Trusting the Health System and COVID 19 Restriction Compliance

We examine the extent to which exposure to higher relative COVID-19 mortality (RM), influences health system trust (HST), and whether changes in HST explain the perceived ease of compliance with pandemic restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on evidence from two representative surveys covering all regions of 28 European countries before and after the first COVID-19 wave, and using a difference in differences strategy together with Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM), we document that living in a region with higher RM during the first wave of the pandemic increased HST. However, the positive effect of RM on HST is driven by individuals over 45 years of age, and the opposite effect is found among younger cohorts. Furthemore, we find that a higher HST reduces the costs of complying with COVID-19 restrictions, but only so long as excess mortality does not exceed the average by more than 20%, at which point the ease of complying with COVID-19 restrictions significantly declines, offsetting the positive effect of trust in the healthcare system. Our interpretation of these estimates is that a higher RM is interpreted as a risk signal among those over 45, and as a signal of health-care system failure among younger age individuals.     

Bifidobacterium longum supplementation improves age-related delays in fracture repair

Age-related delays in bone repair remains an important clinical issue that can prolong pain and suffering. It is now well established that inflammation increases with aging and that this exacerbated inflammatory response can influence skeletal regeneration. Recently, simple dietary supplementation with beneficial probiotic bacteria has been shown to influence fracture repair in young mice. However, the contribution of the gut microbiota to age-related impairments in fracture healing remains unknown. Here, we sought to determine whether supplementation with a single beneficial probiotic species, Bifidobacterium longum (B. longum), would promote fracture repair in aged (18-month-old) female mice. We found that B. longum supplementation accelerated bony callus formation which improved mechanical properties of the fractured limb. We attribute these pro-regenerative effects of B. longum to preservation of intestinal barrier, dampened systemic inflammation, and maintenance of the microbiota community structure. Moreover, B. longum attenuated many of the fracture-induced systemic pathologies. Our study provides evidence that targeting the gut microbiota using simple dietary approaches can improve fracture healing outcomes and minimize systemic pathologies in the context of aging.     

国家公园农户对野生动物肇事保险购买意愿及其影响因素——以大熊猫国家公园为例

国家公园内人与野生动物冲突严重,建立野生动物肇事保险机制是减缓冲突的重要举措。以大熊猫国家公园周边社区为例,分析建立国家公园以及农户风险偏好对野生动物肇事保险购买意愿的影响,并探讨冲突程度和制度信任的中介效应。研究结果表明建立国家公园显著增加了农户野生动物肇事保险购买意愿,而农户风险偏好对保险购买意愿会产生负向显著影响。冲突程度和制度信任是重要的中介变量,冲突程度和制度信任均对农户保险购买意愿产生正向显著影响。建立国家公园显著增加了人与野生动物冲突严重程度,进而对保险购买意愿产生正向影响。此外,建立国家公园显著降低了农户制度信任,进而对保险购买意愿产生负向影响。农户风险偏好对野生动物肇事损失程度产生正向显著影响,进而对保险购买意愿产生正向影响。农户风险偏好对制度信任影响并不显著。基于此,研究提出吸纳社会资本参与,拓宽野生动物肇事保险资金来源,开展社区共管、地役权补偿等措施提升社区信任以及建立基于农户自主防护行为的野生动物肇事保险机制等政策建议。     

Cucumber mosaic virus genome is encapsidated in alfalfa mosaic virus coat protein expressed in transgenic tobacco plants

The expression of viral coat protein (CP) in transgenic plants has been shown to be very effective in virus plant protection. However, the introduction of CP genes into plants presents the potential risk of the encapsidation of a superinfecting viral genome in the transgenic protein, an event which could change the epidemiology of the disease. To detect the potential heterologous encapsidation of the cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) genome by alfalfa mosaic virus (AIMV) CP expressed in transgenic tobacco plants, a system of immunocapture (IC) and amplification by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was optimized. This provided high sensitivity and reliable selection of the heterologously encapsidated CMV genome in the presence of natural CMV particles. As little as 2 pg of virus could be detected by immunocapture/polymerase chain reaction (IC/PCR) technique. Evidence for heterologous encapsidation of the CMV genome was found in 11 of the 33 transgenic plants tested two weeks after CMV inoculation. This demonstrates a significant rate of heterologous encapsidation events between two unrelated viruses in transgenic plants. Since CP is involved in the interactions of the virus particle with its vector, the release in the field of such transgenic plants could alter the transmission properties of some important viruses.     

