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Psychopathy is a severe personality disorder marked by a wide range of emotional deficits, including a lack of empathy, emotion dysregulation, and alexithymia. Previous research has largely examined these emotional impairments in isolation, ignoring their influence on each other. Thus, we examined the concurrent interrelationship between emotional impairments in psychopathy, with a particular focus on the mediating role of alexithymia. Using path analyses with cross-sectional data from a community sample (N = 315) and a forensic sample (N = 50), our results yielded a statistically significant mediating effect of alexithymia on the relationship between psychopathy and empathy (community and forensic) and between psychopathy and emotion dysregulation (community). Moreover, replacing psychopathy with its three dimensions (i.e., meanness, disinhibition, and boldness) in the community sample revealed that boldness may function as an adaptive trait, with lower levels of alexithymia counteracting deficits in empathy and emotion dysregulation. Overall, our findings indicate that psychopathic individuals' limited understanding of their own emotions contributes to their lack of empathy and emotion dysregulation. This underscores the potential benefits of improving emotional awareness in the treatment of individuals with psychopathy.

Introduction: Knowledge about fundamental sleep disorders and dysregulation that occurs in children with PTSD is limited. Prazosin is an alpha-1 receptor antagonist often used off label for the treatment of PTSD-associated nightmares in adults; however, evaluation of its use in pediatrics and adolescents is limited. The primary objective of this study was to assess the impact of prazosin on nightmares associated with PTSD in this population. Secondary objectives included assessing side effects, changes in blood pressure, and 30-day readmission rates. Methods: This was a retrospective, single-center chart review of inpatients diagnosed with PTSD nightmares from January 1, 2017, to July 31, 2019. Patients 4 to 18 years old with a PTSD diagnosis, experiencing nightmares, and initiating any dose of prazosin were assessed to determine efficacy and tolerance. Results: Forty-two patients were evaluated to determine symptom improvement after initiation of prazosin for PTSD nightmares in children and adolescents. Of the 42 patients, 24 (57.1%) reported improvement in nightmares (average dose 1.05 mg). For secondary results, 38 (90.5%) patients continued prazosin at discharge, and 2 (5%) were readmitted within 30 days for reasons other than PTSD-associated nightmares. Thirty-four (81%) reported having no adverse effects to prazosin. There was no significant difference in systolic (P =.1883) or diastolic (P = .2777) blood pressure preinitiation and postinitiation of prazosin. Discussion: Despite the limitations of this retrospective study, the data suggests that prazosin may be associated with an improvement in nightmares in children and adolescents with PTSD. Adverse events were rarely reported, and there was no significant change in blood pressure with initiation of prazosin.

Terahertz quantum cascade laser sources based on intra-cavity Cherenkov difference-frequency generation in dual-wavelength mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers are currently the only monolithic semiconductor laser technology that can deliver continuous-wave coherent terahertz output at room temperature. Because the Cherenkov difference-frequency generation process enables terahertz radiation generation and extraction across a wide range of frequencies, it is often assumed that phase-matching conditions for this process are automatically fulfilled. We theoretically analyze and experimentally demonstrate that phase-matching plays an important role in these devices, and significant improvements in terahertz power output can be achieved by adjusting the waveguide configuration of the quantum cascade lasers to provide better phase-matching.

Background & aims: Despite effective direct-acting antivirals (DAAs), hepatitis C virus (HCV) prevalence is high among people who inject drugs (PWIDs) and non-adherence to therapy remains a major obstacle towards HCV elimination in this subpopulation. To overcome this issue, we have combined ongoing opioid agonist therapy (OAT) with DAAs in a directly-observed therapy (DOT) setting. Method: From September 2014 until January 2021 PWIDs at high risk of non-adherence to DAA therapy, who were also on OAT, were included into this microelimination project. Individuals received their OAT and DAAs under supervision of healthcare workers as DOT in a pharmacy or low-threshold facility. Results: In total, 504 HCV RNA-positive PWIDs on OAT (387 men, 76.8%; median age: 38 years [IQR 33–45], HIV: 4.6%; hepatitis B: 1.4%) were included into this study. Two thirds reported ongoing intravenous drug use (IDU) and half of them had no permanent housing. Only 41 (8.1%) were lost to follow-up and two (0.4%) died of reasons unrelated to DAA toxicity. Overall, 90.7% of PWIDs achieved sustained virological response 12 weeks after treatment (SVR12) (95% CI: 88.1–93.2%). By excluding those lost to follow-up and hose who had died of causes unrelated to DAAs, the SVR12 rate was 99.1% (95% CI: 98.3–100.0%; modified intention-to-treat analysis). Four PWIDs (0.9%) experienced treatment failure. Over a median follow-up of 24 weeks (IQR 12–39), 27 reinfections (5.9%) were observed in individuals with the highest IDU rates (81.2%). Importantly, even though some were lost to follow-up, all completed their DAA treatment. By using DOT, adherence to DAAs was excellent with only a total of 86 missed doses (0.3% of 25,224 doses). Conclusions: In this difficult-to-treat population of PWIDs with high rates of IDU , coupling DAA treatment to OAT in a DOT setting resulted in high SVR12 rates equivalent to conventional treatment settings in non-PWID populations.

