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We embed an object with a singular horizon structure, reminiscent of (but fundamentally different from, except in a limiting case) a black hole event horizon, in an expanding, spherically symmetric, homogeneous, Universe that has a positive cosmological constant. Conformal representation is discussed. There is a temperature/pressure singularity and a corresponding scalar curvature singularity at the horizon. The expanding singular horizon ultimately bounds the entire spacetime manifold. It is is preceded by an expanding light front, which separates the spacetime affected by the singularity from that which is not yet affected. An appropriately located observer in front of the light front can have a Hubble–Lemaître constant that is consistent with that currently observed.

Perennial ryegrass (PRG; Lolium perenne) remains the backbone of grass swards in Northern Ireland due to its improved digestibility persistence, and ease of management compared with other grass species. However, innovative breeding approaches are needed that include positive environmental outcomes, as well as improved productivity in ruminants. The objective of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of root-trait screening and selection using the in situ coring method under commercial grass breeding field conditions. 108 root cores were sampled over a 2-year period from a field trial sown in autumn 2021. Root cores were washed, scanned, and analysed using the open-access root scanning platform Rhizovision. A seasonal effect was noted whereby significant differences were detected in October for root volume, network area, and surface area, but no significant differences for any root parameter were detected in April. No association was observed between root volume, network area, or surface area at the October sampling with either dry matter (DM) yield at the 4th cut (October) or annual DM yield. These results suggest that this method may be useful for identifying improved germplasm in PRG for root characteristics; however, being comparatively labour and time intensive this method may not be practicable for large-scale breeding programmes.

Abstract Background Neonatal near-miss (NNM) can be considered as an end of a spectrum that includes stillbirths and neonatal deaths. Clinical audits of NNM might reduce perinatal adverse outcomes. The aim of this review is to evaluate the effectiveness of NNM audits for reducing perinatal mortality and morbidity and explore related contextual factors. Methods PubMed, Embase, Scopus, CINAHL, LILACS and SciELO were searched in February/2023. Randomized and observational studies of NNM clinical audits were included without restrictions on setting, publication date or language. Primary outcomes: perinatal mortality, morbidity and NNM. Secondary outcomes: factors contributing to NNM and measures of quality of care. Study characteristics, methodological quality and outcome were extracted and assessed by two independent reviewers. Narrative synthesis was performed. Results Of 3081 titles and abstracts screened, 36 articles had full-text review. Two studies identified, rated, and classified contributing care factors and generated recommendations to improve the quality of care. No study reported the primary outcomes for the review (change in perinatal mortality, morbidity and NNM rates resulting from an audit process), thus precluding meta-analysis. Three studies were multidisciplinary NNM audits and were assessed for additional contextual factors. Conclusion There was little data available to determine the effectiveness of clinical audits of NNM. While trials randomised at patient level to test our research question would be difficult or unethical for both NNM and perinatal death audits, other strategies such as large, well-designed before-and-after studies within services or comparisons between services could contribute evidence. This review supports a Call to Action for NNM audits. Adoption of formal audit methodology, standardised NNM definitions, evaluation of parent’s engagement and measurement of the effectiveness of quality improvement cycles for improving outcomes are needed.

Introduction: Potassium bromate (KBrO3) is an oxidizing agent added to flour to improve bread quality. However, KBrO3 is nephrotoxic, and a class B carcinogen banned in most countries, including Ghana. Aim: This study aimed to determine the residual KBrO3 concentration in bread and to estimate the chemical and carcinogenic risk that is associated with the consumption of these breads in Ghana. Methods: A total of 285 samples of bread, consisting of 97 tea breads, 95 sugar breads, and 93 butter breads were randomly sampled from bakeries across ten regions of Ghana for this study. The bromate contents were qualitatively and quantitatively determined spectrophotometrically at 515 nm, based on the redox reaction between KBrO3 and promethazine. The change in colour from colourless to pink indicated the presence of KBrO3 in the sample. The data were analyzed with Microsoft Excel 365 Apps for Enterprise and GraphPad Prism and the map was plotted with QGIS. Results: Out of the 285 bread samples analyzed, 12.28% (35/285) tested positive for KBrO3 with concentrations ranging from 0.46 to 26.67 μg/g (mean 6.13 μg/g). This exceeded the permissible dose (0.02 μg/g) by 23–1334 times, respectively. Except Ashanti and Volta regions, all the other 8 regions had at least one bread type testing positive for KBrO3. There was no statistically significant difference in the concentration of KBrO3 between the bread types analyzed at p

Abstract Checkpoint immunotherapy (CPI) has increased survival for some patients with advanced-stage bladder cancer (BCa). However, most patients do not respond. Here, we characterized the tumor and immune microenvironment in pre- and post-treatment tumors from the PURE01 neoadjuvant pembrolizumab immunotherapy trial, using a consolidative approach that combined transcriptional and genetic profiling with digital spatial profiling. We identify five distinctive genetic and transcriptomic programs and validate these in an independent neoadjuvant CPI trial to identify the features of response or resistance to CPI. By modeling the regulatory network, we identify the histone demethylase KDM5B as a repressor of tumor immune signaling pathways in one resistant subtype (S1, Luminal-excluded) and demonstrate that inhibition of KDM5B enhances immunogenicity in FGFR3-mutated BCa cells. Our study identifies signatures associated with response to CPI that can be used to molecularly stratify patients and suggests therapeutic alternatives for subtypes with poor response to neoadjuvant immunotherapy.

Bladder cancer can often exhibit genomic and morphological heterogeneity. Here, the authors use genomics analysis to show lineage plasticity of bladder cancers with squamous differentiation, and identify key transcription factors related to this morphological and immune heterogeneity.

Abstract Human cancers display a restricted set of expression profiles, despite diverse mutational drivers. This has led to the hypothesis that select sets of transcription factors act on similar target genes as an integrated network, buffering a tumor’s transcriptional state. Noninvasive papillary urothelial carcinoma (NIPUC) with higher cell cycle activity has higher risk of recurrence and progression. In this paper, we describe a transcriptional network of cell cycle dysregulation in NIPUC, which was delineated using the ARACNe algorithm applied to expression data from a new cohort (n = 81, RNA sequencing), and two previously published cohorts. The transcriptional network comprised 121 transcription factors, including the pluripotency factors SOX2 and SALL4, the sex hormone binding receptors ESR1 and PGR, and multiple homeobox factors. Of these 121 transcription factors, 65 and 56 were more active in tumors with greater and less cell cycle activity, respectively. When clustered by activity of these transcription factors, tumors divided into High Cell Cycle versus Low Cell Cycle groups. Tumors in the High Cell Cycle group demonstrated greater mutational burden and copy number instability. A putative mutational driver of cell cycle dysregulation, such as homozygous loss of CDKN2A, was found in only 50% of High Cell Cycle NIPUC, suggesting a prominent role of transcription factor activity in driving cell cycle dysregulation. Activity of the 121 transcription factors strongly associated with expression of EZH2 and other members of the PRC2 complex, suggesting regulation by this complex influences expression of the transcription factors in this network. Activity of transcription factors in this network also associated with signatures of pluripotency and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), suggesting they play a role in driving evolution to invasive carcinoma. Consistent with this, these transcription factors differed in activity between NIPUC and invasive urothelial carcinoma.

JET, the world’s largest operating tokamak with unique Be/W wall and tritium handling capability, completed a Deuterium-Tritium (D-T) campaign in 2021 (Maggi et al 29th Fusion Energy Conf. ) following a decade of preparatory experiments, dedicated enhancements, technical rehearsals and training (Horton et al 2016 Fusion Eng. Des. 109–111 925). Operation with tritium raises significant technical, safety and scientific challenges not encountered in standard protium or deuterium operation. This contribution describes the tritium operational requirements, pulses and technical preparations, new operating procedures, lessons learned and details on the achieved operational availability and performance. The preparation and execution of the recent JET tritium experiments benefitted from the previous experience in 1991 (Preliminary Tritium Experiment), 1997 (DTE1 campaign) and 2003 (Trace Tritium Campaigns) and consisted of the following five phases: technical rehearsals and scenario preparation, tritium commissioning, 100% tritium campaign, D-T campaign (DTE2), tritium clean-up. Following the clean-up JET resumed normal operation and is currently undertaking a further D-T campaign (DTE3).

Radio signals propagating via the solar corona and solar wind are significantly affected by compressive waves, impacting the properties of solar bursts as well as sources viewed through the turbulent solar atmosphere. While static fluctuations scatter radio waves elastically, moving, turbulent, or oscillating density irregularities act to broaden the frequency of the scattered waves. Using a new anisotropic density fluctuation model from the kinetic scattering theory for solar radio bursts, we deduce the plasma velocities required to explain observations of spacecraft signal frequency broadening. The inferred velocities are consistent with motions that are dominated by the solar wind at distances ≳10 R _⊙ , but the levels of frequency broadening for ≲10 R _⊙ require additional radial speeds ∼(100–300) km s ^−1 and/or transverse speeds ∼(20–70) km s ^−1 . The inferred radial velocities also appear consistent with the sound or proton thermal speeds, while the speeds perpendicular to the radial direction are consistent with nonthermal motions measured via coronal Doppler-line broadening, interpreted as Alfvénic fluctuations. Landau damping of parallel propagating ion-sound (slow MHD) waves allows an estimate of the proton heating rate. The energy deposition rates due to ion-sound wave damping peak at a heliocentric distance of ∼(1–3) R _⊙ are comparable to the rates available from a turbulent cascade of Alfvénic waves at large scales, suggesting a coherent picture of energy transfer, via the cascade or/and parametric decay of Alfvén waves to the small scales where heating takes place.

The regulation of the distinct intrinsic phenotypic states in melanoma remain poorly characterised. Here, multi-omics analysis for a panel of 68 early passage melanoma cell lines reveals that cancer cell intrinsic transcriptomic programs are associated with distinct immune features.

Solar flares are known to be prolific electron accelerators, yet identifying the mechanism(s) for such efficient electron acceleration in solar flare (and similar astrophysical settings) presents a major challenge. This is due in part to a lack of observational constraints related to conditions in the primary acceleration region itself. Accelerated electrons with energies above ∼20 keV are revealed by hard X-ray (HXR) bremsstrahlung emission, while accelerated electrons with even higher energies manifest themselves through radio gyrosynchrotron emission. Here, we show, for a well-observed flare on 2017 September 10, that a combination of RHESSI HXR and and the Solar Dynamics Observatory/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (SDO/AIA) EUV observations provides a robust estimate of the fraction of the ambient electron population that is accelerated at a given time, with an upper limit of ≲10 ^−2 on the number density of nonthermal (≥20 keV) electrons, expressed as a fraction of the number density of ambient protons in the same volume. This upper limit is about 2 orders of magnitude lower than previously inferred from microwave observations of the same event. Our results strongly indicate that the fraction of accelerated electrons in the coronal region at any given time is relatively small but also that the overall duration of the HXR emission requires a steady resupply of electrons to the acceleration site. Simultaneous measurements of the instantaneous accelerated electron number density and the associated specific electron acceleration rate provide key constraints for a quantitative study of the mechanisms leading to electron acceleration in magnetic reconnection events.

In this “Methods” paper, we investigate how to compress SDO/AIA data by transforming the AIA source maps into the Fourier domain at a limited set of spatial frequency points. Specifically, we show that compression factors of one order of magnitude or more can be achieved without significant loss of information. The exploration of data compression techniques is motivated by our plan to train Neural Networks on AIA data to identify features that lead to a solar flare. Because the data is spatially resolved and polychromatic (as opposed to spatially-integrated, such as GOES, or monochromatic, such as magnetograms), the network can be trained to recognize features representing changes in plasma properties (e.g., temperature, density), in addition to temporal changes revealed by Sun-integrated data or physical restructuring revealed by monochromatic spatially-resolved data. However, given the immense size of a suitable training set of SDO/AIA data (more than 1011 pixels, requiring more than one TB of memory), some form of data compression scheme is highly desirable and, in this paper, we propose a Fourier based one. Numerical experiments show that, not only Fourier maps retain more information on the original AIA images compared to straightforward binning of spatial pixels, but also that certain types of changes in source structure (e.g., thinning or thickening of an elongated filamentary structure) may be equally, if not more, recognizable in the spatial frequency domain. We conclude by describing a program of work designed to exploit the use of spatial Fourier transform maps to identify features in four-dimensional data hypercubes containing spatial, spectral, and temporal information of the state of the solar plasma prior to possible flaring activity.

Summary: Differential mRNA expression between ancestry groups can be explained by both genetic and environmental factors. We outline a computational workflow to determine the extent to which germline genetic variation explains cancer-specific molecular differences across ancestry groups. Using multi-omics datasets from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), we enumerate ancestry-informative markers colocalized with cancer-type-specific expression quantitative trait loci (e-QTLs) at ancestry-associated genes. This approach is generalizable to other settings with paired germline genotyping and mRNA expression data for a multi-ethnic cohort.For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Carrot-Zhang et al. (2020), Robertson et al. (2021), and Sayaman et al. (2021). : Publisher’s note: Undertaking any experimental protocol requires adherence to local institutional guidelines for laboratory safety and ethics.

Causal mechanistic reasoning is a thinking strategy that can help students explain complex phenomena using core ideas commonly emphasized in separate undergraduate courses, as it requires students to identify underlying entities, unpack their relevant properties and interactions, and link them to construct mechanistic explanations. As a cross-disciplinary group of biologists, chemists, and teacher educators, we designed a scaffolded set of tasks that require content knowledge from biology and chemistry to construct nested hierarchical mechanistic explanations that span three scales (molecular, macromolecular, and cellular). We examined student explanations across seven introductory and upper-level biology and chemistry courses to determine how the construction of mechanistic explanations varied across courses and the relationship between the construction of mechanistic explanations at different scales. We found non-, partial, and complete mechanistic explanations in all courses and at each scale. Complete mechanistic explanation construction was lowest in introductory chemistry, about the same across biology and organic chemistry, and highest in biochemistry. Across tasks, the construction of a mechanistic explanation at a smaller scale was associated with constructing a mechanistic explanation for larger scales; however, the use of molecular scale disciplinary resources was only associated with complete mechanistic explanations at the macromolecular, not cellular scale.

Building on prior research documenting associations between youth purpose and academic, psychological and physical well-being, this study examined the contributions of workplace learning (WPL) to youth purpose and internal motivation among 281 youth of diverse racial and ethnic identities and economic status enrolled in two high school networks offering innovatively designed WPL. Sequential regression analyses revealed that the quality of WPL, defined by mentor support for training, learning opportunities, and youth autonomy, contributed positively to youth purpose and internal motivation, beyond the negative effects of perceived social and economic barriers. Findings are discussed through the perspectives of psychology of working, decent education, self-determination theory and career construction and suggest that WPL is a promising intervention for overcoming inequities in fostering youth talent and purpose, including personal goals, meaning and intentions for social contribution.

Recent decades have seen a rapid acceleration in global participation in formal education, due to worldwide initiatives aimed to provide school access to all children. Research in high income countries has shown that school quality indicators have a significant, positive impact on numeracy and literacy--skills required to participate in the increasingly globalized economy. Schools vary enormously in kind, resources, and teacher training around the world, however, and the validity of using diverse school quality measures in populations with diverse educational profiles remains unclear. First, we assessed whether children's numeracy and literacy performance across populations improves with age, as evidence of general school-related learning effects. Next, we examined whether several school quality measures related to classroom experience and composition, and to educational resources, were correlated with one another. Finally, we examined whether they were associated with children's (4-12-year-olds, N = 889) numeracy and literacy performance in 10 culturally and geographically diverse populations which vary in historical engagement with formal schooling. Across populations, age was a strong positive predictor of academic achievement. Measures related to classroom experience and composition were correlated with one another, as were measures of access to educational resources and classroom experience and composition. The number of teachers per class and access to writing materials were key predictors of numeracy and literacy, while the number of students per classroom, often linked to academic achievement, was not. We discuss these results in the context of maximising children's learning environments and highlight study limitations to motivate future research.

This research focuses on ego-focused self-image goals as central to understanding the vulnerability inherent in perfectionism and the link that perfectionism has with poorer health and emotional well-being. The present study expands theory and research on perfectionism from a unique motivational perspective through a longitudinal investigation of perfectionism, the pursuit of self-image goals related to self-improvement, and mental and physical health among 187 university students. Our central finding was that trait and self-presentational perfectionism were associated longitudinally with self-image goals and poorer mental and physical health. Longitudinal analyses showed that perfectionistic self-presentation predicted subsequent self-image goals, controlling for initial self-image goals. Additionally, self-image goals were associated with worse mental and physical health and greater loneliness and social anxiety. Collectively, our results illustrate the benefits of assessing problematic personal goals in perfectionism and the need to revise existing motivational accounts by recognizing the important role ego-involved goals play in guiding much of what perfectionists do and how they act in their daily lives.

In the current article, we describe the development and validation of the Social Comparison Rumination Scale. This measured was developed as a supplement to existing social comparison measures and to enable us to determine its potential relevance to perfectionism and other personality constructs. The Social Comparison Rumination Scale (SCRS) is a six-item inventory assessing the extent to which an individual is cognitively preoccupied and thinking repetitively about social comparison outcomes and information. Three studies with five samples of university students are described. Psychometric analyses established the SCRS consists of one factor assessed with high internal consistency and the measure is reliable and valid. Analyses showed that elevated levels of social comparison rumination are associated with trait perfectionism, perfectionistic automatic thoughts, perfectionistic self-presentation, ruminative brooding, burnout, depression, and fear of negative evaluation. Links were also established between social comparison rumination and both narcissism and dispositional envy. Overall, our findings support the further use of the SCRS and highlight the tendency of many people to think in deleterious ways about social comparisons long after the actual comparisons have taken place. We discuss social comparison rumination within the context of concerns about excessive social media use and young people being exposed to seemingly perfect lives that became a vexing cognitive preoccupation.

