Self-Employment, Family Background, and Race

We focus on the intergenerational transmission of the propensity to be self-employed. Our emphasis is on the role of family background, and in particular, on what we call the intergenerational pick-up rate with respect to self-employment, the probability that a person with a self-employed parent will become self-employed him or herself. We use the General Social Survey, a data source with rich information on individuals' family histories, to investigate how family background affects self-employment probabilities and to document how racial and ethnic groups differ with respect to the intergenerational pick-up rate. We confirm earlier findings that father's self-employment status is an important determinant of offspring's self-employment outcomes. New results include: 1) The impact of paternal self-employment differs by race. 2) Even independent of father's occupation, family structure plays a role. 3) Blacks have lower self-employment rates than whites in part because they have different family structures; still, within each family type, blacks have lower self-employment rates. 4) Extrapolating current patterns into the future, there is no indication that black and white self-employment rates will converge any time soon. 5) The relatively high self-employment rates of immigrants carry into the next generation, but not beyond that. 6) Male immigrants who have self-employed fathers re no more likely to be self-employed than other immigrants.

The Demographic Imperative in Religious Change in the United States

U.S. Protestants are less likely to belong to “mainline” denominations and more likely to belong to “conservative” ones than used to be the case. Evidence from the General Social Survey indicates that higher fertility and earlier childbearing among women from conservative denominations explains 76% of the observed trend for cohorts born between 1903 and 1973: conservative denominations have grown their own. Mainline decline would have slowed in recent cohorts, but a drop‐off in conversions from conservative to mainline denominations prolonged the decline. A recent rise in apostasy added a few percentage points to mainline decline. Conversions from mainline to conservative denominations have not changed, so they played no role in the restructuring

Impact of travel time and rurality on presentation and outcomes of symptomatic colorectal cancer: a cross-sectional cohort study in primary care

Background: Several studies have reported a survival disadvantage for rural dwellers who develop colorectal cancer, but the underlying mechanisms remain obscure. Delayed presentation to GPs may be a contributory factor, but evidence is lacking. Aim: To examine the association between rurality and travel time on diagnosis and survival of colorectal cancer in a cohort from northeast Scotland. Design and setting: The authors used a database linking GP records to routine data for patients diagnosed between 1997 and 1998, and followed up to 2011. Method: Primary outcomes were alarm symptoms, emergency admissions, stage, and survival. Travel time in minutes from patients to GP was estimated. Logistic and Cox regression were used to model outcomes. Interaction terms were used to determine if travelling time impacted differently on urban versus rural patients. Results: Rural patients and patients travelling farther to the GP had better 3-year survival. When the travel outcome associations were explored using interaction terms, the associations differed between rural and urban areas. Longer travel in urban areas significantly reduced the odds of emergency admissions (odds ratio [OR] 0.62, P<0.05), and increased survival (hazard ratio 0.75, P<0.05). Longer travel also increased the odds of presenting with alarm symptoms in urban areas; this was nearly significant (OR 1.34, P = 0.06). Presence of alarm symptoms reduced the likelihood of emergency admissions (OR 0.36, P<0.01). Conclusion: Living in a rural area, and travelling farther to a GP in urban areas, may reduce the likelihood of emergency admissions and poor survival. This may be related to how patients present with alarm symptoms

Active Cognitive Lifestyle Associates with Cognitive Recovery and a Reduced Risk of Cognitive Decline

Education and lifestyle factors linked with complex mental activity are thought to affect the progression of cognitive decline. Collectively, these factors can be combined to create a cognitive reserve or cognitive lifestyle score. This study tested the association between cognitive lifestyle score and cognitive change in a population-based cohort of older persons from five sites across England and Wales. Data came from 13,004 participants of the Medical Research Council Cognitive Function and Ageing Study who were aged 65 years and over. Cognition was assessed at multiple waves over 16 years using the Mini-Mental State Examination. Subjects were grouped into four cognitive states (no impairment, slight impairment, moderate impairment, severe impairment) and cognitive lifestyle score was assessed as a composite measure of education, mid-life occupation, and current social engagement. A multi-state model was used to test the effect of cognitive lifestyle score on cognitive transitions. Hazard ratios for cognitive lifestyle score showed significant differences between those in the upper compared to the lower tertile with a more active cognitive lifestyle associating with: a decreased risk of moving from no to slight impairment (0.58, 95% CI (0.45, 0.74)); recovery from a slightly impaired state back to a non-impaired state (2.93 (1.35, 6.38)); but an increased mortality risk from a severely impaired state (1.28 (1.12, 1.45)). An active cognitive lifestyle is associated with a more favorable cognitive trajectory in older persons. Future studies would ideally incorporate neuroradiological and neuropathological data to determine if there is causal evidence for these associations

