Statisticians have made great progress in creating methods that reduce our reliance on parametric assumptions. However this explosion in research has resulted in a breadth of inferential strategies that both create opportunities for more reliable inference as well as complicate the choices that an applied researcher has to make and defend. Relatedly, researchers advocating for new methods typically compare their method to at best 2 or 3 other causal inference strategies and test using simulations that may or may not be designed to equally tease out flaws in all the competing methods. The causal inference data analysis challenge, "Is Your SATT Where It's At?", launched as part of the 2016 Atlantic Causal Inference Conference, sought to make progress with respect to both of these issues. The researchers creating the data testing grounds were distinct from the researchers submitting methods whose efficacy would be evaluated. Results from 30 competitors across the two versions of the competition (black box algorithms and do-it-yourself analyses) are presented along with post-hoc analyses that reveal information about the characteristics of causal inference strategies and settings that affect performance. The most consistent conclusion was that methods that flexibly model the response surface perform better overall than methods that fail to do so. Finally new methods are proposed that combine features of several of the top-performing submitted methods.

It is widely accepted that complex interactions between cancer cells and their surrounding microenvironment contribute to disease development, chemo-resistance and disease relapse. In light of this observed interdependency, novel therapeutic interventions that target specific cancer stroma cell lineages and their interactions are being sought. To this end, we studied a mouse model of human T cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (T-ALL) and used intravital microscopy to monitor the progression of disease within the bone marrow at both the tissue-wide and single cell level over time, from bone marrow seeding to development/selection of chemo-resistance. We observed highly dynamic cellular interactions and promiscuous distribution of leukaemia cells that migrated across the bone marrow, without showing any preferential association with bone marrow sub-compartments. Unexpectedly, this behaviour was maintained throughout disease development, from the earliest bone marrow seeding to response and resistance to chemotherapy. Our results reveal that T-ALL cells do not depend on specific bone marrow microenvironments for propagation of disease, nor for the selection of chemo-resistant clones, suggesting a stochastic mechanism underlies these processes. Yet, while T-ALL infiltration and progression are independent of the stroma, accumulated disease burden leads to rapid, selective remodelling of the endosteal space, resulting in a complete loss of mature osteoblastic cells whilst perivascular cells are maintained. This outcome leads to a shift in the balance of endogenous bone marrow stroma, towards a composition associated with less efficient haematopoietic stem cell function1. This novel, dynamic analysis of T-ALL interactions with the bone marrow microenvironment in vivo, supported by evidence from human T-ALL samples, highlights that future therapeutic interventions should target the migration and promiscuous interactions of cancer cells with the surrounding microenvironment, rather than specific bone marrow stroma, in order to combat the invasion by and survival of chemo-resistant T-ALL cells.

A considerable amount of social identity research has focused on race and racial identity, while gender identity, particularly among Black adolescents, remains underexamined. The current study used survey data from 183 Black adolescent males (13-16 years old) to investigate the development and relation between racial and gender identity centrality and private regard, and how these identities impact adjustment over time. It was found that dimensions of racial and gender identity were strongly correlated. Levels of racial centrality increased over time while gender centrality, and racial and gender private regard declined. In addition, racial and gender identity uniquely contributed to higher levels of psychological well-being and academic adjustment. These findings are discussed within the context of existing identity theories and intersectionality theory.

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