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Maternal Diabetes and Obesity Influence the Fetal Epigenome in a Largely Hispanic Population
Get PDFBACKGROUND:
Obesity and diabetes mellitus are directly implicated in many adverse health consequences in adults as well as in the offspring of obese and diabetic mothers. Hispanic Americans are particularly at risk for obesity, diabetes, and end-stage renal disease. Maternal obesity and/or diabetes through prenatal programming may alter the fetal epigenome increasing the risk of metabolic disease in their offspring. The aims of this study were to determine if maternal obesity or diabetes mellitus during pregnancy results in a change in infant methylation of CpG islands adjacent to targeted genes specific for obesity or diabetes disease pathways in a largely Hispanic population. METHODS:
Methylation levels in the cord blood of 69 newborns were determined using the Illumina Infinium MethylationEPIC BeadChip. Over 850,000 different probe sites were analyzed to determine whether maternal obesity and/or diabetes mellitus directly attributed to differential methylation; epigenome-wide and regional analyses were performed for significant CpG sites. RESULTS:
Following quality control, agranular leukocyte samples from 69 newborns (23 normal term (NT), 14 diabetes (DM), 23 obese (OB), 9 DM/OB) were analyzed for over 850,000 different probe sites. Contrasts between the NT, DM, OB, and DM/OB were considered. After correction for multiple testing, 15 CpGs showed differential methylation from the NT, associated with 10 differentially methylated genes between the diabetic and non-diabetic subgroups, CCDC110, KALRN, PAG1, GNRH1, SLC2A9, CSRP2BP, HIVEP1, RALGDS, DHX37, and SCNN1D. The effects of diabetes were partly mediated by the altered methylation of HOOK2, LCE3C, and TMEM63B. The effects of obesity were partly mediated by the differential methylation of LTF and DUSP22. CONCLUSIONS:
The presented data highlights the associated altered methylation patterns potentially mediated by maternal diabetes and/or obesity. Larger studies are warranted to investigate the role of both the identified differentially methylated loci and the effects on newborn body composition and future health risk factors for metabolic disease. Additional future consideration should be targeted to the role of Hispanic inheritance. Potential future targeting of transgenerational propagation and developmental programming may reduce population obesity and diabetes risk
The Market Success of Corporate Spin-offs: Do CEO External Directorships, Age, and Their Interactions Matter?
Get PDFCorporate spin-offs have been a major “preferred” restructuring technique in the previous couple decades in the U.S. This corporate transaction aims to create value for both divesting firm and its subsidiary. This study examines an understudied interaction of CEO external directorships and age (as well as their direct effects) in the strategy literature on the change in market valuation of spun-off subsidiaries. By drawing our cases from the SDC Platinum database, we identified 138 completed corporate U.S. spin-offs that took place between 2000 and 2014. Our empirical analysis indicates that the number of CEO external directorships as well as having a younger CEO positively and significantly affect the change in market valuation. In addition, our interaction effect shows significant results. Grounded in the upper echelons and resource dependence theories, this study contributes to the corporate governance literature in terms of understanding whether two particular CEO characteristics and their interactions hold a great deal of importance for spun-off subsidiaries’ market performance. From the perspective of managerial implications, this study suggests that having a younger CEO along with holding many external directorships will help these spun-off subsidiaries much better perform in the market
The Gender Wage Gap and the Fair Calculations Act
No full textIf enacted into law, the Fair Calculations Act would require forensic economists to ignore an injured party\u27s gender when forecasting the loss in future earnings. We discuss how this would affect the size of awards for men and women, and some of the issues that would arise if the law is enacted. Of particular interest is the extent to which gender differences in earnings, earnings growth, and worklife expectancy are the result of sex discrimination in labor markets as opposed to sex differences in preferences. We present evidence that gender differences in human capital characteristics explain a large share of gender differences is in labor market outcomes, though there is considerable disagreement about how to interpret these results. We also show that gender differences in earnings are diminishing over time, but it is not likely that the gap will disappear in the near future. Finally, we discuss how forensic economists may have to rely on additional information when forecasting earnings if they are no longer allowed to use gender
Space
Get PDFThis chapter investigates a variety of ways in which music might be thought to be essentially spatial in relatively literal ways. It begins by considering whether certain spaces or spatial features are essential to musical works or performances. These include the space of a work’s composition, performance spaces for which a work is composed or within which it is performed, and the spatial disposition of performers (e.g., off-stage instruments). It then considers spaces “within” music, paying special attention to the notion of “pitch space”—the space in which we experience musical tones as higher or lower than one another and melodic lines as moving
From the “Horseshoe of Slums” to Colonias Proletarias: The Transformation of Mexico City’s “Housing Problem”, 1930–1960
No full textThis article charts how housing experts dealt with Mexico City’s “housing problem” between 1930 and 1960. In the 1930s, architects and planners understood Mexico City through such North-Atlantic categories as Ernest Burgess’ concentric zone model, an approach that led them to target central “slums” as the city’s most pressing “housing problem.” But these models distorted and rendered invisible one of the city’s most original transformations: the construction of “informal” neighbourhoods in its peripheries and the fact that these neighbourhoods were, against widespread expectations, improving over time. By following a network of architects, planners, and economists working in Mexico while engaging in a broader Panamerican dialogue, I describe how Mexico City’s housing policies and ideas shifted. In the course of two mere decades, the city’s peripheral neighbourhoods went from invisible spaces to problematic and provisional settlements to a viable solution to the housing problem
