Disentangling within-person changes and individual differences among fundamental need satisfaction, attainment of acquisitive desires, and psychological health

We explored within-person and individual difference associations among basic psychological need satisfaction (autonomy, competence, and relatedness), attainment of acquisitive desires (wealth and popularity) and indicators of well- and ill-being. Participants were 198 undergraduates (51% male) who completed an inventory multiple times over a university semester. Analyses revealed that increased satisfaction of all the needs and desires beyond participants’ normal levels, with the exception of relatedness, were associated with greater psychological welfare. Nonetheless, individual differences in well-being were only predicted by psychological need satisfaction, and not by the attainment of acquisitive desires. Hence, the realization of acquisitive desires may elicit within-person increases in psychological welfare; however, satisfying innate needs may be a better bet for long term psychological health

A Simple Likelihood Method for Quasar Target Selection

We present a new method for quasar target selection using photometric fluxes and a Bayesian probabilistic approach. For our purposes we target quasars using Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) photometry to a magnitude limit of g=22. The efficiency and completeness of this technique is measured using the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) data, taken in 2010. This technique was used for the uniformly selected (CORE) sample of targets in BOSS year one spectroscopy to be realized in the 9th SDSS data release. When targeting at a density of 40 objects per sq-deg (the BOSS quasar targeting density) the efficiency of this technique in recovering z>2.2 quasars is 40%. The completeness compared to all quasars identified in BOSS data is 65%. This paper also describes possible extensions and improvements for this techniqueComment: Updated to accepted version for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. 10 pages, 10 figures, 3 table

Daily HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) with tenofovir disoproxil fumarate-emtricitabine reduced Streptococcus and increased Erysipelotrichaceae in rectal microbiota.

Daily PrEP is highly effective at preventing HIV-1 acquisition, but risks of long-term tenofovir disoproxil fumarate plus emtricitabine (TDF-FTC) include renal decline and bone mineral density decrease in addition to initial gastrointestinal side effects. We investigated the impact of TDF-FTC on the enteric microbiome using rectal swabs collected from healthy MSM before PrEP initiation and after 48 to 72 weeks of adherent PrEP use. The V4 region of the 16S ribosomal RNA gene sequencing showed that Streptococcus was significantly reduced from 12.0% to 1.2% (p = 0.036) and Erysipelotrichaceae family was significantly increased from 0.79% to 3.3% (p = 0.028) after 48-72 weeks of daily PrEP. Catenibacterium mitsuokai, Holdemanella biformis and Turicibacter sanguinis were increased within the Erysipelotrichaceae family and Streptococcus agalactiae, Streptococcus oralis, Streptococcus mitis were reduced. These changes were not associated with host factors including PrEP duration, age, race, tenofovir diphosphate blood level, any drug use and drug abuse, suggesting that the observed microbiome shifts were likely induced by daily PrEP use. Long-term PrEP resulted in increases of Catenibacterium mitsuokai and Holdemanella biformis, which have been associated with gut microbiome dysbiosis. Our observations can aid in characterizing PrEP's side effects, which is likely to improve PrEP adherence, and thus HIV-1 prevention

Detection of Ly\beta auto-correlations and Ly\alpha-Ly\beta cross-correlations in BOSS Data Release 9

The Lyman-$\beta$ forest refers to a region in the spectra of distant quasars that lies between the rest-frame Lyman-$\beta$ and Lyman-$\gamma$ emissions. The forest in this region is dominated by a combination of absorption due to resonant Ly$\alpha$ and Ly$\beta$ scattering. When considering the 1D Ly$\beta$ forest in addition to the 1D Ly$\alpha$ forest, the full statistical description of the data requires four 1D power spectra: Ly$\alpha$ and Ly$\beta$ auto-power spectra and the Ly$\alpha$-Ly$\beta$ real and imaginary cross-power spectra. We describe how these can be measured using an optimal quadratic estimator that naturally disentangles Ly$\alpha$ and Ly$\beta$ contributions. Using a sample of approximately 60,000 quasar sight-lines from the BOSS Data Release 9, we make the measurement of the one-dimensional power spectrum of fluctuations due to the Ly$\beta$ resonant scattering. While we have not corrected our measurements for resolution damping of the power and other systematic effects carefully enough to use them for cosmological constraints, we can robustly conclude the following: i) Ly$\beta$ power spectrum and Ly$\alpha$-Ly$\beta$ cross spectra are detected with high statistical significance; ii) the cross-correlation coefficient is $\approx 1$ on large scales; iii) the Ly$\beta$ measurements are contaminated by the associated OVI absorption, which is analogous to the SiIII contamination of the Ly$\alpha$ forest. Measurements of the Ly$\beta$ forest will allow extension of the usable path-length for the Ly$\alpha$ measurements while allowing a better understanding of the physics of intergalactic medium and thus more robust cosmological constraints.Comment: 26 pages, 10 figures; matches version accepted by JCA

