cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
A systematic scoping review of latent class analysis applied to accelerometry-assessed physical activity and sedentary behavior
Creators: name: Evenson, Kelly R.
name: Troester, Melissa A.
name: Di, Chongzhi
name: Kebede, Michael
name: Ren, Yumeng
name: Howard, Annie Green
name: Anuskiewicz, Blake
Publisher: name: Public Library of Science
Year: 2024

description: Background Latent class analysis (LCA) identifies distinct groups within a heterogeneous population, but its application to accelerometry-assessed physical activity and sedentary behavior has not been systematically explored. We conducted a systematic scoping review to describe the application of LCA to accelerometry. Methods Comprehensive searches in PubMed, Web of Science, CINHAL, SPORTDiscus, and Embase identified studies published through December 31, 2021. Using Covidence, two researchers independently evaluated inclusion criteria and discrepancies were resolved by consensus. Studies with LCA applied to accelerometry or combined accelerometry/self-reported measures were selected. Data extracted included study characteristics and both accelerometry and LCA methods. Results Of 2555 papers found, 66 full-text papers were screened, and 12 papers (11 cross-sectional, 1 cohort) from 8 unique studies were included. Study sample sizes ranged from 217–7931 (mean 2249, standard deviation 2780). Across 8 unique studies, latent class variables included measures of physical activity (100%) and sedentary behavior (75%). About two-thirds (63%) of the studies used accelerometry only and 38% combined accelerometry and self-report to derive latent classes. The accelerometer-based variables in the LCA model included measures by day of the week (38%), weekday vs. weekend (13%), weekly average (13%), dichotomized minutes/day (13%), sex specific z-scores (13%), and hour-by-hour (13%). The criteria to guide the selection of the final number of classes and model fit varied across studies, including Bayesian Information Criterion (63%), substantive knowledge (63%), entropy (50%), Akaike information criterion (50%), sample size (50%), Bootstrap likelihood ratio test (38%), and visual inspection (38%). The studies explored up to 5 (25%), 6 (38%), or 7+ (38%) classes, ending with 3 (50%), 4 (13%), or 5 (38%) final classes. Conclusions This review explored the application of LCA to physical activity and sedentary behavior and identified areas of improvement for future studies leveraging LCA. LCA was used to identify unique groupings as a data reduction tool, to combine self-report and accelerometry, and to combine different physical activity intensities and sedentary behavior in one LCA model or separate models.
Precision of Pulse-Coupled Oscillator Synchronization on FPGA-Based Radios
Creators: name: Brandner, Günther
name: Klinglmayr, Johannes
name: Schilcher, Udo
name: Egarter, Dominik
name: Bettstetter, Christian
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Other Computer Science (cs.OH)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: The precision of synchronization algorithms based on the theory of pulse-coupled oscillators is evaluated on FPGA-based radios for the first time. Measurements show that such algorithms can reach precision in the low microsecond range when being implemented in the physical layer. Furthermore, we propose an algorithm extension accounting for phase rate deviations of the hardware and show that an improved precision below one microsecond is possible with this extension in the given setup. The resulting algorithm can thus be applied in ad hoc wireless systems for fully distributed synchronization of transmission slots or sleep cycles, in particular, if centralized synchronization is impossible.
Clarifying hierarchical age–period–cohort models: A rejoinder to Bell and Jones
Creators: name: Fu, Qiang
name: Smith, Ken R.
name: Keyes, Katherine M.
name: Hardy, Melissa A.
name: Zheng, Hui
name: Land, Kenneth C.
name: Powers, Daniel A.
name: Utz, Rebecca L.
name: Reither, Eric N.
name: Claire Yang, Y.
name: Masters, Ryan K.
name: Jeon, Sun Y.
name: Hanson, Heidi A.
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2015

