Adopting a Group Attention Perspective: An Exploration of Moderators and Future Directions

Shteynberg (this issue) reviews how group attention increases the psychological prominence of the information observed in group settings, serves to better embed descriptive norms making them more dominant in people’s cognitions, and acts as an axis of group communication and cooperation. We find the research on group attention compelling and an interesting addition to this special issue on Intersubjective Norms. The findings regarding group attention suggest that it generally functions like a cognitive heuristic (i.e., an automatic process that occurs largely without people’s awareness or control). Yet, we question whether there are conditions under which individuals would not use group attention to determine descriptive norms and instead use other methods for focusing their attention (possibly moving them toward more deliberative cognitive processing). In this comment, we aim to highlight and suggest potential moderators of the phenomenon and directions for future research on this topic

Adopting a Group Attention Perspective: An Exploration of Moderators and Future Directions

Shteynberg (this issue) reviews how group attention increases the psychological prominence of the information observed in group settings, serves to better embed descriptive norms making them more dominant in people’s cognitions, and acts as an axis of group communication and cooperation. We find the research on group attention compelling and an interesting addition to this special issue on Intersubjective Norms. The findings regarding group attention suggest that it generally functions like a cognitive heuristic (i.e., an automatic process that occurs largely without people’s awareness or control). Yet, we question whether there are conditions under which individuals would not use group attention to determine descriptive norms and instead use other methods for focusing their attention (possibly moving them toward more deliberative cognitive processing). In this comment, we aim to highlight and suggest potential moderators of the phenomenon and directions for future research on this topic

Human Life History Strategies: Calibrated to External or Internal Cues?

Human life history (LH) strategies are theoretically regulated by developmental exposure to environmental cues that ancestrally predicted LH-relevant world states (e.g., risk of morbidity-mortality). Recent modeling work has raised the question of whether the association of childhood family factors with adult LH variation arises via (i) direct sampling of external environmental cues during development and/or (ii) calibration of LH strategies to internal somatic condition (i.e., health), which itself reflects exposure to variably favorable environments. The present research tested between these possibilities through three online surveys involving a total of over 26,000 participants. Participants completed questionnaires assessing components of self-reported environmental harshness (i.e., socioeconomic status, family neglect, and neighborhood crime), health status, and various LH-related psychological and behavioral phenotypes (e.g., mating strategies, paranoia, and anxiety), modeled as a unidimensional latent variable. Structural equation models suggested that exposure to harsh ecologies had direct effects on latent LH strategy as well as indirect effects on latent LH strategy mediated via health status. These findings suggest that human LH strategies may be calibrated to both external and internal cues and that such calibrational effects manifest in a wide range of psychological and behavioral phenotypes

The prevalence of BRCA1 mutations in Chinese patients with early onset breast cancer and affected relatives

The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of BRCA1 mutations in Chinese breast cancer patients in Singapore. BRCA1 analysis was conducted in consecutive patients with breast cancer before the age of 40 years (76 women), or whose relatives had breast or ovarian cancer (16 women). Ten patients had both early onset breast cancer and affected relatives. Genomic DNA from peripheral mononuclear blood cells was studied by using the protein transcription–translation assay (exon 11) and single-strand conformational polymorphism, with subsequent DNA sequencing. All six disease-causing mutations occurred in women under 40 years (8.6%) with three occurring in patients under 35 years (three out of 22 patients, 13.6%). Mis-sense mutations of unknown significance were found in three patients. Two of the ten women with affected relatives under 40 years had BRCA1 mutations. The prevalence of BRCA1 mutations in Chinese patients with early onset breast cancer is similar to that observed in Caucasian women. Most Chinese patients with affected relatives were not carriers of BRCA1 mutations. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaig

Popular matchings in the marriage and roommates problems

Popular matchings have recently been a subject of study in the context of the so-called House Allocation Problem, where the objective is to match applicants to houses over which the applicants have preferences. A matching M is called popular if there is no other matching M′ with the property that more applicants prefer their allocation in M′ to their allocation in M. In this paper we study popular matchings in the context of the Roommates Problem, including its special (bipartite) case, the Marriage Problem. We investigate the relationship between popularity and stability, and describe efficient algorithms to test a matching for popularity in these settings. We also show that, when ties are permitted in the preferences, it is NP-hard to determine whether a popular matching exists in both the Roommates and Marriage cases

Cancer History and Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy Independently Predict COVID-19 Mortality: A UK Tertiary Hospital Experience

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic remains a pressing concern to patients with cancer as countries enter the second peak of the pandemic and beyond. It remains unclear whether cancer and its treatment contribute an independent risk for mortality in COVID-19. Methods: We included patients at a London tertiary hospital with laboratory confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. All patients with a history of solid cancer were included. Age- and sex-matched patients without cancer were randomly selected. Patients with hematological malignancies were excluded. Results: We identified 94 patients with cancer, matched to 226 patients without cancer. After adjusting for age, ethnicity, and co-morbidities, patients with cancer had increased mortality following COVID-19 (HR 1.57, 95% CI:1.04–2.4, p = 0.03). Increasing age (HR 1.49 every 10 years, 95% CI:1.25–1.8, p < 0.001), South Asian ethnicity (HR 2.92, 95% CI:1.73–4.9, p < 0.001), and cerebrovascular disease (HR 1.93, 95% CI:1.18–3.2, p = 0.008) also predicted mortality. Within the cancer cohort, systemic anti-cancer therapy (SACT) within 60 days of COVID-19 diagnosis was an independent risk factor for mortality (HR 2.30, 95% CI: 1.16–4.6, p = 0.02). Conclusions: Along with known risk factors, cancer and SACT confer an independent risk for mortality following COVID-19. Further studies are needed to understand the socioeconomic influences and pathophysiology of these associations

