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Associations between specific and cumulative adverse childhood experiences, childhood obesity, and obesogenic behaviours
Get PDFBackground: Individuals impacted by adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are at greater risk of developing obesity, however, few studies have prospectively measured ACEs and obesity during childhood. Associations with the adoption of obesogenic behaviours during childhood, which directly contribute to obesity are also understudied.
Objective: To examine associations between individual and cumulative ACEs, obesity, and obesogenic behaviours during childhood.
Methods: Data came from Growing Up in New Zealand. The study sample was restricted to those who provided obesity data at age 8 and one child per mother, resulting in an analytic sample of 4895 children. A newly developed ACEs index consisted of nine individual ACEs and cumulative ACEs scores (0, 1, 2, 3, 4+ ACEs), two obesity measures (BMI and waist circumference/height ratio), and eight obesogenic behaviours including unhealthy dietary behaviours, inadequate sleep duration, excessive screen time, and physical inactivity were included in the analyses.
Results: ACEs were prevalent among this cohort of NZ children. By age eight, 87.1% of children experienced at least one ACE and 16% experienced at least 4 ACEs. Six individuals assessed ACEs showed significant associations with childhood obesity (AORs ranging from 1.22 to 1.44). A significant dose–response effect was observed where the experience of a higher number of ACEs was associated with greater risk for obesity (AORs increased from 1.78 for one ACE to 2.84 for 4+ ACEs). Further, a significant dose–response relationship was found between experiencing two or more ACEs and higher odds of adopting obesogenic behaviours (AORs ranging from 1.29 for physical inactivity to 3.16 for no regular breakfast consumption).
Conclusions: ACEs exposure contributes to population-level burden of childhood obesity. Our findings highlight the importance of a holistic understanding of the determinants of obesity, reinforcing calls for ACEs prevention and necessitating incorporation of ACEs-informed services into obesity reduction initiatives
Validating and updating the OHTS-EGPS model predicting 5-year glaucoma risk among ocular hypertension patients using electronic records
Get PDFObjective
To validate and update the OHTS-EGPS model predicting risk of conversion from OHT to glaucoma using electronic medical records (EMR).
Design
Evaluation and update of a risk prediction algorithm using EMRs and linked visual field (VF) tests.
Participants
Newly diagnosed OHT patients attending hospital glaucoma services in England. Inclusion criteria: IOP 22-32 mmHg (either eye); normal baseline VF test, defined as Glaucoma Hemifield Test (GHT) ‘within normal range’ in a reliable VF test; at least two VF tests in total; no significant ocular co-morbidities.
Methods
Risk factors: age, ethnicity, sex, IOP, vertical cup-to-disc ratio, central corneal thickness, VF pattern standard deviation, family history of glaucoma, systemic hypertension, diabetes mellitus, glaucoma treatment. Glaucoma conversion was defined as two consecutive and reliable VF tests with GHT ‘outside normal limits’ and/or need for glaucoma surgery. For validation, the OHTS-EGPS model was applied to predict a patient’s risk of developing glaucoma in 5 years. In the updating stage, the OHTS-model was re-fitted by re-estimating the baseline hazard and regression coefficients. The updated model was cross-validated and several variants were explored.
Main Outcome Measures
Measures of discriminative ability (c-index) and calibration (calibration slope) were calculated and pooled across hospitals using random effects meta-analysis.
Results
From a total of 138,461 patients from ten hospital glaucoma services in England 9030 patients with OHT fitted the inclusion criteria. A total of 1530 (16.9%) patients converted to glaucoma during this follow-up period. The OHTS-EGPS model provided a pooled c-index of 0.61 (95% confidence interval: 0.60, 0.63), ranging from 0.55 to 0.67 between hospitals. The pooled calibration slope was 0.45 (0.38, 0.51), ranging from 0.25 to 0.64 among hospitals. The overall re-fitted model performed better than the OHTS-EGPS model, with a pooled c-index of 0.67 (0.65, 0.69), ranging from 0.65 to 0.75 between hospitals.
