The Opioid Crisis, Employee Health Capital, and Corporate Information Production

This study examines the effect of employee health on corporate information production. Utilizing exposure to opioid abuse as the proxy for employee health, we find that firms headquartered in counties of high opioid prescription rate produce significantly less accurate management earnings forecasts. This result is robust to controlling for other dimensions of human capital and to utilizing the effective anti-opioid legislation across states as a plausibly exogenous variation that limits the prescriptions of opioid. The negative effect of opioid abuse is stronger for firms facing higher forecast difficulty, and is mitigated for firms with easier access to opioid treatment, for firms with superior employee welfare policies, and for firms with a corporate social responsibility (CSR) committee. We also show that managers delay earnings announcements and reduce forecast precision amidst high local opioid activity. Finally, we show that investors react less strongly to news in forecasts issued by firms located in high opioid areas, consistent with their recognition of the potential adverse effect of opioid abuse on information production within the firm

Body mass index, waist circumference, and chronic disease risk factors in australian adolescents

Objective: To determine the association between measures of adiposity (body mass index and waist circumference) and risk factors for heart disease, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, and the clustering of risk factors in middle adolescence. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Secondary schools in Sydney. Participants: Grade 10 students (N = 496; 58.4% boys; mean [SD] age, 15.4 [0.4] years). Main Exposures: Height, weight, waist circumference, blood pressure, and fasting blood samples. Outcome Measures: Participants were categorized as overweight or obese using the International Obesity Task Force cut points and the UK waist circumference cut points. Blood was analyzed for high- and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, insulin, glucose, alanine aminotransferase, γ-glutamyltransferase, and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein levels, and the results were categorized as normal or abnormal according to published guidelines where possible. Associations between overweight and obesity and risk factors were explored using logistic regression. Clustering of risk factors within individuals was also explored. Results: Insulin (P < .001), alanine aminotransferase (P < .001), γ-glutamyltransferase (P = .005), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (P < .001), highsensitivity C-reactive protein (P < .001), and blood pressure (P < .001) were significantly associated with overweight and obesity in adolescent boys. In adolescent girls, insulin, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (P < .001), and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (P < .001) were significantly associated with overweight and obesity. Obese adolescent boys and girls were significantly more likely to have 2 or more risk factors (boys: 73.5% vs 7.6%; girls: 44.4% vs 5.4%; P < .001 for both) than nonoverweight adolescents. Conclusions: Overweight and obese adolescents, especially boys, are at substantial risk for chronic conditions. Waist circumference is not a better predictor of metabolic risk factors than is body mass index. ©2008 American Medical Association. All rights reserved

Protecting children from secondhand smoke: a mixed-methods feasibility study of a novel smoke-free home intervention

Background: Globally, 40 % of children under 14 years are regularly exposed to secondhand smoke (SHS), typically in their homes. There is limited evidence of the effectiveness of interventions to reduce children’s SHS exposure,and so the aim of this study was to test the feasibility and acceptability of a novel intervention to help parents and carers (caregivers) to reduce their children’s exposure to SHS at home. Methods: A novel multi-component intervention to support caregivers to reduce their children’s SHS exposure athome was tested in a two-phase feasibility study. The 12-week intensive intervention delivered in the homeconsisted of three components: behavioural support, nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) for temporary abstinenceand feedback on levels of SHS exposure in the form of children’s salivary cotinine (phase 1) or home air quality (PM2.5) (phase 2). Participants were caregivers who smoked inside their homes and had at least one child under the age of 5 years living with them the majority of the time. Mixed-methods were used to explore the acceptability and feasibility of the intervention as well as processes, particularly around recruitment and retention, for an exploratory efficacy trial. Results: Twelve caregivers completed the study, all received personalised feedback on SHS exposure and behavioural support to help them to make their homes smoke-free and the majority at least tried NRT. Saliva cotinine results were variable in phase 1, and therefore, measures of PM2.5 were used for feedback in phase 2.Behavioural support was well received with personalised feedback reported as being the key motivator for initiating and maintaining behaviour change. Conclusions: Recruiting disadvantaged caregivers was labour intensive, but once recruited, this novel intervention was both feasible and acceptable in supporting caregivers to reduce their children’s exposure to SHS at home. It is appropriate to test the efficacy of this novel intervention in an exploratory randomised controlled trial

Reproducibility of measurements of potential doubling time of tumour cells in the multicentre National Cancer Institute protocol T92-0045

We compared the flow cytometric measurement and analysis of the potential doubling time (Tpot) between three centres involved in the National Cancer Institute (NCI) protocol T92-0045. The primary purpose was to understand and minimize the variation within the measurement. A total of 102 specimens were selected at random from patients entered into the trial. Samples were prepared, stained, run and analysed in each centre and a single set of data analysed by all three centres. Analysis of the disc data set revealed that the measurement of labelling index (LI) was robust and reproducible. The estimation of duration of S-phase (Ts) was subject to errors of profile interpretation, particularly DNA ploidy status, and analysis. The LI dominated the variation in Tpot such that the level of final agreement, after removal of outliers and ploidy agreement, reached correlation coefficients of 0.9. The sample data showed poor agreement within each of the components of the measurement. There was some improvement when ploidy was in agreement, but correlation coefficients failed to exceed values of 0.5 for Tpot. The data suggest that observer-associated analysis of Ts and tissue processing and tumour heterogeneity were the major causes of variability in the Tpot measurement. The first two aspects can be standardized and minimized, but heterogeneity will remain a problem with biopsy techniques. © 1999 Cancer Research Campaig

