Variation in African American parents' use of early childhood physical discipline

Physical discipline is endorsed by a majority of adults in the U.S. including African American (AA) parents who have high rates of endorsement. Although many studies have examined physical discipline use among AA families, few have considered how early childhood physical discipline varies within the population. Individuals within a cultural group may differ in their engagement in cultural practices (Rogoff, 2003). Furthermore, AA families’ characteristics and their contexts, which are shaped by the interaction of social position, racism, and segregation (García Coll et al., 1996), likely influence how AA families physically discipline their young children. This study examined variation in early childhood physical discipline among AA families living in low-income communities and relations with demographic and contextual factors. Year 1 data from 310 AA parents living in three regionally distinct low-income communities were used from a sequential longitudinal intervention program study of the development and prevention of conduct disorder. Latent class analyses were conducted using parents’ responses on a measure, of the frequency of overall physical discipline, spanking, and hitting during prekindergarten and kindergarten. The associations between latent classes and six demographic and contextual factors were examined using the Bolck, Croon, and Hagenaars (BCH) method. The factors were: child gender (59% male); marital status (51% never married); parental education (66% high school graduates and beyond); income (mean = $16.66K, S.D. = 12.50), family stress, and perception of neighborhood safety. Measures included the Family Information Form, Life Changes, and the Neighborhood Questionnaire. After considering two to seven class solutions, five physical discipline classes or sub-groups were identified. Classes were defined by discipline frequency (‘Infrequent’, ‘Weekly’, ‘Monthly’, ‘Almost-Every-Day’ and ‘Weekly-All’) as well as by discipline type (only parents in the ‘Weekly-All’ class hit their children). Significant associations were found between class membership, and child gender, marital status, income, and perception of neighborhood safety. Girls were more likely to be physically disciplined infrequently, χ2(4, N = 310) = 11.88, p = .05. The ‘Weekly’ class had significantly fewer married parents than all classes except ‘Almost-Every-Day’, χ2(4, N = 310) = 21.56, p < .001. Parents in the ‘Almost-Every-Day’ class had a significantly lower income than parents in all other classes except “Weekly-All”, χ2(4, N = 310) = 10.88, p = .03. Finally, parents in the “Almost-Every-Day” class perceived their neighborhood as significantly less safe compared to those in all other classes except the ‘Weekly-All’ class, χ2(4, N = 310) = 14.13 p = .01. These findings suggest that AA families vary in physical discipline during early childhood; this variation may result in sub-groups with different demographic characteristics. Associations between frequent discipline classes and perceptions of neighborhood safety implies that some AA parents may use physical discipline to protect their children from being harmed if they believe their communities are unsafe. Future research should qualitatively examine how AA parents respond to unsafe neighborhoods in their parenting behaviors, including physical discipline

Genetic sampling for estimating density of common species.

Understanding population dynamics requires reliable estimates of population density, yet this basic information is often surprisingly difficult to obtain. With rare or difficult-to-capture species, genetic surveys from noninvasive collection of hair or scat has proved cost-efficient for estimating densities. Here, we explored whether noninvasive genetic sampling (NGS) also offers promise for sampling a relatively common species, the snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus Erxleben, 1777), in comparison with traditional live trapping. We optimized a protocol for single-session NGS sampling of hares. We compared spatial capture-recapture population estimates from live trapping to estimates derived from NGS, and assessed NGS costs. NGS provided population estimates similar to those derived from live trapping, but a higher density of sampling plots was required for NGS. The optimal NGS protocol for our study entailed deploying 160 sampling plots for 4 days and genotyping one pellet per plot. NGS laboratory costs ranged from approximately $670 to$3000 USD per field site. While live trapping does not incur laboratory costs, its field costs can be considerably higher than for NGS, especially when study sites are difficult to access. We conclude that NGS can work for common species, but that it will require field and laboratory pilot testing to develop cost-effective sampling protocols

APC-β-catenin-TCF signaling silences the intestinal guanylin-GUCY2C tumor suppressor axis.

