Evidence is accumulating that individual and environmental factors in childhood and adolescence should be considered when investigating adult health and aging-related processes. The data required for this is gathered by comprehensive long-term longitudinal studies. This article describes the protocol of the Zurich Longitudinal Studies, a set of three comprehensive cohort studies on child growth, health, and development that are currently expanding into adulthood. Between 1954 and 1961, 445 healthy infants were enrolled in the first ZLS cohort. Their physical, motor, cognitive, (...) and social development and their environment were assessed comprehensively across childhood, adolescence, and into young adulthood. In the 1970s, two further cohorts were added to the ZLS and assessed with largely matched study protocols: Between 1974 and 1979, the second ZLS cohort included 265 infants, and between 1970 and 2002, the third ZLS cohort included 327 children of participants of the first ZLS cohort. Since 2019, the participants of the three ZLS cohorts have been traced and invited to participate in a first wave of assessments in adulthood to investigate their current health and development. This article describes the ZLS study protocol and discusses opportunities, methodological and conceptual challenges, and limitations arising from a long-term longitudinal cohort recruited from a study about development in early life. In the future, the ZLS will provide data to investigate childhood antecedents of adult health outcomes and, ultimately, will help respond to the frequent call of scientists to shift the focus of aging research into the first decades of life and, thus, to take a lifespan perspective on aging. (shrink)

Whole-genome analysis and whole-exome analysis generate many more clinically actionable findings than traditional targeted genetic analysis. These findings may be relevant to research participants themselves as well as for members of their families. Though researchers performing genomic analyses are likely to find medically significant genetic variations for nearly every research participant, what they will find for any given participant is unpredictable. The ubiquity and diversity of these findings complicate questions about disclosing individual genetic test results. We outline an approach for (...) disclosing a select range of genetic results to the relatives of research participants who have died, developed in response to relatives? requests during a pilot study of large-scale medical genetic sequencing. We also argue that studies that disclose individual research results to participants should, at a minimum, passively disclose individual results to deceased participants? relatives. (shrink)

Modern zoos strive to educate visitors about zoo animals and their wild counterparts’ conservation needs while fostering appreciation for wildlife in general. This research review examines how zoos influence those who visit them. Much of the research to-date examines zoo visitors’ behaviors and perceptions in relation to specific exhibits, animals and/or programs. In general, visitors have more positive perceptions and behaviors about zoos, their animals and conservation initiatives the more they interact with animals, naturalistic exhibits, and zoo programming/staff. Furthermore, zoo (...) visitors are receptive to conservation messaging and initiatives at zoos, and are more likely to participate in on-site conservation opportunities as opposed to after their visits. The research also suggests that repeat visitors are even more inclined to seek out conservation efforts compared to those visiting zoos for the first time. While current research suggests that repeat-visitors are more likely to engage in conservation efforts, little is known about causal factors related to such findings, and almost no research exists to-date comparing the conservation efforts of visitors vs. non-visitors. This latter comparison will likely play a greater role in future zoo visitor research, since it poses one of the most important metrics for evaluating the specific effects visiting a zoo can have on people engaging in conservation efforts in general. (shrink)

Using microdata from the Wage Structure Survey, we analyse the gender wage gap in the private and public sectors, considering the whole wage distribution. The main contribution is to assume that the decision to work in a sector is a prior process determined endogenously in the model. Thus, the usual Ordinary Least Square estimation is inconsistent, and it is necessary to use alternative techniques. We use quantile regression techniques to calculate how much of the gap is due to differences in (...) returns between men and women and sectors, taking into account the sample selection bias. We find that the size of the gap attributed to different returns varies substantially across the wage distribution. Public sector employees are paid higher wages, on average, than their counterparts in the private sector, and the gap is wider for women. Moreover, the proportion of the gender wage gap explained tends to be greater for workers who are at the bottom of the wage distribution in both sectors. A look at the whole wage distribution reveals that discrimination in the gender wage gap is typically higher at its top than at its bottom, suggesting that glass ceilings are more prevalent than sticky floors for both men and women. (shrink)

In this work we define, in a general way, an algebraic semantics for the logics of the hierarchy InPk. This semantics is defined by means of an alternative construction, with respect to the usual algebraic semantics, and it is known in the literature as Twist-structures semantics. Besides that, we modify such construction, defining the so-called ω-Twist-structures here. This adaptation allows us to prove adequacy theorems for every logic of the hierarchy InPk.

