Joint modeling of longitudinal and survival outcomes using generalized estimating equations

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)Joint models for longitudinal and time-to-event data has been introduced to study the association between repeatedly measured exposures and the risk of an event. The use of joint models allows a survival outcome to depend on some characteristic functions from the longitudinal measures. Current estimation methods include a two-stage approach, Bayesian and maximum likelihood estimation (MLEs) methods. The twostage method is computationally straightforward but often yields biased estimates. Bayesian and MLE methods rely on the joint likelihood of longitudinal and survival outcomes and can be computationally intensive. In this work, we propose a joint generalized estimating equation framework using an inverse intensity weighting approach for parameter estimation from joint models. The proposed method can be used to longitudinal outcomes from the exponential family of distributions and is computationally e cient. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated in simulation studies. The proposed method is used in an aging cohort to determine the relationship between longitudinal biomarkers and the risk of coronary artery disease

Microwave-to-optical conversion using lithium niobate thin-film acoustic resonators

Acoustic or mechanical resonators have emerged as a promising means to mediate efficient microwave-to-optical conversion. Here, we demonstrate conversion of microwaves up to 4.5 GHz in frequency to 1500 nm wavelength light using optomechanical interactions on suspended thin-film lithium niobate. Our method uses an interdigital transducer that drives a freestanding 100 μm-long thin-film acoustic resonator to modulate light traveling in a Mach–Zehnder interferometer or racetrack cavity. The strong microwave-to-acoustic coupling offered by the transducer in conjunction with the strong photoelastic, piezoelectric, and electro-optic effects of lithium niobate allows us to achieve a half-wave voltage of Vπ = 4.6 V and Vπ = 0.77 V for the Mach–Zehnder interferometer and racetrack resonator, respectively. The acousto-optic racetrack cavity exhibits an optomechanical single-photon coupling strength of 1.1 kHz. To highlight the versatility of our system, we also demonstrate a microwave photonic link with unitary gain, which refers to a 0 dB microwave power transmission over an optical channel. Our integrated nanophotonic platform, which leverages the compelling properties of lithium niobate, could help enable efficient conversion between microwave and optical fields

Taking the New Year’s Resolution Test seriously: Eliciting individuals’ judgements about self-control and spontaneity

Self-control failure occurs when an individual experiences a conflict between immediate desires and longer-term goals, recognises psychological forces that hinder goal-directed action, tries to resist them but fails in the attempt. Behavioural economists often invoke assumptions about self-control failure to justify proposals for policy interventions. These arguments require workable methods for eliciting individuals’ goals and for verifying occurrences of self-control failure, but developing such methods confronts two problems. First, it is not clear that individuals’ goals are context-independent. Second, facing an actual conflict between a desire and a self-acknowledged goal, a person may consciously choose not to resist the desire, thinking that spontaneity is more important than self-control. We address these issues through an online survey that elicited individuals’ self-reported judgements about the relative importance of self-control and spontaneity in conflicts between enjoyment and health-related goals. To test for context-sensitivity, the judgement-elicitation questions were preceded by a memory-recall task which directed participants’ attention either to the enjoyment of acting on desires or to the satisfaction of achieving goals. We found little evidence of context-sensitivity. In both treatments, however, judgements that favoured spontaneity were expressed with roughly the same frequency and strength as judgments that favoured self-control

Prognostic and immune correlation evaluation of a novel cuproptosis-related genes signature in hepatocellular carcinoma

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the world’s malignant tumors with high morbidity and mortality. Cuproptosis is a novel form of cell death. However, the prognostic evaluation and immune relevance of cuproptosis-related genes (CRGs) in HCC are largely unknown. In our study, we constructed a prognostic model of CRGs in HCC and performed immune infiltration, functional analysis, immune checkpoint and drug sensitivity analysis. Systematically elaborated the prognostic and immune correlation of CRGs in HCC. The results showed that 15 CRGs were up-regulated or down-regulated in HCC, and the mutation frequency of CRGs reached 10.33% in HCC, with CDKN2A having the highest mutation frequency. These 19 CRGs were mainly involved in the mitochondrion, immune response and metabolic pathways. Five selected genes (CDKN2A, DLAT, DLST, GLS, PDHA1) were involved in constructing a prognostic CRGs model that enables the overall survival in HCC patients to be predicted with moderate to high accuracy. Prognostic CRGs, especially CDKN2A, the independent factor of HCC prognosis, may be closely associated with immune-cell infiltration, tumor mutation burden (TMB), microsatellite instability(MSI), and immune checkpoints. CD274, CTLA4, LAG3, PDCD1, PDCD1LG2 and SIGLEC15 may be identified as potential therapeutic targets and CD274 correlated highly with prognostic genes. Quantitative Real-Time PCR (qRT-PCR) and immunohistochemical were performed to validate the mRNA and protein expression levels of CDKN2A in adjacent normal tissues and HCC tissues, and the results were consistent with gene difference analysis. In conclusion, CRGs, especially CDKN2A, may serve as potential prognostic predictors in HCC patients and provide novel insights into cancer therapy

Antihypertensive Medication and Dementia Risk in Older Adult African Americans with Hypertension: A Prospective Cohort Study

BACKGROUND: African Americans are especially at risk of hypertension and dementia. Antihypertensive medications reduce the risk of cardiovascular events, but may also reduce the risk of dementia. OBJECTIVE: To assess the longitudinal effects of antihypertensive medications and blood pressure on the onset of incident dementia in a cohort of African Americans. DESIGN: Prospective cohort. PARTICIPANTS: 1236 community-dwelling patients from an inner-city public health care system, aged 65 years and older, with a history of hypertension but no history of dementia, and who had at least three primary care visits and a prescription filled for any medication. MAIN MEASURES: Blood pressure was the average of three seated measurements. Dementia was diagnosed using a two-stage design, with a screening evaluation every 2 to 3 years followed by a comprehensive in-home clinical evaluation for those with a positive screen. Laboratory, inpatient and outpatient encounter data, coded diagnoses and procedures, and medication records were derived from a health information exchange. KEY RESULTS: Of the 1236 hypertensive participants without dementia at baseline, 114 (9%) developed incident dementia during follow-up. Individuals prescribed any antihypertensive medication (n = 816) were found to have a significantly reduced risk of dementia (HR = 0.57, 95% CI 0.37-0.88, p = 0.0114) compared to untreated hypertensive participants (n = 420). When this analysis was repeated including a variable indicating suboptimally treated blood pressure (> 140 mmHg systolic or >90 mmHg diastolic), the effect of antihypertensive medication was no longer statistically significant (HR = 0.65, 95% CI 0.32-1.30, p = 0.2217). CONCLUSIONS: Control of blood pressure in older adult African American patients with hypertension is a key intervention for preventing dementia, with similar benefits from most of the commonly available antihypertensive medications

Integrated Lithium Niobate Acousto-optic Cavities for Microwave-to-optical Conversion

Using integrated acousto-optic cavities on thin-film lithium niobate, we demonstrate efficient conversion of GHz microwaves to 1.5 pm wavelength light via the piezoelectric effects and the optomechanical interactions

Microwave-to-optical conversion using lithium niobate thin-film acoustic resonators

Acoustic or mechanical resonators have emerged as a promising means to mediate efficient microwave-to-optical conversion. Here, we demonstrate conversion of microwaves up to 4.5 GHz in frequency to 1500 nm wavelength light using optomechanical interactions on suspended thin-film lithium niobate. Our method uses an interdigital transducer that drives a freestanding 100 μm-long thin-film acoustic resonator to modulate light traveling in a Mach–Zehnder interferometer or racetrack cavity. The strong microwave-to-acoustic coupling offered by the transducer in conjunction with the strong photoelastic, piezoelectric, and electro-optic effects of lithium niobate allows us to achieve a half-wave voltage of Vπ = 4.6 V and Vπ = 0.77 V for the Mach–Zehnder interferometer and racetrack resonator, respectively. The acousto-optic racetrack cavity exhibits an optomechanical single-photon coupling strength of 1.1 kHz. To highlight the versatility of our system, we also demonstrate a microwave photonic link with unitary gain, which refers to a 0 dB microwave power transmission over an optical channel. Our integrated nanophotonic platform, which leverages the compelling properties of lithium niobate, could help enable efficient conversion between microwave and optical fields

