Familial Aggregation of Externalizing Psychopathology

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation.August 2017. Major: Psychology. Advisor: Robert Krueger. 1 computer file (PDF); ix, 174 pages.Objective Understanding familial aggregation (FA) of psychopathology in a latent variable framework allows for an understanding of shared risk for maladaptive traits and disorders in parents and their children, and improves clinical utility or risk models. Previously, FA has been investigated using bivariate approaches, providing a piecemeal understanding of risk. This study investigates 1) how externalizing disorders in parents impact risk for a broad range of internalizing and externalizing disorders in offspring, 2) if risk shared between parents and offspring is best conceptualized as general risk for a group of disorders or specific to particular disorders, and 3) how this might vary as a function of parent and offspring gender. Methods Data for sample one were collected as part of the National Epidemiological Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) in 2001-2002 on 43,093 individuals 18 years or older living in the US. A replication sample used the Minnesota Twin and Family Study sample of twins, siblings, and their parents using parallel analyses to attempt to replicate results in an independent sample which used direct assessment of parent psychopathology. Using confirmatory factor analysis, parental externalizing disorders were investigated as a risk factor for externalizing, fear, and distress disorders in offspring, in a latent variable structural equation model. Results Externalizing in parents was most predictive of externalizing in offspring, followed by distress and finally fear disorders. However, in female offspring, externalizing in mothers in particular was as strong a predictor of distress disorders as it was of externalizing disorders. Risk for offspring disorders associated with parent disorders was well-explained by a latent variable framework, with residual correlations for ASPD in parents associated with specific risk for offspring ASPD. Conclusions Results indicate that familial psychopathology aggregation follows a pattern that suggests risk is aggregated generally (transdiagnostically across similar disorders), not specifically. Additionally, externalizing in mothers is associated with increased risk for distress disorders in female offspring, and possibly also in male offspring

The Logic of the ‘As If’ and the Existence of God: An Inquiry into the Nature of Belief in the Work of Jacques Derrida

The religious thematics at play in the work of Jacques Derrida have often provided an ongoing platform from which to struggle with the entire scope of his work, thus moving the seemingly peripheral discourses on religion within his oeuvre to the center stage. Despite repeated attempts to come to terms both theologically and philosophically with the conditional nature of representations, the problematics of representation are perhaps nowhere more forcefully demonstrated than in the work of Derrida. Indeed, for Derrida, the ‘as if’, as a regulative principle directly appropriated and modified from its Kantian context, becomes the central lynchpin for understanding, not only Derrida’s philosophical system as a whole, but also his numerous seemingly enigmatic references to his ‘jewishness’, as I intend to demonstrate in what follows. Through an analysis of the function of the ‘as if’ within the history of thought, from Greek tragedy to the poetry of Wallace Stevens, I hope to show how Derrida can only appropriate his Judaic roots as an act of mourning that seeks to render the lost object as present, ‘as if’ it were incorporated by the subject for whom this act nevertheless remains an impossibility. As Derrida discerns within the poetry of Paul Celan, bringing a sense of presence/presentness to our experiences, and as a confirmation of the subject which the human being struggles to assert, is the poetic task par excellence. It is seemingly also, if Derrida is to be understood on this point, the only option left to a humanity wherein poetry comes to express what religious formulations can no longer justify

The Temporal Dynamics of Coastal Phytoplankton and Bacterioplankton in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.

