Acute use of alcohol before suicide in Kazakhstan: A population-wide study

BACKGROUND: Acute use of alcohol is a proximal risk factor for suicidal behavior and suicide attempts. Previous studies have established that alcohol consumption prior to suicide increases the risk of suicide completion. Thus, the current study aims to explore the association between alcohol use and suicide mortality in Kazakhstan. This is the first study to address this association in Kazakhstan. METHODS: The main outcome measure was the presence of alcohol in blood of suicide decedents. Logistic regression models were used to test unadjusted and adjusted odds ratios of the risk of suicide involving acute use of alcohol. Regression modeling was used to identify significant predictors of alcohol use among suicide decedents. RESULTS: Males (22.5 %) used alcohol more commonly before conducting suicide than females (13.4 %). The odds of alcohol involvement was 2.73 times higher for males compared to females after controlling for age and other covariates. Being a male younger than 45 years old and using suicide methods such as poisoning, immolation, and drowning increased the odds of acute use of alcohol among suicide decedents. LIMITATIONS: Data on alcohol use included information only on individuals with a positive alcohol test, and it is unknown how many suicide decedents were not tested for alcohol. CONCLUSIONS: Alcohol use is common factor contributing to suicide, particularly among young and middle-aged male adults. Alcohol use is also associated more strongly with certain methods of suicide. Further studies and more detailed data exploring alcohol consumption and suicide risks are needed in countries such as Kazakhstan

Partial type constructors: Or, making ad hoc datatypes less ad hoc

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.Functional programming languages assume that type constructors are total. Yet functional programmers know better: counterexamples range from container types that make limiting assumptions about their contents (e.g., requiring computable equality or ordering functions) to type families with defining equations only over certain choices of arguments. We present a language design and formal theory of partial type constructors, capturing the domains of type constructors using qualified types. Our design is both simple and expressive: we support partial datatypes as first-class citizens (including as instances of parametric abstractions, such as the Haskell Functor and Monad classes), and show a simple type elaboration algorithm that avoids placing undue annotation burden on programmers. We show that our type system rejects ill-defined types and can be compiled to a semantic model based on System F. Finally, we have conducted an experimental analysis of a body of Haskell code, using a proof-of-concept implementation of our system; while there are cases where our system requires additional annotations, these cases are rarely encountered in practical Haskell code

The process of homosexual identification and the effect of the homosexual subculture on the lifestyle of the homosexual.

PsychologyDoctor of Philosophy (PhD

Comparing Extant Story Classifiers: Results & New Directions

Having access to a large set of stories is a necessary first step for robust and wide-ranging computational narrative modeling; happily, language data - including stories - are increasingly available in electronic form. Unhappily, the process of automatically separating stories from other forms of written discourse is not straightforward, and has resulted in a data collection bottleneck. Therefore researchers have sought to develop reliable, robust automatic algorithms for identifying story text mixed with other non-story text. In this paper we report on the reimplementation and experimental comparison of the two approaches to this task: Gordon\u27s unigram classifier, and Corman\u27s semantic triplet classifier. We cross-analyze their performance on both Gordon\u27s and Corman\u27s corpora, and discuss similarities, differences, and gaps in the performance of these classifiers, and point the way forward to improving their approaches

Deductible imputation in administrative medical claims datasets

Objective: To validate imputation methods used to infer plan-level deductibles and determine which enrollees are in high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) in administrative claims datasets. Data sources and study setting: 2017 medical and pharmaceutical claims from OptumLabs Data Warehouse for US individuals Study design: We impute plan deductibles using four methods: (1) parametric prediction using individual-level spending; (2) parametric prediction with imputation and plan characteristics; (3) highest plan-specific mode of individual annual deductible spending; and (4) deductible spending at the 80th percentile among individuals meeting their deductible. We compare deductibles' levels and categories for imputed versus actual deductibles. Data collection/extraction methods: Not applicable. Principal findings: All methods had a positive predictive value (PPV) for determining high- versus low-deductible plans of ≥87%; negative predictive values (NPV) were lower. The method imputing plan-specific deductible spending modes was most accurate and least computationally intensive (PPV: 95%; NPV: 91%). This method also best correlated with actual deductible levels; 69% of imputed deductibles were within $250 of the true deductible. Conclusions: In the absence of plan structure data, imputing plan-specific modes of individual annual deductible spending best correlates with true deductibles and best predicts enrollees in HDHPs.</p

Structures of EccB\u3csub\u3e1\u3c/sub\u3e and EccD\u3csub\u3e1\u3c/sub\u3e from the Core Complex of the Mycobacterial ESX-1 Type VII Secretion System

Background: The ESX-1 type VII secretion system is an important determinant of virulence in pathogenic mycobacteria, including Mycobacterium tuberculosis. This complicated molecular machine secretes folded proteins through the mycobacterial cell envelope to subvert the host immune response. Despite its important role in disease very little is known about the molecular architecture of the ESX-1 secretion system. Results: This study characterizes the structures of the soluble domains of two conserved core ESX-1 components – EccB1 and EccD1. The periplasmic domain of EccB1 consists of 4 repeat domains and a central domain, which together form a quasi 2-fold symmetrical structure. The repeat domains of EccB1 are structurally similar to a known peptidoglycan binding protein suggesting a role in anchoring the ESX-1 system within the periplasmic space. The cytoplasmic domain of EccD1has a ubiquitin-like fold and forms a dimer with a negatively charged groove. Conclusions: These structures represent a major step towards resolving the molecular architecture of the entire ESX-1 assembly and may contribute to ESX-1 targeted tuberculosis intervention strategies