Potentially modifiable dementia risk factors in all Australians and within population groups: an analysis using cross-sectional survey data

Background: Dementia is the second leading cause of disease burden in Australia. We aimed to calculate the population attributable fractions (PAFs) of dementia attributable to 11 of 12 previously identified potentially modifiable health and social risk factors (less education, hearing loss, hypertension, obesity, smoking, depression, social isolation, physical inactivity, diabetes, alcohol excess, air pollution, and traumatic brain injury), for Australians overall and three population groups (First Nations, and those of European and Asian ancestry). Methods: We calculated the prevalence of dementia risk factors (excluding traumatic brain injury) and PAFs, adjusted for communality, from the cross-sectional National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey (2018-19), National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (2014-15), National Health Survey (2017-18), and General Social Survey (2014) conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. We conducted sensitivity analyses using proxy estimates for traumatic brain injury (12th known risk factor) for which national data were not available. Findings: A large proportion (38·2%, 95% CI 37·2-39·2) of dementia in Australia was theoretically attributable to the 11 risk factors; 44·9% (43·1-46·7) for First Nations Australians, 36·4% (34·8-38·1) for European ancestry, and 33·6% (30·1-37·2) for Asian ancestry. Including traumatic brain injury increased the PAF to 40·6% (39·6-41·6) for all Australians. Physical inactivity (8·3%, 7·5-9·2), hearing loss (7·0%, 6·4-7·6), and obesity (6·6%, 6·0-7·3) accounted for approximately half of the total PAF estimates across Australia, and for all three population groups. Interpretation: Our PAF estimates indicate a substantial proportion of dementia in Australia is potentially preventable, which is broadly consistent with global trends and results from other countries. The highest potential for dementia prevention was among First Nations Australians, reflecting the enduring effect of upstream social, political, environmental, and economic disadvantage, leading to greater life-course exposure to dementia risk factors. Although there were common dementia risk factors across different population groups, prevention strategies should be informed by community consultation and be culturally and linguistically appropriate

Potentially modifiable dementia risk factors in all Australians and within population groups: an analysis using cross-sectional survey data

Background: Dementia is the second leading cause of disease burden in Australia. We aimed to calculate the population attributable fractions (PAFs) of dementia attributable to 11 of 12 previously identified potentially modifiable health and social risk factors (less education, hearing loss, hypertension, obesity, smoking, depression, social isolation, physical inactivity, diabetes, alcohol excess, air pollution, and traumatic brain injury), for Australians overall and three population groups (First Nations, and those of European and Asian ancestry). // Methods: We calculated the prevalence of dementia risk factors (excluding traumatic brain injury) and PAFs, adjusted for communality, from the cross-sectional National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey (2018–19), National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey (2014–15), National Health Survey (2017–18), and General Social Survey (2014) conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. We conducted sensitivity analyses using proxy estimates for traumatic brain injury (12th known risk factor) for which national data were not available. // Findings: A large proportion (38·2%, 95% CI 37·2–39·2) of dementia in Australia was theoretically attributable to the 11 risk factors; 44·9% (43·1–46·7) for First Nations Australians, 36·4% (34·8–38·1) for European ancestry, and 33·6% (30·1–37·2) for Asian ancestry. Including traumatic brain injury increased the PAF to 40·6% (39·6–41·6) for all Australians. Physical inactivity (8·3%, 7·5–9·2), hearing loss (7·0%, 6·4–7·6), and obesity (6·6%, 6·0–7·3) accounted for approximately half of the total PAF estimates across Australia, and for all three population groups. // Interpretation: Our PAF estimates indicate a substantial proportion of dementia in Australia is potentially preventable, which is broadly consistent with global trends and results from other countries. The highest potential for dementia prevention was among First Nations Australians, reflecting the enduring effect of upstream social, political, environmental, and economic disadvantage, leading to greater life-course exposure to dementia risk factors. Although there were common dementia risk factors across different population groups, prevention strategies should be informed by community consultation and be culturally and linguistically appropriate. // Funding: Australian National Health and Medical Research Council and University College London Hospitals’ National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre, and North Thames NIHR Applied Research Collaboration

"Feed from the Service": Corruption and Coercion in the State-University Relations in Central Eurasia

