The things they carried: The biological residue of childhood misfortune

There is a well-established relationship between childhood misfortune and adult health, but how these early-life experiences “get under the skin” to later manifest as poor health is less clear. To elucidate this process, this dissertation investigates (1) how childhood conditions influence immune functioning and (2) whether these physiological consequences of early misfortune lead to poor health, indicated by ischemic heart disease (IHD) onset. Guided by cumulative inequality theory and biological embedding, this dissertation also examines adult health lifestyles and socioeconomic status (SES) as possible mechanisms linking childhood misfortune to inflammation and IHD in later life. Data come from six waves of the Health and Retirement Study between 2004 and 2014, comprising a sample of over 8,000 adults aged 51 and older. The empirical investigation is presented in two main articles. The first article presented in Chapter 2 investigates the relationship between childhood misfortune and chronic inflammation, and examines mediators of adult health lifestyles and SES. Building on the findings in Chapter 2, the second article presented in Chapter 3 investigates the relationship between childhood misfortune and IHD risk, and examines mediators of adult health lifestyles, SES, and inflammation. In both articles, alternative specifications of childhood misfortune are tested. Findings from this dissertation reveal that childhood misfortune predicts higher levels of inflammation and IHD risk in later-life. For inflammation, additive childhood misfortune and lower childhood SES led to elevated levels of inflammation via adult health lifestyles and SES. For IHD risk, lower childhood SES raised IHD risk by directly impacting adult health lifestyles and SES, which subsequently led to higher levels of inflammation, resulting in onset of IHD. These findings clarify how childhood misfortune impacts health among older adults. Using multiple mediating domains to assess the long-term effects of early-life conditions can enhance health policy in an effort to reduce the associated disease burden of childhood misfortune

Early Origins of Adult Cancer Risk Among Men and Women: Influence of Childhood Misfortune?

Objective—To examine the effect of five childhood misfortune domains—parental behavior, socioeconomic status, infectious diseases, chronic diseases, and impairments—on all-site and selected site-specific cancer prevalence and all-site cancer incidence. Method—Panel data from the Health and Retirement Study (2004–2012) were used to investigate cancer risk among adults above the age of 50. Results—Risky parental behavior and impairment in childhood were associated with higher odds of all-site cancer prevalence, and childhood chronic disease was associated with prostate cancer, even after adjusting for adult health and socioeconomic factors. Moreover, having one infectious disease in childhood lowered the odds of colon cancer. Cancer trends varied by race and ethnicity, most notably, higher prostate cancer prevalence among Black men and lower all-site cancer among Hispanic adults. Discussion—These findings underscore the importance of examining multiple domains of misfortune because the type and amount of misfortune influence cancer risk in different ways

How accurate is an MRI at diagnosing injured knee ligaments?

MRI is highly accurate in diagnosing injury to the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) (strength of recommendation [SOR]: A, prospective blinded cohort studies) and posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) (SOR: B, limited number of prospective blinded cohort studies). Insufficient data are available to evaluate the effectiveness of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for diagnosing injuries to the medial collateral ligament (MCL) and lateral collateral ligament (LCL)

Embedding Digraphs on Orientable Surfaces

AbstractWe consider a notion of embedding digraphs on orientable surfaces, applicable to digraphs in which the indegree equals the outdegree for every vertex, i.e., Eulerian digraphs. This idea has been considered before in the context of compatible Euler tours or orthogonal A-trails by Andersen and by Bouchet. This prior work has mostly been limited to embeddings of Eulerian digraphs on predetermined surfaces and to digraphs with underlying graphs of maximum degree at most 4. In this paper, a foundation is laid for the study of all Eulerian digraph embeddings. Results are proved which are analogous to those fundamental to the theory of undirected graph embeddings, such as Duke's theorem [5], and an infinite family of digraphs which demonstrates that the genus range for an embeddable digraph can be any nonnegative integer given. We show that it is possible to have genus range equal to one, with arbitrarily large minimum genus, unlike in the undirected case. The difference between the minimum genera of a digraph and its underlying graph is considered, as is the difference between the maximum genera. We say that a digraph is upper-embeddable if it can be embedded with two or three regions and prove that every regular tournament is upper-embeddable

Difference and belonging: Learning from women studying the built environment.

