Gender differences in the trajectories of late-life depressive symptomology and probable depression in the years prior to death

BACKGROUND: Gender differences in depression are well established. Whether these differences persist into late life and in the years preceding death is less clear. There is a suggestion that there is no increased likelihood of depression in late life, but that there is an increase in depressive symptomology, particularly with proximity to death. We compared trajectories of probable depression and depressive symptomology between men and women over age and distance-to-death metrics to determine whether reports of depressive symptoms are more strongly related to age or mortality. METHODS: Participants (N = 2,852) from the Dynamic Analyses to Optimise Ageing (DYNOPTA) project had a mean age of 75 years (SD = 5.68 years) at baseline and were observed for up to 16 years prior to death. Multi-level regression models estimated change in depressive symptomology and probable depression over two time metrics, increasing age, and distance-to-death. RESULTS: Increases in depressive symptomology were reported over increasing age and in the years approaching death. Only male participants reported increased probable depression in the years preceding death. Models that utilized distance-to-death metrics better represented changes in late-life depression, although any changes in depression appear to be accounted for by co-varying physical health status. CONCLUSIONS: As death approaches, there are increases in the levels of depressive symptomology even after controlling for socio-demographic and health covariates. In line with increases in suicide rates in late life, male participants were at greater risk of reporting increases in depressive symptomology.NHMRC (National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia

Exploring South Africa’s southern frontier : a 20-year vision for polar research through the South African National Antarctic Programme

Abstract: Please refer to full text to view abstrac

A framework for targeting water, sanitation and hygiene interventions in pastoralist populations in the Afar region of Ethiopia

Globally, many populations face structural and environmental barriers to access safe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. Among these populations are many of the 200 million pastoralists whose livelihood patterns and extreme environmental settings challenge conventional WASH programming approaches. In this paper, we studied the Afar pastoralists in Ethiopia to identify WASH interventions that can mostly alleviate public health risks, within the population's structural and environmental living constraints. Surveys were carried out with 148 individuals and observational assessments made in 12 households as part of a Pastoralist Community WASH Risk Assessment. The results show that low levels of access to infrastructure are further compounded by risky behaviours related to water containment, storage and transportation. Additional behavioural risk factors were identified related to sanitation, hygiene and animal husbandry. The Pastoralist Community WASH Risk Assessment visually interprets the seriousness of the risks against the difficulty of addressing the problem. The assessment recommends interventions on household behaviours, environmental cleanliness, water storage, treatment and hand hygiene via small-scale educational interventions. The framework provides an approach for assessing risks in other marginal populations that are poorly understood and served through conventional approaches

LEP Operation and Performance with 100 GeV Colliding Beams

Luminosity production in LEP was extended to 101 GeV beam energy in 1999 and 104.4 GeV in 2000. The performance was continually optimised, resulting in 1999 peak and integrated luminosities higher than in any previous year of LEP operation. In particular, the beam-beam tune shift reached 0.083 per interaction point. This was achieved with the help of a faster luminosity monitoring, a new tune working point, a reduced design vertical dispersion and new dispersion and coupling optimisation tools. A higher beam rate from the injectors, a better injection efficiency, a faster ramp and a newly automated control of the horizontal damping partition number Jx maximised the time available for physics and thus contributed to the higher integrated luminosity

Overview of LEP operation in 1998

After the installation of 32 additional RF cavities in the 1997-1998 shutdown LEP was operated at a beam energy of 94.5 GeV. The total integrated luminosity for the year 1998 clearly surpassed its target and reached 198 pb-1. Vertical beam-beam tuneshiftsof more than 0.07 were obtained. The performance did not seem to be beam-beam limited, but the total beam current was limited by power dissipation problems to around 6 mA. A high phase advance optics (102o, 90o), with a smaller natural emittance, was used for regular operation in 1998. This contributed to the excellent performance of LEP, together with the further reduction of both the horizontal and vertical beta function at the interaction points. No dynamic aperture problems were encountered

Genomics of lipid metabolism: Identifying novel causal pathways and new therapeutic targets for reducing risk of coronary heart disease

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is one of the leading causes of death worldwide; mortality rates are expected to continue to rise over the coming decades. Circulating lipids have been shown to be strongly and linearly associated with risk of CHD; however, despite considerable efforts to demonstrate causality, available evidence is conflicting and insufficient. Study of the underlying metabolic pathways implicated in the association between lipids and CHD would help to disentangle and elucidate these complex relationships. Direct infusion high-resolution mass spectrometry was performed on 5,551 participants from the Pakistan Risk of Myocardial Infarction Study; raw data were then processed, cleaned, and normalized to extract signals corresponding to 444 known lipid metabolites. Cross-correlations of lipid metabolites and their correlations with circulating lipids were examined, and the association of principal components of lipid metabolites with CHD risk factors was assessed. Genome-wide analyses were conducted to analyze the association of each lipid metabolite with 7.2 million genotyped and imputed single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Following conditional analyses on the lead SNP within each loci, we identified genome-wide significant associations at 148 independent metabolic loci and 54 novel loci. We then used functional annotation to link the variants associated with each metabolite to the most probable causal genes, and two-sample Mendelian randomization to examine the causal effect of lipid metabolites on risk of CHD. Analyses of circulating lipid metabolites in large epidemiological studies could lead to enhanced understanding of mechanisms for CHD development and identification of novel causal pathways and new therapeutic targets

