A Comparison of Male and Female Title I ADA Discrimination Allegations in Relation to Employer Characteristics

This investigation determined if there is a difference in the proportion of Title I workplace discrimination allegations filed by females in comparison to males under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in relation to the employer characteristics. Findings are reported and implications for future research and vocational rehabilitation practice

Factors shaping the timing of later entry into parenthood: narratives of choice and constraint

Objective: This study explores the choices and constraints affecting timing of parenthood among those who became parents in their mid-thirties and early forties and how their fertility decisions were both affected by and negotiated within the interplay of different temporal frameworks. Background: Recent decades have seen a trend towards postponement of parenthood in many countries. Explanations for this delay include structural factors, changing social norms and the influence of the social meanings of age. The study assesses the influence of these factors on perceptions of the ‘right’ time to become parents. Method: The study draws on qualitative interviews with 23 women and men who participated in the third British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal-3) survey and had a first child when they were aged between 33 and 46. Results: Prerequisites for parenthood were seen as financial security, a suitable home and a steady relationship. Educational attainment and the achievement of personal and lifestyle goals affected the age at which parenthood was considered as were individual circumstances. Age was less influential than life stage as a criterion for readiness although, for women, chronological age was a decisive factor. Conclusions: Choice in shaping personal biographies was greater among participants than it would have been for previous generations but its consequences acted to constrain options regarding the timing of parenthood. Time taken to fulfil personal and professional ambitions, changing social norms regarding the appropriate age for parenthood as well as individual and structural factors resulted in less predictable life trajectories.</p

The immune environment of the mammary gland fluctuates during post-lactational regression and correlates with tumour growth rate

Post-lactational mammary gland regression encompasses extensive programmed cell death and removal of milk-producing epithelial cells, breakdown of extracellular matrix components and redifferentiation of stromal adipocytes. This highly regulated involution process is associated with a transient increased risk of breast cancer in women. Using a syngeneic tumour model, we show that tumour growth is significantly altered depending on the stage of involution at which tumour cells are implanted. Tumour cells injected at day 3 involution grew faster than those in nulliparous mice, whereas tumours initiated at day 6 involution grew significantly slower. These differences in tumour progression correlate with distinct changes in innate immune cells, in particular among F4/80-expressing macrophages and among TCRδ(+) unconventional T cells. Breast cancer post-pregnancy risk is exacerbated in older first-time mothers and, in our model, initial tumour growth is moderately faster in aged mice compared with young mice. Our results have implications for breast cancer risk and the use of anti-inflammatory therapeutics for postpartum breast cancers

Speaking from experience: preferences for cooking with biogas in rural India

Biogas has the potential to satisfy the clean energy needs of millions of households in under-served and energy-poor rural areas, while reducing both private and social costs linked to (i) fuels for household cooking, (ii) fertilizers, (iii) pressure on forests, and (iv) emissions (e.g., PM 2.5 and methane) that damage both household health and global climate. While the literature has focused on identifying these costs, less attention has been paid to household preferences for biogas systems — specifically what attributes are popular with which types of households. We conduct a discrete choice experiment with 503 households in rural Odisha, India, to better characterize preferences for different attributes (smoke reduction, fuel efficiency, and maintenance) and for different cooking technologies (biogas and an improved biomass cookstove). We find that on average households value smoke reduction and fuel efficiency. Willingness to pay (WTP) a premium for the improved biomass cookstove is low, while willingness to pay a premium for biogas is high. Nonetheless, WTP varies by the type of previous experience with biogas (e.g., good or bad experience) and with time and risk preferences of households. While risk-averse and impatient respondents have lower WTP for the improved cookstoves, previous experience with biogas attenuates this gap. These findings suggest that biogas uptake and diffusion could be improved by complementing existing subsidies with technology trials, good quality products, maintenance, and customer services to reduce uncertainty

Bottom-Up Signal Quality Impacts the Role of Top-Down Cognitive-Linguistic Processing During Speech Recognition by Adults with Cochlear Implants

