Factors linking childhood experiences to adult romantic relationships among African Americans.

It is well known that a high quality relationship with a romantic partner is related to a variety of positive outcomes associated with health and well-being. Establishing such relationships is an important developmental task for young adults and past research indicates that there is a link between experiences in the family of origin and the success of later intimate relationships. It has been suggested that this association can be explained by the acquisition of social competencies (e.g., emotions, schemas, traits) that are acquired during childhood in the family of origin and, in turn, influence interaction with adult romantic partners. The current study builds on this foundation by identifying particular competencies expected to explain the association between childhood exposure to supportive and harsh parenting and later patterns of interaction with romantic partners. Specifically, we examine anger management, attachment style, hostile attribution bias, and self-control as potential mediators using prospective, longitudinal data from a sample of 345 African American young adults. Results from structural equation modeling indicate that each of the mediators in our study accounts for a significant portion of the effect of parenting on the quality of adult romantic relationships although the constructs linking parenting to warm interactions with romantic partners are somewhat different from those that link parenting to hostile interactions with romantic partners. Even after accounting for the effect of the mediators, there is still a direct effect of parenting on both warm/loving and hostile/aggressive interactions with romantic partner. Implications for theory and practice are discussed

Mechanisms of Family Impact on African American Adolescents\u27 HIV-Related Behavior

A longitudinal model that tested mediating pathways between protective family processes and HIV-related behavior was evaluated with 195 African American youth. Three waves of data were collected when the youth were 13, 15, and 19 years old. Evidence of mediation and temporal priority were assessed for 3 constructs: academic engagement, evaluations of prototypical risk-taking peers, and affiliations with risk-promoting peers. Structural equation modeling indicated that protective family processes assessed during early adolescence were associated with HIV-related behavior during emerging adulthood and that academic engagement, evaluations of prototypical risk-taking peers, and affiliations with risk-promoting peers accounted for this association. Evidence of a specific pathway emerged: protective family processes→academic engagement→negative evaluations of prototypical risk-taking peers→affiliations with risk-promoting peers→HIV-related behavior. Academic engagement also was a direct predictor of HIV-related risk behavior

Impact of child sex abuse on adult psychopathology: A genetically and epigenetically informed investigation

Genetic, environmental, and epigenetic influences and their transactions were examined in a sample of 155 women from the Iowa adoptee sample who had been removed from their biological parents shortly after birth and assessed when participants were an average of 41.10 years old. We observed an interactive effect of child sex abuse (CSA) and biological parent psychopathology (i.e., genetic load) on substance abuse as well as a main effect of CSA on substance abuse in adulthood. We also observed main effects of CSA and genetic load on depression and on antisocial characteristics. As predicted, CSA, but not genetic load or later substance abuse, was associated with epigenetic change. In addition, the interaction between genetic load and CSA predicted epigenetic change, indicating a potential genetic basis for a differential impact of CSA on epigenetic change. Finally, epigenetic change partially mediated the effect of CSA on antisocial characteristics. The results suggest the relevance of genetic and epigenetic processes for future theorizing regarding marital and family precursors of several forms of adult psychopathology. Implications for preventive intervention are discussed

Exploring the impact of skin tone on family dynamics and race-related outcomes.

Racism has historically been a primary source of discrimination against African Americans but there has been little research on the role that skin tone plays in explaining experiences with racism. Similarly, colorism within African American families and the ways in which skin tone influences family processes is an understudied area of research. Utilizing data from a longitudinal sample of African American families (N= 767), we assessed whether skin tone impacted experiences with discrimination or was related to differences in quality of parenting and racial socialization within families. Findings indicated no link between skin tone and racial discrimination, which suggests that lightness or darkness of skin does not either protect African Americans from or exacerbate the experiences of discrimination. On the other hand, families displayed preferential treatment toward offspring based on skin tone and these differences varied by gender of child. Specifically, darker skin sons received higher quality parenting and more racial socialization promoting mistrust compared to their counterparts with lighter skin. Lighter skin daughters received higher quality parenting compared to those with darker skin. In addition, gender of child moderated the association between primary caregiver skin tone and racial socialization promoting mistrust. These results suggest that colorism remains a salient issue within African American families. Implications for future research, prevention and intervention are discussed

Cross-validation of generic risk assessment tools for animal disease incursion based on a case study for African swine fever

In recent years, several generic risk assessment (RA) tools have been developed that can be applied to assess the incursion risk of multiple infectious animal diseases allowing for a rapid response to a variety of newly emerging or re-emerging diseases. Although these tools were originally developed for different purposes, they can be used to answer similar or even identical risk questions. To explore the opportunities for cross-validation, seven generic RA tools were used to assess the incursion risk of African swine fever (ASF) to the Netherlands and Finland for the 2017 situation and for two hypothetical scenarios in which ASF cases were reported in wild boar and/or domestic pigs in Germany. The generic tools ranged from qualitative risk assessment tools to stochastic spatial risk models but were all parameterized using the same global databases for disease occurrence and trade in live animals and animal products. A comparison of absolute results was not possible, because output parameters represented different endpoints, varied from qualitative probability levels to quantitative numbers, and were expressed in different units. Therefore, relative risks across countries and scenarios were calculated for each tool, for the three pathways most in common (trade in live animals, trade in animal products, and wild boar movements) and compared. For the 2017 situation, all tools evaluated the risk to the Netherlands to be higher than Finland for the live animal trade pathway, the risk to Finland the same or higher as the Netherlands for the wild boar pathway, while the tools were inconclusive on the animal products pathway. All tools agreed that the hypothetical presence of ASF in Germany increased the risk to the Netherlands, but not to Finland. The ultimate aim of generic RA tools is to provide risk-based evidence to support risk managers in making informed decisions to mitigate the incursion risk of infectious animal diseases. The case study illustrated that conclusions on the ASF risk were similar across the generic RA tools, despite differences observed in calculated risks. Hence, it was concluded that the cross-validation contributed to the credibility of their results.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Genomic, Pathway Network, and Immunologic Features Distinguishing Squamous Carcinomas

This integrated, multiplatform PanCancer Atlas study co-mapped and identified distinguishing molecular features of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) from five sites associated with smokin