The multilinear extension of a cooperative game was introduced by Owen in 1972. In this contribution we study the Lovász extension for cooperative games by using the marginal worth vectors and the dividends. First, we prove a formula for the marginal worth vectors with respect to compatible orderings. Next, we consider the direct market generated by a game. This model of utility function, proposed by Shapley and Shubik in 1969, is the concave biconjugate extension of the game. Then we obtain (...) the following characterization: The utility function of a market game is the Lovász extension of the game if and only if the market game is supermodular. Finally, we present some preliminary problems about the relationship between cooperative games and combinatorial optimization. (shrink)

A growing volume of research from global data demonstrates that institutional care under conditions of deprivation is profoundly damaging to children, particularly during the critical early years of development. However, how these individuals develop over a life course remains unclear. This study uses data from a survey on the health and development of 420 children mostly under the age of three, placed in 12 infant care institutions between 1958 and 1961 in Zurich, Switzerland. The children exhibited significant delays in cognitive, (...) social, and motor development in the first years of life. Moreover, a follow-up of a subsample of 143 children about 10 years later revealed persistent difficulties, including depression, school related-problems, and stereotypies. Between 2019 and 2021, these formerly institutionalized study participants were located through the Swiss population registry and invited to participate once again in the research project. Now in their early sixties, they are studied for their health, further development, and life-course trajectories. A mixed-methods approach using questionnaires, neuropsychological assessments, and narrative biographical interviews was implemented by a multidisciplinary team. Combining prospective and retrospective data with standardized quantitative and biographical qualitative data allows a rich reconstruction of life histories. The availability of a community sample from the same geographic location, the 1954–1961 cohort of the Zurich Longitudinal Studies, described in detail in a paper in this issue, enables comparison with an unaffected cohort. This article describes the study design and study participants in detail and discusses the potential and limitations of a comparison with a community sample. It outlines a set of challenges and solutions encountered in the process of a lifespan longitudinal study from early childhood into the cusp of old age with a potentially vulnerable sample and summarizes the lessons learned along the way. (shrink)

People with lived experience are individuals who have first-hand experience of the medical condition being considered. The value of including the viewpoints of people with lived experience in health policy, health care, and health care and systems research has been recognized at many levels, including by funding agencies. However, there is little guidance or established best practices on how to include non-academic reviewers in the grant review process. Here we describe our approach to the inclusion of people with lived experience (...) in every stage of the grant review process. After a budget was created for a specific call, a steering committee was created. This group included researchers, people with lived experience, and health systems administrators. This group developed and issued the call. After receiving proposals, stage one was scientific review by researchers. Grants were ranked by this score and a short list then reviewed by people with lived experience as stage two. Finally, for stage three, the Steering Committee convened and achieved consensus based on information drawn from stages one and two. Our approach to engage people with lived experience in the grant review process was positively reviewed by everyone involved, as it allowed for patient perspectives to be truly integrated. However, it does lengthen the review process. The proposed model offers further practical insight into including people with lived experience in the review process. (shrink)

This introduction to the Journal of Business Research special issue on anti-consumption briefly defines and highlights the importance of anticonsumption research, provides an overview of the latest studies in the area, and suggests an agenda for future research on anti-consumption.

