Playing with the Good Guys - A Public Good Game with Endogenous Group Formation

In public good games, voluntary contributions tend to start off high and decline as the game is repeated. If high contributors are matched, however, contributions tend to stay high. We propose a formalization predicting that high contributors will self-select into groups committed to charitable giving. Testing this experimentally, we let subjects choose between two group types, where one type donate a fixed amount to a charity. Contributions in these groups stayed high, whereas contributions in the other groups showed the well known declining pattern. One implication is that corporate social responsibility may attract more responsible employees.altruism, conditional, cooperation, self-selection

Safety and efficacy outcomes of the Xen45 Gel Stent use for refractory glaucoma: A surgery series from surgeon trainees at a tertiary teaching hospital

Background: To study the effect of an ab interno gelatin stent (XEN45 Gel Stent, Allergan Inc., Irvine, California, USA) on intraocular pressure (IOP) as placed by glaucoma fellowship trainees in eyes with refractory glaucoma. Methods: A prospective noncomparative study at a tertiary training center on 28 unique eyes undergoing ab interno gelatin stent implantation by glaucoma fellowship trainees. Data was collected at baseline and postoperatively at day 1, week 1, and months 1, 3, 5, and 12. Primary outcome was mean IOP change. Secondary outcomes included change in number of glaucoma medication classes and visual acuity. Safety outcomes included needling rates. Surgical success was defined by achieving ≥20% reduction in IOP with the same or fewer classes of antiglaucoma medications from baseline without the need for secondary surgical intervention and/or stent removal. Results: At baseline, 28.6% (8/28) of the subjects had prior failed incisional glaucoma surgery in a study population that was 54% African-American, with 78% with severe glaucoma (average mean deviation of - 14.58 dB). Thirteen subjects terminated their clinic visits before their 12-month postoperative visit, leaving 15 subjects for end point analysis. Average IOP went from 21.6 mmHg (range 12.0-31.0, SD 6.6) at baseline to 12.5 mmHg (range 7.0-19.0, SD 3.6), a 42.1% reduction ( Conclusions: Compared to the reported literature with experienced ocular surgeons, ab interno gel stent placements by glaucoma fellowship trainees have similar mean IOP, topical medication reduction, surgical success, and needling rates at 12-month follow-up

Breastfeeding, asthma, and allergy : a tale of two cities

BACKGROUND: The effect of breastfeeding duration on subsequent asthma and allergy remains the subject of much controversy. OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether differences in study design or disease-related exposure modification were the cause of the differences in study findings. METHOD: The data from two cohorts, the Childhood Asthma Prevention Study (CAPS) from Australia and the Barn Allergi Miljo Stockholm cohort from Sweden, which had reported different findings on the association between breastfeeding and asthma, were combined. For this analysis, the definitions for breastfeeding, asthma, and allergy were harmonized. Subjects were included if they had at least one parent with wheeze or asthma and had a gestational age of more than 36 wks (combined n = 882). The risk of disease-related exposure modification was assessed using survival analysis. RESULTS: Breastfeeding reduced the risk of asthma at 4/5 and 8 yrs of age in children with a family history of asthma. The effect was stronger in the Swedish cohort. Breastfeeding had no effect on the prevalence of sensitization to inhaled allergens in this cohort with a family history of asthma but was a risk factor for sensitization to cow's milk, peanuts, and eggs in the CAPS cohort at 4/5 yrs and in the combined cohort at 8 yrs. There was no evidence to support the existence of disease-related exposure modification in either cohort. CONCLUSION: These findings point to the importance of harmonization of features of study design, including subject selection criteria and variable definitions, in resolving epidemiological controversies such as those surrounding the impact of breastfeeding on asthma and allergic sensitization.National Health and Medical Research Council of AustraliaStockholm County CouncilHjärt- och LungfondenThe Swedish Asthma and Allergy AssociationVetenskapsrådetThe Centre for Allergy research Karolinska InstitutetManuscrip

Patient focused registries can improve health, care, and science.

