Attachment and temperament in early childhood; implications for later behavior problems.

In the context of a French validation study, the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) was administered to more than 3000 French speaking mothers of 5-year-old children. Scores were factor-analyzed. Principal components analysis revealed four dimensions: externalizing and internalizing behavior problems, immaturity and somatoform disorders. Another sample of 40 mothers participated in a longitudinal study, filling in the CBCL when their children were 5 years old. These children had been observed previously in the Strange Situation (SSP) at 21 months. Several dichotomous variables derived from the SSP (e.g. secure versus insecure, proximal versus distal interaction with the mother, avoidant behavior) have been used as predictors of the four dimensions extracted from the CBCL. Hierarchical regressions showed that proximal behaviors with the mother, which reflect temperamental characteristics independently of the quality of attachment, predicted internalizing problems, whereas avoidance of the mother, or insecure-avoidant attachment, predicted internalizing as well as externalizing problems at 5 years of age. These results show that attachment and temperament, as assessed by the SSP, may each have specific implications for later behavior problems.

Multivariate QST-FST comparisons: a neutrality test for the evolution of the g matrix in structured populations.

Neutrality tests in quantitative genetics provide a statistical framework for the detection of selection on polygenic traits in wild populations. However, the existing method based on comparisons of divergence at neutral markers and quantitative traits (Q(st)-F(st)) suffers from several limitations that hinder a clear interpretation of the results with typical empirical designs. In this article, we propose a multivariate extension of this neutrality test based on empirical estimates of the among-populations (D) and within-populations (G) covariance matrices by MANOVA. A simple pattern is expected under neutrality: D = 2F(st)/(1 - F(st))G, so that neutrality implies both proportionality of the two matrices and a specific value of the proportionality coefficient. This pattern is tested using Flury's framework for matrix comparison [common principal-component (CPC) analysis], a well-known tool in G matrix evolution studies. We show the importance of using a Bartlett adjustment of the test for the small sample sizes typically found in empirical studies. We propose a dual test: (i) that the proportionality coefficient is not different from its neutral expectation [2F(st)/(1 - F(st))] and (ii) that the MANOVA estimates of mean square matrices between and among populations are proportional. These two tests combined provide a more stringent test for neutrality than the classic Q(st)-F(st) comparison and avoid several statistical problems. Extensive simulations of realistic empirical designs suggest that these tests correctly detect the expected pattern under neutrality and have enough power to efficiently detect mild to strong selection (homogeneous, heterogeneous, or mixed) when it is occurring on a set of traits. This method also provides a rigorous and quantitative framework for disentangling the effects of different selection regimes and of drift on the evolution of the G matrix. We discuss practical requirements for the proper application of our test in empirical studies and potential extensions.

Exogenous selection shapes germination behaviour and seedling traits of populations at different altitudes in a Senecio hybrid zone.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The Senecio hybrid zone on Mt Etna, Sicily, is characterized by steep altitudinal clines in quantitative traits and genetic variation. Such clines are thought to be maintained by a combination of 'endogenous' selection arising from genetic incompatibilities and environment-dependent 'exogenous' selection leading to local adaptation. Here, the hypothesis was tested that local adaptation to the altitudinal temperature gradient contributes to maintaining divergence between the parental species, S. chrysanthemifolius and S. aethnensis. METHODS: Intra- and inter-population crosses were performed between five populations from across the hybrid zone and the germination and early seedling growth of the progeny were assessed. KEY RESULTS: Seedlings from higher-altitude populations germinated better under low temperatures (9-13 °C) than those from lower altitude populations. Seedlings from higher-altitude populations had lower survival rates under warm conditions (25/15 °C) than those from lower altitude populations, but also attained greater biomass. There was no altitudinal variation in growth or survival under cold conditions (15/5 °C). Population-level plasticity increased with altitude. Germination, growth and survival of natural hybrids and experimentally generated F(1)s generally exceeded the worse-performing parent. CONCLUSIONS: Limited evidence was found for endogenous selection against hybrids but relatively clear evidence was found for divergence in seed and seedling traits, which is probably adaptive. The combination of low-temperature germination and faster growth in warm conditions might enable high-altitude S. aethnensis to maximize its growth during a shorter growing season, while the slower growth of S. chrysanthemifolius may be an adaptation to drought stress at low altitudes. This study indicates that temperature gradients are likely to be an important environmental factor generating and maintaining adaptive divergence across the Senecio hybrid zone on Mt Etna.

