Risk Heterogeneity and Recurrent Violent Victimization: The Role of DRD4

For some people, victimization comes with significant costs. One of these costs is the likelihood of being victimized a subsequent time. Unfortunately, research shows that a portion of victims do in fact experience more than one victimization. Although this likelihood has been established, the reasons why some people are victimized more than once are not fully understood. One explanation centers on individual risk factors that, if left unchanged, will increase risk of further victimization. Previously unstudied, however, are genetic factors that may place and keep a victim at risk, even after an initial victimization. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, the current study addresses this gap. The findings reveal that there is in fact a genetic factor, the 7R allele of the DRD4 gene, that distinguishes individuals who have been victimized once from those who have been victimized multiple times.     

Peer Victimization Experienced by Children and Adolescents Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing

Victimization is a relatively common, yet serious problem, with potentially severe consequences for children''s psychosocial and academic functioning. Children who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing (DHH) may be at a higher risk for victimization than hearing children. The aims of the present study were to compare DHH and hearing children on i) self-reported experiences of victimization and ii) associations between victimization, parental- and child variables. In total 188 children (mean age 11;11 years) from the Netherlands and Dutch-speaking part of Belgium participated in the study. No difference between DHH and hearing children were found on general experiences of victimization. However, differences between the groups were found on specific forms of experienced victimization and on the associations between victimization and parental variables. For DHH children, parental sensitivity and parents who challenge their DHH children to become competent in the practical, emotional, cognitive and social domain is associated with them being less victimized. For hearing children at this age these relations were reversed, absent or more complex. Finally, DHH children in special schools were more victimized than DHH children in regular schools. It can be concluded that parents can play an important role in reducing social problems experienced by DHH children and young adolescents.     

Evolutionary personality psychology and victimology: Sex differences in risk attitudes and short-term orientation and their relation to sex differences in victimizations

Men are more often victims of events like car accidents or (violent) crimes than women with the sole exception of sexual assault. Based on the theory of sexual selection, it has been argued that these sex differences in both perpetration and victimization rates can be attributed to sex differences in risk taking and short-term orientation. Men are expected to be more risk prone than women because throughout evolutionary history, men had to engage in a higher level of intrasexual competition. However, despite the theoretical plausibility and empirical evidence at the behavioral level, there is little direct evidence that risk attitudes and short-term orientation as a sexually dimorphic personality trait mediate rates of victimization. Measures of risk attitude and short-term orientation administered to a German student sample (N=275) showed that: (1) the likelihood of being victimized by different kinds of negative events did correlate with both the risk attitudes and short-term orientation of a (potential) victim, (2) men had a more positive attitude towards risks and were more short-term oriented than women, and (3) sex differences in victimization rates were mediated by sex differences in risk attitudes, implying a close link between risk attitude and short-term orientation. We also show that women's risk of being raped is related to their individual risk attitude scores.     

Risk Recognition,Attachment Anxiety,Self-Efficacy,and State Dissociation Predict Revictimization

Background

Previous research has identified a number of variables that constitute potential risk factors for victimization and revictimization. However, it remains unclear which factors are associated not only with childhood or adolescent victimization, but specifically with revictimization. The aim of this study was to determine whether risk recognition ability and other variables previously associated with revictimization are specifically able to differentiate individuals with childhood victimization only from revictimized individuals, and thus to predict revictimization.

Methods

Participants were N = 85 women aged 21 to 64 years who were interpersonally victimized in childhood or adolescence only, interpersonally revictimized in another period of life, or not victimized. A logistic regression analysis was conducted to examine whether risk recognition ability, sensation seeking, self-efficacy, state dissociation, shame, guilt, assertiveness, and attachment anxiety predicted group membership.

Results

The logistic regression analysis revealed risk recognition ability, attachment anxiety, state dissociation, and self-efficacy as significant predictors of revictimization. The final model accurately classified 82.4% of revictimized, 59.1% of victimized and 93.1% of non-victimized women. The overall classification rate was 80%.