This study considers variability in phytoplankton and heterotrophic bacterial abundances and production rates, in one of the most oligotrophic marine regions in the world-the Levantine Basin. The temporal dynamics of these planktonic groups were studied in the coastal waters of the southeastern Mediterranean Sea approximately every two weeks for a total of two years. Heterotrophic bacteria were abundant mostly during late summer and midwinter, and were positively correlated with bacterial production and with N2 fixation. Based on size fractionating, picophytoplankton was abundant during the summer, whereas nano-microphytoplankton predominated during the winter and early spring, which were also evident in the size-fractionated primary production rates. Autotrophic abundance and production correlated negatively with temperature, but did not correlate with inorganic nutrients. Furthermore, a comparison of our results with results from the open Levantine Basin demonstrates that autotrophic and heterotrophic production, as well as N2 fixation rates, are considerably higher in the coastal habitat than in the open sea, while nutrient levels or cell abundance are not different. These findings have important ecological implications for food web dynamics and for biological carbon sequestration in this understudied region

The relationship between bacterial production (BP) and bacterial abundance (BA) or primary production (PP) in the open and coastal water of the Levantine Basin.

<p>Data for the open sea stations (euphotic zone, bottom depth of stations >1000 m) were compiled from Zohary & Robarts [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref004" target="_blank">4</a><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref002" target="_blank">2</a>], Zohary et al. [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref004" target="_blank">4</a><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref003" target="_blank">3</a>, <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref004" target="_blank">4</a><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref004" target="_blank">4</a>], Christaki et al. [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref004" target="_blank">4</a><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref005" target="_blank">5</a>, <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref004" target="_blank">4</a><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref006" target="_blank">6</a>], Turley et al. [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref004" target="_blank">4</a><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref007" target="_blank">7</a>], Van Wambeke et al. [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref001" target="_blank">1</a><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref007" target="_blank">7</a>, <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref004" target="_blank">4</a><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref008" target="_blank">8</a>, <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref004" target="_blank">4</a><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref009" target="_blank">9</a>], Ignatiades et al. [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref050" target="_blank">50</a>], Kress et al. [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref005" target="_blank">5</a><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref001" target="_blank">1</a>], Tanaka et al. [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref005" target="_blank">5</a><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref002" target="_blank">2</a>, <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref005" target="_blank">5</a><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref003" target="_blank">3</a>], Pulido-Villena et al. [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref001" target="_blank">1</a><a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref005" target="_blank">5</a>], and Rahav et al. [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref038" target="_blank">38</a>]. A 95% confidence interval (CI) is presented for the slope and the intercept.</p

The seasonal surface (2 m) variability of temperature (open circle) and salinity (black circle).

<p>Data were collected between April 2013 and April 2015 at the study site off the eastern Mediterranean coast.</p

The temporal dynamics of autotrophic bacterioplankton in the coastal eastern Mediterranean Sea.

<p>Data presented are for Chl a (A) pico-phytoplankton (B) and primary production, PP (C) between April 2013 and April 2015.</p

The temporal dynamics of heterotrophic bacterioplankton in the coastal eastern Mediterranean Sea.

<p>Data presented are for bacterial abundance, BA (A) and bacterial production, BP (B) between April 2013 and April 2015.</p

Comparison between the open and coastal Levantine Basin (eastern Mediterranean Sea) water.

<p>Box-plot distribution of NO₂+NO₃ (A), PO₄ (B), Si(OH)₄ (C), bacterial production, BP (D), primary production, PP (E) and N₂ fixation (F) in the open Levantine Basin (euphotic zone, bottom depth of stations >1000 m) and in the coastal site (this study). Data for the open sea were compiled from Yogev et al., [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref035" target="_blank">35</a>]; Kress et al., [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref003" target="_blank">3</a>, <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref036" target="_blank">36</a>], Rahav et al., [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref037" target="_blank">37</a>, <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref038" target="_blank">38</a>, <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref039" target="_blank">39</a>]; Bonnet et al., [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref040" target="_blank">40</a>], Ibello et al., [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0140690#pone.0140690.ref041" target="_blank">41</a>] and Rahav et al., unpublished.</p

The relationship between temperature and bacterioplankton in the coastal eastern Mediterranean Sea.

<p>Data presented are for total Chl a (A), primary production (B), bacterial abundance (C), bacterial production (D) and N₂ fixations (E) during the April 2013 to April 2015 sampling period.</p