Project description:This article addresses issues relevant to interpreting findings from 26 epidemiologic studies of persons exposed to low-dose radiation. We review the extensive data from both epidemiologic studies of persons exposed at moderate or high doses and from radiobiology that together have firmly established radiation as carcinogenic. We then discuss the use of the linear relative risk model that has been used to describe data from both low- and moderate- or high-dose studies. We consider the effects of dose measurement errors; these can reduce statistical power and lead to underestimation of risks but are very unlikely to bring about a spurious dose response. We estimate statistical power for the low-dose studies under the assumption that true risks of radiation-related cancers are those expected from studies of Japanese atomic bomb survivors. Finally, we discuss the interpretation of confidence intervals and statistical tests and the applicability of the Bradford Hill principles for a causal relationship.
Project description:Most interpreting theories claim that different interpreting types should involve varied processing mechanisms and procedures. However, few studies have examined their underlying differences. Even though some previous results based on quantitative approaches show that different interpreting types yield outputs of varying lexical and syntactic features, the grammatical parsing approach is limited. Language sequences that form without relying on parsing or processing with a specific linguistic approach or grammar excel other quantitative approaches at revealing the sequential behavior of language production. As a non-grammatically-bound unit of language sequences, frequency motif can visualize the local distribution of content and function words, and can also statistically classify languages and identify text types. Thus, the current research investigates the distribution, length and position-dependent properties of frequency motifs across different interpreting outputs in pursuit of the sequential generation behaviors. It is found that the distribution, the length and certain position-dependent properties of the specific language sequences differ significantly across simultaneous interpreting and consecutive interpreting output. The features of frequency motifs manifest that both interpreting output is produced in the manner that abides by the least effort principle. The current research suggests that interpreting types can be differentiated through this type of language sequential unit and offers evidence for how the different task features mediate the sequential organization of interpreting output under different demand to achieve cognitive load minimization.
Project description:This study aimed at characterizing anthropometric indicators that can be used as alternatives to measurements for assessing overall obesity over adulthood and abdominal obesity among men. We used data from a population-based case-control study of prostate cancer conducted in Montreal, Canada in 2005-2012. It included men aged ≤ 75 years, 1872 of which were newly diagnosed with prostate cancer, and 1918 others randomly selected from the electoral list. In-person interviews elicited reports of height as well as of weight, pants size and Stunkard's silhouette at 5 time points over adulthood, i.e., for the ages of 20, 40, 50 and 60 years, if applicable, and at the time of interview. Waist and hip circumferences were measured by interviewers following a validated protocol. Analyses were conducted on the overall sample of 3790 subjects, after having confirmed that results did not differ according to disease status. Stunkard's silhouette scale proved to be an easy-to-administer tool that reflects well reported body mass index, either recently or decades in the past among adult males. It was discriminatory enough to classify individuals according to commonly-used obesity categories. We observed that a model including age, reported pants size, silhouette and weight can reasonably predict current abdominal obesity. In conclusion, alternative anthropometric indicators can serve as valuable means to assess overall and abdominal obesity when measurements cannot be envisaged in the context of epidemiological studies.
Project description:Neighborhoods have a profound impact on individual health. There is growing interest in the role of dynamic changes to neighborhoods-including gentrification-on the health of residents. However, research on the association between gentrification and health is limited, partly due to the numerous definitions used to define gentrification. This article presents a systematic review of the current state of literature describing the association between gentrification and health. In addition, it provides a novel framework for addressing important next steps in this research. A total of 1393 unique articles were identified, 122 abstracts were reviewed, and 36 articles published from 2007-2020 were included. Of the 36 articles, 9 were qualitative, 24 were quantitative, and 3 were review papers. There was no universally accepted definition of gentrification; definitions often used socioeconomic variables describing demographics, housing, education, and income. Health outcomes associated with gentrification included self-reported health, preterm birth, mental health conditions, alcohol use, psychosocial factors, and health care utilization, though the direction of this association varied. The results of this review also suggest that the impact of gentrification on health is not uniform across populations. For example, marginalized populations, such as Black residents and the elderly, were impacted more than White and younger residents. In addition, we identified multiples gaps in the research, including the need for a conceptual model, future mechanistic studies, and interventions.
Project description:Early life exposures influence numerous social determinants of health, as distal causes or confounders of later health outcomes. Although a growing literature is documenting how early life socioeconomic position affects later life health, few epidemiologic studies have tested measures for operationalizing early life neighborhood context, or examined their effects on later life health. In the Life-course Influences on Fetal Environments (LIFE) Study, a retrospective cohort study among Black women in Southfield, Michigan (71% response rate), we tested the validity and reliability of retrospectively-reported survey-based subjective measures of early life neighborhood context(N=693). We compared 3 subjective childhood neighborhood measures (disorder, informal social control, victimization), with 3 objective childhood neighborhood measures derived from 4 decades of historical census tract data 1970-2000, linked through geocoded residential histories (tract % poverty, tract % black, tract deprivation score derived from principal components analysis), as well as with 2 subjective neighborhood measures in adulthood. Our results documented that internal consistency reliability was high for the subjective childhood neighborhood scales (Cronbach's α =0.89, 0.93). Comparison of subjective with objective childhood neighborhood measures found moderate associations in hypothesized directions. Associations with objective variables were strongest for neighborhood disorder (rhos=.40), as opposed to with social control or victimization. Associations between subjective neighborhood context in childhood versus adulthood were moderate and stronger for residentially-stable populations. We lastly formally tested for, but found little evidence of, recall bias of the retrospective subjective reports of childhood context. These results provide evidence that retrospective reports of subjective neighborhood context may be a cost-effective, valid, and reliable method to operationalize early life context for health studies.