In this work, we report on the implementation of a multi-quantum cascade laser (QCL) module as an innovative light source for quartz-enhanced photoacoustic spectroscopy (QEPAS) sensing. The source is composed of three different QCLs coupled with a dichroitic beam combiner module that provides an overlapping collimated beam output for all three QCLs. The 3λ-QCL QEPAS sensor was tested for detection of NO2, SO2, and NH3 in sequence in a laboratory environment. Sensitivities of 19.99 mV/ppm, 19.39 mV/ppm, and 73.99 mV/ppm were reached for NO2, SO2, and NH3 gas detection, respectively, with ultimate detection limits of 9 ppb, 9.3 ppb, and 2.4 ppb for these three gases, respectively, at an integration time of 100 ms. The detection limits were well below the values of typical natural abundance of NO2, SO2, and NH3 in air.

IntroductionLiver cirrhosis accounts for considerable morbidity and mortality worldwide and late presentation limits therapeutic options. We aimed to assess characteristics of patients with liver cirrhosis at the time of first presentation and during their clinical course.MethodsPatients with cirrhosis as evident by presence of varices at endoscopy, liver stiffness ≥15kPa at elastography, or ascites requiring paracentesis between Q1/2015-Q2/2020 were retrospectively included. Clinical, laboratory, and imaging data were collected from medical records at presentation and last follow-up.Results476 patients were included (alcohol-related liver disease, ALD: 211, 44.3%; viral hepatitis: 163, 34.2%). Of these, 106 patients (22.3%) and 160 patients (33.6%) presented already with Child-Pugh C and MELD >15, respectively, and decompensation events were registered in 50% (238 patients) at baseline, and even in 75.4% of ALD patients. During a median follow-up of 11.0 (IQR 4-24) months, 116 patients died. Two-year survival was worse for patients with ALD than for viral hepatitis (71.1% vs. 90.2%, log rank pConclusionHalf of the patients with cirrhosis had decompensated cirrhosis at presentation. This calls for increased awareness and strategies for earlier diagnosis of chronic liver disease and cirrhosis.

Combining recall of an emotional memory with simultaneous horizontal eye movements (i.e., Recall + EM) reduces memory aversiveness. However, the long-term persistence of this effect is inconsistent across studies. Given that stress may aid in the consolidation of memories, we examined whether acute stress can boost the long-term effects of degraded memories. To test this, participants recalled two negative memories, which were assigned to a Recall + EM or Recall Only condition. Before and after each intervention they rated memory aversiveness (i.e., immediate effects) followed by a stress-induction or control procedure. After a 24h-period, participants rated each memory again (i.e., long-term effects). We found that Recall + EM produces immediate effects but that these effects dissolve over time. Moreover, acute stress did not boost potential long-term effects of Recall + EM. Degraded memories were not retained better by applying stress. We discuss these results and how long-term effectiveness may still be achieved.

Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by a mix of traits belonging to four facets: affective (e.g., callous/lack of empathy), interpersonal (e.g., grandiosity), behavioral instability (e.g., impulsivity, poor behavioral controls), and social deviance (e.g., juvenile delinquency, criminal versatility). Several scholars have argued that early childhood maltreatment impacts the development of psychopathy, although views regarding its role in the four facets differ. We conducted a meta-analysis including 47 studies comprising a total of 389 effect sizes and 12,737 participants, to investigate the association between psychopathy and four types of child maltreatment: physical abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse. We found support for a moderate link between overall psychopathy and childhood physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect, as well as overall childhood maltreatment. The link between psychopathy and childhood sexual abuse was small, but still statistically significant. These associations were stronger for the behavioral and antisocial facets than for the affective and interpersonal facets of psychopathy, but nearly all associations were statistically significant. Our findings are consistent with recently developed theories on the role of complex trauma in the development of severe personality disorders. Trauma-focused preventive and therapeutic interventions can provide further tests of the trauma-psychopathy hypothesis.