The current study investigated perfectionism and procrastination from the trait and cognitive perspectives and addressed how they relate to components of a personal orientation toward failure. A sample of 327 undergraduate students completed three perfectionism measures (i.e., Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, Hewitt-Flett Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, and Perfectionism Cognitions Inventory), two procrastination measures (i.e., Lay Procrastination Scale and Procrastinatory Cognitions Inventory), and measures of fear of failure and overgeneralizing failure. Correlational analyses showed that the composite trait dimension of perfectionistic concerns and the cognitive dimension of perfectionistic automatic thoughts had modest links with trait procrastination but much stronger links with the cognitive measure of procrastinatory automatic thoughts. All perfectionism and procrastination measures were significantly correlated with fear of failure and overgeneralization of failure. More extensive analyses showed that fear of failure mediated trait and cognitive pathways between perfectionism and procrastination, and the overgeneralization of failure mediated most pathways. Other evidence supported a sequential mediation between perfectionism and procrastination (i.e., fear of failure followed by the overgeneralization of failure). Overall, the results suggest that procrastinating perfectionists have a cognitive hypersensitivity to failure and a potentially debilitating form of perfectionistic reactivity characterized by overgeneralizing failures to the self. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The Perfectionism Social Disconnection Model (PSDM) and the Existential Model of Perfectionism and Depressive Symptoms (EMPDS) are promising models of perfectionism and psychopathology. However, research examining suicide ideation within the PSDM is scarce, and no research has examined suicide ideation as an outcome in the EMPDS. Moreover, tests of the PSDM and EMPDS have been conducted separately and most research has examined the PSDM and EMPDS using cross-sectional or two-wave longitudinal designs, which do not provide a satisfactory test of mediation. In the current study, we addressed these limitations by testing whether perfectionism confers vulnerability to suicide ideation via feelings of mattering and anti-mattering (from the PSDM) and via difficulty accepting the past (from the EMPDS) in a three-wave longitudinal design in two independent samples of undergraduate students and community adults. Participants completed measures on three occasions over 6 weeks. Findings revealed that socially prescribed perfectionism indirectly predicted suicide ideation via difficulty accepting the past in both samples. In addition, in the undergraduate sample only, socially prescribed perfectionism indirectly predicted higher suicide ideation via anti-mattering, and self-oriented perfectionism indirectly predicted higher suicide ideation via mattering. Based on our findings, we advocate for future research to include suicide ideation in the PSDM and EMPDS, to integrate explanatory models, and to examine a mattering-specific EMPDS.

The current study investigated the associations among trait perfectionism, worry about mistakes, mistake rumination, L2 anxiety, and willingness to communicate in adolescents. A key element was examining the psychometric properties of a new measure of worry about mistakes as well as the Mistake Rumination Scale and the short Child-Adolescent Perfectionism Scale and its two dimensions (i.e., self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism). Our participants were 954 Iranian adolescent English learners. Psychometric tests supported the psychometric properties and use of the mistakes and perfectionism measures. Correlation analyses indicated that both trait perfectionism dimensions were associated with mistake rumination and worry about mistakes, and socially prescribed perfectionism was associated with L2 anxiety. However, self-oriented perfectionism was associated with greater willingness to communicate. Further analyses showed that worry about mistakes and mistake rumination mediated the association that socially prescribed perfectionism had with L2 anxiety. The vulnerabilities of adolescent perfectionists are discussed in terms of the approach-avoidance conflict as it relates to worry about mistakes and pressures to be perfect. It is evident that adolescents who are vulnerable must learn cognitive and emotional regulation techniques to effectively manage mistakes and the pressure to be perfect.

The current research evaluates the Perfectionism Social Disconnection Model (PSDM) by considering the links between measures of trait perfectionism and perfectionistic self-presentation and measures of social support, loneliness, and distress in cross-sectional research. A particular focus is on perfectionism and levels of social support as assessed by the Social Provisions Scale. The current study also uniquely evaluates levels of perfectionism and perfectionistic self-presentation in undergraduate students, medical students, and law students. The results across samples provided evidence that loneliness mediates the link between interpersonal perfectionism and distress in keeping with the predictions of the PSDM. Correlational results found robust links between loneliness and low levels of social support. Moreover, socially prescribed perfectionism and perfectionistic self-presentation were associated negatively with social support, and this was especially evident in terms of the facet tapping the nondisclosure of imperfections. Group comparisons of perfectionism yielded few significant differences in accordance with expectations. Levels of perfectionism tended to be lower among medical students. However, the links between perfectionism and distress were clearly evident among undergraduates, medical students, and law students, thus attesting to the vulnerability of perfectionistic students in general. Overall, the results further confirm the relevance of perfectionism in distress among students and applicability of the PSDM in various types of students.

In this interview study, we utilize a theoretical framework that combines Bell's theory of choice sets with DisCrit to explore how parents of students with IEPs (SIEPs) experienced a forced school choice embedded with the 2013 mass school closures in Chicago. We find that a child's disability was a primary factor in parent's choices. Further, all parents in our sample had conceptions of ideal schools, but a child's IEP and other barriers--including safety and transportation--could prevent parents from enrolling their child in an otherwise desired school. In this way a child's IEP could provide access to needed services while also denying families from desired learning environments. These findings point to the ableist nature of school choice and contribute to the growing body of research that questions the theoretical underpinnings of school choice as an education reform strategy.

