The Social Security Cost of Smoking

Our paper is an examination of the Social Security cost of smoking from an individual point of view. It is well known that smokers have a shorter life expectancy than nonsmokers. This means that by smoking they are giving up potential Social Security benefits. We estimate this cost and consider the effects on the system as a whole. We use mortality ratios, which relate the annual death probabilities of smokers and nonsmokers, and the percentage of smokers in each age group to break down the life tables for men and women born in 1920 into the approximate life tables for smokers and nonsmokers. We then calculate expected Social Security taxes and benefits for each group, using median earnings as a base. We find that smoking costs men about $20,000 and women about$10,000 in expected net benefits. The implication of this for the system as a whole is that the prevalence of smoking has a direct effect on the financial viability of the system; every decrease in the number of smokers in society increases the system's liability. Changes in smoking behavior should be recognized as affecting the system.

Cancer Biology Data Curation at the Mouse Tumor Biology Database (MTB)

Many advances in the field of cancer biology have been made using mouse models of human cancer. The Mouse Tumor Biology (MTB, "http://tumor.informatics.jax.org":http://tumor.informatics.jax.org) database provides web-based access to data on spontaneous and induced tumors from genetically defined mice (inbred, hybrid, mutant, and genetically engineered strains of mice). These data include standardized tumor names and classifications, pathology reports and images, mouse genetics, genomic and cytogenetic changes occurring in the tumor, strain names, tumor frequency and latency, and literature citations.

Although primary source for the data represented in MTB is peer-reviewed scientific literature an increasing amount of data is derived from disparate sources. MTB includes annotated histopathology images and cytogenetic assay images for mouse tumors where these data are available from The Jackson Laboratory’s mouse colonies and from outside contributors. MTB encourages direct submission of mouse tumor data and images from the cancer research community and provides investigators with a web-accessible tool for image submission and annotation. 

Integrated searches of the data in MTB are facilitated by the use of several controlled vocabularies and by adherence to standard nomenclature. MTB also provides links to other related online resources such as the Mouse Genome Database, Mouse Phenome Database, the Biology of the Mammary Gland Web Site, Festing's Listing of Inbred Strains of Mice, the JAX® Mice Web Site, and the Mouse Models of Human Cancers Consortium's Mouse Repository. 

MTB provides access to data on mouse models of cancer via the internet and has been designed to facilitate the selection of experimental models for cancer research, the evaluation of mouse genetic models of human cancer, the review of patterns of mutations in specific cancers, and the identification of genes that are commonly mutated across a spectrum of cancers.

MTB is supported by NCI grant CA089713

Climate change, loss of (bio)diversity, natural ressource depletion, social marginalization etc: Our adaptation and mitigation contribution

The environmental and social challenges of the planet are a sad reality. Organic Agriculture advocates often espouse its contributions to mitigating the negative effects of farming. But mitigation alone is not enough. Farmers also need to adapt to a changed climate, reduced biodiversity and depleted resources as well as to an ever-changing socio-cultural environment

Biomechanical determination of distal level for fusions across the cervicothoracic junction

Study Design In vitro testing. Objective To determine whether long cervical and cervicothoracic fusions increase the intradiscal pressure at the adjacent caudal disk and to determine which thoracic end vertebra causes the least increase in the adjacent-level intradiscal pressure. Methods A bending moment was applied to six cadaveric cervicothoracic spine specimens with intact rib cages. Intradiscal pressures were recorded from C7–T1 to T9–10 before and after simulated fusion by anterior cervical plating and posterior thoracic pedicle screw constructs. The changes in the intradiscal pressure from baseline were calculated and compared. Results No significant differences where found when the changes of the juxtafusion intradiscal pressure at each level were compared for the flexion, extension, and left and right bending simulations. However, combining the pressures for all directions of bending at each level demonstrated a decrease in the pressures at the T2–T3 level. Exploratory analysis comparing changes in the pressure at T2–T3 to other levels showed a significant decrease in the pressures at this level (p = 0.005). Conclusions Based on the combined intradiscal pressures alone it may be advantageous to end long constructs spanning the cervicothoracic junction at the T2 level if there are no other mitigating factors

Long-term survivors of childhood cancer report quality of life and health status in parity with a comparison group

Background: There is a need for more knowledge about how survivors of childhood cancer perceive their lives and what influence current health status has on their quality of life. The purpose was to describe this among a group of long-term survivors and among a comparison group. Procedure: Telephone interviews were performed with a cohort of 246 long-term survivors and 296 randomly selected from the general population using the Schedule for the Evaluation of Individual Quality of Life- Direct Weighting (SEIQoL-DW). The participants nominated the areas they considered to be most important in life and rated the current status of each area on a seven-point category scale. An overall individual index score was calculated as a measure of quality of life. Self-reported health status was assessed using the Short Form Health Survey (SF-36). Results: Long-term survivors rated their overall quality of life and self-reported health status almost in parity with the comparison group. In both groups, family life, relations to other people, work and career, interests and leisure activities were the areas most frequently reported to influence quality of life. The survivors only differed from the comparison group on one of eight SF-36 scales reflecting problems with daily activities owing to physical health. Conclusions: Health status was not shown to have a major impact on overall quality of life, indicating that health and quality of life should be evaluated distinctively as different constructs. This should be taken in consideration in clinical care of children with childhood cancer and long-term survivors