The Entrepreneurial Unity Internship (EUI) is a partnership between Haskell Indian Nations University and the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority (KCATA). A pilot program created in 2020, gives young Native American entrepreneurs at Haskell first-hand knowledge and experience in creating a business. The goal has been to foster economic growth by preparing Haskell students to start businesses on tribal lands, or to improve existing Native businesses by hiring these up-and-coming entrepreneurs. The EUI program focuses on creating this knowledge for Indian Country by encouraging future entrepreneurs to develop businesses that can help employ fellow tribal members and raise the economic status of Native communities. Since its inception, the EUI program has addressed multiple problems and improved the overall procurement process. More tangibly, it has helped KCATA recruit a greater number of Native American businesses to handle their future infrastructure projects, such as ride KC projects, bus route development, and rail route development.

The partially purified water extract from Euglena gracilis (EWE) was evaluated for its antitumor and immunomodulatory effects in cell cultures and in a mouse orthotopic lung carcinoma allograft model. In two-dimensional cell culture, the EWE treatment inhibited cell growth of both murine Lewis lung carcinoma (LLC) and human lung carcinoma cells (A549 and H1299) in a dose- and time-dependent manner. In contrast, the growth of mouse bone marrow cells (BMCs), but not mouse splenocytes (SPLs), was stimulated by the treatment with EWE. In three-dimensional spheroid culture, spheroid growth of LLC cells was significantly attenuated by EWE treatment. In a mouse LLC orthotopic allograft model, pretreatment with EWE (150–200 mg/kg/day, via drinking water) three weeks prior to the LLC cell inoculation, but not post-treatment after LLC cell inoculation, significantly attenuated the growth of LLC tumors in immunocompetent syngeneic mouse lung. This tumor growth attenuation coincided with a significant decrease in the population of myeloid-derived cells, primarily neutrophils. Flow cytometric analysis revealed that the EWE treatment significantly attenuated growth of granulocytic myeloid-derived suppressor cells (gMDSC) in BMCs and that this decrease was due to induction of gMDSC-specific apoptosis and differentiation of monocytic MDSCs (mMDSC) to macrophages. The present study provides evidence that EWE pretreatment inhibits lung carcinoma growth mainly by stimulating host antitumor immunity through attenuation of growth of gMDSCs and decreasing the number of peripheral granulocytes. This study suggests that the partially purified extract derived from Euglena gracilis contains significant bioactive materials that prevent lung carcinoma growth.

BackgroundOxford Mental Illness and Suicide tool (OxMIS) is a brief, scalable, freely available, structured risk assessment tool to assess suicide risk in patients with severe mental illness (schizophrenia-spectrum disorders or bipolar disorder). OxMIS requires further external validation, but a lack of large-scale cohorts with relevant variables makes this challenging. Electronic health records provide possible data sources for external validation of risk prediction tools. However, they contain large amounts of information within free-text that is not readily extractable. In this study, we examined the feasibility of identifying suicide predictors needed to validate OxMIS in routinely collected electronic health records.MethodsIn study 1, we manually reviewed electronic health records of 57 patients with severe mental illness to calculate OxMIS risk scores. In study 2, we examined the feasibility of using natural language processing to scale up this process. We used anonymized free-text documents from the Clinical Record Interactive Search database to train a named entity recognition model, a machine learning technique which recognizes concepts in free-text. The model identified eight concepts relevant for suicide risk assessment: medication (antidepressant/antipsychotic treatment), violence, education, self-harm, benefits receipt, drug/alcohol use disorder, suicide, and psychiatric admission. We assessed model performance in terms of precision (similar to positive predictive value), recall (similar to sensitivity) and F1 statistic (an overall performance measure).ResultsIn study 1, we estimated suicide risk for all patients using the OxMIS calculator, giving a range of 12 month risk estimates from 0.1-3.4%. For 13 out of 17 predictors, there was no missing information in electronic health records. For the remaining 4 predictors missingness ranged from 7-26%; to account for these missing variables, it was possible for OxMIS to estimate suicide risk using a range of scores. In study 2, the named entity recognition model had an overall precision of 0.77, recall of 0.90 and F1 score of 0.83. The concept with the best precision and recall was medication (precision 0.84, recall 0.96) and the weakest were suicide (precision 0.37), and drug/alcohol use disorder (recall 0.61).ConclusionsIt is feasible to estimate suicide risk with the OxMIS tool using predictors identified in routine clinical records. Predictors could be extracted using natural language processing. However, electronic health records differ from other data sources, particularly for family history variables, which creates methodological challenges.

