Child schooling, child health and rainfall shocks: evidence from rural Vietnam

We study the effect of early life conditions, proxied by rainfall shocks, on schooling and height in rural Vietnam. Our measure of rainfall shock is defined as deviations from the long-run average. Many Vietnamese rural dwellers engage in rain-fed crop production, mostly irrigated paddy rice. Sufficient annual rainfall could play an important role in the harvest and thus, the household income. Nutritional deficiencies resulting from the household's income shocks may have negative consequences on health. We find that a negative rainfall shock during gestation delays school entry and slows progress through school. In addition, a negative rainfall shock in the third year of life affects adversely both schooling and height. The effects differ by region in ways that reflect differing constraints on families that are shaped by regional economic heterogeneity. We predict that policies that help rural families smooth income shocks will result in increases in human capital and in substantial cumulative returns in productivity over the life course.Vietnam, child nutrition, early childhood, school enrollment

Examining latent change classes: An application of factor mixture modeling to change scores

Although change scores are used in a variety of statistical methods (e.g., analysis of variance and regression), there is a lack of application of latent variable modeling methods to change scores. This thesis provides a detailed description of two latent variable modeling methods applied to change scores: factor analysis of change scores and change score factor mixture modeling. To illustrate advantages of these methods, both were applied to change score data from undergraduates. Students responded to sense of identity items during a university-wide assessment day on two occasions, once as incoming freshmen and again as second-semester sophomores. Change scores were computed by subtracting sophomore item responses from freshmen item responses. Factor analysis results indicated sense of identity change scores were best represented by two factors, change in sense of self and purpose and development of morals and beliefs. Factor mixture modeling results suggested two latent classes underlying these factors. The classes differed in both factor means and factor variances, which implied two possible change patterns associated with development of sense of identity. One class contained students who were stable on the two change score factors (i.e. changed minimally on sense of self and purpose and morals and beliefs) and the other class contained students who were fluid on one of the two factors. Classes were somewhat replicated with a second, independent sample, in that two classes were detected, but class means and variances diverged from those in the first sample. Results across the two methods provided insightful information about change processes of sense of identity, particularly how development of sense of identity is not the same across students. The applied example highlights the advantages of applying these methods to change scores. Implications of the two methods are further discussed throughout the thesis

Specific immunotherapy in Albanian patients with anaphylaxis to hymenoptera venoms

Background: Severe allergic reactions during rush-specific immunotherapy (Rush-SIT) may occur in the treatment of hymenoptera sting allergy. The objective of the present study was to examine the characteristics of allergic reactions during Rush-SIT in a cohort of patients with allergy towards hymenoptera venom in the mediterranean population of Albania. Methods: A retrospective study was performed using the clinical reports of 37 patients with venom of bee (apinae), wasp (vespidae, subfamily vespinae) or paperwasp (vespidae, subfamily polistinae) allergy treated with Rush-SIT between 1987 and 1996. After hymenoptera sting allergy diagnosis according to anamnesis and intracutaneous tests the patient were treated with Rush-SIT. The protocol lasted 3 - 4 d with an increase in the concentration from 0.01 microg/ml to 100 microg/ml. Anaphylactic reactions were classified according to the Mueller-classification. Results: The frequency of reactions during Rush-SIT for bee-venom was 4.7% and for wasp-venom was 1.5% (p < 0.01). The mean frequency of reactions of Mueller grade II for the bee-venom Rush-SIT patients during the first 4 d (= 26 injections) was 0.73 and for the wasp-venom Rush-SIT patients 0.15. No patient experienced a third-degree reaction. 94.6% of the patient supported an end dose of 100 microg. Conclusions: Rush-SIT is a reliable method for the treatment of anaphylactic reactions to hymenoptera venom even in less developed countries. Bee-venom Rush-SIT was found to cause higher numbers allergic reactions than wasp or paperwasp Rush-SIT

Transcriptional down-regulation of suppressor of cytokine signaling (SOCS)-3 in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Background: Tobacco is a leading environmental factor in the initiation of respiratory diseases and causes chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Suppressor of cytokine signaling (SOCS) family members are involved in the pathogenesis of many inflammatory diseases and SOCS-3 has been shown to play an important role in the regulation, onset and maintenance of airway allergic inflammation indicating that SOCS-3 displays a potential therapeutic target for anti-inflammatory respiratory drugs development. Since chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is also characterized by inflammatory changes and airflow limitation, the present study assessed the transcriptional expression of SOCS-3 in COPD. Methods: Real-time PCR was performed to assess quantitative changes in bronchial biopsies of COPD patients in comparison to unaffected controls. Results: SOCS-3 was significantly down-regulated in COPD at the transcriptional level while SOCS-4 and SOCS-5 displayed no change. Conclusions: It can be concluded that the presently observed inhibition of SOCS-3 mRNA expression may be related to the dysbalance of cytokine signaling observed in COPD

