Effects of systematic asymmetric discounting on physician-patient interactions: a theoretical framework to explain poor compliance with lifestyle counseling

BACKGROUND: This study advances the use of a utility model to model physician-patient interactions from the perspectives of physicians and patients. PRESENTATION OF THE HYPOTHESIS: In cases involving acute care, patient counseling involves a relatively straightforward transfer of information from the physician to a patient. The patient has less information than the physician on the impact the condition and its treatment have on utility. In decisions involving lifestyle changes, the patient may have more information than the physician on his/her utility of consumption; moreover, differences in discounting future health may contribute significantly to differences between patients' preferences and physicians' recommendations. TESTING THE HYPOTHESIS: The expectation of differences in internal discount rate between patients and their physicians is discussed. IMPLICATIONS OF THE HYPOTHESIS: This utility model provides a conceptual basis for the finding that educational approaches alone may not effect changes in patient behavior and suggests other economic variables that could be targeted in the attempt to produce healthier behavior

Suppression of Chlorella vulgaris Growth by Cadmium, Lead, and Copper Stress and Its Restoration by Endogenous Brassinolide

Brassinosteroids play a significant role in the amelioration of various abiotic and biotic stresses. In order to elaborate their roles in plants subjected to heavy metals stress, Chlorella vulgaris cultures treated with 10−8 M brassinolide (BL) were exposed to 10−6–10−4 M heavy metals (cadmium, lead and copper) application. Under heavy metals stress, the growth and chemical composition (chlorophyll, monosaccharides, and protein content) have been decreased during the first 48 h of cultivation. The inhibitory effect of heavy metals on C. vulgaris cultures was arranged in the following order: copper > lead > cadmium. C. vulgaris cultures treated with BL in the absence or presence of heavy metals showed no differences in the endogenous level of BL. On the other hand, treatment with heavy metals results in BL level very similar to that of control cell cultures. These results suggest that the activation of brassinosteroids biosynthesis, via an increase of endogenous BL, is not essential for the growth and development of C. vulgaris cells in response to heavy metals stress. Simultaneously, BL enhanced the content of indole-3-acetic acid, zeatin, and abscisic acid in cultures treated with heavy metals. Levels per cell of chlorophylls, protein, and monosaccharides are all increased by BL treatment when compared to nontreated control cells. Application of BL to C. vulgaris cultures reduced the accumulation of heavy metals stress on growth, prevented chlorophyll, monosaccharides, and protein loss, and increased phytochelatins content. The arrested growth of C. vulgaris cells treated with heavy metals was restored by the coapplication of BL. It suggested that BL overcame the inhibitory effect of heavy metals. From these results, it can be concluded that BL plays the positive role in the alleviation of heavy metals stress

Accommodating stake effects under prospect theory

One of the stylized facts underlying prospect theory is a four-fold pattern of risk preferences. People have been shown to be risk seeking for small probability gains and large probability losses, while being risk averse for large probability gains and small probability losses. Another fourfold pattern of risk preferences over outcomes, postulated by Harry Markowitz in 1952, has received much less attention and is currently not integrated into prospect theory. In two experiments, we show that risk preferences may change over outcomes. While we find people to be risk seeking for small outcomes, this turns to risk neutrality and later risk aversion as stakes increase. We then show how a one-parameter logarithmic utility function fits such stake effects significantly better under prospect theory than the power or exponential functions mostly used when fitting prospect theory models. We further investigate the extent to which the use of ill-suited functional forms to represent utility may result in violations of prospect theory, and whether such violations disappear when using logarithmic utility

COMBREX: a project to accelerate the functional annotation of prokaryotic genomes

COMBREX (http://combrex.bu.edu) is a project to increase the speed of the functional annotation of new bacterial and archaeal genomes. It consists of a database of functional predictions produced by computational biologists and a mechanism for experimental biochemists to bid for the validation of those predictions. Small grants are available to support successful bids.National Institute of General Medical Sciences (U.S.) (Go grant 1RC2GM092602-01

Going That Extra Mile: Individuals Travel Further to Maintain Face-to-Face Contact with Highly Related Kin than with Less Related Kin

The theory of inclusive fitness has transformed our understanding of cooperation and altruism. However, the proximate psychological underpinnings of altruism are less well understood, and it has been argued that emotional closeness mediates the relationship between genetic relatedness and altruism. In this study, we use a real-life costly behaviour (travel time) to dissociate the effects of genetic relatedness from emotional closeness. Participants travelled further to see more closely related kin, as compared to more distantly related kin. For distantly related kin, the level of emotional closeness mediated this relationship - when emotional closeness was controlled for, there was no effect of genetic relatedness on travel time. However, participants were willing to travel further to visit parents, children and siblings as compared to more distantly related kin, even when emotional closeness was controlled for. This suggests that the mediating effect of emotional closeness on altruism varies with levels of genetic relatednes

Target Deletion of the Cytoskeleton-Associated Protein Palladin Does Not Impair Neurite Outgrowth in Mice

Palladin is an actin cytoskeleton–associated protein which is crucial for cell morphogenesis and motility. Previous studies have shown that palladin is localized to the axonal growth cone in neurons and may play an important role in axonal extension. Previously, we have generated palladin knockout mice which display cranial neural tube closure defect and embryonic lethality before embryonic day 15.5 (E15.5). To further study the role of palladin in the developing nervous system, we examined the innervation of palladin-deficient mouse embryos since the 200 kd, 140 kd, 90–92 kd and 50 kd palladin isoforms were undetectable in the mutant mouse embryo brain. Contrary to the results of previous studies, we found no inhibition of the axonal extension in palladin-deficient mouse embryos. The cortical neurons derived from palladin-deficient mice also showed no significant difference in neurite outgrowth as compared with those from wild-type mice. Moreover, no difference was found in neurite outgrowth of neural stem cell derived-neurons between palladin-deficient mice and wild-type mice. In conclusion, these results suggest that palladin is dispensable for normal neurite outgrowth in mice

Role of Palladin Phosphorylation by Extracellular Signal-Regulated Kinase in Cell Migration

Phosphorylation of actin-binding proteins plays a pivotal role in the remodeling of the actin cytoskeleton to regulate cell migration. Palladin is an actin-binding protein that is phosphorylated by growth factor stimulation; however, the identity of the involved protein kinases remains elusive. In this study, we report that palladin is a novel substrate of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK). Suppression of ERK activation by a chemical inhibitor reduced palladin phosphorylation, and expression of active MEK alone was sufficient for phosphorylation. In addition, an in vitro kinase assay demonstrated direct palladin phosphorylation by ERK. We found that Ser77 and Ser197 are essential residues for phosphorylation. Although the phosphorylation of these residues was not required for actin cytoskeletal organization, we found that expression of non-phosphorylated palladin enhanced cell migration. Finally, we show that phosphorylation inhibits the palladin association with Abl tyrosine kinase. Taken together, our results indicate that palladin phosphorylation by ERK has an anti-migratory function, possibly by modulating interactions with molecules that regulate cell migration