Don't cover up your problems

This pocket-sized leaflet advises young men not to cover up their problems and on the steps they can take to promote good mental health, such as keeping active, talking through problems and taking time to relax.

Risky single occasion drinking frequency and alcohol-related consequences: can abstinence during early adulthood lead to alcohol problems?

QUESTIONS UNDER STUDY: the main purpose of this longitudinal study was to determine the impact of risky single occasion drinking (RSOD) frequency on alcohol dependence and drinking consequences reported 15 months later. METHODS: As a baseline sample, 5,990 young men were assessed on their drinking habits including the frequency of RSOD. Of them, 5,196 were reassessed at follow-up 15 months later on RSOD frequency, alcohol dependence and alcohol related consequences in thze interceding year. Drop out biases were investigated. RESULTS: Around 45% of the baseline participants reported regular RSOD (every month or more frequently). Despite the fact that RSOD distribution was generally stable during the initial sample, 47.4% reported a variation of their RSOD frequency 15 months later. Around 25% of the sample reported reduced RSOD frequency. Nonetheless, occasional RS drinkers were more likely to become regular (monthly) RSO drinkers at follow up. Daily and weekly RSOD were associated with high proportions of alcohol dependence and detrimental consequences of drinking. Surprisingly, abstainers at baseline were more likely to be at risk of alcohol dependence and consequences at follow up than non-RSO drinkers. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the fact that alcohol abstinence is logically the best way to avoid the detrimental consequences of alcohol drinking, abstainers at baseline reported as many problems due to alcohol use at follow up as occasional or monthly RSO drinkers. The few participants who had become RSO drinkers during the follow up period were indeed likely to engage in detrimental behaviour. Non-RSO drinkers had the fewest problems due to alcohol use. This substantiates the early occurrence of drinking consequences among inexperienced RSO drinkers.

Fuel Poverty and Cold Home-related Health Problems

Evidence Review 7 - Tackling fuel poverty and cold home-related health problems Briefing 7 - Fuel poverty and cold home-related health problems This pair of documents, commissioned by Public Health England, and written by the UCL Institute of Health Equity, address the health impacts of fuel poverty and cold homes. These documents provide an overview of fuel poverty, describing the evidence linking fuel poverty, cold homes, and poor health outcomes. They examine the scale of the problem across England and trends over time. Evidence shows that living in cold homes is associated with poor health outcomes and an increased risk of morbidity and mortality for all age groups. The documents also provide a brief overview of national policy and sets out the role of local authorities and potential interventions at local level. Fuel poverty is not just about poverty, but also about the quality of England’s housing stock and energy efficiency. The review discusses some of the interventions that have been implemented at the local level to help people on low incomes during cold weather and to address cold home-related health problems. The full evidence review and a shorter summary briefing are available to download above. This document is part of a series. An overview document which provides an introduction to this and other documents in the series, and links to the other topic areas, is available on the ‘Local Action on health inequalities’ project page. A video of Michael Marmot introducing the work is also available on our videos page.

A Study of Alcohol Problems and Marriage from a Treatment Perspective

This thesis is concerned with alcohol problems and marital relationships. It is particularly interested in these dynamics from a treatment perspective. The study addresses theory, research and clinical practice in the field of alcohol problems. It specifically considers these areas as they relate to enhancing understanding of the dynamics between alcohol problems and marriage. The study examines three theoretical paradigms, the disease concept of addiction, behavioural/cognitive behavioural and systems based approaches to understanding alcohol addiction. This provides a multiple theory base from which research in the field and the clinical data collected in the current research is analysed and interpreted. The study reviews research findings that have contributed to the recognition of marital treatment interventions as significant in the alcohol field. It highlights the discrepancies between such research findings and developments in actual clinical practice. In doing so, the study illustrates the gap between theory, research and clinical practice. The need for a more effective framework of information exchange across these areas of activity is identified and a model for better exchange is presented and discussed. This model highlights the importance of including clients' experiences to influence policy, practice, theory and research. In the research, specific attention is focused on the experiences of couples in alcohol treatment. Clinical data is collected from a series of alcohol treatment couples group therapy sessions. The research analysis of the clinical data identifies and extracts concerns as expressed by couples in treatment. Interpretation of these identified concerns or themes is conducted by employing the theoretical constructs of the three selected theoretical paradigms in conjunction with group work theory. On the basis of the findings in this thesis a model for a maritally sensitive assessment framework is developed. The model identifies a number of factors that should be considered in order to enhance appreciation of the interaction between alcohol problems and marital dynamics. This has particular significance for treatment interventions.This resource was contributed by The National Documentation Centre on Drug Use.

