Work schedules in the service sector are routinely unstable and unpredictable, and this unpredictability may have harmful effects on health and economic insecurity. However, because schedule ...unpredictability often coincides with low wages and other dimensions of poor job quality, the causal effects of unpredictable work schedules are uncertain. Seattle's Secure Scheduling ordinance, enacted in 2017, mandated greater schedule predictability, providing an opportunity to examine the causal relationship between work scheduling and worker health and economic security. We draw on pre- and postintervention survey data from workers in Seattle and comparison cities to estimate the impacts of this law using a difference-in-differences approach. We find that the law had positive impacts on workers' schedule predictability and stability and led to increases in workers' subjective well-being, sleep quality, and economic security. Using the Seattle law as an instrumental variable, we also estimate causal effects of schedule predictability on well-being outcomes. We show that uncertainty about work time has a substantial effect on workers' well-being, particularly their sleep quality and economic security.
•Modelling the energy transition pathways in coal-based energy systems.•Sustainable primary energy mixes based on national energy policies and resources.•Scenario approach analysis using bottom-up ...EnergyPLAN model.•CO2 emission reduction and economic viability of the proposed energy system by 2030.•Sector coupling increases the economic viability among energy transition pathways.
The sustainable transition of an entirely coal-powered energy system is a challenge that can be solved by integrating variable renewable energy sources and considering the synergic effect between energy supply and different sectors of energy consumption. This research shows how the scaling-up in variable renewable energy sources uptake and sector coupling while maintaining high flexibility in thermal power plants can be achieved in a coal-based energy system. The Kosovo energy system is modelled in the EnergyPLAN model as a case study. Appropriate energy transition pathways have been defined to meet the national energy policies by 2030. Five different scenarios that took into account the increase of renewable production capacities, flexible operation of coal-based thermal power plants and sector coupling options for a suitable primary energy mix by 2030 are have been discussed. Significant differences in annualized technology and emission costs can be observed between scenarios. In addition, scenario three seems to be the least cost in comparison to other scenarios. The total CO2 emissions for projected scenarios 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 in 2030 accounted for 4.78, 5.28, 4.48, 3.97 and 4.95 MtCO2/year, respectively. In addition, the total annual costs for projected scenarios 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 in 2030 accounted for 2168, 1611, 1993, 2479 and 2817 MEUR, respectively.
The essential element zinc plays critical roles in biology. High zinc homeostasis mechanisms are beginning to be defined in animals, but low zinc homeostasis is poorly characterized. We investigated ...low zinc homeostasis in Caenorhabditis elegans because the genome encodes 14 evolutionarily conserved Zrt, Irt-like protein (ZIP) zinc transporter family members. Three C. elegans zipt genes were regulated in zinc-deficient conditions; these promoters contained an evolutionarily conserved motif that we named the low zinc activation (LZA) element that was both necessary and sufficient for activation of transcription in response to zinc deficiency. These results demonstrated that the LZA element is a critical part of the low zinc homeostasis pathway. Transcriptional regulation of the LZA element required the transcription factor ELT-2 and mediator complex member MDT-15. We investigated conservation in mammals by analyzing LZA element function in human cultured cells; the LZA element-mediated transcriptional activation in response to zinc deficiency in cells, suggesting a conserved pathway of low zinc homeostasis. We propose that the pathway for low zinc homeostasis, which includes the LZA element and ZIP transporters, acts in parallel to the pathway for high zinc homeostasis, which includes the HZA element, HIZR-1 transcription factor and cation diffusion facilitator transporters.
Abstract
Episodic long-term memory (eLTM) retrieval involves the reinstatement of neural patterns from the encoding phase. However, recent evidence suggests that comparable cortical activity patterns ...can also be linked to attentional control processes on the level of memory representations. The current investigation assesses these two processes independently based on alpha-beta-band activity in the electroencephalogram (EEG). During encoding, subjects were presented with an object on a certain position on the screen and had to imagine it on a new position. In each trial, either the task-irrelevant presentation position or the task-relevant imagination position was lateralized. In the retrieval phase, subjects first made an old/new judgement based on centrally presented objects and then reported the imagination position. Pattern reinstatement should be reflected in similar lateralized alpha-beta activity during encoding and retrieval. Conversely, the influence of attentional control processes during retrieval would be associated with the suppression of alpha-beta power contralateral to the to-be-reported imagination position and with the increase of activity contralateral to the irrelevant presentation position. Our results support this latter pattern. This shows that an experimental differentiation between selective attention and pattern reinstatement processes is necessary when studying the neural basis of eLTM retrieval.
