How banks can self-monitor their lending to comply with the equal credit opportunity act

The authors provide a step-by-step discussion of how an individual lender in the United States can self-monitor its loan process for compliance with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and provide an empirical example for illustration. Along the way, they discuss the problems faced by individual lenders who attempt to self-monitor their lending process and conclude with a discussion of the continuing, constructive role for bank examiners and regulators in this endeavor.Regulation B: Equal Credit Opportunity

Evolution of Communal Roosting: A Social Refuge-Territory Prospecting Hypothesis

© 2018 The Raptor Research Foundation, Inc. Avian communal roosts provide insight into evolution and serve as focal points for conservation. Nonbreeding Crested Caracaras (Caracara cheriway; hereafter caracaras) use communal roosts, but evolutionary implications have not been explored. Though nonbreeding caracaras are nonmigratory, the scientific literature fails to explain seasonal differences in their movement and survival concurrent with seasonal consistency in their habitat and social ecology. In the Social Refuge-Territory Prospecting hypothesis we propose, socially subordinate nonbreeding caracaras precluded from breeding by habitat limitation use communal roosts as social refuges to avoid aggression from dominant territory holders during nonbreeding seasons, and engage in territory prospecting during breeding seasons. Communal roosts thus become central places from which to forage not for food, but for a breeding territory. Because foraging gains are stored as remembered information, competition costs resulting from public information are preempted. For the Social Refuge-Territory Prospecting hypothesis to be valid, two criteria need to be met. First, communal roost use needs to be higher during nonbreeding seasons. Second, a measure of fitness needs to be used to evaluate the hypothesis as an evolutionarily stable strategy. To meet these criteria, in this study we report that numbers of nonbreeding caracaras using a communal roost in Florida are higher during nonbreeding seasons (mean = 111.8 individuals/night) than during breeding seasons (mean = 60.7 individuals/night) as counted from August 2006-April 2009 (n = 407 counts). We also compare differential survival by season from previous work to demonstrate that by limiting exploratory movements to times when prospecting is most informative, nonbreeding caracaras balance maximizing survival against the likelihood of securing a breeding territory. Our hypothesis provides a unifying explanation for otherwise unexplained paradoxes in the ecology of nonbreeding caracaras, and may be useful in guiding conservation and expanding our understanding of the ecology of other communally roosting birds

Improving Nitrogen and Phosphorus Efficiency for Optimal Plant Growth and Yield

Nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are the most important nutrients for crop production. The N contributes to the structural component, generic, and metabolic compounds in a plant cell. N is mainly an essential part of chlorophyll, the compound in the plants that is responsible for photosynthesis process. The plant can get its available nitrogen from the soil by mineralizing organic materials, fixed-N by bacteria, and nitrogen can be released from plant as residue decay. Soil minerals do not release an enough amount of nitrogen to support plant; therefore, fertilizing is necessary for high production. Phosphorous contributes in the complex of the nucleic acid structure of plants. The nucleic acid is essential in protein synthesis regulation; therefore, P is important in cell division and development of new plant tissue. P is one of the 17 essential nutrients for plant growth and related to complex energy transformations in the plant. In the past, growth in production and productivity of crops relied heavily on high-dose application of N and P fertilizers. However, continue adding those chemical fertilizers over time has bad results in diminishing returns regarding no improvement in crop productivity. Applying high doses of chemical fertilizers is a major factor in the climate change in terms of nitrous oxide gas as one of the greenhouse gas and eutrophication that happens because of P pollution in water streams. This chapter speaks about N and P use efficiency and how they are necessary for plant and environment

Prenatal nicotine sex-dependently alters adolescent dopamine system development.

Despite persistent public health initiatives, many women continue to smoke during pregnancy. Since maternal smoking has been linked to persisting sex-dependent neurobehavioral deficits in offspring, some consider nicotine to be a safer alternative to tobacco during pregnancy, and the use of electronic nicotine delivery systems is on the rise. We presently show, however, that sustained exposure to low doses of nicotine during fetal development, approximating plasma levels seen clinically with the nicotine patch, produces substantial changes in developing corticostriatal dopamine systems in adolescence. Briefly, pregnant dams were implanted on gestational day 4 with an osmotic minipump that delivered either saline (GS) or nicotine (3 mg/kg/day) (GN) for two weeks. At birth, pups were cross-fostered with treatment naïve dams and were handled daily. Biochemical analyses, signaling assays, and behavioral responses to cocaine were assessed on postnatal day 32, representative of adolescence in the rodent. GN treatment had both sex-dependent and sex-independent effects on prefrontal dopamine systems, altering Catechol-O-methyl transferase (COMT)-dependent dopamine turnover in males and norepinephrine transporter (NET) binding expression in both sexes. GN enhanced cocaine-induced locomotor activity in females, concomitant with GN-induced reductions in striatal dopamine transporter (DAT) binding. GN enhanced ventral striatal D2-like receptor expression and G-protein coupling, while altering the roles of D2 and D3 receptors in cocaine-induced behaviors. These data show that low-dose prenatal nicotine treatment sex-dependently alters corticostriatal dopamine system development, which may underlie clinical deficits seen in adolescents exposed to tobacco or nicotine in utero

"Driven to distraction?" Children's experiences of car travel

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in volume, 4, issue 1, pages 59-76 in Mobilities 2009. Copyright @ 2009 Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17450100802657962.Cars have become increasingly significant features in the lives of many children and adults in the UK and elsewhere. Whilst there is a growing body of research considering how adults experience automobility, that is the increasingly central role of cars within societies, there has been little equivalent research exploring children's perspectives. Drawing upon a variety of methods including personal diaries, photographs, in‐depth interviews and surveys amongst schools within Buckinghamshire and North London, the paper contributes to filling this gap in existing research through exploring how cars are not only journey spaces for children, but are also sites for play, relaxation, homework, companionship, technology and the consumption of commodities. Using a Foucauldian analysis of power, insights into wider familial processes relating to mobility are provided by exploring how cars are sites of conflicting power relations between parents and children. The paper also explores how children's everyday experiences of cars were framed by wider sets of power relations, including car corporations which design and manufacture these spaces, and the role of capital which commodifies everyday activities in cars. In doing so, the paper challenges existing research on automobility for only focusing upon adults' experiences of cars and begins to theorise a more inclusive account of automobility which incorporates children and young people

The association between serum biomarkers and disease outcome in influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 virus infection: results of two international observational cohort studies

BACKGROUND Prospective studies establishing the temporal relationship between the degree of inflammation and human influenza disease progression are scarce. To assess predictors of disease progression among patients with influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 infection, 25 inflammatory biomarkers measured at enrollment were analyzed in two international observational cohort studies. METHODS Among patients with RT-PCR-confirmed influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 virus infection, odds ratios (ORs) estimated by logistic regression were used to summarize the associations of biomarkers measured at enrollment with worsened disease outcome or death after 14 days of follow-up for those seeking outpatient care (FLU 002) or after 60 days for those hospitalized with influenza complications (FLU 003). Biomarkers that were significantly associated with progression in both studies (p<0.05) or only in one (p<0.002 after Bonferroni correction) were identified. RESULTS In FLU 002 28/528 (5.3%) outpatients had influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 virus infection that progressed to a study endpoint of complications, hospitalization or death, whereas in FLU 003 28/170 (16.5%) inpatients enrolled from the general ward and 21/39 (53.8%) inpatients enrolled directly from the ICU experienced disease progression. Higher levels of 12 of the 25 markers were significantly associated with subsequent disease progression. Of these, 7 markers (IL-6, CD163, IL-10, LBP, IL-2, MCP-1, and IP-10), all with ORs for the 3(rd) versus 1(st) tertile of 2.5 or greater, were significant (p<0.05) in both outpatients and inpatients. In contrast, five markers (sICAM-1, IL-8, TNF-α, D-dimer, and sVCAM-1), all with ORs for the 3(rd) versus 1(st) tertile greater than 3.2, were significantly (p≤.002) associated with disease progression among hospitalized patients only. CONCLUSIONS In patients presenting with varying severities of influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 virus infection, a baseline elevation in several biomarkers associated with inflammation, coagulation, or immune function strongly predicted a higher risk of disease progression. It is conceivable that interventions designed to abrogate these baseline elevations might affect disease outcome

Flexible trial design in practice – dropping and adding arms in STAMPEDE: a multi-arm multi-stage randomised controlled trial

The trial recruits men with locally advanced or metastatic prostate cancer starting standard long-term hormone therapy. There are 5 research arms and 1 control arm. The trial has a pilot stage assessing safety and feasibility, 3 intermediate “activity” stages (I-III) where the outcome measure is failure-free survival (FFS) and one final “efficacy” stage (IV) with overall survival as primary outcome measure. At the end of each stage, each research arm is formally compared pairwise to the control arm. Accrual of further patients is discontinued early for any research arm either not showing sufficient evidence of activity or with adverse safety considerations; accrual continues to arms showing activity with acceptable safety. The stopping guideline compares the treatment effect against a pre-defined cut-off value using the hazard ratio when the hazards are proportional and restricted-mean survival time otherwise. This interim hurdle becomes increasingly stringent stage-by-stage. The addition of new research arm(s) can be actively considered when sufficiently interesting agents emerge. New research arms are compared only to contemporaneously-recruited control arm patients using the same intermediate guidelines in a time-delayed manner. The addition of new research arms is independent of any of the original research arms stopping accrual early subject to adequate recruitment to support the overall trial aims

Comparison of the Outcomes of Individuals With Medically Attended Influenza A and B Virus Infections Enrolled in 2 International Cohort Studies Over a 6-Year Period: 2009-2015.

BACKGROUND: Outcome data from prospective follow-up studies comparing infections with different influenza virus types/subtypes are limited. METHODS: Demographic, clinical characteristics and follow-up outcomes for adults with laboratory-confirmed influenza A(H1N1)pdm09, A(H3N2), or B virus infections were compared in 2 prospective cohorts enrolled globally from 2009 through 2015. Logistic regression was used to compare outcomes among influenza virus type/subtypes. RESULTS: Of 3952 outpatients, 1290 (32.6%) had A(H1N1)pdm09 virus infection, 1857 (47.0%) had A(H3N2), and 805 (20.4%) had influenza B. Of 1398 inpatients, 641 (45.8%) had A(H1N1)pdm09, 532 (38.1%) had A(H3N2), and 225 (16.1%) had influenza B. Outpatients with A(H1N1)pdm09 were younger with fewer comorbidities and were more likely to be hospitalized during the 14-day follow-up (3.3%) than influenza B (2.2%) or A(H3N2) (0.7%; P < .0001). Hospitalized patients with A(H1N1)pdm09 (20.3%) were more likely to be enrolled from intensive care units (ICUs) than those with A(H3N2) (11.3%) or B (9.8%; P < .0001). However, 60-day follow-up of discharged inpatients showed no difference in disease progression (P = .32) or all-cause mortality (P = .30) among influenza types/subtypes. These findings were consistent after covariate adjustment, in sensitivity analyses, and for subgroups defined by age, enrollment location, and comorbidities. CONCLUSIONS: Outpatients infected with influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 or influenza B were more likely to be hospitalized than those with A(H3N2). Hospitalized patients infected with A(H1N1)pdm09 were younger and more likely to have severe disease at study entry (measured by ICU enrollment), but did not have worse 60-day outcomes

Understanding the treatment benefit of hyperimmune anti-influenza intravenous immunoglobulin (Flu-IVIG) for severe human influenza

Background: Antibody-based therapies for respiratory viruses are of increasing importance. The INSIGHT 006 trial administered anti-influenza hyperimmune intravenous immunoglobulin (Flu-IVIG) to patients hospitalized with influenza. Flu-IVIG treatment improved outcomes in patients with influenza B but showed no benefit for influenza A. Methods: To probe potential mechanisms of Flu-IVIG utility, sera collected from patients hospitalized with influenza A or B viruses (IAV or IBV) were analyzed for antibody isotype/subclass and Fcγ receptor (FcγR) binding by ELISA, bead-based multiplex, and NK cell activation assays. Results: Influenza-specific FcγR-binding antibodies were elevated in Flu-IVIG–infused IBV- and IAV-infected patients. In IBV-infected participants (n = 62), increased IgG3 and FcγR binding were associated with more favorable outcomes. Flu-IVIG therapy also improved the odds of a more favorable outcome in patients with low levels of anti-IBV Fc-functional antibody. Higher FcγR-binding antibody was associated with less favorable outcomes in IAV-infected patients (n = 50), and Flu-IVIG worsened the odds of a favorable outcome in participants with low levels of anti-IAV Fc-functional antibody. Conclusion: These detailed serological analyses provide insights into antibody features and mechanisms required for a successful humoral response against influenza, suggesting that IBV-specific, but not IAV-specific, antibodies with Fc-mediated functions may assist in improving influenza outcome. This work will inform development of improved influenza immunotherapies