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While there is a long history of rehabilitation for motor deficits following cerebral lesions, less is known about our ability to improve visual deficits. Vision therapy, prisms, occluders, and filters have been advocated for patients with mild traumatic brain injury, on the premise that some of their symptoms may reflect abnormal visual or ocular motor function, but the evidence for their efficacy is modest. For hemianopia, attempts to restore vision have had unimpressive results, though it appears possible to generate blindsight through training. Strategic approaches that train more efficient use of visual search in hemianopia have shown consistent benefit in visual function, while prism aids may help some patients. There are many varieties of alexia. Strategic adaptation of saccades can improve hemianopic alexia, but there has been less work and mixed results for pure alexia, neglect dyslexia, attentional dyslexia, and the central dyslexias. A number of approaches have been tried in prosopagnosia, with recent studies of small groups suggesting that face perception of prosopagnosic subjects can be enhanced through perceptual learning.

Context With advances in treatments that have resulted in children living longer with serious illness, it is essential to understand how parents adapt to changes during the final stages of their child's life or after their child's death. Objective To examine the process by which parents adapt to their child's serious illness and death among a group of non-bereaved and bereaved parents of adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with advanced cancer. Methods Qualitative study exploring the experiences of parents of AYAs who were being treated for recurrent or refractory advanced cancer (nonbereaved parents) or had died from their disease (bereaved parents) at one large academic center. Participants completed demographic surveys and semi-structured interviews to better understand parent adaptation. Data were analyzed using content and thematic approaches. Results Of the 37 participating parents; 22 (59%) were non-bereaved and 15 (41%) were bereaved. The AYAs predominantly had hematologic malignancies (n = 18/34, 53%). Across both cohorts, parents described the process of adapting to their child's worsening health or death as moments of feeling stuck and moments of gratitude and meaning. Conclusion Adaptation to a child's serious illness and death likely occurs on a dynamic spectrum and parents may oscillate both cognitively and emotionally. This has important implications for how clinicians and communities support parents. Greater comfort with and normalization of the adaptation process may enable parents to more openly share both the unimaginable hardships and unexpected silver-linings that are part of their parenting experiences during their child's illness and death.

Next generation risk assessment (NGRA) is an exposure-led, hypothesis-driven approach that has the potential to support animal-free safety decision-making. However, significant effort is needed to develop and test the in vitro and in silico (computational) approaches that underpin NGRA to enable confident application in a regulatory context. A workshop was held in Montreal in 2019 to discuss where effort needs to be focussed and to agree on the steps needed to ensure safety decisions made on cosmetic ingredients are robust and protective. Workshop participants explored whether NGRA for cosmetic ingredients can be protective of human health, and reviewed examples of NGRA for cosmetic ingredients. From the limited examples available, it is clear that NGRA is still in its infancy, and further case studies are needed to determine whether safety decisions are sufficiently protective and not overly conservative. Seven areas were identified to help progress application of NGRA, including further investments in case studies that elaborate on scenarios frequently encountered by industry and regulators, including those where a 'high risk' conclusion would be expected. These will provide confidence that the tools and approaches can reliably discern differing levels of risk. Furthermore, frameworks to guide performance and reporting should be developed.

Background: The challenges of parenting an adolescent and young adult (AYA) are significant and distinct from that of parenting younger children with cancer or healthy AYAs. Little is known about how best to support parents in these difficult circumstances, particularly when their child goes through multiple relapses and may die from their disease. This qualitative study aimed to explore parental perspectives on challenges and sources of strength while parenting an AYA with advanced cancer. Methods: We interviewed parents of AYAs between the …

Bacteria in the genus Brucella are important human and veterinary pathogens. The abortion and infertility they cause in food animals produce economic hardships in areas where the disease has not been controlled, and human brucellosis is one of the world's most common zoonoses. Brucella strains have also been isolated from wildlife, but we know much less about the pathobiology and epidemiology of these infections than we do about brucellosis in domestic animals. The brucellae maintain predominantly an intracellular lifestyle in their mammalian hosts, and their ability to subvert the host immune response and survive and replicate in macrophages and placental trophoblasts underlies their success as pathogens. We are just beginning to understand how these bacteria evolved from a progenitor alphaproteobacterium with an environmental niche and diverged to become highly host-adapted and host-specific pathogens. Two important virulence determinants played critical roles in this evolution: (i) a type IV secretion system that secretes effector molecules into the host cell cytoplasm that direct the intracellular trafficking of the brucellae and modulate host immune responses and (ii) a lipopolysaccharide moiety which poorly stimulates host inflammatory responses. This review highlights what we presently know about how these and other virulence determinants contribute to Brucella pathogenesis. Gaining a better understanding of how the brucellae produce disease will provide us with information that can be used to design better strategies for preventing brucellosis in animals and for preventing and treating this disease in humans.

Bacteria in the genus Brucella are important human and veterinary pathogens. The abortion and infertility they cause in food animals produce economic hardships in areas where the disease has not been controlled, and human brucellosis is one of the world’s most common zoonoses. Brucella strains have also been isolated from wildlife, but we know much less about the pathobiology and epidemiology of these infections than we do about brucellosis in domestic animals. The brucellae maintain predominantly an intracellular lifestyle in their mammalian hosts, and their ability to subvert the host immune response and survive and replicate in macrophages and placental trophoblasts underlies their success as pathogens. We are just beginning to understand how these bacteria evolved from a progenitor alphaproteobacterium with an environmental niche and diverged to become highly host-adapted and host-specific pathogens. Two important virulence determinants played critical roles in this evolution: (i) a type IV secretion system that secretes effector molecules into the host cell cytoplasm that direct the intracellular trafficking of the brucellae and modulate host immune responses and (ii) a lipopolysaccharide moiety which poorly stimulates host inflammatory responses. This review highlights what we presently know about how these and other virulence determinants contribute to Brucella pathogenesis. Gaining a better understanding of how the brucellae produce disease will provide us with information that can be used to design better strategies for preventing brucellosis in animals and for preventing and treating this disease in humans.

Biodiversity conservation and agriculture are becoming intimately intertwined. Wildlife-friendly agriculture is promoted as a way to conserve biodiversity, connect nature reserves, facilitate climate-driven range shifts and enhance ecosystem services to agriculture. Yet some approaches that increase native biodiversity in agricultural landscapes, such as tropical agroforestry, may support a suite of species that is distinct from nearby remnant habitat. Wildlife-friendly farming, therefore, does not necessarily facilitate native species persistence through landscape conversion to agriculture or facilitate the movement of local species among nature reserves. We argue the historical composition of native species in agricultural landscapes can be maintained by enhancing ecological similarity between production land uses and natural ecosystems. Some agricultural systems already support native species from, and share some ecological attributes with, natural grasslands, wetlands and forests. However, we suggest there are benefits to be gained by focusing on the finer details of similarities in structure, floristic composition (e.g. crop species) and disturbance regimes occurring across natural and modified habitat types. A key advancement of this approach is that the composition of agricultural diversity and its spatio-temporal dynamics are selected and managed according to the spatial and temporal habitat requirements of the wildlife species naturally inhabiting the local area. We argue that ensuring ecological similarity between agricultural systems and the ecosystems they replaced or lie between will strengthen the capacity of agricultural landscapes to maintain historical species pools and provide spatial and temporal connectivity between nature reserves and analogous future climatic zones.

Face recognition is a form of expert visual processing. Acquired prosopagnosia is the loss of familiarity for facial identity and has several functional variants, namely apperceptive, amnestic, and associative forms. Acquired forms are usually caused by either occipitotemporal or anterior temporal lesions, right or bilateral in most cases. In addition, there is a developmental form, whose functional and structural origins are still being elucidated. Despite their difficulties with recognizing faces, some of these subjects still show signs of covert recognition, which may have a number of explanations. Other aspects of face perception can be spared in prosopagnosic subjects. Patients with other types of face processing difficulties have been described, including impaired expression processing, impaired lip-reading, false familiarity for faces, and a people-specific amnesia. Recent rehabilitative studies have shown some modest ability to improve face perception in prosopagnosic subjects through perceptual training protocols.

