Effects of switching from olanzapine, quetiapine, and risperidone to aripiprazole on 10-year coronary heart disease risk and metabolic syndrome status: Results from a randomized controlled trial

This study examined the clinical significance of switching from olanzapine, quetiapine, or risperidone to aripiprazole by examining changes in predicted risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) according to the Framingham Risk Score (FRS) and metabolic syndrome status. FRS estimates 10-year risk of “hard” coronary heart disease (CHD) outcomes (myocardial infarction and coronary death) while metabolic syndrome is associated with increased risk of CVD, stroke, and diabetes mellitus

Does publication bias inflate the apparent efficacy of psychological treatment for major depressive disorder? A systematic review and meta-analysis of US national institutes of health-funded trials

Background The efficacy of antidepressant medication has been shown empirically to be overestimated due to publication bias, but this has only been inferred statistically with regard to psychological treatment for depression. We assessed directly the extent of study publication bias in trials examining the efficacy of psychological treatment for depression. Methods and Findings We identified US National Institutes of Health grants awarded to fund randomized clinical trials comparing psychological treatment to control conditions or other treatments in patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder for the period 1972–2008, and we determined whether those grants led to publications. For studies that were not published, data were requested from investigators and included in the meta-analyses. Thirteen (23.6%) of the 55 funded grants that began trials did not result in publications, and two others never started. Among comparisons to control conditions, adding unpublished studies (Hedges’ g = 0.20; CI95% -0.11~0.51; k = 6) to published studies (g = 0.52; 0.37~0.68; k = 20) reduced the psychotherapy effect size point estimate (g = 0.39; 0.08~0.70) by 25%. Moreover, these findings may overestimate the "true" effect of psychological treatment for depression as outcome reporting bias could not be examined quantitatively. Conclusion The efficacy of psychological interventions for depression has been overestimated in the published literature, just as it has been for pharmacotherapy. Both are efficacious but not to the extent that the published literature would suggest. Funding agencies and journals should archive both original protocols and raw data from treatment trials to allow the detection and correction of outcome reporting bias. Clinicians, guidelines developers, and decision makers should be aware that the published literature overestimates the effects of the predominant treatments for depression

Barth syndrome mutations that cause tafazzin complex lability

Complexes containing tafazzin, which remodels newly synthesized cardiolipin, are destabilized by mutations associated with Barth syndrome

LSST: from Science Drivers to Reference Design and Anticipated Data Products

(Abridged) We describe here the most ambitious survey currently planned in the optical, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). A vast array of science will be enabled by a single wide-deep-fast sky survey, and LSST will have unique survey capability in the faint time domain. The LSST design is driven by four main science themes: probing dark energy and dark matter, taking an inventory of the Solar System, exploring the transient optical sky, and mapping the Milky Way. LSST will be a wide-field ground-based system sited at Cerro Pach\'{o}n in northern Chile. The telescope will have an 8.4 m (6.5 m effective) primary mirror, a 9.6 deg$^2$ field of view, and a 3.2 Gigapixel camera. The standard observing sequence will consist of pairs of 15-second exposures in a given field, with two such visits in each pointing in a given night. With these repeats, the LSST system is capable of imaging about 10,000 square degrees of sky in a single filter in three nights. The typical 5$\sigma$ point-source depth in a single visit in $r$ will be $\sim 24.5$ (AB). The project is in the construction phase and will begin regular survey operations by 2022. The survey area will be contained within 30,000 deg$^2$ with $\delta<+34.5^\circ$, and will be imaged multiple times in six bands, $ugrizy$, covering the wavelength range 320--1050 nm. About 90\% of the observing time will be devoted to a deep-wide-fast survey mode which will uniformly observe a 18,000 deg$^2$ region about 800 times (summed over all six bands) during the anticipated 10 years of operations, and yield a coadded map to $r\sim27.5$. The remaining 10\% of the observing time will be allocated to projects such as a Very Deep and Fast time domain survey. The goal is to make LSST data products, including a relational database of about 32 trillion observations of 40 billion objects, available to the public and scientists around the world.Comment: 57 pages, 32 color figures, version with high-resolution figures available from https://www.lsst.org/overvie

Navigating a river by its bends. A study on transnational social networks as resources for the transformation of Cambodia

This article explores in what ways first generation Cambodian French and Cambodian American returnees create and employ the social capital available in their transnational social networks upon their return to Cambodia. The triangular interdependence between the returnees, their overseas immigrant communities and homeland society is taken as a starting point. The central argument is that Cambodian French and Cambodian American returnees build different relationships to Cambodia due to: (1) the influence of their immigrant communities in the countries of resettlement; and (2) the contexts of their exit from Cambodia. Regarding debates on the contribution of returnees to an emergent nation, findings in this multisited casestudy bring forward that ideas of return held by the three parties involved may force remigrants into transnationalism in both host and home countries. Findings also demonstrate that social capital may be seen as a resource or a restraint in the lives of returnees

Gender Roles and Medical Progress

Maternal mortality was the second-leading cause of death for women in childbearing years up until the mid-1930s in the United States. For each death, twenty times as many mothers were estimated to suffer pregnancy-related conditions, often leading to severe and prolonged disablement. Poor maternal health made it particularly hard for mothers to engage in market work. Between 1930 and 1960, there was a remarkable reduction in maternal mortality and morbidity, thanks to medical advances. We argue that these medical advances, by enabling women to reconcile work and motherhood, were essential for the joint rise in married women's labor force participation and fertility over this period. We also show that the diffusion of infant formula played an important auxiliary role

Prenatal Diagnosis of Transposition of the Great Arteries Reduces Postnatal Mortality: A Population-Based Study.

BACKGROUND: Transposition of the great arteries (TGA) may present as a life-threatening neonatal malformation. Although prenatal detection facilitates the perinatal management, the impact on outcome is controversial. METHODS: This study reviewed the differences in prenatal diagnosis of TGA from 2009 to 2014 among the 5 geographic areas in Ontario and compared the management, morbidity, and mortality among neonates with a prenatal (prenatal cohort; n = 70) vs a postnatal (postnatal cohort; n = 76) anomaly diagnosis. Cases were identified from prospective databases of the provincial cardiac tertiary centres and the coroner\u27s office. RESULTS: Prenatal TGA detection rates varied significantly among areas (median: 50%; range: 14% to 72%; P = 0.03). Compared with the postnatal cohort, time from birth to tertiary care admission (1.4 vs 10.4 hours, P \u3c 0.001), prostaglandin therapy (0.1 vs 5.3 hours; P \u3c 0.001), balloon atrial septostomy (5.3 vs 14.9 hours; P CONCLUSIONS: Prenatal diagnosis of TGA significantly shortened time intervals from birth to neonatal care and surgery and was associated with improved survival. The prenatal detection rate of TGA in Ontario was low (50% or less) outside of Metropolitan Toronto, suggesting the need for new strategies to further improve intraprovincial detection rates