Changes to Cigarette Packaging Influence US Consumers’ Choices: Results of Two Discrete-Choice Experiments to Inform Regulation

Introduction While plain packaging of tobacco products has emerged as a policy intervention to reduce smoking, regulators in the US have limited ability to implement plain packaging. We sought to identify the impact of subtle changes to cigarette packaging (Study 1) and how packaging design influenced participant choices based on appeal, harm, and style (Study 2). Methods We conducted two discrete-choice experiments with US adult smokers online in 2018. In Study 1 (n=285), we assessed participants’ selections based on subtle changes to pack design features (dimensions, color saturation, logo size). In Study 2 (n=284), we assessed three choices in which participants selected packs based on appeal, harmfulness, and best match to their personal style. Study 2 packs varied by color hue, design with different levels of organic labeling and natural imagery, and color saturation. Results Pack designs influenced smokers’ choices. In Study 1, pack dimensions and color saturation emerged as the most important features, and, in Study 2, design and color hue were the most influential characteristics. Conclusions Regulators should consider how the design of cigarette packages may influence consumers’ perceptions and choices

Indiscriminate behavior observed in the strange situation among institutionalized toddlers : relations to caregiver report and to early family risk

Socially disinhibited or indiscriminate behavior (IB) has traditionally been investigated using caregiver reports. More recently, an observational measure based on the Strange Situation Procedure, the Rating of Infant and Stranger Engagement (RISE), was validated in home-reared at-risk children. The present study aimed to validate the RISE in an institutionally reared sample using the caregiver report, to assess whether IB assessed with the RISE was elevated among the institutionalized children, and to explore potential risk factors associated with IB. The study was conducted among 74 institutionalized toddlers, aged 11 to 30 months. Sociodemographic questionnaires were used to assess pre-admission experiences, and aspects of institutional placement were coded from the children’s files in the institution and staff’s report. Institutionalized children displayed high frequencies of IB as assessed on the RISE, and this instrument was validated against caregiver report. Pre-admission experiences of the institutionalized children in their biological families, namely prenatal risk and maternal emotional-neglect risk, predicted IB. Results suggest that the RISE is adequate to use among institutionally reared toddlers and point to aspects of the early familial environment that may be implicated in IB

Sin3b interacts with Myc and decreases Myc levels

Myc expression is deregulated in many human cancers. A yeast two-hybrid screen has revealed that the transcriptional repressor Sin3b interacts with Myc protein. Endogenous Myc and Sin3b co-localize and interact in the nuclei of human and rat cells, as assessed by co-immunoprecipitation, immunofluorescence, and proximity ligation assay. The interaction is Max-independent. A conserved Myc region (amino acids 186-203) is required for the interaction with Sin3 proteins. Histone deacetylase 1 is recruited to Myc-Sin3b complexes, and its deacetylase activity is required for the effects of Sin3b on Myc. Myc and Sin3a/b co-occupied many sites on the chromatin of human leukemia cells, although the presence of Sin3 was not associated with gene down-regulation. In leukemia cells and fibroblasts, Sin3b silencing led to Myc up-regulation, whereas Sin3b overexpression induced Myc deacetylation and degradation. An analysis of Sin3b expression in breast tumors revealed an association between low Sin3b expression and disease progression. The data suggest that Sin3b decreases Myc protein levels upon Myc deacetylation. As Sin3b is also required for transcriptional repression by Mxd-Max complexes, our results suggest that, at least in some cell types, Sin3b limits Myc activity through two complementary activities: Mxd-dependent gene repression and reduction of Myc levels

Inhibition of the Intrinsic but Not the Extrinsic Apoptosis Pathway Accelerates and Drives Myc-Driven Tumorigenesis Towards Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Myc plays an important role in tumor development, including acute myeloid leukemia (AML). However, MYC is also a powerful inducer of apoptosis, which is one of the major failsafe programs to prevent cancer development. To clarify the relative importance of the extrinsic (death receptor-mediated) versus the intrinsic (mitochondrial) pathway of apoptosis in MYC-driven AML, we coexpressed MYC together with anti-apoptotic proteins of relevance for AML; BCL-XL/BCL-2 (inhibiting the intrinsic pathway) or FLIPL (inhibiting the extrinsic pathway), in hematopoietic stems cells (HSCs). Transplantation of HSCs expressing MYC into syngeneic recipient mice resulted in development of AML and T-cell lymphomas within 7–9 weeks as expected. Importantly, coexpression of MYC together with BCL-XL/BCL-2 resulted in strongly accelerated kinetics and favored tumor development towards aggressive AML. In contrast, coexpression of MYC and FLIPL did neither accelerate tumorigenesis nor change the ratio of AML versus T-cell lymphoma. However, a change in distribution of immature CD4+CD8+ versus mature CD4+ T-cell lymphoma was observed in MYC/FLIPL mice, possibly as a result of increased survival of the CD4+ population, but this did not significantly affect the outcome of the disease. In conclusion, our findings provide direct evidence that BCL-XL and BCL-2 but not FLIPL acts in synergy with MYC to drive AML development

Modeling geographic vaccination strategies for COVID-19 in Norway.