description: Previously, Reither et al. (2015) demonstrated that hierarchical age–period–cohort (HAPC) models perform well when basic assumptions are satisfied. To contest this finding, Bell and Jones (2015) invent a data generating process (DGP) that borrows age, period and cohort effects from different equations in Reither et al. (2015). When HAPC models applied to data simulated from this DGP fail to recover the patterning of APC effects, B&J reiterate their view that these models provide “misleading evidence dressed up as science.” Despite such strong words, B&J show no curiosity about their own simulated data—and therefore once again misapply HAPC models to data that violate important assumptions. In this response, we illustrate how a careful analyst could have used simple descriptive plots and model selection statistics to verify that (a) period effects are not present in these data, and (b) age and cohort effects are conflated. By accounting for the characteristics of B&J's artificial data structure, we successfully recover the “true” DGP through an appropriately specified model. We conclude that B&Js main contribution to science is to remind analysts that APC models will fail in the presence of exact algebraic effects (i.e., effects with no random/stochastic components), and when collinear temporal dimensions are included without taking special care in the modeling process. The expanded list of coauthors on this commentary represents an emerging consensus among APC scholars that B&J's essential strategy—testing HAPC models with data simulated from contrived DGPs that violate important assumptions—is not a productive way to advance the discussion about innovative APC methods in epidemiology and the social sciences.
Non-Gaussian Shape Discrimination with Spectroscopic Galaxy Surveys
Creators: name: Byun, Joyce
name: Bean, Rachel
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: [Abridged] We consider how galaxy clustering data, from Mpc to Gpc scales, from upcoming large scale structure surveys, such as Euclid and DESI, can provide discriminating information about the bispectrum shape arising from a variety of inflationary scenarios. Through exploring in detail the weighting of shape properties in the calculation of the halo bias and halo mass function we show how they probe a broad range of configurations, beyond those in the squeezed limit, that can help distinguish between shapes with similar large scale bias behaviors. We assess the impact, on constraints for a diverse set of non-Gaussian shapes, of galaxy clustering information in the mildly non-linear regime, and surveys that span multiple redshifts and employ different galactic tracers of the dark matter distribution. Fisher forecasts are presented for a Euclid-like spectroscopic survey of H$α$-selected emission line galaxies (ELGs) using recent revisions of the expected H$α$ luminosity function, and a DESI-like survey, of luminous red galaxies (LRGs) and [O-II] doublet-selected ELGs, in combination with Planck-like CMB temperature and polarization data. While ELG samples provide better probes of shapes that are divergent in the squeezed limit, LRG constraints, centered below $z<1$, yield stronger constraints on shapes with scale-independent large-scale halo biases, such as the equilateral template. The ELG and LRG samples provide complementary degeneracy directions for distinguishing between different shapes. If the Gaussian galaxy bias is constrained to better than a percent level, such as can be determined from the galaxy bispectrum or weak lensing, then the LSS and CMB data could provide complementary constraints that will enable differentiation of bispectra with distinct theoretical origins but with similar large scale, squeezed-limit properties.
description: 29 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables; prepared for submission to JCAP; Fig 8a corrected
Diet and obesity in Los Angeles County 2007–2012: Is there a measurable effect of the 2008 “Fast-Food Ban”?
Creators: name: Sturm, Roland
name: Hattori, Aiko
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2015

description: We evaluate the impact of “Los Angeles Fast-Food Ban”, a zoning regulation that restricts opening/remodeling of standalone fast-food restaurants in South Los Angeles since 2008. Food retail permits issued after the ban are more often for small food/convenience stores and less often for larger restaurants not part of a chain in South Los Angeles compared to other areas; there are no significant differences in the share of new fast-food chain outlets, other chain restaurants, or large food markets. About 10% of food outlets are new since the regulation, but there is little evidence that the composition has changed differentially across areas. Data from the California Health Interview Survey show that fast-food consumption and overweight/obesity rates have increased from 2007 to 2011/2012 in all areas. The increase in the combined prevalence of overweight and obesity since the ban has been significantly larger in South Los Angeles than elsewhere. A positive development has been a drop in soft drink consumption since 2007, but that drop is of similar magnitude in all areas.
Probing electronic excitations in mono- to pentalayer graphene by micro-magneto-Raman spectroscopy
Creators: name: Berciaud, Stéphane
name: Potemski, Marek
name: Faugeras, Clément
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We probe electronic excitations between Landau levels in freestanding $N-$layer graphene over a broad energy range, with unprecedented spectral and spatial resolution, using micro-magneto Raman scattering spectroscopy. A characteristic evolution of electronic bands in up to five Bernal-stacked graphene layers is evidenced and shown to remarkably follow a simple theoretical approach, based on an effective bilayer model. $(N>3)$-layer graphene appear as appealing candidates in the quest for novel phenomena, particularly in the quantum Hall effect regime. Our work paves the way towards minimally-invasive investigations of magneto-excitons in other emerging low-dimensional systems, with a spatial resolution down to 1$~μ$m.
description: to appear in Nano Letters
Flexible positions, managed hopes: The promissory bioeconomy of a whole genome sequencing cancer study
Creators: name: Haase, Rachel
name: Michie, Marsha
name: Skinner, Debra
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2015

