Mental Health, Substance Use, and the Importance of Religion during the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 impacted multiple facets of life, with implications on physical, mental, and societal health. Specifically, long COVID and related losses have exacerbated complex and prolonged grief responses and mental disorders including depression and anxiety. These mental health concerns are in turn associated with increased detrimental coping strategies including substance use disorders (SUD). The social and interpersonal implications of SUD are varied. Secondary data analyses from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) collected during the COVID-19 pandemic revealed an increase in substance use behaviors and mental health problems. Self-reported religious activities had a positive meditating effect on reducing substance use behaviors. Accordingly, we explored the importance of one\u27s religion and faith in coping with stress, grief, and mental health challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting the impact of religion and faith in bringing hope and purpose during periods of loss, grief, mental health challenges, and SUD

Genome-Wide Association Study in East Asians Identifies Novel Susceptibility Loci for Breast Cancer

Genetic factors play an important role in the etiology of both sporadic and familial breast cancer. We aimed to discover novel genetic susceptibility loci for breast cancer. We conducted a four-stage genome-wide association study (GWAS) in 19,091 cases and 20,606 controls of East-Asian descent including Chinese, Korean, and Japanese women. After analyzing 690,947 SNPs in 2,918 cases and 2,324 controls, we evaluated 5,365 SNPs for replication in 3,972 cases and 3,852 controls. Ninety-four SNPs were further evaluated in 5,203 cases and 5,138 controls, and finally the top 22 SNPs were investigated in up to 17,423 additional subjects (7,489 cases and 9,934 controls). SNP rs9485372, near the TGF-β activated kinase (TAB2) gene in chromosome 6q25.1, showed a consistent association with breast cancer risk across all four stages, with a P-value of 3.8×10−12 in the combined analysis of all samples. Adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence intervals) were 0.89 (0.85–0.94) and 0.80 (0.75–0.86) for the A/G and A/A genotypes, respectively, compared with the genotype G/G. SNP rs9383951 (P = 1.9×10−6 from the combined analysis of all samples), located in intron 5 of the ESR1 gene, and SNP rs7107217 (P = 4.6×10−7), located at 11q24.3, also showed a consistent association in each of the four stages. This study provides strong evidence for a novel breast cancer susceptibility locus represented by rs9485372, near the TAB2 gene (6q25.1), and identifies two possible susceptibility loci located in the ESR1 gene and 11q24.3, respectively

Laboratory information management system for COVID-19 non-clinical efficacy trial data

Background : As the number of large-scale studies involving multiple organizations producing data has steadily increased, an integrated system for a common interoperable format is needed. In response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, a number of global efforts are underway to develop vaccines and therapeutics. We are therefore observing an explosion in the proliferation of COVID-19 data, and interoperability is highly requested in multiple institutions participating simultaneously in COVID-19 pandemic research. Results : In this study, a laboratory information management system (LIMS) approach has been adopted to systemically manage various COVID-19 non-clinical trial data, including mortality, clinical signs, body weight, body temperature, organ weights, viral titer (viral replication and viral RNA), and multiorgan histopathology, from multiple institutions based on a web interface. The main aim of the implemented system is to integrate, standardize, and organize data collected from laboratories in multiple institutes for COVID-19 non-clinical efficacy testings. Six animal biosafety level 3 institutions proved the feasibility of our system. Substantial benefits were shown by maximizing collaborative high-quality non-clinical research. Conclusions : This LIMS platform can be used for future outbreaks, leading to accelerated medical product development through the systematic management of extensive data from non-clinical animal studies.This research was supported by the National research foundation of Korea(NRF) grant funded by the Korea government(MSIT) (2020M3A9I2109027 and 2021M3H9A1030260)

Three essays on the risk of hedge funds

The rapid growth of hedge funds in recent years has been accompanied by cases of severe failure. Since the aftermath of Long Term Capital Management (LTCM), investors recognize that hedge funds may provide high expected returns but they might be exposed to a huge downside risk that is not easily detected by traditional risk measures. My dissertation consists of three essays on the risk of hedge funds. In the first essay, I use a cross-sectional approach to analyze the risk-return trade-off. I compare semi-deviation, value-at-risk (VaR), Expected Shortfall (ES) and Tail Risk (TR) with standard deviation. Using the Fama and French (1992) methodology and TASS data, I find that the left-tail risk captured by Expected Shortfall (ES) explains the cross-sectional variation in hedge fund returns very well, while the other risk measures provide insignificant results. During 1995–2004, hedge funds with high ES outperform those with low ES by an annual return difference of 7%. In the second essay, I implement a survival analysis based on the Cox proportional hazard (PH) model to compare downside risk measures with standard deviation in predicting hedge fund failure. I find that funds with high ES have a high hazard rate when controlling for the style effect, performance, fund age, size, lockup, high-water mark (HWM) provision, and leverage. Standard deviation, however, loses the explanatory power when the other explanatory variables are included. As I find that liquidation does not necessarily mean failure in the hedge fund universe, I suggest simple criteria such as the last six-month return and change in fund size rather than the stated drop reasons to calibrate hedge fund failure. I reexamine the attrition rate of hedge funds based on these findings and argue that the real failure rate of hedge funds (3.1%) is lower than the attrition rate (8.7%). In the third essay, I focus on the liquidity risk premium. I examine the relationship between hedge fund share restrictions and liquidity premium by comparing offshore and onshore hedge funds. Due to tax provisions, offshore and onshore hedge funds have different legal structures, which lead to differences in share restrictions. On average, offshore funds impose less share restrictions, hence they underperform their onshore counterparts due to illiquidity premium, consistent with Aragon (2007). However, I find that once offshore funds impose share restrictions the illiquidity premium is higher because of a tighter relation between share illiquidity and asset illiquidity in offshore funds. Introducing the lockup provision increases the abnormal return by 4.4% per year for offshore funds compared with only 2.7% for onshore funds. I also find that share illiquidity premium becomes lower when an offshore fund is affected by its onshore equivalence through a master-feeder structure