Faculty as Global Learners: Off-Campus Study at Liberal Arts Colleges
Get PDFThis co-authored collection offers valuable insights about the impact of leading off-campus study on faculty leaders’ teaching, research, service, and overall well-being. Recognizing that faculty leaders are themselves global learners, the book addresses ways that liberal arts colleges can more effectively achieve their strategic goals for students\u27 global learning by intentionally anticipating and supporting the needs of faculty leaders, as they grow and change. Faculty as Global Learners offers key findings and recommendations to stimulate conversations among administrators, faculty, and staff about concrete actions they can explore and steps they can take on their campuses to both support faculty leaders of off-campus programs and advance strategic institutional goals for global learning. This collection includes transferrable pedagogical insights and the perspectives of faculty members who have led off-campus study programs in a variety of disciplines and geographic regions.https://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/mono/1174/thumbnail.jp
The Special Atom Space and Haar Wavelets in Higher Dimensions
Get PDFIn this note, we will revisit the special atom space introduced in the early 1980s by Geraldo De Souza and Richard O\u27Neil. In their introductory work and in later additions, the space was mostly studied on the real line. Interesting properties and connections to spaces such as Orlicz, Lipschitz, Lebesgue, and Lorentz spaces made these spaces ripe for exploration in higher dimensions. In this article, we extend this definition to the plane and space and show that almost all the interesting properties such as their Banach structure, Hölder\u27s-type inequalities, and duality are preserved. In particular, dual spaces of special atom spaces are natural extension of Lipschitz and generalized Lipschitz spaces of functions in higher dimensions. We make the point that this extension could allow for the study of a wide range of problems including a connection that leads to what seems to be a new definition of Haar functions, Haar wavelets, and wavelets on the plane and on the space
Coarse-Grained MD Simulations Reveal Beta-Amyloid Fibrils of Various Sizes Bind to Interfacial Liquid-Ordered and Liquid-Disordered Regions in Phase Separated Lipid Rafts with Diverse Membrane-Bound Conformational States
Get PDFThe membrane binding behaviors of beta-amyloid fibrils, dimers to pentamers, from solution to lipid raft surfaces, were investigated using coarse-grained (CG) MD simulations. Our CG rafts contain phospholipid, cholesterol (with or without tail- or headgroup modifications), and with or without asymmetrically distributed monosialotetrahexosylganglioside (GM1). All rafts exhibited liquid-ordered (Lo), liquid-disordered (Ld), and interfacial Lo/Ld (Lod) domains, with domain sizes depending on cholesterol structure. For rafts without GM1, all fibrils bound to the Lod domains. Specifically, dimer fibrils bound exclusively via the C-terminal, while larger fibrils could bind via other protein regions. Interestingly, a membrane-inserted state was detected for a trimer fibril in a raft with tail-group modified cholesterol. For rafts containing GM1, fibrils bound either to the GM1-clusters, with numerous membrane-bound conformations, or to the non-GM1-containing-Lod domains via the C-terminal. Our results indicate beta-amyloid fibrils bind to Lod domains or GM1, with diversified membrane-bound conformations, in structurally heterogeneous lipid membranes
Large-N Bill Positions Data from MapLight.org: What Can We Learn from Interest Groups’ Publicly Observable Legislative Positions?
No full textThe transparency organization MapLight records instances of organizations taking positions for and against legislation in Congress. The dataset comprises some 130,000 such positions taken on thousands of bills between the 109th and 115th Congresses (2005–2018). The depth and breadth of these data potentially give them wide applicability for answering questions about interest group behavior and influence as well as legislative politics more broadly. However, the coverage and content of the data are affected by aspects of MapLight’s research process. This article introduces the MapLight dataset and its potential uses, examines issues related to sampling and other aspects of MapLight’s research process, and explains how scholars can address these to make appropriate use of the data
\u27Beautiful Authorities\u27: Augustus W.N. Pugin and Early Netherlandish Painting
No full textIn 1843, Augustus Pugin (1812-1852), the leading architect of the Gothic Revival in early Victorian Britain, wrote of his plans to “work all day” at the museum at Antwerp, “where I shall fijind the most Beautiful authorities”. The result of his visit was a series of drawings, now divided between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University, which record Florent van Ertborn\u27s collection of early Northern paintings, bequeathed in 1841 to what is now the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp. Pugin\u27s drawings of the Van Ertborn pictures attest to a keen interest in early Netherlandish painting, which is also reflected in his writings and in his own art collection. Taking the drawings as its starting point, this article examines Pugin\u27s engagement with early Netherlandish painting. It assesses the importance for him of such pictures - experienced both at fijirst hand and through reproductions - and their impact on his impassioned revival of the Gothic style. Pugin\u27s enthusiasm for early Netherlandish art was fuelled by his Catholic faith and by his priorities as a designer in search of \u27authorities\u27 to inform his work, especially in stained glass and book illustration. His experience of the Van Ertborn pictures is placed in the context of other collections he knew that featured \u27Flemish Primitives\u27, including that of his patron, Lord Shrewsbury, and the influential Aders collection in London, from which he purchased some pieces. The article concludes with consideration of Pugin\u27s abiding impact on the study of early Netherlandish painting through his influence on W.H. James Weale, whose pioneering research forms the bedrock of modern scholarship in the fijield