description: Genomic research has rapidly expanded its scope and ambition over the past decade, promoted by both public and private sectors as having the potential to revolutionize clinical medicine. This promissory bioeconomy of genomic research and technology is generated by, and in turn generates, the hopes and expectations shared by investors, researchers and clinicians, patients, and the general public alike. Examinations of such bioeconomies have often focused on the public discourse, media representations, and capital investments that fuel these “regimes of hope,” but also crucial are the more intimate contexts of small-scale medical research, and the private hopes, dreams, and disappointments of those involved. Here we examine one local site of production in a university-based clinical research project that sought to identify novel cancer predisposition genes through whole genome sequencing in individuals at high risk for cancer. In-depth interviews with 24 adults who donated samples to the study revealed an ability to shift flexibly between positioning themselves as research participants on the one hand, and as patients or as family members of patients, on the other. Similarly, interviews with members of the research team highlighted the dual nature of their positions as researchers and as clinicians. For both parties, this dual positioning shaped their investment in the project and valuing of its possible outcomes. In their narratives, all parties shifted between these different relational positions as they managed hopes and expectations for the research project. We suggest that this flexibility facilitated study implementation and participation in the face of potential and probable disappointment on one or more fronts, and acted as a key element in the resilience of this local promissory bioeconomy. We conclude that these multiple dimensions of relationality and positionality are inherent and essential in the creation of any complex economy, “bio” or otherwise.
CAPABLE D1.2: Data Management Plan
Creators: name: Parimbelli, Enea
name: Cornet, Ronald
name: Gabetta, Matteo
name: Tibollo, Valentina
name: Bottalico, Barbara
name: Fraterman, Itske
name: Boekhout, Annelies
name: Gilboa-Solomon, Flora
name: Quaglini, Silvana
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023

description: This Data Management Plan (DMP) addresses the relevant aspects of making data FAIR – findable, accessible, interoperable and re-usable.
description: This deliverable is part of a project receiving funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 875052.
The Quasi-Roche lobe overflow state in the evolution of Close Binary Systems containing a radio pulsar
Creators: name: Benvenuto, O. G.
name: De Vito, M. A.
name: Horvath, J. E.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We study the evolution of close binary systems formed by a normal (solar composition), intermediate mass donor star together with a neutron star. We consider models including irradiation feedback and evaporation. These non-standard ingredients deeply modify the mass transfer stages of these binaries. While models that neglect irradiation feedback undergo continuous, long standing mass transfer episodes, models including these effect suffer a number cycles of mass transfer and detachment. During mass transfer the systems should reveal themselves as low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs), whereas when detached they behave as a binary radio pulsars. We show that at these stages irradiated models are in a Roche lobe overflow (RLOF) state or in a quasi-RLOF state. Quasi-RLOF stars have a radius slightly smaller than its Roche lobe. Remarkably, these conditions are attained for orbital period and donor mass values in the range corresponding to a family of binary radio pulsars known as "redbacks". Thus, redback companions should be quasi-RLOF stars. We show that the characteristics of the redback system PSR J1723-2837 are accounted for by these models. In each mass transfer cycle these systems should switch from LMXB to binary radio pulsar states with a timescale of \sim million years. However, there is recent and fast growing evidence of systems switching on far shorter, human timescales. This should be related to instabilities in the accretion disc surrounding the neutron star and/or radio ejection, still to be included in the model having the quasi-RLOF state as a general condition.
description: 27 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal
Happiness and longevity in the United States
Creators: name: Lawrence, Elizabeth M.
name: Wadsworth, Tim
name: Rogers, Richard G.
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2015

description: This is the first study to our knowledge to examine the relationship between happiness and longevity among a nationally representative sample of adults. We use the recently-released General Social Survey-National Death Index dataset and Cox proportional hazards models to reveal that overall happiness is related to longer lives among U.S. adults. Indeed, compared to very happy people, the risk of death over the follow-up period is 6% (95% CI 1.01 – 1.11) higher among individuals who are pretty happy and 14% (95% CI 1.06 – 1.22) higher among those who are not happy, net of marital status, socioeconomic status, census division, and religious attendance. This study provides support for happiness as a stand-alone indicator of well-being that should be used more widely in social science and health research.
Dataset of "Development of a parametric tropical cyclone wave height prediction model"
Creators: name: Santiago Grossmann Matheson, Guisela
name: YOUNG, IAN
Publisher: name: University of Melbourne
Year: 2023
Subjects: classificationCode: 370803
subject: Physical oceanography

description: This dataset contains sample code and wave spatial distributions to apply the wave height parametric model published by Grossmann-Matheson et al. [2023]. Content: Folder: Hsmax_diagrams (including wave*.mat files) Files: Readme.txt, Find_Hs_TC.m, PModel.m, rotate_get_hs.m Find cite and find further information in: Grossmann-Matheson et al., 2023, Development of a parametric tropical cyclone wave height prediction model, Ocean Engineering (submitted), DOI: (to update)
Impact of the Kenya Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children on early pregnancy and marriage of adolescent girls
Creators: name: Peterman, Amber
name: Handa, Sudhanshu
name: Thirumurthy, Harsha
name: Halpern, Carolyn
name: Pettifor, Audrey
name: Huang, Carolyn
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2015

