Disparities in Subjective Well-being by Sexual Orientation: Comparing Cohorts from pairfam’s (2008-09) and FReDA’s (2021) Baseline Waves

Significant expansion of legal rights and recognition of sexual minority populations triggered expectations that structural stigma, sexual minority stress and, consequently, previously well-documented disadvantages in health and well-being may decline over time. The empirical evidence on this issue is, however, still sparse and inconclusive. We contribute to this research by comparing baseline data from the German Family Panel (pairfam; 2008-09) and the German Family Demography Panel Study (FReDA; 2021). These data allow us to assess disparities in subjective well-being by sexual orientation and potential changes therein after legalisation of same-sex marriage in Germany in two adult cohorts interviewed more than a decade apart. We focus on two specific outcomes, namely life satisfaction and self-rated health. Two main findings emerged from our analysis: First, minority sexual orientation is associated with significantly lower subjective well-being, specifically lower life satisfaction. Second, there are no statistically significant changes in the sexual orientation-health nexus between cohorts. Our study, thus, neither lends support to “optimistic” expectations regarding the contribution of (further) reductions in institutional discrimination and structural stigma to (further) reductions in remaining disadvantages, nor does it lend support to “pessimistic” expectations suggesting that younger cohorts of sexual minority adults may experience an even larger gap in health and well-being than previous cohorts. We propose that the stability of sexual minorities’ disadvantages in subjective well-being during the first two decades of the 21st century in Germany be interpreted as the result of two opposing forces working in parallel: Reduced institutional discrimination and increased exposure to continued stigma. The legal recognition of same-sex relationships appears to be a necessary but not sufficient condition for the acceptance of sexual minorities. Remaining disparities by sexual orientation will thus not simply disappear when institutional discrimination of sexual minorities is eliminated. Currently, we may therefore find ourselves in a “transitory period” whose further evolution is difficult to predict. FReDA – with its evolving longitudinal dimension and the inclusion of self-reported measures of respondents’ sexual orientation – will constitute a powerful resource for future investigations of inequalities in yet understudied but increasingly visible sexual minority populations. * This article belongs to a special issue on “Family Research and Demographic Analysis – New Insights from the German Family Demography Panel Study (FReDA)”

A developmental perspective on personality-relationship transactions: Evidence from three nationally representative samples

Objective: Throughout their lives, people experience different relationship events, such as beginning or dissolving a romantic relationship. Personality traits predict the occurrence of such relationship events (i.e., selection effects), and relationship events predict changes in personality traits (i.e., socialization effects), summarized as personality-relationship transactions. So far, evidence was partly inconsistent as to how personality traits and relationship events are linked with each other. In this article, we argue that unnoticed age differences might have led to these inconsistencies. To systematically test for age differences in transactions, we conceptualize relationship events in terms of gains and losses and apply a developmental perspective on transactions. Methods: Using longitudinal data from three nationally representative samples (SOEP, HILDA, Understanding Society), we computed event-focused latent growth models and summarized the results meta-analytically. Results: The findings indicated some transactions. Of these, selection effects were stronger than socialization effects, and effects of gain-based events were stronger than effects of loss-based events. We observed few interactions with age. Conclusion: Selection effects and, particularly, socialization effects, tend to be rare and fairly independent of age. We discuss a series of broader and narrower factors that may have an impact on the strength of transactions across adulthood

Growth all along the road?: Personality development and international contacts of (in)experienced sojourners

International student mobility (ISM) is an important educational means to promote the international (job market) potential of university students. Beyond that, it constitutes a context of personality development in young adulthood. With the present research, we tried to integrate the perspectives of applied and personality research in addressing the following questions. First, we scrutinized the robustness of ISM effects on personality development as we controlled for effects of sociodemographic characteristics and implemented a waiting group design ( N  = 3070). Second, we explored ISM anticipation effects as well as the moderation of ISM effects by previous international mobility experiences. Finally, in view of the public discourse on the benefits of “Erasmus crowds”, we assessed the roles of international and host relationships with regard to the personality development of sojourners. The results largely corroborated the robustness of ISM effects on personality development. No ISM anticipation effects occurred, and effects of current ISM engagement were largely unaffected by previous international mobility experiences. Finally, international contact experiences were associated with personality development above and beyond effects of host country contacts. Implications for the understanding of personality development and potential inferences for the organization and improvement of ISM programs are discussed

The combined effects of reactant kinetics and enzyme stability explain the temperature dependence of metabolic rates

