Small area variations in non-affective first-episode psychosis: the role of socioeconomic and environmental factors.

Background: There is strong evidence supporting the association between environmental factors and increased risk of non-affective psychotic disorders. However, the use of sound statistical methods to account for spatial variations associated with environmental risk factors, such as urbanicity, migration, or deprivation, is scarce in the literature.

Methods: We studied the geographical distribution of non-affective first-episode psychosis (NA-FEP) in a northern region of Spain (Navarra) during a 54-month period considering area-level socioeconomic indicators as putative explanatory variables.

Using mortality to predict incidence for rare and lethal cancers in very small areas.

Incidence and mortality figures are needed to get a comprehensive overview of cancer burden. In many countries, cancer mortality figures are routinely recorded by statistical offices, whereas incidence depends on regional cancer registries. However, due to the complexity of updating cancer registries, incidence numbers become available 3 or 4 years later than mortality figures.

Space-time interactions in Bayesian disease mapping with recent tools: Making things easier for practitioners.

Spatio-temporal disease mapping studies the distribution of mortality or incidence risks in space and its evolution in time, and it usually relies on fitting hierarchical Poisson mixed models. These models are complex for practitioners as they generally require adding constraints to correctly identify and interpret the different model terms. However, including constraints may not be straightforward in some recent software packages.

Multivariate Bayesian spatio-temporal P-spline models to analyze crimes against women.

Univariate spatio-temporal models for areal count data have received great attention in recent years for estimating risks. However, models for studying multivariate responses are less commonly used mainly due to the computational burden. In this article, multivariate spatio-temporal P-spline models are proposed to study different forms of violence against women.

Induction of Radiata Pine Somatic Embryogenesis at High Temperatures Provokes a Long-Term Decrease in DNA Methylation/Hydroxymethylation and Differential Expression of Stress-Related Genes.

Based on the hypothesis that embryo development is a crucial stage for the formation of stable epigenetic marks that could modulate the behaviour of the resulting plants, in this study, radiata pine somatic embryogenesis was induced at high temperatures (23 °C, eight weeks, control; 40 °C, 4 h; 60 °C, 5 min) and the global methylation and hydroxymethylation levels of emerging embryonal masses and somatic plants were analysed using LC-ESI-MS/ MS-MRM. In this context, the expression pattern of six genes previously described as stress-mediators was studied throughout the embryogenic process until plant level to assess whether the observed epigenetic changes could have provoked a sustained alteration of the transcriptome. Results indicated that the highest temperatures led to hypomethylation of both embryonal masses and somatic plants.

Cytokinins are involved in drought tolerance of Pinus radiata plants originating from embryonal masses induced at high temperatures.

Vegetative propagation through somatic embryogenesis is an effective method to produce elite varieties and can be applied as a tool to study the response of plants to different stresses. Several studies show that environmental changes during embryogenesis could determine future plant development. Moreover, we previously reported that physical and chemical conditions during somatic embryogenesis can determine the protein, hormone and metabolite profiles, as well as the micromorphological and ultrastructural organization of embryonal masses and somatic embryos.

Online relative risks/rates estimation in spatial and spatio-temporal disease mapping.

Background And Objective: Spatial and spatio-temporal analyses of count data are crucial in epidemiology and other fields to unveil spatial and spatio-temporal patterns of incidence and/or mortality risks. However, fitting spatial and spatio-temporal models is not easy for non-expert users. The objective of this paper is to present an interactive and user-friendly web application (named SSTCDapp) for the analysis of spatial and spatio-temporal mortality or incidence data.

Effect of Thermal Stress on Tissue Ultrastructure and Metabolite Profiles During Initiation of Radiata Pine Somatic Embryogenesis.

Climate change will inevitably lead to environmental variations, thus plant drought tolerance will be a determinant factor in the success of plantations and natural forestry recovery. Some metabolites, such as soluble carbohydrates and amino acids, have been described as being the key to both embryogenesis efficiency and abiotic stress response, contributing to phenotypic plasticity and the adaptive capacity of plants. For this reason, our main objectives were to evaluate if the temperature during embryonal mass initiation in radiata pine was critical to the success of somatic embryogenesis, to alter the morphological and ultrastructural organization of embryonal masses at cellular level and to modify the carbohydrate, protein, or amino acid contents.

Temperature and Water Availability During Maturation Affect the Cytokinins and Auxins Profile of Radiata Pine Somatic Embryos.

Somatic embryogenesis (SE) provides us a potent biotechnological tool to manipulate the physical and chemical conditions (water availability) along the process and to study their effect in the final success in terms of quantity of somatic embryos produced. In the last years, our research team has been focused on the study of different aspects of the SE in spp. One of the main aspects affecting SE is the composition of culture media; in this sense, phytohormones play one of the most crucial roles in this propagation system.

Spatial gender-age-period-cohort analysis of pancreatic cancer mortality in Spain (1990-2013).

Recently, the interest in studying pancreatic cancer mortality has increased due to its high lethality. In this work a detailed analysis of pancreatic cancer mortality in Spanish provinces was performed using recent data. A set of multivariate spatial gender-age-period-cohort models was considered to look for potential candidates to analyze pancreatic cancer mortality rates.

Two-level spatially structured models in spatio-temporal disease mapping.

This work focuses on extending some classical spatio-temporal models in disease mapping. The objective is to present a family of flexible models to analyze real data naturally organized in two different levels of spatial aggregation like municipalities within health areas or provinces, or counties within states. Model fitting and inference will be carried out using integrated nested Laplace approximations.

Temporal evolution of brain cancer incidence in the municipalities of Navarre and the Basque Country, Spain.

Background: Brain cancer incidence rates in Spain are below the European's average. However, there are two regions in the north of the country, Navarre and the Basque Country, ranked among the European regions with the highest incidence rates for both males and females. Our objective here was two-fold.

Age- and sex-specific spatio-temporal patterns of colorectal cancer mortality in Spain (1975-2008).

In this paper, space-time patterns of colorectal cancer (CRC) mortality risks are studied by sex and age group (50-69, ≥70) in Spanish provinces during the period 1975-2008. Space-time conditional autoregressive models are used to perform the statistical analyses. A pronounced increase in mortality risk has been observed in males for both age-groups.

On fitting spatio-temporal disease mapping models using approximate Bayesian inference.

Spatio-temporal disease mapping comprises a wide range of models used to describe the distribution of a disease in space and its evolution in time. These models have been commonly formulated within a hierarchical Bayesian framework with two main approaches: an empirical Bayes (EB) and a fully Bayes (FB) approach. The EB approach provides point estimates of the parameters relying on the well-known penalized quasi-likelihood (PQL) technique.

Evaluating space-time models for short-term cancer mortality risk predictions in small areas.

Current cancer mortality data are available with a delay of roughly three years due to the administrative procedure necessary to create the registries. Therefore, health agencies rely on forecast cancer deaths. In this context, statistical procedures providing mortality/incidence risk predictions for different regions or health areas are very useful.

Spatio-temporal trends in gastric cancer mortality in Spain: 1975-2008.

Aim Of The Study: There has been a downward trend in gastric cancer mortality worldwide. In Spain, a marked spatial aggregation of areas with excess mortality due to this cause has long been reported. This paper sought to analyse the evolution of gastric cancer mortality risk in Spanish provinces and explore the possible attenuation of the geographical pattern.

Age-specific spatio-temporal patterns of female breast cancer mortality in Spain (1975-2005).

Purpose: In recent decades, a decline in breast cancer mortality has been observed across Europe, and also in Spain. Our objective is to assess the spatio-temporal pattern during the period 1975-2005 by specific age groups (<45, 45-64, ≥65) in the Spanish provinces.

Methods: For each age group, a spatio-temporal P-spline model with a B-spline basis is used to smooth the mortality risks.

A taxometric analysis of schizophrenia symptoms.

Specific disorders within the psychosis syndrome have been proposed although no definitive validation of subtypes has been achieved. If there are subtypes of psychosis, latent discontinuity between clinical descriptors should be found. We applied for the first time taxometric analysis on characteristic schizophrenia symptoms.