description: There is promising evidence that poverty-targeted cash transfer programs can have positive impacts on adolescent transitions to adulthood in resource poor settings, however existing research is typically from small scale programs in diverse geographic and cultural settings. We provide estimates of the impact of a national unconditional cash transfer program, the Kenya Cash Transfer for Orphans and Vulnerable Children, on pregnancy and early marriage among females aged 12 to 24, four years after program initiation. The evaluation was designed as a clustered randomized controlled trial and ran from 2007 to 2011, capitalizing on the existence of a control group, which was delayed entry to the program due to budget constraints. Findings indicate that, among 1,549 females included in the study, while the program reduced the likelihood of pregnancy by five percentage points, there was no significant impact on likelihood of early marriage. Program impacts on pregnancy appear to work through increasing the enrollment of young women in school, financial stability of the household and delayed age at first sex. The Kenyan program is similar in design to most other major national cash transfer programs in Eastern and Southern Africa, suggesting a degree of generalizability of the results reported here. Although the objective of the program is primarily poverty alleviation, it appears to have an important impact on facilitating the successful transition of adolescent girls into adulthood.
Losing jobs and lighting up: Employment experiences and smoking in the Great Recession
Creators: name: Perreira, Krista M.
name: Golden, Shelley D.
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2015

description: The Great Recession produced the highest rates of unemployment observed in decades, in part due to particularly high rates of people losing work involuntarily. The impact of these job losses on health is unknown, due to the length of time required for most disease development, concerns about reverse causation, and limited data that covers this time period. We examine associations between job loss, employment status and smoking, the leading preventable cause of death, among 13,571 individuals participating in the 2001-2011 waves of the U.S.-based Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Results indicate that recent involuntary job loss is associated with an average 1.1 percentage point increase in smoking probability. This risk is strongest when people have returned to work, and appears reversed when they leave the labor market altogether. Although some job loss is associated with changes in household income and psychological distress levels, we find no evidence that these changes explain smoking behavior modifications. Smoking prevention programs and policies targeted at displaced workers or the newly employed may alleviate some negative health effects produced by joblessness during the Great Recession.
The Inability of the White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer to Spectrally Resolve Spacetime Distortions
Creators: name: Lee, Jeff
name: Cleaver, Gerald
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: General Physics (physics.gen-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: This paper contends that the spacetime distortions resulting from the experimentally obtainable electric field of a parallel plate capacitor configuration cannot be detected by the White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer [1]. Any post-processing results indicating a vanishing, non-zero difference between the charged and uncharged states of the capacitor are due to local effects rather than spacetime perturbations.
description: 6 pages, 2 figures
Base Pairing Promoted the Self-Organization of Genetic Coding, Catalysis, and Free-Energy Transduction
Creators: name: Carter, Charles W.
Publisher: name: MDPI
Year: 2024

description: How Nature discovered genetic coding is a largely ignored question, yet the answer is key to explaining the transition from biochemical building blocks to life. Other, related puzzles also fall inside the aegis enclosing the codes themselves. The peptide bond is unstable with respect to hydrolysis. So, it requires some form of chemical free energy to drive it. Amino acid activation and acyl transfer are also slow and must be catalyzed. All living things must thus also convert free energy and synchronize cellular chemistry. Most importantly, functional proteins occupy only small, isolated regions of sequence space. Nature evolved heritable symbolic data processing to seek out and use those sequences. That system has three parts: a memory of how amino acids behave in solution and inside proteins, a set of code keys to access that memory, and a scoring function. The code keys themselves are the genes for cognate pairs of tRNA and aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, AARSs. The scoring function is the enzymatic specificity constant, kcat/kM, which measures both catalysis and specificity. The work described here deepens the evidence for and understanding of an unexpected consequence of ancestral bidirectional coding. Secondary structures occur in approximately the same places within antiparallel alignments of their gene products. However, the polar amino acids that define the molecular surface of one are reflected into core-defining non-polar side chains on the other. Proteins translated from base-paired coding strands fold up inside out. Bidirectional genes thus project an inverted structural duality into the proteome. I review how experimental data root the scoring functions responsible for the origins of coding and catalyzed activation of unfavorable chemical reactions in that duality.
Mental health service use by cleanup workers in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
Creators: name: Lowe, Sarah R.
name: Kwok, Richard K.
name: Engel, Lawrence S.
name: Sandler, Dale P.
name: Galea, Sandro
name: Payne, Julianne
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2015