HYPOTHESES: Significant variability persists in speech recognition outcomes in adults with cochlear implants (CIs). Sensory ("bottom-up") and cognitive-linguistic ("top-down") processes help explain this variability. However, the interactions of these bottom-up and top-down factors remain unclear. One hypothesis was tested: top-down processes would contribute differentially to speech recognition, depending on the fidelity of bottom-up input. BACKGROUND: Bottom-up spectro-temporal processing, assessed using a Spectral-Temporally Modulated Ripple Test (SMRT), is associated with CI speech recognition outcomes. Similarly, top-down cognitive-linguistic skills relate to outcomes, including working memory capacity, inhibition-concentration, speed of lexical access, and nonverbal reasoning. METHODS: Fifty-one adult CI users were tested for word and sentence recognition, along with performance on the SMRT and a battery of cognitive-linguistic tests. The group was divided into "low-," "intermediate-," and "high-SMRT" groups, based on SMRT scores. Separate correlation analyses were performed for each subgroup between a composite score of cognitive-linguistic processing and speech recognition. RESULTS: Associations of top-down composite scores with speech recognition were not significant for the low-SMRT group. In contrast, these associations were significant and of medium effect size (Spearman's rho = 0.44-0.46) for two sentence types for the intermediate-SMRT group. For the high-SMRT group, top-down scores were associated with both word and sentence recognition, with medium to large effect sizes (Spearman's rho = 0.45-0.58). CONCLUSIONS: Top-down processes contribute differentially to speech recognition in CI users based on the quality of bottom-up input. Findings have clinical implications for individualized treatment approaches relying on bottom-up device programming or top-down rehabilitation approaches

Neuropsychological markers of antidepressant action: a secondary analysis of the ANTLER randomised controlled trial

BACKGROUND: Antidepressants have been proposed to act via their influence on emotional processing. We investigated the effect of discontinuing maintenance antidepressant treatment on positive and negative self-referential recall and the association between self-referential recall and risk of relapse. METHODS: The ANTLER trial was a large (N = 478) pragmatic double-blind trial investigating the clinical effectiveness of long-term antidepressant treatment for preventing relapse in primary care patients. Participants were randomised to continue their maintenance antidepressants or discontinue via a taper to placebo. We analysed memory for positive and negative personality descriptors, assessed at baseline, 12- and 52-week follow-up. RESULTS: The recall task was completed by 437 participants. There was no evidence of an effect of discontinuation on self-referential recall at 12 [positive recall ratio 1.00, 95% CI (0.90-1.11), p = 0.93; negative recall ratio 1.00 (0.87-1.14), p = 0.87] or 52 weeks [positive recall ratio 1.03 (0.91-1.17), p = 0.62; negative recall ratio 1.00 (0.86-1.15), p = 0.96; ratios larger than one indicate higher recall in the discontinuation group], and no evidence of an association between recall at baseline or 12 weeks and later relapse [baseline, positive hazard ratio (HR) 1.02 (0.93-1.12), p = 0.74; negative HR 1.01 (0.90-1.13), p = 0.87; 12 weeks, positive HR 0.99 (0.89-1.09), p = 0.81; negative HR 0.98 (0.84-1.14), p = 0.78; ratios larger than one indicate a higher frequency of relapse in those with higher recall]. CONCLUSIONS: We found no evidence that discontinuing long-term antidepressants altered self-referential recall or that self-referential recall was associated with risk of relapse. These findings suggest that self-referential recall is not a neuropsychological marker of antidepressant action

Autophagy, but Not Proteolysis, May Aid in Muscle Protein Synthesis

For muscle growth to occur, protein synthesis must be greater than protein degradation. However, up to this point, anabolic pathways have garnered the brunt of investigations examining anabolic capacity with little investigation into the connectedness of catabolic signaling on these anabolic targets. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to elucidate the contributions of proteasomal-dependent and autophagic-dependent catabolic pathways on anabolism via analysis of fractional synthetic rates (FSR) in L6 myotubes. METHODS: Differentiated, cultured L6 myoblasts were treated with media containing 4% deuterium oxide (stable isotope label) and a corresponding pharmacological treatment (NSC 185058 [autophagic inhibitor; 100 μM], MG-262 [proteasomal inhibitor; 0.01 μM] or DMSO control; n=3/group) during the final 24-hours of the differentiation period prior to harvest. The myofibrillar pellet of the processed samples was used to determine FSR via mass-spectrometry analysis. DMSO-treated myotubes served as controls, with a one-way analysis of variance and Tukey’s post-hoc test used to test for any differences among groups. RESULTS: Our results indicate that MG-262 had no impact on myofibrillar FSR when compared to DMSO control (MG-262 1.0993 %/day vs. control 1.239 %/day). However, NSC 185058 lowered myofibrillar FSR (NSC 185058 0.9009 %/day vs. control 1.239 %/day; P=0.0282). CONCLUSION: These data suggest that inhibition of autophagic machinery can impair anabolism. This may be due to autophagy’s role in increasing the amino acid pool within the cell. Further, the lack of inhibition seen from MG-262 suggests that there is a delineation of roles within the catabolic pathways in regard to their influence on anabolism in healthy, metabolically unchallenged myotubes