Health behavior during periods of stressful uncertainty: associations with emotions, cognitions, and expectation management.

Objective: The present study examined how cognitions and emotions characteristic of awaiting uncertain news influenced healthy (diet/exercise) and unhealthy (alcohol use) behaviors in three samples of people awaiting important news.Design: Study 1 examined voting-eligible citizens during the month prior to learning the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Study 2 examined the experience of law graduates across four months while they awaited the results of their bar exam (i.e., the licensing exam they need to pass to practice law). Study 3 examined current or recent PhD students searching for a job on the academic job market.Results: Though the findings were somewhat mixed across studies, they generally suggest a relationship between positive emotions and health-promoting behaviors and between worry and alcohol use, with less consistent relationships between outcome expectations and health behaviors.Conclusion: Taken together, these results offer a promising set of initial findings to understand health behavior in the context of awaiting uncertain news and provide a foundation for future investigations on the topic

Bracing Later and Coping Better: Benefits of Mindfulness During a Stressful Waiting Period.

People frequently await uncertain news, yet research reveals that the strategies people naturally use to cope with uncertainty are largely ineffective. We tested the role of mindfulness for improving the experience of a stressful waiting period. Law graduates awaiting their bar exam results either reported their trait mindfulness (Study 1; N = 150) or were instructed to practice mindfulness meditation (Study 2; N = 90). As hypothesized, participants who were naturally more mindful or who practiced mindfulness managed their expectations more effectively by bracing for the worst later in the waiting period and perceived themselves as coping better. Additionally, participants who were low in dispositional optimism and high in intolerance of uncertainty benefited most from mindfulness (relative to control) meditation. These findings point to a simple and effective way to wait better, particularly for those most vulnerable to distress

Outcomes of Physicians' Communication Goals During Patient Interactions.

During healthcare visits, physicians may set communication goals such as providing their patient with information about treatment; however, no recommendations exist regarding which goals physicians should prioritize during their often-brief interactions with patients. Two studies examined five communication goals (providing information, reducing distress, increasing patient satisfaction, increasing patient adherence, and encouraging hope) in the context of physician-patient interactions and their relationship with patient and physician outcomes. In Study 1, audio-recordings of physician-patient interactions were coded by research assistants for goal-related content. In Study 2, patients reported their physician's use of each goal during the interaction. In both studies, patients and physicians reported visit outcomes. Within-study meta-analyses suggested that the goal of reducing distress, but not the other goals, was consistently related to improved outcomes in Study 1. All goals were related to improved outcomes in Study 2. We then computed sample-size-weighted meta-analytic effects of each goal on each outcome across both studies. These results suggested that all of the goals had similar-sized positive relationships with patient and physician outcomes across studies. These findings suggest that physicians should generally approach consultations with communication goals in mind, but prioritizing efforts to reduce distress may be particularly beneficial

Zero-variance principle for Monte Carlo algorithms

We present a general approach to greatly increase at little cost the efficiency of Monte Carlo algorithms. To each observable to be computed we associate a renormalized observable (improved estimator) having the same average but a different variance. By writing down the zero-variance condition a fundamental equation determining the optimal choice for the renormalized observable is derived (zero-variance principle for each observable separately). We show, with several examples including classical and quantum Monte Carlo calculations, that the method can be very powerful.Comment: 9 pages, Latex, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Experimental parasite community perturbation reveals associations between Sin Nombre virus and gastrointestinal nematodes in a rodent reservoir host

Individuals are often co-infected with several parasite species, yet measuring within-host interactions remains difficult in the wild. Consequently, the impact of such interactions on host fitness and epidemiology are often unknown. We used anthelmintic drugs to experimentally reduce nematode infection and measured the effects on both nematodes and the important zoonosis Sin Nombre virus (SNV) in its primary reservoir (Peromyscus spp.). Treatment significantly reduced nematode infection, but increased SNV seroprevalence. Furthermore, mice that were co-infected with both nematodes and SNV were in better condition and survived up to four times longer than uninfected or singly-infected mice. These results highlight the importance of investigating multiple parasites for understanding interindividual variation and epidemiological dynamics in reservoir populations with zoonotic transmission potential.Funding provided by: Wellcome TrustCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100010269Award Number: Strategic grant 095831Funding provided by: Defense Advanced Research Projects AgencyCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000185Award Number: 68255-LS-DRPFunding provided by: Sigma XiCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100011084Award Number: G20101015154773Funding provided by: National Science FoundationCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000001Award Number: DBI-1005104; DBI-045338