A colon cancer growth inhibitor partially purified from the isolated cell wall membrane fraction of Chlorella sorokiniana , here referred to as Chlorella membrane factor (CMF), was evaluated for its antitumor and immunomodulatory effects in cell culture and in a colon carcinoma mouse model. The CMF treatment dose- and time-dependently inhibited colon carcinoma cell growth in 2-dimensional cultures. Treatment with CMF also significantly inhibited the growth of colon carcinoma spheroids in 3-dimensional cell culture in coculture with T lymphocytes. In a mouse CT26 colon carcinoma peritoneal dissemination model, intraperitoneal injection of CMF (10 or 30 mg dry weight/kg body weight, every other day) dose-dependently and significantly attenuated the growth of tumor nodules via induction of tumor cell apoptosis. Evaluation of immune cell populations in ascites showed that CMF treatment tended to increase T lymphocytes but lower granulocyte populations. The present study suggests that the cell wall membrane fraction of Chlorella sorokiniana contains a bioactive material that inhibits colon carcinoma growth via direct cell growth inhibition and stimulation of host antitumor immunity. Hence, it is suggested that the Chlorella cell wall membrane extract or a bioactive substance in the extract is an attractive complementary medicine for cancer therapy.

We present a single stack active region design for terahertz emission by difference frequency generation in quantum cascade lasers. The active region contains a single design, which is based on multiple optical transitions within one period. This results in both a giant nonlinearity and an ultra-broad optical gain. The provided optical gain spectrum is broad enough to support two distinct mid-infrared modes with a significant spectral separation. For dual-emission, the waveguide contains a buried, index-coupled distributed feedback grating. This grating is based on a sampled approach to provide selective feedback for two midinfrared modes at λ1 = 8.39 μm and λ2 = 9.38 μm. Simultaneously, the manifold of possible transitions within the active region is designed to provide a peak nonlinear susceptibility of |χ(2)| = 29 nmV-1 at the conversion to 3.8 THz. The device emits up to 210-μW THz power at room temperature with a nonlinear conversion efficiency of η = 2.05 mWW-2.

Objectives: We evaluated the Fatal Encounters (FE) database as an open-source surveillance system for tracking police-related deaths (PRDs). Methods: We compared the coverage of FE data to several known government sources of police-related deaths and police homicide data. We also replicated incident selection from a recent review of the National Violent Death Reporting System. Results: FE collected data on 'n = 23,578' PRDs from 2000–2017. A pilot study and ongoing data integration suggest greater coverage than extant data sets. Advantages of the FE data include circumstance of death specificity, incident geo-locations, identification of involved police-agencies, and near immediate availability of data. Disadvantages include a high rate of missingness for decedent race/ethnicity, potentially higher rates of missing incidents in older data, and the exclusion of more comprehensive police use-of-force and nonlethal use-of-force data—a critique applicable to all extant data sets. Conclusions: FE is the largest collection of PRDs in the United States and remains as the most likely source for historical trend comparisons and police-department level analyses of the causes of PRDs.

