Genetic Evidence for a Causal Role of Obesity in Diabetic Kidney Disease

Obesity has been posited as an independent risk factor for diabetic kidney disease (DKD), but establishing causality from observational data is problematic. We aimed to test whether obesity is causally related to DKD using Mendelian randomization, which exploits the random assortment of genes during meiosis. In 6,049 subjects with type 1 diabetes, we used a weighted genetic risk score (GRS) comprised of 32 validated BMI loci as an instrument to test the relationship of BMI with macroalbuminuria, end-stage renal disease (ESRD), or DKD defined as presence of macroalbuminuria or ESRD. We compared these results with cross-sectional and longitudinal observational associations. Longitudinal analysis demonstrated a U-shaped relationship of BMI with development of macroalbuminuria, ESRD, or DKD over time. Cross-sectional observational analysis showed no association with overall DKD, higher odds of macroalbuminuria (for every 1 kg/m(2) higher BMI, odds ratio [OR] 1.05, 95% CI 1.03-1.07, P < 0.001), and lower odds of ESRD (OR 0.95, 95% CI 0.93-0.97, P < 0.001). Mendelian randomization analysis showed a 1 kg/m(2) higher BMI conferring an increased risk in macroalbuminuria (OR 1.28, 95% CI 1.11-1.45, P = 0.001), ESRD (OR 1.43, 95% CI 1.20-1.72, P < 0.001), and DKD (OR 1.33, 95% CI 1.17-1.51, P < 0.001). Our results provide genetic evidence for a causal link between obesity and DKD in type 1 diabetes. As obesity prevalence rises, this finding predicts an increase in DKD prevalence unless intervention should occur.

Northern Ireland Representation at Westminster: Constitutional Conundrums and Political Manoeuvres

This article focuses on the issue of Northern Ireland's representation at Westminster. It investigates the political context of the decision to increase Northern Ireland's representation in the house of commons at Westminster from 12 members to 17 in 1978-9. Exploring this episode in more detail, it is argued, provides a more informed overall understanding of the history of devolution in the UK and of the way issues concerning Northern Ireland often overlapped with questions of constitutional change in Scotland and Wales. The article also throws light on the matter of Northern Ireland MPs and their voting rights at Westminster during Northern Ireland's experience of devolution prior to 1972.

An analysis of implied volatility jump dynamics: Novel functional data representation in crude oil markets

The predominant fear in capital markets is that of a price spike. Commodity markets differ in that there is a fear of both upward and down jumps, this results in implied volatility curves displaying distinct shapes when compared to equity markets. The use of a novel functional data analysis (FDA) approach, provides a framework to produce and interpret functional objects that characterise the underlying dynamics of oil future options. We use the FDA framework to examine implied volatility, jump risk, and pricing dynamics within crude oil markets. Examining a WTI crude oil sample for the 2007–2013 period, which includes the global financial crisis and the Arab Spring, strong evidence is found of converse jump dynamics during periods of demand and supply side weakness. This is used as a basis for an FDA-derived Merton (1976) jump diffusion optimised delta hedging strategy, which exhibits superior portfolio management results over traditional methods.

Behind the Headlines: Media Representation of Children and Young People in Northern Ireland:Summary of Research Findings

Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council this partnership project between the Childhood, Transition and Social Justice Initiative at Queen’s University and Include Youth focuses on the negative stereotyping of children and young people and the role and responsibilities of the media in the creation and transmission of negative images. Engaging with children, young people, organisations working with children and young people and media representatives, the project uses research evidence to explore negative media representation and its consequences for children’s rights, public reaction and policy initiatives in Northern Ireland. This report represents a summary of the findings of engagement with 141 children and young people. It outlines how they feel they are presented by the media and the impacts of this. It concludes by noting ways forward in challenging negative portrayals.

Age- and Sex-Specific Causal Effects of Adiposity on Cardiovascular Risk Factors

Observational studies have reported different effects of adiposity on cardiovascular risk factors across age and sex. Since cardiovascular risk factors are enriched in obese individuals, it has not been easy to dissect the effects of adiposity from those of other risk factors. We used a Mendelian randomization approach, applying a set of 32 genetic markers to estimate the causal effect of adiposity on blood pressure, glycemic indices, circulating lipid levels, and markers of inflammation and liver disease in up to 67,553 individuals. All analyses were stratified by age (cutoff 55 years of age) and sex. The genetic score was associated with BMI in both nonstratified analysis (P = 2.8 × 10(-107)) and stratified analyses (all P < 3.3 × 10(-30)). We found evidence of a causal effect of adiposity on blood pressure, fasting levels of insulin, C-reactive protein, interleukin-6, HDL cholesterol, and triglycerides in a nonstratified analysis and in the <55-year stratum. Further, we found evidence of a smaller causal effect on total cholesterol (P for difference = 0.015) in the ≥55-year stratum than in the <55-year stratum, a finding that could be explained by biology, survival bias, or differential medication. In conclusion, this study extends previous knowledge of the effects of adiposity by providing sex- and age-specific causal estimates on cardiovascular risk factors.

Children's use of interventions to learn causal structure

Children aged between 5 and 8 years freely intervened on a three-variable causal system, with their task being to discover whether it was a common-cause structure or one of two causal chains. From 6-7 years, children were able to use information from their interventions to correctly disambiguate the structure of a causal chain. We used a Bayesian model to examine children’s interventions on the system; this showed that with development children became more efficient in producing the interventions needed to disambiguate the causal structure and that the quality of interventions, as measured by their informativeness, improved developmentally. The latter measure was a significant predictor of children’s correct inferences about the causal structure. A second experiment showed that levels of performance were not reduced in a task in which children did not select and carry out interventions themselves, indicating no advantage for self-directed learning. However, children’s performance was not related to intervention quality in these circumstances, suggesting that children learn in a different way when they carry out interventions themselves.

Gender and Politics in Northern Ireland: the representation gap revisited

This article examines the nature of gender politics in Northern Ireland since the 1998 Good Friday/Belfast Agreement. Taking gender justice as a normative democratic framework, the article argues that despite the promise of women's equal participation in public and political life written into the Agreement, parties have delivered varied responses to integrating women, women's interests and perspectives into politics and policy platforms. This contrasts with general patterns supporting women's increased participation in social and political life. The article discusses women's descriptive and substantive representation through electoral outcomes and party manifestos, using the demands of successive women's manifestos as a benchmark. It concludes that while parties have given less recognition and inclusion to women than one might have expected in a new political context, the push for democratic accountability will ensure that gender politics will continue to have a place on the political agenda for some time to come.

Bringing Women In: Global strategies for gender parity in political representation

this article discusses the three main strategies employed across the globe to raise the levels of women's political representation

Role of early visual cortex in trans-saccadic memory of object features

Early visual cortex (EVC) participates in visual feature memory and the updating of remembered locations across saccades, but its role in the trans-saccadic integration of object features is unknown. We hypothesized that if EVC is involved in updating object features relative to gaze, feature memory should be disrupted when saccades remap an object representation into a simultaneously perturbed EVC site. To test this, we applied transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over functional magnetic resonance imaging-localized EVC clusters corresponding to the bottom left/right visual quadrants (VQs). During experiments, these VQs were probed psychophysically by briefly presenting a central object (Gabor patch) while subjects fixated gaze to the right or left (and above). After a short memory interval, participants were required to detect the relative change in orientation of a re-presented test object at the same spatial location. Participants either sustained fixation during the memory interval (fixation task) or made a horizontal saccade that either maintained or reversed the VQ of the object (saccade task). Three TMS pulses (coinciding with the pre-, peri-, and postsaccade intervals) were applied to the left or right EVC. This had no effect when (a) fixation was maintained, (b) saccades kept the object in the same VQ, or (c) the EVC quadrant corresponding to the first object was stimulated. However, as predicted, TMS reduced performance when saccades (especially larger saccades) crossed the remembered object location and brought it into the VQ corresponding to the TMS site. This suppression effect was statistically significant for leftward saccades and followed a weaker trend for rightward saccades. These causal results are consistent with the idea that EVC is involved in the gaze-centered updating of object features for trans-saccadic memory and perception.

Moral asymmetries in judgments of agency withstand ludicrous causal deviance

Americans have been shown to attribute greater intentionality to immoral than to amoral actions in cases of causal deviance, that is, cases where a goal is satisfied in a way that deviates from initially planned means (e.g., a gunman wants to hit a target and his hand slips, but the bullet ricochets off a rock into the target). However, past research has yet to assess whether this asymmetry persists in cases of extreme causal deviance. Here, we manipulated the level of mild to extreme causal deviance of an immoral versus amoral act. The asymmetry in attributions of intentionality was observed at all but the
most extreme level of causal deviance, and, as we hypothesized, was mediated by attributions of Blame/credit and judgments of action performance. These findings are discussed as they support a multiple-concepts interpretation of the asymmetry, wherein blame renders a naïve concept of intentional action (the outcome matches the intention) more salient than a composite concept (the outcome matches the intention and was brought about by planned means), and in terms of their implications for cross-cultural research on judgments of agency.

Gendered Candidate Selection and the Representation of Women in Northern Ireland

In an attempt to account for the exceptionally low levels of female representation in Northern Ireland, this paper provides an analysis of the contemporary candidate selection procedures of the region's five main political parties. Drawing on evidence gathered from 29 elite interviews, plus official internal party documents, the study finds that the localised nature of the parties' selection procedures may disadvantage women aspirants. Also important are ‘supply-side’ factors influencing legislative recruitment and female participation rates, namely the strongly embedded social norm of female domestic responsibility, a masculinised political culture and the lack of confidence of potential female candidates.