Strong Determinant Research Articles

High arousal as the source of food rejection in food neophobia

Food neophobia (FN) at moderate to high levels is very common among adult populations in all cultures and is usually defined in terms of rejection of unfamiliar foods. However, food rejection in FN is only partly related to food familiarity. Experimental and survey studies have suggested that unpleasantly high arousal may be induced by food novelty, but also be produced by foods with intense or complex flavours, that are perceived as dangerous or foreign, or that have unusual ingredients. Liking for foods with these characteristics have recently been shown to be strongly negatively associated with FN. Thus, induced high arousal may underlie food rejection in FN. Here, we collected familiarity, liking and arousal ratings, and scores on the standard Food Neophobia Scale from more than 7000 consumers in four countries – Australia, United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia – for a series of food names that were manipulated to produce standard and ‘high arousal’ (variant) versions of the same foods. Consistent across all four countries, arousal ratings increased, and liking decreased, with decreases in food familiarity. Variant food names were always associated with ratings of higher arousal than the standard names. The variant foods were generally less familiar than the standard foods, although this was not a necessary condition for their higher arousal ratings, suggesting that the other arousal-inducing factors (e.g., flavour intensity) also played a role. Across all foods, arousal ratings increased, and liking ratings decreased, as FN increased, but these effects were accentuated for the variant foods. The consistency of these effects across multiple countries supports a view that arousal is universally a strong determinant of liking for foods and that this underlies the rejection of foods, familiar and novel, in FN.

Marriage in Islam and its Impact on the Acquisition of Western Education among Muslim Youths in the Briqueterie Neighborhood in the Yaound? II Municipality, Center Region, Cameroon

This study sought to investigate the impact of early marriages on the acquisition of western education among Muslim youths in the Briqueterie neighborhood in the Yaound? II municipality Center Region of Cameroon. This study employed the qualitative research approach with an ethnographic research design. The target population of the study was made up of an estimated number of 2,589 of Muslim youths, 7,450 parents and 100 administrators in the Ministry of Secondary Education and the accessible population consisted 694 potential respondents selected from the Muslim Community, ministry of secondary education and Muslim Youth’s Associations in the Briqueterie neighborhood in the Yaound? II municipality. The sample of this study was made up of 64 participants comprising of 30 parents (mothers and fathers) and 24 Muslim youths (male and female) and 10 administrators. The purposive and snow balling sampling technique in conjunction with simple random sampling was used to select respondents in selected Muslim association in the Briqueterie neighborhood. Data was collected using a semi structured interview guide and a focus group discussion guide and was analyzed thematically with the aid of Atlasti version 2.1, designed for qualitative data. Findings showed that early marriage in Islam has both negative and positive impact on the acquisition of western education among Muslim youths. The study therefore concludes that early marriage has a negative impact on Muslim girl’s health (physiological, psychological), education, and social wellbeing as its negative impacts outweigh the positive impacts. The researchers therefore recommend that this practice should be completely eradicated and girls should be allowed to be educated, get well mature before getting married. In addition, the study requests that the marriage age for girls should be at least 18 years. In addition neonatal death, maternal deaths, illiteracy and poverty are outcomes that promotes urgent regulations along with strong determination of government, civil societies and communities to work in tendon to face this international, national and global crisis in the Briqueterie neighborhood in particular and in the world at large.

BIOMECHANICAL INVESTIGATION OF FRACTURE LOADS AND PATTERNS OF THE ODONTOID PROCESS

Odontoid fracture of the second cervical vertebra (C2) is the most common spinal fracture type in elderly patients. However, very little is known about the biomechanical fracture mechanisms, but could play a role in fracture prevention and treatment. This study aimed to investigate the biomechanical competence and fracture characteristics of the odontoid process.A total of 42 human C2 specimens (14 female and 28 male, 71.5 ± 6.5 years) were scanned via quantitative computed tomography, divided in 6 groups (n = 7) and subjected to combined quasi-static loading at a rate of 0.1 mm/s until fracturing at inclinations of −15°, 0° and 15° in sagittal plane, and −50° and 0° in transverse plane. Bone mineral density (BMD), specimen height, fusion state of the ossification centers, stiffness, yield load, ultimate load, and fracture type according to Anderson and d'Alonzo were assessed.While the lowest values for stiffness, yield, and ultimate load were observed at load inclination of 15° in sagittal plane, no statistically significant differences could be observed among the six groups (p = 0.235, p = 0.646, and p = 0.505, respectively). Evaluating specimens with only clearly distinguishable fusion of the ossification centers (n = 26) reveled even less differences among the groups for all mechanical parameters. BMD was positively correlated with yield load (R² = 0.350, p < 0.001), and ultimate load (R² = 0.955, p < 0.001), but not with stiffness (p = 0.070). Type III was the most common fracture type (23.5%).These biomechanical outcomes indicate that load direction plays a subordinate role in traumatic fractures of the odontoid process in contrast to BMD which is a strong determinant of stiffness and strength. Thus, odontoid fractures appear to result from an interaction between load magnitude and bone quality.

Quantifying the Effects Sizes of Common Controls on Methane Emissions From an Ombrotrophic Peat Bog

AbstractNorthern wetlands and bogs are a large source of biogenic methane (CH4) to the atmosphere and shape climate. There is then substantial interest in quantifying the effect sizes of controls on bog CH4 emissions. Yet quantification is complicated because wetland emissions are, like the controls that regulate them, spatially and temporarily heterogeneous within individual wetland systems. To account for this heterogeneity, we established 55 measurement plots in a sampling design that had extensive spatial, and repeated temporal, coverage over one ombrotrophic bog. This coverage allowed us to robustly estimate the effect sizes of known environmental controls on CH4 emissions such as temperature, water table depth (WTD), and plant functional composition. As expected, 89% of the cumulative measured flux came from 16% of the plots, with consistently high CH4 emissions over two consecutive growing seasons. Soil temperature exhibited the strongest control on emissions, while WTD and vegetation composition had much smaller relative effects compared to temperature. Interestingly, at high temperatures, WTD was a strong determinant of whether a plot had high versus lower emissions. Despite temperature's large effect size, the controls we measured only explained ∼29% of the variance in CH4 fluxes. Overall, our data confirm observations from other wetlands that CH4 emissions are highly variable at local scales, and yet our data also reveal that effect sizes can be quantified robustly within this heterogeneity. Highly‐replicated, local designs may therefore be useful for generating data that can serve to help refine wetland CH4 emissions uncertainties.

Outcome of Patients With Both Moderate Aortic Stenosis and Moderate Mitral Stenosis

AimsThis study aimed to investigate the symptoms and prognosis of patients with both moderate aortic stenosis (AS) and mitral stenosis (MS). Methods and ResultsWe studied 82 patients with moderate AS and MS diagnosed via transthoracic echocardiography. The patients had a mean age of 79 ± 13 years and 95% of patients had degenerative MS. Out of 82 patients, 34 (41%) had heart failure (HF) symptoms (New York Heart Association class ≥ Ⅱ) or a history of HF admission. Left ventricular ejection fraction, stroke volume index, atrial fibrillation, and right ventricular systolic pressure were independent determinants of HF symptoms. The median follow-up duration was 3.2 (interquartile range, 1.0-4.9) years and clinical events occurred in 48 (59%) patients, including death in 11 (13%) patients, aortic or mitral valve interventions in 22 (27%) patients, and HF hospitalization in 15 (18%) patients. The 5-year survival free of the combined endpoint of aortic or mitral valve interventions, HF hospitalization, or death was 19%. A multivariate predictor of clinical events was HF symptoms (hazard ratio [HR], 2.32; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.30-4.14; p = 0.0045). Kaplan-Meier survival at 5 years was 61% without intervention and HF symptoms were not associated with mortality. ConclusionsAmong patients with both moderate AS and MS, left ventricular ejection fraction, stroke volume index, atrial fibrillation, and right ventricular systolic pressure were strong determinants of HF symptoms. HF symptoms were independently predictive of clinical events.

The Norm of Reciprocity in Intergroup Context: A Normative-Identity Model.

Reciprocity, regarded as a fundamental psychological phenomenon, may underlie a wide range of interpersonal and intergroup behaviors. Various disciplines such as behavioral economics, anthropology, sociology, and psychology as well documented how reciprocity is a strong determinant of human behavior. On the other hand, less is known about intergroup reciprocity, its functions and consequences as well as the psychological mechanisms through which these effects manifest, remain mostly unknown. In this paper, we propose a model to understand how the reciprocity norm operates in the intergroup contexts, through employing the Personal Norm of Reciprocity model (Perugini et al., 2003) and the Self-Categorization Theory (Turner et al., 1987). We suggest that the conditions that give rise to intergroup reciprocal behavior are ingroup identification, labeling outgroup behavior as a favor or transgression, and the internalization of the reciprocity norm. We also propose that the intergroup outcomes, such as ingroup favoritism, discrimination, collective action, and conflict resolution, might become more understandable when taking into account the reciprocity as an explanatory variable.

Realizing Strong Determinism Contract on Log-Structured Merge Key-Value Stores

We propose Vigil-KV , a hardware and software co-designed framework that eliminates long-tail latency almost perfectly by introducing strong latency determinism. To make Get latency deterministic, Vigil-KV first enables a predictable latency mode (PLM) interface on a real datacenter-scale NVMe SSD, having knowledge about the nature of the underlying flash technologies. Vigil-KV at the system-level then hides the non-deterministic time window (associated with SSD’s internal tasks and/or write services) by internally scheduling the different device states of PLM across multiple physical functions. Vigil-KV further schedules compaction/flush operations and client requests being aware of PLM’s restrictions thereby integrating strong latency determinism into LSM KVs. We implement Vigil-KV upon a 1.92TB NVMe SSD prototype and Linux 4.19.91, but other LSM KVs can adopt its concept. We evaluate diverse Facebook and Yahoo scenarios with Vigil-KV, and the results show that Vigil-KV can reducethe tail latency of a baseline KV system by 3.19× while reducing the average latency by 34%, on average.

Infant gut microbiome composition correlated with type 1 diabetes acquisition in the general population: the ABIS study.

While autoantibodies are traditional markers for type 1 diabetes development, we identified gut microbial biomarkers in 1-year-old infants associated with future type 1 diabetes up to 20 years before diagnosis. Infants enrolled in the longitudinal general population cohort All Babies In Southeast Sweden (ABIS) provided a stool sample at a mean age of 12.5 months. Samples (future type 1 diabetes, n=16; healthy controls, n=268) were subjected to 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) sequencing and quantitative PCR. Microbial differences at the taxonomic and core microbiome levels were assessed. PICRUSt was used to predict functional content from the 16S rRNA amplicons. Sixteen infants, with a future diagnosis of type 1 diabetes at a mean age of 13.3±5.4 years, and one hundred iterations of 32 matched control infants, who remained healthy up to 20 years of age, were analysed. Parasutterella and Eubacterium were more abundant in healthy control infants, while Porphyromonas was differentially more abundant in infants with future type 1 diabetes diagnosis. Ruminococcus was a strong determinant in differentiating both control infants and those with future type 1 diabetes using random forest analysis and had differing trends of abundance when comparing control infants and those with future type 1 diabetes. Flavonifractor and UBA1819 were the strongest factors for differentiating control infants, showing higher abundance in control infants compared with those with future type 1 diabetes. Alternatively, Alistipes (more abundant in control infants) and Fusicatenibacter (mixed abundance patterns when comparing case and control infants) were the strongest factors for differentiating future type 1 diabetes. Predicted gene content regarding butyrate production and pyruvate fermentation was differentially observed to be higher in healthy control infants. This investigation suggests that microbial biomarkers for type 1 diabetes may be present as early as 1 year of age, as reflected in the taxonomic and functional differences of the microbial communities. The possibility of preventing disease onset by altering or promoting a 'healthy' gut microbiome is appealing. The forward and reverse 16S raw sequencing data generated in this study are available through the NCBI Sequence Read Archive under BioProject PRJNA875929. Associated sample metadata used for statistical comparison are available in the source data file. R codes used for statistical comparisons and figure generation are available at: https://github.com/PMilletich/T1D_Pipeline .

Tumour microenvironment in pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma.

Pheochromocytomas and Paragangliomas (Pheo/PGL) are rare catecholamine-producing tumours derived from adrenal medulla or from the extra-adrenal paraganglia respectively. Around 10-15% of Pheo/PGL develop metastatic forms and have a poor prognosis with a 37% of mortality rate at 5 years. These tumours have a strong genetic determinism, and the presence of succinate dehydrogenase B (SDHB) mutations are highly associated with metastatic forms. To date, no effective treatment is present for metastatic forms. In addition to cancer cells, the tumour microenvironment (TME) is also composed of non-neoplastic cells and non-cellular components, which are essential for tumour initiation and progression in multiple cancers, including Pheo/PGL. This review, for the first time, provides an overview of the roles of TME cells such as cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) and tumour-associated macrophages (TAMs) on Pheo/PGL growth and progression. Moreover, the functions of the non-cellular components of the TME, among which the most representatives are growth factors, extracellular vesicles and extracellular matrix (ECM) are explored. The importance of succinate as an oncometabolite is emerging and since Pheo/PGL SDH mutated accumulate high levels of succinate, the role of succinate and of its receptor (SUCNR1) in the modulation of the carcinogenesis process is also analysed. Further understanding of the mechanism behind the complicated effects of TME on Pheo/PGL growth and spread could suggest novel therapeutic targets for further clinical treatments.

The Influence Of Transformational Leadership On Organizational Sustainability: A Case Study Of Business Companies In Bangkok

This paper aimed to analyze the influence of transformational leadership on organizational sustainability of business companies in Bangkok. Data were collected from 350 participants who were administrators and employees working in five business companies in Bangkok metropolitan areas. The research questionnaire was used as an instrument to collect data. Descriptive statistics consisting of percentage, mean and standard deviation, and inferential statistics consisting of Pearson Correlation, and Multiple Regression Analysis were used to analyze the collected data. The research results showed that transformational leadership has an influence on organizational sustainability of business companies in Bangkok with statistical significance at the .01 (F=65.438, p=.000). The forecasting equation from multiple regression analysis can predict the influence of transformational leadership on organizational sustainability of business companies in Bangkok at 75.6 percent (Adjusted R2 = .756), whereas, the rest 24.4 percent was the result of other factors, which were not studied in this research. In particular, intellectual stimulation (IS) had the highest influence on organizational sustainability of business companies in Bangkok (Beta = .728, p < .01), followed by inspirational motivation (IM) (Beta = .679, p < .01), idealized influence (II) (Beta = .615, p < .01), and individualized consideration (IC) (Beta = .536, p < .01). The recommendations from the study were that the characteristics of transformational leadership consisting of inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration and idealized influence are critical to the organizational sustainability. However, future research should study more about the characteristics of transformational leadership that match with the current business companies such as strong determination, being visionary and strategic man, and result orientation that would have an influence on organizational sustainability of business companies.

Serum and plasma protein biomarkers associated with frailty in patients with cirrhosis.

Frailty, a clinical phenotype of decreased physiological reserve, is a strong determinant of adverse health outcomes in patients with cirrhosis. The only cirrhosis-specific frailty metric is the Liver Frailty Index (LFI), which must be administered in person and may not be feasible for every clinical scenario. We sought to discover candidate serum/plasma protein biomarkers that could differentiate frail from robust patients with cirrhosis. A total of 140 adults with cirrhosis awaiting liver transplantation in the ambulatory setting with LFI assessments and available serum/plasma samples were included. We selected 70 pairs of patients on opposite ends of the frailty spectrum (LFI>4.4 for frail and LFI<3.2 for robust) who were matched by age, sex, etiology, HCC, and Model for End-Stage Liver Disease-Sodium. Twenty-five biomarkers with biologically plausible associations with frailty were analyzed using ELISA by a single laboratory. Conditional logistic regression was used to examine their association with frailty. Of the 25 biomarkers analyzed, we identified 7 proteins that were differentially expressed between frail and robust patients. We observed differences in 6 of the 7 proteins in the expected direction: (a) higher median values in frail versus robust with growth differentiation factor-15 (3682 vs. 2249pg/mL), IL-6 (17.4 vs. 6.4pg/mL), TNF-alpha receptor 1 (2062 vs. 1627pg/mL), leucine-rich alpha-2 glycoprotein (44.0 vs. 38.6μg/mL), and myostatin (4066 vs. 6006ng/mL) and (b) lower median values in frail versus robust with alpha-2-Heremans-Schmid glycoprotein (0.11 vs. 0.13mg/mL) and free total testosterone (1.2 vs. 2.4ng/mL). These biomarkers represent inflammatory, musculoskeletal, and endocrine/metabolic systems, reflecting the multiple physiological derangements observed in frailty. These data lay the foundation for confirmatory work and development of a laboratory frailty index for patients with cirrhosis to improve diagnosis and prognostication.

The dependence of aerosols' global and local precipitation impacts on the emitting region

Abstract. The influence of the geographic distribution of aerosol emissions on the magnitude and spatial pattern of their precipitation impacts remains poorly understood. In this study, the global climate model NCAR CESM1 (National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Earth System Model version 1.2) is used in coupled atmosphere–slab ocean mode to simulate the global hydrological-cycle response to a fixed amount and composition of aerosol emitted from eight key source regions. The results indicate that the location of aerosol emissions is a strong determinant of both the magnitude and spatial distribution of the hydrological response. The global-mean precipitation response to aerosol emissions is found to vary over a 6-fold range depending solely on source location. Mid-latitude sources generate larger global-mean precipitation responses than do tropical and sub-tropical sources, driven largely by the former's stronger global-mean temperature influence. However, the spatial distribution of precipitation responses to some (largely tropical and sub-tropical) regional emissions is almost entirely localized within the source region, while responses to other (primarily mid-latitude) regional emissions are almost entirely remote. It is proposed that this diversity arises from the differing strength with which each region's emissions generate fast precipitation responses that remain largely localized. The findings highlight that tropical regions are particularly susceptible to hydrological-cycle change from either local or remote aerosol emissions, encourage greater investigation of the processes controlling localization of the precipitation response to regional aerosols, and demonstrate that the geographic distribution of anthropogenic aerosol emissions must be considered when estimating their hydrological impacts.

Desirability of office and previous female representation as main factors of female candidacy and representation in Czech municipalities, 1998–2018

Despite some progress in winning elected political offices, women remain underrepresented at all levels of government in Czechia. More importantly, only a limited body of research has focused on the presence of women in municipal governments. This study uses an original time series on local elections in all 6249 Czech municipalities over an extended period (1994–2018) to test where more women run for seats in local councils and why the descriptive (or numerical) representation of women in policy-making positions is higher in some municipalities than in others. The analysis reveals that openness of local environment to women, in terms of women's previous representation, together with desirability of office are strong determinants of female political participation and representation in Czech municipalities.

The Moderating Role of Foreign Exchange Rate in the Relationship between Outward Foreign Direct Investment and Economic Growth in Kenya (1986-2021)

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the moderating role of foreign exchange rate in the relationship between outward foreign direct investments and economic growth in Kenya. The central purpose of any government is to formulate strategies that boost economic growth and correct capital flight. The Foreign Exchange Rate (FER) fluctuations generated by globalization are expected to leverage the effect of capital flight and boost economic growth, but this seems not to happen. Further, the loss of foreign exchange reserves resulting from capital flight demonstrates that some financial savings are lost to the economy. Since FER is a strong determinant of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the effects of this scenario are a great economic concern. The dependent variable for this study was economic growth, while the independent variable was outward foreign direct investments. The general objective of this study was to investigate the moderating role of foreign exchange rate in the relationship between outward foreign direct investments and economic growth in Kenya. The specific objective was to determine and evaluate the effect of outward foreign direct investments on the economic growth in Kenya as well as to investigate the moderating role of foreign exchange rate in the relationship between outward foreign direct investments and economic growth in Kenya. The indicator of economic growth was the percentage change in GDP.&#x0D; Methodology: This study adopted an ex-post facto research design with a sample size of 35 years from 1986 to 2021 and relied on secondary data from Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), International Financial Statistics (IFS), Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Development Index (WDI), United Nations Commodity Trade (UN Comtrade) and African Development Indicators (ADI).&#x0D; Findings: Using a panel data model, the study found that outward foreign direct investments did not have any significant effect on economic growth when foreign exchange rate was included in the model as an interaction variable. Foreign exchange rates had a significant effect on economic growth. The relationship was inverse indicating that the foreign exchange rate affected economic growth negatively. The interaction variable had a positive and significant coefficient indicating that the foreign exchange rate moderated the relationship between outward foreign direct investment and economic growth.&#x0D; Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: From the empirical findings, we can infer that outward foreign direct investment did not constrain resources and did not affect economic growth.

Revisiting the Determinants of Consumption: A Bayesian Model Averaging Approach

This study revisits the widely researched area of the consumption function using Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) for a panel of EU countries to deal with the uncertainty of potential determinants, using the convergence club analysis to construct homogeneous groups by income. BMA suggests that income is the only variable that is found to be a strong determinant across different country groups, whereas other variables have varying importance for different country groups.

Resistance of Argopecten purpuratus scallop larvae to vibriosis is associated with the front-loading of immune genes and enhanced antimicrobial response.

Mass mortality events caused by vibriosis have emerged in hatchery-reared scallop larvae from Chile, threatening scallop aquaculture. In an attempt to mitigate this emerging infectious disease and provide candidates for marker-assisted selective breeding, we tested here the existence of a genetic component of Argopecten purpuratus scallop resistance to the pathogen Vibrio bivalvicida. Through a dual RNA-seq approach we analyzed the basal transcriptome and the transcriptional response to infection in two resistant and two susceptible families as well as the pathogen transcriptomic response to host colonization. The results highlighted a genetic basis in the resistance of scallop larvae to the pathogen. The Vibrio response was characterized by a general metabolic adaptation to the host environment, along with several predicted virulence factors overexpressed in infected scallop larvae with no difference between resistant and susceptible host phenotypes. On the host side, several biological processes were enriched in uninfected resistant larvae. Within these enriched categories, immune-related processes were overexpressed, while morphogenesis, biomineral tissue development, and angiogenesis were under expressed. Particularly, genes involved in immune recognition and antimicrobial response, such as lipopolysaccharide-binding proteins (LBPs), lysozyme, and bactericidal permeability-increasing protein (BPI) were overexpressed in uninfected resistant larvae. As expected, immune-related biological processes were enriched in Vibrio-infected larvae, but they were more numerous in resistant larvae. Overexpressed immune genes in response to infection included several Toll-like receptors, TNF and NF-κB immune signaling genes, and the antimicrobial peptide Big defensin ApBD1. Results strongly suggest that both a front-loading of immune genes and an enhanced antimicrobial response to infection contribute to the resistance, while pathogen infective strategy does not discriminate between host phenotypes. Overall, early expression of host immune genes appears as a strong determinant of the disease outcome that could be used in marker-assisted selective breeding.

The work of first line managers – A key to resilience in manufacturing

First-line managers (FLMs) have a vital role in developing stable output and organizational competitiveness through their ability to manage front-line operations in daily work. It is also well known that FLMs are strong determinants of good ergonomics and well-being for front-line staff. However, research focusing on how FLMs deal with their important role is lacking particularly regarding empirical studies. The focus here is how they deal with uncertainties and disruptive interruptions and develop more resilient performance in daily work – introduced in this article as resilient action strategies.This research uses two conceptual frameworks on resilient engineering for analysis of FLM's actions in daily work in two manufacturing companies, to explore how resilient action strategies can be organizationally supported. The study combines analysis of front-line activities with multilevel organizational support based on 30 semi-structured in-depth interviews with FLMs and support functions, 21 workshops as well as policy documents of the two companies. The analysis exemplifies how resilience engineering was enabled in practice in the organizations.The study contributes to the empirical understanding of how resilience can be organizationally supported in daily front-line work. Our results show that a developed and consistent infrastructure in companies promotes the emergence of resilient action strategies in front-line work. We propose an extended model for resilient front-line performance enhancement by including coordination as a linking aspect between the earlier suggested resilient potentials – anticipate, monitor, respond and learn. This highlights the importance of both organizational support and coordination between system levels to enable the development of resilient action strategies by FLMs.

Overweight in childhood and young adulthood increases the risk for adult thromboembolic events.

Approximately one third of thromboembolic (TE) events are related to obesity, but to which extent elevated body mass index (BMI) during the distinct periods of childhood and puberty contributes is not known. We aimed to evaluate the impact of high BMI during childhood and puberty for the risk of adult venous and arterial thromboembolic events (VTE, ATE, respectively) in men. We included 37,672 men from the BMI Epidemiology Study (BEST) Gothenburg with data on weight and height in childhood, young adult age, and on pubertal BMI change. Information on outcomes (VTE [n=1683], ATE [n=144], or any first TE event [VTE or ATE; n=1780]) was retrieved from Swedish national registers. Hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated by Cox regressions. Both BMI at 8 years of age and the pubertal BMI change were associated with VTE, independently of each other (BMI at 8: HR 1.06 per standard deviation [SD] increase, 95% CI, 1.01;1.11; pubertal BMI change: HR 1.11 per SD increase, 95% CI, 1.06;1.16). Individuals with normal weight during childhood followed by young adult overweight (HR 1.40, 95% CI, 1.15;1.72), and individuals with overweight at both childhood and young adult age (HR 1.48, 95% CI, 1.14;1.92), had a significantly increased risk of VTE in adult life, compared with the normal weight reference group. Individuals with overweight in childhood and in young adult age had increased risk of ATE and TE. Young adult overweight was a strong determinant, and childhood overweight a moderate determinant, of the risk of VTE in adult men.

Comment on: Are Parenchyma-Sparing Resections Really Appropriate for Small (

Comment on: Are Parenchyma-Sparing Resections Really Appropriate for Small (<3 cm) Nonfunctional Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors?

Lipoprotein lipase concentration in umbilical cord blood reflects neonatal birth weight.

Insulin resistance (IR) is exacerbated during pregnancy via increases in insulin counterregulatory hormones. Maternal lipids are strong determinants of neonatal growth, although triglyceride-rich lipoproteins (TGRLs) cannot be transferred directly to the fetus through the placenta. The catabolism of TGRLs under physiological IR and the reduced synthesis of lipoprotein lipase (LPL) are poorly understood. We examined the association of maternal and umbilical cord blood (UCB)-LPL concentrations with maternal metabolic parameters and fetal development. Changes in anthropometric measures and lipid-, glucose-, and insulin-related parameters, including maternal and UCB-LPL concentrations, were examined in 69 women during pregnancy. The relationship between those parameters and neonatal birth weight was assessed. Parameters reflecting glucose metabolism did not change during pregnancy, whereas those associated with lipid metabolism and IR changed markedly, particularly in the second and third trimesters. In the third trimester, the maternal LPL concentration gradually decreased, by 54%, whereas the UCB-LPL concentration was∼2-fold higher than the maternal LPL concentration. Univariate and multivariate analyses showed that the UCB-LPL concentration was a significant determinant of neonatal birth weight, together with placental birth weight. The LPL concentration in UCB reflects neonatal development under a decreased LPL concentration in maternal serum.