Common Causation Research Articles

In the shadow of famine: How do Russo–Ukrainian and Russo–Kazakh relations impact memorialisation of the Holodomor and Kazakh famine?

The trajectories of public memory and memorialisation of the famines of the 1930s have been vastly different for Kazakhstan and Ukraine, despite the common causation of these national tragedies. Many of the disparities between memorialisation of these events emerge from these nations’ different post–collapse trajectories. A not insignificant amount of vacillation on memory policy occurred as both nations grappled with the past, owing to the various orientations of national leadership and popular sentiment as contexts shifted. While Ukraine sought to forge an independent path quickly post–collapse, Kazakhstan maintained close relations with Russia until recently. Changes to Kazakhstan’s foreign policy spurred, in part, by the Russian full–scale invasion of Ukraine have in turn prompted a revaluation of famine memory. This article seeks to illustrate the complexity of nations coming to terms with their Soviet pasts alongside new domestic and international concerns and illustrate the value of comparative analysis of famine memory through a post–colonial lens.

The impact of mean body mass index on reported mortality from COVID-19 across 181 countries.

Accountability for global health issues such as a pandemic and its devastating consequences are usually ascribed to a virus, but a comprehensive view should also take into account the state of the host. Data suggests that excessive nutrition is to blame for a yet unknown but not negligible portion of deaths attributed to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. We analyzed the correlation between mean body mass index (BMI) and 2-year coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mortality rates reported by 181 countries worldwide. Almost two thirds of the countries included had a mean BMI greater or equal to 25, with death rates ranging from 3 to 6,280 per million. Death rates in countries with a mean BMI below 25 ranged from 3 to 1,533. When the analysis was restricted to countries where the extent of testing was deemed more representative of actual mortality, only 20.1% had a mean BMI <25 but the mortality difference persisted. A second analysis looking at pre-vaccination mortality obtained from a different source led to similar conclusions. Due to the nature of the variables, reverse causation can be excluded while common causation can not. A mean BMI <25 for a country seems to spare its citizens from the highest COVID-19 mortality rates. The impact of excess weight on global COVID-19 mortality is suspected to have been much higher than what currently perceived, here estimated at no less than a fourfold increase in mortality. Countries with normal mean BMI constitute precious test beds for the quantification of the effects of overeating on COVID-19 mortality.

Causality detection with matrix-based transfer entropy

Transfer entropy (TE) is a powerful tool for analyzing causality between time series and complex systems. However, it faces two key challenges. First, TE is often used to quantify the pairwise causal direction; yet, in real-world applications, one is always interested in identifying more complex causal relationships, such as indirect causation, common causation, and synergistic effect. Second, the estimation of TE usually relies on probability estimation, which is particularly complicated, or even infeasible for high-dimensional data. In this work, we take TE one step further and develop a pair of measures, the matrix-based conditional transfer entropy (CTEM) and the matrix-based high-order transfer entropy (HTEM). The former can detect both indirect and common causation, while the latter can detect synergistic effect. Making use of the recently proposed matrix-based Rényi’s α-order entropy functional, CTEM and HTEM are defined on the eigenspectrum of a normalized Hermitian matrix of the projected data in kernel space, which avoids the necessity of density estimation and the curse of dimensionality. Experiments on both synthetic and real-world datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our measures in high-dimensional space, and their superiority in recovering complex causal structures for more than two time series.

Экономические аспекты лечения вирусной пневмонии, вызванной SARS-CoV-2

Study Objective: To conduct a cost analysis of the management of patients with viral pneumonia caused by SARS-CoV-2, and to develop nosological models of patients in order to optimise medical fees. Study Design: Statistical and economic study. Material and Methods. We studied 50,539 completed hospitalisations of patients with viral pneumonia caused by SARS-CoV-2 during a period from March 2020 to March 2021 in Municipal Clinical Hospital No. 15 named after O.M. Filatov. Using an expert evaluation, we found out 5 nosological models of patients and calculated mean duration of hospitalisation, confidence intervals (95% CI), and fee parameters using actual costs (cost of one bed-day and completed therapy). Study Results. We managed to prove the hypothesis, according to which correctness of analysis of actual costs of therapy and precise prognosis depend on the differentiation of cases of SARS-CoV-2-caused viral pneumonia using nosological models of a patient, nosological forms, and disease severity. We developed nosological models of a patient; identified a range of cost of therapy; and calculated corresponding relative factors. Conclusion. The cost of management of patients with viral pneumonia caused by SARS-CoV-2 should be analysed and planned depending on nosological models grouped on the basis of common causation of the disease, presence or absence of complications (pneumonia), presence of comorbidities and surgeries, and condition of patients. The most expensive is the management of patients with COVID-19 and npneumonia and surgery. Keywords: cost of management, nosological model, SARS-CoV-2, viral pneumonia.

Decision-making as transdiagnostic construct for mental health research

Transdiagnostic research and linking behavioral, neural, and symptom measures are important endeavors in clinical neuroscience and biological psychiatry. In this issue of Neuron, Moutoussis etal. (2021) describe a new cognitive construct-decision acuity-that is related to mental health symptoms and distinct resting-state networks.

Autopsy analysis of craniocerebral injuries at a tertiary healthcare centre

Brain is one of the most vital organs in the body, despite it being protected by bony skull. Craniocerebral injury or head injury is defined by National Advisory Neurological Disease and Stroke Council as a “morbid state resulting from gross or subtle structural changes in the scalp, skull and or the contents of the skull produced by mechanical forces”.1 A prospective study was conducted in the department of forensic medicine at Indira Gandhi Government Medical College & Hospital Nagpur, a tertiary care centre for a period of two years. During the period of study, a total of 2048 cases of medicolegal autopsy were evaluated. Out of the total medicolegal autopsy cases a total of 202 cases of death due to craniocerebral injuries were included in the present study. Consumption of alcohol is a common causation for road traffic accidents and subsequent craniocerebral injuries. Study of various aspects of head injury helps in better understanding of such cases.

D190Y mutation in C-terminal tail region of TNNI3 gene causing severe form of restrictive cardiomyopathy with mild hypertrophy in an Indian patient

BackgroundRestrictive cardiomyopathy (RCM) is a rare condition with stiffening of the heart. Cardiac Troponin I gene is the most common causation of RCM constituting 8–10% of RCM cases and known responsible for either RCM with hypertrophy or hypertrophy with restrictive physiology. MethodsThirty RCM patients, 62 family members with 100 age, sex and ethnic matched subjects as controls were recruited from cardiology department of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi with written informed consent. 5 ml of blood sample was subjected to DNA extraction and all eight exons of the TNN13 gene were PCR amplified by 5 primer sets for Sanger sequencing. ResultsA rare heterozygous, de-novo missense mutation c.G568T p.D190Y is identified in a RCM patient having mild hypertrophy with restrictive physiology as it is absent in all unaffected family members, controls, other RCM patients of the study and several genome and exome data bases. This mutation is highly conserved and in-silico functional and protein structure analyses found it likely pathogenic. ConclusionIn the present study, out of 30 RCM Indian patients screened for all 8 exons of the TNNI3 gene, only one patient (3.33%) was found with the mutation. Variations and the substitution of different amino acids on same codons of TNNI3 gene confer different range phenotypes. In summary, this study contributes to the mutation spectrum in exon 8 as hot spot region of the TNNI3 gene causing RCM.

Common causation and offset effects in human visual-inertial heading direction integration.

Movement direction can be determined from a combination of visual and inertial cues. Visual motion (optic flow) can represent self-motion through a fixed environment or environmental motion relative to an observer. Simultaneous visual and inertial heading cues present the question of whether the cues have a common cause (i.e., should be integrated) or whether they should be considered independent. This was studied in eight healthy human subjects who experienced 12 visual and inertial headings in the horizontal plane divided in 30° increments. The headings were estimated in two unisensory and six multisensory trial blocks. Each unisensory block included 72 stimulus presentations, while each multisensory block included 144 stimulus presentations, including every possible combination of visual and inertial headings in random order. After each multisensory stimulus, subjects reported their perception of visual and inertial headings as congruous (i.e., having common causation) or not. In the multisensory trial blocks, subjects also reported visual or inertial heading direction (3 trial blocks for each). For aligned visual-inertial headings, the rate of common causation was higher during alignment in cardinal than noncardinal directions. When visual and inertial stimuli were separated by 30°, the rate of reported common causation remained >50%, but it decreased to 15% or less for separation of ≥90°. The inertial heading was biased toward the visual heading by 11-20° for separations of 30-120°. Thus there was sensory integration even in conditions without reported common causation. The visual heading was minimally influenced by inertial direction. When trials with common causation perception were compared with those without, inertial heading perception had a stronger bias toward visual stimulus direction.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Optic flow ambiguously represents self-motion or environmental motion. When these are in different directions, it is uncertain whether these are integrated into a common perception or not. This study looks at that issue by determining whether the two modalities are consistent and by measuring their perceived directions to get a degree of influence. The visual stimulus can have significant influence on the inertial stimulus even when they are perceived as inconsistent.

Effect of range of heading differences on human visual-inertial heading estimation.

Both visual and inertial cues are salient in heading determination. However, optic flow can ambiguously represent self-motion or environmental motion. It is unclear how visual and inertial heading cues are determined to have common cause and integrated vs perceived independently. In four experiments visual and inertial headings were presented simultaneously with ten subjects reporting visual or inertial headings in separate trial blocks. Experiment 1 examined inertial headings within 30° of straight-ahead and visual headings that were offset by up to 60°. Perception of the inertial heading was shifted in the direction of the visual stimulus by as much as 35° by the 60° offset, while perception of the visual stimulus remained largely uninfluenced. Experiment 2 used ± 140° range of inertial headings with up to 120° visual offset. This experiment found variable behavior between subjects with most perceiving the sensory stimuli to be shifted towards an intermediate heading but a few perceiving the headings independently. The visual and inertial headings influenced each other even at the largest offsets. Experiments 3 and 4 had similar inertial headings to experiments 1 and 2, respectively, except subjects reported environmental motion direction. Experiment 4 displayed similar perceptual influences as experiment 2, but in experiment 3 percepts were independent. Results suggested that perception of visual and inertial stimuli tend to be perceived as having common causation in most subjects with offsets up to 90° although with significant variation in perception between individuals. Limiting the range of inertial headings caused the visual heading to dominate the perception.

Simultaneous outbreaks of respiratory disease in wild chimpanzees caused by distinct viruses of human origin

ABSTRACT Respiratory viruses of human origin infect wild apes across Africa, sometimes lethally. Here we report simultaneous outbreaks of two distinct human respiratory viruses, human metapneumovirus (MPV; Pneumoviridae: Metapneumovirus) and human respirovirus 3 (HRV3; Paramyxoviridae; Respirovirus, formerly known as parainfluenza virus 3), in two chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) communities in the same forest in Uganda in December 2016 and January 2017. The viruses were absent before the outbreaks, but each was present in ill chimpanzees from one community during the outbreak period. Clinical signs and gross pathologic changes in affected chimpanzees closely mirrored symptoms and pathology commonly observed in humans for each virus. Epidemiologic modelling showed that MPV and HRV3 were similarly transmissible (R 0 of 1.27 and 1.48, respectively), but MPV caused 12.2% mortality mainly in infants and older chimpanzees, whereas HRV3 caused no direct mortality. These results are consistent with the higher virulence of MPV than HRV3 in humans, although both MPV and HRV3 cause a significant global disease burden. Both viruses clustered phylogenetically within groups of known human variants, with MPV closely related to a lethal 2009 variant from mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei), suggesting two independent and simultaneous reverse zoonotic origins, either directly from humans or via intermediary hosts. These findings expand our knowledge of human origin viruses threatening wild chimpanzees and suggest that such viruses might be differentiated by their comparative epidemiological dynamics and pathogenicity in wild apes. Our results also caution against assuming common causation in coincident outbreaks.

Shared genetic influence on frailty and chronic widespread pain: a study from TwinsUK

Introductionfrailty is an increased vulnerability to adverse health outcomes, across multiple physiological systems, with both environmental and genetic drivers. The two most commonly used measures are Rockwood’s frailty index (FI) and Fried’s frailty phenotype (FP).Material and methodsthe present study included 3626 individuals from the TwinsUK Adult Twin Registry. We used the classical twin model to determine whether FI and FP share the same latent aetiological factors. We also investigated the relationship between frailty and chronic widespread musculoskeletal pain (CWP), another holistic age-related condition with significant clinical impact.ResultsFP and FI shared underlying genetic and environmental aetiology. CWP was associated with both frailty measures, and health deficits appeared to mediate the relationship between phenotypic frailty and pain. Latent genetic factors underpinning CWP were shared with frailty. While frailty was increased in the twins reporting pain, co-twin regression analysis indicated that the relationship between CWP and frailty is reduced after accounting for shared genetic and environmental factors.Conclusionsboth measures of frailty tap the same root causes, thus this work helps unify frailty research. We confirmed a strong association between CWP and frailty, and showed a large and significant shared genetic aetiology of both phenomena. Our findings argue against pain being a significant causative factor in the development of frailty, favouring common causation. This study highlights the need to manage CWP in frail individuals and undertake a Comprehensive Geriatric Assessment in individuals presenting with CWP. Finally, the search for genetic factors underpinning CWP and frailty could be aided by integrating measures of pain and frailty.

Incidental paranasal sinusitis on routine brain magnetic resonance scans: association with atherosclerosis.

Incidental paranasal sinusitis (IPS) is common on imaging for non-sinusitis disorders, usually without symptoms or obstructive features, and possibly arising from periodontitis (PD). PD associations with atherosclerosis have been widely reported. We test if IPS may also be associated with atherosclerosis. IPS was scored retrospectively in a random sample of 180 magnetic resonance (MR) brain scans and compared with chart review for atherosclerosis (all subtypes), rhinosinusitis, and related factors (smoking, asthma, and relevant surgery). IPS was scored out of 30, from all sinuses, with maxillary sinuses weighted double volumetrically. Significant IPS (Sig IPS) was designated as 6 or more out of 30. Bivariate logistic regression was used to test for associations of Sig IPS to the clinical data, with multivariate analysis then testing for potential confounders. A total of 173 subjects were analyzed (7 exclusions). MR indications included suspected acute/prior stroke (22.0%). Sig IPS found in 20 (11.6%). Positive histories for atherosclerosis were cerebral, 57 (32.9%); coronary, 48 (27.7%); and peripheral arterial disease, 14 (8.1%). IPS ≥6 was strongly associated with cerebrovascular disease (odds ratio [OR] 6.0, p < 0.001), and less robustly to smoking (OR 2.9, p = 0.07) and rhinosinusitis (OR 2.4, p = 0.09). No associations with coronary or peripheral artery diseases were found. After controlling for smoking and rhinosinusitis, yielding significant subclinical sinusitis, the link of Sig IPS to cerebrovascular disease persisted (modified OR 5.2, p = 0.002). Significant incidental sinusitis, which is mostly subclinical sinusitis, is associated with cerebrovascular disease but not other atheroscleroses. This suggests possible common causation of both by PD.

Unrestrained Liability for Pure Economic Loss in the United States and Spain: A Shared Concern

Over the years, the problem of pure economic loss together with its presumptive non-recovery ‘bright line’ rule have continued to lead discussions on the boundaries of tort law, which is never closed. Perhaps nowhere else in the law of tort has there been such diversity of opinion than in the recoverability question of pure economic loss. Arguably, the most discussed and expanding rule in the realm of tort law today. This study, however, examines the notion of economic loss across two different systems, the tort laws of United States and Spain. It begins with how pure economic loss relates to contract. Why physical loss does enjoy more protection than economic loss? Why was there divergence of treatment for economic loss within and across systems? The courts’ reluctance to allow recovery not linked with physical loss or injury for the fear that such admission would open the door to mass litigation, which might very well overwhelm the courts. The mutual concerns of both common and civil law courts to keep liability exposure on check and the use of duty in case of common law and causation for civil law to achieve that. Attention is also given to the uncertainty regarding the prerequisite for compensation of economic loss and the lack of consistent framework in determining recoverability. The study concludes with an opinion on the ongoing debate over the propriety or otherwise of recovery expansion.

Proof of causation: A new approach in cancer cases

This paper considers the judgments in JD v MELANIE MATHER [2012] EWHC 3063 (QB) and LORETTA OLIVER v GARY WILLIAMS [2013] EWHC 600 (QB) and how new prognostic models for breast cancer survival can be used by litigants to overcome the perceived injustices created by common law principles of causation established in Gregg v Scott [2005] UKHL 2. We consider how the use of epidemiological data in breast cancer cases permits the lawyer to pose the question of how a delay in diagnosis reduces life expectancy and how, in an increasingly high number of cases, that is preferable to the traditional approach of addressing only survival. By applying new statistical data to establish the effect of delay upon life expectancy, the court will be able to avoid apparent injustice without straining yet further established principles of common law causation. More importantly, in many cases for which redress is currently not available, it will better reflect the duty of the treating doctor and the expectations of the patient, something the common law should strive to achieve. This approach was applied in JD v MELANIE MATHER [2012] EWHC 3063 (QB) and considered in LORETTA OLIVER v GARY WILLIAMS [2013] EWHC 600 (QB).

Reflections on Common Sense Causation in Australia

Part 1 of this chapter argues that the High Court of Australia’s so-called “common sense test” of causation is an empty slogan, neither a test nor anything to do with common sense. For clarity of legal analysis the issue of whether a factor was involved with the existence of the relevant phenomenon (that is, the issue of factual causation) should be kept explicitly separate from the issue of the appropriate scope of legal responsibility for that phenomenon. Expressing the latter scope issue as a “causal” issue is obfuscating and should be abandoned. This Part also argues: that Australian courts should cease referring to the “scope of the duty”; that a factor should be recognised as a factual cause if it contributes in any way to the existence of the phenomenon in issue even if it is neither a “but for” nor a sufficient factor for the existence of that phenomenon; and that aspects of the civil liability legislation prompted by the Review of the Law of Negligence: Final Report (the “Ipp Report”) can and should be ignored. Part II elaborates the “factual causation then scope-of-liability-for-consequences” approach with illustrations from the common law and under statute, including many of commercial cases.

Schizophrenia and frontotemporal dementia: Shared causation?

The relationship between specific genes and particular diseases in neuropsychiatry is unclear, and newer studies focus on shared domains of neurobiological and cognitive pathology across different disorders. This paper reviews the evidence for an association between schizophrenia and frontotemporal dementia, including symptom similarity, familial co-morbidity, and neuroanatomical changes. Genetic as well as epigenetic findings from both schizophrenia and frontotemporal dementia are also discussed. As a result, we introduce the hypothesis of a shared susceptibility for certain subgroups of schizophrenia and frontotemporal dementia. This common causation may involve the same gene(s) at different stages of life: early in schizophrenia and late in frontotemporal dementia. Additionally, we provide a rationale for future research that should emphasize both genetic and cognitive parallels between certain forms of schizophrenia and frontotemporal dementia in a synergistic, coordinated way, placing both in the context of aberrant lateralization patterns.

Causes and (in)Determinism

The five papers of the current issue originate from selected talks of a workshop Causes and Tenses: Formal Perspectives, held in Krakow (Poland) in September 2010. The aim of this event was to explore two relatively recent projects in formal philosophy: a rigorous analysis of a modal and tensed notion of (in)determinism and a study of common causation by means of probabilistic extendability. In contrast to the Laplacean (in)determinism framed in tenseless terms of laws of nature or models of a theory, the first project sets out the task of analyzing a notion of (in)determinism exhibited in claims like ‘‘It is not settled yet if there will be a sea battle tomorrow; however, by tomorrow evening it will have been settled whether or not there was the battle’’. The analysis draws on the insights of the PriorThomason tense logic as well as Kaplan’s logic of indexicals. Beginning with Belnap’s (1992) theory of branching space-times, another aim of the project is to relate tensed (in)determinism to spatiotemporal structures of current physics. The present issue begins with three papers on some aspects of this variety of (in)determinism. In the first paper Thomas Muller reflects on the notion of possible history, which is employed in all schools emerging from the Prior-Thomason theory of branching time. A history plays a distinctive role in assessing the truth values of the sentences to be evaluated in a given model. Possible histories also offer a theoretical grip on the concept of (in)determinism. They are usually defined as set-theoretically maximal objects of a certain kind. Although the formal details depend on the particular theory, the common idea is to read this maximality as maximality with respect to modal consistency. This calls in turn for spelling out a criterion of modal consistency (historicity) which would accord with insights of physics. The existing criteria, identifying possible histories with maximal chains or maximal upward directed subsets of a base set, are, however, in conflict with some relativistic

Related Risks: Foreclosure, Health Problems and Economic Insecurity in the USA

Libman, Fields and Saegert provide a rich analysis of how health problems and mortgage distress in the USA are often wrapped up in a complex web of common causation and vicious circles. Their socia...

P-1039 - Consideration of disability of people with mental illness

The consideration of the condition and the decline rate of working ability are of great importance for admission of disability pension. The pension insurance law and the edict on disability govern the disability assessment procedure. In 2010, essential changes were made in the consideration of disability - there were established three degrees of disability and the burden of every health insurance is embodied by percentual evaluation which is given by the edict. Mental disorder was the third most common causation of incapacitation until 2009, although since 2010 it has been the second one. 178 800 people were acknowledged as disabled in 2009 - out of which 10 698 were because of mental ilness. In 2010, there were 168 910 admissions of disability, 13 106 of them because of mental disorder. Despite of the change in attitude towards disability consideration since 2010, which brought the synoptical legal general system with the possibility of individualization, there has been increase in disability on mental illness since 2009. This growth can be explained by the increase of mental disorders and dystropy.

The Effect of Language on Economic Behavior: Evidence from Savings Rates, Health Behaviors, and Retirement Assets.

Languages differ widely in the ways they encode time. I test the hypothesis that the languages that grammatically associate the future and the present, foster future-oriented behavior. This prediction arises naturally when well-documented effects of language structure are merged with models of intertemporal choice. Empirically, I find that speakers of such languages: save more, retire with more wealth, smoke less, practice safer sex, and are less obese. This holds both across countries and within countries when comparing demographically similar native households. The evidence does not support the most obvious forms of common causation. I discuss implications for theories of intertemporal choice.