Think Outside the Color Box: Probabilistic Target Selection and the SDSS-XDQSO Quasar Targeting Catalog

We present the SDSS-XDQSO quasar targeting catalog for efficient flux-based quasar target selection down to the faint limit of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) catalog, even at medium redshifts (2.5 <~ z <~ 3) where the stellar contamination is significant. We build models of the distributions of stars and quasars in flux space down to the flux limit by applying the extreme-deconvolution method to estimate the underlying density. We convolve this density with the flux uncertainties when evaluating the probability that an object is a quasar. This approach results in a targeting algorithm that is more principled, more efficient, and faster than other similar methods. We apply the algorithm to derive low-redshift (z < 2.2), medium-redshift (2.2 <= z 3.5) quasar probabilities for all 160,904,060 point sources with dereddened i-band magnitude between 17.75 and 22.45 mag in the 14,555 deg^2 of imaging from SDSS Data Release 8. The catalog can be used to define a uniformly selected and efficient low- or medium-redshift quasar survey, such as that needed for the SDSS-III's Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey project. We show that the XDQSO technique performs as well as the current best photometric quasar-selection technique at low redshift, and outperforms all other flux-based methods for selecting the medium-redshift quasars of our primary interest. We make code to reproduce the XDQSO quasar target selection publicly available

Laboratory practice is central to earlier myeloma diagnosis:Utilizing a primary care diagnostic tool and laboratory guidelines integrated into haematology services

Treatment advances have greatly improved survival, but myeloma is among the worst of all cancers for delayed diagnosis, causing serious morbidities and early deaths. This delay is largely because the symptom profile of myeloma has very low specificity, and in primary care, myeloma is rare. However, initiating the journey to diagnosis simply requires considering myeloma and sending blood to test for monoclonal immunoglobulin. Laboratory tests reliably detect monoclonal immunoglobulin, which is present in 99% of myeloma cases, so why do health care systems have such a problem with delayed diagnosis? The Myeloma UK early diagnosis programme has brought together diverse expertise to investigate this problem, and this article was prepared by the programme's working group for laboratory best practice. It reviews evidence for test requesting, analysis and reporting, for which there is large variation in practice across the United Kingdom. It presents a ‘GP Myeloma diagnostic tool’ and how it can be integrated into laboratory practice alongside a laboratory best practice tool. It proposes improved requesting and integration with haematology services for reporting and interpretation. Here the laboratory has a central role in creating efficient and cost-effective pathways for appropriate and timely bone marrow examination for myeloma diagnosis.<br/

Using galaxy-galaxy weak lensing measurements to correct the Finger-of-God

For decades, cosmologists have been using galaxies to trace the large-scale distribution of matter. At present, the largest source of systematic uncertainty in this analysis is the challenge of modeling the complex relationship between galaxy redshift and the distribution of dark matter. If all galaxies sat in the centers of halos, there would be minimal Finger-of-God (FoG) effects and a simple relationship between the galaxy and matter distributions. However, many galaxies, even some of the luminous red galaxies (LRGs), do not lie in the centers of halos. Because the galaxy-galaxy lensing is also sensitive to the off-centered galaxies, we show that we can use the lensing measurements to determine the amplitude of this effect and to determine the expected amplitude of FoG effects. We develop an approach for using the lensing data to model how the FoG suppresses the power spectrum amplitudes and show that the current data implies a 30% suppression at wavenumber k=0.2h/Mpc. Our analysis implies that it is important to complement a spectroscopic survey with an imaging survey with sufficient depth and wide field coverage. Joint imaging and spectroscopic surveys allow a robust, unbiased use of the power spectrum amplitude information: it improves the marginalized error of growth rate fg=dln D/dln a by up to a factor of 2 over a wide range of redshifts z<1.4. We also find that the dark energy equation-of-state parameter, w0, and the neutrino mass, fnu, can be unbiasedly constrained by combining the lensing information, with an improvement of 10--25% compared to a spectroscopic survey without lensing calibration.Comment: 26 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA