Reevaluating the Spatial Scale of Residential Segregation: Racial Change Within and Between Neighborhoods.

This study evaluates the extent to which metropolitan racial segregation occurs between neighborhoods-from tract to tract-and within neighborhoods-from block to block-and is framed theoretically by Putnam's (2007) "hunkering down" hypothesis. Analyses are based on complete-count block, tract, and metropolitan data from the last four U.S.

Children of immigrants: Racial assortative mating and the transition to adulthood.

Few studies have followed immigrant-origin individuals from adolescence to adulthood or examined their spousal choices. Using longitudinal data from Add Health, we present a life-course model that examines the differences in racial assortative mating between children of immigrants and non-immigrants. The results reveal substantial variation in racial endogamy from generation to generation.

Gender, union formation, and assortative mating among older women.

This paper presents a search-theoretic model of union formation among women, aged 55 and older. Specifically, it provides new estimates of gender differentials in cohabitation and marriage at older ages, and documents recent patterns of assortative mating using data from the 2008-2017 American Community Survey. Our analyses reveal that cohabitation represents a much smaller share of all older unmarried women, all partnered women, and all women in comparison to patterns observed among their male counterparts.

Racial Pairings and Fertility: Do Interracial Couples Have Fewer Children?

Objective: Our overall goal is largely descriptive-to compare recent fertility patterns between racially endogamous and exogamous couples in the United States. Evidence of lower fertility among exogamous or interracial couples arguably provides indirect evidence of social distance and cultural and economic integration.

Background: The growth of interracial marriage and cohabitation has fueled the rise in biracial or mixed-race children.

Freezing of Gait in Parkinson's Disease: Risk Factors, Their Interactions, and Associated Nonmotor Symptoms.

Background: Freezing of gait (FOG) is a debilitating and incompletely understood symptom in Parkinson's disease (PD).

Objective: To determine the principal clinical factors predisposing to FOG in PD, their interactions, and associated nonmotor symptoms.

Methods: 164 PD subjects were assessed in a cross-sectional retrospective study, using the MDS-UPDRS scale, MMSE, and Clinical Dementia Rating Scale.

Metropolitan Reclassification and the Urbanization of Rural America.

We highlight the paradoxical implications of decadal reclassification of U.S. counties (and America's population) from nonmetropolitan to metropolitan status between 1960 and 2017.

A Phase 1b Safety Study of SER-287, a Spore-Based Microbiome Therapeutic, for Active Mild to Moderate Ulcerative Colitis.

Background & Aims: Firmicutes bacteria produce metabolites that maintain the intestinal barrier and mucosal immunity. Firmicutes are reduced in the intestinal microbiota of patients with ulcerative colitis (UC). In a phase 1b trial of patients with UC, we evaluated the safety and efficacy of SER-287, an oral formulation of Firmicutes spores, and the effects of vancomycin preconditioning on expansion (engraftment) of SER-287 species in the colon.

Long-standing multiple sclerosis neurodegeneration: volumetric magnetic resonance imaging comparison to Parkinson's disease, mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease, and elderly healthy controls.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) exhibits neurodegeneration driven disability progression. We compared the extent of neurodegeneration among 112 long-standing MS patients, 37 Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, 34 amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) patients, 37 Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, and 184 healthy controls. 3T MRI volumes of whole brain (WBV), white matter (WMV), gray matter (GMV), cortical (CV), deep gray matter (DGM), and nuclei-specific volumes of thalamus, caudate, putamen, globus pallidus, and hippocampus were derived with SIENAX and FIRST software.

Rural-Urban Disparities in Pregnancy Intentions, Births, and Abortions Among US Adolescent and Young Women, 1995-2017.

To examine rural-suburban-urban disparities in intendedness and resolution of first pregnancies among adolescent and young women (aged 15-19 and 20-24 years) across racial/ethnic backgrounds in the United States. We used the National Survey of Family Growth and pooled pregnancy files from 2002 through the 2015-2017 surveys. We report baseline rural-suburban-urban disparities in first pregnancy intention and outcomes.

Ventral posterior substantia nigra iron increases over 3 years in Parkinson's disease.

Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized in part by the progressive accumulation of iron within the substantia nigra (SN); however, its spatial and temporal dynamics remain relatively poorly understood.

Objectives: The objective of this study was to investigate spatial patterns and temporal evolution of SN iron accumulation in PD.

Methods: A total of 18 PD patients (mean disease duration = 6.

Targeting kinases in Parkinson's disease: A mechanism shared by LRRK2, neurotrophins, exenatide, urate, nilotinib and lithium.

Several kinases have been implicated in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD), most notably leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2), as LRRK2 mutations are the most common genetic cause of a late-onset parkinsonism that is clinically indistinguishable from sporadic PD. More recently, several other kinases have emerged as promising disease-modifying targets in PD based on both preclinical studies and clinical reports on exenatide, the urate precursor inosine, nilotinib and lithium use in PD patients. These kinases include protein kinase B (Akt), glycogen synthase kinases-3β and -3α (GSK-3β and GSK-3α), c-Abelson kinase (c-Abl) and cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (cdk5).