description: High rates of mental health (MH) problems have been documented among disaster relief workers. However, few workers utilize MH services, and predictors of service use among this group remain unexplored. The purpose of this study was to explore associations between predisposing, illness-related, and enabling factors from Andersen’s behavioral model of treatment-seeking and patterns of service use among participants who completed at least one full day of cleanup work after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and participated in home visits for the NIEHS GuLF STUDY (N = 8,931). Workers reported on MH symptoms and whether they had used counseling or medication for MH problems since the oil spill. Hierarchical logistic regression models explored associations between predictors and counseling and medication use in the full sample, and type of use (counseling only, medication only, both) among participants who used either service. Analyses were replicated for subsamples of participants with and without symptom inventory scores suggestive of probable post-disaster mental illness. Having a pre-spill MH diagnosis, pre-spill service use, more severe post-spill MH symptoms, and healthcare coverage were positively associated with counseling and medication use in the full sample. Among participants who used either service, non-Hispanic Black race, pre-spill counseling, lower depression, and not identifying a personal doctor or healthcare provider were predictive of counseling only, whereas older age, female gender and pre-spill medication were predictive of medication only. The results were generally consistent among participants with and without probable post-disaster mental illness. The results suggest variability in which factors within Andersen’s behavioral model are predictive of different patterns of service use among disaster relief workers.
Gauge field, strings, solitons, anomalies and the speed of life
Creators: name: Niemi, Antti J.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Mathematical Physics (math-ph)
subject: Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
subject: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
subject: Pattern Formation and Solitons (nlin.PS)
subject: Biomolecules (q-bio.BM)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Biological sciences

description: It's been said that "mathematics is biology's next microscope, only better; biology is mathematics' next physics, only better". Here we aim for something even better. We try to combine mathematical physics and biology into a picoscope of life. For this we merge techniques which have been introduced and developed in modern mathematical physics, largely by Ludvig Faddeev to describe objects such as solitons and Higgs and to explain phenomena such as anomalies in gauge fields. We propose a synthesis that can help to resolve the protein folding problem, one of the most important conundrums in all of science. We apply the concept of gauge invariance to scrutinize the extrinsic geometry of strings in three dimensional space. We evoke general principles of symmetry in combination with Wilsonian universality and derive an essentially unique Landau-Ginzburg energy that describes the dynamics of a generic string-like configuration in the far infrared. We observe that the energy supports topological solitons, that pertain to an anomaly in the manner how a string is framed around its inflection points. We explain how the solitons operate as modular building blocks from which folded proteins are composed. We describe crystallographic protein structures by multi-solitons with experimental precision, and investigate the non-equilibrium dynamics of proteins under varying temperature. We simulate the folding process of a protein at in vivo speed and with close to pico-scale accuracy using a standard laptop computer: With pico-biology as mathematical physics' next pursuit, things can only get better.
description: A section on thermostatting has been reformulated
Neural imaginaries and clinical epistemology: Rhetorically mapping the adolescent brain in the clinical encounter
Creators: name: Buchbinder, Mara
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2015

description: The social work of brain images has taken center stage in recent theorizing of the intersections between neuroscience and society. However, neuroimaging is only one of the discursive modes through which public representations of neurobiology travel. This article adopts an expanded view toward the social implications of neuroscientific thinking to examine how neural imaginaries are constructed in the absence of visual evidence. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted over 18 months (2008–2009) in a United States multidisciplinary pediatric pain clinic, I examine the pragmatic clinical work undertaken to represent ambiguous symptoms in neurobiological form. Focusing on one physician, I illustrate how, by rhetorically mapping the brain as a therapeutic tool, she engaged in a distinctive form of representation that I call neural imagining. In shifting my focus away from the purely material dimensions of brain images, I juxtapose the cultural work of brain scanning technologies with clinical neural imaginaries in which the teenage brain becomes a space of possibility, not to map things as they are, but rather, things as we hope they might be. These neural imaginaries rely upon a distinctive clinical epistemology that privileges the creative work of the imagination over visualization technologies in revealing the truths of the body. By creating a therapeutic space for adolescents to exercise their imaginative faculties and a discursive template for doing so, neural imagining relocates adolescents’ agency with respect to epistemologies of bodily knowledge and the role of visualization practices therein. In doing so, it provides a more hopeful alternative to the dominant popular and scientific representations of the teenage brain that view it primarily through the lens of pathology.
Peering into the pharmaceutical “pipeline”: Investigational drugs, clinical trials, and industry priorities
Creators: name: Kalbaugh, Corey A.
name: Fisher, Jill A.
name: Cottingham, Marci D.
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2015

