The Synergistic Impact of Excessive Alcohol Drinking and Cigarette Smoking upon Prospective Memory

The independent use of excessive amounts of alcohol or persistent cigarette smoking have been found to have a deleterious impact upon Prospective Memory (PM: remembering future intentions and activities), although to date, the effect of their concurrent use upon PM is yet to be explored. The present study investigated the impact of the concurrent use of drinking excessive amounts of alcohol and smoking cigarettes (a “Polydrug” group) in comparison to the combined effect of the single use of these substances upon PM. The study adopted a single factorial independent groups design. The Cambridge Prospective Memory Test (CAMPROMPT) is a test of both time-based and event-based PM and was used here to measure PM. The CAMPROMPT was administered to 125 adults; an excessive alcohol user group (n = 40), a group of smokers who drink very little alcohol (n = 20), a combined user group (the “Polydrug” group) who drink excessively and smoke cigarettes (n = 40) and a non-drinker/low alcohol consumption control group (n = 25). The main findings revealed that the Polydrug users recalled significantly fewer time-based PM tasks than both excessive alcohol users p < 0.001 and smokers p = 0.013. Polydrug users (mean = 11.47) also remembered significantly fewer event-based PM tasks than excessive alcohol users p < 0.001 and smokers p = 0.013. With regards to the main aim of the study, the polydrug users exhibited significantly greater impaired time-based PM than the combined effect of single excessive alcohol users and cigarette smokers p = 0.033. However, no difference was observed between polydrug users and the combined effect of single excessive alcohol users and cigarette smokers in event-based PM p = 0.757. These results provide evidence that concurrent (polydrug) use of these two substances has a synergistic effect in terms of deficits upon time-based PM. The observation that combined excessive drinking and cigarette smoking leads to a greater impairment in time-based PM may be of paramount importance, given the key role PM plays in everyday independent living

Isotropic modeling of transversely isotropic wedge indentation

No page 20The need has become evident for a more thorough understanding of the causes of hole deviation when drilling through stratified formations. The approach to this problem herein is to analyze the forces between the bit teeth and rock and how they might affect horizontal deflection of the drill bit. This study is specifically concerned with methods of modeling the rock and bit tooth interaction so that valid predictions can be made of the actual behavior. The rock and bit tooth interaction is modeled by a vertical wedge indentation into the flat, level surface of an arbitrarily oriented transversely isotropic rigid - perfectly plastic medium. The transversely isotropic wedge is itself modeled by vertical wedge indentation into the flat, inclined surface of an isotropic medium with arbitrary orientation of the direction of maximum slope. An upper bound approximation method for predicting horizontal and vertical loads is developed using fundamental principles of plasticity theory and an experimental study conducted as verification of the method. It is demonstrated herein that the experimental behavior has been satisfactorily predicted by the theoretical analysis and that a limit analysis solution to the isotropic wedge indentation problem has been obtained. An approach to the analysis of the transversely isotropic problem is outlined as a possible introduction to further work on this problem

Head Water: An Interview with Gerald Vizenor

As Gerald Vizenor explains in the following interview, the act of going away has allowed him to return home richer as an individual and as a writer. Asia has been especially important in this regard: it was in Japan just after the Korean War that Vizenor experienced his first major literary discovery--haiku. Then, over twenty years later, after having published numerous books of poetry (including several books of haiku) and journalism, a year teaching in Tianjin, China resulted in Vizenor \u27s second novel, Griever: An American Monkey King in China. We talked with Gerald Vizenor in his office at UC-Berkeley in early January 1992, just a few months after the publication of The Heirs of Columbus, a work which, appearing as it did in the face of the quincentennial, announced in no uncertain terms, I\u27m not a victim of Columbus. For a mixed-blood Native American, that was quite an assertion. Looking at his own life and that around him, Vizenor continues re-shaping it, joined by the trickster who assists him in remembering how to turn pain and horror into humor

Do Genetic Diversity Effects Drive the Benefits Associated with Multiple Mating? A Test in a Marine Invertebrate