As we live in a dynamic world, motion is a fundamental aspect of our visual experience. The advent of computerized stimuli has allowed controlled study of a wide array of motion phenomena, including global integration and segmentation, speed and direction discrimination, motion aftereffects, the optic flow that accompanies self-motion, perception of object form derived from motion cues, and point-light biological motion. Animal studies first revealed the existence of a motion-selective region, the middle temporal (MT) area, also known as V5, located in the lateral occipitotemporal cortex, followed by areas such as V5A (also known as MST, the middle superior temporal area), V6/V6A, the ventral intraparietal area, and others. In humans there are rare cases of bilateral lesions of the V5/V5A complex causing cerebral akinetopsia, a severe impairment of motion perception. Unilateral V5/V5A lesions are more common but cause milder asymptomatic deficits, often limited to the contralateral hemifield, while parietal lesions can impair perception of point-light biological motion or high-level motion tasks that are attentionally demanding. Impairments of motion perception have also been described in optic neuropathy, particularly glaucoma, as well as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease with dementia, and dementia with Lewy body disease. Prematurity with or without periventricular leukomalacia and developmental syndromes such as Williams' syndrome, autism, and dyslexia have also been associated with impaired motion perception, suggesting a developmental vulnerability of the dorsal pathway.

Background: High-risk features (HRF) increase mortality for Stage II colon cancer (CC). These HRF include pathologic T4 disease, perineural invasion (PNI), lymphovascular invasion (LVI), an inadequate lymphadenectomy (less than 12 lymph nodes harvested) and poorly differentiated tumors. The presence of two or more HRF has an additive impact on survival for patients with Stage II CC. While T4 and disease greater than N1a raise the risk of mortality in Stage III CC, the effect of the other accepted HRF in patients with Stage III CC has not been studied. Materials and Methods: Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) (2010 - 2017) was used to identify patients with Stage III and IV CC. Patients with Stage III CC were then further classified by the presence of zero, 1, or 2 or more of the following HRF: pathologic T4, PNI, inadequate lymphadenectomy, or poor differentiation. Overall (OS) and cause-specific (CS) survival were calculated. Results: 57,640 patients with Stage III or IV CC were identified. 35,760 (62%) patients had Stage III disease and 21,880 (38%) had Stage IV disease. Among patients with Stage III disease, 16,733 (46.8%) had no HRF, 12,703 (35.5%) had 1 HRF and 6,324 (17.7%) had 2 or more HRF. For patients with 1 HRF, 4,610 (36.3%) had poor differentiation, 2,339 (18.4%) had PNI, 3,673 (28.9%) had T4 disease, and 2,078 (16.4%) had an inadequate nodal harvest. Patients with Stage III CC without HRF had the best OS (73.3%) and CS (81.4%,). This was followed by Stage III with 1 HRF (OS 63.7%, CS 71.6%) and Stage III with 2 or more HRF (OS 44%, CS 51%). Patients with Stage IV disease had the worst OS (18.1%) and CS (20.4%) (p Conclusion: HRF have a cumulative influence on OS and CS in patients with Stage III CC. The presence of multiple HRF should be considered higher risk for patients with Stage III disease. Citation Format: Luv N. Hajirawala, Yong Yi, Michelle A. Bergeron, Danielle A. Dooley, Guy R. Orangio, Elyse R. Bevier-Rawls, Kurt G. Davis, Jeffrey S. Barton. Are a subset of patients at higher risk for mortality in stage III colon cancer: An analysis of the SEER database [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 6315.

Determination of the no observed adverse effect level (NOAEL) of a substance is an important step in safety and regulatory assessments. Application of conventional in silico strategies, for example, quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) models, to predict NOAEL values is inherently problematic. Whereas QSAR models for well-defined toxicity endpoints such as Ames mutagenicity or skin sensitization can be developed from mechanistic knowledge of molecular initiating events and adverse outcome pathways, QSAR is not appropriate for predicting a NOAEL value, a concentration at which "no effect" is observed. This paper presents a chemoinformatics approach and explores how it can be further refined through the incorporation of toxicity endpoint-specific information to estimate confidence bounds for the NOAEL of a target substance, given experimentally determined NOAEL values for one or more suitable analogues. With a sufficiently large NOAEL database, we analyze how a difference in NOAEL values for pairs of structures depends on their pairwise similarity, where similarity takes both structural features and physicochemical properties into account. The width of the estimate NOAEL confidence interval is proportional to the uncertainty. Using the new threshold of toxicological concern (TTC) database enriched with antimicrobials, examples are presented to illustrate how uncertainty decreases with increasing analogue quality and also how NOAEL bounds estimation can be significantly improved by filtering the full database to include only substances that are in structure categories relevant to the target and analogue.

BACKGROUND: Parents of adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with serious illness experience enormous stress as they navigate their child’s illness. In this study, we aimed to elucidate AYA parental perspectives on the advanced cancer experience, including what parents find challenging and their sources of strength. METHODS: Parents of AYAs aged 14 to 24 years old being treated for recurrent or refractory advanced cancer at a large academic center completed demographic surveys and 1:1 semi-structured interviews between December 2017 and July 2018. Conventional content analysis was used by 2 coders to analyze transcriptions, with a third reviewer adjudicating. Thematic networks analysis was then used to extrapolate basic and organizing themes. RESULTS: A total of 22 parents participated. The majority were female, non-Hispanic, and married; 23% (n = 5) were from racial minority groups. We identified 3 organizing themes related to navigating parents’ experiences: (1) what we do to love our child, (2) what challenges us, and (3) how we keep our heart focused on what matters most. Despite substantial uncertainty about their child’s future, parents endorsed growth and gratitude as they focused on the ways they showed love for their child during this difficult time. CONCLUSIONS: Parents of AYAs with advanced cancer experience many parenting challenges, elucidating some of the vulnerabilities and magnifying the sources of strength among parents of children transitioning to adulthood during serious illness. This research has important implications for how we build programs that support and sustain parents’ well-being during their child’s serious illness.

Limited human exposure and toxicity data are currently available for 4,5,6,7-Tetrabromo-2,3-dihydro-1,1,3-trimethyl-3-(2,3,4,5-tetrabromophenyl)-1H-indene (OBTMPI), a flame retardant often used for high temperature application of various polymer materials. Levels of OBTMPI in a cohort population that includes children and their co-residing parents (n = 217) in Canada were determined. Detection frequency of OBTMPI in the samples was 22.6%. OBTMPI levels were in general at sub-to low ng/g lipid weight level with a 95th percentile at 15.6 ng/g lipid weight. Compared to an earlier study conducted in 2008–2009 in the same region, results from this study show an increase in both detection frequency and concentration of OBTMPI. In silico toxicity predictions using Multicase CaseUltra and Leadscope Model Applier suggested that OBTMPI, and its possible metabolites in humans, while unlikely to be carcinogenic or mutagenic, exhibit some estrogen antagonist, androgen antagonist and estrogen binding capability reflective of possible endocrine disrupting properties.

While the peacemakers at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 did not anticipate the extensive revanchist and state-sponsored terrorism that would bedevil the Great Powers during the interwar years, members of the British delegation persuaded their French and American counterparts that the unprecedented scale of production of weapons in wartime would lead to an upsurge in global arms trafficking in peacetime. They signed the Convention for the Control of the Trade in Arms and Ammunition, at Saint-Germain-en-Laye on September 10, 1919. National priorities and diverging security concerns in the years following the signing of treaty, however, took precedence over ratification and enforcement of the agreement. By the end of 1924, the League of Nations had emerged as the principal organization concerned with stopping international arms trafficking and keeping surplus munition stocks from being “distributed to persons and states who are not fitted to possess them.”

Clandestinely supported by Italian and Hungarian authorities, Balkan terrorists assassinated King Alexander I of Yugoslavia and French Foreign Minister Jean Louis Barthou on October 9, 1934, in Marseilles, France. The brazen political murders caused a diplomatic crisis and prompted the League of Nations Conference for the International Repression of Terrorism, which produced two treaties in 1937: the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism and the Convention for the Creation of an International Criminal Court. The treaties defined terrorism in international law and included provisions to regulate arms trafficking and fraudulent passports. Only the British Government of India ratified the Terrorism treaty. Neither of the treaties had entered into force by the time of the September 1938 Munich Conference in which the Great Powers ceded the Czech Sudetenland to Adolph Hitler and placed the fate of peacetime Europe in the hands of the Führer.

The passage to India of small arms, which often accompanied revolutionary ideas, was central to London’s concerns about the proliferation of arms prior to and after the 1919 Arms Traffic Convention. The British government attempted to combat political violence using tools developed during the Great War. Officials in London identified the province of Bengal in British India as the center of several terrorist networks. British counterterrorism strategy in India relied on three parts: arms controls, passport restrictions, and domestic anti-terrorism legislation. Intelligence memoranda warned of danger from the Communist International’s efforts to move funds, weapons, and foreign fighters into Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Persia, and Iraq, with an eye toward the penetration of India. Reports shaped the policy recommendations of the newly-established Inter-Departmental Committee on Eastern Unrest (IDCEU). However, as colonial administrators learned following the Rowlatt Act, domestic anti-terrorism legislation would be revoked were Indian and London politicians to find it oppressive.