description: In spite of a growing literature on pharmaceuticalization, little is known about the pharmaceutical industry’s investments in research and development (R&D). Information about the drugs being developed can provide important context for existing case studies detailing the expanding – and often problematic – role of pharmaceuticals in society. To access the pharmaceutical industry’s pipeline, we constructed a database of drugs for which pharmaceutical companies reported initiating clinical trials over a five-year period (July 2006-June 2011), capturing 2,477 different drugs in 4,182 clinical trials. Comparing drugs in the pipeline that target diseases in high-income and low-income countries, we found that the number of drugs for diseases prevalent in high-income countries was 3.46 times higher than drugs for diseases prevalent in low-income countries. We also found that the plurality of drugs in the pipeline were being developed to treat cancers (26.2%). Interpreting our findings through the lens of pharmaceuticalization, we illustrate how investigating the entire drug development pipeline provides important information about patterns of pharmaceuticalization that are invisible when only marketed drugs are considered.
Should age-period-cohort studies return to the methodologies of the 1970s?
Creators: name: Zheng, Hui
name: Reither, Eric N.
name: Powers, Daniel A.
name: Yang, Yang Claire
name: Land, Kenneth C.
name: Masters, Ryan K.
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2015

description: Social scientists have recognized the importance of age-period-cohort (APC) models for half a century, but have spent much of this time mired in debates about the feasibility of APC methods. Recently, a new class of APC methods based on modern statistical knowledge has emerged, offering potential solutions. In 2009, Reither, Hauser and Yang used one of these new methods – hierarchical APC (HAPC) modeling – to study how birth cohorts may have contributed to the U.S. obesity epidemic. They found that recent birth cohorts experience higher odds of obesity than their predecessors, but that ubiquitous period-based changes are primarily responsible for the rising prevalence of obesity. Although these findings have been replicated elsewhere, recent commentaries by Bell and Jones call them into question – along with the new class of APC methods. Specifically, Bell and Jones claim that new APC methods do not adequately address model identification and suggest that “solid theory” is often sufficient to remove one of the three temporal dimensions from empirical consideration. They also present a series of simulation models that purportedly show how the HAPC models estimated by Reither et al. (2009) could have produced misleading results. However, these simulation models rest on assumptions that there were no period effects, and associations between period and cohort variables and the outcome were perfectly linear. Those are conditions under which APC models should never be used. Under more tenable assumptions, our own simulations show that HAPC methods perform well, both in recovering the main findings presented by Reither et al. (2009) and the results reported by Bell and Jones. We also respond to critiques about model identification and theoretically-imposed constraints, finding little pragmatic support for such arguments. We conclude by encouraging social scientists to move beyond the debates of the 1970s and toward a deeper appreciation for modern APC methodologies.
A Strained Silicon Cold Electron Bolometer using Schottky Contacts
Creators: name: Brien, T. L. R.
name: Ade, P. A. R.
name: Barry, P. S.
name: Dunscombe, C.
name: Leadley, D. R.
name: Morozov, D. V.
name: Myronov, M.
name: Parker, E. H. C.
name: Prunnila, M.
name: Prest, M. J.
name: Sudiwala, R. V.
name: Whall, T. E.
name: Mauskopf, P. D.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: Instrumentation and Detectors (physics.ins-det)
subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We describe optical characterisation of a Strained Silicon Cold Electron Bolometer (CEB), operating on a $350~\mathrm{mK}$ stage, designed for absorption of millimetre-wave radiation. The silicon Cold Electron Bolometer utilises Schottky contacts between a superconductor and an n++ doped silicon island to detect changes in the temperature of the charge carriers in the silicon, due to variations in absorbed radiation. By using strained silicon as the absorber, we decrease the electron-phonon coupling in the device and increase the responsivity to incoming power. The strained silicon absorber is coupled to a planar aluminium twin-slot antenna designed to couple to $160~\mathrm{GHz}$ and that serves as the superconducting contacts. From the measured optical responsivity and spectral response, we calculate a maximum optical efficiency of $50~\%$ for radiation coupled into the device by the planar antenna and an overall noise equivalent power (NEP), referred to absorbed optical power, of $1.1 \times 10^{-16}~\mathrm{\mbox{W Hz}^{-1/2}}$ when the detector is observing a $300~\mathrm{K}$ source through a $4~\mathrm{K}$ throughput limiting aperture. Even though this optical system is not optimised we measure a system noise equivalent temperature difference (NETD) of $6~\mathrm{\mbox{mK Hz}^{-1/2}}$. We measure the noise of the device using a cross-correlation of time stream data measured simultaneously with two junction field-effect transistor (JFET) amplifiers, with a base correlated noise level of $300~\mathrm{\mbox{pV Hz}^{-1/2}}$ and find that the total noise is consistent with a combination of photon noise, current shot noise and electron-phonon thermal noise.
description: Published in Applied Physics Letters, 105, pp. 043509
Ambient air pollution and consumer spending: Evidence from Spain
Creators: name: Hsu, Angel
name: Janaskie, Sophie
name: Brandt, John
name: Moroney, Matthew
name: Goyal, Nihit
Publisher: name: Public Library of Science
Year: 2024