Animals are frequently used in the UK for film, television, and advertising, but numerous stakeholders, including charities and industry representatives, have significant concerns regarding their on- and off-set welfare. However, it is unclear to what extent the public can identify animal welfare issues on screen or whether they know where to report any incidents. This survey sought to answer three research questions: (1) What are the levels of awareness and concern around animals used in TV, film, and advertising among the general public? (2) Do people know where or how to report any concerns? (3) What would reassure people that animal welfare is safeguarded? We have analysed and presented the results from the 911 responses to paint a more detailed picture of where the public is on this issue and what mechanisms for improvement they would support. Overall, the results show a clear concern for the welfare of animals used in the media, especially once they had read the eight realistic scenarios of animal use in the survey. Yet the public feel disempowered to report these concerns and lack trust that positive change will result. There is clearly public appetite for better protection of animals used in the media, particularly stronger regulations, independent on-set monitoring of animals, qualified animal trainers, and an accreditation scheme.

This study aimed to use a range of non-invasive monitoring technologies to investigate the behavioural and physiological responses of individually housed dairy calves to age at change in milk replacer (MR) feeding frequency. Forty-eight Holstein Friesian calves were individually penned and fed MR (625 g/d) as solids in one of three feeding regimes: (i) once-a-day feeding commencing at age 14 d (OAD14), (ii) once-a-day feeding commencing at age 28 d (OAD28) and (iii) twice-a-day feeding (TAD). Several behavioural (automatic activity sensors), physiological (infrared [IR] thermography and heart rate variability [HRV]) and haematological indicators were used to examine calf responses. Reduction in milk feeding frequency at 14 or 28 d of age increased daily concentrate intakes and drinking water consumption throughout the pre-wean period. Calf lying behaviour was unaffected by reduction in milk feeding frequency; however, TAD calves recorded a significant decrease in total daily lying time during the post-wean period compared with OAD28s. There was no effect of treatment on IR eye or rectal temperature throughout the experiment; however, there was an effect of age, with IR temperature decreasing as calf age increased. OAD14 calves tended to have decreased HRV at days 14 and 16, which is suggestive of an increased stress load. The findings suggest that under high levels of animal husbandry and whilst maintaining the same amount of milk powder/d (625 g/d), reduction in milk feeding frequency from twice to once daily at 28 d can occur without significant impact to behavioural, performance and physiological parameters assessed here.

Abstract Background In 2015, the stillbirth rate after 28 weeks (late gestation) in Australia was 35% higher than countries with the lowest rates globally. Reductions in late gestation stillbirth rates have steadily improved in Australia. However, to amplify and sustain reductions, more needs to be done to reduce practice variation and address sub-optimal care. Implementing bundles for maternity care improvement in the UK have been associated with a 20% reduction in stillbirth rates. A similar approach is underway in Australia; the Safer Baby Bundle (SBB) with five elements: 1) supporting women to stop smoking in pregnancy, 2) improving detection and management of fetal growth restriction, 3) raising awareness and improving care for women with decreased fetal movements, 4) improving awareness of maternal safe going-to-sleep position in late pregnancy, 5) improving decision making about the timing of birth for women with risk factors for stillbirth. Methods This is a mixed-methods study of maternity services across three Australian states; Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales. The study includes evaluation of ‘targeted’ implementer sites (combined total approximately 113,000 births annually, 50% of births in these states) and monitoring of key outcomes state-wide across all maternity services. Progressive implementation over 2.5 years, managed by state Departments of Health, commenced from mid-2019. This study will determine the impact of implementing the SBB on maternity services and perinatal outcomes, specifically for reducing late gestation stillbirth. Comprehensive process, impact, and outcome evaluations will be conducted using routinely collected perinatal data, pre- and post- implementation surveys, clinical audits, focus group discussions and interviews. Evaluations explore the views and experiences of clinicians embedding the SBB into routine practice as well as women’s experience with care and the acceptability of the initiative. Discussion This protocol describes the evaluation of the SBB initiative and will provide evidence for the value of a systematic, but pragmatic, approach to strategies to reduce the evidence-practice gaps across maternity services. We hypothesise successful implementation and uptake across three Australian states (amplified nationally) will be effective in reducing late gestation stillbirths to that of the best performing countries globally, equating to at least 150 lives saved annually. Trial registration The Safer Baby Bundle Study was retrospectively registered on the ACTRN12619001777189 database, date assigned 16/12/2019

Solar radio bursts are strongly affected by radio-wave scattering on density inhomogeneities, changing their observed time characteristics, sizes, and positions. The same turbulence causes angular broadening and scintillation of galactic and extragalactic compact radio sources observed through the solar atmosphere. Using large-scale simulations of radio-wave transport, the characteristics of anisotropic density turbulence from 0.1 R _⊙ to 1 au are explored. For the first time, a profile of heliospheric density fluctuations is deduced that accounts for the properties of extrasolar radio sources, solar radio bursts, and in situ density fluctuation measurements in the solar wind at 1 au. The radial profile of the spectrum-weighted mean wavenumber of density fluctuations (a quantity proportional to the scattering rate of radio waves) is found to have a broad maximum at around (4–7) R _⊙ , where the slow solar wind becomes supersonic. The level of density fluctuations at the inner scale (which is consistent with the proton resonance scale) decreases with heliocentric distance as $\langle \delta {{n}_{i}}^{2}\rangle (r)\simeq 2\times {10}^{7}\,{\left(r/{R}_{\odot }-1\right)}^{-3.7}$ cm ^−6 . Due to scattering, the apparent positions of solar burst sources observed at frequencies between 0.1 and 300 MHz are computed to be essentially cospatial and to have comparable sizes, for both fundamental and harmonic emission. Anisotropic scattering is found to account for the shortest solar radio burst decay times observed, and the required wavenumber anisotropy is q _∥ / q _⊥ = 0.25–0.4, depending on whether fundamental or harmonic emission is involved. The deduced radio-wave scattering rate paves the way to quantify intrinsic solar radio burst characteristics.

Summary: People of different ancestries vary in cancer risk and outcome, and their molecular differences may indicate sources of these variations. Determining the “local” ancestry composition at each genetic locus across ancestry-admixed populations can suggest causal associations. We present a protocol to identify local ancestry and detect the associated molecular changes, using data from the Cancer Genome Atlas. This workflow can be applied to cancer cohorts with matched tumor and normal data from admixed patients to examine germline contributions to cancer.For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Carrot-Zhang et al. (2020).

