Child's age at parental death and university education

Losing a parent due to premature death is generally associated with negative child outcomes. However, the study of possible (modifying) effects of the child's age and family background has been neglected in previous research. In this paper, we analyse the relationship between the child's age at parental death and the child's university education, and we study whether the possible association is modified by the child's family background. We apply ordinary least square regression and linear sibling fixed effect models to high-quality Finnish Census Panel data, consisting of 88,727 children born between 1982 and 1990. According to our results, the negative influence of parental death varies by the child's age; the consequences of parental death for young children were the most adverse. Interestingly, the influence of parental death seemed not to vary by family background

Tying the Extended Family Knot: Grandparents’ Influence on Educational Achievement

In present-day western societies grandparents and grandchildren have longer years of shared lifetime than ever before. We investigate whether children with more grandparent resources have a higher probability of achieving the general secondary degree compared with children with fewer resources, or whether shared lifetime with grandparents increases the probability of achieving the general secondary degree. We use high-quality Finnish Census Panel data and apply sibling random and fixed-effects models that also control for all unobserved factors shared by siblings. Grandparents’ education and socioeconomic status have only a limited ability to explain a grandchild’s educational achievement. However, the sibling fixed-effects models reveal that every shared year between grandparents and grandchildren increases a grandchild’s likelihood of completing general secondary education by 1 percentage point, on average. The effect of shared lifetime is conditional on grandparental type, family resources, and the size of the extended family. Maternal grandmothers have a positive effect on grandchildren’s education in low-income families. Paternal grandmothers provide a link to the resources available through the extended family network, independent of their own resources. The same effects were not observed for grandfathers.</p

The Efficacy of Probiotics, Prebiotic Inulin-Type Fructans, and Synbiotics in Human Ulcerative Colitis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Studies of probiotics, fructan-type prebiotics, and synbiotics in patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) show significant heterogeneity in methodology and results. Here, we study the efficacy of such interventions and the reasons for the heterogeneity of their results. Eligible random controlled trials were collected from the PUBMED and SCOPUS databases. A total of 18 placebo-controlled and active treatment-controlled (i.e., mesalazine) studies were selected with a Jadad score ≥ 3, including 1491 patients with UC. Data for prebiotics and synbiotics were sparse and consequently these studies were excluded from the meta-analysis. The UC remission efficacy of probiotics was measured in terms of relative risk (RR) and odds ratio (OR). Significant effects were observed in patients with active UC whenever probiotics containing bifidobacteria were used, or when adopting the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-recommended scales (UC Disease Activity Index and Disease Activity Index). By the FDA recommended scales, the RR was 1.55 (CI95%: 1.13⁻2.15, p-value = 0.007, I² = 29%); for bifidobacteria-containing probiotics, the RR was 1.73 (CI95%: 1.23⁻2.43, p-value = 0.002, I² = 35%). No significant effects were observed on the maintenance of remission for placebo-controlled or mesalazine-controlled studies. We conclude that a validated scale is necessary to determine the state of patients with UC. However, probiotics containing bifidobacteria are promising for the treatment of active UC. Keywords: ulcerative colitis; remission; probiotic; prebiotic; synbioti

Destination as a process: Sibling similarity in early socioeconomic trajectories

This paper proposes a process-oriented life course perspective on intergenerational mobility by comparing the early socioeconomic trajectories of siblings to those of unrelated persons. Based on rich Finnish register data (N = 21,744), the findings show that social origin affects not only final outcomes at given points in the life course but also longitudinal socioeconomic trajectories from ages 17-35 in early adulthood. We contribute to previous literature in three ways. First, we show that there is a pronounced similarity in the early socioeconomic trajectories of siblings. This similarity is stronger for same-sex siblings and stronger for brothers than for sisters. Second, we show that sibling similarity in full trajectories cannot be reduced to similarity in outcomes, i.e., siblings are not only more similar in the final outcomes that they obtain but also in the pathways that lead them to these outcomes. Third, our findings support that sibling similarity follows a U-shaped pattern by social class, i.e., similarity is especially strong in disadvantaged trajectories, weak among middle-class young adults, and increases again within the most advantaged trajectories. We conclude that measures of social mobility that concentrate on final outcomes are at risk of underestimating the association between social origin and destination because social inequalities are formed across the life course, not just at the end of specific life phases

Genome-wide study of hair colour in UK Biobank explains most of the SNP heritability

This work was carried out under UK Biobank study number 7206. It was funded by MRC core support to the Human Genetics Unit and to the Computational Genomics Analysis and Training programme through grant G1000902 and by BBSRC funding through Strategic Grant funding to the Roslin Institute BB/P013759/1 and BB/P013732/1. We would like to thank Sebastian Luna-Valero for extensive systems admin support and the other members of the CGAT programme for numerous robust and constructive discussionsPeer reviewe

