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Background and Objectives: Treatment guidelines emphasize patients' readiness for transitioning from opiate substitution treatment (OST) to opiate withdrawal and abstinence. Psychological preparedness indicators for this transition were examined.Methods: Patients (all male) were recruited from three treatment settings: prison, an inpatient detoxification unit, and an outpatient clinic. Time 1 (T1) was admission to methadone-assisted withdrawal in all settings. Time 2 (T2) was a 6-month follow-up. With n = 24 at T1 for each group (N = 72), a battery of instruments relevant to psychological preparedness was administered.Results: At T1, inpatients had higher self-efficacy beliefs for successful treatment completion than prison patients. For patients contactable at T2, T1 self-efficacy positively predicted T2 opiate abstinence. No other variable improved prediction. T1 SOCRATES (Stages of Change Readiness and Treatment Eagerness Scale) ambivalence scores, age, and lifetime heroin use duration predicted maintenance of contact or not with treatment services and contactability by the researcher. Measures of mood did not differ between groups at T1 or predict T2 outcomes.Discussion and Conclusions: Self-efficacy beliefs are a potentially useful indicator of readiness for transitioning from OST to a medically assisted opiate withdrawal and subsequent abstinence. Ambivalence regarding change, age, and lifetime heroin use duration are potentially useful predictors of patients maintaining contact with services, and of being retained in research.Scientific Significance: These findings advance existing literature and knowledge by highlighting the importance of self-efficacy in psychological preparedness for opiate abstinence, and the predictive utility to clinicians of this and other variables measurable at admission, in the clinical management of opiate users. (© 2020 The Authors. The American Journal on Addictions published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry). (Am J Addict 2021;30:11-20). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This field experiment investigated the contextual effect of presentation order on probability judgments supporting risky decisions in a representative setting: the betting markets of live horseraces. Participants were 54 contestants in a wagering tournament at a national thoroughbred racetrack. Prior to each of 11 races the expert gamblers recorded their estimated odds for all horses to win. Presentation order was manipulated by re-ordering the judgment-related information printed in the track's program that had been provided for horses in an earlier race. Findings revealed the subjective probability estimates of most gamblers were not invariant with respect to presentation ordering. Probability judgments and risky choices were also associated with the predictive information provided for the gamble first processed during decision making. These results directly contradict calibration findings that probability judgments in this market are highly accurate and they are discussed in terms of the representative experimental design's utility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Macrophages have many functions in development and homeostasis as well as innate immunity. Recent studies in mammals suggest that cells arising in the yolk sac give rise to self-renewing macrophage populations that persist in adult tissues. Macrophage proliferation and differentiation is controlled by macrophage colony-stimulating factor (CSF1) and interleukin 34 (IL34), both agonists of the CSF1 receptor (CSF1R). In the current manuscript we describe the origin, function and regulation of macrophages, and the role of CSF1R signaling during embryonic development, using the chick as a model. Results: Based upon RNA-sequencing comparison to bone marrow-derived macrophages grown in CSF1, we show that embryonic macrophages contribute around 2% of the total embryo RNA in day 7 chick embryos, and have similar gene expression profiles to bone marrow-derived macrophages. To explore the origins of embryonic and adult macrophages, we injected Hamburger-Hamilton stage 16 to 17 chick embryos with either yolk sac-derived blood cells, or bone marrow cells from EGFP+ donors. In both cases, the transferred cells gave rise to large numbers of EGFP+ tissue macrophages in the embryo. In the case of the yolk sac, these cells were not retained in hatched birds. Conversely, bone marrow EGFP+ cells gave rise to tissue macrophages in all organs of adult birds, and regenerated CSF1-responsive marrow macrophage progenitors. Surprisingly, they did not contribute to any other hematopoietic lineage. To explore the role of CSF1 further, we injected embryonic or hatchling CSF1R-reporter transgenic birds with a novel chicken CSF1-Fc conjugate. In both cases, the treatment produced a large increase in macrophage numbers in all tissues examined. There were no apparent adverse effects of chicken CSF1-Fc on embryonic or post-hatch development, but there was an unexpected increase in bone density in the treated hatchlings. Conclusions: The data indicate that the yolk sac is not the major source of macrophages in adult birds, and that there is a macrophage-restricted, self-renewing progenitor cell in bone marrow. CSF1R is demonstrated to be limiting for macrophage development during development in ovo and post-hatch. The chicken provides a novel and tractable model to study the development of the mononuclear phagocyte system and CSF1R signaling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We perform a census of the reddest, and potentially youngest, protostars in the Orion molecular clouds using data obtained with the PACS instrument on board the Herschel Space Observatory and the LABOCA and SABOCA instruments on APEX as part of the Herschel Orion Protostar Survey (HOPS). A total of 55 new protostar candidates are detected at 70 μm and 160 μm that are either too faint (m24> 7 mag) to be reliably classified as protostars or undetected in the Spitzer/MIPS 24 μm band.We find that the 11 reddest protostar candidates with log λFλ70/λFλ24 > 1.65 are free of contamination and can thus be reliably explained as protostars. The remaining 44 sources have less extreme 70/24 colors, fainter 70 μm fluxes, and higher levels of contamination. Taking the previously known sample of Spitzer protostars and the new sample together, we find 18 sources that have log λFλ70/λFλ24 > 1.65; we name these sources "PACS Bright Red sources," or PBRs. Our analysis reveals that the PBR sample is composed of Class 0 like sources characterized by very red spectral energy distributions (SEDs; Tbol < 45 K) and large values of sub-millimeter fluxes (Lsmm /Lbol > 0.6%). Modified blackbody fits to the SEDs provide lower limits to the envelope masses of 0.2-2M☉ and luminosities of 0.7-10 L☉. Based on these properties, and a comparison of the SEDs with radiative transfer models of protostars, we conclude that the PBRs are most likely extreme Class 0 objects distinguished by higher than typical envelope densities and hence, high mass infall rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]