivation and health. As people with a low socioeconomic status were more likely to be exposed to unfavourable neighbourhood characteristics these conditions plausibly contribute towards generating health inequalities

DNA damage precedes apoptosis during the regression of the interdigital tissue in vertebrate embryos

DNA damage independent of caspase activation accompanies programmed cell death in different vertebrate embryonic organs. We analyzed the significance of DNA damage during the regression of the interdigital tissue, which sculpts the digits in the embryonic limb. Interdigit remodeling involves oxidative stress, massive apoptosis and cell senescence. Phosphorylation of H2AX mediated by ATM precedes caspase dependent apoptosis and cell senescence during interdigit regression. The association of ?H2AX with other downstream DNA repair factors, including MDC1, Rad50 and 53BP1 suggests a defensive response of cells against DNA damage. The relative distribution of cells ?H2AX-only positive, TUNEL-only positive, and cells double positive for both markers is consistent with a sequence of degenerative events starting by damage of the DNA. In support of this interpretation, the relative number of ?H2AX-only cells increases after caspase inhibition while the relative number of TUNELonly cells increases after inhibition of ATM. Furthermore, cultured interdigits survived and maintained intense chondrogenic potential, even at advanced stages of degeneration, discarding a previous commitment to die. Our findings support a new biological paradigm considering embryonic cell death secondary to genotoxic stimuli, challenging the idea that considers physiological cell death a cell suicide regulated by an internal death clock that pre-programmes degeneration

Area deprivation and its association with health in a cross-sectional study: are the results biased by recent migration?

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The association between area deprivation and health has mostly been examined in cross-sectional studies or prospective studies with short follow-up. These studies have rarely taken migration into account. This is a possible source of misclassification of exposure, i.e. an unknown number of study participants are attributed an exposure of area deprivation that they may have experienced too short for it to have any influence. The aim of this article was to examine to what extent associations between area deprivation and health outcomes were biased by recent migration.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Based on data from the Oslo Health Study, a cross-sectional study conducted in 2000 in Oslo, Norway, we used six health outcomes (self rated health, mental health, coronary heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, smoking and exercise) and considered migration nine years prior to the study conduct. Migration into Oslo, between the areas of Oslo, and the changes in area deprivation during the period were taken into account. Associations were investigated by multilevel logistic regression analyses.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>After adjustment for individual socio-demographic variables we found significant associations between area deprivation and all health outcomes. Accounting for migration into Oslo and between areas of Oslo did not change these associations much. However, the people who migrated into Oslo were younger and had lower prevalences of unfavourable health outcomes than those who were already living in Oslo. But since they were evenly distributed across the area deprivation quintiles, they had little influence on the associations between area deprivation and health. Evidence of selective migration within Oslo was weak, as both moving up and down in the deprivation hierarchy was associated with significantly worse health than not moving.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We have documented significant associations between area deprivation and health outcomes in Oslo after adjustment for socio-demographic variables in a cross-sectional study. These associations were weakly biased by recent migration. From our results it still appears that migration prior to study conduct may be relevant to investigate even within a relatively short period of time, whereas changes in area deprivation during such a period is of limited interest.</p

On the security of consumer wearable devices in the Internet of Things

Miniaturization of computer hardware and the demand for network capable devices has resulted in the emergence of a new class of technology called wearable computing. Wearable devices have many purposes like lifestyle support, health monitoring, fitness monitoring, entertainment, industrial uses, and gaming. Wearable devices are hurriedly being marketed in an attempt to capture an emerging market. Owing to this, some devices do not adequately address the need for security. To enable virtualization and connectivity wearable devices sense and transmit data, therefore it is essential that the device, its data and the user are protected. In this paper the use of novel Integrated Circuit Metric (ICMetric) technology for the provision of security in wearable devices has been suggested. ICMetric technology uses the features of a device to generate an identification which is then used for the provision of cryptographic services. This paper explores how a device ICMetric can be generated by using the accelerometer and gyroscope sensor. Since wearable devices often operate in a group setting the work also focuses on generating a group identification which is then used to deliver services like authentication, confidentiality, secure admission and symmetric key generation. Experiment and simulation results prove that the scheme offers high levels of security without compromising on resource demands

