With the ongoing emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants, there is a need for standard approaches to characterize the risk of vaccine breakthrough. We aimed to estimate the association between variant and vaccination status in case-only surveillance data. Included cases were symptomatic adult laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases, with onset between January 2021 and April 2022, reported by five European countries (Estonia, Ireland, Luxembourg, Poland, and Slovakia) to The European Surveillance System. Associations between variant and vaccination status were estimated using conditional logistic regression, within strata of country and calendar date, and adjusting for age and sex. We included 80,143 cases including 20,244 Alpha (B.1.1.7), 152 Beta (B.1.351), 39,900 Delta (B.1.617.2), 361 Gamma (P.1), 10,014 Omicron BA.1, and 9,472 Omicron BA.2. Partially vaccinated cases were more likely than unvaccinated cases to be Beta than Alpha (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 2.48, 95% CI 1.29–4.74), and Delta than Alpha (aOR 1.75, 1.31–2.34). Fully vaccinated cases were relative to unvaccinated cases more frequently Beta than Alpha (aOR 4.61, 1.89–11.21), Delta than Alpha (aOR 2.30, 1.55–3.39), and Omicron BA.1 than Delta (aOR 1.91, 1.60–2.28). We found signals of increased breakthrough infections for Delta and Beta relative to Alpha, and Omicron BA.1 relative to Delta.

To investigate the symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 infection, their dynamics and their discriminatory power for the disease using longitudinally, prospectively collected information reported at the time of their occurrence. We have analysed data from a large phase 3 clinical UK COVID-19 vaccine trial. The alpha variant was the predominant strain. Participants were assessed for SARS-CoV-2 infection via nasal/throat PCR at recruitment, vaccination appointments, and when symptomatic. Statistical techniques were implemented to infer estimates representative of the UK population, accounting for multiple symptomatic episodes associated with one individual. An optimal diagnostic model for SARS-CoV-2 infection was derived. The 4-month prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 was 2.1%; increasing to 19.4% (16.0%–22.7%) in participants reporting loss of appetite and 31.9% (27.1%–36.8%) in those with anosmia/ageusia. The model identified anosmia and/or ageusia, fever, congestion, and cough to be significantly associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Symptoms’ dynamics were vastly different in the two groups; after a slow start peaking later and lasting longer in PCR+ participants, whilst exhibiting a consistent decline in PCR- participants, with, on average, fewer than 3 days of symptoms reported. Anosmia/ageusia peaked late in confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection (day 12), indicating a low discrimination power for early disease diagnosis.

We are less optimistic than Madole & Harden that family-based genome-wide association studies (GWASs) will lead to significant second-generation causal knowledge. Despite bearing some similarities, family-based GWASs and randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are not identical. Most RCTs assess a relatively homogenous causal stimulus as a treatment, whereas GWASs assess highly heterogeneous causal stimuli. Thus, GWAS results will not translate so easily into second-generation causal knowledge.

The short fragment prompting this study is a kabbalistic inquiry into three of the positive commandments in which women are especially obligated—the so-called commandments of Hannah. When accounting for these commandments in kabbalistic terms, the fragment endorses the ritual efficacy of Jewish women. It does this in a manner analogous to descriptions of commandments performed by men, in which the practitioner is vested with the power of unifying the divinity and, as a result, drawing down its influence. The sizeable literature on the commandments produced by medieval kabbalists abounds with such descriptions, from which scholars have long sourced information concerning the practices of medieval men performing “Jewish mysticism.” The fragment on the commandments of Hannah urges a reassessment of how the literature of medieval kabbalah constructs women’s ritual efficacy. After gauging that text’s provenance and surveying a host of comparable traditions from authoritative texts, the study proceeds to ask: Do the rationales of the three commandments of Hannah presuppose the application—by women—of esoteric knowledge during ritual performances? The article also highlights the lack of correspondence between (a) the occasional affirmations of women’s sacramental efficacy in the texts and (b) the negative consensus concerning the social-historical representation of female practitioners of kabbalah. Without attempting to overturn this consensus, the study aims to recover a phenomenology of commandments performed specifically by women, which is shown to be a rare, albeit representative, feature of medieval kabbalah.