Sibling Similarity in Education Across and Within Societies

The extent to which siblings resemble each other measures the omnibus impact of family background on life chances. We study sibling similarity in cognitive skills, school grades, and educational attainment in Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden. the United Kingdom, and the United States. We also compare sibling similarity by parental education and occupation within these societies. The comparison of sibling correlations across and within societies allows us to characterize the omnibus impact of family background on education across social landscapes. Across countries, we find larger population-level differences in sibling similarity in educational attainment than in cognitive skills and school grades. In general, sibling similarity in education varies less across countries than sibling similarity in earnings. Compared with Scandinavian countries, the United States shows more sibling similarity in cognitive skills and educational attainment but less sibling similarity in school grades. We find that socioeconomic differences in sibling similarity vary across parental resources, countries, and measures of educational success. Sweden and the United States show greater sibling similarity in educational attainment in families with a highly educated father. and Finland and Norway show greater sibling similarity in educational attainment in families with a low-educated father. We discuss the implications of our results for theories about the impact of institutions and income inequality on educational inequality and the mechanisms that underlie such inequality.Peer reviewe

Effect of the Degree of Polymerization of Fructans on Ex Vivo Fermented Human Gut Microbiome

Prebiotic supplements are used to promote gastrointestinal health by stimulating beneficial bacteria. The aim of this study was to compare the potential prebiotic effects of fructans with increasing degrees of polymerization, namely fructooligosaccharides (FOS) and inulins with a low and high polymerization degree (LPDI and HPDI, respectively), using an ex vivo fermentation system to simulate the colonic environment. The system was inoculated with pooled feces from three healthy donors with the same baseline enterotype. Changes in microbiota composition were measured by 16S metagenomic sequencing after 2, 7, and 14 days of fermentation, and acid production was measured throughout the experiment. Alpha-diversity decreased upon inoculation of the ex vivo fermentation under all treatments. Composition changed significantly across both treatments and time (ANOSIM p < 0.005 for both factors). HPDI and LPDI seemed to be similar to each other regarding composition and acidification activity, but different from the control and FOS. FOS differed from the control in terms of composition but not acidification. HDPI restored alpha-diversity on day 14 as compared to the control (Bonferroni p < 0.05). In conclusion, the prebiotic activity of fructans appears to depend on the degree of polymerization, with LPDI and especially HPDI having a greater effect than FOS

A custom capture sequence approach for oculocutaneous albinism identifies structural variant alleles at the OCA2 locus

Oculocutaneous albinism (OCA) is a heritable disorder of pigment production that manifests as hypopigmentation and altered eye development. Exon sequencing of known OCA genes is unsuccessful in producing a complete molecular diagnosis for a significant number of affected individuals. We sequenced the DNA of individuals with OCA using short-read custom capture sequencing that targeted coding, intronic and non-coding regulatory regions of known OCA genes and GWAS-associated pigmentation loci. We identified an OCA2 complex structural variant (CxSV), defined by a 143kb inverted segment reintroduced in intron 1, upstream of the native location. The corresponding CxSV junctions were observed in 11/390 probands screened. The 143kb CxSV presents in one family as a copy number variant (CNV) duplication for the 143kb region. In the remaining 10/11 families, the 143kb CxSV acquired an additional 184kb deletion across the same region, restoring exons 3–19 of OCA2 to a copy-number neutral state. Allele-associated haplotype analysis found rare SNVs rs374519281 and rs139696407 are linked with the 143kb CxSV in both OCA2 alleles. For individuals in which customary molecular evaluation does not reveal a biallelic OCA diagnosis, we recommend preliminary screening for these haplotype-associated rare variants, followed by junction-specific validation for the OCA2 143kb CxSV

Sibling Similarity in Education Across and Within Societies

The extent to which siblings resemble each other measures the omnibus impact of family background on life chances. We study sibling similarity in cognitive skills, school grades, and educational attainment in Finland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We also compare sibling similarity by parental education and occupation within these societies. The comparison of sibling correlations across and within societies allows us to characterize the omnibus impact of family background on education across social landscapes. Across countries, we find larger population-level differences in sibling similarity in educational attainment than in cognitive skills and school grades. In general, sibling similarity in education varies less across countries than sibling similarity in earnings. Compared with Scandinavian countries, the United States shows more sibling similarity in cognitive skills and educational attainment but less sibling similarity in school grades. We find that socioeconomic differences in sibling similarity vary across parental resources, countries, and measures of educational success. Sweden and the United States show greater sibling similarity in educational attainment in families with a highly educated father, and Finland and Norway show greater sibling similarity in educational attainment in families with a low-educated father. We discuss the implications of our results for theories about the impact of institutions and income inequality on educational inequality and the mechanisms that underlie such inequality