Data Catalog

The primary goal of the National Politics Study (NPS) was to gather comparative data about individuals' political attitudes, beliefs, aspirations, and behaviors at the beginning of the 21st century. Exploring the nature of political involvement and participation among individuals from different racial and ethnic groups, the survey included questions about voting preferences, party affiliation, organizational membership, immigration, racial consciousness, acculturation, and views of government policies.

This study was designed to provide information on attitudes and opinions regarding a number of issues of importance to Black Americans. Topics included the performance of President Bill Clinton, the economic condition of Black Americans, and what respondents thought ought to be done to improve the condition of Black people. Questions regarding Black women and their role in the Black community were also asked. In addition, the role and extent of religion in Black politics was investigated. Respondents also provided information about their political self-identification and their community and political involvement, as well as their feelings toward various political leaders, political groups, and national policies. Demographic information on respondents includes sex, age, education, marital status, income, and occupation and industry.

The National Survey of American Life (NSAL) is a study designed to explore racial and ethnic differences in mental disorders, psychological distress, and informal and formal service use from within the context of a variety of presumed risk and protective factors in the African-American and Afro-Caribbean populations of the United States as compared with White respondents living in the same communities. The NSAL is part of the Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES) data collection.

The objective of this phase II/III randomized clinical trial is to evaluate the efficacy of vitamin D therapy versus placebo in vitamin D-deficient African-Americans with hypertension, including investigating the relationship between vitamin D and cardiac damage (as identified on cardiac magnetic resonance imaging) in a vitamin D-deficient hypertensive patients without prior history of heart disease. Data include cardiac MRI and echocardiography data, lab results (e.g., vitamin D, CBC), and patient characteristics (e.g., vital signs, demographics, health insurance, education level, household income, hypertension drug and vitamin D treatment adherence, dietary intake, sun exposure).

The Hispanic Community Health Study / Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL) is a multi-center epidemiologic study in Hispanic/Latino populations to assess the role of acculturation in the prevalence and development of disease, and to identify factors playing a protective or harmful role in the health of Hispanics/Latinos. The target population of 16,000 persons of Hispanic/Latino origin, specifically Cuban, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Mexican, and Central/South American, were recruited through four Field Centers in Miami, San Diego, Chicago and the Bronx area of New York. During 2008-2011 study participants aged 18-74 years underwent an extensive clinic exam and assessments to determine baseline risk factors. Annual follow-up interviews are conducted to determine health outcomes of interest. During the 2014-2017 second clinic visit (Visit 2) participants were re-examined to again collect data predictive of various health outcomes of interest. In addition, a comprehensive reproductive history of women of childbearing age was assessed. The third clinic operations aka "visit" began January 2020 and will conclude in early 2023. HCHS-SOL provides the prevalence of 5 major, readily measured biomedical CVD risk factors (high serum cholesterol and blood pressure levels, obesity, hyperglycemia/diabetes, cigarette smoking), adverse CVD risk profiles (combinations of CVD risk factors), and CVD (coronary heart disease [CHD] and stroke) among US Hispanic/Latino adults of diverse backgrounds.

This data collection documents all cases of military intervention across international boundaries by regular armed forces of independent states in the regions of Europe, the Americas (and Caribbean), Asia and the Pacific, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East/North Africa. Military interventions are defined operationally in this collection as the movement of regular troops or forces (airborne, seaborne, shelling, etc.) of one country into the territory or territorial waters of another country, or forceful military action by troops already stationed by one country inside another, in the context of some political issue or dispute. The study seeks to identify politically important actions which interpose a state directly into the conflict patterns occurring in another state, and which conceivably involve a breach of the sovereignty of the target state (albeit by invitation in some cases). The collection identifies intervener and target countries and specifies the starting and ending dates of the intervention. A series of potential interests in or motives for intervention are presented, including effects on the target's domestic disputes, foreign or domestic policies, and efforts to protect social factions in the target, to attack rebels in sanctuaries across borders ("hot pursuit"), to protect or enhance economic/resource interests, to protect military or diplomatic facilities, to save lives, or to affect regional power balances and strategic relations. Information is provided on the direction of the intervention, i.e., to support or oppose the target government, to support or oppose opposition groups in the target, or to support or oppose third-party governments or opposition groups. Other variables show the degree of prior intervention, the alliance or treaty relationship between intervener and target, prior colonial status, prior intervention, and measures of intervener and target power size. A series of intensity measures, such as battle-related casualties, is also included. For each type of incursion, by land, sea, or air, an ordinal scale of involvement is presented, ranging from minor engagement such as evacuation, to patrols, acts of intimidation, and actual firing, shelling, or bombing. Finally, contiguity information is provided to indicate both whether intervener and target are geographically contiguous, and whether the intervention was launched from contiguous territory.