Sporadic colorectal cancer initiates with mutations in APC or its degradation target β-catenin, producing TCF-dependent nuclear transcription driving tumorigenesis. The intestinal epithelial receptor, GUCY2C, with its canonical paracrine hormone guanylin, regulates homeostatic signaling along the crypt-surface axis opposing tumorigenesis. Here, we reveal that expression of the guanylin hormone, but not the GUCY2C receptor, is lost at the earliest stages of transformation in APC-dependent tumors in humans and mice. Hormone loss, which silences GUCY2C signaling, reflects transcriptional repression mediated by mutant APC-β-catenin-TCF programs in the nucleus. These studies support a pathophysiological model of intestinal tumorigenesis in which mutant APC-β-catenin-TCF transcriptional regulation eliminates guanylin expression at tumor initiation, silencing GUCY2C signaling which, in turn, dysregulates intestinal homeostatic mechanisms contributing to tumor progression. They expand the mechanistic paradigm for colorectal cancer from a disease of irreversible mutations in APC and β-catenin to one of guanylin hormone loss whose replacement, and reconstitution of GUCY2C signaling, could prevent tumorigenesis

Distinguishing between demographics and contextual factors linked to early childhood physical discipline and physical maltreatment among Black families

Published in final edited form as: Child Abuse Negl. 2019 August ; 94: 104020. doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.05.013.BACKGROUND: Despite persistent discouragement from professionals, U.S. parents, especially Black parents, highly endorse physical discipline, which also is a risk factor for physical maltreatment. Few studies have examined physical discipline heterogeneity or maltreatment, and predictive demographic and contextual factors within the same population. OBJECTIVE: This exploratory study aimed to identify subgroups of Black parents’ use of early childhood physical discipline. It also examined whether demographic and contextual factors’ relations with physical discipline were similar or different from those with physical maltreatment. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: 310 Black parents from three geographically-distinct high-risk U.S. communities participated in home-based interview and survey data collection. METHODS: We conducted latent class analyses to identify sub-groups among Black parents characterized by physical discipline frequency and type. Bolck, Croon, and Hagenaars method and binary logistic regression were conducted to examine relations between demographic and contextual factors (child gender, family income, marital status, parental education, family stress and perceived neighborhood safety), discipline and maltreatment. RESULTS: Three physical discipline classes, which differed in frequency and type, were identified among Black parents. Only income was significantly related to both discipline (x2=18.97, p<.001) and maltreatment (OR=1.03, p<.01). Child gender (x2=6.66, p<.01), never-married status (x2=13.94, p<.001), parental education (x2=10.32, p<.001), and neighborhood safety (x2=7.57, p<.01) also significantly related to discipline. Family stress was significantly related to physical maltreatment (OR=1.42, p<.001). CONCLUSIONS: Differing demographic and contextual factor relations with physical discipline and maltreatment within a Black population should be considered when identifying parents at-risk.Accepted manuscrip

How does racial context matter?: Family preparation-for-bias messages and Black youths’ racial coping reported by Black youth

Black families and youth likely consider specific racial discriminatory situations in preparation‐for‐bias messages and racial coping responses. Our study investigated coping responses embedded in youth‐reported Black families’ preparation‐for‐bias messages and youths’ proactive coping responses to specific racially discriminatory situations—teachers’ negative expectations, store employees’ hyper‐monitoring and police harassment. Gender and racial discrimination experience differences were considered along with relations between messages and coping. Our investigation was guided by the integrated‐developmental, transactional/ecological, intersectionality, and Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory theoretical frameworks. We conducted cluster analyses using data from 117 Black youth aged 13–14 to identify situation‐specific family messages and youth coping responses. Families’ messages and youths’ responses varied in content and frequency based on the specific discriminatory situation, which suggests consideration of context.Accepted manuscript2021-10-2

Mediators of the relationship between thin-ideal internalization and body dissatisfaction in the natural environment

Social comparisons (i.e., body, eating, exercise) and body surveillance were tested as mediators of the thin-ideal internalization-body dissatisfaction relationship using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Participants were 232 college women who completed a 2-week EMA protocol, responding to questions three times per day. Multilevel path analysis was used to examine a 2-1-1 mediation model (thin-ideal internalization assessed as trait; between-person effects examined) and a 1-1-1 model (component of thin-ideal internalization [thin-ideal importance] assessed momentarily; within- and between-person effects examined). For the 2-1-1 model, only body comparison and body surveillance were significant specific mediators of the between-person effect. For the 1-1-1 model, all four variables were significant specific mediators of the within-person effect. Only body comparison was a significant specific mediator of the between-person effect. At the state level, many processes explain the thin-ideal internalization-body dissatisfaction relationship. However, at the trait level, body comparison and body surveillance are more important explanatory factors

N-Prenylation of Tryptophan by an Aromatic Prenyltransferase from the Cyanobactin Biosynthetic Pathway