Beta glucans are known to have immunomodulatory effects that mediated by a variety of mechanisms. In this article, we describe experiments and simulations suggesting that beta-1,3 glucans may promote activation of T cells by a previously unknown mechanism. First, we find that treatment of a T lymphoblast cell line with beta-1,3 oligoglucan significantly increases mRNA levels of T cell activation-associated cytokines, especially in the presence of the agonistic anti-CD3 antibody. This immunostimulatory activity was observed in the absence of dectin-1, a known receptor for beta-1,3 glucans. To clarify the molecular mechanism underlying this activity, we performed a series of molecular dynamics simulations and free-energy calculations to explore the interaction of beta-1,3 oligoglucans with potential immune receptors. While the simulations reveal little association between beta-1,3 oligoglucan and the immune receptor CD3, we find that beta-1,3 oligoglucans bind to CD28 near the region identified as the binding site for its natural ligands CD80 and CD86. Using a rigorous absolute binding free-energy technique, we calculate a dissociation constant in the low millimolar range for binding of 8-mer beta-1,3 oligoglucan to this site on CD28. The simulations show this binding to be specific, as no such association is computed for alpha-1,4 oligoglucan. This study suggests that beta-1,3 glucans bind to CD28 and may stimulate T cell activation collaboratively with T cell receptor activation, thereby stimulating immune function.

Online advertising is an important tool that can be utilized by charities to elicit attention and funding. A critical examination of advertisement strategies is thus necessary to increase the efficacy of fundraising efforts. Previous studies have shown that individuals’ moral views and perceptions of social norms can play important roles in charitable behavior. Thus, the current protocol describes a study to examine whether framing charitable advertisements in line with participants’ morality and increasing the salience of descriptive social norms increases subsequent charitable behavior. We describe experimental, online methods, whereby participants are provided with a framed call-to-action and normative information within a custom-developed application or existing survey platform. Furthermore, in the exploratory fashion, we discuss the possibility of collecting participants’ Facebook data and predicting moral profiles from this data. If there is an increased rate of donations as a result of moral compatibility and/or increased norm salience, charities can leverage this knowledge to increase the donations by tailoring their campaigns in a more appealing way for their prospective donors. Moreover, if it turns out to be possible to predict one’s moral profile from Facebook footprints, charities can use this knowledge to find and target people that are more likely to support their cause. However, this introduces important ethical questions that are discussed within this protocol.

This paper describes a novel, airborne pod-based millimeter (mm) wavelength radar. Its frequency of operation is 94 GHz (3 mm wavelength). The radar has been designed to fly on the NCAR Gulfstream V HIAPER aircraft; however, it could be deployed on other similarly equipped aircraft. The pod-based configuration occupies minimum cabin space and maximizes scan coverage. The radar system is capable of collecting observations in a staring mode between zenith and nadir or in a scanning mode. Standard pulse-pair estimates of moments and raw time series of backscattered signals are recorded. The radar system design and characteristics as well as techniques for calibrating reflectivity and correcting Doppler velocity for aircraft attitude and motion are described. The radar can alternatively be deployed in a ground-based configuration, housed in the 20 ft shipping container it shares with the High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL). The radar was tested both on the ground and in flight. Preliminary measurements of Doppler and polarization measurements were collected and examples are presented.

The various mechanisms offered by the TEI schema and Guidelines for the encoding of critical editions suffer from one major shortcoming: the lack of user-friendly tools allowing philologists and their readers to display and process TEI-encoded editions. After witnessing –and personally experiencing– this frustration, I decided to develop an application especially dedicated to supporting philologists in their work, and helping them to fully benefit from their encoding work. The TEI Critical Apparatus Toolbox is now available online (http://ciham-digital.huma-num.fr/teicat/). This article describes the context in which this application was developed, its current features, and the plans for future improvements.

It is well known that hormones affect both brain and behavior, but less is known about the extent to which hormones affect economic decision-making. Numerous studies demonstrate gender differences in attitudes to risk and loss in financial decision-making, often finding that women are more loss and risk averse than men. It is unclear what drives these effects and whether cyclically varying hormonal differences between men and women contribute to differences in economic preferences. We focus here on how economic rationality and preferences change as a function of menstrual cycle phase in women. We tested adherence to the Generalized Axiom of Revealed Preference (GARP), the standard test of economic rationality. If choices satisfy GARP then there exists a well-behaved utility function that the subject's decisions maximize. We also examined whether risk attitudes and loss aversion change as a function of cycle phase. We found that, despite large fluctuations in hormone levels, women are as technically rational in their choice behavior as their male counterparts at all phases of the menstrual cycle. However, women are more likely to choose risky options that can lead to potential losses while ovulating; during ovulation women are less loss averse than men and therefore more economically rational than men in this regard. These findings may have market-level implications: ovulating women more effectively maximize expected value than do other groups.

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