Mechanisms governing lentivirus integration site selection.

An essential step of the life cycle of retroviruses is the stable insertion of a copy of their DNA genome into the host cell genome, and lentiviruses are no exception. This integration step, catalyzed by the viral-encoded integrase, ensures long-term expression of the viral genes, thus allowing a productive viral replication and rendering retroviral vectors also attractive for the field of gene therapy. At the same time, this ability to integrate into the host genome raises safety concerns regarding the use of retroviral-based gene therapy vectors, due to the genomic locations of integration sites. The availability of the human genome sequence made possible the analysis of the integration site preferences, which revealed to be nonrandom and retrovirus-specific, i.e. all lentiviruses studied so far favor integration in active transcription units, while other retroviruses have a different integration site distribution. Several mechanisms have been proposed that may influence integration targeting, which include (i) chromatin accessibility, (ii) cell cycle effects, and (iii) tethering proteins. Recent data provide evidence that integration site selection can occur via a tethering mechanism, through the recruitment of the lentiviral integrase by the cellular LEDGF/p75 protein, both proteins being the two major players in lentiviral integration targeting.

Does income inequality cause health and social problems?

Key points• The literature shows general agreement about a correlation between income inequality and health/social problems. • There is less agreement about whether income inequality causes health and social problems independently of other factors, but some rigorous studies have found evidence of this. • The independent effect of income inequality on health/social problems shown in some studies looks small in statistical terms. But these studies cover whole populations, and hence a significant number of lives. • Some research suggests that inequality is particularly harmful beyond a certain threshold. Britain was below this threshold in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s, but rose past it in 1986–7 and has settled well above it since 1998–9. If the threshold is significant it could provide a target for policy. • Anxiety about status might explain income inequality’s effect on health and social problems. If so, inequality is harmful because it places people in a hierarchy which increases competition for status, causing stress and leading to poor health and other negative outcomes. • Not all research shows an independent effect of income inequality on health/social problems. Some highlights the role of individual income (poverty/material circumstances), culture/history, ethnicity and welfare state institutions/social policies. • The author concludes that there is a strong case for further research on income inequality and discussion of the policy implications.This resource was contributed by The National Documentation Centre on Drug Use.

Liver Transplantation for Neuroendocrine Tumors in Europe-Results and Trends in Patient Selection: A 213-Case European Liver Transplant Registry Study.

OBJECTIVE:: The purpose of this study was to assess outcomes and indications in a large cohort of patients who underwent liver transplantation (LT) for liver metastases (LM) from neuroendocrine tumors (NET) over a 27-year period. BACKGROUND:: LT for NET remains controversial due to the absence of clear selection criteria and the scarcity and heterogeneity of reported cases. METHODS:: This retrospective multicentric study included 213 patients who underwent LT for NET performed in 35 centers in 11 European countries between 1982 and 2009. One hundred seven patients underwent transplantation before 2000 and 106 after 2000. Mean age at the time of LT was 46 years. Half of the patients presented hormone secretion and 55% had hepatomegaly. Before LT, 83% of patients had undergone surgical treatment of the primary tumor and/or LM and 76% had received chemotherapy. The median interval between diagnosis of LM and LT was 25 months (range, 1-149 months). In addition to LT, 24 patients underwent major resection procedures and 30 patients underwent minor resection procedures. RESULTS:: Three-month postoperative mortality was 10%. At 5 years after LT, overall survival (OS) was 52% and disease-free survival was 30%. At 5 years from diagnosis of LM, OS was 73%. Multivariate analysis identified 3 predictors of poor outcome, that is, major resection in addition to LT, poor tumor differentiation, and hepatomegaly. Since 2000, 5-year OS has increased to 59% in relation with fewer patients presenting poor prognostic factors. Multivariate analysis of the 106 cases treated since 2000 identified the following predictors of poor outcome: hepatomegaly, age more than 45 years, and any amount of resection concurrent with LT. CONCLUSIONS:: LT is an effective treatment of unresectable LM from NET. Patient selection based on the aforementioned predictors can achieve a 5-year OS between 60% and 80%. However, use of overly restrictive criteria may deny LT to some patients who could benefit. Optimal timing for LT in patients with stable versus progressive disease remains unclear.

