Role of allostatic load and health behaviours in explaining socioeconomic disparities in mortality: a structural equation modelling approach

BACKGROUND: The relationship between socioeconomic status and mortality has been well established; however, the extent to which biological factors mediate this relationship is less clear, and empirical evidence from non-Western settings is limited. Allostasis, a cumulative measure of physiological dysregulation, has been proposed as the underlying mechanism linking socioeconomic status to adverse health outcomes. The current study aimed to ascertain the contribution of allostatic load (AL) and health behaviours to socioeconomic inequalities in mortality among Korean adults. METHODS: The sample comprised 70 713 middle-aged and older-aged adults, aged 40-79 years from the Korean Metabolic Syndrome Mortality Study. Using structural equation modelling (SEM), mediation analyses were performed to estimate the effects of socioeconomic position (SEP) on mortality over the follow-up and the extent to which AL, physical exercise and non-smoking status mediate the association between SEP and mortality. RESULTS: A total of 5618 deaths (7.9%) occurred during the mean follow-up of 15.2 years (SD 2.9). SEM confirmed a direct significant effect of SEP on mortality, as well as significant indirect paths through AL, physical exercise and non-smoking status. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings provide support for the mediating role of AL and health behaviours in the link between SEP and mortality. Policies designed to reduce social disparities in mortality in the long term should primarily focus on reducing stress and promoting healthy lifestyles among the socially disadvantaged groups. Future studies should further assess the role of other mediators such as psychosocial factors, which may contribute to socioeconomic inequalities in mortality

Fear extinction across development: The involvement of the medial prefrontal cortex as assessed by temporary inactivation and immunohistochemistry

Extinction in adult animals, including humans, appears to involve the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). However, the role of mPFC in extinction across development has not yet been studied. Given several recent demonstrations of developmental differences in extinction of conditioned fear at a behavioral level, different neural circuitries may mediate fear extinction across development. In all experiments, noise conditioned stimulus (CS) and shock unconditioned stimulus (US) were used. In experiment 1A, temporary unilateral inactivation of the mPFC during extinction training impaired long-term extinction the following day in postnatal day 24 (P24) rats but not in P17 rats. In experiment 1B, bilateral inactivation of them PFC again failed to disrupt long-term extinction in P17 rats. In experiment 2, extinction training increased phosphorylated mitogen-activated protein kinase (pMAPK) in the mPFC for P24 rats but not for P17 rats, whereas rats of both ages displayed elevated pMAPK in the amygdala. Across both ages, "not trained," "reactivated, " and "no extinction" control groups expressed very low numbers of pMAPK immunoreactive (IR) neurons across both neural structures. This result indicates that the mere conditioning experience, the exposure to the CS, or the expression of CS-elicited fear in and of itself is not sufficient to explain the observed increase in pMAPK-IR neurons in them PFC and/or the amygdala after extinction. Together, these findings show that extinction in P17 rats does not involve the mPFC, which has important theoretical and clinical implications for the treatment of anxiety disorders in humans

Fear extinction across development: The involvement of the medial prefrontal cortex as assessed by temporary inactivation and immunohistochemistry

Extinction in adult animals, including humans, appears to involve the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). However, the role of mPFC in extinction across development has not yet been studied. Given several recent demonstrations of developmental differences in extinction of conditioned fear at a behavioral level, different neural circuitries may mediate fear extinction across development. In all experiments, noise conditioned stimulus (CS) and shock unconditioned stimulus (US) were used. In experiment 1A, temporary unilateral inactivation of the mPFC during extinction training impaired long-term extinction the following day in postnatal day 24 (P24) rats but not in P17 rats. In experiment 1B, bilateral inactivation of them PFC again failed to disrupt long-term extinction in P17 rats. In experiment 2, extinction training increased phosphorylated mitogen-activated protein kinase (pMAPK) in the mPFC for P24 rats but not for P17 rats, whereas rats of both ages displayed elevated pMAPK in the amygdala. Across both ages, "not trained," "reactivated, " and "no extinction" control groups expressed very low numbers of pMAPK immunoreactive (IR) neurons across both neural structures. This result indicates that the mere conditioning experience, the exposure to the CS, or the expression of CS-elicited fear in and of itself is not sufficient to explain the observed increase in pMAPK-IR neurons in them PFC and/or the amygdala after extinction. Together, these findings show that extinction in P17 rats does not involve the mPFC, which has important theoretical and clinical implications for the treatment of anxiety disorders in humans