Large emissions from floodplain trees close the Amazon methane budget

Wetlands are the largest global source of atmospheric methane (CH4), a potent greenhouse gas. However, methane emission inventories from the Amazon floodplain, the largest natural geographic source of CH4 in the tropics, consistently underestimate the atmospheric burden of CH4 determined via remote sensing and inversion modelling, pointing to a major gap in our understanding of the contribution of these ecosystems to CH4 emissions. Here we report CH4 fluxes from the stems of 2,357 individual Amazonian floodplain trees from 13 locations across the central Amazon basin. We find that escape of soil gas through wetland trees is the dominant source of regional CH4 emissions. Methane fluxes from Amazon tree stems were up to 200 times larger than emissions reported for temperate wet forests6 and tropical peat swamp forests, representing the largest non-ebullitive wetland fluxes observed. Emissions from trees had an average stable carbon isotope value (δ13C) of −66.2 ± 6.4 per mil, consistent with a soil biogenic origin. We estimate that floodplain trees emit 15.1 ± 1.8 to 21.2 ± 2.5 teragrams of CH4 a year, in addition to the 20.5 ± 5.3 teragrams a year emitted regionally from other sources. Furthermore, we provide a ‘top-down’ regional estimate of CH4 emissions of 42.7 ± 5.6 teragrams of CH4 a year for the Amazon basin, based on regular vertical lower-troposphere CH4 profiles covering the period 2010–2013. We find close agreement between our ‘top-down’ and combined ‘bottom-up’ estimates, indicating that large CH4 emissions from trees adapted to permanent or seasonal inundation can account for the emission source that is required to close the Amazon CH4 budget. Our findings demonstrate the importance of tree stem surfaces in mediating approximately half of all wetland CH4 emissions in the Amazon floodplain, a region that represents up to one-third of the global wetland CH4 source when trees are combined with other emission sources

First Dinosaur Tracks from the Arabian Peninsula

Background: The evolutionary history of Mesozoic terrestrial vertebrates from the Arabian Peninsula is virtually unknown. Despite vast exposures of rocky outcrops, only a handful of fossils have yet been described from the region. Here we report a multi-taxon dinosaur track assemblage near Madar village, 47 km north of Sana’a, Republic of Yemen. This represents the first dinosaur tracksite from the Arabian Peninsula, and the only multi-taxon dinosaur ichnosite in the Middle East. Methodology/Findings: Measurements were taken directly from trackway impressions, following standard ichnological conventions. The presence of bipedal trackmakers is evidenced by a long series of pes imprints preserving smoothly rounded posterior margins, no evidence of a hallux, bluntly rounded digit tips and digital divarication angles characteristic of ornithopod dinosaurs. Nearby, eleven parallel quadrupedal trackways document a sauropod herd that included large and small individuals traveling together. Based on the morphology of manus impressions along with a narrow-gauged stance, the quadrupedal trackways were made by non-titanosauriform neosauropods. Additional isolated tracks and trackways of sauropod and ornithopod dinosaurs are preserved nearby. Conclusions/Significance: Taken together, these discoveries present the most evocative window to date into the evolutionary history of dinosaurs of the Arabian Peninsula. Given the limited Mesozoic terrestrial record from the region, this discovery is of both temporal and geographic significance, and massive exposures of similarly-aged outcrops nearby offe

Smoke-free legislation and the incidence of paediatric respiratory infections and wheezing/asthma: interrupted time series analyses in the four UK nations

We investigated the association between introduction of smoke-free legislation in the UK (March 2006 for Scotland, April 2007 for Wales and Northern Ireland, and July 2007 for England) and the incidence of respiratory diseases among children. We extracted monthly counts of new diagnoses of wheezing/asthma and RTIs among children aged 0–12 years from all general practices in the Clinical Practice Research Datalink during 1997–2012. Interrupted time series analyses were performed using generalised additive mixed models, adjusting for underlying incidence trends, population size changes, seasonal factors, and pandemic influenza, as appropriate. 366,642 new wheezing/asthma diagnoses and 4,324,789 RTIs were observed over 9,536,003 patient-years. There was no statistically significant change in the incidence of wheezing/asthma after introduction of smoke-free legislation in England (incidence rate ratio (IRR) 0.94, 95% CI 0.81–1.09) or any other UK country (Scotland: IRR 0.99, 95% CI 0.83–1.19; Wales: IRR 1.09, 95% CI 0.89–1.35; Northern Ireland: IRR 0.96, 95% CI 0.76–1.22). Similarly no statistically significant changes in RTI incidence were demonstrated (England: IRR 0.95, 95% CI 0.86–1.06; Scotland: IRR 0.96, 95% CI 0.83–1.11; Wales: IRR 0.97, 95% CI 0.86–1.09; Northern Ireland: IRR 0.90, 95% CI 0.79–1.03). There were no demonstrable reductions in the incidence of paediatric wheezing/asthma or RTIs following introduction of smoke-free legislation in the UK

Breaking out of biogeographical modules: range expansion and taxon cycles in the hyperdiverse ant genus Pheidole

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Pulmonary manifestations in a pediatric patient with ulcerative colitis: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Although respiratory involvement has been described in patients with IBD, well-defined interstitial lung disease has not been reported, especially among children with ulcerative colitis.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>Herein, we present a case of an adolescent female with ulcerative colitis and extra-intestinal complications involving the lungs that were effectively treated with anti-metabolite therapy.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Children with UC may manifest either interstitial or large airway pulmonary involvement. All children with suspected lung involvement should be screened for tuberculosis prior to starting immunosuppressive therapy.</p