2,364 research outputs found
Association of N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide with cognitive function and depression in elderly people with type 2 diabetes
<p>Background: Type 2 diabetes mellitus is associated with risk of congestive heart failure (CHF), cognitive dysfunction and depression. CHF itself is linked both to poor cognition and depression. The ventricular N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) is a marker of CHF, suggesting potential as a marker for cognitive impairment and/or depression. This was tested in the Edinburgh Type 2 Diabetes Study (ET2DS).</p>
<p>Methodology and Principal Findings: Cross-sectional analysis of 1066 men and women aged 60–75 with type 2 diabetes. Results from seven neuropsychological tests were combined in a standardised general cognitive ability factor, ‘g’. A vocabulary-based test estimated pre-morbid cognitive ability. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) assessed possible depression. After adjustment for age and sex, raised plasma NT-proBNP was weakly associated with lower ‘g’ and higher depression scores (ß −0.09, 95% CI −0.13 to −0.03, p = 0.004 and ß 0.08, 95% CI 0.04 to 0.12, p<0.001, respectively). Comparing extreme quintiles of NT-proBNP, subjects in the highest quintile were more likely to have reduced cognitive ability (within the lowest tertile of ‘g’) and ‘possible’ depression (HADS depression ≥8) (OR 1.80; 95% CI: 1.20, 2.70; p = 0.005 and OR 2.18; 95% CI: 1.28, 3.71; p = 0.004, respectively). Associations persisted when pre-morbid ability was adjusted for, but as expected were no longer statistically significant following the adjustment for diabetes-related and vascular co-variates (β −0.02, 95% CI −0.07 to 0.03, p>0.05 for ‘g’; β 0.03, 95% CI −0.02 to 0.07, p>0.05 for depression scores).</p>
<p>Conclusion: Raised plasma NT-proBNP was weakly but statistically significantly associated with poorer cognitive function and depression. The prospective phases of the ET2DS will help determine whether or not NT-proBNP can be considered a risk marker for subsequent cognitive impairment and incident depression and whether it provides additional information over and above traditional risk factors for these conditions.</p>
The Moyal bracket and the dispersionless limit of the KP hierarchy
A new Lax equation is introduced for the KP hierarchy which avoids the use of
pseudo-differential operators, as used in the Sato approach. This Lax equation
is closer to that used in the study of the dispersionless KP hierarchy, and is
obtained by replacing the Poisson bracket with the Moyal bracket. The
dispersionless limit, underwhich the Moyal bracket collapses to the Poisson
bracket, is particularly simple.Comment: 9 pages, LaTe
Public understanding and awareness of and response to monkeypox virus outbreak: A cross-sectional survey of the most affected communities in the United Kingdom during the 2022 public health emergency.
OBJECTIVES: Our objective was to examine the public response to public health and media messaging during the human monkeypox virus (MPXV) outbreak in the UK, focusing on at-risk communities. METHODS: A co-produced, cross-sectional survey was administered in June and July 2022 using community social media channels and the Grindr dating app. Basic descriptive statistics, logistic regression, and odds ratio p values are presented. RESULTS: Of 1932 survey respondents, 1750 identified as men, 88 as women, and 64 as gender non-conforming. Sexual identity was described as gay/lesbian/queer (80%), bisexual (12%), heterosexual (4%), and pansexual (2%); 39% were aged <40 years; 71% self-identified as White, 3% as Black, 8% as Asian, 2%as LatinX, and 11% as 'Mixed or Other' heritage groups. In total, 85% were employed and 79% had completed higher education. A total of 7% of respondents identified themselves as living with HIV. Overall, 34% reported limited understanding of public health information, 52% considered themselves at risk, 61% agreed that people with MPXV should isolate for 21 days, 49% reported they would first attend a sexual health clinic if symptomatic, 86% reported they would accept a vaccine, and 59% believed that MPXV originated from animals. The most trusted sources of information were healthcare professionals (37%), official health agencies (29%), and mainstream media (12%). CONCLUSIONS: Vaccine acceptability was very high, yet the understanding and acceptance of public health information varied. Social determinants of health inequalities already shaping the UK landscape risk were compounded in this new emergency. Engagement with structurally disadvantaged members of affected communities and better dissemination of public health messaging by trusted healthcare professionals are essential for the public health response
Re-examining the consumption-wealth relationship : the role of model uncertainty
This paper discusses the consumption-wealth relationship. Following the recent influential workof Lettau and Ludvigson [e.g. Lettau and Ludvigson (2001), (2004)], we use data on consumption, assets andlabor income and a vector error correction framework. Key …ndings of their work are that consumption doesrespond to permanent changes in wealth in the expected manner, but that most changes in wealth are transitoryand have no e¤ect on consumption. We investigate the robustness of these results to model uncertainty andargue for the use of Bayesian model averaging. We …nd that there is model uncertainty with regards to thenumber of cointegrating vectors, the form of deterministic components, lag length and whether the cointegratingresiduals a¤ect consumption and income directly. Whether this uncertainty has important empirical implicationsdepends on the researcher's attitude towards the economic theory used by Lettau and Ludvigson. If we workwith their model, our findings are very similar to theirs. However, if we work with a broader set of models andlet the data speak, we obtain somewhat di¤erent results. In the latter case, we …nd that the exact magnitudeof the role of permanent shocks is hard to estimate precisely. Thus, although some support exists for the viewthat their role is small, we cannot rule out the possibility that they have a substantive role to play
From dispersionless to soliton systems via Weyl-Moyal like deformations
The formalism of quantization deformation is reviewed and the Weyl-Moyal like
deformation is applied to systematic construction of the field and lattice
integrable soliton systems from Poisson algebras of dispersionless systems.Comment: 26 page
A Quasiperiodic Gibbons--Hawking Metric and Spacetime Foam
We present a quasiperiodic self-dual metric of the Gibbons--Hawking type with
one gravitational instanton per spacetime cell. The solution, based on an
adaptation of Weierstrassian and functions to three
dimensions, conforms to a definition of spacetime foam given by Hawking.Comment: 14 pages, Late
Twistor theory of hyper-K{\"a}hler metrics with hidden symmetries
We briefly review the hierarchy for the hyper-K\"ahler equations and define a
notion of symmetry for solutions of this hierarchy. A four-dimensional
hyper-K\"ahler metric admits a hidden symmetry if it embeds into a hierarchy
with a symmetry. It is shown that a hyper-K\"ahler metric admits a hidden
symmetry if it admits a certain Killing spinor. We show that if the hidden
symmetry is tri-holomorphic, then this is equivalent to requiring symmetry
along a higher time and the hidden symmetry determines a `twistor group' action
as introduced by Bielawski \cite{B00}. This leads to a construction for the
solution to the hierarchy in terms of linear equations and variants of the
generalised Legendre transform for the hyper-K\"ahler metric itself given by
Ivanov & Rocek \cite{IR96}. We show that the ALE spaces are examples of
hyper-K\"ahler metrics admitting three tri-holomorphic Killing spinors. These
metrics are in this sense analogous to the 'finite gap' solutions in soliton
theory. Finally we extend the concept of a hierarchy from that of \cite{DM00}
for the four-dimensional hyper-K\"ahler equations to a generalisation of the
conformal anti-self-duality equations and briefly discuss hidden symmetries for
these equations.Comment: Final version. To appear in the August 2003 special issue of JMP on
`Integrability, Topological Solitons, and Beyond
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