Project description:The tumor microenvironment (TME) plays a crucial role in orchestrating tumor cell behavior and cancer progression. Recent advances in spatial profiling technologies have uncovered novel spatial signatures, including univariate distribution patterns, bivariate spatial relationships, and higher-order structures. These signatures have the potential to revolutionize tumor mechanism and treatment. In this review, we summarize the current state of spatial signature research, highlighting computational methods to uncover spatially relevant biological significance. We discuss the impact of these advances on fundamental cancer biology and translational research, address current challenges and future research directions.
Project description:ObjectivesMost countries have adopted public activity intervention policies to control the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Nevertheless, empirical evidence of the effectiveness of different interventions on the containment of the epidemic was inconsistent.MethodsWe retrieved time-series intervention policy data for 145 countries from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker from December 31, 2019, to July 1, 2020, which included 8 containment and closure policies. We investigated the association of timeliness, stringency, and duration of intervention with cumulative infections per million population on July 1, 2020. We introduced a novel counterfactual estimator to estimate the effects of these interventions on COVID-19 time-varying reproduction number (Rt).ResultsThere is some evidence that earlier implementation, longer durations, and more strictness of intervention policies at the early but not middle stage were associated with reduced infections of COVID-19. The counterfactual model proved to have controlled for unobserved time-varying confounders and established a valid causal relationship between policy intervention and Rt reduction. The average intervention effect revealed that all interventions significantly decrease Rt after their implementation. Rt decreased by 30% (22%-41%) in 25 to 32 days after policy intervention. Among the 8 interventions, school closing, workplace closing, and public events cancellation demonstrated the strongest and most consistent evidence of associations.ConclusionsOur study provides more reliable evidence of the quantitative effects of policy interventions on the COVID-19 epidemic and suggested that stricter public activity interventions should be implemented at the early stage of the epidemic for improved containment.
Project description:The rugby codes (i.e., rugby union, rugby league, rugby sevens [termed 'rugby']) are team-sports that impose multiple complex physical, perceptual, and technical demands on players which leads to substantial player fatigue post-match. In the post-match period, fatigue manifests through multiple domains and negatively influences recovery. There is, however, currently no definition of fatigue contextualised to the unique characteristics of rugby (e.g., locomotor and collision loads). Similarly, the methods and metrics which practitioners consider when quantifying the components of post-match fatigue and subsequent recovery are not known. The aims of this study were to develop a definition of fatigue in rugby, to determine agreement with this common definition of fatigue, and to outline which methods and metrics are considered important and feasible to implement to quantify post-match fatigue. Subject matter experts (SME) undertook a two-round online Delphi questionnaire (round one; n = 42, round two; n = 23). SME responses in round one were analysed to derive a definition of fatigue, which after discussion and agreement by the investigators, obtained 96% agreement in round two. The SME agreed that fatigue in rugby refers to a reduction in performance-related task ability which is underpinned by time-dependent negative changes within and between cognitive, neuromuscular, perceptual, physiological, emotional, and technical/tactical domains. Further, there were 33 items in the neuromuscular performance, cardio-autonomic, or self-report domains achieved consensus for importance and/or feasibility to implement. Highly rated methods and metrics included countermovement jump force/power (neuromuscular performance), heart rate variability (cardio-autonomic measures), and soreness, mood, stress, and sleep quality (self-reported assessments). A monitoring system including highly-rated fatigue monitoring objective and subjective methods and metrics in rugby is presented. Practical recommendations of objective and subjective measures, and broader considerations for testing and analysing the resulting data in relation to monitoring fatigue are provided.
Project description:Mass communication over social media can drive rapid changes in our sense of collective identity. Hashtags in particular have acted as powerful social coordinators, playing a key role in organizing social movements like the Gezi park protests, Occupy Wall Street, #metoo, and #blacklivesmatter. Here we quantify collective identity from the use of hashtags as self-labels in over 85,000 actively-maintained Twitter user profiles spanning 2017-2019. Collective identities emerge from a graph model of individuals' overlapping self-labels, producing a hierarchy of graph clusters. Each cluster is bound together and characterized semantically by specific hashtags key to its formation. We define and apply two information-theoretic measures to quantify the strength of identities in the hierarchy. First we measure collective identity coherence to determine how integrated any identity is from local to global scales. Second, we consider the conspicuousness of any identity given its vocabulary versus the global identity map. Our work reveals a rich landscape of online identity emerging from the hierarchical alignment of uncoordinated self-labeling actions.