Natriuretic peptides and integrated risk assessment for cardiovascular disease. an individual-participant-data meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Guidelines for primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases focus on prediction of coronary heart disease and stroke. We assessed whether or not measurement of N-terminal-pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) concentration could enable a more integrated approach than at present by predicting heart failure and enhancing coronary heart disease and stroke risk assessment. METHODS: In this individual-participant-data meta-analysis, we generated and harmonised individual-participant data from relevant prospective studies via both de-novo NT-proBNP concentration measurement of stored samples and collection of data from studies identified through a systematic search of the literature (PubMed, Scientific Citation Index Expanded, and Embase) for articles published up to Sept 4, 2014, using search terms related to natriuretic peptide family members and the primary outcomes, with no language restrictions. We calculated risk ratios and measures of risk discrimination and reclassification across predicted 10 year risk categories (ie, <5%, 5% to <7·5%, and ≥7·5%), adding assessment of NT-proBNP concentration to that of conventional risk factors (ie, age, sex, smoking status, systolic blood pressure, history of diabetes, and total and HDL cholesterol concentrations). Primary outcomes were the combination of coronary heart disease and stroke, and the combination of coronary heart disease, stroke, and heart failure. FINDINGS: We recorded 5500 coronary heart disease, 4002 stroke, and 2212 heart failure outcomes among 95 617 participants without a history of cardiovascular disease in 40 prospective studies. Risk ratios (for a comparison of the top third vs bottom third of NT-proBNP concentrations, adjusted for conventional risk factors) were 1·76 (95% CI 1·56-1·98) for the combination of coronary heart disease and stroke and 2·00 (1·77-2·26) for the combination of coronary heart disease, stroke, and heart failure. Addition of information about NT-proBNP concentration to a model containing conventional risk factors was associated with a C-index increase of 0·012 (0·010-0·014) and a net reclassification improvement of 0·027 (0·019-0·036) for the combination of coronary heart disease and stroke and a C-index increase of 0·019 (0·016-0·022) and a net reclassification improvement of 0·028 (0·019-0·038) for the combination of coronary heart disease, stroke, and heart failure. INTERPRETATION: In people without baseline cardiovascular disease, NT-proBNP concentration assessment strongly predicted first-onset heart failure and augmented coronary heart disease and stroke prediction, suggesting that NT-proBNP concentration assessment could be used to integrate heart failure into cardiovascular disease primary prevention

Results from GROCSE I: A real-time search for gamma ray burst optical counterparts

The GROCSE I experiment (Gamma-Ray Optical Counterpart Search Experiment) is a rapid slewing wide field of view optical telescope at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which responds to triggers from the BATSE GRB data telemetry stream that have been processed and distributed by the BACODINE network. GROCSE I has been in continuous automated operation since January 1994. As of October 1995, sky images for 22 GRB triggers have been recorded, in some cases while the burst was still in progress. The preliminary analysis of eight of these events are presented here. No optical counterparts have yet been detected. Limits for optical emission are given. © 1996 American Institute of Physics.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87367/2/671_1.pd

Gamma ray burst optical counterpart search experiment (GROCSE)

GROCSE (Gamma-Ray Optical Counterpart Search Experiment) is a system of automated telescopes that search for simultaneous optical activity associated with gamma ray bursts in response to real-time burst notifications provided by the BATSE/BACODINE network. The first generation system, GROCSE I, is sensitive down to MV ∼ 8.5MV∼8.5 and requires an average of 12 seconds to obtain the first images of the gamma ray burst error box defined by the BACODINE trigger. The collaboration is now constructing a second generation system which has a 4 second slewing time and can reach MV ∼ 14MV∼14 with a 5 second exposure. GROCSE II consists of 4 cameras on a single mount. Each camera views the night sky through a commercial Canon lens (f/1.8,(f/1.8, focal length 200 mm) and utilizes a 2K×2K2K×2K Loral CCD. Light weight and low noise custom readout electronics were designed and fabricated for these CCDs. The total field of view of the 4 cameras is 17.6×17.6°.17.6×17.6°. GROCSE II will be operating by the end of 1995. In this paper, we present an overview of the GROCSE system and the results of measurements with a GROCSE II prototype unit. © 1996 American Institute of Physics.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87369/2/861_1.pd