Out of Sight, Out of Mind: a Comparative Study of Public Bus Terminals as Civic Spaces

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Systemic anti-cancer therapy and metastatic cancer are independent mortality risk factors during two uk waves of the covid-19 pandemic at university college london hospital

An increased mortality risk was observed in patients with cancer during the first wave of COVID-19. Here, we describe determinants of mortality in patients with solid cancer comparing the first and second waves of COVID-19. A retrospective analysis encompassing two waves of COVID-19 (March–May 2020; December 2020–February 2021) was performed. 207 patients with cancer were matched to 452 patients without cancer. Patient demographics and oncological variables such as cancer subtype, staging and anti-cancer treatment were evaluated for association with COVID-19 mortality. Overall mortality was lower in wave two compared to wave one, HR 0.41 (95% CI: 0.30–0.56). In patients with cancer, mortality was 43.6% in wave one and 15.9% in wave two. In hospitalized patients, after adjusting for age, ethnicity and co-morbidities, a history of cancer was associated with increased mortality in wave one but not wave two. In summary, the second UK wave of COVID-19 is associated with lower mortality in hospitalized patients. A history of solid cancer was not associated with increased mortality despite the dominance of the more transmissible B.1.1.7 SARS-CoV-2 variant. In both waves, metastatic disease and systemic anti-cancer treatment appeared to be independent risk factors for death within the combined cancer cohort

Proposal of a consensus set of hypervariable mycobacterial interspersed repetitive-unit-variable-number tandem-repeat loci for subtyping of mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing isolates

Mycobacterium tuberculosis Beijing strains represent targets of special importance for molecular surveillance of tuberculosis (TB), especially because they are associated with spread of multidrug resistance in some world regions. Standard 24-locus mycobacterial interspersed repetitive-unit–variable-number tandem-repeat (MIRU-VNTR) typing lacks resolution power for accurately discriminating closely related clones that often compose Beijing strain populations. Therefore, we evaluated a set of 7 additional, hypervariable MIRU-VNTR loci for better resolution and tracing of such strains, using a collection of 535 Beijing isolates from six world regions where these strains are known to be prevalent. The typeability and interlaboratory reproducibility of these hypervariable loci were lower than those of the 24 standard loci. Three loci (2163a, 3155, and 3336) were excluded because of their redundant variability and/or more frequent noninterpretable results compared to the 4 other markers. The use of the remaining 4-locus set (1982, 3232, 3820, and 4120) increased the number of types by 52% (from 223 to 340) and reduced the clustering rate from 58.3 to 36.6%, when combined with the use of the standard 24-locus set. Known major clonal complexes/24-locus-based clusters were all subdivided, although the degree of subdivision varied depending on the complex. Only five single-locus variations were detected among the hypervariable loci of an additional panel of 92 isolates, representing 15 years of clonal spread of a single Beijing strain in a geographically restricted setting. On this calibrated basis, we propose this 4-locus set as a consensus for subtyping Beijing clonal complexes and clusters, after standard typing

Selective deletion of PPARβ/δ in fibroblasts causes dermal fibrosis by attenuated LRG1 expression.

Connective tissue diseases of the skin are characterized by excessive collagen deposition in the skin and internal organs. Fibroblasts play a pivotal role in the clinical presentation of these conditions. Nuclear receptor peroxisome-proliferator activated receptors (PPARs) are therapeutic targets for dermal fibrosis, but the contribution of the different PPAR subtypes are poorly understood. Particularly, the role of fibroblast PPARβ/δ in dermal fibrosis has not been elucidated. Thus, we generated a mouse strain with selective deletion of PPARβ/δ in the fibroblast (FSPCre- &lt;i&gt;Pparb/d&lt;/i&gt; &lt;sup&gt;-/-&lt;/sup&gt; ) and interrogated its epidermal and dermal transcriptome profiles. We uncovered a downregulated gene, leucine-rich alpha-2-glycoprotein-1 ( &lt;i&gt;Lrg1&lt;/i&gt; ), of previously unknown function in skin development and architecture. Our findings suggest that the regulation of &lt;i&gt;Lrg1&lt;/i&gt; by PPARβ/δ in fibroblasts is an important signaling conduit integrating PPARβ/δ and TGFβ1-signaling networks in skin health and disease. Thus, the FSPCre- &lt;i&gt;Pparb/d&lt;/i&gt; &lt;sup&gt;-/-&lt;/sup&gt; mouse model could serve as a novel tool in the current gunnery of animal models to better understand dermal fibrosis