SOEP scales manual (updated for SOEP-Core v32.1)

This manual briefly describes the theoretical background and development of all of the scales used in the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study. It also provides the relevant citations as well as the items belonging to the scales and the answer format, including the verbal anchors. The unique value of this manual lies in the presentation of each scale in the form of easy-to-understand tables listing variable names of the items in the scale in a wave-specific dataset (labels). This allows the individual items to be found and aggregated quickly. In addition, the tables in this manual include mean values (M), standard deviations (SD), corrected item-total correlations (CITC), and information as to whether the item has to be recoded before aggregation (R). The number of valid cases in the particular survey years, as well as two measures of reliability, the internal consistency (Cronbach's Alpha) and test-retest correlations (if available), are also reported

Reciprocal Associations between Parenting Challenges and Parents' Personality Development in Young and Middle Adulthood

Having children affects many aspects of people's lives. However, it remains unclear to what degree the challenges that come along with having children are associated with parents' personality development. We addressed this question in two studies by investigating the relationship between parenting challenges and personality development in mothers of newborns (Study 1, N = 556) and the reciprocal associations between (mastering) parenting challenges and personality development in parents of adolescents (Study 2, N = 548 mothers and 460 fathers). In Study 1, we found the stress of having a newborn baby to be associated with declines in maternal Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability. Parenting challenges were also related to personality development in parents of adolescent children in Study 2, with parent–child conflict being reciprocally associated with decreases in Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability. Mastering parenting challenges in the form of high parenting self-efficacy, on the other hand, was found to be associated with increases in Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability, and vice versa. In sum, our results suggest that mastering the challenges associated with the social role of parenthood is one of the mechanisms underlying personality development in young and middle adulthood

Streptomyces bathyalis sp. nov., an actinobacterium isolated from the sponge in a deep sea.

A novel actinobacterium, designated ASO4wetT, was isolated from the unidentified sponge (SO4) in the deep sea collected of the North Atlantic Ocean. Study of 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain ASO4wetT is a member of the genus Streptomyces and showed the closest similarities to Streptomyces karpasiensis K413T (98.87 %), Streptomyces glycovorans YIM M 10366T (98.38 %), and Streptomyces abyssalis YIM M 10400T (97.53 %). Strain ASO4wetT contained MK-9(H8) as the predominant menaquinone and the major fatty acids are iso-C16:0, anteiso-C15:0, and iso-C15:0. Polyphasic taxonomy was carried out between strain ASO4wetT and its phylogenetically closely related Streptomyces strains, which further elucidated their relatedness and revealed that strain ASO4wetT could be distinguished from currently known Streptomyces species. Strain ASO4wetT clearly represents a novel species in genus Streptomyces. We propose the name Streptomyces bathyalis sp. nov., with the type strain ASO4wetT (= DSM 106605T = NCCB 100657T). Analysis of the whole-genome sequence of S. bathyalis revealed that genome size is 7,377,472 bp with 6332 coding sequences

Evaluation of different biomarkers to predict individual radiosensitivity in an inter-laboratory comparison--lessons for future studies.

Radiotherapy is a powerful cure for several types of solid tumours, but its application is often limited because of severe side effects in individual patients. With the aim to find biomarkers capable of predicting normal tissue side reactions we analysed the radiation responses of cells from individual head and neck tumour and breast cancer patients of different clinical radiosensitivity in a multicentric study. Multiple parameters of cellular radiosensitivity were analysed in coded samples of peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs) and derived lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) from 15 clinical radio-hypersensitive tumour patients and compared to age- and sex-matched non-radiosensitive patient controls and 15 lymphoblastoid cell lines from age- and sex- matched healthy controls of the KORA study. Experimental parameters included ionizing radiation (IR)-induced cell death (AnnexinV), induction and repair of DNA strand breaks (Comet assay), induction of yH2AX foci (as a result of DNA double strand breaks), and whole genome expression analyses. Considerable inter-individual differences in IR-induced DNA strand breaks and their repair and/or cell death could be detected in primary and immortalised cells with the applied assays. The group of clinically radiosensitive patients was not unequivocally distinguishable from normal responding patients nor were individual overreacting patients in the test system unambiguously identified by two different laboratories. Thus, the in vitro test systems investigated here seem not to be appropriate for a general prediction of clinical reactions during or after radiotherapy due to the experimental variability compared to the small effect of radiation sensitivity. Genome-wide expression analysis however revealed a set of 67 marker genes which were differentially induced 6 h after in vitro-irradiation in lymphocytes from radio-hypersensitive and non-radiosensitive patients. These results warrant future validation in larger cohorts in order to determine parameters potentially predictive for clinical radiosensitivity

Late toxicity grade in acutely radiosensitive (s) and non-radiosensitive (ns) patients suffering from head and neck cancer. Each patient is indicated with an identification number (ID).

<p>Matched pairs with lower late toxicity of the acute radiosensitive patients are indicated in yellow.</p

Results of the comparison between head and neck tumour (HN-Ca) and breast cancer patients (Ma-Ca) within a generalised estimating equations (GEE) analysis, adjusted for laboratory, irradiation dose and sensitivity group.

<p>Columns represent the assays, the target parameter names, the estimated parameter value, the standard error of the parameter estimate, the confidence intervals and the associated p-value for testing the significance of the parameter to the model. P-values less than 0.05 are considered significant (*). The estimator is a parameter that indicates the average value, on which the head and neck cancer patients have less or greater values compared to breast cancer patients.</p

Required number of samples per group (radiosensitive and non-radiosensitive, respectively) to detect a significant difference between both groups (power = 80%, significance level = 5%) for a given standard deviation and effect size.

<p>The calculations were reduced by the 2 endpoints of repairing after 15 and 60 minutes of 5Gy irradiation, since these points of time appear to need the lowest sample sizes. With regard to the standard deviation the minimal and maximal values from the original dataset for the two timeframes were selected.</p

Dose-response relationship of Gamma-H2AX at different time points from two different centres (white boxes – centre C, hatched boxes – centre B).

<p>Each measured value corresponds to the n-fold change to the time point at 0 Gy after 24 hours. (a) Data for the PBLs: Box plots only include samples with an initial cell viability of higher than 80%. (b) Data for LCLs over all samples.</p

Comparison between non-radiosensitive vs. radiosensitive patients for apoptosis and necrosis in each laboratory within the different dose rates.

<p>P values were determined by Mann-Whitney U test. The differences were statistically not relevant as indicated by the high p values >0.05.</p