INTRODUCTION We previously reported that IL-29, a newly described member of interferon (IFN) family, was overexpressed in blood and synovium of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and triggered proinflammatory cytokine IL-6 and IL-8 mRNA expression in RA synovial fibroblasts (RA-FLS). This suggests that IL-29 has an important role in synovial inflammation. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) also activat...

PURPOSE We examined the cross-sectional and longitudinal association between social network characteristics and street youths' shelter use, a determinant of health outcomes for homeless youth. METHODS We analyzed interview data from 138 street youth recruited through venue-based sampling in San Francisco, to assess the cross-sectional relationship between shelter use in youths' social network...

........................................................................................................ vii Publications in the thesis.............................................................................. viii Additional publications...................................................................................................viii Abbreviations ........................................

Design for sustainable behavior has become more important for product or service design considering environmental sustainability in the use stage. The goal of this work is to specifically help design for encouraging energy-saving behavior in selecting effective persuasive design strategies and game design elements by considering users’ differences. The work begins with screening commonly employ...

This study was conducted to understand food acquisition practices from social networks and its relationship with household food security. In-depth interviews and a survey on food security were conducted with twenty-nine mothers and one father in metropolitan areas of South Korea. Many families acquired food from their extended families, mainly participants' mothers. Between low-income and non-l...

We explore budget data from twenty-nine Western countries from 1948 to 2012 to investigate the impact of partisan control of government on spending patterns. We use a variety of empirical methods, but the central element of analysis is to code spending allocations as “consistent” or “inconsistent” based on the partisanship of the majority party in government. Looking across the board, we show t...

Thirty-six blast-exposed patients and twenty-nine non-blast-exposed control subjects were tested on a battery of behavioral and electrophysiological tests that have been shown to be sensitive to central auditory processing deficits. Abnormal performance among the blast-exposed patients was assessed with reference to normative values established as the mean performance on each test by the contro...