The Cumulative Burden of Social Risk Factors and 10-Year Change in Quality of Life.

Background: Social risk factors are linked to adverse health outcomes, but their total impact on long-term quality of life is obscure. We hypothesized that a higher burden of social risk factors is associated with greater decline in quality of life over 10 years.

Methods: We examined associations between social risk factors count and decline >5 points in (i) physical component summary, and (ii) mental component summary scores from the Short Form-12 among Black and White participants in the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke study (n = 14 401).

Reflection Measurement of the Scattering Mean Free Path at the Onset of Multiple Scattering.

Multiple scattering of waves presents challenges for imaging complex media but offers potential for their characterization. Its onset is actually governed by the scattering mean free path ℓ_{s} that provides crucial information on the medium microarchitecture. Here, we introduce a reflection matrix method designed to estimate this parameter from the time decay of the single scattering rate.

Editors and Journals: Part III-" (Who Is In Charge)?".

Judging whether an editor is good at the job is essential; however, this task may be difficult or even impossible. Several factors are involved, many of which are beyond the control of an editor. We examined some of such situations, which are as follows: (1) Reviewer's abuse of privileged information, in which a reviewer or an associate, who is likely to be a competitor, directs members of their laboratory to rapidly replicate the data and submit the resulting paper in the same or another journal while delaying publication of the submitted paper; (2) defective micromanagement by a stakeholder or owner, such as failure to order paper for the publication of a journal; (3) penny-wise dollar-foolish mismanagement by the owner, such as limiting the figures allowed to an absurdly low number in a dermatology journal (we have a visual specialty); (4) factional abuse, such as when members of a society use a gimmick to exercise outsized influence to effect a change in journal's content, and (5) " (who is in charge)?," in which changes in the governance of an ownership society or publisher affect quality of the journal.