Vaccination was a key intervention in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic globally. In early 2021, Norway faced significant regional variations in COVID-19 incidence and prevalence, with large differences in population density, necessitating efficient vaccine allocation to reduce infections and severe outcomes. This study explored alternative vaccination strategies to minimize health outcomes (infections, hospitalizations, ICU admissions, deaths) by varying regions prioritized, extra doses prioritized, and implementation start time. Using two models (individual-based and meta-population), we simulated COVID-19 transmission during the primary vaccination period in Norway, covering the first 7 months of 2021. We investigated alternative strategies to allocate more vaccine doses to regions with a higher force of infection. We also examined the robustness of our results and highlighted potential structural differences between the two models. Our findings suggest that early vaccine prioritization could reduce COVID-19 related health outcomes by 8% to 20% compared to a baseline strategy without geographic prioritization. For minimizing infections, hospitalizations, or ICU admissions, the best strategy was to initially allocate all available vaccine doses to fewer high-risk municipalities, comprising approximately one-fourth of the population. For minimizing deaths, a moderate level of geographic prioritization, with approximately one-third of the population receiving doubled doses, gave the best outcomes by balancing the trade-off between vaccinating younger people in high-risk areas and older people in low-risk areas. The actual strategy implemented in Norway was a two-step moderate level aimed at maintaining the balance and ensuring ethical considerations and public trust. However, it did not offer significant advantages over the baseline strategy without geographic prioritization. Earlier implementation of geographic prioritization could have more effectively addressed the main wave of infections, substantially reducing the national burden of the pandemic

Political ecology and the Foucault effect: A need to diversify disciplinary approaches to ecological management?

While explicitly Foucauldian analyses have declined in recent years in the social sciences, Foucault’s ideas continue to strongly influence scholars’ approaches to power, governance and the state. In this article, we explore how Foucauldian concepts shape the work of political ecologists and social scientists working on environmental management, multispecies ethnography and the Anthropocene – often in an unrecognized way. We argue that – regardless of whether or not Foucault’s work is explicitly cited – his legacy of linking scientific projects, population management and state control continues to have an outsized impact on thinking in these fields. It is time, we assert, to directly consider how such theoretical inheritances are affecting the shape of political ecology, in particular, and the social sciences, more generally. How, we ask, are Foucauldian traditions at once enabling and constraining more-than-human scholarship? In this article, we explore the contributions and limitations of Foucauldian approaches in environmental contexts through empirical attention to trout introduction and management efforts in South Africa. Our overall aim is to call for a deeper conversation about how scholars working on environmental topics engage the science-governance nexus. The article ends with proposing landscape, as a material enactment of more-than-human politics, as a useful analytical category to this end

Sykdomspulsen One Health - A real time surveillance system in an infrastructure coping with half a million analysis a day

Sykdomspulsen is a real time surveillance system developed by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) for One Health surveillance and the surveillance of other infectious diseases in humans like respiratory diseases and lately covid-19.The One Health surveillance comprise of Campylobacter data from humans and chicken farms and also includes diagnosis codes from doctor appointments and weather data with analysis forecasting outbreaks in Norway. It is a joint project between the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) and the Norwegian Veterinary Institute (NVI), under the framework of the OHEJP NOVA (Novel approaches for design and evaluation of cost-effective surveillance across the food chain) and MATRIX (Connecting dimensions in One-Health surveillance) projects.The system relies on two pillars, the first being an analytics infrastructure which in real time retrieves data from tens of sources, cleans and harmonizes it, then runs over half a million analyses each day and produces over 20 000 000 rows of results to be used every day. The analytics infrastructure is based on R. Results are notably being used by NIPH for the monitoring of covid-19 development and the surveillance of other transmittable diseases such as influenza and gastro-intestinal illness. The analytics framework also generates hundreds of reports every day, directed at dissemination to municipal health authorities. This framework is not currently publicly available, but an open-source release is expected by the end of 2021.The second pilar is an interactive R Shiny dashboard platform, which is used for communicating the data and the model results to partner organisations. It allows for the easy creation of a website where public and animal health researchers and food safety experts can view real time analyses. This dashboard combines the powerful data visualisation and analysis strength of R with the accessibility, flexibility, structure and interactivity of web-based platforms.The result is a real time interactive surveillance system, that is supported by a solid infrastructure and streamlined data flow, and shared with actors through a beautiful and user-friendly website, based entirely on R

Estimating the Prevalence of Pseudomyxoma Peritonei in Europe Using a Novel Statistical Method

Abstract Background The determination of the incidence and prevalence of rare diseases is important for economists and health-care providers. Pseudomyxoma peritonei (PMP) is a rare, slow-growing abdominal cancer that represents a substantial burden on both patients and health-care systems. The incidence rate was previously approximated at 1–2 people per million per year; this incidence has never been challenged, and the prevalence has not been estimated. Methods Epidemiological data from Norway and England were obtained and analysed to calculate a minimum incidence rate based on the number of patients having a first surgical intervention for PMP. A novel method was then used to determine a prevalence rate for PMP, incorporating incidence, death, and cure rates in a multi-year analysis that accounted for the increasing population of Europe over a 10-year period. Results An incidence rate of 3.2 people per million per year was calculated, with a corresponding estimated prevalence rate of 22 people per million per year. By this calculation, 11,736 people in Europe were estimated to be living with PMP in 2018. Conclusion Incidence and prevalence are essential tools for assessment of the financial and human cost of a disease. For rare diseases, such as PMP, the lack of accurate registries presents a particular challenge in determining such health-related statistical parameters. Based on our calculations, a significant number of people are living with PMP in Europe, underlining the need for appropriate resource allocation to ensure that adequate health-care measures are provided