Trends in food insecurity for adults with cardiometabolic disease in the United States: 2005-2012

Background: Food insecurity, the uncertain ability to access adequate food, can limit adherence to dietary measures needed to prevent and manage cardiometabolic conditions. However, little is known about temporal trends in food insecurity among those with diet-sensitive cardiometabolic conditions. Methods: We used data from the Continuous National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2005–2012, analyzed in 2015–2016, to calculate trends in age-standardized rates of food insecurity for those with and without the following diet-sensitive cardiometabolic conditions: diabetes mellitus, hypertension, coronary heart disease, congestive heart failure, and obesity. Results: 21,196 NHANES participants were included from 4 waves (4,408 in 2005–2006, 5,607 in 2007–2008, 5,934 in 2009–2010, and 5,247 in 2011–2012). 56.2% had at least one cardiometabolic condition, 24.4% had 2 or more, and 8.5% had 3 or more. The overall age-standardized rate of food insecurity doubled during the study period, from 9.06% in 2005–2006 to 10.82% in 2007–2008 to 15.22% in 2009–2010 to 18.33% in 2011–2012 (p for trend < .001). The average annual percentage change in food insecurity for those with a cardiometabolic condition during the study period was 13.0% (95% CI 7.5% to 18.6%), compared with 5.8% (95% CI 1.8% to 10.0%) for those without a cardiometabolic condition, (parallelism test p = .13). Comparing those with and without the condition, age-standardized rates of food insecurity were greater in participants with diabetes (19.5% vs. 11.5%, p < .0001), hypertension (14.1% vs. 11.1%, p = .0003), coronary heart disease (20.5% vs. 11.9%, p < .001), congestive heart failure (18.4% vs. 12.1%, p = .004), and obesity (14.3% vs. 11.1%, p < .001). Conclusions: Food insecurity doubled to historic highs from 2005–2012, particularly affecting those with diet-sensitive cardiometabolic conditions. Since adherence to specific dietary recommendations is a foundation of the prevention and treatment of cardiometabolic disease, these results have important implications for clinical management and public health

Validation of the SCID-hu Thy/Liv mouse model with four classes of licensed antiretrovirals.

BackgroundThe SCID-hu Thy/Liv mouse model of HIV-1 infection is a useful platform for the preclinical evaluation of antiviral efficacy in vivo. We performed this study to validate the model with representatives of all four classes of licensed antiretrovirals.Methodology/principal findingsEndpoint analyses for quantification of Thy/Liv implant viral load included ELISA for cell-associated p24, branched DNA assay for HIV-1 RNA, and detection of infected thymocytes by intracellular staining for Gag-p24. Antiviral protection from HIV-1-mediated thymocyte depletion was assessed by multicolor flow cytometric analysis of thymocyte subpopulations based on surface expression of CD3, CD4, and CD8. These mice can be productively infected with molecular clones of HIV-1 (e.g., the X4 clone NL4-3) as well as with primary R5 and R5X4 isolates. To determine whether results in this model are concordant with those found in humans, we performed direct comparisons of two drugs in the same class, each of which has known potency and dosing levels in humans. Here we show that second-generation antiretrovirals were, as expected, more potent than their first-generation predecessors: emtricitabine was more potent than lamivudine, efavirenz was more potent than nevirapine, and atazanavir was more potent than indinavir. After interspecies pharmacodynamic scaling, the dose ranges found to inhibit viral replication in the SCID-hu Thy/Liv mouse were similar to those used in humans. Moreover, HIV-1 replication in these mice was genetically stable; treatment of the mice with lamivudine did not result in the M184V substitution in reverse transcriptase, and the multidrug-resistant NY index case HIV-1 retained its drug-resistance substitutions.ConclusionGiven the fidelity of such comparisons, we conclude that this highly reproducible mouse model is likely to predict clinical antiviral efficacy in humans

Value at Risk models with long memory features and their economic performance

We study alternative dynamics for Value at Risk (VaR) that incorporate a slow moving component and information on recent aggregate returns in established quantile (auto) regression models. These models are compared on their economic performance, and also on metrics of first-order importance such as violation ratios. By better economic performance, we mean that changes in the VaR forecasts should have a lower variance to reduce transaction costs and should lead to lower exceedance sizes without raising the average level of the VaR. We find that, in combination with a targeted estimation strategy, our proposed models lead to improved performance in both statistical and economic terms