description: Research on the economic burden of air pollution has focused primarily on its macroeconomic impact. However, as some studies have found that air pollution can lead to avoidance behavior–for example, reducing the time spent outdoors–we hypothesize that it can also influence consumer spending activity. We combine high frequency data on ozone and fine particulate pollution with daily consumer spending in brick-and-mortar retail in 129 postal codes in Spain during 2014 to estimate the association between the two. Using a linear fixed effects model, we find that a 1-standard deviation increase in ozone concentration (20.97 μg/m3) is associated with 3.9 percent decrease in consumer spending (95% CI: -0.066, -0.012; p<0.01). The association of fine particulate matter with consumer spending is, however, not statistically significant (β: 0.005; 95% CI: -0.009, 0.018; p>0.10). Further, we do not observe a sufficiently strong bounce-back in consumer spending in the day–or even the week–following higher ozone concentration. Also, we find that the relationship between ozone concentration and consumer spending is heterogeneous, with those aged below 25 and those aged 45 or above exhibiting stronger negative association. This research informs policymakers about a plausibly unaccounted cost of ambient air pollution, even at concentrations lower than the WHO air quality guideline for short-term exposure.
Siblings, friends, course-mates, club-mates: How adolescent health behavior homophily varies by race, class, gender, and health status
Creators: name: Daw, Jonathan
name: Margolis, Rachel
name: Verdery, Ashton M.
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2015

description: Many unhealthy behaviors develop during adolescence, and these behaviors can have fundamental consequences for health and mortality in adulthood. Social network structure and the degree of homophily in a network affect how health behaviors and innovations are spread. However, the degree of health behavior homophily across different social ties and within subpopulations is unknown. This paper addresses this gap in the literature by using a novel regression model to document the degree of homophily across various relationship types and subpopulations for behaviors of interest that are related to health outcomes. These patterns in health behavior homophily have implications for which behaviors and ties should be the subjects of future research and for predicting how homophily may shape health programs focused on specific subpopulations (gender, race, class, health status) or a specific social context (families, peer groups, classrooms, or school activities).
Premessa a «Il semplice. Vite e voci di una rivista»
Creators: name: Menetti, Elisabetta
name: Monina, Cecilia
Publisher: name: Griseldaonline
Year: 2023

description: La premessa alla sezione tematica del volume 22 n. 1 (Il semplice. Vite e voci di una rivista) spiega l’origine, i metodi, le finalità e le novità delle più recenti ricerche dedicate alla rivista «Il semplice. Almanacco delle prose» (1995-1997), uno dei laboratori più interessanti del panorama italiano di fine millennio. In questa premessa si introducono alcune questioni fondamentali, affrontate nei singoli saggi, che riguardano le idee e le suggestioni che Gianni Celati ha trasmesso alla rivista. Il «Semplice» è stata una fucina inesauribile di narrazioni brevi di cui l’archivio delle carte, custodito nella Biblioteca della Fondazione Collegio San Carlo di Modena e presentato in questo fascicolo per la prima volta, offrirà alla comunità scientifica nuove occasioni di studio e di ricerca.
description: Griseldaonline, Vol. 22 No. 1 (2023): Il semplice. Vite e voci di una rivista
Emergent bubbling geometries in gauge theories with SU(2|4) symmetry
Creators: name: Asano, Yuhma
name: Ishiki, Goro
name: Shimasaki, Shinji
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We study the gauge/gravity duality between bubbling geometries in type IIA supergravity and gauge theories with SU(2|4) symmetry, which consist of N=4 super Yang-Mills on $R\times S^3/Z_k$, N=8 super Yang-Mills on $R\times S^2$ and the plane wave matrix model. We show that the geometries are realized as field configurations in the strong coupling region of the gauge theories. On the gravity side, the bubbling geometries can be mapped to electrostatic systems with conducting disks. We derive integral equations which determine the charge densities on the disks. On the gauge theory side, we obtain a matrix integral by applying the localization to a 1/4-BPS sector of the gauge theories. The eigenvalue densities of the matrix integral turn out to satisfy the same integral equations as the charge densities on the gravity side. Thus we find that these two objects are equivalent.
description: 29 pages, 3 figures; v2: typos corrected and a reference added
The geography of malaria genetics in the Democratic Republic of Congo: A complex and fragmented landscape
Creators: name: Mwandagalirwa, Melchior Kashamuka
name: McCollum, Andrea
name: Meshnick, Steven
name: Emch, Michael
name: Alam, Md Tauqeer
name: Janko, Mark
name: Udhayakumar, Venkatachalam
name: Escalante, Ananias A.
name: Carrel, Margaret
name: Tshefu, Antoinette K.
name: Taylor, Steve M.
name: Patel, Jaymin
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2015