Eugene Nelson and colleagues call for registries of care data to be transformed into patient centred interactive learning systemsThis work is supported by funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (Grants: #71211 and 72313), the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (Grant #OCONNO04Q10), and the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America Quality of Care Initiative (Grant #3372). TSM was funded by the Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Center for Musculoskeletal Diseases at Dartmouth (P60 AR-062799, A. Tosteson, PI), sponsored by the National Institute for Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases of the National Institutes of Health. EE was funded by The Swedish Research Council for Health, Work Life and Welfare (#2014-4238). MDW is supported by a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator award (WT09789).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from BMJ Group via https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i331

From Winter to Late Summer in the Northwestern Barents Sea Shelf: Impacts of Seasonal Progression of Sea Ice and Upper Ocean on Nutrient and Phytoplankton Dynamics

Strong seasonality is a key feature of high-latitude systems like the Barents Sea. While the interannual variability and long-term changes of the Barents Sea are well-documented, the seasonal progression of the physical and biological systems is less known, mainly due to poor accessibility of the seasonally ice-covered area in winter and spring. Here, we use an extensive set of physical and biological in situ observations from four scientific expeditions covering the seasonal progression from late winter to late summer 2021 in the northwestern Barents Sea, from fully ice-covered to ice-free conditions. We found that sea ice meltwater and the timing of ice-free conditions in summer shape the environment, controlling heat accumulation, light and nutrient availability, and biological activity vertically, seasonally, and meridionally. In March and May, the ocean north of the Polar Front was ice-covered and featured a deep mixed layer. Chlorophyll-a concentrations increased from March to May along with greater euphotic depth, indicating the beginning of the spring bloom despite the absence of surface layer stratification. By July and in September, sea ice meltwater created a shallow low-density surface layer that strengthened stratification. In open water, chlorophyll-a maxima were found at the base of this layer as surface nutrients were depleted, while in the presence of ice, maxima were closer to the surface. Solar heating and the thickness of the surface layer increased with the number of ice-free days. The summer data showed a prime example of an Arctic-like space-for-time seasonal variability in the key physical and biological patterns, with the summer situation progressing northwards following sea ice retreat. The amount of sea ice melt (local or imported) has a strong control on the conditions in the northwestern Barents Sea, and the conditions in late 2021 resembled pre-2010 Arctic-like conditions with high freshwater content and lower ocean heat content.acceptedVersio

Introducing social science evidence in family court decision-making and adjudication:Evidence from England and Wales

This article examines the use of social science research in case level decision-making and adjudication in public and private family law proceedings from the perspectives of judges and lawyers in England and Wales. To provide a context for our analysis, we first review a limited, but nevertheless important, body of international literature concerned with the place of social science in the family courts. We then turn to our empirical material, drawn from a scoping study commissioned by the Nuffield Foundation, to inform the design of a new family justice observatory for England and Wales. The study found that judges and lawyers in England and Wales described similar obstacles to the use of social science evidence at a case level as their international counterparts, despite differences in jurisdictional rules and norms. Specifically, they were concerned with due process and the admissibility of research evidence, as well as the potential for advocacy bias, given the contested nature of social science evidence. Questions about how to apply population data to the specifics of an individual case were also raised. However, analysis also revealed further contextual obstacles in England and Wales resulting from radical changes to the family justice system, following comprehensive review in 2011. Judges and lawyers indicated that a reduction in experts and far shorter timescales for the completion of public law cases, together with an influx of self-representing litigants in private law, have created a context that is less, rather than more receptive to interdisciplinary knowledge, including research evidence

Association studies of up to 1.2 million individuals yield new insights into the genetic etiology of tobacco and alcohol use.

Tobacco and alcohol use are leading causes of mortality that influence risk for many complex diseases and disorders1. They are heritable2,3 and etiologically related4,5 behaviors that have been resistant to gene discovery efforts6-11. In sample sizes up to 1.2 million individuals, we discovered 566 genetic variants in 406 loci associated with multiple stages of tobacco use (initiation, cessation, and heaviness) as well as alcohol use, with 150 loci evidencing pleiotropic association. Smoking phenotypes were positively genetically correlated with many health conditions, whereas alcohol use was negatively correlated with these conditions, such that increased genetic risk for alcohol use is associated with lower disease risk. We report evidence for the involvement of many systems in tobacco and alcohol use, including genes involved in nicotinic, dopaminergic, and glutamatergic neurotransmission. The results provide a solid starting point to evaluate the effects of these loci in model organisms and more precise substance use measures

Panel-based Assessment of Ecosystem Condition of Norwegian Barents Sea Shelf Ecosystems - Appendices

Source at https://hi.no/hi