Conclusions

This study suggests that risk recognition ability, attachment anxiety, self-efficacy, and state dissociation play a key role in revictimization. Increased risk recognition ability after an interpersonal trauma may act as a protective factor against repeated victimization that revictimized individuals may lack. A lack of increased risk recognition ability in combination with higher attachment anxiety, lower self-efficacy, and higher state dissociation may increase the risk of revictimization.     

The Intensity of Victimization: Associations with Children's Psychosocial Well-Being and Social Standing in the Classroom

The association between experienced victimization and students'' psychological and social adjustment depends on the intensity of victimization. We examined how frequency and multiplicity of victimization, and the number of bullies involved, account for differences in students’ psychosocial well-being and social standing in the classroom. Multilevel analyses were conducted on the control group of an intervention study among students in grades 3–6 of Dutch elementary schools (N = 2859 students from 124 classes and 33 schools; ages 8–12; 49.6% boys). It was found that victims of frequent and multiple victimization, and victims who were victimized by several bullies, had higher levels of psychosocial adjustment problems than victims of less frequent and non-multiple victimization, and victims with only one bully. Moreover, these more severe victims turned out to be least accepted and most rejected among their classmates. The findings illustrate that it can be fruitful to use several measures of victimization so that (differences in) adjustment problems can be better understood. Moreover, the results suggest that it is important to find out who is victimized, in what ways, and by whom. Anti-bullying interventions should provide resources to do this.     

Predictors of uptake of obesity genetic testing among affected adults

Given that a large number of candidate genes coding for a tendency toward obesity have been identified and some findings have been replicated, we explored characteristics of those who would be most likely to obtain future genetic testing for this tendency. During a series of focus groups, obese respondents rated their likelihood of obtaining testing under conditions in which either genetically-targeted drug treatment would be available, a positive test would be associated with a prognosis for developing diabetes, or neither of these. Interest in testing was greater given the first two scenarios than the third. Older age and belief that genetics were an important cause of obesity were associated with greater interest. For the first two scenarios, higher educational status was associated with greater interest, while for the third, respondents who said emotional issues caused overweight and those who crash-dieted intermittently were more likely to want genetic testing. Although further research is required to validate these findings, this study is the first published report of respondents’ ratings of likelihood to obtain genetic testing for propensity to obesity, and suggests strong interest in genetic testing among some people, even in the absence of further treatment implications of the test.     

Predicting the performance of a genetic testing service for cancer susceptibility

A genetic testing service can determine which members of a population might benefit most from cancer prevention. The eligibility criteria will affect the number of people who use a service and the proportion who test positive. This affects both the service's costs and benefits. The goal of this study was to create computer software that predicts the effect of eligibility restrictions on the performance of a genetic testing service. The software allows eligibility restrictions based on age, gender, and family history of disease. As performance measures, we considered the sensitivity and specificity of eligibility criteria to identify people with genetic cancer susceptibility, the likelihood of genetic susceptibility among people who are eligible for the service, and the likelihood of genetic susceptibility among people who are ineligible. We compared the performance predicted by our model with the observed performance of the Hereditary Cancer Program at the BC Cancer Agency, and studied the effects of changes to model parameters. There was good agreement between model predictions and observed outcomes, however, performance measures were affected by changes to the underlying model parameters. Computer software to predict the performance of a genetic testing service for cancer susceptibility is implemented on the website http://142.103.207.51:8080/gtsim.     

Genetics and personal responsibility for health

Advances in genetic medicine may have implications for how we should think about personal responsibility for health, because they may show how it is possible to exert some control over risk factors that were previously thought as beyond the individual's control. Although we cannot control the genes that we are born with, we can often make decisions concerning genetic testing, disease prevention, and treatment. One might argue, therefore, that individuals should be treated as morally responsible for taking effective action in response to genetic risks factors, since genetically based health risks are similar to other health risks. While this argument makes sense as an abstract, philosophical position, it is not a useful guide to public policy. Given these concerns, there is little society can or should do to encourage individuals to address their genetic risk factors, other than praising those who make prudent choices.     

Reviews on sun exposure and artificial light and melanoma

Melanoma is the most common form of cancer among young adults aged 25-29 years and the second most common cancer in those aged 15-29 years. We reviewed all the evidence regarding risk factors for melanoma, looking in particular at childhood exposure to ultraviolet radiation (UV). UV radiation is clearly the predominant environmental and thus potentially modifiable risk factor for melanoma. All activities related to tan-seeking behaviour and history of sunburns were shown to be significantly associated to melanoma. Host factors, such as pigmentary characteristics, and genetic predisposition plays also an important role. UV exposure is not only due to the sun but also to indoor tanning devices that have been shown to lead to an elevated risk of melanoma. The strongest evidence for a link between artificial UV and melanoma is found among individuals who had their first exposure to indoor tanning before the age of 30: they have a 75% increase risk of developing melanoma than individuals who had no exposure to indoor tanning. Prevention is very important, especially for children and young adults, as childhood and adolescence are critical periods in the development of later melanoma. Indoor tanning is a widespread practice in most developed countries, particularly in Northern Europe and the USA. In the recent decades more and more people, especially teenagers and women, are exposed to substantially high radiant exposures of UV through artificial sources and these trends raised a considerable concern. In fact the International Agency for Research on Cancer concluded that the association between skin cancer and exposure to solar radiation and the use of UV-emitting tanning devices are causal. Interesting analyses carried out in Iceland showed that when interventions to discourage sunbed use were introduced the incidence of melanoma among women decreased. All this evidence encouraged many countries to introduce regulations on sunbed use to avoid exposure before the age of 18.     

False alarms and information transmission in grouping animals

A key benefit of grouping in prey species is access to social information, including information about the presence of predators. Larger groups of prey animals respond both sooner and at greater distances from predators, increasing the likelihood that group members will successfully avoid capture. However, identifying predators in complex environments is a difficult task, and false alarms (alarm behaviours without genuine threat) appear surprisingly frequent across a range of taxa including insects, amphibians, fish, mammals, and birds. In some bird flocks, false alarms have been recorded to substantially outnumber true alarms. False alarms can be costly in terms of both the energetic costs of producing alarm behaviours as well as lost opportunity costs (e.g. abandoning a feeding patch which was in fact safe, losing sleep if an animal is resting/roosting, or losing mating opportunities). Models have shown that false alarms may be a substantial but underappreciated cost of group living, introducing an inherent risk to using social information and a vulnerability to the propagation of false information. This review will focus on false alarms, introducing a two-stage framework to categorise the different factors hypothesised to influence the propensity of animal groups to produce false alarms. A number of factors may affect false alarm rate, and this new framework splits these factors into two core processing stages: (i) individual perception and response; and (ii) group processing of predator information. In the first stage, individuals in the group monitor the environment for predator cues and respond. The factors highlighted in this stage influence the likelihood that an individual will misclassify stimuli and produce a false alarm (e.g. lower light levels can make predator identification more difficult and false alarms more common). In the second stage, alarm information from individuals is processed by the group. The factors highlighted in this stage influence the likelihood of alarm information being copied by group members and propagated through the group (e.g. some animals implement group processing mechanisms that regulate the spread of behavioural responses such as consensus decision making through the quorum response). This review follows the structure of this new framework, focussing on the causes of false alarms, factors that influence false alarm rate, the transmission of alarm information through animal groups, mechanisms to mitigate the spread of false alarms, and the consequences of false alarms.     

Identifying errors in avian influenza virus gene sequences and implications for data usage of public databases

Public gene sequence databases have become important research tools to understand viruses and other organisms. Evidence suggests that the identifying information for some of the sequences in these databases might not belong to the sequences they are associated with. We developed two tests to conduct a comprehensive analysis of all published sequences of the hemaglutinin and neuramidase genes of avian influenza viruses (AIVs) to identify sequences that may have been misclassified. One test identified sequence pairs with highly similar nucleotide sequences despite a difference of several years between their sampling dates. Another test, which was applied to samples sequenced and deposited more than once, detected sequences with more nucleotide differences to their own than to their closest relatives. All sequences identified as misclassified were further traced to relevant publications to assess the likelihood of contamination and determine if any conclusions were associated with the use of these sequences. Our results suggested that among 4040 published gene sequences examined, approximately 0.8% might be misclassified and that publications using these sequences may include inaccurate statements. Findings from this report suggest that using laboratory-adapted strains and handling multiple samples simultaneously increases the risk of contamination. The tests reported here may be useful for screening new submissions to public sequence databases.     