Summary: Cellular and molecular aberrations contribute to the disparity of human cancer incidence and etiology between ancestry groups. Multiomics profiling in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) allows for querying of the molecular underpinnings of ancestry-specific discrepancies in human cancer. Here, we provide a protocol for integrative associative analysis of ancestry with molecular correlates, including somatic mutations, DNA methylation, mRNA transcription, miRNA transcription, and pathway activity, using TCGA data. This protocol can be generalized to analyze other cancer cohorts and human diseases.For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Carrot-Zhang et al. (2020).

Data on attaining indicators of early speech, language, and literacy development, notably phonological awareness, among children with visual impairments (VI) are limited. This U.S. study utilized the "National Survey of Children's Health" (NSCH), 2016-2020, to observe the distinctive population of children with VI and speech, language, and literacy needs. Chi-square bivariate and multivariable logistic regression analyses established differences between children ages 3 to 5 years with VI (n = 186) and without VI (n = 25,354). Significant differences included lower parental education and higher rates of family poverty for children with VI. Significantly fewer children with VI had attained early phonological awareness (identifying initial sounds in words and word rhyming). Nearly three times more children with VI had been diagnosed with a speech or language disorder. Findings affirm that interventions address speech, language, and literacy development among children with VI, including explicit phonological awareness. Communication disorders research based on population health databases can inform evidence-based practice.

"Hospital" can refer to a physical place or more figuratively to the people associated with it. Such place-for-institution metonyms are common in everyday language, but there remain several open questions in the literature regarding how they are processed. The goal of the current eyetracking experiments was to investigate how metonyms are interpreted when they appear as sentence subjects in structures that are temporarily syntactically ambiguous versus unambiguous (e.g., "The hospital [that was] requested by the doctor…"). If comprehenders have a bias to interpret metonyms in subject position as agents (Fishbein & Harris, 2014), they should initially access the figurative (institutional) sense of the metonym. This interpretation is rendered incorrect at the disambiguating by-phrase, which should lead to reanalysis (i.e., garden-path effects). In Experiment 1, larger garden-path effects were observed for metonyms compared to inanimate control nouns that did not have a figurative sense. In Experiment 2, garden-path effects were equivalent for metonyms and animate sentence subjects. In addition, there was some evidence that readers exhibited initial difficulty at the verb (e.g., "requested") when it immediately followed the metonym compared to the inanimate control nouns in Experiment 1. Overall, the results suggest that the subject-as-agent heuristic is a powerful cue during sentence processing, which can prompt the comprehender to access a figurative interpretation of a metonym.

Introduction: Internet memes are a ubiquitous part of internet culture and a common communication tool among students. Because they are a good medium for expressing ideas and concepts in a concise and fun manner, memes are a potentially valuable tool for teaching and engaging students. Statement of the Problem: Instructors may not know how to use memes in classroom assignments or activities to support learning objectives. Literature Review: Students finding or creating their own class-related content is an empirically supported way to enhance learning. Instructors can enhance learning by using multimedia approaches (pictures/videos in addition to words), which is a good fit for the use of memes. We include examples of ways that memes have already been used in psychology classrooms. Teaching Implications: Incorporating meme assignments or activities in the classroom could be beneficial. Conclusion: We describe how students can explain or generate memes that illustrate concepts related to course material. Instructions and supporting information and resources, as well as calls for research into the effectiveness of the use of memes in the classroom, are included.

Paganism, despite growing as a religious affiliation over recent decades, has rarely been the subject of study within higher education. Due to the general lack of cohesive organizations, a persistent social stigma, and a number of ill-defined identity labels, they have proven difficult to study even within the general population. This chapter will provide a descriptive snapshot of the population of Pagan college students in the United States and offer guidance for higher education practitioners working with this often-invisible religious demographic group on their campuses.

Building on the previous chapters in the volume, this concluding chapter provides a practical overview of theories relating to religious diversity and organizational change to outline recommended actions for practitioners across higher education functional areas who want to create a more equitable landscape for non-Christian college students.

Many professors, especially at the associate level, say yes to service requests despite the pervasive advice to "just say no." Much of this service constitutes "invisible labor" that diverts time and energy from efforts required to advance to the full professor rank. Based on in-depth interview research with 25 tenured professors, this article outlines how different groups of faculty negotiate invisible labor, highlights institutional inequities that unevenly determine patterns of invisible labor, and connects invisible labor to broader neoliberal forces. For women faculty of color in particular, a "no" is not always respected by more powerful institutional actors, and the individualized emphasis on "just saying no" to service brings with it both individual and collective costs. This article suggests that institutional and cultural change may ameliorate the racialized and gendered inequities associated with invisible labor more effectively than the individualized advice to "just say no."

A youth mental health crisis has been exacerbated significantly by the COVID-19 pandemic. Teachers are often front-line support for students in need. Yet teachers themselves are struggling, making it difficult to help their students. Cognitive behavioral interventions (CBIs) have been shown to reduce mental health symptoms in school settings. Learning and implementing a psychological intervention, however, places undue burden on teachers who are already struggling. This project aimed to develop and assess the acceptability and feasibility of a brief, web-based training for educators on cognitive behavioral tools that can be implemented in classrooms without additional psychological or practical burden. Attendees (n = 193) attended one of two 1-h trainings on applying cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) in classrooms. Attendees completed pre- and posttraining surveys on their knowledge and comfort using CBT. Following the course, attendees reported increases in knowledge and comfort using CBT skills, with large effect sizes. Attendees reported being highly satisfied with the course and likely to recommend the course to colleagues. Limitations of this work include a relatively small, homogenous sample and a low rate of completing both pre- and posttraining measures. Suggestions for future research include measuring change in practice as a result of the training. Implications of our findings are discussed.

Background: Children with Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) display impaired pretend play abilities, reflective of broader social-cognitive challenges. Pretend play interventions for children with PWS demonstrate preliminary efficacy for improving cognitive and affective processes in play. It is unknown which specific intervention strategies, such as prompting, summarization, and modeling, most effectively improve these skills. The present study examined the effectiveness of different interventionist strategies on eliciting child behaviors within pretend play intervention sessions. Methods: Participants included 21 children (ages 6-12) with PWS who participated in a pretend play intervention. Recorded intervention sessions were coded for interventionist strategies and child pretend play skills. By pairing each interventionist strategy with the immediately following child behavior, it was possible to discern the frequency of how often certain intervention strategies immediately preceded various child pretend play skills. Results: All intervention strategies were followed by child pretend play over 50% of the time. Interventionist summarizing/reflection and modeling most often preceded child pretend play, as well as specific skills of imagination and organization. Prompting, followed by modeling, most often preceded affect expression. Conclusions: Interventionist strategies of summarization and modeling may most effectively facilitate pretend play. Prompts for emotions may be more effective to elicit affect expression, potentially due to social-cognitive difficulties inherent in PWS. Children with developmental differences may benefit from adults who engage in play as a partner, rather than direct the play, to help the child stay on-task and learn target behaviors. This insight may strengthen future efforts to support socioemotional skills through pretend play.

According to NSF (2017), even though the number of minority students in America's college-age population has been on the rise, those who choose Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) as their majors are significantly fewer. There is an urgent need for African Americans, being the underrepresented minorities in STEM-related domains, be provided with opportunities to increase their presence and achievements (Hansen, Palakal & White, "Journal for STEM Education Research," 1-26 2023). This paper was to develop an active flipped learning (AFL) model to enhance engineering students learning. Instructional video, audio, lecture notes, and reading materials are developed while initiating active learning activities in class to engage students in active flipped learning. By monitoring 103 students' engagement and identifying their motivation and learning strategies, a custom-tailored plan to fit each underrepresented student in STEM was formed, valued by two indicators: Engaged Learning Index and Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire. After practicing the longitudinal research for three years from 2016 to 2018, some results were found during the procedure through ANOVA and correlation analysis on the collected data. The AFL model effectively promotes underrepresented students' performance in various science disciplines such as engineering, physics, and mathematics, such as helpful to foster underrepresented students' deep understanding of STEM disciplines and making them more engaged in STEM learning. In the future, the AFL can be potentially expanded to other institutions to help all students succeed in STEM classrooms and careers, to increase the national STEM literacy and be applied to non-STEM majors.

Abstract Background Stillbirth is a devastating pregnancy outcome that has a profound and lasting impact on women and families. Globally, there are over 2.6 million stillbirths annually and progress in reducing these deaths has been slow. Maternal perception of decreased fetal movements (DFM) is strongly associated with stillbirth. However, maternal awareness of DFM and clinical management of women reporting DFM is often suboptimal. The My Baby’s Movements trial aims to evaluate an intervention package for maternity services including a mobile phone application for women and clinician education (MBM intervention) in reducing late gestation stillbirth rates. Methods/design This is a stepped wedge cluster randomised controlled trial with sequential introduction of the MBM intervention to 8 groups of 3–5 hospitals at four-monthly intervals over 3 years. The target population is women with a singleton pregnancy, without lethal fetal abnormality, attending for antenatal care and clinicians providing maternity care at 26 maternity services in Australia and New Zealand. The primary outcome is stillbirth from 28 weeks’ gestation. Secondary outcomes address: a) neonatal morbidity and mortality; b) maternal psychosocial outcomes and health-seeking behaviour; c) health services utilisation; d) women’s and clinicians’ knowledge of fetal movements; and e) cost. 256,700 births (average of 3170 per hospital) will detect a 30% reduction in stillbirth rates from 3/1000 births to 2/1000 births, assuming a significance level of 5%. Analysis will utilise generalised linear mixed models. Discussion Maternal perception of DFM is a marker of an at-risk pregnancy and commonly precedes a stillbirth. MBM offers a simple, inexpensive resource to reduce the number of stillborn babies, and families suffering the distressing consequences of such a loss. This large pragmatic trial will provide evidence on benefits and potential harms of raising awareness of DFM using a mobile phone app. Trial registration ACTRN12614000291684. Registered 19 March 2014. Version Protocol Version 6.1, February 2018.

Abstract Background Muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) is a heterogeneous disease, and gene expression profiling has identified several molecular subtypes with distinct biological and clinicopathological characteristics. While MIBC subtyping has primarily been based on messenger RNA (mRNA), long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) may provide additional resolution. Methods LncRNA expression was quantified from microarray data of a MIBC cohort treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) and radical cystectomy (RC) (n = 223). Unsupervised consensus clustering of highly variant lncRNAs identified a four-cluster solution, which was characterized using a panel of MIBC biomarkers, regulon activity profiles, gene signatures, and survival analysis. The four-cluster solution was confirmed in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) cohort (n = 405). A single-sample genomic classifier (GC) was trained using ridge-penalized logistic regression and validated in two independent cohorts (n = 255 and n = 94). Results NAC and TCGA cohorts both contained an lncRNA cluster (LC3) with favorable prognosis that was enriched with tumors of the luminal-papillary (LP) subtype. In both cohorts, patients with LP tumors in LC3 (LPL-C3) were younger and had organ-confined, node-negative disease. The LPL-C3 tumors had enhanced FGFR3, SHH, and wild-type p53 pathway activity. In the TCGA cohort, LPL-C3 tumors were enriched for FGFR3 mutations and depleted for TP53 and RB1 mutations. A GC trained to identify these LPL-C3 patients showed robust performance in two validation cohorts. Conclusions Using lncRNA expression profiles, we identified a biologically distinct subgroup of luminal-papillary MIBC with a favorable prognosis. These data suggest that lncRNAs provide additional information for higher-resolution subtyping, potentially improving precision patient management.