Following Émile Cottin’s attempted assassination of Georges Clemenceau in February 1919, the victors in the First World War reassembled at the Paris Peace Conference and enacted protocols to prevent surplus stocks of weapons from being distributed “to persons and states who are not fitted to possess them.”...

This is a book about terrorism, weapons, and diplomacy in the interwar years between the First and Second World Wars. It charts the convergence of the manufacture and trade of arms; diplomacy among the Great Powers and the domestic politics within them; the rise of national liberation and independence movements; and the burgeoning concept and early institutions of international counterterrorism. Key themes include: a transformation in meaning and practice of terrorism; the inability of Great Powers—namely, Great Britain, the United States, France—to harmonize perceptions of interest and the pursuit of common interests; the establishment of the tools and infrastructure of modern intelligence—including the U.S.-U.K. cooperation that would evolve into the Five Eyes intelligence alliance; and the nature of peacetime in the absence of major wars. Particular emphasis is given to British attempts to quell revolutionary nationalist movements in India and elsewhere in its empire, and to the Great Powers’ combined efforts to counter the activities of the Communist International. The facilitating roles of the Paris Peace Conference and League of Nations are explored here, in the context of the Arms Traffic Convention of 1919, the Arms Traffic Conference of 1925, and the 1937 Terrorism Convention.

Paris was quiet on February 19, 1919. Abuzz for a month as the peacemakers bickered, cajoled, and negotiated the peace treaties that formally ended the Great War, the city finally rested as U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George took a brief leave to return home, leaving behind Georges Clemenceau, the French prime minister known to all as “the Tiger.”...

On the night of April 18, 1930, some 100 armed revolutionaries calling themselves the “Indian Republican Army” mobilized in Chittagong, a seaport city in East Bengal near the Burmese border, just prior to launching multiple raids on British colonial sites. The Chittagong Armory Raid of 1930, modelled after the 1916 Irish Easter Rising, sparked a renewed period of terrorist activity in India, along with the increasing involvement of female revolutionaries as assassins. The British Government of India responded with a multipronged approach to counterterrorism that included the pursuit of another international treaty to control gun-running, stricter anti-terrorism legislation, and the ability to arrest and detain militants indefinitely. Whitehall disagreed with the anti-terrorism policies promoted by Delhi policymakers, especially the creation of a vast detention camp system to imprison alleged terrorists, as it embarrassed them internationally and legitimized Gandhi in the eyes of Indians and Britons.

In May 1925, the League of Nations convened a Conference for the Supervision of the International Trade in Arms and Ammunition and in Implements of War in Geneva, Switzerland. Six weeks of negotiations resulted in a new Arms Traffic Convention (as well as the Geneva Protocol against the usage of chemical and biological weapons), which representatives from eighteen countries—including the United States, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan—signed on June 17. The United States led the way to that moment yet did not follow through on it afterward. The treaty, which lacked robust enforcement mechanisms, languished in national legislatures and never entered into force. Even so, it had a constructive legacy: the compilation and publication of statistics on gun-running. Intelligence based on open and closed sources collected for, and resulting from, the Arms Traffic Conference, indicated systematic violations of the European peace settlements and revealed a world awash in guns.

On June 2, 1919, bombs exploded in eight cities in the United States, including at the doorstep of the home of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer in Washington, D.C. Mass arrests and deportations brought on by the Red Scare that followed convinced communist parties to go underground, while fears of the Communist International persisted. Two offices in the State Department oversaw the gathering and analysis of intelligence pertaining to Soviet Russia: the Office of the Under Secretary of State and the Division of Eastern European Affairs. The former drew on wartime connections with the British; the latter assessed intelligence gathered by diplomats at posts in Eastern Europe. In the mid-1920s, the State Department’s Office of the Under Secretary of State prepared a study of the global arms trade that comported with intelligence reports from British secret services: an illicit small arms trade flourished even among those countries subjected to international weapons inspectors.