Changes in the relationship between self-reference and emotional valence as a function of dysphoria

The self-positivity bias is found to be an aspect of normal cognitive function. Changes in this bias are usually associated with changes in emotional states, such as dysphoria or depression. The aim of the present study was to clarify the role of emotional valence within self-referential processing. By asking non-dysphoric and dysphoric individuals to rate separately the emotional and self-referential content of a set of 240 words, it was possible to identify the differences in the relationship between self-reference and emotional valence, which are associated with dysphoria. The results support the existence of the self-positivity bias in non-dysphoric individuals. More interestingly, dysphoric individuals were able to accurately identify the emotional content of the word stimuli. They failed, however, to associate this emotional valence with self-reference. These findings are discussed in terms of attributional self-biases and their consequences for cognition

Mining Disaggregase Sequence Space to Safely Counter TDP-43, FUS, and α-Synuclein Proteotoxicity.

Hsp104 is an AAA+ protein disaggregase, which can be potentiated via diverse mutations in its autoregulatory middle domain (MD) to mitigate toxic misfolding of TDP-43, FUS, and α-synuclein implicated in fatal neurodegenerative disorders. Problematically, potentiated MD variants can exhibit off-target toxicity. Here, we mine disaggregase sequence space to safely enhance Hsp104 activity via single mutations in nucleotide-binding domain 1 (NBD1) or NBD2. Like MD variants, NBD variants counter TDP-43, FUS, and α-synuclein toxicity and exhibit elevated ATPase and disaggregase activity. Unlike MD variants, non-toxic NBD1 and NBD2 variants emerge that rescue TDP-43, FUS, and α-synuclein toxicity. Potentiating substitutions alter NBD1 residues that contact ATP, ATP-binding residues, or the MD. Mutating the NBD2 protomer interface can also safely ameliorate Hsp104. Thus, we disambiguate allosteric regulation of Hsp104 by several tunable structural contacts, which can be engineered to spawn enhanced therapeutic disaggregases with minimal off-target toxicity

Outcomes of Recurrent Head and Neck Cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Recurrent, advanced stage cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) is uncommon with limited publications on patient outcomes. A retrospective study including patients who underwent surgical resection for recurrent, advanced stage cSCC of the head and neck was performed (n = 72). Data regarding tumor site, stage, treatment, parotid involvement, perineural invasion, positive margins, metastasis, and disease-free survival was analyzed. The majority of patients were male (85%) and presented with recurrent stage III (89%) cSCC. Two-year disease-free survival was 62% and decreased to 47% at 5 years. Parotid involvement, positive margins, nodal metastasis, or the presence of perineural invasion did not correlate with decreased survival (P > .05). Distant metastasis was a strong indicator of poor overall survival (P < .001). Adjuvant postoperative radiotherapy did not improve overall survival (P = .42). Overall survival was poor for patients with advanced recurrent cSCC despite the combined treatment with surgery and radiotherapy

Comments on Sweeny and Gliozzi dynamics for simulations of Potts models in the Fortuin-Kasteleyn representation

We compare the correlation times of the Sweeny and Gliozzi dynamics for two-dimensional Ising and three-state Potts models, and the three-dimensional Ising model for the simulations in the percolation prepresentation. The results are also compared with Swendsen-Wang and Wolff cluster dynamics. It is found that Sweeny and Gliozzi dynamics have essentially the same dynamical critical behavior. Contrary to Gliozzi's claim (cond-mat/0201285), the Gliozzi dynamics has critical slowing down comparable to that of other cluster methods. For the two-dimensional Ising model, both Sweeny and Gliozzi dynamics give good fits to logarithmic size dependences; for two-dimensional three-state Potts model, their dynamical critical exponent z is 0.49(1); the three-dimensional Ising model has z = 0.37(2).Comment: RevTeX, 4 pages, 5 figure

The Percolation Signature of the Spin Glass Transition

Magnetic ordering at low temperature for Ising ferromagnets manifests itself within the associated Fortuin-Kasteleyn (FK) random cluster representation as the occurrence of a single positive density percolating network. In this paper we investigate the percolation signature for Ising spin glass ordering -- both in short-range (EA) and infinite-range (SK) models -- within a two-replica FK representation and also within the different Chayes-Machta-Redner two-replica graphical representation. Based on numerical studies of the $\pm J$ EA model in three dimensions and on rigorous results for the SK model, we conclude that the spin glass transition corresponds to the appearance of {\it two} percolating clusters of {\it unequal} densities.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure