Meta-analysis of the association between gratitude and loneliness.

Gratitude is a positive social emotion that involves recognizing that others have brought benefits into one's life. Loneliness, on the other hand, is an unpleasant emotion resulting from a perceived lack of social connectedness. Although previous studies have reported an inverse association between gratitude and loneliness, these studies have not been systematically examined in a single review.

Multi-Cellular Immunological Interactions Associated With COVID-19 Infections.

To rapidly prognosticate and generate hypotheses on pathogenesis, leukocyte multi-cellularity was evaluated in SARS-CoV-2 infected patients treated in India or the United States (152 individuals, 384 temporal observations). Within hospital (<90-day) death or discharge were retrospectively predicted based on the admission complete blood cell counts (CBC). Two methods were applied: (i) a "reductionist" one, which analyzes each cell type separately, and (ii) a "non-reductionist" method, which estimates multi-cellularity.

Test positivity - Evaluation of a new metric to assess epidemic dispersal mediated by non-symptomatic cases.

Epidemic control may be hampered when the percentage of asymptomatic cases is high. Seeking remedies for this problem, test positivity was explored between the first 60 to 90 epidemic days in six countries that reported their first COVID-19 case between February and March 2020: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, and Uruguay. Test positivity (TP) is the percentage of test-positive individuals reported on a given day out of all individuals tested the same day.

Statistical methods for comparing test positivity rates between countries: Which method should be used and why?

The test positivity (TP) rate has emerged as an important metric for gauging the illness burden due to COVID-19. Given the importance of COVID-19 TP rates for understanding COVID-related morbidity, researchers and clinicians have become increasingly interested in comparing TP rates across countries. The statistical methods for performing such comparisons fall into two general categories: frequentist tests and Bayesian methods.

Gratitude and social support mediate the association between mindfulness and mood: A cross-cultural replication study.

Swickert and colleagues surveyed young adults in the United States and found that gratitude and social support mediated the association between mindfulness and mood (both positive and negative affect). This study attempted to replicate Swickert et al.'s mediational findings using a young adult Hungarian sample.

Early network properties of the COVID-19 pandemic - The Chinese scenario.

Objectives: To control epidemics, sites more affected by mortality should be identified.

Methods: Defining epidemic nodes as areas that included both most fatalities per time unit and connections, such as highways, geo-temporal Chinese data on the COVID-19 epidemic were investigated with linear, logarithmic, power, growth, exponential, and logistic regression models. A z-test compared the slopes observed.

Ezekiel's classic estimator of the population squared multiple correlation coefficient: Monte Carlo-based extensions and refinements.

Ezekiel's adjusted is widely used in linear regression analysis. The present study examined the statistical properties of Ezekiel's measure through a series of Monte Carlo simulations. Specifically, we examined the bias and root mean squared error (RMSE) of Ezekiel's adjusted relative to (a) the sample statistic, and (b) the sample minus the expected value of .

Obstructive sleep apnea and orthodontics: An American Association of Orthodontists White Paper.

The Board of Trustees of the American Association of Orthodontists asked a panel of medical and dental experts in sleep medicine and dental sleep medicine to create a document designed to offer guidance to practicing orthodontists on the suggested role of the specialty of orthodontics in the management of obstructive sleep apnea. This White Paper presents a summary of the Task Force's findings and recommendations.

The Third Cognitive Revolution: The consequences and possibilities for biomedical research.

The Third Cognitive Revolution poses particular challenges for biomedical research to adopt new knowledge. Interdisciplinary education at all levels would help to address these.[Image: see text]

Association of Infant Temperament With Subsequent Obesity in Young Children of Mothers With Gestational Diabetes Mellitus.

Importance: Infant temperament is associated with excess weight gain or childhood obesity risk in samples of healthy individuals, although the evidence has been inconsistent. To our knowledge, no prior research has examined this topic among children exposed to gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) in utero.

Objective: To prospectively evaluate infant temperament in association with overweight and obesity status at ages 2 to 5 years among children born to mothers who experienced GDM.

Reduced Parasite Burden in Children with Falciparum Malaria and Bacteremia Coinfections: Role of Mediators of Inflammation.

Bacteremia and malaria coinfection is a common and life-threatening condition in children residing in sub-Saharan Africa. We previously showed that coinfection with Gram negative (G[-]) enteric Bacilli and Plasmodium falciparum (Pf[+]) was associated with reduced high-density parasitemia (HDP, >10,000 parasites/μL), enhanced respiratory distress, and severe anemia. Since inflammatory mediators are largely unexplored in such coinfections, circulating cytokines were determined in four groups of children (n = 206, aged <3 yrs): healthy; Pf[+] alone; G[-] coinfected; and G[+] coinfected.

Infant emotional distress, maternal restriction at a home meal, and child BMI gain through age 6years in the Colorado Adoption Project.

Infant temperament and parental feeding practices may be risk factors for childhood obesity, however most studies have relied upon parent-report assessments. We tested whether infant emotional distress and maternal restrictive feeding at 12-months of age, assessed observationally at a home feeding interaction, predicted child BMI through age 6years. We conducted a prospective observational study of 86 children (34 girls and 52 boys, from 55 adoptive and 31 non-adoptive families) enrolled in the Colorado Adoption Project.

Meta-analysis of the association between methamphetamine use and high-risk sexual behavior among heterosexuals.

A large body of research has found that nonheterosexual methamphetamine users engage in substantially higher levels of risky sex compared to nonusers. Considerably fewer studies have examined methamphetamine use and high-risk sex among heterosexuals. The present study is a meta-analysis of the empirical literature on methamphetamine use and high-risk sexual behavior among heterosexual individuals.

Confidence intervals for correlations when data are not normal.

With nonnormal data, the typical confidence interval of the correlation (Fisher z') may be inaccurate. The literature has been unclear as to which of several alternative methods should be used instead, and how extreme a violation of normality is needed to justify an alternative. Through Monte Carlo simulation, 11 confidence interval methods were compared, including Fisher z', two Spearman rank-order methods, the Box-Cox transformation, rank-based inverse normal (RIN) transformation, and various bootstrap methods.

Reducing Bias and Error in the Correlation Coefficient Due to Nonnormality.

It is more common for educational and psychological data to be nonnormal than to be approximately normal. This tendency may lead to bias and error in point estimates of the Pearson correlation coefficient. In a series of Monte Carlo simulations, the Pearson correlation was examined under conditions of normal and nonnormal data, and it was compared with its major alternatives, including the Spearman rank-order correlation, the bootstrap estimate, the Box-Cox transformation family, and a general normalizing transformation (i.

Sensation seeking indirectly affects perceptions of risk for co-occurrent substance use.

High sensation seekers engage in more frequent substance use and perceive a host of potentially dangerous activities as less risky than do low sensation seekers. However, despite a plethora of research on these topics, no study has examined the extent to which personal substance use mediates the association between sensation seeking and perceived risk of substance use. To address this question, we recruited a sample of 79 young adults (mean age=19.

Perceived risk of co-occurrent substance abuse.

A strong negative correlation between perceptions of risk for co-occurrent substance abuse and the variability associated with those risk perceptions was found in two independent samples.

Suppressed circulating bicyclo-PGE2 levels and leukocyte COX-2 transcripts in children co-infected with P. falciparum malaria and HIV-1 or bacteremia.

In holoendemic Plasmodium falciparum transmission regions, malarial anemia is a leading cause of childhood morbidity and mortality. Identifying biomarkers of malaria disease severity is important for identifying at-risk groups and for improved understanding of the molecular pathways that influence clinical outcomes. We have previously shown that decreased cyclooxygenase (COX)-2-derived prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) levels are associated with enhanced clinical severity in cerebral malaria, malarial anemia, and malaria during pregnancy.

Feedback-based, system-level properties of vertebrate-microbial interactions.

Background: Improved characterization of infectious disease dynamics is required. To that end, three-dimensional (3D) data analysis of feedback-like processes may be considered.

Methods: To detect infectious disease data patterns, a systems biology (SB) and evolutionary biology (EB) approach was evaluated, which utilizes leukocyte data structures designed to diminish data variability and enhance discrimination.

Connecting network properties of rapidly disseminating epizoonotics.

Background: To effectively control the geographical dissemination of infectious diseases, their properties need to be determined. To test that rapid microbial dispersal requires not only susceptible hosts but also a pre-existing, connecting network, we explored constructs meant to reveal the network properties associated with disease spread, which included the road structure.

Methods: Using geo-temporal data collected from epizoonotics in which all hosts were susceptible (mammals infected by Foot-and-mouth disease virus, Uruguay, 2001; birds infected by Avian Influenza virus H5N1, Nigeria, 2006), two models were compared: 1) 'connectivity', a model that integrated bio-physical concepts (the agent's transmission cycle, road topology) into indicators designed to measure networks ('nodes' or infected sites with short- and long-range links), and 2) 'contacts', which focused on infected individuals but did not assess connectivity.

Reduced systemic bicyclo-prostaglandin-E2 and cyclooxygenase-2 gene expression are associated with inefficient erythropoiesis and enhanced uptake of monocytic hemozoin in children with severe malarial anemia.

In holoendemic Plasmodium falciparum transmission areas, severe malaria primarily occurs in children aged <48 months and manifests as severe malarial anemia [SMA; hemoglobin (Hb) < 6.0 g/dL]. Induction of high levels of prostaglandin-E(2) (PGE(2)) through inducible cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) is an important host-defense mechanism against invading pathogens.

Relationship between inflammatory mediator patterns and anemia in HIV-1 positive and exposed children with Plasmodium falciparum malaria.

Anemia is the primary hematological manifestation of both Plasmodium falciparum malaria and HIV-1 in pediatric populations in sub-Saharan Africa. We have previously shown that HIV-1 positive and exposed children have greater risk of developing severe anemia (hemoglobin, Hb <6.0 g dL⁻¹) during acute malaria.

Reduced interferon (IFN)-α conditioned by IFNA2 (-173) and IFNA8 (-884) haplotypes is associated with enhanced susceptibility to severe malarial anemia and longitudinal all-cause mortality.

Severe malarial anemia (SMA) is a leading cause of pediatric morbidity and mortality in holoendemic Plasmodium falciparum transmission areas. Although dysregulation in cytokine production is an important etiology of SMA, the role of IFN-α in SMA has not been reported. As such, we investigated the relationship between IFN-α promoter polymorphisms [i.