Maximum-likelihood estimation of relatedness

Relatedness between individuals is central to many studies in genetics and population biology. A variety of estimators have been developed to enable molecular marker data to quantify relatedness. Despite this, no effort has been given to characterize the traditional maximum-likelihood estimator in relation to the remainder. This article quantifies its statistical performance under a range of biologically relevant sampling conditions. Under the same range of conditions, the statistical performance of five other commonly used estimators of relatedness is quantified. Comparison among these estimators indicates that the traditional maximum-likelihood estimator exhibits a lower standard error under essentially all conditions. Only for very large amounts of genetic information do most of the other estimators approach the likelihood estimator. However, the likelihood estimator is more biased than any of the others, especially when the amount of genetic information is low or the actual relationship being estimated is near the boundary of the parameter space. Even under these conditions, the amount of bias can be greatly reduced, potentially to biologically irrelevant levels, with suitable genetic sampling. Additionally, the likelihood estimator generally exhibits the lowest root mean-square error, an indication that the bias in fact is quite small. Alternative estimators restricted to yield only biologically interpretable estimates exhibit lower standard errors and greater bias than do unrestricted ones, but generally do not improve over the maximum-likelihood estimator and in some cases exhibit even greater bias. Although some nonlikelihood estimators exhibit better performance with respect to specific metrics under some conditions, none approach the high level of performance exhibited by the likelihood estimator across all conditions and all metrics of performance.     

Responsibility as an Obstacle to Good Policy: The Case of Lifestyle Related Disease

There is a lively debate over who is to blame for the harms arising from unhealthy behaviours, like overeating and excessive drinking. In this paper, I argue that given how demanding the conditions required for moral responsibility actually are, we cannot be highly confident that anyone is ever morally responsible. I also adduce evidence that holding people responsible for their unhealthy behaviours has costs: it undermines public support for the measures that are likely to have the most impact on these harms. I claim that these two facts—the fact that we cannot be highly confident that anyone is morally responsible and the fact that holding people responsible for their unhealthy behaviours has costs—interact. Together they give us a powerful reason for believing, or acting as if we believed, that ordinary people are not in fact responsible for their unhealthy behaviours.     

Sampling considerations in the gathering and analysis of pedigree data.

A general expression for the likelihood of a set of phenotypic observations on a randomly sampled pedigree, suitable for a wide variety of genetic models, has been previously modified to allow for independent ascertainments via probands. In this paper, further allowance is made for the fact that a pedigree usually contains some individuals who, whatever their phentoype, could never be probands, and we derive the limiting form of the likelihood appropriate for single ascertainment. The case when the sampling frame is ill-defined is discussed, and suggestions made for how to proceed in such a case.     

Starting a new genetic system: lessons from bacteroides

Despite the fact that genetic manipulation is an essential adjunct of studies of microbial physiology, many important bacterial species are still not accessible to genetic manipulation. In many cases, the people who know the organism best and have studied its physiology extensively have little experience with genetic techniques and are uncertain how to set up a new system. In this article, we describe what we have learned in the process of developing a genetic system for Bacteroides spp. and helping to develop genetic tools for two related species of bacteria: Porphromonas gingivalis and Prevotella ruminicola. We discuss the relative usefulness of different types of genetic tools and make some suggestions about how to construct them.     

Dermatoglyphics in patients with hypothyreosis

About 15% of all females and 3% of all males suffers from hypothyreosis. The thyroid disease is the most frequent cause of hypothyreosis, and among people in Croatia who are suffering from that disease 90% have been affected by its autoimmune form. The thyroid diseases are supposed to be caused by the influence of various genetic and external factors and some forms of genetic influences have not yet been studied. Analysis of digito-palmar dermatoglyphics has been used in the research of the role of genetic predisposition in many various diseases. We have analyzed correlation of qualitative and quantitative traits between the group of 50 females suffering from hypothyreosis and a control group of 100 phenotypically healthy females. Quantitative statistical analysis using t-test has indicated only few significantly different variables, while the discriminant analysis has shown 76.9% correctly classified samples. The factor analysis has shown a high percentage of total variance within patients suffering from hypothyreosis, as well as the different structure of individual factors. Qualitative analysis has shown the heterogeneity between the two examined groups. The results of the research have proved that the qualitative characteristics are more unstable than the quantitative ones and they have also shown the instability of genes taking part in hypothyreosis development implying genetic predisposition of the disease.     

Genetic analysis of pathways to Parkinson disease

In this review I outline the arguments as to whether we should consider Parkinson disease one or more than one entity and discuss genetic findings from Mendelian and whole-genome association analysis in that context. I discuss what the demonstration of disease spread implies for our analysis of the genetic and epidemiologic risk factors for disease and outline the surprising fact that we now have genetically identified on the order of half our risk for developing the disease.     

Genome-wide association studies: a new window into immune-mediated diseases

Given the recent explosion of genetic discoveries, 2007 is becoming known to human geneticists as the year of genome-wide association studies. In fact, more genetic risk factors for common diseases were identified in this one year than had been collectively reported before 2007. In particular, 2007 witnessed the discovery of many genes that influence susceptibility to individual immune-mediated diseases, as well as other genes that are associated with susceptibility to more than one disease. Although much work remains to be done, in this Review we discuss what effect these studies are having on our understanding of disease pathogenesis and their potential impact on future immunology studies.     

Procreative beneficence: why we should select the best children

Eugenic selection of embryos is now possible by employing in vitro fertilization (IVF) and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). While PGD is currently being employed for the purposes of detecting chromosomal abnormalities or inherited genetic abnormalities, it could in principle be used to test any genetic trait such as hair colour or eye colour.
Genetic research is rapidly progressing into the genetic basis of complex traits like intelligence and a gene has been identified for criminal behaviour in one family. Once the decision to have IVF is made, PGD has few 'costs' to couples, and people would be more inclined to use it to select less serious medical traits, such as a lower risk of developing Alzheimer Disease, or even for non-medical traits. PGD has already been used to select embryos of a desired gender in the absence of any history of sex-linked genetic disease.
I will argue that: (1) some non-disease genes affect the likelihood of us leading the best life; (2) we have a reason to use information which is available about such genes in our reproductive decision-making; (3) couples should select embryos or fetuses which are most likely to have the best life, based on available genetic information, including information about non-disease genes. I will also argue that we should allow selection for non-disease genes even if this maintains or increases social inequality. I will focus on genes for intelligence and sex selection.
I will defend a principle which I call Procreative Beneficence: couples (or single reproducers) should select the child, of the possible children they could have, who is expected to have the best life, or at least as good a life as the others, based on the relevant, available information.     

Son preference and intimate partner violence victimization in India: examining the role of actual and desired family composition

Son preference has been considered as a determinant of women's risk of intimate partner violence (IPV) experience in India, although quantitative evidence from large nationally representative studies testing this relationship is limited. This study examines the association between husband's son preference, sex composition of children and risk of physical and sexual IPV victimization among wives. Information was collected for 26,284 couples in the nationally representative 2005-2006 National Family Health Survey of India. The exposures were husband's son preference measured as husband's desire for one or more sons greater than the number of daughters and sex composition of the household: only sons, only daughters and mixed. Outcome included past year physical and/or sexual IPV. The results showed that husband's reported son preference (RR: 1.05; 95% CI: 0.98-1.13) and sex composition of children were not associated with risk for IPV victimization in the models adjusted for socio-demographic factors. The findings from this first population-based study of socio-cultural norms around son preference and married Indian women's risk for IPV victimization indicate that cultural preference for sons does not influence women's risk for IPV victimization.