Music has been called âthe universal language of mankind.â Although contemporary theories of music evolution often invoke various musical universals, the existence of such universals has been ...disputed for decades and has never been empirically demonstrated. Here we combine a music-classification scheme with statistical analyses, including phylogenetic comparative methods, to examine a well-sampled global set of 304 music recordings. Our analyses reveal no absolute universals but strong support for many statistical universals that are consistent across all nine geographic regions sampled. These universals include 18 musical features that are common individually as well as a network of 10 features that are commonly associated with one another. They span not only features related to pitch and rhythm that are often cited as putative universals but also rarely cited domains including performance style and social context. These cross-cultural structural regularities of human music may relate to roles in facilitating group coordination and cohesion, as exemplified by the universal tendency to sing, play percussion instruments, and dance to simple, repetitive music in groups. Our findings highlight the need for scientists studying music evolution to expand the range of musical cultures and musical features under consideration. The statistical universals we identified represent important candidates for future investigation.
Which features of music are universal and which are culture-specific? Why? These questions are important for understanding why humans make music but have rarely been scientifically tested. We used musical classification techniques and statistical tools to analyze a global set of 304 music recordings, finding no absolute universals but dozens of statistical universals. These include not only commonly cited features related to pitch and rhythm but also domains such as social context and interrelationships between musical features. We speculate that group coordination is the common aspect unifying the cross-cultural structural regularities of human music, with implications for the study of music evolution.
Counting the global COVID-19 dead Jha, Prabhat; Brown, Patrick E; Ansumana, Rashid
Lancet,
05/2022, Volume:
399, Issue:
10339
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Caution is needed as India also faced widespread infection in 2020 with low deaths, but a large killer delta wave in the spring of 2021 followed.5 Urgent investigation of possible unique biological ...factors or existing immunity in Africa is required. Mortality data not only meet our moral duty to those who died and their families but are also of enormous practical use to explain the widespread variation in COVID-19 infection that preliminary data have revealed, and its consequences.9 Mortality data would help evaluate vaccination and other public health efforts. For the Coronavirus App see https://coronavirus.app/map For The Economist's excess death estimates see https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates PJ and PEB receive funding from the COVID-19 Immunity Task Force, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) for epidemiological studies.
This paper briefly describes geostatistical models for Gaussian and non-Gaussian data and demonstrates the geostatsp and dieasemapping packages for performing inference using these models. Making use ...of Rs spatial data types, and raster objects in particular, makes spatial analyses using geostatistical models simple and convenient. Examples using real data are shown for Gaussian spatial data, binomially distributed spatial data, a log-Gaussian Cox process, and an area-level model for case counts.
Proprotein convertase subtilisin kexin type 9 (PCSK9) promotes the degradation of the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor (LDLR), and its deficiency in humans results in low plasma LDL cholesterol ...and protection against coronary heart disease. Recent evidence indicates that PCSK9 also modulates the metabolism of triglyceride-rich apolipoprotein B (apoB) lipoproteins, another important coronary heart disease risk factor. Here, we studied the effects of physiological levels of PCSK9 on intestinal triglyceride-rich apoB lipoprotein production and elucidated for the first time the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved.
Treatment of human enterocytes (CaCo-2 cells) with recombinant human PCSK9 (10 μg/mL for 24 hours) increased cellular and secreted apoB48 and apoB100 by 40% to 55% each (P<0.01 versus untreated cells), whereas short-term deletion of PCSK9 expression reversed this effect. PCSK9 stimulation of apoB was due to a 1.5-fold increase in apoB mRNA (P<0.01) and to enhanced apoB protein stability through both LDLR-dependent and LDLR-independent mechanisms. PCSK9 decreased LDLR protein (P<0.01) and increased cellular apoB stability via activation of microsomal triglyceride transfer protein. PCSK9 also increased levels of the lipid-generating enzymes FAS, SCD, and DGAT2 (P<0.05). In mice, human PCSK9 at physiological levels increased intestinal microsomal triglyceride transfer protein levels and activity regardless of LDLR expression.
PCSK9 markedly increases intestinal triglyceride-rich apoB production through mechanisms mediated in part by transcriptional effects on apoB, microsomal triglyceride transfer protein, and lipogenic genes and in part by posttranscriptional effects on the LDLR and microsomal triglyceride transfer protein. These findings indicate that targeted PCSK9-based therapies may also be effective in the management of postprandial hypertriglyceridemia.
Many countries have enforced social distancing to stop the spread of COVID-19. Within countries, although the measures taken by governments are similar, the incidence rate varies among areas (e.g., ...counties, cities). One potential explanation is that people in some areas are more vulnerable to the coronavirus disease because of their worsened health conditions caused by long-term exposure to poor air quality. In this study, we investigate whether long-term exposure to air pollution increases the risk of COVID-19 infection in Germany. The results show that nitrogen dioxide (NO2) is significantly associated with COVID-19 incidence, with a 1 μg m−3 increase in long-term exposure to NO2 increasing the COVID-19 incidence rate by 5.58% (95% credible interval CI: 3.35%, 7.86%). This result is consistent across various models. The analyses can be reproduced and updated routinely using public data sources and shared R code.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) on suicidal ideation in patients with treatment-resistant major depression (TRD) (patients ...who failed to clinically respond to at least 2 medication trials).
