Best BLAST hit alone cannot be used as evidence of fraud.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Diaz-Arce N
PROVIDER: S-EPMC9845204 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Best BLAST hit alone cannot be used as evidence of fraud.
Díaz-Arce Natalia N Rodríguez-Ezpeleta Naiara N
Scientific reports 20230117 1
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Project description: Not available
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Project description:ObjectivesThe consequences of poor financial capability at older ages are serious and include making mistakes with credit, spending retirement assets too quickly, and being defrauded by financial predators. Because older persons are at or past the peak of their wealth accumulation, they are often the targets of fraud.MethodsOur project analyzes a module we developed and fielded on people aged 50 an older years in the 2016 Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Using this data set, we evaluated the incidence and prospective risk factors (measured in 2010) for investment fraud and prize/lottery fraud using logistic regression (N = 1,220).ResultsRelatively few HRS respondents mentioned any single form of fraud over the prior 5 years, but 5.0% reported at least one form of investment fraud and 4.4% recounted prize/lottery fraud. Greater wealth (nonhousing) was associated with investment fraud, whereas lower housing wealth and symptoms of depression were associated with prize/lottery fraud. Hispanics were significantly less likely to report either type of fraud. Other suspected risk factors-low social integration and financial literacy-were not significant.DiscussionFraud is a complex phenomenon and no single factor uniquely predicts victimization across different types, even within the category of investment fraud. Prevention programs should educate consumers about various types of fraud and increase awareness among financial services professionals.
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Project description:Abstract We present a natural field experiment to examine if priming can influence behavior in a market for credence goods. 40 testers took 600 taxi journeys in Vienna, Austria, and using a between–subject design we vary the script they spoke, each designed to prime either honesty, dishonesty, or a competitor. We find that the honesty prime increases taxi fares by 5.5% relative to a baseline, the result of overcharging rather than overtreatment. Priming dishonesty and a competitor have no impact on fares. We find that the effects of priming on behavior are likely to be small compared to information asymmetries.
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Project description:In a recent report in Science Signaling (Gillis, A., et al. Low intrinsic efficacy for G protein activation can explain the improved side effect profiles of new opioid agonists. Sci. Signaling 2020, 13, eaaz3140 10.1126/scisignal.aaz3140), it was suggested that low intrinsic agonism, and not biased agonism, leads to an improvement in the separation of potency in opioid-induced respiratory suppression versus antinociception. Although many of the compounds that were tested have been shown to display G protein signaling bias in prior publications, the authors conclude that because they cannot detect biased agonism in their cellular signaling studies the compounds are therefore not biased agonists. Rather, they conclude that it is low intrinsic efficacy that leads to the therapeutic window improvement. Intrinsic efficacy is the extent to which an agonist can stimulate a G protein-coupled receptor response in a system, while biased agonism takes into consideration not only the intrinsic efficacy but also the potency of an agonist in an assay. Herein, we have reanalyzed the data presented in the published work (10.1126/scisignal.aaz3140) [including the recent Erratum (10.1126/scisignal.abf9803)] to derive intrinsic efficacy and bias factors as ΔΔlog(τ/KA) and ΔΔlog(Emax/EC50), respectively. On the basis of this reanalysis, the data support the conclusion that biased agonism, favoring G protein signaling, was observed. Moreover, a conservation of rank order intrinsic efficacy was not observed upon comparing responses in each assay, further suggesting that multiple active receptor states were present. These observations agree with prior studies in which oliceridine, PZM21, and SR-17018 were first described as biased agonists with improvement in antinociception over respiratory suppression in mice. Therefore, the data in the Science Signaling paper provide strong corroborating evidence that G protein signaling bias may be a means of improving opioid analgesia while avoiding certain undesirable side effects.
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