Conclusions
We performed an external validation of the OHTS-EGPS model in a large English population. Re-fitting the model achieved modest improvements in performance. Given the poor performance of the OHTS-EGPS model in our population, one should use caution in its application to populations that differ from those in the OHTS and EGPS
Poverty Porn as Humanitarian Business: The Effects of Framing, Affect Intensity and Spokesperson Characteristics
Get PDFMotivated by controversies surrounding the continued employment of poverty porn in humanitarian business, we initiated two 2x2x2 experiments to examine the extent to which humanitarian ads that utilise poverty porn images weaponize fundraising. Informed by negative state relief and affect intensity theory, the two investigations explored the effects on study participants of the inclusion within ad appeals of images of starving children, ad spokespeople of disparate gender and ethnicity, and different types of message frame. A two (protest emotive vs. informative message) × two (male vs. female announcer) × two (white British or black African ethnicity) between-subjects eye track experiment (n = 236) revealed that an informative message with a white female announcer attracted the most attention. Next, a survey (n = 667) was completed which recorded participants’ levels of affect intensity, advertising scepticism, and donation intention. The results suggested that a white British female announcer was more likely to engage potential donors than a male and/or non-white spokesperson. The implications of the findings are discussed in light of how poverty porn might work in practice
The egalitarian value of counterfeit goods: Purchasing counterfeit luxury goods to address income inequality
Get PDFThe present research demonstrates a novel driver of the growing demand for counterfeit luxury goods: perceptions of income inequality. Across five studies, using different samples and counterfeit luxury goods, we find that as perceptions of income inequality increase, consumers value counterfeit luxury products for their “egalitarian value”—a value associated with counterfeits' perceived ability to restore equality in society. Consumers perceive both public and private counterfeit luxury goods to have egalitarian value, suggesting that their value manifests itself beyond consumers' attempts to signal status via consumption. Moreover, the egalitarian value increases consumers' motivation to purchase counterfeit luxury goods beyond their hedonic, utilitarian, economic, or status signaling value. Finally, the positive effect of the egalitarian value of counterfeit luxury goods on purchase preference is greater among consumers who think equality is more desirable and attainable (i.e., those low in social dominance orientation). Our results outline one psychological mechanism underlying consumers' interests in counterfeit luxury goods, explaining how egalitarian value may link two important societal issues: growing income inequality and increased demand for counterfeits
A contest study to reduce attractiveness-based discrimination in social judgment
Get PDFDiscrimination in the evaluation of others is a key cause of social inequality around the world. However, relatively little is known about psychological interventions that can be used to prevent biased evaluations. The limited evidence that exists on these strategies is spread across many methods and populations, making it difficult to generate reliable best practices that can be effective across contexts. In the present work, we held a research contest to solicit interventions with the goal of reducing discrimination based on physical attractiveness using a hypothetical admissions task. Thirty interventions were tested across four rounds of data collection (total N > 20,000). Using a Signal Detection Theory approach to evaluate interventions, we identified two interventions that reduced discrimination by lessening both decision noise and decision bias, while two other interventions reduced overall discrimination by only lessening noise or bias. The most effective interventions largely provided concrete strategies that directed participants’ attention towards decision-relevant criteria and away from socially biasing information, though the fact that very similar interventions produced differing effects on discrimination suggests certain key characteristics that are needed for manipulations to reliably impact judgment. The effects of these four interventions on decision bias, noise, or both also replicated in a different discrimination domain, political affiliation, and generalized to populations with self-reported hiring experience. Results of the contest for decreasing attractiveness-based favoritism suggest that identifying effective routes for changing discriminatory behavior is a challenge, and that greater investment is needed to develop impactful, flexible, and scalable strategies for reducing discrimination
Transitioning to independence in medical research: A qualitative study using a systems theory perspective