This study evaluated advocacy services offered to battered women in Detroit, Michigan, and examined other aspects of coordinated community responses to domestic violence by focusing on women named as victims in police reports. Advocacy was defined as those services provided to support victims during the legal process or to enhance their safety. For the Preliminary Complaint Reports Data (Part 1), a random sample of preliminary complaint reports (PCRs), completed by police officers after they responded to domestic violence calls, were gathered, resulting in a sample of 1,057 incidents and victims. For Victim Advocacy Contact Data (Part 2), researchers obtained data from advocates' files about the services they provided to the 1,057 victims. For Case Disposition Data (Part 3), researchers conducted a computer search to determine the outcomes of the cases. They looked up each perpetrator from the list of 1,057 incidents, and determined whether there was a warrant for the focal incident, whether it turned into a prosecution, and the outcome. The Initial Victim Interview (Part 4) and Follow-Up Victim Interview Data (Part 5) were conducted from April 1998 to July 1999. During the same period that researchers were completing the second interviews, they also interviewed 23 women (Victim Comparison Group Interview Data, Part 6) from the list of 1,057 whom they had been unable to reach during the first interviews. They compared these 23 women to the 63 who had second interviews to determine if there were any differences in use of services, or views toward or participation in prosecution. Variables in Part 1 focus on whether alcohol and abuse were involved, previous incidents, the suspect's psychological aggressions and physical assaults, if a weapon was used, if the victim was hurt, if property was damaged, if the victim sought medical attention, and the severity of physical abuse or injury. Variables in Part 2 provide information on the role of the advocate, methods of contact, types of referrals made, and services provided. Variables in Part 3 include the type of charge, outcome of resolved case, why the case was dismissed, if applicable, and if the suspect was sentenced to probation, costs, confinement, no contact with the victim, a batterer program, or community service. [...]

Recent studies suggest the necessity of understanding the interactive effects of predation and productivity on species coexistence and prey diversity. Models predict that coexistence of prey species with different competitive abilities can be achieved if inferior resource competitors are less susceptible to predation and if productivity and/or predation pressure are at intermediate levels. Hence, predator effects on prey diversity are predicted to be highly context dependent: enhancing diversity from low to intermediate levels of productivity or predation and reducing diversity of prey at high levels of productivity or predation. While several studies have examined the interactive effects of herbivory and productivity on primary producer diversity, experimental studies of such effects in predator-prey systems are rare. We tested these predictions using an aquatic field mesocosm experiment in which initial density of the zooplankton predator Notonecta undulata and productivity were manipulated to test their interactive effects on diversity of seven zooplankton, cladoceran species that were common in surrounding ponds. Two productivity levels were imposed via phosphorus enrichment at levels comparable to low and intermediate levels found within neighboring natural ponds. We used open systems to allow for natural dispersal and behaviorally-mediated numerical responses by the flight-capable predator. Effects of predators on zooplankton diversity depended on productivity level. At low and high productivity, prey species richness declined while at high productivity it showed a unimodal relationship with increasing the predator density. Effects of treatments were weaker when using Pielou's evenness index or the inverse Simpson index as measures of prey diversity. Our findings are generally consistent with model predictions in which predators can facilitate prey coexistence and diversity at intermediate levels of productivity and predation intensity. Our work also shows that the functional form of the relationship between prey diversity and predation intensity can be complex and highly dependent on environmental context.

Speciation with gene flow may require adaptive divergence of multiple traits to generate strong ecologically based reproductive isolation. Extensive negative pleiotropy or physical linkage of genes in the wrong phase affecting these diverging traits may therefore hinder speciation, while genetic independence or “modularity” among phenotypic traits may reduce constraints and facilitate divergence. This study tested whether the genetics underlying two components of diapause life history, initial diapause intensity and diapause termination timing, constrain differentiation between sympatric hawthorn and apple-infesting host races of the fly Rhagoletis pomonella through analysis of 10,256 SNPs measured via genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS).

Multiple cell types can be specified from a single pool of progenitors through the combinatorial activity of transcriptional regulators, which activate distinct developmental programs to establish different cell fates. The zinc finger transcription factor Glass is required for neuronal progenitors in the Drosophila eye imaginal disc to acquire a photoreceptor identity. Glass is also expressed in non-neuronal cone and pigment cells, but its role in these cells is unknown. To examine how Glass activity is affected by the cellular context, the researchers misexpressed it in different tissues. When expressed in neuroblasts of the larval brain or in epithelial cells of the wing disc, Glass activated both a common core set of target genes and distinct gene sets specific to each tissue. In addition to photoreceptor-specific genes, Glass induced markers of cone and pigment cells. Cell type-specific glass mutations generated in cone or pigment cells using somatic CRISPR revealed autonomous developmental defects, and expressing Glass specifically in these cells partially rescued glass mutant phenotypes. Glass thus acts in both neuronal and non-neuronal cells to promote their differentiation into functional components of the eye, suggesting that it is a determinant of organ identity.