Funding This work was supported by grants from the Academy of Finland (259505, D.P.F.), Helsinki University Research grant (490085, D.P.F.) ESCMID grant (4720572, D.P.F.), the Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC) studentship (L. D.), the Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation (K.S.), the BBSRC FoF grant (no BB/M013669/1, W. E. H.), IBCatalyst grant (no. BB/M028526/1, W. E. H.), the Sarcoma UK grant (W. E. H.) and the SULSA Leaders and SULSA PECRE awards (W. E. H.). W. E. H. acknowledges the fund from the ERC grant no. 339367. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS D.P.F. and K.S. are grateful to Lyudmila Saari, Department of Microbiology, University of Helsinki, for her valuable help in handling the Anabaena sp. UHCC-0232 culture. W. E. H. thanks the Aberdeen Proteomics Facility and the Marine Biodiscovery Centre Mass Spectrometry Facility for extensive MS analysis. W. E. H. is grateful to Mr. Russell Gray (Marine Biodiscovery Centre, University of Aberdeen) for the NMR analysis of our samples.Peer reviewedPostprin

Climate, wildfire, and erosion ensemble foretells more sediment in western USA watersheds

The area burned annually by wildfires is expected to increase worldwide due to climate change. Burned areas increase soil erosion rates within watersheds, which can increase sedimentation in downstream rivers and reservoirs. However, which watersheds will be impacted by future wildfires is largely unknown. Using an ensemble of climate, fire, and erosion models, we show that postfire sedimentation is projected to increase for nearly nine tenths of watersheds by \u3e10% and for more than one third of watersheds by \u3e100% by the 2041 to 2050 decade in the western USA. The projected increases are statistically significant for more than eight tenths of the watersheds. In the western USA, many human communities rely on water from rivers and reservoirs that originates in watersheds where sedimentation is projected to increase. Increased sedimentation could negatively impact water supply and quality for some communities, in addition to affecting stream channel stability and aquatic ecosystems

HACA3: A Unified Approach for Multi-site MR Image Harmonization

The lack of standardization is a prominent issue in magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. This often causes undesired contrast variations due to differences in hardware and acquisition parameters. In recent years, MR harmonization using image synthesis with disentanglement has been proposed to compensate for the undesired contrast variations. Despite the success of existing methods, we argue that three major improvements can be made. First, most existing methods are built upon the assumption that multi-contrast MR images of the same subject share the same anatomy. This assumption is questionable since different MR contrasts are specialized to highlight different anatomical features. Second, these methods often require a fixed set of MR contrasts for training (e.g., both Tw-weighted and T2-weighted images must be available), which limits their applicability. Third, existing methods generally are sensitive to imaging artifacts. In this paper, we present a novel approach, Harmonization with Attention-based Contrast, Anatomy, and Artifact Awareness (HACA3), to address these three issues. We first propose an anatomy fusion module that enables HACA3 to respect the anatomical differences between MR contrasts. HACA3 is also robust to imaging artifacts and can be trained and applied to any set of MR contrasts. Experiments show that HACA3 achieves state-of-the-art performance under multiple image quality metrics. We also demonstrate the applicability of HACA3 on downstream tasks with diverse MR datasets acquired from 21 sites with different field strengths, scanner platforms, and acquisition protocols

Llama-Derived Single Domain Antibodies Specific for Abrus Agglutinin

Llama derived single domain antibodies (sdAb), the recombinantly expressed variable heavy domains from the unique heavy-chain only antibodies of camelids, were isolated from a library derived from llamas immunized with a commercial abrin toxoid preparation. Abrin is a potent toxin similar to ricin in structure, sequence and mechanism of action. The selected sdAb were evaluated for their ability to bind to commercial abrin as well as abrax (a recombinant abrin A-chain), purified abrin fractions, Abrus agglutinin (a protein related to abrin but with lower toxicity), ricin, and unrelated proteins. Isolated sdAb were also evaluated for their ability to refold after heat denaturation and ability to be used in sandwich assays as both capture and reporter elements. The best binders were specific for the Abrus agglutinin, showing minimal binding to purified abrin fractions or unrelated proteins. These binders had sub nM affinities and regained most of their secondary structure after heating to 95 °C. They functioned well in sandwich assays. Through gel analysis and the behavior of anti-abrin monoclonal antibodies, we determined that the commercial toxoid preparation used for the original immunizations contained a high percentage of Abrus agglutinin, explaining the selection of Abrus agglutinin binders. Used in conjunction with anti-abrin monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies, these reagents can fill a role to discriminate between the highly toxic abrin and the related, but much less toxic, Abrus agglutinin and distinguish between different crude preparations