Get PDFEarly career researchers' transition to independence in academia is critical. Funding bodies across the world have established early career schemes specifically for researchers who are looking to lead on their first independent project, transitioning from postdoctoral researchers to principal investigators. We interviewed 51 individuals who had received an early career fellowship or award from the Medical Research Council in the UK and conducted 18 focused groups with 95 fellows using a novel tool to facilitate the discussion. Using a systems theory approach, we show that in the process of becoming independent, early career researchers often fall between the cracks of a system that fails to treat them as independent, they are not clear about career pathways in research, and they receive conflicting information about their career progression. More than individual influences, such as motivation for research and gender, contextual factors, such as funding support, institutional commitment and wider political factors influence the career progression of individuals. Early career researchers do not always feel they have the level of institutional support they expected. These findings highlight structural challenges that early career researchers face when transitioning to independence and suggest there is still ground to be covered to meet the commitment universities and research institutions to support the career development of researchers. The challenges identified are not unique to the UK context and can inform funding policies across the word
Forecasting age distribution of life-table death counts via alpha-transformation
No full textWe introduce a compositional power transformation, known as an α-transformation, to model and forecast a time series of life-table death counts, possibly with zero counts observed at older ages. As a generalisation of the isometric log-ratio transformation (i.e., α = 0), the α transformation relies on the tuning parameter α, which can be determined in a data-driven manner. Using the Australian age-specific period life-table death counts from 1921 to 2020, the α transformation can produce more accurate short-term point and interval forecasts than the log-ratio transformation. The improved forecast accuracy of life-table death counts is of great importance to demographers and government planners for estimating survival probabilities and life expectancy and actuaries for determining annuity prices and reserves for various initial ages and maturity terms
Changing Ideological Regimes: CEO Succession with A Shift in Political Ideology and New CEO Early Departure
Get PDFWe examine the effects of CEO succession coupled with a change in political ideology – when a conservative CEO is replaced by a liberal CEO or vice versa. We argue that in such CEO transitions, the new CEOs must alter their predecessors’ ideological imprints to imbue strategic leadership with their own values, which increases their executive job demands in the critical early years of their tenure and raises the likelihood of their early departure. We also suggest that this relationship is moderated by two strategic leadership interface (SLI) factors that influence the executive job demands these new CEOs face: (a) the retention of the ideologically incongruent predecessor as board chair, and (b) the ideological fit between the new CEO and the incumbent executive team. We first test our framework using data from 2286 CEO successions in S&P 1500 firms. We then conduct an experimental study to ensure causality and confirm executive job demands as a mediating mechanism underlying the relationship. Overall, our study advances the disruption theory of succession by shedding light on the deeply held mechanisms that lead to early failure in CEO transitions
Symmetry-resolved measures in quantum field theory: A short review
Get PDFIn this short review, we present the key definitions, ideas and techniques involved in the study of symmetry resolved entanglement measures, with a focus on the symmetry resolved entanglement entropy. In order to be able to define such entanglement measures, it is essential that the theory under study possess an internal symmetry. Then, symmetry-resolved entanglement measures quantify the contribution to a particular entanglement measure that can be associated to a chosen symmetry sector. Our review focuses on conformal (gapless/massless/critical) and integrable (gapped/massive) quantum field theories, where the leading computational technique employs symmetry fields known as (composite) branch point twist fields
Bond performance of concrete reinforced with FRP bars under monotonic and fatigue loading
Get PDFIn order to investigate the bonding properties of FRP-reinforced concrete under different loads, a series of FRP-reinforced concrete specimens were subjected to pull-out tests. Three types of reinforcement were used in the experiment: ordinary steel reinforcement, carbon fiber reinforcement (CFRP), and glass fiber reinforcement (GFRP). Pull-out tests were first conducted under monotonic load to determine the effect of concrete strength and reinforcement diameter on the bond performance of FRP bar-reinforced concrete and steel-reinforced concrete. The investigation of the variation of bond performance under different reinforcement materials was made. Second, a fatigue test was done, followed by further pull-out tests to get the bond stress-slip curve between concrete and reinforcement, and the influence of fatigue action on the bond stress-slip curve was further examined. The formulae to calculate the stress were developed, which can be applied to determine the bond failure pattern, bond strength, and bond-slip curve
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