Importance of Balance-Gait Disorder as a Risk Factor for Cognitive Impairment, Dementia and Related Non-Motor Symptoms in Parkinson's Disease.

Background: In Parkinson's disease (PD), postural instability-gait disorder (PIGD) has been associated with more rapid cognitive decline, dementia, and greater non-motor symptom (NMS) burden.

Objective: To assess the importance of balance-gait disorder, relative to and in combination with other clinical measures, as a risk factor for cognitive impairment, dementia and NMS burden in PD.

Methods: 164 PD subjects were evaluated in a retrospective cross-sectional study using the MDS-UPDRS scale, MMSE and Clinical Dementia Rating Scale.

Boundary Blurring? Racial Identification among the Children of Interracial Couples.

For America's children, racial and ethnic identity is complicated by the fact that interracial couples define their children's racial and ethnic identity rather than the children themselves. The commonplace idea of racial self-identification in government surveys is a misnomer for America's children. In this paper, we use data, pooled annually, from the 2008 to 2014 American Community Survey to document (1) recent fertility patterns among interracially married couples, and (2) the racial or ethnic identification of the children from interracial marriages.

Marriage Markets and Intermarriage: Exchange in First Marriages and Remarriages.

Drawing on data from the American Community Survey, we compare patterns of assortative mating in first marriages, remarriages, and mixed-order marriages. We identify a number of ascribed and achieved characteristics that are viewed as resources available for exchange, both as complements and substitutes. We apply conditional logit models to show how patterns of assortative mating among never-married and previously married persons are subject to local marriage market opportunities and constraints.

Substantia Nigra Free Water Increases Longitudinally in Parkinson Disease.

Background And Purpose: Free water in the posterior substantia nigra obtained from a bi-tensor diffusion MR imaging model has been shown to significantly increase over 1- and 4-year periods in patients with early-stage idiopathic Parkinson disease compared with healthy controls, which suggests that posterior substantia nigra free water may be an idiopathic Parkinson disease progression biomarker. Due to the known temporal posterior-to-anterior substantia nigra degeneration in idiopathic Parkinson disease, we assessed longitudinal changes in free water in both the posterior and anterior substantia nigra in patients with later-stage idiopathic Parkinson disease and age-matched healthy controls for comparison.

Materials And Methods: Nineteen subjects with idiopathic Parkinson disease and 19 age-matched healthy control subjects were assessed on the same 3T MR imaging scanner at baseline and after approximately 3 years.

Divergent Pathways to Assimilation? Local Marriage Markets and Intermarriage among U.S. Hispanics.

The growing diversity of the U.S. population raises questions about integration among America's fastest growing minority population-Hispanics.

Diverging fortunes? Economic well-being of Latinos and African Americans in new rural destinations.

The geographic diffusion of Latinos from immigrant gateways to newly-emerging rural destinations is one of the most significant recent trends in U.S. population redistribution.

Influence of gender on Tourette syndrome beyond adolescence.

Although boys are disproportionately affected by tics in Tourette syndrome (TS), this gender bias is attenuated in adulthood and a recent study has suggested that women may experience greater functional interference from tics than men. The authors assessed the gender distribution of adults in a tertiary University-based TS clinic population and the relative influence of gender and other variables on adult tic severity (YGTSS score) and psychosocial functioning (GAF score). We also determined retrospectively the influence of gender on change in global tic severity and overall TS impairment (YGTSS) since adolescence.

Cohabitation, post-conception unions, and the rise in nonmarital fertility.

The majority of U.S. nonmarital births today are to cohabiting couples.

Phase white matter signal abnormalities in patients with clinically isolated syndrome and other neurologic disorders.

Background And Purpose: Identifying MRI biomarkers that can differentiate multiple sclerosis patients from other neurological disorders is a subject of intense research. Our aim was to investigate phase WM signal abnormalities for their presence, prevalence, location, and diagnostic value among patients with clinically isolated syndrome and other neurologic disorders and age-, sex-, and group-matched healthy controls.

Materials And Methods: Forty-eight patients with clinically isolated syndrome and 30 patients with other neurologic diseases and a healthy control group (n = 47) were included in the study.

Mutation of NRAS but not KRAS significantly reduces myeloma sensitivity to single-agent bortezomib therapy.

Various translocations and mutations have been identified in myeloma, and certain aberrations, such as t(4;14) and del17, are linked with disease prognosis. To investigate mutational prevalence in myeloma and associations between mutations and patient outcomes, we tested a panel of 41 known oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes in tumor samples from 133 relapsed myeloma patients participating in phase 2 or 3 clinical trials of bortezomib. DNA mutations were identified in 14 genes.