Multistate models are often used in social research to analyze how individuals move between states. A typical application is the estimation of the lifetime spent in a certain state, like the lifetime ...spent in employment, or the lifetime spent in good health. Unfortunately, the estimation of such quantities is prone to several biases. In this paper, we study the bias due to the often implicitly used assumption that there are no unobserved transitions between states. This assumption does often not hold for the panel data typically used to estimate multistate models, as the states occupied by individuals are only known at specific points in time, and further transitions between panel waves are not recorded. We present partially identified estimates of the lifetime spent in a state, or worse-case bounds, which show the maximum possible level of bias due to unobserved transitions. We provide two examples studying the lifetime spent in disability (disabled life expectancy; DLE). The first example applies our methods to results on cohort trends in DLE in the U.S. taken from Crimmins et al. (2009). In the second example, we replicate findings from Mehta and Myrskylä (2017), and apply our methods to data from the U.S. Health and Retirement Study (HRS) in order to estimate the effects of health behaviors on DLE.
To estimate the incidence proportion (IP) and incidence rate (IR) for ACL injury in athletes.
Systematic review with meta-analysis DATA SOURCES: The PubMed, CINAHL and SPORTDiscus electronic ...databases were searched from inception to 20 January 2017.
Studies were included if they reported total number of participants/population by sex, total number of ACL injuries by sex and total person-time by sex.
Fifty-eight studies were included. The IP and IR of ACL injury in female athletes were 3.5% (1 out of every 29 athletes) and 1.5/10 000 athlete-exposures over a period of 1 season-25 years. The IP and IR of ACL injury in male athletes were 2.0% (1 out of every 50 athletes) and 0.9/10 000 athlete-exposures over a period of 1-25 years. Female athletes had a higher relative risk (RR) for ACL injury compared with males (RR=1.5; 95% CI 1.2 to 1.9; P<0.01) and a higher incidence rate ratio (IRR) of ACL injury compared with males over 1 season-25 years (IRR=1.7; 95% CI 1.4 to 2.2; P<0.010). When accounting for participation level, the disparity in the IR between female and male athletes was highest for amateur athletes compared with intermediate and elite athletes (IRR=2.1; 95% CI 1.3 to 3.4; P<0.01; I²=82%). Amateur female athletes remained at higher risk of ACL injury than did with amateur male athletes. In studies where follow-up length was <1 year, female athletes had a higher IR of ACL injury than did to males (IRR=1.7; 95% CI 1.3 to 2.2; P<0.01). Where follow-up was 1 year and beyond, there was no sex difference in the IR of ACL injury (IRR=2.1; 95% CI 0.9 to 4.8; P=0.06; I²=65%).
One in 29 female athletes and 1 in 50 male athletes ruptured their ACL in a window that spanned from 1season to 25 years. The IR of ACL injury among female athletes in a season was 1.7 times higher than the IR of ACL injury among male athletes and the IP of ACL injury among female athletes was 1.5 times higher than the IP of ACL injury among male athletes. The reported sex disparity in ACL injury rates is independent of participation level and length of follow-up.
Mechanisms that control aging are important yet poorly defined. To discover longevity control genes, we performed a forward genetic screen for delayed reproductive aging in C. elegans. Here, we show ...that am117 is a nonsense mutation in the phm-2 gene, which encodes a protein homologous to human scaffold attachment factor B. phm-2(lf) mutant worms have an abnormal pharynx grinder, which allows live bacteria to accumulate in the intestine. This defect shortens lifespan on highly pathogenic bacteria but extends lifespan and health span on the standard E. coli diet by activating innate immunity pathways that lead to bacterial avoidance behavior and dietary restriction. eat-2(lf) mutants displayed a similar phenotype, indicating accumulation of live bacteria also triggers extended longevity in this mutant. The analysis of phm-2 elucidates connections between pathogen response and aging by defining a mechanism of longevity extension in C. elegans—bacterial colonization, innate immune activation, and bacterial avoidance behavior.
