Albany State University

BACKGROUND: The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2015 provides an up-to-date synthesis of the evidence for risk factor exposure and the attributable burden of disease. By providing national and subnational assessments spanning the past 25 years, this study can inform debates on the importance of addressing risks in context. METHODS: We used the comparative risk assessment framework developed for previous iterations of the Global Burden of Disease Study to estimate attributable deaths, disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), and trends in exposure by age group, sex, year, and geography for 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks from 1990 to 2015. This study included 388 risk-outcome pairs that met World Cancer Research Fund-defined criteria for convincing or probable evidence. We extracted relative risk and exposure estimates from randomised controlled trials, cohorts, pooled cohorts, household surveys, census data, satellite data, and other sources. We used statistical models to pool data, adjust for bias, and incorporate covariates. We developed a metric that allows comparisons of exposure across risk factors-the summary exposure value. Using the counterfactual scenario of theoretical minimum risk level, we estimated the portion of deaths and DALYs that could be attributed to a given risk. We decomposed trends in attributable burden into contributions from population growth, population age structure, risk exposure, and risk-deleted cause-specific DALY rates. We characterised risk exposure in relation to a Socio-demographic Index (SDI). FINDINGS: Between 1990 and 2015, global exposure to unsafe sanitation, household air pollution, childhood underweight, childhood stunting, and smoking each decreased by more than 25%. Global exposure for several occupational risks, high body-mass index (BMI), and drug use increased by more than 25% over the same period. All risks jointly evaluated in 2015 accounted for 57·8% (95% CI 56·6-58·8) of global deaths and 41·2% (39·8-42·8) of DALYs. In 2015, the ten largest contributors to global DALYs among Level 3 risks were high systolic blood pressure (211·8 million [192·7 million to 231·1 million] global DALYs), smoking (148·6 million [134·2 million to 163·1 million]), high fasting plasma glucose (143·1 million [125·1 million to 163·5 million]), high BMI (120·1 million [83·8 million to 158·4 million]), childhood undernutrition (113·3 million [103·9 million to 123·4 million]), ambient particulate matter (103·1 million [90·8 million to 115·1 million]), high total cholesterol (88·7 million [74·6 million to 105·7 million]), household air pollution (85·6 million [66·7 million to 106·1 million]), alcohol use (85·0 million [77·2 million to 93·0 million]), and diets high in sodium (83·0 million [49·3 million to 127·5 million]). From 1990 to 2015, attributable DALYs declined for micronutrient deficiencies, childhood undernutrition, unsafe sanitation and water, and household air pollution; reductions in risk-deleted DALY rates rather than reductions in exposure drove these declines. Rising exposure contributed to notable increases in attributable DALYs from high BMI, high fasting plasma glucose, occupational carcinogens, and drug use. Environmental risks and childhood undernutrition declined steadily with SDI; low physical activity, high BMI, and high fasting plasma glucose increased with SDI. In 119 countries, metabolic risks, such as high BMI and fasting plasma glucose, contributed the most attributable DALYs in 2015. Regionally, smoking still ranked among the leading five risk factors for attributable DALYs in 109 countries; childhood underweight and unsafe sex remained primary drivers of early death and disability in much of sub-Saharan Africa. INTERPRETATION: Declines in some key environmental risks have contributed to declines in critical infectious diseases. Some risks appear to be invariant to SDI. Increasing risks, including high BMI, high fasting plasma glucose, drug use, and some occupational exposures, contribute to rising burden from some conditions, but also provide opportunities for intervention. Some highly preventable risks, such as smoking, remain major causes of attributable DALYs, even as exposure is declining. Public policy makers need to pay attention to the risks that are increasingly major contributors to global burden. FUNDING: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Marketing theory and practice have focused persistently on exchange between buyers and sellers. Unfortunately, most of the research and too many of the marketing strategies treat buyer-seller exchanges as discrete events, not as ongoing relationships. The authors describe a framework for developing buyer-seller relationships that affords a vantage point for formulating marketing strategy and for stimulating new research directions.

In 2008 we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, research on this topic has continued to accelerate, and many new scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Accordingly, it is important to update these guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Various reviews have described the range of assays that have been used for this purpose. Nevertheless, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to measure autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. For example, a key point that needs to be emphasized is thatthere is a difference between measurements that monitor the numbers or volume of autophagic elements (e.g., autophagosomes or autolysosomes) at any stage of the autophagic process versus those that measure flux through the autophagy pathway (i.e., the completeprocess including the amount and rate of cargo sequestered and degraded). In particular, a block in macroautophagy that results in autophagosome accumulation must be differentiated from stimuli that increase autophagic activity, defined as increasedautophagy induction coupled with increased delivery to, and degradation within, lysosomes (inmost higher eukaryotes and some protists such as Dictyostelium) or the vacuole (in plants and fungi). In other words, it is especially important that investigators new to the field understand that the appearance of more autophagosomes does not necessarily equate with more autophagy. In fact, in manycases, autophagosomes accumulate because of a block in trafficking to lysosomes without a concomitant change in autophagosome biogenesis, whereas an increase in autolysosomes may reflect a reduction in degradative activity. It is worth emphasizing here that lysosomal digestion is a stage of autophagy and evaluating its competence is a crucial part of the evaluation of autophagic flux, or complete autophagy. Here, we present a set of guidelines for the selection and interpretation of methods for use by investigators who aim to examine macroautophagy and related processes, as well as forreviewers who need to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of papers that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a formulaic set of rules, because the appropriate assays depend in part on the question being asked and the system being used. In addition, we emphasize that no individual assay is guaranteed to be the most appropriate one in every situation, and we strongly recommend the use of multipleassays to monitor autophagy. Along these lines, because of the potential for pleiotropic effects due to blocking autophagy through genetic manipulation, it is imperative to target by gene knockout or RNA interference more than one autophagyrelated protein. In addition, some individual Atg proteins, or groups of proteins, are involved in other cellular pathways implying that not all Atg proteins can be used as a specific marker for an autophagic process. In these guidelines, we consider these various methods of assessing autophagy and what information can, or cannot, be obtained from them. Finally, by discussing the merits and limits of particular assays, we hope to encourage technical innovation in the field.

Marketing managers must know the time orientation of a customer to select and use marketing tools that correspond to the time horizons of the customer. Insufficient understanding of a customer's time orientation can lead to problems, such as attempting a relationship marketing when transaction marketing is more appropriate. The author suggests that long-term orientation in a buyer/seller relationship is a function of two main factors: mutual dependence and the extent to which they trust one another. Dependence and trust are related to environmental uncertainty, transaction-specific investments, reputation, and satisfaction in a buyer/seller relationship. The framework presented here is tested with 124 retail buyers and 52 vendors supplying to those retailers. The results indicate that trust and dependence play key roles in determining the long-term orientation of both retail buyers and their vendors. The results also indicate that both similarities and differences exist across retailers and vendors with respect to the effects of several variables on long-term orientation, dependence, and trust.

Marketing theory and practice have focused persistently on exchange between buyers and sellers. Unfortunately, most of the research and too many of the marketing strategies treat buyer-seller exchanges as discrete events, not as ongoing relationships. The authors describe a framework for developing buyer-seller relationships that affords a vantage point for formulating marketing strategy and for stimulating new research directions.

This paper presents a framework for organizational analysis. The empirically derived approach does not emerge from the observation of actual organizations, but from the ordering, through multivariate techniques, of criteria that organizational theorists and researchers use to evaluate the performance of organizations. In a two-stage study, organizational theorists and researchers were impaneled to make judgments about the similarity of commonly used effectiveness criteria. The model derived from the second group closely replicated the first, and in convergence suggested that three value dimensions (control-flexibility, internal-external, and means-ends) underlie conceptualizations of organizational effectiveness. When these value dimensions are juxtaposed, a spatial model emerges. The model serves a number of important functions. It organizes the organizational effectiveness literature, indicates which concepts are most central to the construct of organizational effectiveness, makes clear the values in which the concepts are embedded, demonstrates that the effectiveness literature and the general literature on organizational analysis are analogues of one another, and provides an overarching framework to guide subsequent efforts at organizational assessment.

Many laboratories have begun to develop brain-computer interface (BCI) systems that provide communication and control capabilities to people with severe motor disabilities. Further progress and realization of practical applications depends on systematic evaluations and comparisons of different brain signals, recording methods, processing algorithms, output formats, and operating protocols. However, the typical BCI system is designed specifically for one particular BCI method and is, therefore, not suited to the systematic studies that are essential for continued progress. In response to this problem, we have developed a documented general-purpose BCI research and development platform called BCI2000. BCI2000 can incorporate alone or in combination any brain signals, signal processing methods, output devices, and operating protocols. This report is intended to describe to investigators, biomedical engineers, and computer scientists the concepts that the BC12000 system is based upon and gives examples of successful BCI implementations using this system. To date, we have used BCI2000 to create BCI systems for a variety of brain signals, processing methods, and applications. The data show that these systems function well in online operation and that BCI2000 satisfies the stringent real-time requirements of BCI systems. By substantially reducing labor and cost, BCI2000 facilitates the implementation of different BCI systems and other psychophysiological experiments. It is available with full documentation and free of charge for research or educational purposes and is currently being used in a variety of studies by many research groups.

This conceptual paper discusses how we can consider a particular city as a smart one, drawing on recent practices to make cities smart. A set of the common multidimensional components underlying the smart city concept and the core factors for a successful smart city initiative is identified by exploring current working definitions of smart city and a diversity of various conceptual relatives similar to smart city. The paper offers strategic principles aligning to the three main dimensions (technology, people, and institutions) of smart city: integration of infrastructures and technology-mediated services, social learning for strengthening human infrastructure, and governance for institutional improvement and citizen engagement.

Marketing managers must know the time orientation of a customer to select and use marketing tools that correspond to the time horizons of the customer. Insufficient understanding of a customer's time orientation can lead to problems, such as attempting a relationship marketing when transaction marketing is more appropriate. The author suggests that long-term orientation in a buyer/seller relationship is a function of two main factors: mutual dependence and the extent to which they trust one another. Dependence and trust are related to environmental uncertainty, transaction-specific investments, reputation, and satisfaction in a buyer/seller relationship. The framework presented here is tested with 124 retail buyers and 52 vendors supplying to those retailers. The results indicate that trust and dependence play key roles in determining the long-term orientation of both retail buyers and their vendors. The results also indicate that both similarities and differences exist across retailers and vendors with respect to the effects of several variables on long-term orientation, dependence, and trust.

Despite a growing body of epidemiological evidence in recent years documenting the health impacts of racism, the cumulative evidence base has yet to be synthesized in a comprehensive meta-analysis focused specifically on racism as a determinant of health. This meta-analysis reviewed the literature focusing on the relationship between reported racism and mental and physical health outcomes. Data from 293 studies reported in 333 articles published between 1983 and 2013, and conducted predominately in the U.S., were analysed using random effects models and mean weighted effect sizes. Racism was associated with poorer mental health (negative mental health: r = -.23, 95% CI [-.24,-.21], k = 227; positive mental health: r = -.13, 95% CI [-.16,-.10], k = 113), including depression, anxiety, psychological stress and various other outcomes. Racism was also associated with poorer general health (r = -.13 (95% CI [-.18,-.09], k = 30), and poorer physical health (r = -.09, 95% CI [-.12,-.06], k = 50). Moderation effects were found for some outcomes with regard to study and exposure characteristics. Effect sizes of racism on mental health were stronger in cross-sectional compared with longitudinal data and in non-representative samples compared with representative samples. Age, sex, birthplace and education level did not moderate the effects of racism on health. Ethnicity significantly moderated the effect of racism on negative mental health and physical health: the association between racism and negative mental health was significantly stronger for Asian American and Latino(a) American participants compared with African American participants, and the association between racism and physical health was significantly stronger for Latino(a) American participants compared with African American participants. Protocol PROSPERO registration number: CRD42013005464.

