Objectives/Goals: We will conduct a 12-week pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT) to test the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of a staged-intensity whole foods intervention on hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) change in adults, diet quality change (via the 2020 healthy eating index [HEI-2020]) in adults and offspring, and diet adherence and social determinants of health (SDOH) considerations via focus groups. Methods/Study Population: In this two-arm, parallel RCT, 30 adults with prediabetes (25–59 years) and their offspring (6–18 years) will be randomized to receive the 1) 12-week whole foods intervention which includes a 2-week feeding period (all foods/recipies provided), a 6-week customizable feeding period (3 dinners/recipies weekly), and a 4-week maintenance period (no food/recipies). The control group will receive standard of care (i.e., single RD-led diet counseling session). Primary outcomes include feasibility (≥80% retention and completion of study outcome measures) and acceptability (≥75% adult self-reported diet satisfaction). Intervention effects include 1) HbA1c change at 12-weeks in adults and 2) adult/offspring HEI-2020 scores assessed via diet records. Focus groups will assess influences of SDOH on diet adherence. Results/Anticipated Results: We have received Institutional Review Board approval, and recruitment is planned for January 2025. We will enroll 30 families from the greater Nashville, TN area. An intent-to-treat analysis will be conducted to test the preliminary effects of the whole foods diet intervention on the 12-week change in HbA1c (adults only) and 2020-HEI diet quality scores during the intervention period (adults and offspring). Focus groups will be conducted to understand how individual and family needs/preferences and SDOH may be perceived barriers or facilitators of diet adherence. Data generated from this study will be used to guide a fully powered RCT of our whole foods intervention to assess long-term effects on additional diabetes and metabolic outcomes and assessment of SDOH influences to support long-term adherence. Discussion/Significance of Impact: A healthy diet pattern is an effective nonpharmacological solution to prevent T2D, but only if it can be maintained. A family-centered whole foods diet pattern that uses “food as medicine” and considers how individual and family needs/preferences, and SDOHs could be an effective and sustainable multigenerational solution to prevent T2D in families.

In the last few decades, the study of ordinal data in which the variable of interest is not exactly observed but only known to be in a specific ordinal category has become important. To emphasize that the problem is not specific to a specific discipline we will use the neutral term coarsened observation. For single-equation models estimation of the latent linear model by Maximum Likelihood (ML) is routine. But, for higher-dimensional multivariate models it is computationally cumbersome as estimation requires the evaluation of multivariate normal distribution functions on a large scale. Our proposed alternative estimation method, based on the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), circumvents this multivariate integration problem. It can be implemented by repeated application of standard techniques and provides a simpler and faster approach than the usual ML approach. It is applicable to multiple-equation models with $K$-dimensional error correlation matrices and ${J}_k$ response categories for the kth equation. It also yields a simple method to estimate polyserial and polychoric correlations. Comparison of our method with the outcomes of the Stata ML procedure cmp yields estimates that are not statistically different, while estimation by our method requires only a fraction of the computing time.

Past work on closed-ended survey responses demonstrates that inferring stable political attitudes requires separating signal from noise in “top of the head” answers to researchers’ questions. We outline a corresponding theory of the open-ended response, in which respondents make narrow, stand-in statements to convey more abstract, general attitudes. We then present a method designed to infer those attitudes. Our approach leverages co-variation with words used relatively frequently across respondents to infer what else they could have said without substantively changing what they meant—linking narrow themes to each other through associations with contextually prevalent words. This reflects the intuition that a respondent may use different specific statements at different points in time to convey similar meaning. We validate this approach using panel data in which respondents answer the same open-ended questions (concerning healthcare policy, most important problems, and evaluations of political parties) at multiple points in time, showing that our method’s output consistently exhibits higher within-subject correlations than hand-coding of narrow response categories, topic modeling, and large language model output. Finally, we show how large language models can be used to complement—but not, at present, substitute—our “implied word” method.