description: Understanding how malaria parasites move between populations is important, particularly given the potential for malaria to be reintroduced into areas where it was previously eliminated. We examine the distribution of malaria genetics across seven sites within the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and two nearby countries, Ghana and Kenya, in order to understand how the relatedness of malaria parasites varies across space, and whether there are barriers to the flow of malaria parasites within the DRC or across borders. Parasite DNA was retrieved from dried blood spots from 7 Demographic and Health Survey sample clusters in the DRC. Malaria genetic characteristics of parasites from Ghana and Kenya were also obtained. For each of 9 geographic sites (7 DRC, 1 Ghana and 1 Kenya), a pair-wise RST statistic was calculated, indicating the genetic distance between malaria parasites found in those locations. Mapping genetics across the spatial extent of the study area indicates a complex genetic landscape, where relatedness between two proximal sites may be relatively high (RST > 0.64) or low (RST < 0.05), and where distal sites also exhibit both high and low genetic similarity. Mantel’s tests suggest that malaria genetics differ as geographic distances increase. Principal Coordinate Analysis suggests that genetically related samples are not co-located. Barrier analysis reveals no significant barriers to gene flow between locations. Malaria genetics in the DRC have a complex and fragmented landscape. Limited exchange of genes across space is reflected in greater genetic distance between malaria parasites isolated at greater geographic distances. There is, however, evidence for close genetic ties between distally located sample locations, indicating that movement of malaria parasites and flow of genes is being driven by factors other than distance decay. This research demonstrates the contributions that spatial disease ecology and landscape genetics can make to understanding the evolutionary dynamics of infectious diseases.
«Il Ventre di Napoli» di Matilde Serao: vicende testuali e variantistiche
Creators: name: Santagata, Maria
Publisher: name: Griseldaonline
Year: 2023

description: Questo articolo si propone di preparare il terreno per un’edizione criticamente fondata che dia conto del tracciato variantistico di uno dei capolavori di Matilde Serao, Il ventre di Napoli. Si muove, infatti, dalla considerazione che la recente riscoperta di questa autrice e la riedizione sempre più frequente delle sue opere non sono accompagnate da un appropriato approfondimento filologico. Si intende analizzare la storia genetica del Ventre di Napoli composta di quattro stadi redazionali. Il testo fu pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1884 sul periodico romano «Capitan Fracassa»; nello stesso anno, uscì in volume per l’editore Treves. Quasi venti anni dopo, la Serao ripubblicò il testo a puntate, allungato con una nuova sezione, sulla rivista «La Settimana», e di nuovo in volume con l’editore Perrella nel 1906, con otto capitoli aggiuntivi. Il focus è rivolto ai risultati del confronto sistematico effettuato tra queste quattro versioni del testo per individuare le tendenze correttorie di Matilde Serao e analizzare quanto e cosa cambi nelle varie versioni del testo.
description: Griseldaonline, Vol. 22 No. 1 (2023): Il semplice. Vite e voci di una rivista
Pathways to the all-volunteer military*
Creators: name: Wang, Lin
name: Spence, Naomi J.
name: Elder, Glen H.
name: Adkins, Daniel E.
name: Brown, Tyson H.
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2010

description: The present study investigates the role of a disadvantaged background, the lack of social connectedness, and behavioral problems in channeling young men to the opportunities of the all-volunteer military instead of to college and the labor market.
Dynamic Field Theory and Equations of Motion in Cosmology
Creators: name: Kopeikin, Sergei M.
name: Petrov, Alexander N.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2014
Subjects: subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We discuss a field-theoretical approach based on variational principle to derive the field and hydrodynamic equations of motion of baryonic matter governed by cosmological perturbations of dark matter and dark energy. The action depends on the gravitational and matter Lagrangian. The gravitational Lagrangian depends on the metric tensor and its first and second derivatives. The matter Lagrangian includes dark matter, dark energy and the ordinary baryonic matter. The total Lagrangian is expanded in an asymptotic Taylor series around the background manifold defined as a solution of Einstein's equations in the form of the Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) metric tensor. The small parameter of the decomposition is the magnitude of the metric tensor perturbation. Each term of the series expansion is gauge-invariant and all of them together form a basis for the successive post-Friedmannian approximations. The approximation scheme is covariant and the asymptotic nature of the Lagrangian decomposition does not require the post-Friedmannian perturbations to be small though computationally it works the most effectively when the perturbed metric is close enough to the background FLRW metric. The temporal evolution of the background metric is governed by dark matter and dark energy and we associate the large scale inhomogeneities in these two components as those generated by the primordial cosmological perturbations. The small scale inhomogeneities are generated by the condensations of baryonic matter considered as the bare perturbations. We explicitly work out the covariant field equations of the successive post-Friedmannian approximations of Einstein's equations and derive equations of motion of large and small scale inhomogeneities of dark matter and dark energy. We apply these equations to derive the post-Friedmannian equations of motion of the baryonic matter.
description: 62 pages, no figures. Accepted to the Annals of Physics