Education in Central Eurasia has become one of the industries, most affected by corruption. Corruption in academia, including bribery, extortions, embezzlement, nepotism, fraud, cheating, and plagiarism, is reflected in the region’s media and addressed in few scholarly works. This paper considers corruption in higher education as a product of interrelations between the government and academia. A substantial block of literature considers excessive corruption as an indicator of a weak state. In contrast to standard interpretations, this paper argues that in non-democratic societies corruption is used on a systematic basis as a mechanism of direct and indirect administrative control over higher education institutions. Informal approval of corrupt activities in exchange for loyalty and compliance with the regime may be used in the countries of Central Eurasia for the purposes of political indoctrination. This paper presents the concept of corruption and coercion in the state-university relations in Central Eurasia and outlines the model which incorporates this concept and the “feed from the service” approach. It presents implications of this model for the state-university relations and the national educational systems in Central Eurasia in general and offers some suggestions on curbing corruption

Molecular networks involved in mouse cerebral corticogenesis and spatio-temporal regulation of Sox4 and Sox11 novel antisense transcripts revealed by transcriptome profiling.

Background: Development of the cerebral cortex requires highly specific spatio-temporal regulation of gene expression. It is proposed that transcriptome profiling of the cerebral cortex at various developmental time points or regions will reveal candidate genes and associated molecular pathways involved in cerebral corticogenesis. Results: Serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) libraries were constructed from C57BL/6 mouse cerebral cortices of age embryonic day (E) 15.5, E17.5, postnatal day (P) 1.5 and 4 to 6 months. Hierarchical clustering analysis of 561 differentially expressed transcripts showed regionalized, stage-specific and co-regulated expression profiles. SAGE expression profiles of 70 differentially expressed transcripts were validated using quantitative RT-PCR assays. Ingenuity pathway analyses of validated differentially expressed transcripts demonstrated that these transcripts possess distinctive functional properties related to various stages of cerebral corticogenesis and human neurological disorders. Genomic clustering analysis of the differentially expressed transcripts identified two highly transcribed genomic loci, Sox4 and Sox11, during embryonic cerebral corticogenesis. These loci feature unusual overlapping sense and antisense transcripts with alternative polyadenylation sites and differential expression. The Sox4 and Sox11 antisense transcripts were highly expressed in the brain compared to other mouse organs and are differentially expressed in both the proliferating and differentiating neural stem/progenitor cells and P19 (embryonal carcinoma) cells. Conclusions: We report validated gene expression profiles that have implications for understanding the associations between differentially expressed transcripts, novel targets and related disorders pertaining to cerebral corticogenesis. The study reports, for the first time, spatio-temporally regulated Sox4 and Sox11 antisense transcripts in the brain, neural stem/progenitor cells and P19 cells, suggesting they have an important role in cerebral corticogenesis and neuronal/glial cell differentiation

Prospects for e+e- physics at Frascati between the phi and the psi

We present a detailed study, done in the framework of the INFN 2006 Roadmap, of the prospects for e+e- physics at the Frascati National Laboratories. The physics case for an e+e- collider running at high luminosity at the phi resonance energy and also reaching a maximum center of mass energy of 2.5 GeV is discussed, together with the specific aspects of a very high luminosity tau-charm factory. Subjects connected to Kaon decay physics are not discussed here, being part of another INFN Roadmap working group. The significance of the project and the impact on INFN are also discussed. All the documentation related to the activities of the working group can be found in http://www.roma1.infn.it/people/bini/roadmap.html.Comment: INFN Roadmap Report: 86 pages, 25 figures, 9 table

Automatic heuristic generation with genetic programming: Evolving a jack-of-alltrades or a master of one

It is possible to argue that online bin packing heuristics should be evaluated by using metrics based on their performance over the set of all bin packing problems, such as the worst case or average case performance. However, this method of assessing a heuristic would only be relevant to a user who employs the heuristic over a set of problems which is actually representative of the set of all possible bin packing problems. On the other hand, a real world user will often only deal with packing problems that are representative of a particular sub-set. Their piece sizes will all belong to a particular distribution. The contribution of this paper is to show that a Genetic Programming system can automate the process of heuristic generation and produce heuristics that are human-competitive over a range of sets of problems, or which excel on a particular sub-set. We also show that the choice of training instances is vital in the area of automatic heuristic generation, due to the trade-off between the performance and generality of the heuristics generated and their applicability to new problems