Faster Born probability estimation via gate merging and frame optimisation

Outcome probability estimation via classical methods is an important task for validating quantum computing devices. Outcome probabilities of any quantum circuit can be estimated using Monte Carlo sampling, where the amount of negativity present in the circuit frame representation quantifies the overhead on the number of samples required to achieve a certain precision. In this paper, we propose two classical sub-routines: circuit gate merging and frame optimisation, which optimise the circuit representation to reduce the sampling overhead. We show that the runtimes of both sub-routines scale polynomially in circuit size and gate depth. Our methods are applicable to general circuits, regardless of generating gate sets, qudit dimensions and the chosen frame representations for the circuit components. We numerically demonstrate that our methods provide improved scaling in the negativity overhead for all tested cases of random circuits with Clifford+T and Haar-random gates, and that the performance of our methods compares favourably with prior quasi-probability simulators as the number of non-Clifford gates increases

Adding product value through additive manufacturing

The term additive manufacturing (AM) refers to layer-based material addition technologies that have extended the approach of rapid prototyping (RP) technologies to end-use products and components. The application of AM technologies for this purpose is still rather limited at present but there are a few widely publicised examples. The authors believe that the wider use of AM is being inhibited by the inability of most designers to fully appreciate the contribution that AM can make to E3 (economic, ecological and experience) product value. Research at (removed for anonymity) has indicated that AM can contribute in each of these areas. This paper defines E3 value and then gives some examples of AM products that demonstrate different means of improving value. The conclusions drawn are that AM has an important role to play in adding E3 value to many products but that designers must be better informed as to how to integrate this added value into their designs

Urinary 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine as a biomarker of oxidative DNA damage in workers exposed to fine particulates.

Residual oil fly ash (ROFA) is a chemically complex mixture of compounds, including metals that are potentially carcinogenic because of their ability to cause oxidative injury. In this study, we investigated the association between exposure to particulate matter with an aerodynamic mass median diameter ≤ 2.5 micro m (PM2.5) and oxidative DNA damage and repair, as indicated by urinary 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) concentrations, in a group of boilermakers exposed to ROFA and metal fumes. Twenty workers (50% smokers) were monitored for 5 days during an overhaul of oil-fired boilers. The median occupational PM2.5 8-hr time-weighted average was 0.44 mg/m3 (25th-75th percentile, 0.29-0.76). The mean ± SE creatinine-adjusted 8-OHdG levels were 13.26 ± 1.04 micro μg/g in urine samples collected pre-workshift and 15.22 ± 0.99 micro μg/g in the post-workshift samples. The urinary 8-OHdG levels were significantly greater in the post-workshift samples than in the pre-workshift samples (p = 0.02), after adjusting for urinary cotinine levels, chronic bronchitis status, and age. Linear mixed models indicated a significant exposure-response association between PM2.5 exposure and urinary 8-OHdG levels (p = 0.03). Each 1-mg/m3 incremental increase in PM2.5 exposure was associated with an increase of 1.67 micro μg/g (95% confidence interval, 0.21-3.14) in 8-OHdG levels. PM2.5 vanadium, manganese, nickel, and lead exposures also were positively associated with 8-OHdG levels (p ≤ 0.05). This study suggests that a relatively young and healthy cohort of boilermakers may experience an increased risk of developing oxidative DNA injury after exposure to high levels of metal-containing particulate matter