The decomposition of vertebrate cadavers on the soil surface produces nutrient-rich fluids that enter the soil profile, leaving clear evidence of the presence of a cadaver decomposition island. Few studies, however, have described soil physicochemistry under human cadavers, or compared the soil between human and non-human animal models. In this study, we sampled soil to 5 cm depth at distances of 0 cm and 30 cm from cadavers, as well as from control sites 90 cm distant, from five human and three pig cadavers at the Australian Facility for Taphonomic Experimental Research (AFTER). We found that soil moisture, electrical conductivity, nitrate, ammonium, and total phosphorus were higher in soil directly under cadavers (0 cm), with very limited lateral spread beyond 30 cm. These patterns lasted up to 700 days, indicating that key soil nutrients might be useful markers of the location of the decomposition island for up to 2 years. Soil phosphorus was always higher under pigs than humans, suggesting a possible difference in the decomposition and soil processes under these two cadaver types. Our preliminary study highlights the need for further experimental and replicated research to quantify variability in soil properties, and to identify when non-human animals are suitable analogues.

Objectives Colorectal care bundles for surgical site infections (CRCB-SSIs) have been shown to reduce SSIs following elective colorectal surgery (CRS). There are limited data evaluating the effect of CRCB-SSI at Academic Disproportionate Share Hospitals (ADSH) with significant rates of urgent and emergent cases. Methods A CRCB-SSI was implemented in April 2016. We reviewed medical records of all patients undergoing colon resections between August 2015 and December 2017. Patients were divided into preimplementation and postimplementation groups. The primary endpoint was the SSI rate, and the secondary endpoint included types of SSI (superficial, deep, organ space). Univariable and multivariable analyses were performed. A subset analysis was performed in elective cases. Results We analyzed a total of 417 patients. Of these, 116 (28%) and 301 (72%) patients were in the preimplementation and postimplementation groups, respectively. The rate of SSI decreased from 30.1% to 15.9% in the postimplementation group ( P = .0012); however, it was not statistically significant after adjusting for baseline differences (relative risk [RR] 0.65; 95% CI 0.41-1.02). The elective subset included 219 patients. The rate of SSI in this cohort decreased from 25% to 10.5% in the postimplementation group ( P = .0012) and remained significant following multivariable analysis (RR 0.41, 95% CI 0.19- 0.88). There were no differences in the subtypes of SSI. Discussion While the CRCB-SSI was effective in decreasing the postoperative SSI rate for elective cases, its effect on the overall patient population was limited. CRCB-SSIs are not enough to bring SSI rates to accepted rates in high-risk patients such as those seen at ADSH.

Background and aimsIndividuals with gambling disorder display increased levels of risk-taking, but it is not known if it is associated with an altered subjective valuation of gains and/or losses, perception of their probabilities, or integration of these sources of information into expected value.MethodsParticipants with gambling disorder (n = 48) were compared with a healthy comparison group (n = 35) on a two-choice lottery task that involved either gains-only or losses-only gambles. On each trial, two lotteries were displayed, showing the associated probability and magnitude of the possible outcome for each. On each trial, participants chose one of the two lotteries, and the outcome was revealed.ResultsChoice behaviour was highly sensitive to the expected value of the two gambles in both the gain and loss domains. This sensitivity to expected value was attenuated in the group with gambling disorder. The group with gambling disorder used both probability and magnitude information less, and this impairment was greater for probability information. By contrast, they used prior feedback (win vs loss) to inform their next choice, despite the independence of each trial. Within the gambling disorder group, problem gambling severity and trait gambling-related cognitions independently predicted reduced sensitivity to expected value. The majority of observed effects were consistent across both gain and loss domains.Discussion and ConclusionsOur results provide a thorough characterization of decision processes in gain and loss domains in gambling disorder, and place these problems in the context of theoretical constructs from behavioural economics.

Residential segregation by race/ethnicity is widely recognized as a leading source of health disparities. Not clear from past research, however, is the overall health burden cities face due to clustering brought about by segregation. This study builds on previous research by directly measuring how spatially unequal health outcomes are within segregated cities. Utilizing Census-tract data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention&rsquo, s 500 Cities project, we examine how different dimensions of spatial segregation are associated with the clustering of poor self-rated health in cities. We make novel usage of the Global Moran&rsquo, s I statistic to measure the spatial clustering of poor health within cities. We find spatial segregation is associated with poor health clustering, however the race/ethnicity and dimension of segregation matter. Our study contributes to existing research on segregation and health by unpacking the localized associations of residential segregation with poor health clustering in U.S. cities.