We summarize some of the most important findings from research evaluating the hypothesized causes of specific reading disability ('dyslexia') over the past four decades. After outlining components of reading ability, we discuss manifest causes of reading difficulties, in terms of deficiencies in component reading skills that might lead to such difficulties. The evidence suggests that inadequate facility in word identification due, in most cases, to more basic deficits in alphabetic coding is the basic cause of difficulties in learning to read. We next discuss hypothesized deficiencies in reading-related cognitive abilities as underlying causes of deficiencies in component reading skills. The evidence in these areas suggests that, in most cases, phonological skills deficiencies associated with phonological coding deficits are the probable causes of the disorder rather than visual, semantic, or syntactic deficits, although reading difficulties in some children may be associated with general language deficits. Hypothesized deficits in general learning abilities (e.g., attention, association learning, cross-modal transfer etc.) and low-level sensory deficits have weak validity as causal factors in specific reading disability. These inferences are, by and large, supported by research evaluating the biological foundations of dyslexia. Finally, evidence is presented in support of the idea that many poor readers are impaired because of inadequate instruction or other experiential factors. This does not mean that biological factors are not relevant, because the brain and environment interact to produce the neural networks that support reading acquisition. We conclude with a discussion of the clinical implications of the research findings, focusing on the need for enhanced instruction.

Making a city "smart" is emerging as a strategy to mitigate the problems generated by the urban population growth and rapid urbanization. Yet little academic research has sparingly discussed the phenomenon. To close the gap in the literature about smart cities and in response to the increasing use of the concept, this paper proposes a framework to understand the concept of smart cities. Based on the exploration of a wide and extensive array of literature from various disciplinary areas we identify eight critical factors of smart city initiatives: management and organization, technology, governance, policy context, people and communities, economy, built infrastructure, and natural environment. These factors form the basis of an integrative framework that can be used to examine how local governments are envisioning smart city initiatives. The framework suggests directions and agendas for smart city research and outlines practical implications for government professionals.

Six reasonable models of trophic exploitation in a two-species ecosystem whose exploiters compete only by depleting each other's resource supply are presented. In each case, increasing the supply of limiting nutrients or energy tends to destroy the steady state. Thus man must be very careful in attempting to enrich an ecosystem in order to increase its food yield. There is a real chance that such activity may result in decimation of the food species that are wanted in greater abundance.

More than 4 decades of research and 9 meta-analyses have focused on the undermining effect: namely, the debate over whether the provision of extrinsic incentives erodes intrinsic motivation. This review and meta-analysis builds on such previous reviews by focusing on the interrelationship among intrinsic motivation, extrinsic incentives, and performance, with reference to 2 moderators: performance type (quality vs. quantity) and incentive contingency (directly performance-salient vs. indirectly performance-salient), which have not been systematically reviewed to date. Based on random-effects meta-analytic methods, findings from school, work, and physical domains (k = 183, N = 212,468) indicate that intrinsic motivation is a medium to strong predictor of performance (ρ = .21-45). The importance of intrinsic motivation to performance remained in place whether incentives were presented. In addition, incentive salience influenced the predictive validity of intrinsic motivation for performance: In a "crowding out" fashion, intrinsic motivation was less important to performance when incentives were directly tied to performance and was more important when incentives were indirectly tied to performance. Considered simultaneously through meta-analytic regression, intrinsic motivation predicted more unique variance in quality of performance, whereas incentives were a better predictor of quantity of performance. With respect to performance, incentives and intrinsic motivation are not necessarily antagonistic and are best considered simultaneously. Future research should consider using nonperformance criteria (e.g., well-being, job satisfaction) as well as applying the percent-of-maximum-possible (POMP) method in meta-analyses.

