Superior social cognitive abilities in childhood are associated with better reward-seeking strategies in adolescence: evidence for a Social-Motivational Flexibility Model

We examined the role of a crucial component of Theory of Mind in childhood, namely the attribution of false beliefs to other agents, in the ability to adjust risk-taking strategies during decision-making in adolescence. The analytic sample was 9575 children from the UK's Millennium Cohort Study, followed at ages 5, 7, and 14 years. The ability to attribute false beliefs was measured at ages 5 and 7 years through a vignette version of the Sally-Anne Task administered by an unfamiliar assessor in a socially demanding dyadic interaction. Risk adjustment was measured at age 14 years with the Cambridge Gambling Task. Even after controlling for a range of individual and family factors, such as sex, ethnicity, verbal ability, family income, and parental education, as well as emotional and behavioural problems, we found that social cognitive abilities in childhood are positively associated with risk adjustment in decision-making during adolescence

The role of social cognition in mental health trajectories from childhood to adolescence

We investigated the association between an aspect of Theory of Mind in childhood, false-belief understanding, and trajectories of internalising (emotional and peer) and externalising (conduct and hyperactivity) problems in childhood and adolescence. The sample was 8408 children from the UK's Millennium Cohort Study, followed at ages 5, 7, 11, 14, and 17 years. Social cognitive abilities were measured at 5 and 7 years through a vignette version of the Sally-Anne task administered by an unfamiliar assessor in a socially demanding dyadic interaction. Internalising and externalising problems were measured via the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire at 7-17 years. Using latent growth modelling, and after controlling for sex, ethnicity, maternal education, verbal ability, and time-varying family income, we found that superior social cognitive abilities predicted a decrease in emotional problems over time. In sex-stratified analyses, they predicted decreasing conduct problem trajectories in females and lower levels of conduct problems at baseline in males

The effect of urban greenspace on adolescent sleep patterns

We investigated the effects of long-term greenspace deprivation on sleep during adolescence. Using data from a UK birth cohort, we studied deviations from age-recommended sleep duration through Time Use Diaries. Our sample (N = 1370; 53% female) of urban adolescents had been exposed to the same levels of neighbourhood greenspace from birth up to age 14 years when their time use was tracked. We factored in sex and ethnicity, family income, long-term illness, sharing of a bedroom, access to a garden, as well as air pollution and perceived area safety. Even after full adjustment, there was a significant interaction between greenspace availability and income when predicting sleep duration, such that low-income adolescents living in the greyest urban areas were found to sleep more than the 8–10 h recommended for their age group, while the inverse was true for their counterparts living in areas with more greenspace

The effect of urban greenspace on adolescent sleep patterns

We investigated the effects of long-term greenspace deprivation on sleep during adolescence. Using data from a UK birth cohort, we studied deviations from age-recommended sleep duration through Time Use Diaries. Our sample (N = 1370; 53% female) of urban adolescents had been exposed to the same levels of neighbourhood greenspace from birth up to age 14 years when their time use was tracked. We factored in sex and ethnicity, family income, long-term illness, sharing of a bedroom, access to a garden, as well as air pollution and perceived area safety. Even after full adjustment, there was a significant interaction between greenspace availability and income when predicting sleep duration, such that low-income adolescents living in the greyest urban areas were found to sleep more than the 8–10 h recommended for their age group, while the inverse was true for their counterparts living in areas with more greenspace

Baseline IgG-Fc N-glycosylation profile is associated with long-term outcome in a cohort of early inflammatory arthritis patients

ackgroundRheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease for which prediction of long-term prognosis from disease’s outset is not clinically feasible. The importance of immunoglobulin G (IgG) and its Fc N-glycosylation in inflammation is well-known and studies described its relevance for several autoimmune diseases, including RA. Herein we assessed the association between IgG N-glycoforms and disease prognosis at 2 years in an early inflammatory arthritis cohort.MethodsSera from 118 patients with early inflammatory arthritis naïve to treatment sampled at baseline were used to obtain IgG Fc glycopeptides, which were then analyzed in a subclass-specific manner by liquid chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (LC-MS). Patients were prospectively followed and a favorable prognosis at 2 years was assessed by a combined index as remission or low disease activity (DAS28 ResultsWe observed a significant association between high levels of IgG2/3 Fc galactosylation (effect 0.627 and adjusted p value 0.036 for the fully galactosylated glycoform H5N4F1; effect −0.551 and adjusted p value 0.04963 for the agalactosylated H3N4F1) and favorable outcome after 2 years of treatment. The inclusion of IgG glycoprofiling in a multivariate analysis to predict the outcome (with HAQ, DAS28, RF, and ACPA included in the model) did not improve the prognostic performance of the model.ConclusionPending confirmation of these findings in larger cohorts, IgG glycosylation levels could be used as a prognostic marker in early arthritis, to overcome the limitations of the current prognostic tools.Proteomic

Longest Common Prefixes with kk-Errors and Applications

Although real-world text datasets, such as DNA sequences, are far from being uniformly random, average-case string searching algorithms perform significantly better than worst-case ones in most applications of interest. In this paper, we study the problem of computing the longest prefix of each suffix of a given string of length $n$ over a constant-sized alphabet that occurs elsewhere in the string with $k$-errors. This problem has already been studied under the Hamming distance model. Our first result is an improvement upon the state-of-the-art average-case time complexity for non-constant $k$ and using only linear space under the Hamming distance model. Notably, we show that our technique can be extended to the edit distance model with the same time and space complexities. Specifically, our algorithms run in $\mathcal{O}(n \log^k n \log \log n)$ time on average using $\mathcal{O}(n)$ space. We show that our technique is applicable to several algorithmic problems in computational biology and elsewhere

Child Fitness and Father’s BMI Are Important Factors in Childhood Obesity: A School Based Cross-Sectional Study

BACKGROUND: This study examines obesity and factors associated with obesity in children aged 11-13 years in the UK. METHODS: 1147 children from ten secondary schools participated in a health survey that included blood samples, fitness test and anthropometric measures. Factors associated with obesity were examined using multilevel logistic regression. FINDINGS: Of the children examined (490 male; 657 female) a third were overweight, 1 in 6 had elevated blood pressure, more than 1 in 10 had high cholesterol, 58% consumed more fat than recommended, whilst 37% were classified as unfit. Children in deprived areas had a higher proportion of risk factors; for example, they had higher blood pressure (20% (deprived) compared to 11% (non-deprived), difference: 9.0% (95%CI: 4.7%-13.4%)). Obesity is associated with risk factors for heart disease and diabetes. Maintaining fitness is associated with a reduction in the risk factors for heart disease (high blood pressure and cholesterol) but not on risk factors for diabetes (insulin levels). In order of importance, the main risk factors for childhood obesity are being unfit, having an obese father, and being large at birth. CONCLUSION: The high proportion of children with risk factors suggests future interventions need to focus on community and policy change to shift the population norm rather than targeting the behaviour of high risk individuals. Interventions need to focus on mothers' lifestyle in pregnancy, fathers' health, as well as promoting fitness among children. Obesity was not associated with deprivation. Therefore, strategies should be adopted in both deprived and non deprived areas

The education effect: higher educational qualifications are robustly associated with beneficial personal and socio-political outcomes

Level of education is a predictor of a range of important outcomes, such as political interest and cynicism, social trust, health, well-being, and intergroup attitudes. We address a gap in the literature by analyzing the strength and stability of the education effect associated with this diverse range of outcomes across three surveys covering the period 1986–2011, including novel latent growth analyses of the stability of the education effect within the same individuals over time. Our analyses of the British Social Attitudes Survey, British Household Panel Survey, and International Social Survey Programme indicated that the education effect was robust across these outcomes and relatively stable over time, with higher education levels being associated with higher trust and political interest, better health and well-being, and with less political cynicism and less negative intergroup attitudes. The education effect was strongest when associated with political outcomes and attitudes towards immigrants, whereas it was weakest when associated with health and well-being. Most of the education effect appears to be due to the beneficial consequences of having a university education. Our results demonstrate that this beneficial education effect is also manifested in within-individual changes, with the education effect tending to become stronger as individuals age