Analysts often seek to compare representations in high-dimensional space, e.g., embedding vectors of the same word across groups. We show that the distance measures calculated in such cases can exhibit considerable statistical bias, that stems from uncertainty in the estimation of the elements of those vectors. This problem applies to Euclidean distance, cosine similarity, and other similar measures. After illustrating the severity of this problem for text-as-data applications, we provide and validate a bias correction for the squared Euclidean distance. This same correction also substantially reduces bias in ordinary Euclidean distance and cosine similarity estimates, but corrections for these measures are not quite unbiased and are (non-intuitively) bimodal when distances are close to zero. The estimators require obtaining the variance of the latent positions. We (will) implement the estimator in free software, and we offer recommendations for related work.

We aimed to estimate the secondary attack rate of mpox among UK household contacts and determine factors associated with transmission to inform public health management of contacts, during the global outbreak in 2022. Information was collected via NHS and public health services and included age, gender, place of residence, setting, and type of contact. Aggregate information was summarized for the UK. Record level data was combined for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and multivariable logistic regression was used to determine factors associated with transmission. The secondary attack rate among UK household mpox contacts was 4% (60/1 526). Sexual contact with the index case was associated with a 11-fold increase in adjusted odds of becoming a case in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland (95% CI 5.5–22, p < 0.001). Household contacts outside of London had increased odds compared to London residents (adjusted OR 2.9, 95%CI 1.6–5.4, p < 0.001), while female contacts had reduced odds of becoming a case (aOR: 0.41, 95% CI: 0.15–0.95). We found a low overall secondary attack rate among household mpox contacts with strong evidence of increased transmission risk associated with sexual contact. This evidence will inform the risk assessment of contacts and support prioritization of those with close intimate contact for follow up.

The extremely toxic protein, ricin, is derived from castor beans and is a potential terrorist weapon. Adsorption to clays might minimize the environmental persistence and toxic effects of this toxin. Ricin adsorption to clay minerals was measured using batch adsorption isotherms. Enzyme-linked immunoassay methods were used to quantify aqueous ricin concentrations. Montmorillonite, sepiolite and palygorskite effectively adsorbed ricin from aqueous solutions and yielded mostly Langmuir-type isotherms. The monolayer adsorption capacity from a Langmuir equation fit at pH 7 was 444 g ricin/kg for montmorillonite (SWy-2), but was only 5.6 g ricin/kg for kaolinite (KGa-1b). Monolayer capacities for sepiolite (SepSp-1) and palygorskite (PFl-1) at pH 7 were 59.2 and 58.1 g ricin/kg. The high-charge montmorillonite (SAz-1) effectively adsorbed ricin at pH 7, but yielded a linear isotherm with K = 5530 L/kg. At pH 5, both montmorillonites (SWy-2 and SAz-1) yielded Langmuir-type isotherms with monolayer capacities of 694 and 641 g ricin/kg. Clay samples with higher cation exchange capacities generally adsorbed more ricin, but adsorption also followed specific surface area. X-ray diffraction of <2 μm SWy-2 treated with 470 g ricin/kg indicated expansion up to 34.6 Å at buffered pHs of 4 and 7, but not at pH 10. Furthermore, ricin adsorption was greatest at pH 4 and 7, but minimal at pH 10. Treatment with 1.41 kg of purified ricin/kg clay at pH 5 yielded a 35.3 Å peak and adsorption of ~1.2 kg ricin/kg. Similar treatment with lower-purity ricin yielded less expansion and lower adsorption. The 35.3 Å peak interpreted either as a d002 or d001 reflection indicates a 70.6 Å or a 35.3 Å ricin/SWy-2 complex. This implies that adsorption and air drying have compressed interlayer ricin molecules by 18 to 65%. Effective ricin adsorption by montmorillonite suggests that it could be used to minimize the toxic effects of dispersed ricin.