We pooled data from 2 published prospective randomized controlled trials of rTMS applied to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in patients with TRD. We compared the effect of bilateral, left unilateral, and sham rTMS on suicidal ideation as measured by the suicide item of the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) (N = 156).
Suicidal ideation resolved in 40.4%, 26.8%, and 18.8% of participants randomized to bilateral, left unilateral, and sham rTMS, respectively. The difference between bilateral and sham was significant (OR = 3.03; 95% CI, 1.19-7.71; P = .02), unlike the difference between left unilateral and sham (OR = 1.59; 95% CI, 0.61-4.12; P = .33). There was a modest correlation between change in suicidal ideation and change in depression severity (Pearson r = 0.38; P < .001) and no difference in change of HDRS-16 score between suicide remitters and nonremitters (P = .32).
Bilateral rTMS was superior to sham rTMS in reducing suicidal ideation in patients with TRD. Only a small portion of the reduction in suicidal ideation was attributable to the reduction in depressive symptoms. These data suggest that suicidal ideation could be a specific target symptom construct for rTMS.
ClinicalTrials.gov identifiers: NCT01515215 and NCT00305045.
Ethnic politics and sovereign credit risk Brown, Kathleen J.; DiGiuseppe, Matthew; Shea, Patrick E.
Review of international political economy,
03/2024, Volume:
31, Issue:
2
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
How does domestic politics affect sovereign credit risk? To date, scholars have largely focused on how economic interests along class-cleavages influence sovereign default risk and borrowing costs. ...Ethnic dynamics are another important political factor that explains governments' creditworthiness, yet are understudied. We investigate how ethnic politics shape governments' credit access and argue that the fiscal incentives generated by ethnic coalitions influence credit risk differently than those created by class cleavages. Because ethnic coalitions are usually smaller than class coalitions, left governments with ethnic support can commit to lower spending and receive more favorable risk assessments. Right governments that rely on ethnic support, however, will have greater spending demands because of their need to satisfy ethnic groups. We test our argument using a new indicator of government ethnic support and four indicators of sovereign credit risk. We find that, in emerging markets, the borrowing costs of right governments increase as they become more dependent on ethnic groups for political support. Our findings suggest that financial markets are attuned to multiple dimensions of domestic politics and demonstrate that ethnic divisions can have strong implications for governments' access to credit.
Most signals detected by genome-wide association studies map to non-coding sequence and their tissue-specific effects influence transcriptional regulation. However, key tissues and cell-types ...required for functional inference are absent from large-scale resources. Here we explore the relationship between genetic variants influencing predisposition to type 2 diabetes (T2D) and related glycemic traits, and human pancreatic islet transcription using data from 420 donors. We find: (a) 7741 cis-eQTLs in islets with a replication rate across 44 GTEx tissues between 40% and 73%; (b) marked overlap between islet cis-eQTL signals and active regulatory sequences in islets, with reduced eQTL effect size observed in the stretch enhancers most strongly implicated in GWAS signal location; (c) enrichment of islet cis-eQTL signals with T2D risk variants identified in genome-wide association studies; and (d) colocalization between 47 islet cis-eQTLs and variants influencing T2D or glycemic traits, including DGKB and TCF7L2. Our findings illustrate the advantages of performing functional and regulatory studies in disease relevant tissues.
Background
Double-row arthroscopic rotator cuff repair has become more popular, and some studies have shown better footprint coverage and improved biomechanics of the repair.
Hypothesis
Double-row ...rotator cuff repair leads to superior cuff integrity and early clinical results compared with single-row repair.
Study Design
Randomized controlled trial; Level of evidence, 1.
Methods
Forty patients were randomized to either single-row or double-row rotator cuff repair at the time of surgical intervention. Patients were followed with clinical measures (UCLA, Constant, WORC, SANE, ASES, as well as range of motion, internal rotation strength, and external rotation strength). Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies were performed on each shoulder preoperatively, 6 weeks, 3 months, and 1 year after repair.
Results
Mean anteroposterior tear size by MRI was 1.8 cm. A mean of 2.25 anchors for single row (SR) and 3.2 for double row (DR) were used. There were 2 retears at 1 year in each group. There were 2 additional cases that had severe thinning in the DR repair group at 1 year. The MRI measurements of footprint coverage, tendon thickness, and tendon signal showed no significant differences between the 2 repair groups. At 1 year, there were no differences in any of the postoperative measures of motion or strength. At 1 year, mean WORC (SR, 84.8; DR, 87.9), Constant (SR, 77.8; DR, 74.4), ASES (SR, 85.9; DR, 85.5), UCLA (SR, 28.6; DR, 29.5), and SANE (SR, 90.9; DR, 89.9) scores showed no significant differences between groups.
Conclusions
No clinical or MRI differences were seen between patients repaired with a SR or DR technique.
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