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•phm-2 encodes a SAFB protein conserved in mammals•phm-2 and eat-2 mutants have a defective pharynx and accumulate bacteria in the gut•Bacterial accumulation activates innate immunity and bacterial avoidance behavior•Bacterial avoidance leads to dietary restriction and delays aging
Kumar et al. link immunity and aging in C. elegans. The authors characterize phm-2 and eat-2, mutants that allow live bacteria to accumulate in the intestine, causing delayed reproductive and somatic aging. The mechanism combines molecular immune activation and behavioral food avoidance, leading to dietary restriction and extended lifespan.
JAK-STAT signaling mediates the actions of numerous cytokines and growth factors, and its endogenous brake is the family of SOCS proteins. Consistent with their intracellular roles, SOCS proteins ...have never been identified in the extracellular space. Here we report that alveolar macrophages can secrete SOCS1 and -3 in exosomes and microparticles, respectively, for uptake by alveolar epithelial cells and subsequent inhibition of STAT activation. Secretion is tunable and occurs both in vitro and in vivo. SOCS secretion into lung lining fluid was diminished by cigarette smoking in humans and mice. Secretion and transcellular delivery of vesicular SOCS proteins thus represent a new model for the control of inflammatory signaling, which is subject to dysregulation during states of inflammation.
Selection of DNA aptamers with two modified bases Gawande, Bharat N.; Rohloff, John C.; Carter, Jeffrey D. ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
03/2017, Volume:
114, Issue:
11
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The nucleobases comprising DNA and RNA aptamers provide considerably less chemical diversity than protein-based ligands, limiting their versatility. The introduction of novel functional groups at ...just one of the four bases in modified aptamers has recently led to dramatic improvement in the success rate of identifying nucleic acid ligands to protein targets. Here we explore the benefits of additional enhancement in physicochemical diversity by selecting modified DNA aptamers that contain amino-acid–like modifications on both pyrimidine bases. Using proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 as a representative protein target, we identify specific pairwise combinations of modifications that result in higher affinity, metabolic stability, and inhibitory potency compared with aptamers with single modifications. Such doubly modified aptamers are also more likely to be encoded in shorter sequences and occupy nonoverlapping epitopes more frequently than aptamers with single modifications. These highly modified DNA aptamers have broad utility in research, diagnostic, and therapeutic applications.
Attention can be allocated toward mental representations in working memory also after the initial encoding of information has been completed. It was shown that focusing on only one item within ...working memory transfers this representation into a protected state, reducing its susceptibility to interference by incoming signals. The present study investigated the nature of this retroactive cue (retro-cue) benefit by means of oscillatory activity in the EEG. In a working memory task with a retro-cue indicating one, two or three memory representations as relevant and a block-wise distractor display presented after the retro-cue, participants had to remember the orientation of a colored bar. On behavioral level, we found that the interfering effect of the distractor display on memory performance could be prevented when a retro-cue reduced the number of attended representations in working memory. However, only the one-item retro-cue led to an overall increase in task performance compared to a condition without a retro-cue. The neural basis of this special representational status was investigated by means of oscillatory parameters in the EEG and a clustering approach on level of the independent components (ICs) in the signal. The retroactive reduction of attended working memory representations was reflected in a suppression of alpha power over right parietal and parieto-occipital sites. In addition, we found that an IC cluster representing oscillatory activity in the mu/beta range (10–12 Hz and 20–24 Hz) with a source in sensorimotor cortex revealed a power suppression already prior to the memory probe following the one-item retro-cue. This suggests that the retro-cue benefit results in large parts from the possibility to focus attention on one particular item in working memory and initiate motor planning processes already ahead of the probe stimulus indicating the respective response.
•The retro-cue benefit is related to a head start of response planning.•This mechanism can be used when the desired response is obvious after a retro-cue.•Contralateral mu/beta suppression reflects the response planning head start.•The source of mu/beta suppression is located in sensorimotor cortex.
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