Pathology caused by persistent murine norovirus infection.

Subclinical infection of murine norovirus (MNV) was detected in a mixed breeding group of WT and Stat1(-/-) mice with no outward evidence of morbidity or mortality. Investigations revealed the presence of an attenuated MNV variant that did not cause cytopathic effects in RAW264.7 cells or death in Stat1(-/-) mice. Histopathological analysis of tissues from WT, heterozygous and Stat1(-/-) mice revealed a surprising spectrum of lesions. An infectious molecular clone was derived directly from faeces (MNV-O7) and the sequence analysis confirmed it was a member of norovirus genogroup V. Experimental infection with MNV-O7 induced a subclinical infection with no weight loss in Stat1(-/-) or WT mice, and recapitulated the clinical and pathological picture of the naturally infected colony. Unexpectedly, by day 54 post-infection, 50 % of Stat1(-/-) mice had cleared MNV-O7. In contrast, all WT mice remained infected persistently. Most significantly, this was associated with liver lesions in all the subclinically infected WT mice. These data confirmed that long-term persistence in WT mice is established with specific variants of MNV and that despite a subclinical presentation, active foci of acute inflammation persist within the liver. The data also showed that STAT1-dependent responses are not required to protect mice from lethal infection with all strains of MNV

The Effect of Age on the Association between Body-Mass Index and Mortality

BACKGROUND: The effect of age on optimal body weight is controversial, and few studies have had adequate numbers of subjects to analyze mortality as a function of body-mass index across age groups. METHODS: We studied mortality over 12 years among white men and women who participated in the American Cancer Society's Cancer Prevention Study I (from 1960 through 1972). The 62,116 men and 262,019 women included in this analysis had never smoked cigarettes, had no history of heart disease, stroke, or cancer (other than skin cancer) at base line in 1959-1960, and had no history of recent unintentional weight loss. The date and cause of death for subjects who died were determined from death certificates. The associations between body-mass index (defined as the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) and mortality were examined for six age groups in analyses in which we adjusted for age, educational level, physical activity, and alcohol consumption. RESULTS: Greater body-mass index was associated with higher mortality from all causes and from cardiovascular disease in men and women up to 75 years of age. However, the relative risk associated with greater body-mass index declined with age. For example, for mortality from cardiovascular disease, the relative risk associated with an increment of 1 in the body-mass index was 1.10 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.04 to 1.16) for 30-to-44-year-old men and 1.03 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.02 to 1.05) for 65-to-74-year-old men. For women, the corresponding relative risk estimates were 1.08 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.05 to 1.11) and 1.02 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.02 to 1.03). CONCLUSIONS: Excess body weight increases the risk of death from any cause and from cardiovascular disease in adults between 30 and 74 years of age. The relative risk associated with greater body weight is higher among younger subjects

The Hubble constant and dark energy from cosmological distance measures

We study how the determination of the Hubble constant from cosmological distance measures is affected by models of dark energy and vice versa. For this purpose, constraints on the Hubble constant and dark energy are investigated using the cosmological observations of cosmic microwave background, baryon acoustic oscillations and type Ia suprenovae. When one investigates dark energy, the Hubble constant is often a nuisance parameter, thus it is usually marginalized over. On the other hand, when one focuses on the Hubble constant, simple dark energy models such as a cosmological constant and a constant equation of state are usually assumed. Since we do not know the nature of dark energy yet, it is interesting to investigate the Hubble constant assuming some types of dark energy and see to what extent the constraint on the Hubble constant is affected by the assumption concerning dark energy. We show that the constraint on the Hubble constant is not affected much by the assumption for dark energy. We furthermore show that this holds true even if we remove the assumption that the universe is flat. We also discuss how the prior on the Hubble constant affects the constraints on dark energy and/or the curvature of the universe.Comment: 45 pages, 15 figure

Neighborhood Disparities in Incident Hospitalized Myocardial Infarction in Four U.S. Communities: The ARIC Surveillance Study

Hospital-based surveillance of myocardial infarction (MI) in the United States (US) typically includes age, gender, and race, but not socioeconomic status (SES). We examined the association between neighborhood median household income (nINC) and incident hospitalized MI in four US communities (1993–2002)