We discuss the $\ell $ -adic case of Mazur’s ‘Program B’ over $\mathbb {Q}$ : the problem of classifying the possible images of $\ell $ -adic Galois representations attached to elliptic curves E over $\mathbb {Q}$ , equivalently, classifying the rational points on the corresponding modular curves. The primes $\ell =2$ and $\ell \ge 13$ are addressed by prior work, so we focus on the remaining primes $\ell = 3, 5, 7, 11$ . For each of these $\ell $ , we compute the directed graph of arithmetically maximal $\ell $ -power level modular curves $X_H$ , compute explicit equations for all but three of them and classify the rational points on all of them except $X_{\mathrm {ns}}^{+}(N)$ , for $N = 27, 25, 49, 121$ and two-level $49$ curves of genus $9$ whose Jacobians have analytic rank $9$ .

Aside from the $\ell $ -adic images that are known to arise for infinitely many ${\overline {\mathbb {Q}}}$ -isomorphism classes of elliptic curves $E/\mathbb {Q}$ , we find only 22 exceptional images that arise for any prime $\ell $ and any $E/\mathbb {Q}$ without complex multiplication; these exceptional images are realised by 20 non-CM rational j-invariants. We conjecture that this list of 22 exceptional images is complete and show that any counterexamples must arise from unexpected rational points on $X_{\mathrm {ns}}^+(\ell )$ with $\ell \ge 19$ , or one of the six modular curves noted above. This yields a very efficient algorithm to compute the $\ell $ -adic images of Galois for any elliptic curve over $\mathbb {Q}$ .

In an appendix with John Voight, we generalise Ribet’s observation that simple abelian varieties attached to newforms on $\Gamma _1(N)$ are of $\operatorname {GL}_2$ -type; this extends Kolyvagin’s theorem that analytic rank zero implies algebraic rank zero to isogeny factors of the Jacobian of $X_H$ .

This study aimed to explore the association between hyperglycemia in pregnancy (type 2 diabetes (T2D) and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM)) and child developmental risk in Europid and Aboriginal women.

PANDORA is a longitudinal birth cohort recruited from a hyperglycemia in pregnancy register, and from normoglycemic women in antenatal clinics. The Wave 1 substudy included 308 children who completed developmental and behavioral screening between age 18 and 60 months. Developmental risk was assessed using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) or equivalent modified ASQ for use with Aboriginal children. Emotional and behavioral risk was assessed using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Multivariable logistic regression was used to assess the association between developmental scores and explanatory variables, including maternal T2D in pregnancy or GDM.

After adjustment for ethnicity, maternal and child variables, and socioeconomic measures, maternal hyperglycemia was associated with increased developmental “concern” (defined as score ≥1 SD below mean) in the fine motor (T2D odds ratio (OR) 5.30, 95% CI 1.77–15.80; GDM OR 3.96, 95% CI 1.55–10.11) and problem-solving (T2D OR 2.71, 95% CI 1.05–6.98; GDM OR 2.54, 95% CI 1.17–5.54) domains, as well as increased “risk” (score ≥2 SD below mean) in at least one domain (T2D OR 5.33, 95% CI 1.85–15.39; GDM OR 4.86, 95% CI 1.95–12.10). Higher maternal education was associated with reduced concern in the problem-solving domain (OR 0.27, 95% CI 0.11–0.69) after adjustment for maternal hyperglycemia.

Maternal hyperglycemia is associated with increased developmental concern and may be a potential target for intervention so as to optimize developmental trajectories.

Luskin and Bullock’s (2011) randomized experiment on live-interview respondents found no evidence that American National Election Studies and Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences respondents hide knowledge behind the “don’t know” (DK) option. We successfully replicated their finding using two online platforms, the Cooperative Congressional Election Study and Google Surveys. However, we obtained different results on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk). We attribute this difference to MTurkers’ experience with attention checks and other quality-control mechanisms, which condition them to avoid errors. This conditioning leads MTurkers to hide knowledge behind DK in ways not observed on other platforms. Researchers conducting political knowledge experiments or piloting surveys on MTurk should be aware of these differences.