Background: Mothers that mate with multiple males often produce higher quality offspring than mothers that mate with a single male. By engaging in polyandry, mothers may increase their chances of mating with a compatible male or promote sperm competition - both of which act to increase maternal fitness via the biasing of the paternity of offspring. Surprisingly, mating with multiple males, can carry benefits without biasing paternity and may be due simply to differences in genetic diversity between monandrous and polyandrous clutches but role of genetic diversity effects in driving the benefits of polyandry remains poorly tested. Disentangling indirect, genetic benefits from genetic diversity effects is challenging but crucial if we are to understand the selection pressures acting to promote polyandry. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here, we examine the post-fertilisation benefits of accessing the sperm of multiple males in an externally fertilising polychaete worm. Accessing the sperm of multiple males increases offspring performance but this benefit was driven entirely by genetic diversity effects and not by the biasing of paternity at fertilisation. Conclusions/Significance: Previous studies on polyandry should be interpreted cautiously as genetic diversity effects alone can explain the benefits of polyandry yet these diversity effects may be difficult to disentangle from other mechanisms. We suggest that future studies use a modified experimental design in order to discriminate between genetic diversity effects and indirect, genetic benefits

Estimating the value of information in strategies for identifying patients at high risk of cardiovascular disease

Background There are many different potential strategies for identification of patients eligible for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. The ability to use a more efficient strategy has a value. This paper models the costs and benefits of a number of identification strategies and estimates the additional value of an information-based strategy. Design Modelling study. Methods Ten-year Framingham cardiovascular risk was calculated for each individual in a population of 4471 persons aged 35_74 drawn from the Health Survey for England (equivalent to a total practice population of 12 000). Estimated Framingham risk was calculated using limited risk factor information and default risk factors. Costs of risk factor assessment were calculated using standard NHS costs. The outcomes of risk factor assessment were the total number of patients identified as eligible for treatment and the total burden of cardiovascular disease in eligible patients. Several strategies for prioritising patients for assessment were defined: opportunistic, diabetics and treated hypertensives first, ranked by estimated cardiovascular risk. The costs and outcomes of assessing increasing numbers of patients under each strategy were presented in graphical form. Results To identify 70% of the burden of cardiovascular disease in this population opportunistically costs '82 102; under a 'diabetics and hypertensives first' strategy it costs '72 916; under a strategy prioritising by estimated cardiovascular risk, '27 795. The value of information in this scenario is therefore at least '45 121. Conclusions Because strategies prioritising patients by estimated cardiovascular risk dominate alternative strategies, it is possible to estimate the value of information in terms of reduced resources to achieve the same results. These resource savings largely represent savings in staff time

The epidemiology of UK autoimmune liver disease varies with geographic latitude

BACKGROUND & AIMS: The epidemiology of autoimmune liver disease (AILD) is challenging to study because of the diseases’ rarity and because of cohort selection bias. Increased incidence farther from the Equator has been reported for multiple sclerosis, another autoimmune disease. We assessed the incidence of primary biliary cholangitis (PBC), primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), and autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) in relation to latitude. METHODS: We performed a retrospective cohort study using anonymized UK primary care records from January 1, 2002, to May 10, 2016. All adults without a baseline diagnosis of AILD were included and followed up until the first occurrence of an AILD diagnosis, death, or they left the database. Latitude was measured as registered general practice rounded down to whole degrees. RESULTS: The cohort included 8,590,421 records with 53.3 × 10(7) years of follow-up evaluation from 694 practices. There were 1314 incident cases of PBC, 396 of PSC, and 1034 of AIH. Crude incidences were as follows: PBC, 2.47 (95% CI, 2.34–2.60); PSC, 0.74 (95% CI, 0.67–0.82); and AIH, 1.94 (95% CI, 1.83–2.06) per 100,000 per year. PBC incidence correlated with female sex, smoking, and deprivation; PSC incidence correlated with male sex and non-smoking; AIH incidence correlated with female sex and deprivation. A more northerly latitude was associated strongly with incidence of PBC: 2.16 (95% CI, 1.79–2.60) to 4.86 (95% CI, 3.93–6.00) from 50°N to 57°N (P = .002) and incidence of AIH: 2.00 (95% CI, 1.65–2.43) to 3.28 (95% CI, 2.53–4.24) (P = .003), but not incidence of PSC: 0.82 (95% CI, 0.60–1.11) to 1.02 (95% CI, 0.64–1.61) (P = .473). Incidence after adjustment for age, sex, smoking, and deprivation status showed similar positive correlations for PBC and AIH with latitude, but not PSC. Incident AIH cases were younger at more northerly latitude. CONCLUSIONS: We describe an association in the United Kingdom between more northerly latitude and the incidence of PBC and AIH that requires both confirmation and explanation