Updating the Kentucky Contract Time Determination System

The Federal Highway Administration requires State Transportation Agencies to have a formal method to estimate contract time for highway construction projects. To meet this requirement many states use an integrated scheduling system to estimate project durations based on assumed productivity rates and generic job logic. The current work investigated the accuracy of two of these systems found that both systems accuracy in predicting the duration of Kentucky Transportation Cabinet projects was greater than +200%. In response to this poor accuracy, a parametric project duration estimating tool was developed based on a multivariate regression analysis of bid item quantities and engineering and construction estimate. Five regression models were develop to estimate contract time for large projects (great than $1,000,000) based on key bid item quantities; limited access (+22$1,000,000) as it appears that the duration of small projects is determined by factors outside of bid item quantities

The presence of the casein kinase II phosphorylation sites of Vpu enhances the CD4+ T cell loss caused by the simian–human immunodeficiency virus SHIVKU-lbMC33 in pig-tailed macaques

AbstractThe simian–human immunodeficiency virus (SHIV)/ macaque model for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 has become a useful tool to assess the role of Vpu in lentivirus pathogenesis. In this report, we have mutated the two phosphorylated serine residues of the HIV-1 Vpu to glycine residues and have reconstructed a SHIV expressing this nonphosphorylated Vpu (SHIVS52,56G). Expression studies revealed that this protein was localized to the same intracellular compartment as wild-type Vpu. To determine if this virus was pathogenic, four pig-tailed macaques were inoculated with SHIVS52,56G and virus burdens and circulating CD4+ T cells monitored up to 1 year. Our results indicate that SHIVS52,56G caused rapid loss in the circulating CD4+ T cells within 3 weeks of inoculation in one macaque (CC8X), while the other three macaques developed no or gradual numbers of CD4+ T cells and a wasting syndrome. Histological examination of tissues revealed that macaque CC8X had lesions in lymphoid tissues (spleen, lymph nodes, and thymus) that were typical for macaques inoculated with pathogenic parental SHIVKU-1bMC33 and had no lesions within the CNS. To rule out that macaque CC8X had selected for a virus in which there was reversion of the glycine residues at positions 52 and 56 to serine residues and/or compensating mutations occurred in other genes associated with CD4 down-regulation, sequence analysis was performed on amplified vpu sequences isolated from PBMC and from several lymphoid tissues at necropsy. Sequence analysis revealed a reversion of the glycine residues back to serine residues in this macaque. The other macaques maintained low virus burdens, with one macaque (P003) developing a wasting syndrome between months 9 and 11. Histological examination of tissues from this macaque revealed a thymus with severe atrophy that was similar to that of a previously reported macaque inoculated with a SHIV lacking vpu (Virology 293, 2002, 252). Sequence analysis revealed no reversion of the glycine residues in the vpu sequences isolated from this macaque. These results contrast with those from four macaques inoculated with the parental pathogenic SHIVKU-1bMC33, all of which developed severe CD4+ T cell loss within 1 month after inoculation. Taken together, these results indicate that casein kinase II phosphorylation sites of Vpu contributes to the pathogenicity of the SHIVKU-1bMC33 and suggest that the SHIVKU-1bMC33/pig-tailed macaque model will be useful in analyzing amino acids/domains of Vpu that contribute to the pathogenesis of HIV-1

Orthographic similarity ratings for English-Spanish cognates from the academic word list