高原湖泊流域国土空间生态修复优先区诊断及修复研究

高原湖泊流域是高原地区人类活动的重要载体,兼具高生态价值和高脆弱性的特点。随着高原湖泊流域城市化和工业化发展加速,湖泊面积萎缩,污染加剧,流域生态环境受损严重,引发了一系列生态环境问题,如水土流失、水污染、湿地退化、生境质量下降等。亟需开展生态修复以平衡经济发展与生态环境保护之间关系,而基于整体保护与系统治理思维诊断并修复生态修复优先区,是科学有序推进国土空间生态保护与修复的重要抓手。基于此,研究以高原湖泊流域典型代表滇池流域为例,利用人类足迹和景观生态风险模型定量评估生态系统所受负向干扰,以最小累积阻力模型和电路理论构建流域生态网络;提取生态网络受负向干扰较高的关键区域为生态修复优先区并提出针对性修复措施。研究表明：(1)滇池流域人类干扰和生态风险整体较高,人类干扰整体呈核心—边缘递减的圈层式分布,中高生态风险占据了绝大部分区域。人类交通网络大幅扩展了人类干扰和生态风险的强度和深度;(2)区域生态网络呈典型湖泊生态网络特点,38条生态廊道呈放射状或环状分布,连通湖区、山区两大生态空间内共23块生态源地,保障区域生态安全;(3)研究共提取生态源地修复优先区73.83km²     

Dietary exposure and risk assessment to trace elements and iodine in seaweeds

IntroductionSeaweeds are a rich source of elements such as iodine, and are also able to accumulate contaminants such as trace elements.MethodsThe aim of this study was to assess the dietary exposure as well as the risk from iodine and trace elements in edible seaweeds for the French population using current consumption data. The contribution of seaweeds to overall dietary exposure to trace elements and iodine was evaluated, and for those substances with minimal contribution to overall dietary exposure, simulations were performed to propose increased maximal limits in seaweeds.ResultsCadmium, inorganic arsenic and mercury in seaweeds were very low contributors to total dietary exposure to these contaminants (0.7 % 1.1 % and 0.1 % on average, respectively). Dietary exposure to lead via seaweed may contribute up to 3.1 % of total dietary exposure. Dietary consumption of iodine via seaweed may contribute up to 33 % of total exposure to iodine, which makes seaweeds the strongest contributor to iodine in diet.DiscussionNew maximal values in seaweeds are proposed for the very low contributors to total dietary exposure: 1 mg/kg dw for cadmium, 10 mg/kg dw for inorganic arsenic and 0.3 mg/kg dw for mercury.     

Cross-trait prediction accuracy of summary statistics in genome-wide association studies

In the era of big data, univariate models have widely been used as a workhorse tool for quickly producing marginal estimators; and this is true even when in a high-dimensional dense setting, in which many features are “true,” but weak signals. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) epitomize this type of setting. Although the GWAS marginal estimator is popular, it has long been criticized for ignoring the correlation structure of genetic variants (i.e., the linkage disequilibrium [LD] pattern). In this paper, we study the effects of LD pattern on the GWAS marginal estimator and investigate whether or not additionally accounting for the LD can improve the prediction accuracy of complex traits. We consider a general high-dimensional dense setting for GWAS and study a class of ridge-type estimators, including the popular marginal estimator and the best linear unbiased prediction (BLUP) estimator as two special cases. We show that the performance of GWAS marginal estimator depends on the LD pattern through the first three moments of its eigenvalue distribution. Furthermore, we uncover that the relative performance of GWAS marginal and BLUP estimators highly depends on the ratio of GWAS sample size over the number of genetic variants. Particularly, our finding reveals that the marginal estimator can easily become near-optimal within this class when the sample size is relatively small, even though it ignores the LD pattern. On the other hand, BLUP estimator has substantially better performance than the marginal estimator as the sample size increases toward the number of genetic variants, which is typically in millions. Therefore, adjusting for the LD (such as in the BLUP) is most needed when GWAS sample size is large. We illustrate the importance of our results by using the simulated data and real GWAS.     

The prevalence of root surface caries amongst Irish adults

In a national survey of adult dental health conducted in the Republic of Ireland in 1989/90 a total of 1,527 subjects aged 25 and older were examined for root surface caries. It was found that the prevalence of root surface caries was highest in older age groups and also amongst males, residents of non-fluoridated communities and those earning low incomes. Tooth loss masked the potential prevalence of root surface caries. With more persons retaining their natural teeth into middle and old age the prevalence of root surface caries is likely to increase in the future.     

Bias-reduced estimators of conditional odds ratios in matched case-control studies with unmatched confounding

We study bias-reduced estimators of exponentially transformed parameters in general linear models (GLMs) and show how they can be used to obtain bias-reduced conditional (or unconditional) odds ratios in matched case-control studies. Two options are considered and compared: the explicit approach and the implicit approach. The implicit approach is based on the modified score function where bias-reduced estimates are obtained by using iterative procedures to solve the modified score equations. The explicit approach is shown to be a one-step approximation of this iterative procedure. To apply these approaches for the conditional analysis of matched case-control studies, with potentially unmatched confounding and with several exposures, we utilize the relation between the conditional likelihood and the likelihood of the unconditional logit binomial GLM for matched pairs and Cox partial likelihood for matched sets with appropriately setup data. The properties of the estimators are evaluated by using a large Monte Carlo simulation study and an illustration of a real dataset is shown. Researchers reporting the results on the exponentiated scale should use bias-reduced estimators since otherwise the effects can be under or overestimated, where the magnitude of the bias is especially large in studies with smaller sample sizes.