Depressive symptoms and mortality in men: results from the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial.

Background And Purpose: Depression may be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality. We evaluated long-term mortality risk associated with depressive symptoms measured at middle age among men at high risk for coronary heart disease (CHD).

Methods: 12,866 men without definite evidence of CHD at study entry but who had above average risk of CHD based on blood pressure, blood cholesterol levels, and/or cigarette smoking were recruited into the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT).

GEE estimation of a misspecified time-varying covariate: an example with the effect of alcoholism treatment on medical utilization.

The generalized estimation equation (GEE) method is widely used in longitudinal data analysis, particularly when the outcome variable is non-Gaussian distributed. Under mild regulatory conditions, the parameter estimates are consistent and their asymptotic variances are efficient. In an observational study focusing on alcoholism patients, we applied the GEE method to longitudinal count data from medical utilization records from a large national managed care organization.

Associations of smoking prevalence with individual and area level social cohesion.

Study Objective: To discover if area level social cohesion, neighbourhood safety, and home safety are associated with current cigarette smoking among adults after adjustment for concentrations of poverty and low education.

Design: Cross sectional survey of a random sample of adults, stratified by 19 geographical areas.

Setting: SHAPE, Survey of the Health of Adults, the Population, and the Environment-conducted in 1998 by the Hennepin County Community Health Department and the Minneapolis Department of Health and Family Support in Minnesota.

Impact of diabetes and previous myocardial infarction on long-term survival: 25-year mortality follow-up of primary screenees of the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial.

Background: The magnitude of coronary mortality risk associated with diabetes or prior myocardial infarction (MI) is debatable. Modulating effects of age, risk factors, and duration of follow-up may explain discrepancies in previous research. Associations with noncardiovascular mortality are little explored.

Consequences of event rate heterogeneity across non-randomized study sub-groups.

Analyses to compare non-randomized groups are more and more common in both post hoc analyses of randomized clinical trials data and in analyses of long-term observational data. In such cases, it is quite likely that there are unknown or uncollected sources of heterogeneity in event rates. Research has shown that an underlying source of heterogeneity in event rates which is not included in proportional hazards regression models leads to biased estimates for included covariate effect estimates and lower power to test them whether the source of heterogeneity is assumed to be fixed or random.

Personal, indoor, and outdoor VOC exposures in a probability sample of children.

As part of the Minnesota Children's Pesticide Exposure Study we measured volatile organic compound (VOC) concentrations in a probability sample of households with children. The 6-day average concentrations for 10 common VOCs were obtained in urban and nonurban residences twice during this multiphase study: screening-phase indoor measurements were collected in 284 households, and in the intensive-phase matched outdoor (O), indoor (I), and personal (P) measurements were collected in a subset (N=72) of the screened households. Screening-phase households with smokers had significantly higher concentrations of benzene and styrene compared to nonsmoking households; households with an attached garage had significantly higher levels of benzene, chloroform, styrene, and m/p- and o-xylene compared to households without an attached garage; and nonurban residences, which had a greater prevalence of smokers and attached garages, had significantly higher 1,1,1-trichloroethane, styrene, and toluene and significantly lower tetrachloroethylene concentrations compared to urban households.

Sex differences in learning in chimpanzees.

The wild chimpanzees in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, fish for termites with flexible tools that they make out of vegetation, inserting them into the termite mound and then extracting and eating the termites that cling to the tool. Tools may be used in different ways by different chimpanzee communities according to the local chimpanzee culture. Here we describe the results of a four-year longitudinal field study in which we investigated how this cultural behaviour is learned by the community's offspring.

Variations in product choices of frequently purchased herbs: caveat emptor.

Background: Patients who report use of herbs to their physicians may not be able to accurately describe the ingredients or recommended dosage because the products for the same herb may differ. The purpose of this study was to describe variations in label information of products for each of the 10 most commonly purchased herbs.

Methods: Products for each of 10 herbs were surveyed in a convenience sample of 20 retail stores in a large metropolitan area.

Pulmonary function as a predictor of lung cancer mortality in continuing cigarette smokers and in quitters.

Background: Forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV(1)) may be useful for identifying smokers at higher risk of lung cancer. We examined the association of FEV(1) with lung cancer mortality (LCM) among cigarette smokers in the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT).

Methods: In all, 6613 MRFIT baseline smokers alive at trial end in 1982 had acceptable FEV(1) measures and complete smoking history; men were classified as during-trial long-term quitters (N = 1292), intermittent quitters (1961), and never quitters (3360).

Antiepileptic drug use in nursing home admissions.

Although 1 of 10 nursing home residents is taking an antiepileptic drug (AED), no study to our knowledge has determined whether most residents are already receiving AED treatment when they are admitted or are given these drugs afterward. That differentiation was the focus of this study. The study group consisted of 10,318 residents, 65 years and older, admitted to 510 nursing homes located throughout the United States during the first quarter of 1999.

Relation of triglyceride levels, fasting and nonfasting, to fatal and nonfatal coronary heart disease.

Background: It remains unclear whether hypertriglyceridemia is an independent risk factor for coronary heart disease (CHD), and whether fasting and nonfasting triglyceride (TG) levels are equally predictive.

Methods: A total of 2809 (of 12 866) men randomized during 1973 through 1975 into the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial with fasting and nonfasting TG levels measured at baseline were followed up for CHD incidence and death. Proportional hazards regression models were used to assess associations of fasting and nonfasting TG levels with CHD.

Impact of incident diabetes and incident nonfatal cardiovascular disease on 18-year mortality: the multiple risk factor intervention trial experience.

Objective: To report long-term risks for total, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and coronary heart disease (CHD) mortality associated with incident diabetes (using current diagnostic criteria) and with incident nonfatal CVD (NF-CVD).

Research Design And Methods: A total of 11645 participants without diabetes or CVD at baseline from the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial who survived to the end of the trial were grouped by during-trial incident diabetes and/or NF-CVD events: neither diabetes nor NF-CVD, diabetes only, NF-CVD only, or both diabetes and NF-CVD. Incident diabetes was defined by use of hypoglycemic agents or fasting glucose >or=126 mg/dl at any time over the 6 trial years.

Predicting children's short-term exposure to pesticides: results of a questionnaire screening approach.

The ability of questionnaires to predict children's exposure to pesticides was examined as part of the Minnesota Children's Pesticide Exposure Study (MNCPES). The MNCPES focused on a probability sample of 102 children between the ages of 3 and 13 years living in either urban (Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN) or nonurban (Rice and Goodhue Counties in Minnesota) households.

Egalitarianism in female African lions.

Because most cooperative societies are despotic, it has been difficult to test models of egalitarianism. Female African lions demonstrate a unique form of plural breeding in which companions consistently produce similar numbers of surviving offspring. Consistent with theoretical predictions from models of reproductive skew, female lions are unable to control each other's reproduction because of high costs of fighting and low access to each other's newborn cubs.

Measurement of children's exposure to pesticides: analysis of urinary metabolite levels in a probability-based sample.

The Minnesota Children's Pesticide Exposure Study is a probability-based sample of 102 children 3-13 years old who were monitored for commonly used pesticides. During the summer of 1997, first-morning-void urine samples (1-3 per child) were obtained for 88% of study children and analyzed for metabolites of insecticides and herbicides: carbamates and related compounds (1-NAP), atrazine (AM), malathion (MDA), and chlorpyrifos and related compounds (TCPy). TCPy was present in 93% of the samples, whereas 1-NAP, MDA, and AM were detected in 45%, 37%, and 2% of samples, respectively.

Problems with primate sex ratios.

Birth sex ratios of baboons in Gombe National Park, Tanzania, show an overall male bias of ca. 20%, but there is no obvious explanation for this trend. Individual females did not alter their sex ratios according to persistent levels of local resource competition.

Identifiability and convergence issues for Markov chain Monte Carlo fitting of spatial models.

The marked increase in popularity of Bayesian methods in statistical practice over the last decade owes much to the simultaneous development of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods for the evaluation of requisite posterior distributions. However, along with this increase in computing power has come the temptation to fit models larger than the data can readily support, meaning that often the propriety of the posterior distributions for certain parameters depends on the propriety of the associated prior distributions. An important example arises in spatial modelling, wherein separate random effects for capturing unstructured heterogeneity and spatial clustering are of substantive interest, even though only their sum is well identified by the data.

Kaposi's sarcoma and central nervous system disease: a real association or an artifact of the control group? Terry Beirn Community Programs for Clinical Research on AIDS.

Objectives: To test the hypothesis that Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) protects against four central nervous system (CNS) diseases in HIV-1-infected individuals.

Study Population And Design: The study population of 9404 subjects included participants in Terry Beirn Community Programs for Clinical Research on AIDS (CPCRA) protocols who were enrolled between September 1990 and September 1998. This was an observational study.

A description of a new DR allele, DRB1*1113.

We have discovered a previously unpublished HLA-DRB1 allele, observed in a patient (SB), his mother, and one sibling. The undefined allele gave sporadic positive reactions with sera in the DR52-associated group. SSOPH analysis utilizing both generic and group specific primers and probes also gave ambiguous results.

Evolutionary differences in chromosomal locations of four early genes of the tryptophan pathway in fluorescent pseudomonads: DNA sequences and characterization of Pseudomonas putida trpE and trpGDC.

Pseudomonas putida possesses seven structural genes for enzymes of the tryptophan pathway. All but one, trpG, which encodes the small (beta) subunit of anthranilate synthase, have been mapped on the circular chromosome. This report describes the cloning and sequencing of P.

Identification and characterization of genes for a second anthranilate synthase in Pseudomonas aeruginosa: interchangeability of the two anthranilate synthases and evolutionary implications.

Two anthranilate synthase gene pairs have been identified in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. They were cloned, sequenced, inactivated in vitro by insertion of an antibiotic resistance gene, and returned to P. aeruginosa, replacing the wild-type gene.

DNA sequences and characterization of four early genes of the tryptophan pathway in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Two pairs of related but easily distinguishable genes for the two subunits of anthranilate synthase have been identified in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. These were cloned, sequenced, inactivated in vitro by insertion of an antibiotic resistance cassette, and returned to the P. aeruginosa chromosome, replacing the wild-type gene.

DNA sequence of the tryptophan synthase genes of Pseudomonas putida.

Genes encoding the 2 subunits of tryptophan synthase in Pseudomonas putida have been identified and cloned by their similarity to the corresponding genes in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The deduced amino acid sequences were confirmed by comparison with regions ascertained earlier by protein sequencing. The Pseudomonas amino acid sequences are 85% identical for the beta subunit and 70% identical for the alpha subunit.

Structure and regulation of the anthranilate synthase genes in Pseudomonas aeruginosa: I. Sequence of trpG encoding the glutamine amidotransferase subunit.

We have determined the DNA sequence of the distal 148 codons of trpE and all of trpG in Pseudomonas aeruginosa. These genes encode, respectively, the large and small (glutamine amidotransferase) subunits of anthranilate synthase, the first enzyme in the tryptophan synthetic pathway. The sequenced region of trpE is homologous with the distal portion of E.

Neuroethological studies of reflex plasticity in intact Aplysia.

Multi-unit recording of siphon nerve activity in intact Aplysia california with chronically implanted cuff electrodes provided a monitor of activity in a central pattern generator, the Interneuron II (Int II) network, which produces large siphon and gill contractions both spontaneously and after tactile stimulation of the siphon. The phase-response curve of the Int II oscillator for single stimuli at different phases of the cycle showed a "refractory" period early in the cycle after which most stimuli phase advanced the oscillator and caused a short-latency Int II burst and a large contraction. The amplitude of gill withdrawal and the duration of siphon withdrawal in response to different stimulus intensities depended on whether an Int II burst was triggered.