The set size effect during visual search indexes the effects of processing load and thus the efficiency of perceptual mechanisms. Our goal was to investigate whether individuals with developmental prosopagnosia show increased set size effects when searching faces for face identity and how this compares to search for face expression. We tested 29 healthy individuals and 13 individuals with developmental prosopagnosia. Participants were shown sets of three to seven faces to judge whether the identities or expressions of the faces were the same across all stimuli or if one differed. The set size effect was the slope of the linear regression between the number of faces in the array and the response time. Accuracy was similar in both controls and prosopagnosic participants. Developmental prosopagnosic participants displayed increased set size effects in face identity search but not in expression search. Single-participant analyses reveal that 11 developmental prosopagnosic participants showed a putative classical dissociation, with impairments in identity but not expression search. Signal detection theory analysis showed that identity set size effects were highly reliable in discriminating prosopagnosic participants from controls. Finally, the set size ratios of same to different trials were consistent with the predictions of self-terminated serial search models for control participants and prosopagnosic participants engaged in expression search but deviated from those predictions for identity search by the prosopagnosic cohort. We conclude that the face set size effect reveals a highly prevalent and selective perceptual inefficiency for processing face identity in developmental prosopagnosia.

Here we build on the manifesto ‘World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity, issued by the Alliance of World Scientists. As a group of conservation biologists deeply concerned about the decline of insect populations, we here review what we know about the drivers of insect extinctions, their consequences, and how extinctions can negatively impact humanity. We are causing insect extinctions by driving habitat loss, degradation, and fragmentation, use of polluting and harmful substances, the spread of invasive species, global climate change, direct overexploitation, and co-extinction of species dependent on other species. With insect extinctions, we lose much more than species. We lose abundance and biomass of insects, diversity across space and time with consequent homogenization, large parts of the tree of life, unique ecological functions and traits, and fundamental parts of extensive networks of biotic interactions. Such losses lead to the decline of key ecosystem services on which humanity depends. From pollination and decomposition, to being resources for new medicines, habitat quality indication and many others, insects provide essential and irreplaceable services. We appeal for urgent action to close key knowledge gaps and curb insect extinctions. An investment in research programs that generate local, regional and global strategies that counter this trend is essential. Solutions are available and implementable, but urgent action is needed now to match our intentions.

Use of high-throughput, in vitro bioactivity data in setting a point-of-departure (POD) has the potential to accelerate the pace of human health safety evaluation by informing screening-level assessments. The primary objective of this work was to compare PODs based on high-throughput predictions of bioactivity, exposure predictions, and traditional hazard information for 448 chemicals. PODs derived from new approach methodologies (NAMs) were obtained for this comparison using the 50th (PODNAM, 50) and the 95th (PODNAM, 95) percentile credible interval estimates for the steady-state plasma concentration used in in vitro to in vivo extrapolation of administered equivalent doses. Of the 448 substances, 89% had a PODNAM, 95 that was less than the traditional POD (PODtraditional) value. For the 48 substances for which PODtraditional < PODNAM, 95, the PODNAM and PODtraditional were typically within a factor of 10 of each other, and there was an enrichment of chemical structural features associated with organophosphate and carbamate insecticides. When PODtraditional < PODNAM, 95, it did not appear to result from an enrichment of PODtraditional based on a particular study type (eg, developmental, reproductive, and chronic studies). Bioactivity:exposure ratios, useful for identification of substances with potential priority, demonstrated that high-throughput exposure predictions were greater than the PODNAM, 95 for 11 substances. When compared with threshold of toxicological concern (TTC) values, the PODNAM, 95 was greater than the corresponding TTC value 90% of the time. This work demonstrates the feasibility, and continuing challenges, of using in vitro bioactivity as a protective estimate of POD in screening-level assessments via a case study.

This chapter examines the relationship between geography and Islam in Africa. Using data and maps, it highlights the distribution of Islam at the national and regional scales. It also discusses the role that expansion diffusion played in creating contemporary, religious spatial patterns across the continent. It lays out a geographical explanation of where Islam is most dominant in contrast to Christianity or traditional African religions and why, and describes how the siting of holy places influences the movement of people. The chapter shows how Islam encourages adherents to visit sacred sites, and the resultant pilgrimages become part of religious patterns across the land. It makes the argument that spatial phenomena must be ground truthed to yield the most accurate results on Islam’s distribution and dynamics.