The research explores the lived experiences of a small number of women students of different ages and backgrounds studying the built environment at one 'new' university over a number of years. Difference and belonging became key themes in the research. The researcher has adopted a feminist and collaborative approach according to 'new paradigm' (Reason and Rowan,1981) research in order to include the participants as partners rather than subjects. Lecturers involved in teaching built environment subject areas are also partners in the research. The literature draws on three general themes: gender and the experience of women as learners; culture and higher education; and women in the SET and built environment sectors. Whilst gender is at the heart of this research, 'race', class and age have been found to be significant aspects of identity that intersect to influence women in built environment higher education. Intersectionality at the differences between women and their collective difference as women in male dominated environment were found to be significant within their learning experience. The complexities of the culture and sub-cultures within the university were found to contribute both positive and negative aspects to the learning experience of the different women. While the research found a number of features of the learning experience that could be improved, the natural association of abstract, impersonal teaching and 'masculine' subjects with a 'masculine' culture was challenged by the pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning. The results indicate a need to guard against a fixed view of masculine and feminine attributes that may reinforce existing stereotypes. The positive impact that individual lecturers have on the learning experience of women is an encouraging find. The results provide a challenge to some of the overwhelming negative experiences described by women in male dominated subject areas. The research provides encouragement that positive interventions can help women to belong in a new university built environment community

Early Origins of Adult Cancer Risk Among Men and Women: Influence of Childhood Misfortune?

Objective—To examine the effect of five childhood misfortune domains—parental behavior, socioeconomic status, infectious diseases, chronic diseases, and impairments—on all-site and selected site-specific cancer prevalence and all-site cancer incidence. Method—Panel data from the Health and Retirement Study (2004–2012) were used to investigate cancer risk among adults above the age of 50. Results—Risky parental behavior and impairment in childhood were associated with higher odds of all-site cancer prevalence, and childhood chronic disease was associated with prostate cancer, even after adjusting for adult health and socioeconomic factors. Moreover, having one infectious disease in childhood lowered the odds of colon cancer. Cancer trends varied by race and ethnicity, most notably, higher prostate cancer prevalence among Black men and lower all-site cancer among Hispanic adults. Discussion—These findings underscore the importance of examining multiple domains of misfortune because the type and amount of misfortune influence cancer risk in different ways

Annexin A2 is a novel Cellular Redox Regulatory Protein involved in Tumorigenesis

Annexins are a structurally related family of calcium and phospholipid-binding proteins that are involved in the regulation of a wide range of molecular and cellular processes. Annexin A2 is unique among the annexins in that it possesses redox sensitive cysteine(s). The ubiquitous and abundant expression of ANXA2 in cells and its reactivity with hydrogen peroxide led us to hypothesize that this protein could play a role in cellular redox regulation. Here we show that ANXA2 protein levels are induced by hydrogen peroxide. Furthermore, depletion of ANXA2 resulted in the elevation of cellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) upon oxidative stress, increased activation of the ROS-induced pro-apoptotic kinases, JNK, p38 and Akt and elevated sensitivity to ROS-mediated cellular damage/death. ANXA2-null mice showed significantly elevated protein oxidation in the liver and lung tissues compared to WT mice. ANXA2 depleted cancer cells showed enhanced cellular protein oxidationconcomitant with decreased tumor growth compared to control cancer cells andboth the oxidation of cellular proteins and tumor growth deficit werereversed by the antioxidant N-acetyl cysteine, indicating that ANXA2 plays akey role in the regulation of cellular redox during tumorigenesis. Ex-vivo human cancer studies showed that up-regulation of the reduced form of ANXA2 is associated with protection of the tumor proteins from oxidation. In summary, our results indicate that ANXA2 plays an important role incellular redox regulation by protecting cells from oxidative stress, aneffect that is particularly important during tumorigenesis

IR Thermography of International Space Station Radiator Panels

Several non-flight qualification test radiators were inspected using flash thermography. Flash thermography data analysis used raw and second derivative images to detect anomalies (Echotherm and Mosaic). Simple contrast evolutions were plotted for the detected anomalies to help in anomaly characterization. Many out-of-family indications were noted. Some out-of-family indications were classified as cold spot indications and are due to additional adhesive or adhesive layer behind the facesheet. Some out-of-family indications were classified as hot spot indications and are due to void, unbond or lack of adhesive behind the facesheet. The IR inspection helped in assessing expected manufacturing quality of the radiators

Identifying anthropogenic features at Seoke (Botswana) using pXRF: Expanding the record of southern African Stone Walled Sites.

Numerous and extensive 'Stone Walled Sites' have been identified in southern African Iron Age landscapes. Appearing from around 1200 CE, and showing considerable variability in size and form, these settlements are named after the dry-stone wall structures that characterize them. Stone Walled Sites were occupied by various Bantu-speaking agropastoral communities. In this paper we test the use of pXRF (portable X-ray fluorescence analysis) to generate a 'supplementary' archaeological record where evident stratigraphy is lacking, survey conditions may be uneven, and excavations limited, due to the overall site size. We propose herein the application of portable X-ray fluorescence analysis (pXRF) coupled with multivariate exploratory analysis and geostatistical modelling at Seoke, a southern African SWS of historical age (18th century CE). The aim of the paper is twofold: to explore the potential of the application of a low cost, quick, and minimally invasive technique to detect chemical markers in anthropogenic sediments from a Stone Walled Site, and to propose a way to analyse the results in order to improve our understanding of the use of space at non-generalized scales in such sites