Robots should be able to represent emotional states to interact with people as social agents. There are cases where robots cannot have bio-inspired bodies, for instance because the task to be performed requires a special shape, as in the case of home cleaners, package carriers, and many others. In these cases, emotional states have to be represented by exploiting movements of the body. In this paper, we present a set of case studies aimed at identifying specific values to convey emotion (...) trough changes in linear and angular velocities, which might be applied on different non-anthropomorphic bodies. This work originates from some of the most considered emotion expression theories and from emotion coding for people. We show that people can recognize some emotional expressions better than others, and we propose some directions to express emotions exploiting only bio-neutral movement. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es realizar una retrospectiva de 15 años (2004-2019) sobre la evolución de las propuestas de trabajo, líneas de investigación y docencia que, con respecto a la enseñanza de las Ciencias Sociales con perspectiva de género, se ha desarrollado en nuestro contexto y su transferencia a las aulas de educación obligatoria, bachillerato y universidad. Se reflexiona sobre el trabajo realizado, el contexto actual y las líneas futuras.

Vaccines represent preventative interventions amenable to immunogenetic prediction of how human variability will influence their safety and efficacy. The genetic polymorphism among individuals within any population can render possible that the immunity elicited by a vaccine is variable in length and strength. The same immune challenge (virus and/or vaccine) could provoke partial, complete or even failed protection for some individuals treated under the same conditions. We review genetic variants and mechanistic relationships among chemokines, chemokine receptors, interleukins, interferons, interferon receptors, toll‐like (...) receptors, histocompatibility antigens, various immunoglobulins and major histocompatibility complex antigens. These are the targets for variation among macrophages, dendritic cells, natural killer cells, T‐ and B‐lymphocytes, and complement. The technology platforms (mRNA, viral vectors, proteins) utilized to produce vaccines against SARS‐CoV‐2 infections may each trigger genetically distinct immune reactogenic profiles. With DNA biobanking and immunoprofiling of recipients, global COVID‐19 vaccinations could launch a new era of personalized healthcare. (shrink)

Genomic research results and incidental findings with health implications for a research participant are of potential interest not only to the participant, but also to the participant's family. Yet investigators lack guidance on return of results to relatives, including after the participant's death. In this paper, a national working group offers consensus analysis and recommendations, including an ethical framework to guide investigators in managing this challenging issue, before and after the participant's death.

ABSTRACTPolitical actors use metaphor in their speeches in order to frame political issues [Charteris-Black, J.. Politicians and rhetoric: The persuasive power of metaphor. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan]. If they succeed in imposing a particular frame, especially when there is no agreement on the definition of certain political issues, this can become the prevailing way for referring to that issue [Semino, E.. Metaphor in discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press]. In this research, we argue that this was the case for the metaphor of (...) the JOURNEY in the Catalan political conflict during electoral periods. To that end we use Critical Metaphor Analysis [Charteris-Black, J.. Corpus approaches to critical metaphor analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan] to analyse televised campaign ads from the last three elections for the Parliament of Catalonia – from 2010, 2012, and 2015 – in order to identify how political actors’ use metaphors to talk about the Catalan political situation during these years and to verify if JOURNEY metaphor resulted into the dominant narrative. The results show that the political situation has been conceptualized in terms of a ‘process en route,’ although the narratives generated by the political actors that shaped that discourse differ. (shrink)

This review presents a state of the art in artificial intelligence applied to urban planning and particularly to land-use predictions. In this review, different articles after the year 2016 are analyzed mostly focusing on those that are not mentioned in earlier publications. Most of the articles analyzed used a combination of Markov chains and cellular automata to predict the growth of urban areas and metropolitan regions. We noticed that most of these simulations were applied in various areas of China. An (...) analysis of the publication of articles in the area over time is included. (shrink)

Robots should be able to represent emotional states to interact with people as social agents. There are cases where robots cannot have bio-inspired bodies, for instance because the task to be performed requires a special shape, as in the case of home cleaners, package carriers, and many others. In these cases, emotional states have to be represented by exploiting movements of the body. In this paper, we present a set of case studies aimed at identifying specific values to convey emotion (...) trough changes in linear and angular velocities, which might be applied on different non-anthropomorphic bodies. This work originates from some of the most considered emotion expression theories and from emotion coding for people. We show that people can recognize some emotional expressions better than others, and we propose some directions to express emotions exploiting only bio-neutral movement. (shrink)