Concentrate inclusion levels in dairy cow diets are often adjusted so that the milk yield responses remain economic. While changes in concentrate level on performance is well known, their impact on other biological parameters, including immune function, is less well understood. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of concentrate inclusion level in a grass silage-based mixed ration on immune function. Following calving 63 (45 multiparous and 18 primiparous) Holstein Friesian dairy cows were allocated to one of three isonitrogenous diets for the first 70 days of lactation. Diets comprised of a mixture of concentrates and grass silage, with concentrates comprising either a low (30%, LC), medium (50%, MC) or high (70%, HC) proportion of the diet on a dry matter (DM) basis. Daily DM intakes, milk yields and BW were recorded, along with weekly body condition score, milk composition and vaginal mucus scores. Blood biochemistry was measured using a chemistry analyzer, neutrophil phagocytic and oxidative burst assessed using commercial kits and flow cytometry, and interferon-γ production evaluated by ELISA after whole blood stimulation. Over the study period cows on HC had a higher total DM intake, milk yield, fat yield, protein yield, fat+protein yield, protein content, mean BW and mean daily energy balance, and a lower BW loss than cows on MC, whose respective values were higher than cows on LC. Cows on HC and MC had a lower serum non-esterified fatty acid concentration than cows on LC (0.37, 0.37 and 0.50 mmol/l, respectively, P=0.005, SED=0.032), while cows on HC had a lower serum β-hydroxybutyrate concentration than cows on MC and LC (0.42, 0.55 and 0.55 mmol/l, respectively, P=0.002, SED=0.03). Concentrate inclusion level had no effect on vaginal mucus scores. At week 3 postpartum, cows on HC tended to have a higher percentage of oxidative burst positive neutrophils than cows on LC (43.2% and 35.3%, respectively, P=0.078, SED=3.11), although at all other times concentrate inclusion level in the total mixed ration had no effect on neutrophil phagocytic or oxidative burst characteristics, or on interferon-γ production by pokeweed mitogen stimulated whole blood culture. This study demonstrates that for high yielding Holstein Friesian cows managed on a grass silage-based diet, concentrate inclusion levels in early lactation affects performance but has no effect on neutrophil or lymphocyte immune parameters.

Poor performance and ill-health of calves in the pre-wean period can affect future productivity. Increasing numbers of producers are opting to use calf jackets as a means of mitigating the potential negative effects of low ambient temperatures, wind speed and precipitation on growth and health. This study aimed to use a range of noninvasive monitoring technologies to investigate the effects of using calf jackets in the first 3 weeks of life on calf performance and behavioural and physiological parameters. Ninety Holstein-Friesian calves were allocated to one of the two treatments: (i) Jacketed until 21 days of age and (J; n = 44) ii. Nonjacketed (NJ; n = 46). Calves were group housed and fed milk replacer (MR) and concentrate solid feed via automatic feeders. Calves were weaned at day 56, and the experiment was completed at day 63. Health assessments were conducted on a daily basis throughout the experiment using predefined faecal and respiratory scoring protocols. A range of novel, noninvasive monitoring technologies were used to examine the activity, heart rate and thermal profiles of calves on an individual basis throughout the experimental period. There were no differences in calf live weight (LWT), average daily gain (ADG) or feed conversion efficiency (FCE) in J and NJ calves between days 5 to 20. However, NJ calves consumed more MR and had more unrewarded visits to the milk feeder than J calves during this period. Although calf LWT was comparable across treatments in the week following jacket removal (days 21 to 28), both ADG and FCE tended to be greater in NJ calves. There were no treatment differences in calf LWT at the end of the study (d63). When measured over a period of 24 h and at a mean ambient temperature of 7.7°C, skin surface temperature was 6.37°C higher in J calves. Core body temperature was higher in J calves between days 5 to 20; however, there were no differences in IR eye or IR rectal temperature. No differences in lying behaviour occurred, with calves spending 18 and 17 h/day lying between days 5 to 20 and days 21 to 28, respectively. Under the climatic and management conditions described, no significant benefits to calf performance were found as a result of the provision of calf jackets to group-housed calves in the first 3 weeks of life. The higher frequency of unrewarded visits to the milk feeder in NJ calves during the first 3 weeks of life could be suggestive of a lack of satiety in these calves.

Robert Nozick's starting point is an individualist anarchist one. His state of nature is like Murray Rothbard's anarchism. Nozick says: More to the point, especially for deciding what goals one [...]

The food preparation method is one of the critical food security dimensions. Food may be available in a household. But still, the preparation method used for cooking food items may be detrimental to nutrient intake if the person responsible does not have appropriate cooking skills. Therefore, this study aims to assess the knowledge, skills, and household food preparation practices in the North of Tshwane, Gauteng Province to develop relevant intervention strategies to improve the community's cooking skills. A quantitative study design was used. Data was collected from 490 households using an interviewer-administered questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were analyzed using STATA 13.1. A Pearson chi-square was used to test for association between demographic variables, and the knowledge, skills, and household food preparation practices. Most households (64%) cook daily, 58% cook one main meal daily, 45% never eat food not prepared in a household, and 48% do not eat meals prepared away from home and do not opt to eat any meal out. Most households (51%) reported that they have food-cooking skills. Most households (65%) indicated that they use the boiling cooking method when cooking vegetables, 19% indicated that they use other methods, and 8% indicated that they use the frying method. There was an association between age, and how many main meals the households prepared at home (P-value = 0.013); age, and how often the households ate out (P-value = 0.026). An association was found between adults employed in a household, and how the household acquired cooking skills (P-value = 0.029); adults employed in a household and the cooking methods normally used by households when cooking meat (P-value = 0.050). Although most households indicated that they have cooking skills, there is a slight difference between them, and those who indicated that they don't, as most households indicated they use the boiling method for cooking vegetables. This denotes a cooking skills gap, which demands intervention. Also, cooking skills should be improved to reduce food wastage thus addressing household food security. Key words: Food security, households, home-cooking, cooking skills, cooking practices, INTRODUCTION Food insecurity poses a huge challenge worldwide, with approximately 868 million people undernourished, and two billion people suffering from micronutrient deficiencies and negative health consequences [1]. Food security is [...]