A mechanistic understanding of the response of metabolic rate to temperature is essential for understanding thermal ecology and metabolic adaptation. Although the Arrhenius equation has been used to describe the effects of temperature on reaction rates and metabolic traits, it does not adequately describe two aspects of the thermal performance curve (TPC) for metabolic rate—that metabolic rate is a unimodal function of temperature often with maximal values in the biologically relevant temperature range and that activation energies are temperature dependent. We show that the temperature dependence of metabolic rate in ectotherms is well described by an enzyme-assisted Arrhenius (EAAR) model that accounts for the temperature-dependent contribution of enzymes to decreasing the activation energy required for reactions to occur. The model is mechanistically derived using the thermodynamic rules that govern protein stability. We contrast our model with other unimodal functions that also can be used to describe the temperature dependence of metabolic rate to show how the EAAR model provides an important advance over previous work. We fit the EAAR model to metabolic rate data for a variety of taxa to demonstrate the model’s utility in describing metabolic rate TPCs while revealing significant differences in thermodynamic properties across species and acclimation temperatures. Our model advances our ability to understand the metabolic and ecological consequences of increases in the mean and variance of temperature associated with global climate change. In addition, the model suggests avenues by which organisms can acclimate and adapt to changing thermal environments. Furthermore, the parameters in the EAAR model generate links between organismal level performance and underlying molecular processes that can be tested for in future work

Planar Drawings of Fixed-Mobile Bigraphs

A fixed-mobile bigraph G is a bipartite graph such that the vertices of one partition set are given with fixed positions in the plane and the mobile vertices of the other part, together with the edges, must be added to the drawing. We assume that G is planar and study the problem of finding, for a given k >= 0, a planar poly-line drawing of G with at most k bends per edge. In the most general case, we show NP-hardness. For k=0 and under additional constraints on the positions of the fixed or mobile vertices, we either prove that the problem is polynomial-time solvable or prove that it belongs to NP. Finally, we present a polynomial-time testing algorithm for a certain type of "layered" 1-bend drawings

Exploring the host factors affecting asymptomatic Plasmodium falciparum infection: insights from a rural Burkina Faso study.

BACKGROUND Asymptomatic Plasmodium falciparum parasitaemia forms a reservoir for the transmission of malaria disease in West Africa. Certain haemoglobin variants are known to protect against severe malaria infection. However, data on the potential roles of haemoglobin variants and nongenetic factors in asymptomatic malaria infection is scarce and controversial. Therefore, this study investigated the associations of iron homeostasis, inflammation, nutrition, and haemoglobin mutations with parasitaemia in an asymptomatic cohort from a P. falciparum-endemic region during the high transmission season. METHODS A sub-study population of 688 asymptomatic individuals (predominantly children and adolescents under 15 years, n = 516) from rural Burkina Faso previously recruited by the NOVAC trial (NCT03176719) between June and October 2017 was analysed. Parasitaemia was quantified with conventional haemocytometry. The haemoglobin genotype was determined by reverse hybridization assays targeting a selection of 21 HBA and 22 HBB mutations. Demographics, inflammatory markers (interleukins 6 and 10, hepcidin), nutritional status (mid upper-arm circumference and body mass index), and anaemia (total haemoglobin, ferritin, soluble transferrin receptor) were assessed as potential predictors through logistic regression. RESULTS Malaria parasites were detected in 56% of subjects. Parasitaemia was associated most strongly with malnutrition. The effect size increased with malnutrition severity (OR = 6.26, CI95: 2.45-19.4, p < 0.001). Furthermore, statistically significant associations (p < 0.05) with age, cytokines, hepcidin and heterozygous haemoglobin S were observed. CONCLUSIONS According to these findings, asymptomatic parasitaemia is attenuated by haemoglobin S, but not by any of the other detected genotypes. Aside from evidence for slight iron imbalance, overall undernutrition was found to predict parasitaemia; thus, further investigations are required to elucidate causality and inform strategies for interventions

Quantifying the Loss of Coral from a Bleaching Event Using Underwater Photogrammetry and AI-Assisted Image Segmentation

Detecting the impacts of natural and anthropogenic disturbances that cause declines in organisms or changes in community composition has long been a focus of ecology. However, a tradeoff often exists between the spatial extent over which relevant data can be collected, and the resolution of those data. Recent advances in underwater photogrammetry, as well as computer vision and machine learning tools that employ artificial intelligence (AI), offer potential solutions with which to resolve this tradeoff. Here, we coupled a rigorous photogrammetric survey method with novel AI-assisted image segmentation software in order to quantify the impact of a coral bleaching event on a tropical reef, both at an ecologically meaningful spatial scale and with high spatial resolution. In addition to outlining our workflow, we highlight three key results: (1) dramatic changes in the three-dimensional surface areas of live and dead coral, as well as the ratio of live to dead colonies before and after bleaching; (2) a size-dependent pattern of mortality in bleached corals, where the largest corals were disproportionately affected, and (3) a significantly greater decline in the surface area of live coral, as revealed by our approximation of the 3D shape compared to the more standard planar area (2D) approach. The technique of photogrammetry allows us to turn 2D images into approximate 3D models in a flexible and efficient way. Increasing the resolution, accuracy, spatial extent, and efficiency with which we can quantify effects of disturbances will improve our ability to understand the ecological consequences that cascade from small to large scales, as well as allow more informed decisions to be made regarding the mitigation of undesired impacts