Cognates are words that are orthographically and semantically identical (or similar) between languages. The purpose of Experiment 1 was to provide educators and researchers with orthographic similarity ratings for the English-Spanish cognate words that comprise the Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000). To this end, similarity ratings for the 473 English-Spanish cognate pairs were collected from 42 students enrolled in literacy education courses at a southwestern university. Experiment 2 was conducted to validate the ratings from Experiment 1 using reaction time. We found that the orthographic similarity ratings were strongly correlated with reaction times during this task, lending support to the usefulness of the transparency ratings obtained in Experiment 1. Thus, educators and researchers can avail themselves of these ratings to create leveled educational materials for language instruction or to statistically calibrate experimental stimuli for learning and memory investigations. Additionally, we report an initial-letter effect, which describes the finding that the earlier an English word deviates from its Spanish cognate, the lower the similarity rating for the cognate pair, thus extending the generalizeability of the initial-letter effect observed in prior research

The Novel Object and Unusual Name (NOUN) database: a collection of novel images for use in experimental research

Many experimental research designs require images of novel objects. Here we introduce the Novel Object and Unusual Name (NOUN) Database. This database contains 64 primary novel object images and additional novel exemplars for ten basic- and nine global-level object categories. The objects’ novelty was confirmed by both self-report and a lack of consensus on questions that required participants to name and identify the objects. We also found that object novelty correlated with qualifying naming responses pertaining to the objects’ colors. Results from a similarity sorting task (and subsequent multidimensional scaling analysis on the similarity ratings) demonstrated that the objects are complex and distinct entities that vary along several featural dimensions beyond simply shape and color. A final experiment confirmed that additional item exemplars comprise both sub- and superordinate categories. These images may be useful in a variety of settings, particularly for developmental psychology and other research in language, categorization, perception, visual memory and related domains

Experiences of Codeine Use, Misuse and Dependence: Application of Liese and Franz's Cognitive Developmental Model of Substance Abuse.

BACKGROUND: Misuse of codeine-containing medicines is an emerging public health issue. AIMS: We present the application of Liese and Franz's (1996) cognitive developmental model of substance abuse to the trajectory from legitimate codeine use for pain, towards that of therapeutic and other forms of misuse, and physical and psychological dependence. It illustrates a cognitive behavioural analysis of the experiences of codeine misusers - which 'surfaces' the specific beliefs, thoughts, emotions and behaviours of this group of hidden codeine dependent individuals, who are distinct and unique from other opioid-dependent cohorts. METHOD: In-depth one-to-one interviews with codeine misusers and dependent individuals in Ireland (n = 21) and South Africa (n = 25) are analysed and applied to Liese and Franz's (1996) cognitive developmental model of substance abuse. RESULTS: Misuse and dependence pathways are maintained by the interplay between physiological determinants relating to pain, withdrawal and tolerance, and psychological influences such as therapeutic need, pre-empting of anticipated physical pain, pleasure from the dreamy sedative opiate effect of codeine and relief of emotional distress. Progression towards habitual use and misuse for therapeutic and intoxication purposes appears to be mediated by external environmental triggers pertaining to availability, internal meta-cognitions around physical pain and emotional distress, and increasing importance of codeine in the life of the user. CONCLUSION: The concept mapping of codeine misuse and dependence presented here could provide psychological therapists working with individuals experiencing problems with codeine, misusing codeine and those with iatrogenic dependence, with an enhanced understanding of the key concepts involved in misuse and recovery pathways

Buprenorphine-Naloxone in the Treatment of Codeine Dependence: a Scoping Review of Clinical Case Presentations

Misuse of prescribed and over the counter (OTC) codeine containing medicines is an increasing public health concern in recent times. Studies have called for low threshold treatment services for individuals experiencing codeine dependence using buprenorphine naloxone therapy. We present a scoping review of clinical case presentation literature on the use of buprenorphine-naloxone in the treatment of codeine dependence. Seven records (four single case studies and three case series) on codeine dependence treated with buprenorphine-naloxone were included. Five themes emerged following a review of the cases for the treatment of codeine dependence with buprenorphine-naloxone. They are: (1) Patient Profiles; (2) History of Codeine Misuse; (3) Medical Problems; (4) Use of Other Substances; and (5) Buprenorphine-naloxone in the treatment of Codeine Dependence. The review highlights the complexities of patients with regards to pain, psychiatric illness, poly substance use and iatrogenic dependence, with findings encouraging in terms of patient stabilisation and recovery