From socioeconomic disadvantage to obesity: the mediating role of psychological distress and emotional eating

Objective: Lower socioeconomic status is robustly associated with obesity; however, the underpinning psychological mechanisms remain unclear. The current study sought to determine whether the relationship between lower socioeconomic status and obesity is explained by psychological distress and subsequent emotional eating as a coping strategy. It also examined whether psychological resilience plays a protective role in this pathway. Methods: Participants (N = 150) from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds completed questionnaire measures of psychological distress, emotional eating, and resilience. They reported their income and education level as an indicator of socioeconomic status and their height and weight in order to calculate BMI. Results: There was a significant indirect effect of socioeconomic status on BMI via psychological distress and emotional eating; specifically, lower socioeconomic status was associated with higher distress, higher distress was associated with higher emotional eating, and higher emotional eating was associated with higher BMI (b [SE] = −0.02 [0.01]; 95% CI: −0.04 to −0.01). However, resilience was not a significant moderator of this association. Conclusions: Psychological distress and subsequent emotional eating represent a serial pathway that links lower socioeconomic status with obesity. Targeting these maladaptive coping behaviors may be one strategy to reduce obesity in low-income populations. © 2019 The Authors. Obesity published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of The Obesity Society (TOS

Genetic and biochemical analyses of chromosome and plasmid gene homologues encoding ICL and ArCP domains in Vibrioanguillarum strain 775

Anguibactin, the siderophore produced by Vibrio anguillarum 775 is synthesized from 2,3-dihydroxybenzoic acid (DHBA), cysteine and hydroxyhistamine via a nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) mechanism. Most of the genes encoding anguibactin biosynthetic proteins are harbored by the pJM1 plasmid. In this work we report the identification of a homologue of the plasmid-encoded angB on the chromosome of strain 775. The product of both genes harbor an isochorismate lyase (ICL) domain that converts isochorismic acid to 2,3-dihydro-2,3-dihydroxybenzoic acid, one of the steps of DHBA synthesis. We show in this work that both ICL domains are functional in the production of DHBA in V. anguillarum as well as in E. coli. Substitution by alanine of the aspartic acid residue in the active site of both ICL domains completely abolishes their isochorismate lyase activity in vivo. The two proteins also carry an aryl carrier protein (ArCP) domain. In contrast with the ICL domains only the plasmid encoded ArCP can participate in anguibactin production as determined by complementation analyses and site-directed mutagenesis in the active site of the plasmid encoded protein, S248A. The site-directed mutants, D37A in the ICL domain and S248A in the ArCP domain of the plasmid encoded AngB were also tested in vitro and clearly show the importance of each residue for the domain function and that each domain operates independently.

Multidrug resistance, inappropriate empiric treatment and hospital mortality in Acinetobacter baumannii pneumonia and sepsis

Background: The relationship between multidrug resistance (MDR), inappropriate empiric therapy (IET), and mortality among patients with Acinetobacter baumannii (AB) remains unclear. We examined it using a large U.S. database. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study using the Premier Research database (2009–2013) of 175 U.S. hospitals. We included all adult patients admitted with pneumonia or sepsis as their principal diagnosis, or as a secondary diagnosis in the setting of respiratory failure, along with antibiotic administration within 2 days of admission. Only culture-confirmed infections were included. Resistance to at least three classes of antibiotics defined multidrug-resistant AB (MDR-AB). We used logistic regression to compute the adjusted relative risk ratio (RRR) of patients with MDR-AB receiving IET and IET’s impact on mortality. Results: Among 1423 patients with AB infection, 1171 (82.3 %) had MDR-AB. Those with MDR-AB were older (63.7 ± 15.4 vs. 61.0 ± 16.9 years, p = 0.014). Although chronic disease burden did not differ between groups, the MDR-AB group had higher illness severity than those in the non-MDR-AB group (intensive care unit 68.0 % vs. 59. 5 %, p < 0.001; mechanical ventilation 56.2 % vs. 42.1 %, p < 0.001). Patients with MDR-AB were more likely to receive IET than those in the non-MDR-AB group (76.2 % MDR-AB vs. 13.8 % non-MDR-AB, p < 0.001). In a regression model, MDR-AB strongly predicted receipt of IET (adjusted RRR 5.5, 95 % CI 4.0–7.7, p < 0.001). IET exposure was associated with higher hospital mortality (adjusted RRR 1.8, 95 % CI 1.4–2.3, p < 0.001). Conclusions: In this large U.S. database, the prevalence of MDR-AB among patients with AB infection was > 80 %. Harboring MDR-AB increased the risk of receiving IET more than fivefold, and IET nearly doubled hospital mortality

Personalized Pathway Enrichment Map of Putative Cancer Genes from Next Generation Sequencing Data

BACKGROUND: Pathway analysis of a set of genes represents an important area in large-scale omic data analysis. However, the application of traditional pathway enrichment methods to next-generation sequencing (NGS) data is prone to several potential biases, including genomic/genetic factors (e.g., the particular disease and gene length) and environmental factors (e.g., personal life-style and frequency and dosage of exposure to mutagens). Therefore, novel methods are urgently needed for these new data types, especially for individual-specific genome data. METHODOLOGY: In this study, we proposed a novel method for the pathway analysis of NGS mutation data by explicitly taking into account the gene-wise mutation rate. We estimated the gene-wise mutation rate based on the individual-specific background mutation rate along with the gene length. Taking the mutation rate as a weight for each gene, our weighted resampling strategy builds the null distribution for each pathway while matching the gene length patterns. The empirical P value obtained then provides an adjusted statistical evaluation. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS/CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrated our weighted resampling method to a lung adenocarcinomas dataset and a glioblastoma dataset, and compared it to other widely applied methods. By explicitly adjusting gene-length, the weighted resampling method performs as well as the standard methods for significant pathways with strong evidence. Importantly, our method could effectively reject many marginally significant pathways detected by standard methods, including several long-gene-based, cancer-unrelated pathways. We further demonstrated that by reducing such biases, pathway crosstalk for each individual and pathway co-mutation map across multiple individuals can be objectively explored and evaluated. This method performs pathway analysis in a sample-centered fashion, and provides an alternative way for accurate analysis of cancer-personalized genomes. It can be extended to other types of genomic data (genotyping and methylation) that have similar bias problems

The Cost of Autism Spectrum Disorders

Objective: A diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorders is usually associated with substantial lifetime costs to an individual, their family and the community. However, there remains an elusive factor in any cost-benefit analysis of ASD diagnosis, namely the cost of not obtaining a diagnosis. Given the infeasibility of estimating the costs of a population that, by its nature, is inaccessible, the current study compares expenses between families whose children received a formal ASD diagnosis immediately upon suspecting developmental atypicality and seeking advice, with families that experienced a delay between first suspicion and formal diagnosis. Design: A register based questionnaire study covering all families with a child with ASD in Western Australia. Participants: Families with one or more children diagnosed with an ASD, totalling 521 children diagnosed with an ASD; 317 records were able to be included in the final analysis.Results: The median family cost of ASD was estimated to be AUD $34,900 per annum with almost 90$29,200) due to loss of income from employment. For each additional symptom reported, approximately $1,400 cost for the family per annum was added. While there was little direct influence on costs associated with a delay in the diagnosis, the delay was associated with a modest increase in the number of ASD symptoms, indirectly impacting the cost of ASD. Conclusions: A delay in diagnosis was associated with an indirect increased financial burden to families. Early and appropriate access to early intervention is known to improve a child's long-term outcomes and reduce lifetime costs to the individual, family and society. Consequently, a per symptom dollar value may assist in allocation of individualised funding amounts for interventions rather than a nominal amount allocated to all children below a certain age, regardless of symptom presentation, as is the case in Western Australia

Stellar Coronal and Wind Models: Impact on Exoplanets

Surface magnetism is believed to be the main driver of coronal heating and stellar wind acceleration. Coronae are believed to be formed by plasma confined in closed magnetic coronal loops of the stars, with winds mainly originating in open magnetic field line regions. In this Chapter, we review some basic properties of stellar coronae and winds and present some existing models. In the last part of this Chapter, we discuss the effects of coronal winds on exoplanets.Comment: Chapter published in the "Handbook of Exoplanets", Editors in Chief: Juan Antonio Belmonte and Hans Deeg, Section Editor: Nuccio Lanza. Springer Reference Work