A viral CTL escape mutation leading to immunoglobulin-like transcript 4-mediated functional inhibition of myelomonocytic cells

Viral mutational escape can reduce or abrogate recognition by the T cell receptor (TCR) of virus-specific CD8+ T cells. However, very little is known about the impact of cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) epitope mutations on interactions between peptide–major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I complexes and MHC class I receptors expressed on other cell types. Here, we analyzed a variant of the immunodominant human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-B2705–restricted HIV-1 Gag KK10 epitope (KRWIILGLNK) with an L to M amino acid substitution at position 6 (L6M), which arises as a CTL escape variant after primary infection but is sufficiently immunogenic to elicit a secondary, de novo HIV-1–specific CD8+ T cell response with an alternative TCR repertoire in chronic infection. In addition to altering recognition by HIV-1–specific CD8+ T cells, the HLA-B2705–KK10 L6M complex also exhibits substantially increased binding to the immunoglobulin-like transcript (ILT) receptor 4, an inhibitory MHC class I–specific receptor expressed on myelomonocytic cells. Binding of the B2705–KK10 L6M complex to ILT4 leads to a tolerogenic phenotype of myelomonocytic cells with lower surface expression of dendritic cell (DC) maturation markers and co-stimulatory molecules. These data suggest a link between CTL-driven mutational escape, altered recognition by innate MHC class I receptors on myelomonocytic cells, and functional impairment of DCs, and thus provide important new insight into biological consequences of viral sequence diversificatio

The Sensitivity of Auditory-Motor Representations to Subtle Changes in Auditory Feedback While Singing

Singing requires accurate control of the fundamental frequency (F0) of the voice. This study examined trained singers’ and untrained singers’ (nonsingers’) sensitivity to subtle manipulations in auditory feedback and the subsequent effect on the mapping between F0 feedback and vocal control. Participants produced the consonant-vowel /ta/ while receiving auditory feedback that was shifted up and down in frequency. Results showed that singers and nonsingers compensated to a similar degree when presented with frequency-altered feedback (FAF); however, singers’ F0 values were consistently closer to the intended pitch target. Moreover, singers initiated their compensatory responses when auditory feedback was shifted up or down 6 cents or more, compared to nonsingers who began compensating when feedback was shifted up 26 cents and down 22 cents. Additionally, examination of the first 50 ms of vocalization indicated that participants commenced subsequent vocal utterances, during FAF, near the F0 value on previous shift trials. Interestingly, nonsingers commenced F0 productions below the pitch target and increased their F0 until they matched the note. Thus, singers and nonsingers rely on an internal model to regulate voice F0, but singers’ models appear to be more sensitive in response to subtle discrepancies in auditory feedback

Active current sheets and hot flow anomalies in Mercury's bow shock

Hot flow anomalies (HFAs) represent a subset of solar wind discontinuities interacting with collisionless bow shocks. They are typically formed when the normal component of motional (convective) electric field points toward the embedded current sheet on at least one of its sides. The core region of an HFA contains hot and highly deflected ion flows and rather low and turbulent magnetic field. In this paper, we report first observations of HFA-like events at Mercury identified over a course of two planetary years. Using data from the orbital phase of the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) mission, we identify a representative ensemble of active current sheets magnetically connected to Mercury's bow shock. We show that some of these events exhibit unambiguous magnetic and particle signatures of HFAs similar to those observed earlier at other planets, and present their key physical characteristics. Our analysis suggests that Mercury's bow shock does not only mediate the flow of supersonic solar wind plasma but also provides conditions for local particle acceleration and heating as predicted by previous numerical simulations. Together with earlier observations of HFA activity at Earth, Venus and Saturn, our results confirm that hot flow anomalies are a common property of planetary bow shocks, and show that the characteristic size of these events is of the order of one planetary radius.Comment: 39 pages, 15 figures, 2 table

Flanging and Hemming of Auto Body Panels using the Electro Magnetic Forming technology

Electro Magnetic Forming (EMF) technology has a great number of potential applications for the automotive industry. LABEIN-Tecnalia has worked with this technology for six years and has a good understanding of the automotive industry s needs and challenges. LABEIN-Tecnalia is currently developing new applications with EMF technology. Taking into account the advantages and limitations of EMF, bending and hemming processes present good geometric conditions for the use of this technology. The study presented is based largely on hemming circular configurations which are simplifications of those commonly used on hemmed automotive parts. The parameters of this new EMF bending and hemming processes have been studied, as well as their influence on the final quality of the parts obtained. Conclusions obtained from the basic geometries were tested on a more complicated geometry in order to apply the knowledge acquired. Parallel to the experimental work, fully coupled electromechanical software by LS-DYNA has been used to simulate and extend the present hemming results