EMaP: Explainable AI with Manifold-based Perturbations

In the last few years, many explanation methods based on the perturbations of input data have been introduced to improve our understanding of decisions made by black-box models. The goal of this work is to introduce a novel perturbation scheme so that more faithful and robust explanations can be obtained. Our study focuses on the impact of perturbing directions on the data topology. We show that perturbing along the orthogonal directions of the input manifold better preserves the data topology, both in the worst-case analysis of the discrete Gromov-Hausdorff distance and in the average-case analysis via persistent homology. From those results, we introduce EMaP algorithm, realizing the orthogonal perturbation scheme. Our experiments show that EMaP not only improves the explainers' performance but also helps them overcome a recently-developed attack against perturbation-based methods.Comment: 29 page

Does the Spiritual Values/Religion Subscale of the Self-Description Questionnaire III Function Differentially Across Heterosexual and Non-Heterosexual Young Adults? A Measurement Invariance Study

We evaluated the dimensionality and measurement invariance of the Spiritual Values/Religion (SVR) subscale from the Self-Description Questionnaire III across heterosexual and non-heterosexual young adults. We found a one-factor model provided adequate fit to the data for each group, with the SVR items exhibiting configural, metric, and scalar invariance across the two groups. Given that we established measurement invariance, we examined the latent mean difference on the construct and found the heterosexual group reported significantly higher levels of spiritual value/ religion than the non-heterosexual group. Our results provided empirical support for the theorized factor structure of the SVR items and the use of the SVR subscale across heterosexual and non-heterosexual young adults, making the scale a viable option for researchers studying religiosity in these specific subpopulations

Modelling of FG-TPMS plates

Functionally graded porous plates have been validated as remarkable lightweight structures with excellent mechanical characteristics and numerous applications. With inspiration from the high strength-to-volume ratio of triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) structures, a new model of porous plates, which is called a functionally graded TPMS (FG-TPMS) plate, is investigated in this paper. Three TPMS architectures including Primitive (P), Gyroid (G), and wrapped package-graph (IWP) with different graded functions are presented. To predict the mechanical responses, a new fitting technique based on a two-phase piece-wise function is employed to evaluate the effective moduli of TPMS structures, including elastic modulus, shear modulus, and bulk modulus. In addition, this function corresponds to the cellular structure formulation in the context of relative density. The separated phases of the function are divided by the different deformation behaviors. Furthermore, another crucial mechanical property of porous structure, i.e, Poisson's ratio, is also achieved by a similar fitting technique. To verify the mechanical characteristics of the FG-TPMS plate, the generalized displacement field is modeled by a seventh-order shear deformation theory (SeSDT) and isogeometric analysis (IGA). Numerical examples regarding static, buckling, and free vibration analyses of FG-TPMS plates are illustrated to confirm the reliability and accuracy of the proposed approach. Consequently, these FG-TPMS structures can provide much higher stiffness than the same-weight isotropic plate. The greater stiffness-to-weight ratio of these porous plates compared to the full-weight isotropic ones should be considered the most remarkable feature. Thus, these complex porous structures have numerous practical applications because of these high ratios and their fabrication ability through additive manufacturing (AM) technology.Comment: 27 pages (including references), 15 figures, 12 table

Specific immunotherapy in Albanian patients with anaphylaxis to hymenoptera venoms

BACKGROUND: Severe allergic reactions during rush-specific immunotherapy (Rush-SIT) may occur in the treatment of hymenoptera sting allergy. The objective of the present study was to examine the characteristics of allergic reactions during Rush-SIT in a cohort of patients with allergy towards hymenoptera venom in the mediterranean population of Albania. METHODS: A retrospective study was performed using the clinical reports of 37 patients with venom of bee (apinae), wasp (vespidae, subfamily vespinae) or paperwasp (vespidae, subfamily polistinae) allergy treated with Rush-SIT between 1987 and 1996. After hymenoptera sting allergy diagnosis according to anamnesis and intracutaneous tests the patient were treated with Rush-SIT. The protocol lasted 3 – 4 d with an increase in the concentration from 0.01 μg/ml to 100 μg/ml. Anaphylactic reactions were classified according to the Mueller-classification. RESULTS: The frequency of reactions during Rush-SIT for bee-venom was 4.7% and for wasp-venom was 1.5% (p < 0.01). The mean frequency of reactions of Mueller grade II for the bee-venom Rush-SIT patients during the first 4 d (= 26 injections) was 0.73 and for the wasp-venom Rush-SIT patients 0.15. No patient experienced a third-degree reaction. 94.6% of the patient supported an end dose of 100 μg. CONCLUSIONS: Rush-SIT is a reliable method for the treatment of anaphylactic reactions to hymenoptera venom even in less developed countries. Bee-venom Rush-SIT was found to cause higher numbers allergic reactions than wasp or paperwasp Rush-SIT