Policy makers have embraced financial education as a necessary antidote to the increasing complexity of consumers' financial decisions over the last generation. We conduct a meta-analysis of the ...relationship of financial literacy and of financial education to financial behaviors in 168 papers covering 201 prior studies. We find that interventions to improve financial literacy explain only 0.1% of the variance in financial behaviors studied, with weaker effects in low-income samples. Like other education, financial education decays over time; even large interventions with many hours of instruction have negligible effects on behavior 20 months or more from the time of intervention. Correlational studies that measure financial literacy find stronger associations with financial behaviors. We conduct three empirical studies, and we find that the partial effects of financial literacy diminish dramatically when one controls for psychological traits that have been omitted in prior research or when one uses an instrument for financial literacy to control for omitted variables. Financial education as studied to date has serious limitations that have been masked by the apparently larger effects in correlational studies. We envisage a reduced role for financial education that is not elaborated or acted upon soon afterward. We suggest a real but narrower role for "just-in-time" financial education tied to specific behaviors it intends to help. We conclude with a discussion of the characteristics of behaviors that might affect the policy maker's mix of financial education, choice architecture, and regulation as tools to help consumer financial behavior.
This paper was accepted by Uri Gneezy, behavioral economics.
Baron and Kenny’s procedure for determining if an independent variable affects a dependent variable through some mediator is so well known that it is used by authors and requested by reviewers almost ...reflexively. Many research projects have been terminated early in a research program or later in the review process because the data did not conform to Baron and Kenny’s criteria, impeding theoretical development. While the technical literature has disputed some of Baron and Kenny’s tests, this literature has not diffused to practicing researchers. We present a nontechnical summary of the flaws in the Baron and Kenny logic, some of which have not been previously noted. We provide a decision tree and a step‐by‐step procedure for testing mediation, classifying its type, and interpreting the implications of findings for theory building and future research.
Though perceived financial well-being is viewed as an important topic of consumer research, the literature contains no accepted definition of this construct. Further, there has been little systematic ...examination of how perceived financial well-being may affect overall well-being. Using consumer financial narratives, several largescale surveys, and two experiments, we conceptualize perceived financial wellbeing as two related but separate constructs: 1) stress related to the management of money today (current money management stress), and 2) a sense of security in one’s financial future (expected future financial security). We develop and validate measures of these constructs (web appendix A) and then demonstrate their relationship to overall well-being, controlling for other life domains and objective measures of the financial domain. Our findings demonstrate that perceived financial well-being is a key predictor of overall well-being and comparable in magnitude to the combined effect of other life domains (job satisfaction, physical health assessment, and relationship support satisfaction). Further, the relative importance of current money management stress to overall well-being varies by income groups and due to the differing antecedents of current money management stress and expected future financial security. Implications for financial well-being and education efforts are offered.
Conserved spatial memory mechanisms
Food-caching birds are memory specialists that can remember thousands of hidden food items. Using electrophysiological recordings from freely behaving birds, Payne
...et al.
analyzed neuronal activity in the likely hippocampus homolog of two bird species, the tufted titmouse and the zebra finch. They chose these two species to compare, respectively, birds that do and do not display food-caching behavior. Place cells and typical hippocampal firing patterns that resembled rodent neuronal activity could be detected in the extreme memory specialists. Compared with titmice, however, spatial activity was noticeably weaker and less abundant in zebra finches. These findings provide evidence that the neural processes underlying spatial memory are remarkably conserved across widely divergent hippocampal circuits separated by millions of years of evolution.
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The avian hippocampus shows mammalian-like activity patterns, with enhancement of spatial coding in tufted titmice versus zebra finches.
Spatial memory in vertebrates requires brain regions homologous to the mammalian hippocampus. Between vertebrate clades, however, these regions are anatomically distinct and appear to produce different spatial patterns of neural activity. We asked whether hippocampal activity is fundamentally different even between distant vertebrates that share a strong dependence on spatial memory. We studied tufted titmice, food-caching birds capable of remembering many concealed food locations. We found mammalian-like neural activity in the titmouse hippocampus, including sharp-wave ripples and anatomically organized place cells. In a non–food-caching bird species, spatial firing was less informative and was exhibited by fewer neurons. These findings suggest that hippocampal circuit mechanisms are similar between birds and mammals, but that the resulting patterns of activity may vary quantitatively with species-specific ethological needs.
It is common for researchers discovering a significant interaction of a measured variable X with a manipulated variable Z to examine simple effects of Z at different levels of X. These "spotlight" ...tests are often misunderstood even in the simplest cases, and it appears that consumer researchers are unsure how to extend them to more complex designs. The authors explain the general principles of spotlight tests, show that they rely on familiar regression techniques, and provide a tutorial demonstrating how to apply these tests across an array of experimental designs. Rather than following the common practice of reporting spotlight tests at one standard deviation above and below the mean of X, it is recommended that when X has focal values, researchers should report spotlight tests at those focal values. When X does not have focal values, it is recommended that researchers report ranges of significance using a version of Johnson and Neyman's test the authors term a "floodlight."
•Many DNA methylation changes are observed between benign and cancerous prostate tissue.•DNA methylation changes are frequently early and recurrent, suggesting a functional role.•Androgen-driven ...metabolic processes in the prostate impinge on DNA methylation.•Prostate cancer cell lines offer a good model for some methylation changes, but not all.•Clinical/genomic associations have been reported, but multi-region sampling studies are needed.
After briefly reviewing the nature of DNA methylation, its general role in cancer and the tools available to interrogate it, we consider the literature surrounding DNA methylation as relating to prostate cancer. Specific consideration is given to recurrent alterations. A list of frequently reported genes is synthesized from 17 studies that have reported on methylation changes in malignant prostate tissue, and we chart the timing of those changes in the diseases history through amalgamation of several previously published data sets.
We also review associations with genetic alterations and hormone signalling, before the practicalities of investigating prostate cancer methylation using cell lines are assessed. We conclude by outlining the interplay between DNA methylation and prostate cancer metabolism and their regulation by androgen receptor, with a specific discussion of the mitochondria and their associations with DNA methylation.
Patterns of genomic evolution between primary and metastatic breast cancer have not been studied in large numbers, despite patients with metastatic breast cancer having dismal survival. We sequenced ...whole genomes or a panel of 365 genes on 299 samples from 170 patients with locally relapsed or metastatic breast cancer. Several lines of analysis indicate that clones seeding metastasis or relapse disseminate late from primary tumors, but continue to acquire mutations, mostly accessing the same mutational processes active in the primary tumor. Most distant metastases acquired driver mutations not seen in the primary tumor, drawing from a wider repertoire of cancer genes than early drivers. These include a number of clinically actionable alterations and mutations inactivating SWI-SNF and JAK2-STAT3 pathways.
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•Metastases mostly disseminate late from primary breast tumors, keeping most drivers•Drivers at relapse sample from a wider range of cancer genes than in primary tumors•Mutations in SWI-SNF complex and inactivated JAK-STAT signaling enriched at relapse•Mutational processes similar in primary and relapse; radiotherapy can damage genome
By sequencing primary, locally relapsed, and metastatic breast cancers, Yates et al. show that clones seeding metastasis or relapse disseminate late from primary tumors but continue to acquire mutations, including clinically actionable alterations and mutations inactivating the SWI/SNF and JAK2-STAT3 pathways.
IMPORTANCE: Growing consensus suggests that frailty-associated risks should inform shared surgical decision making. However, it is not clear how best to screen for frailty in preoperative surgical ...populations. OBJECTIVE: To develop and validate the Risk Analysis Index (RAI), a 14-item instrument used to measure surgical frailty. It can be calculated prospectively (RAI-C), using a clinical questionnaire, or retrospectively (RAI-A), using variables from the surgical quality improvement databases (Veterans Affairs or American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Projects). DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Single-site, prospective cohort from July 2011 to September 2015 at the Veterans Affairs Nebraska-Western Iowa Heath Care System, a Level 1 Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The study included all patients presenting to the medical center for elective surgery. EXPOSURES: We assessed the RAI-C for all patients scheduled for surgery, linking these scores to administrative and quality improvement data to calculate the RAI-A and the modified Frailty Index. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Receiver operator characteristics and C statistics for each measure predicting postoperative mortality and morbidity. RESULTS: Of the participants, the mean (SD) age was 60.7 (13.9) years and 249 participants (3.6%) were women. We assessed the RAI-C 10 698 times, from which we linked 6856 unique patients to mortality data. The C statistic predicting 180-day mortality for the RAI-C was 0.772. Of these 6856 unique patients, we linked 2785 to local Veterans Affairs Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Projects data and calculated the C statistic for both the RAI-A (0.823) and RAI-C (0.824), along with the correlation between the 2 scores (r = 0.478; P < .001). Of these 2785 patients, there was sufficient data to calculate the modified Frailty Index for 1021, in which the C statistics were 0.865 (RAI-A), 0.797 (RAI-C), and 0.811 (modified Frailty Index). The correlation between the RAI-A and RAI-C was 0.547, and the correlations of the modified Frailty Index to the RAI-A and RAI-C were 0.300 and 0.26, respectively (all P < .001). A cutoff of RAI-C of at least 21 classified 18.3% patients as “frail” with a sensitivity of 0.50 and specificity of 0.82, whereas the RAI-A was less sensitive (0.25) and more specific (0.97), classifying only 3.7% as “frail.” CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: The RAI-C and RAI-A represent effective tools for measuring frailty in surgical populations with predictive ability on par with other frailty tools. Moderate correlation between the measures suggests convergent validity. The RAI-C offers the advantage of prospective, preoperative assessment that is proved feasible for large-scale screening in clinical practice. However, further efforts should be directed at determining the optimal components of preoperative frailty assessment.
Emerging data demonstrate homologous recombination (HR) defects in castration-resistant prostate cancers, rendering these tumours sensitive to PARP inhibition. Here we demonstrate a direct ...requirement for the androgen receptor (AR) to maintain HR gene expression and HR activity in prostate cancer. We show that PARP-mediated repair pathways are upregulated in prostate cancer following androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT). Furthermore, upregulation of PARP activity is essential for the survival of prostate cancer cells and we demonstrate a synthetic lethality between ADT and PARP inhibition in vivo. Our data suggest that ADT can functionally impair HR prior to the development of castration resistance and that, this potentially could be exploited therapeutically using PARP inhibitors in combination with androgen-deprivation therapy upfront in advanced or high-risk prostate cancer.Tumours with homologous recombination (HR) defects become sensitive to PARPi. Here, the authors show that androgen receptor (AR) regulates HR and AR inhibition activates the PARP pathway in vivo, thus inhibition of both AR and PARP is required for effective treatment of high risk prostate cancer.
The symmetry energy describes how the energy of nuclear matter rises as one goes away from equal numbers of neutrons and protons. This is very important to describe neutron rich matter in ...astrophysics. This article reviews our knowledge of the symmetry energy from theoretical calculations, nuclear structure measurements, heavy-ion collisions, and astronomical observations. We then present a roadmap to make progress in areas of relevance to the symmetry energy that promotes collaboration between the astrophysics and the nuclear physics communities.
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