Osteo-Chondroprogenitor–Specific Deletion of the Selenocysteine tRNA Gene, Trsp, Leads to Chondronecrosis and Abnormal Skeletal Development: A Putative Model for Kashin-Beck Disease

Kashin-Beck disease, a syndrome characterized by short stature, skeletal deformities, and arthropathy of multiple joints, is highly prevalent in specific regions of Asia. The disease has been postulated to result from a combination of different environmental factors, including contamination of barley by mold mycotoxins, iodine deficiency, presence of humic substances in drinking water, and, importantly, deficiency of selenium. This multifunctional trace element, in the form of selenocysteine, is essential for normal selenoprotein function, including attenuation of excessive oxidative stress, and for the control of redox-sensitive molecules involved in cell growth and differentiation. To investigate the effects of skeletal selenoprotein deficiency, a Cre recombinase transgenic mouse line was used to trigger Trsp gene deletions in osteo-chondroprogenitors. Trsp encodes selenocysteine tRNA[Ser]Sec, required for the incorporation of selenocysteine residues into selenoproteins. The mutant mice exhibited growth retardation, epiphyseal growth plate abnormalities, and delayed skeletal ossification, as well as marked chondronecrosis of articular, auricular, and tracheal cartilages. Phenotypically, the mice thus replicated a number of the pathological features of Kashin-Beck disease, supporting the notion that selenium deficiency is important to the development of this syndrome

Ghosts of other stories: a synthesis of hauntology, crime and space

Criminology has long sought to illuminate the lived experience of those at the margins. More recently, there has been a turn toward the spatial in the discipline. This paper sets out an analytical framework that synthesizes spatial theory with hauntology. We demonstrate how a given space's violent histories can become embedded in the texts that constitute it and the language that describes it. The art installation ‘Die Familie Schneider’ is used as an example of how the incorporation of social trauma can lead to the formation of a spatial “crypt”. Cracking open this “crypt” allows us to draw out Derrida's notion of the specter within the context of a “haunted” city space

Angular and Current-Target Correlations in Deep Inelastic Scattering at HERA

Correlations between charged particles in deep inelastic ep scattering have been studied in the Breit frame with the ZEUS detector at HERA using an integrated luminosity of 6.4 pb-1. Short-range correlations are analysed in terms of the angular separation between current-region particles within a cone centred around the virtual photon axis. Long-range correlations between the current and target regions have also been measured. The data support predictions for the scaling behaviour of the angular correlations at high Q2 and for anti-correlations between the current and target regions over a large range in Q2 and in the Bjorken scaling variable x. Analytic QCD calculations and Monte Carlo models correctly describe the trends of the data at high Q2, but show quantitative discrepancies. The data show differences between the correlations in deep inelastic scattering and e+e- annihilation.Comment: 26 pages including 10 figures (submitted to Eur. J. Phys. C

Plastisol Foaming Process. Decomposition of the Foaming Agent, Polymer Behavior in the Corresponding Temperature Range and Resulting Foam Properties

The decomposition of azodicarbonamide, used as foaming agent in PVC - plasticizer (1/1) plastisols was studied by DSC. Nineteen different plasticizers, all belonging to the ester family, two being polymeric (polyadipates), were compared. The temperature of maximum decomposition rate (in anisothermal regime at 5 K min-1 scanning rate), ranges between 434 and 452 K. The heat of decomposition ranges between 8.7 and 12.5 J g -1. Some trends of variation of these parameters appear significant and are discussed in terms of solvent (matrix) and viscosity effects on the decomposition reactions. The shear modulus at 1 Hz frequency was determined at the temperature of maximum rate of foaming agent decomposition, and differs significantly from a sample to another. The foam density was determined at ambient temperature and the volume fraction of bubbles was used as criterion to judge the efficiency of the foaming process. The results reveal the existence of an optimal shear modulus of the order of 2 kPa that corresponds roughly to plasticizer molar masses of the order of 450 ± 50 g mol-1. Heavier plasticizers, especially polymeric ones are too difficult to deform. Lighter plasticizers such as diethyl phthalate (DEP) deform too easily and presumably facilitate bubble collapse