Abstract. The organic aerosol (OA) dataset from an Aerodyne Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (Q-AMS) collected at the Pittsburgh Air Quality Study (PAQS) in September 2002 was analyzed with Positive Matrix Factorization (PMF). Three components – hydrocarbon-like organic aerosol OA (HOA), a highly-oxygenated OA (OOA-1) that correlates well with sulfate, and a less-oxygenated, semi-volatile OA (OOA-2) that correlates well with nitrate and chloride – are identified and interpreted as primary combustion emissions, aged SOA, and semivolatile, less aged SOA, respectively. The complexity of interpreting the PMF solutions of unit mass resolution (UMR) AMS data is illustrated by a detailed analysis of the solutions as a function of number of components and rotational forcing. A public web-based database of AMS spectra has been created to aid this type of analysis. Realistic synthetic data is also used to characterize the behavior of PMF for choosing the best number of factors, and evaluating the rotations of non-unique solutions. The ambient and synthetic data indicate that the variation of the PMF quality of fit parameter (Q, a normalized chi-squared metric) vs. number of factors in the solution is useful to identify the minimum number of factors, but more detailed analysis and interpretation are needed to choose the best number of factors. The maximum value of the rotational matrix is not useful for determining the best number of factors. In synthetic datasets, factors are "split" into two or more components when solving for more factors than were used in the input. Elements of the "splitting" behavior are observed in solutions of real datasets with several factors. Significant structure remains in the residual of the real dataset after physically-meaningful factors have been assigned and an unrealistic number of factors would be required to explain the remaining variance. This residual structure appears to be due to variability in the spectra of the components (especially OOA-2 in this case), which is likely to be a key limit of the retrievability of components from AMS datasets using PMF and similar methods that need to assume constant component mass spectra. Methods for characterizing and dealing with this variability are needed. Interpretation of PMF factors must be done carefully. Synthetic data indicate that PMF internal diagnostics and similarity to available source component spectra together are not sufficient for identifying factors. It is critical to use correlations between factor and external measurement time series and other criteria to support factor interpretations. True components with <5% of the mass are unlikely to be retrieved accurately. Results from this study may be useful for interpreting the PMF analysis of data from other aerosol mass spectrometers. Researchers are urged to analyze future datasets carefully, including synthetic analyses, and to evaluate whether the conclusions made here apply to their datasets.

This paper discusses the relationships between stage of development in organizational life cycles and organizational effectiveness. We begin the paper by reviewing nine models of organizational life cycles that have been proposed in the literature. Each of these models identifies certain characteristics that typify organizations in different stages of development. A summary model of life cycle stages is derived that integrates each of these nine models. Next, a framework of organizational effectiveness developed by Quinn and Rohrbaugh is introduced. This framework organizes criteria of effectiveness into four models—rational goal, open systems, human relations, and internal processes models. We hypothesize that certain of the models are important in evaluating the effectiveness of organizations in particular life cycle stages but not in others. The analysis of a state agency's development over five years provides some evidence to support these hypothesized relationships between life cycle stages and criteria of effectiveness. We conclude that major criteria of effectiveness change in predictable ways as organizations develop through their life cycles. Some shifts in state of development are resisted by the organization much more than are others, and intervention into organizations may be needed to help make the transitions less painful and costly. We also discuss why the predictions of contingency theory often are not substantiated by research because the responses of organizations to the external environment vary in different life cycle stages.

Prior meta-analyses investigating the relation between the Big 5 personality dimensions and job performance have all contained a threat to construct validity, in that much of the data included within these analyses was not derived from actual Big 5 measures. In addition, these reviews did not address the relations between the Big 5 and contextual performance. Therefore, the present study sought to provide a meta-analytic estimate of the criterion-related validity of explicit Big 5 measures for predicting job performance and contextual performance. The results for job performance closely paralleled 2 of the previous meta-analyses, whereas analyses with contextual performance showed more complex relations among the Big 5 and performance. A more critical interpretation of the Big 5-performance relationship is presented, and suggestions for future research aimed at enhancing the validity of personality predictors are provided.

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This article reviews and evaluates major theories of leadership and summarizes findings from empirical research on leadership. Major topics and controversies include leadership versus management, leader traits and skills, leader behavior and activities, leader power and influence, situational determinants of leader behavior, situational moderator variables, transformational leadership, importance of leadership for organizational effectiveness, and leadership as an attributional process. Methodological issues in leadership research and implications for improving managerial practice are discussed also. An integrating conceptual framework is presented to show how the different theories and lines of research fit together.

AI-synthesized face-swapping videos, commonly known as DeepFakes, is an emerging problem threatening the trustworthiness of online information. The need to develop and evaluate DeepFake detection algorithms calls for datasets of DeepFake videos. However, current DeepFake datasets suffer from low visual quality and do not resemble DeepFake videos circulated on the Internet. We present a new large-scale challenging DeepFake video dataset, Celeb-DF, which contains 5,639 high-quality DeepFake videos of celebrities generated using improved synthesis process. We conduct a comprehensive evaluation of DeepFake detection methods and datasets to demonstrate the escalated level of challenges posed by Celeb-DF.