Indicators of inequality: Classification and selection of ethnic health disparity indicators

Classification and selection of ethnic disparity health indicators in New Zealand

Cleaning up neighbourhoods - Environmental Problems and Service Provision in Deprived areas

There has been growing concern that the quality of public services can be affected by the nature and scale of problems in deprived neighbourhoods and that poor services can contribute to a widening gap۪ between deprived and non-deprived neighbourhoods. There is also an increased emphasis within national policy on the quality of neighbourhood environments the so-called liveability۪ agenda. This report explores the challenges of delivering street scene۪ environmental services such as street sweeping and refuse collection in deprived and less deprived areas and examines the gap in environmental amenity between these different neighbourhoods. It also contributes to our understanding of the interplay between poor services and neighbourhood decline. The research involved a telephone survey of chief officers in local authority environmental service departments across the UK and detailed case studies of policy and practice in environmental service provision in four local authorities with significant levels of deprivation. Each case study involved work in three neighbourhoods within the authority two deprived and one less deprived as well as focus groups with residents and frontline environmental operatives, interviews with senior council staff and observation on the ground

Clonotype selection and composition of human CD8 T cells specific for persistent herpes viruses varies with differentiation but is stable over time.

Protection from reactivation of persistent herpes virus infection is mediated by Ag-specific CD8 T cell responses, which are highly regulated by still poorly understood mechanisms. In this study, we analyzed differentiation and clonotypic dynamics of EBV- and CMV-specific T cells from healthy adults. Although these T lymphocytes included all subsets, from early-differentiated (EM/CD28(pos)) to late-differentiated (EMRA/CD28(neg)) stages, they varied in the sizes/proportions of these subsets. In-depth clonal composition analyses revealed TCR repertoires, which were highly restricted for CMV- and relatively diverse for EBV-specific cells. Virtually all virus-specific clonotypes identified in the EMRA/CD28(neg) subset were also found within the pool of less differentiated "memory" cells. However, striking differences in the patterns of dominance were observed among these subsets, because some clonotypes were selected with differentiation while others were not. Late-differentiated CMV-specific clonotypes were mostly characterized by TCR with lower dependency on CD8 coreceptor interaction. Yet all clonotypes displayed similar functional avidities, suggesting a compensatory role of CD8 in the clonotypes of lower TCR avidity. Importantly, clonotype selection and composition of each virus-specific subset upon differentiation was highly preserved over time, with the presence of the same dominant clonotypes at specific differentiation stages within a period of 4 years. Remarkably, clonotypic distribution was stable not only in late-differentiated but also in less-differentiated T cell subsets. Thus, T cell clonotypes segregate with differentiation, but the clonal composition once established is kept constant for at least several years. These findings reveal novel features of the highly sophisticated control of steady state protective T cell activity in healthy adults.

The robustness of the weak selection approximation for the evolution of altruism against strong selection.

The weak selection approximation of population genetics has made possible the analysis of social evolution under a considerable variety of biological scenarios. Despite its extensive usage, the accuracy of weak selection in predicting the emergence of altruism under limited dispersal when selection intensity increases remains unclear. Here, we derive the condition for the spread of an altruistic mutant in the infinite island model of dispersal under a Moran reproductive process and arbitrary strength of selection. The simplicity of the model allows us to compare weak and strong selection regimes analytically. Our results demonstrate that the weak selection approximation is robust to moderate increases in selection intensity and therefore provides a good approximation to understand the invasion of altruism in spatially structured population. In particular, we find that the weak selection approximation is excellent even if selection is very strong, when either migration is much stronger than selection or when patches are large. Importantly, we emphasize that the weak selection approximation provides the ideal condition for the invasion of altruism, and increasing selection intensity will impede the emergence of altruism. We discuss that this should also hold for more complicated life cycles and for culturally transmitted altruism. Using the weak selection approximation is therefore unlikely to miss out on any demographic scenario that lead to the evolution of altruism under limited dispersal.

Ancient medical texts, modern reading problems

The word tradition has a very specific meaning in linguistics: the passing down of a text, which may have been completed or corrected by different copyists at different times, when the concept of authorship was not the same as it is today. When reading an ancient text the word tradition must be in the reader's mind. To discuss one of the problems an ancient text poses to its modern readers, this work deals with one of the first printed medical texts in Portuguese, the Regimento proueytoso contra ha pestenença, and draws a parallel between it and two related texts, A moche profitable treatise against the pestilence, and the Recopilaçam das cousas que conuem guardar se no modo de preseruar à Cidade de Lixboa E os sãos, & curar os que esteuerem enfermos de Peste. The problems which arise out of the textual structure of those books show how difficult is to establish a tradition of another type, the medical tradition. The linguistic study of the innumerable medieval plague treatises may throw light on the continuities and on the disruptions of the so-called hippocratic-galenical medical tradition.