Genome of the Avirulent Human-Infective Trypanosome—Trypanosoma rangeli

Background: Trypanosoma rangeli is a hemoflagellate protozoan parasite infecting humans and other wild and domestic mammals across Central and South America. It does not cause human disease, but it can be mistaken for the etiologic agent of Chagas disease, Trypanosoma cruzi. We have sequenced the T. rangeli genome to provide new tools for elucidating the distinct and intriguing biology of this species and the key pathways related to interaction with its arthropod and mammalian hosts.  Methodology/Principal Findings: The T. rangeli haploid genome is ,24 Mb in length, and is the smallest and least repetitive trypanosomatid genome sequenced thus far. This parasite genome has shorter subtelomeric sequences compared to those of T. cruzi and T. brucei; displays intraspecific karyotype variability and lacks minichromosomes. Of the predicted 7,613 protein coding sequences, functional annotations could be determined for 2,415, while 5,043 are hypothetical proteins, some with evidence of protein expression. 7,101 genes (93%) are shared with other trypanosomatids that infect humans. An ortholog of the dcl2 gene involved in the T. brucei RNAi pathway was found in T. rangeli, but the RNAi machinery is non-functional since the other genes in this pathway are pseudogenized. T. rangeli is highly susceptible to oxidative stress, a phenotype that may be explained by a smaller number of anti-oxidant defense enzymes and heatshock proteins.  Conclusions/Significance: Phylogenetic comparison of nuclear and mitochondrial genes indicates that T. rangeli and T. cruzi are equidistant from T. brucei. In addition to revealing new aspects of trypanosome co-evolution within the vertebrate and invertebrate hosts, comparative genomic analysis with pathogenic trypanosomatids provides valuable new information that can be further explored with the aim of developing better diagnostic tools and/or therapeutic targets

Use of hierarchical models to evaluate performance of cardiac surgery centres in the Italian CABG outcome study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Hierarchical modelling represents a statistical method used to analyze nested data, as those concerning patients afferent to different hospitals. Aim of this paper is to build a hierarchical regression model using data from the "Italian CABG outcome study" in order to evaluate the amount of differences in adjusted mortality rates attributable to differences between centres.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study population consists of all adult patients undergoing an isolated CABG between 2002–2004 in the 64 participating cardiac surgery centres.</p> <p>A risk adjustment model was developed using a classical single-level regression. In the multilevel approach, the variable "clinical-centre" was employed as a group-level identifier. The intraclass correlation coefficient was used to estimate the proportion of variability in mortality between groups. Group-level residuals were adopted to evaluate the effect of clinical centre on mortality and to compare hospitals performance. Spearman correlation coefficient of ranks (<it>ρ</it>) was used to compare results from classical and hierarchical model.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The study population was made of 34,310 subjects (mortality rate = 2.61%; range 0.33–7.63). The multilevel model estimated that 10.1% of total variability in mortality was explained by differences between centres. The analysis of group-level residuals highlighted 3 centres (VS 8 in the classical methodology) with estimated mortality rates lower than the mean and 11 centres (VS 7) with rates significantly higher. Results from the two methodologies were comparable (<it>ρ </it>= 0.99).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Despite known individual risk-factors were accounted for in the single-level model, the high variability explained by the variable "clinical-centre" states its importance in predicting 30-day mortality after CABG.</p

Prime movers : mechanochemistry of mitotic kinesins

Mitotic spindles are self-organizing protein machines that harness teams of multiple force generators to drive chromosome segregation. Kinesins are key members of these force-generating teams. Different kinesins walk directionally along dynamic microtubules, anchor, crosslink, align and sort microtubules into polarized bundles, and influence microtubule dynamics by interacting with microtubule tips. The mechanochemical mechanisms of these kinesins are specialized to enable each type to make a specific contribution to spindle self-organization and chromosome segregation

Why Are Some Plant Genera More Invasive Than Others?

Determining how biological traits are related to the ability of groups of organisms to become economically damaging when established outside of their native ranges is a major goal of population biology, and important in the management of invasive species. Little is known about why some taxonomic groups are more likely to become pests than others among plants. We investigated traits that discriminate vascular plant genera, a level of taxonomic generality at which risk assessment and screening could be more effectively performed, according to the proportion of naturalized species which are pests. We focused on the United States and Canada, and, because our purpose is ultimately regulatory, considered species classified as weeds or noxious. Using contingency tables, we identified 11 genera of vascular plants that are disproportionately represented by invasive species. Results from boosted regression tree analyses show that these categories reflect biological differences. In summary, approximately 25% of variation in genus proportions of weeds or noxious species was explained by biological covariates. Key explanatory traits included genus means for wetland habitat affinity, chromosome number, and seed mass