Integrated Lithium Niobate Acousto-optic Cavities for Microwave-to-optical Conversion

Using integrated acousto-optic cavities on thin-film lithium niobate, we demonstrate efficient conversion of GHz microwaves to 1.5 pm wavelength light via the piezoelectric effects and the optomechanical interactions

Glucose level decline precedes dementia in elderly African Americans with diabetes

INTRODUCTION: High blood glucose levels may be responsible for the increased risk for dementia in diabetic patients. METHODS: A secondary data analysis merging electronic medical records (EMRs) with data collected from the Indianapolis-Ibadan Dementia project (IIDP). Of the enrolled 4105 African Americans, 3778 were identified in the EMR. Study endpoints were dementia, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), or normal cognition. Repeated serum glucose measurements were used as the outcome variables. RESULTS: Diabetic participants who developed incident dementia had a significant decrease in serum glucose levels in the years preceding the diagnosis compared to the participants with normal cognition (P = .0002). They also had significantly higher glucose levels up to 9 years before the dementia diagnosis (P = .0367). DISCUSSION: High glucose levels followed by a decline occurring years before diagnosis in African American participants with diabetes may represent a powerful presymptomatic metabolic indicator of dementia

Novi VP2/VP3 rekombinantni senekavirus A izoliran u sjevernoj Kini

Senecavirus A (SVA), previously called the Seneca Valley virus, is the only member of the genus Senecavirus within the family Picornaviridae. This virus was discovered as a serendipitous finding in 2002 and named Seneca Valley virus 001 (SVV-001). SVA is an emerging pathogen that can cause vesicular lesions and epidemic transient neonatal a sharp decline in swine. In this study, an SVA strain was isolated from a pig herd in Shandong Province in China and identified as SVA-CH-SDFX-2022. The full-length genome was 7282 nucleotides (nt) in length and contained a single open reading frame (ORF), excluding the poly (A) tails of the SVA isolates. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the isolate shares its genomic organization, resembling and sharing high nucleotide identities of 90.5% to 99.6%, with other previously reported SVA isolates. The strain was proved by in vitro characterization and the results demonstrate that the virus has robust growth ability in vitro. The recombination event of the SVA-CH-SDFX-2022 isolate was found and occurred between nts 1836 and 2710, which included the region of the VP2 (partial), and VP3 (partial) genes. It shows the importance of faster vaccine development and a better understanding of virus infection and spread because of increased infection rates and huge economic losses. This novel incursion has substantial implications for the regional control of vesicular transboundary diseases, and will be available for further study of the epidemiology of porcine SVA. Our findings provide useful data for studying SVA in pigs.Senekavirus A (SVA), prije nazivan virusom doline Seneca Valley, jedini je pripadnik roda senekavirusa u porodici Picornaviridae. Virus je slučajno otkriven 2002. i nazvan virusom doline Seneca 001 (SVV-001). SVA je novi patogen koji može uzrokovati vezikularne lezije i prolaznu epidemiju novorođene prasadi s naglim gubicima u proizvodnji. U ovom je istraživanju soj SVA izoliran u populaciji svinja iz provincije Shandong u Kini i identificiran kao SVA-CHSDFX-2022. Kompletni genom izolata SVA imao je 7282 nukleotida (nt) u dužini i sadržavao je jedan otvoreni okvir za očitavanje (ORF), bez poli-A repova. Filogenetska je analiza pokazala da izolat u velikoj mjeri sadržava genomsku organizaciju i nukleotidne identitete, od 90,5 % do 99,6 %, s drugim poznatim SVA izolatima. Karakterizacija virusa je pokazala da ima veliku sposobnost rasta in vitro. Pronađena je rekombinacija izolata SVA-CH-SDFX-između nukleotida 1836 i 2710 što je uključilo regiju gena VP2 (parcijalno) i gena VP3 (parcijalno). Zbog visoke stope infektivnosti i golemih ekonomskih gubitaka važan je brži razvoj cjepiva i bolje razumijevanje zaraze. Rezultati ovog istraživanja pružaju korisne podatke za proučavanje SVA virusa, posebno s obzirom na njegovu epidemiologiju u svinja i regionalnu prekograničnu kontrolu vezikularnih bolesti