Gender Diversity and Say‐on‐Pay: Evidence from UK Remuneration Committees

Empirical Research question/issue We examine whether the presence of women on the remuneration committee has an influence on say‐on‐pay voting. Research findings/insights Based on panel data from the UK's FTSE 350 firms from 2003 to 2015, we find that firms with women on the remuneration committee reduce shareholders’ dissent via say‐on‐pay. However, only firms with a critical mass of more than 30% women on this committee are more likely to have less shareholders’ dissent via say‐on‐pay (i.e. the presence of 30% women or less on this committee is not sufficient). Theoretical/academic implications Our results provide empirical evidence that the gender diversity of directors on the remuneration committee plays a significant role in shaping shareholders’ dissent via say‐on‐pay in the UK. Our results also provide empirical support for some of the previous studies that draw on critical mass theory that imply that women are more effective monitors when they make up a critical mass of more than 30%. Practitioner/policy implications Our results could provide regulators with evidence in favour of improving women's representation on UK remuneration committees. In addition, our results could help shareholders and nomination committee members understand the importance of having women on UK remuneration committees, as they are more likely to avoid suboptimal pay and align directors’ remuneration packages more closely with shareholders’ expectations. Finally, our results could also attract the attention of main stakeholders and the media, especially given their increasing attention both to gender diversity and say on pay

Historical measures of social context in life course studies: Retrospective linkage of addresses to decennial censuses

Background There is evidence of a contribution of early life socioeconomic exposures to the risk of chronic diseases in adulthood. However, extant studies investigating the impact of the neighborhood social environment on health tend to characterize only the current social environment. This in part may be due to complexities involved in obtaining and geocoding historical addresses. The Life Course Socioeconomic Status, Social Context, and Cardiovascular Disease Study collected information on childhood (1930–1950) and early adulthood (1960–1980) place of residence from 12,681 black and white middle-aged and older men and women from four U.S. communities to link participants with census-based socioeconomic indicators over the life course. Results Most (99%) participants were linked to 1930–50 county level socioeconomic census data (the smallest level of aggregation universally available during this time period) corresponding to childhood place of residence. Linkage did not vary by race, gender, birth cohort, or level of educational attainment. A commercial geocoding vendor processed participants' self-reported street addresses for ages 30, 40, and 50. For 1970 and 1980 censuses, spatial coordinates were overlaid onto shape files containing census tract boundaries; for 1960 no shape files existed and comparability files were used. Several methods were tested for accuracy and to increase linkage. Successful linkage to historical census tracts varied by census (66% for 1960, 76% for 1970, 85% for 1980). This compares to linkage rates of 94% for current addresses provided by participants over the course of the ARIC examinations. Conclusion There are complexities and limitations in characterizing the past social context. However, our results suggest that it is feasible to characterize the earlier social environment with known levels of measurement error and that such an approach should be considered in future studies.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57747/1/Historical measures of social context in life course studies Retrospective linkage of addresses to decimal censuses.pd

Comparison of Standard Ruler and Standard Candle constraints on Dark Energy Models

We compare the dark energy model constraints obtained by using recent standard ruler data (Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO) at z=0.2 and z=0.35 and Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) shift parameters R and l_a) with the corresponding constraints obtained by using recent Type Ia Supernovae (SnIa) standard candle data (ESSENCE+SNLS+HST from Davis et. al.). We find that, even though both classes of data are consistent with LCDM at the 2\sigma level, there is a systematic difference between the two classes of data. In particular, we find that for practically all values of the parameters (\Omega_0m,\Omega_b) in the 2\sigma range of the the 3-year WMAP data (WMAP3) best fit, LCDM is significantly more consistent with the SnIa data than with the CMB+BAO data. For example for (\Omega_0m,\Omega_b)=(0.24,0.042) corresponding to the best fit values of WMAP3, the dark energy equation of state parametrization w(z)=w_0 + w_1 (z/(1+z)) best fit is at a 0.5\sigma distance from LCDM (w_0=-1,w_1=0) using the SnIa data and 1.7\sigma away from LCDM using the CMB+BAO data. There is a similar trend in the earlier data (SNLS vs CMB+BAO at z=0.35). This trend is such that the standard ruler CMB+BAO data show a mild preference for crossing of the phantom divide line w=-1, while the recent SnIa data favor LCDM. Despite of this mild difference in trends, we find no statistically significant evidence for violation of the cosmic distance duality relation \eta \equiv d_L(z)/(d_A(z) (1+z)^2)=1. For example, using a prior of \Omega_0m=0.24, we find \eta=0.95 \pm 0.025 in the redshift range 0<z<2, which is consistent with distance duality at the 2\sigma level.Comment: References added. 9 pages, 7 figures. The Mathematica files with the numerical analysis of the paper can be found at http://leandros.physics.uoi.gr/rulcand/rulcand.ht