Risk factors for acute chemical releases with public health consequences: Hazardous Substances Emergency Events Surveillance in the U.S., 1996–2001

BACKGROUND: Releases of hazardous materials can cause substantial morbidity and mortality. To reduce and prevent the public health consequences (victims or evacuations) from uncontrolled or illegally released hazardous substances, a more comprehensive analysis is needed to determine risk factors for hazardous materials incidents. METHODS: Hazardous Substances Emergency Events Surveillance (HSEES) data from 1996 through 2001 were analyzed using bivariate and multiple logistic regression. Fixed-facility and transportation-related events were analyzed separately. RESULTS: For fixed-facility events, 2,327 (8%) resulted in at least one victim and 2,844 (10%) involved ordered evacuations. For transportation-related events, 759 (8%) resulted in at least one victim, and 405 (4%) caused evacuation orders. Fire and/or explosion were the strongest risk factors for events involving either victims or evacuations. Stratified analysis of fixed-facility events involving victims showed a strong association for acid releases in the agriculture, forestry, and fisheries industry. Chlorine releases in fixed-facility events resulted in victims and evacuations in more industry categories than any other substance. CONCLUSIONS: Outreach efforts should focus on preventing and preparing for fires and explosions, acid releases in the agricultural industry, and chlorine releases in fixed facilities

A Standardised Procedure for Evaluating Creative Systems: Computational Creativity Evaluation Based on What it is to be Creative

Computational creativity is a flourishing research area, with a variety of creative systems being produced and developed. Creativity evaluation has not kept pace with system development with an evident lack of systematic evaluation of the creativity of these systems in the literature. This is partially due to difficulties in defining what it means for a computer to be creative; indeed, there is no consensus on this for human creativity, let alone its computational equivalent. This paper proposes a Standardised Procedure for Evaluating Creative Systems (SPECS). SPECS is a three-step process: stating what it means for a particular computational system to be creative, deriving and performing tests based on these statements. To assist this process, the paper offers a collection of key components of creativity, identified empirically from discussions of human and computational creativity. Using this approach, the SPECS methodology is demonstrated through a comparative case study evaluating computational creativity systems that improvise music

Measuring and managing liquidity risk in the Hungarian practice

The crisis that unfolded in 2007/2008 turned the attention of the financial world toward liquidity, the lack of which caused substantial losses. As a result, the need arose for the traditional financial models to be extended with liquidity. Our goal is to discover how Hungarian market players relate to liquidity. Our results are obtained through a series of semistructured interviews, and are hoped to be a starting point for extending the existing models in an appropriate way. Our main results show that different investor groups can be identified along their approaches to liquidity, and they rarely use sophisticated models to measure and manage liquidity. We conclude that although market players would have access to complex liquidity measurement and management tools, there is a limited need for these, because the currently available models are unable to use complex liquidity information effectively

Evidence of Key Tinnitus-Related Brain Regions Documented by a Unique Combination of Manganese-Enhanced MRI and Acoustic Startle Reflex Testing

Animal models continue to improve our understanding of tinnitus pathogenesis and aid in development of new treatments. However, there are no diagnostic biomarkers for tinnitus-related pathophysiology for use in awake, freely moving animals. To address this disparity, two complementary methods were combined to examine reliable tinnitus models (rats repeatedly administered salicylate or exposed to a single noise event): inhibition of acoustic startle and manganese-enhanced MRI. Salicylate-induced tinnitus resulted in wide spread supernormal manganese uptake compared to noise-induced tinnitus. Neither model demonstrated significant differences in the auditory cortex. Only in the dorsal cortex of the inferior colliculus (DCIC) did both models exhibit supernormal uptake. Therefore, abnormal membrane depolarization in the DCIC appears to be important in tinnitus-mediated activity. Our results provide the foundation for future studies correlating the severity and longevity of tinnitus with hearing loss and neuronal activity in specific brain regions and tools for evaluating treatment efficacy across paradigms