Associations between smoking behavior-related alleles and the risk of melanoma.

Several studies have reported that cigarette smoking is inversely associated with the risk of melanoma. This study further tested whether incorporating genetic factors will provide another level of evaluation of mechanisms underlying the association between smoking and risk of melanoma. We investigated the association between SNPs selected from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) on smoking behaviors and risk of melanoma using 2,298 melanoma cases and 6,654 controls. Among 16 SNPs, three (rs16969968 [A], rs1051730 [A] and rs2036534 [C] in the 15q25.1 region) reached significance for association with melanoma risk in men (0.01 < = P values < = 0.02; 0.85 < = Odds Ratios (ORs) <= 1.20). There was association between the genetic scores based on the number of smoking behavior-risk alleles and melanoma risk with P-trend = 0.005 among HPFS. Further association with smoking behaviors indicating those three SNPs (rs16969968 [A], rs1051730 [A] and rs2036534 [C]) significantly associated with number of cigarettes smoked per day, CPD, with P = 0.009, 0.011 and 0.001 respectively. The SNPs rs215605 in the PDE1C gene and rs6265 in the BDNF gene significantly interacted with smoking status on melanoma risk (interaction P = 0.005 and P = 0.003 respectively). Our study suggests that smoking behavior-related SNPs are likely to play a role in melanoma development and the potential public health importance of polymorphisms in the CHRNA5-A3-B4 gene cluster. Further larger studies are warranted to validate the findings.

Systematic characterization of thermodynamic and dynamical phase behavior in systems with short-ranged attraction

In this paper we demonstrate the feasibility and utility of an augmented version of the Gibbs ensemble Monte Carlo method for computing the phase behavior of systems with strong, extremely short-ranged attractions. For generic potential shapes, this approach allows for the investigation of narrower attractive widths than those previously reported. Direct comparison to previous self-consistent Ornstein-Zernike approximation calculations is made. A preliminary investigation of out-of-equilibrium behavior is also performed. Our results suggest that the recent observations of stable cluster phases in systems without long-ranged repulsions are intimately related to gas-crystal and metastable gas-liquid phase separation.

Socialization of Early Prosocial Behavior: Parents' Talk about Emotions is Associated with Sharing and Helping in Toddlers.

What role does socialization play in the origins of prosocial behavior? We examined one potential socialization mechanism, parents' discourse about others' emotions with very young children in whom prosocial behavior is still nascent. Two studies are reported, one of sharing in 18- and 24-month-olds (n = 29), and one of instrumental and empathy-based helping in 18- and 30-month-olds (n = 62). In both studies, parents read age-appropriate picture books to their children and the content and structure of their emotion-related and internal state discourse were coded. Results showed that children who helped and shared more quickly and more often, especially in tasks that required more complex emotion understanding, had parents who more often asked them to label and explain the emotions depicted in the books. Moreover, it was parents' elicitation of children's talk about emotions rather than parents' own production of emotion labels and explanations that explained children's prosocial behavior, even after controlling for age. Thus, it is the quality, not the quantity, of parents' talk about emotions with their toddlers that matters for early prosocial behavior.