Between the abolition of slavery, 1834, and World War I, more than a half-million laborers were introduced to the British West Indies under terms of indenture. Indenture implies unfreedom, the exploitation of people forced into exile by misfortune or misadventure. It is an alien concept in modern Western society, and the transoceanic transport of thousands of African and Indian workers during the nineteenth century appears a further testimonial to European racism, to the arrogance of great power, and to the political influence of the West India planters and their merchant associates. In recent years, a growing number of scholars have characterized the whole process of nineteenth-century indenture as a “new system of slavery.”

Bacterial superinfection and antibiotic prescribing in the setting of the current mpox outbreak are not well described in the literature. This retrospective observational study revealed low prevalence (11%) of outpatient antibiotic prescribing for bacterial superinfection of mpox lesions; at least 3 prescriptions (23%) were unnecessary.

The purpose of this investigation was to expand upon the limited existing research examining the test–retest reliability, cross-sectional validity and longitudinal validity of a sample of bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) devices as compared with a laboratory four-compartment (4C) model. Seventy-three healthy participants aged 19–50 years were assessed by each of fifteen BIA devices, with resulting body fat percentage estimates compared with a 4C model utilising air displacement plethysmography, dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and bioimpedance spectroscopy. A subset of thirty-seven participants returned for a second visit 12–16 weeks later and were included in an analysis of longitudinal validity. The sample of devices included fourteen consumer-grade and one research-grade model in a variety of configurations: hand-to-hand, foot-to-foot and bilateral hand-to-foot (octapolar). BIA devices demonstrated high reliability, with precision error ranging from 0·0 to 0·49 %. Cross-sectional validity varied, with constant error relative to the 4C model ranging from −3·5 (sd 4·1) % to 11·7 (sd 4·7) %, standard error of the estimate values of 3·1–7·5 % and Lin’s concordance correlation coefficients (CCC) of 0·48–0·94. For longitudinal validity, constant error ranged from −0·4 (sd 2·1) % to 1·3 (sd 2·7) %, with standard error of the estimate values of 1·7–2·6 % and Lin’s CCC of 0·37–0·78. While performance varied widely across the sample investigated, select models of BIA devices (particularly octapolar and select foot-to-foot devices) may hold potential utility for the tracking of body composition over time, particularly in contexts in which the purchase or use of a research-grade device is infeasible.

Scholarship about Southern Africa registers a persistent tension between the prospect of relations created in a processual manner over time and the role of discrete ritual or lifecycle events. Marriage is one of the sites where this tension becomes particularly evident, not only in bridewealth transactions but also in an increasing prominence given to European-style ‘white weddings’. For Baptist Christians living in urban Zimbabwe, the tension raises a host of ethical considerations. This group of Christians seeks to establish and maintain social relations that they value for cultural and for religious reasons, while also facing the ethical task of moderating the degree of obligation that these relations can exert over them. They do so in order to maintain the moral autonomy necessary to live ethical Baptist lives, and attempt to achieve this goal by creating marriages according to a model of immediate transformation, rather than one of gradual unfolding. I suggest that drawing from recent discussions in the anthropological study of ethics offers a way to discuss choice and evaluation in marriage practice in ways not reducible to class interest or social and material expediency alone.

Most earthen burial mounds of eastern North America have been destroyed—or have they? We review geophysical methods for assessing whether leveled mounds retain intact deposits or features. Magnetic survey holds promise for locating and evaluating leveled mounds because it is rapid and sensitive to magnetic variations associated with anticipated features such as pits and deposits of mound fill. As a case study, we discuss our magnetic survey of the Gast Farm site (13LA12) in eastern Iowa. The survey covered 8.64 ha, encompassing loci of one previously reported mound and possible geometric earthworks as well as Middle and Late Woodland habitation areas. Interpretation of survey results incorporated quantitative differentiation of magnetic anomaly types using GIS techniques, along with standard visual inspection. We found no evidence of geometric earthworks but identified at least six leveled mounds. Displaced mound fill appears to account for the earthwork-like features. We conclude that leveled mounds are detectable and may retain subsurface integrity. Their associated features, including burials, may be identifiable even when above-ground evidence has disappeared.