Specific Heat of Ce(1-x)La(x)RhIn(5) in Zero and Applied Magnetic Field: A Very Rich Phase Diagram

Specific heat and magnetization results as a function of field on single- and poly-crystalline samples of Ce(1-x)La(x)RhIn(5) show 1.) a specific heat gamma of about 100 mJ/moleK^2 (in agreement with recent dHvA results of Alvers et al.); 2.) upturns at low temperatures in C/T and chi that fit a power law behavior ( Griffiths phase non-Fermi liquid behavior); 3.) a field induced anomaly in C/T as well as M vs H behavior in good agreement with the recent Griffiths phase theory of Castro Neto and Jones, where M~H at low field, M ~ H^lambda above a crossover field, C/T ~ T^(-1+lambda) at low field, and C/T ~ (H^(2+lambda/2)/T^(3-lambda/2))*exp(-mu(eff)H/T) above the same crossover field as determined in the magnetization and where lambda is independently determined from the temperature dependence of chi at low temperatures, chi ~ T^(-1+lambda) and low fields.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures, to be published in Physical Review

Molecular epidemiology and genetic diversity of human astrovirus in South Korea from 2002 to 2007

AbstractThe present study was conducted to survey the prevalence and genotypic distribution of human astrovirus (HAstV) circulating in South Korea. Of 160,027 patients with acute gastroenteritis, 2,057 (1.3%) were positive for HAstV antigen. We determined the genotypes of 187 HAstV strains collected from laboratories across the country. Genetic analysis revealed genotype 1 to be the most prevalent, accounting for 72.19% of the strains, followed by genotypes 8 (9.63%), 6 (6.95%), 4 (6.42%), 2 (3.21%) and 3 (1.60%). Our findings indicate that HAstV is less common but, even so, a potentially important viral agent of gastroenteritis in South Korea, with significant genetic diversity among circulating HAstV strains

The potato rhizosphere microbiota correlated to the yield of three different regions in Korea

We examined potato rhizosphere bacterial and fungal communities across three regions: Cheongju, Pyeongchang, and Gangneung. These regions have varying soil and climate conditions, resulting in different yields. We found that precipitation was the main limiting factor in our study while soil physiochemical factors affect bacterial and fungal microbiota in correlation with yield. Both bacterial and fungal microbiota showed distinct patterns according to the regions. ASVs positively correlated with yield were predominantly found in the Pyeongchang region which also produced the highest yields, while ASVs negatively correlated with yield were associated with Gangneung where the lowest yields were observed. The greatest bacterial and fungal diversity was detected in Pyeongchang consisting of Propionibacteriales, Burkholderiales, and Vicinamibacteriales. Gangneung, on the other hand primarily belong to Sordariales, Mortierellales, Cystofilobasidiales, and Tremellales. The putative yield-negative ASVs detected in Gangneung may have been influenced by drought stress. This work has highlighted key bacterial and fungal taxa as well as core taxa that may potentially be associated with high and low yields of potato in relation to metadata which includes soil chemical and physical parameters as well as weather data. Taken together we suggest that this information can be used to assess site suitability for potato production

Automatic activation, interference and facilitation effects in persons with aphasia and normal adult controls on experimental CRTT-R-Stroop tasks

The current study investigated the effects of several color word congruent and incongruent “Stroop” tasks, within the context of a reading comprehension test (CRTT-R-wf-Stroop), in persons with aphasia (PWA) (N=25) and normal adults (NA) (N=29). Reading times, percentage of correct responses and CRTT-R-wf scores were examined for the color words. Both groups demonstrated significant vigilance and interference effects on RT ratios reflecting costs in sustained attention, interference/suppression effects and attentional switching. Both groups showed a facilitation effect on the CRTT-R-wf score. Unlike the NA, the PWA showed no attentional effects for the number of correct response on the color adjectives