Search

ObjectiveMethodResultsConclusionsPerceived discrimination (PD; e.g. racism, agism, sexism, etc.) negatively impacts quality of life (QOL) among cancer patients. Prior research has established that for African American Cancer Patients (AACPs) only disengagement/denial coping mediated the PD-QOL relationship. In contrast, for Caucasian American Cancer Patients (CACPs), both agentic and disengagement/denial coping were mediators of the PD-QOL relationship. However, according to social constraint theory there may be a difference between subtle and overt PD in terms of the utility of certain coping mechanisms in relation to QOL, especially for AACPs.217 AACPs and 121 CACPs completed measures of PD, coping (agentic, disengagement/denial, adaptive disengagement) and QOL. PD items were classified as subtle or overt microaggressions. PD was mainly attributed to race/ethnicity by AACPs and to income, age, and physical appearance for CACPs.: In both subtle and overt microaggression models with CACPs, agentic coping and disengagement/denial coping were significant mediators of PD-QOL. Like CACPs, for AACPs, agentic and disengagement/denial coping were significant in the context of subtle microaggressions. In contrast, for overt microaggression only disengagement/denial coping was a significant mediator of the PD-QOL relationship for AACPs. Adaptive disengagement was related to QOL only for AACPs.: Whereas more research is needed, it appears that overt microaggressions for AACPs, that consist mainly of racial and ethnic maltreatment, constitute a class of social contexts that may raise above the threshold for serious threat and harm, and, as a result, disengagement/constraint may reduce negative consequences. This additional burden for AACPs contributes to disparities in QOL. Future research is needed on the utility of adaptive disengagement for AACPs in relation to PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previously observed negative correlations between sample size and effect size (n-ES correlation) in psychological research have been interpreted as evidence for publication bias and related undesirable biases. Here, we present two studies aimed at better understanding to what extent negative n-ES correlations reflect such biases or might be explained by unproblematic adjustments of sample size to expected effect sizes. In Study 1, we analysed n-ES correlations in 150 meta-analyses from cognitive, organizational, and social psychology and in 57 multiple replications, which are free from relevant biases. In Study 2, we used a random sample of 160 psychology papers to compare the n-ES correlation for effects that are central to these papers and effects selected at random from these papers. n-ES correlations proved inconspicuous in meta-analyses. In line with previous research, they do not suggest that publication bias and related biases have a strong impact on meta-analyses in psychology. A much higher n-ES correlation emerged for publications' focal effects. To what extent this should be attributed to publication bias and related biases remains unclear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The selective conversion of unsaturated compounds has emerged as a crucial method in chemical synthesis, enabling the synthesis of functional organic molecules. In recent decades, transition metal‐catalyzed hydrosilylation has emerged as a highly successful exemplar of industrialization within the realm of organic chemistry for the production of organosilanes, which have a pivotal role in organic chemistry and materials science. Precious metal complexes are typically employed as catalysts in most industrial hydrosilylation processes. The exploration of Earth‐abundant alternatives has emerged as a focal point of considerable research attention due to the high cost, poor selectivity, and many side reactions reported for precious metal catalysts. Ligand skeleton construction, selectivity, and mechanism research are areas where cobalt catalysts have more potential than iron and nickel. This review discusses the recent advances in cobalt‐catalyzed hydrosilylation across carbon‐carbon, carbon‐oxygen, and carbon‐nitrogen multiple bonds from 2019 to 2023. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is a significant body of research concerning Catholic faith formation in a variety of educational contexts around the world, relatively little attention has been devoted to the notion of missionary discipleship as a foundation for Catholic formation. Recently, the National Catholic Education Commission, in its document Leading Formation for Mission, also elaborates a solid definition of formation and stated: 'Formation is imaginative, creative and honours adult learning principles [...] It engages the 'intellect' and is nurtured by appropriate theological content and it engages the 'Spirit' and is characterised by contemplation and action for mission' (2022). This paper seeks to contribute to a deeper understanding of formation for missionary discipleship by presenting an evaluation of the efficacy of In Altum, a student-focussed ministry and leadership program developed at the University of Notre Dame Australia in response to the developing magisterial teaching concerning the notion of 'missionary discipleship'. In particular, we examine participants' personal faith development, understanding of missionary discipleship on campus, preparation for future ministry, and understanding of contemporary challenges to discipleship. The study progresses in three parts: First, it provides a brief background to In Altum, including the philosophical and sociological context, as well as the key theological principles underpinning the formation offered within the program. Second, following an overview of the mixed-methodology approach taken in the study, which details both the use of qualitative and quantitative data derived from focus groups and an online survey, the paper presents the results of the study, which sought to investigate the efficacy of the program as it pertained to the following: (a) the building of (personal subjective assessment of) faith in participants; (b) the building of participants' understanding of, and confidence in, the task of evangelisation as missionary discipleship in a secularised context; (c) building a strengthened sense of community amongst the participants. In the third and final section, the reported strengths and weaknesses of the program are examined. The paper also comments on implications for the program on the culture of the university more broadly, including precepts of the program's findings that may be applied in light of the Australian Catholic Plenary Council's findings to enhance the future directions of formation programs in the Catholic University Chaplaincy, with possible application to Catholic secondary schools and parish youth groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Palliative care focuses on relief from physical symptoms as well as from emotional, social and spiritual distress. This article promotes the importance of integrating psychosocial theories into standard palliative care to improve the quality of life of patients and carers. The psychosocial theories include the following: (1) Agency, which focuses on the empowerment of patients and carers to participate in palliative care and cope with the uncertainty of the outcome of the patient's illness; (2) Optimal Matching, which focuses on the matching of the provision of supportive care with the needs of the patient and carer to improve the patient's quality of life; and (3) Hope, which focuses on hoped-for outcomes throughout all aspects of palliative care. This theory-based integration may help patients, carers and healthcare providers to improve outcomes in terms of physical, emotional, social and spiritual quality of life as well as care planning. Palliative care improves patients' symptoms, quality of life and family satisfaction with caregiving, reduces hospital admissions and promotes alignment of medical care with the patient's needs and goals. This article proposes the utility of integrating three psychosocial theories into standard palliative care with implications for care planning, early palliative care and optimizing quality of life. First, Control Theory focuses on the complex juxtaposition of promoting agency/empowerment in patients and carers and coping with often highly uncertain outcomes. Second, Optimal Matching Theory accounts for the alignment of need and provision of care to potentiate the quality of life effects of supportive care in a complex social process involving health care providers, patients and carers. Third, Hope Theory represents a dynamic process, which is marked by variation in the qualities of hope as the patient and carer confront challenges during palliative care. Future work will be translational in nature to adapt both assessment and interventions based on this theoretically driven augmentation of palliative care as well as to evaluate whether it provides a conceptual framework that has incremental utility in palliative care planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alkenes are a fascinating functional class that can be converted into various structures. A desirable and durable synthetic method for forming two C−C bonds across an olefin is the dicarbofunctionalization of olefins, catalyzed by transition metals. This method enables a rapid expansion of molecular complexity in a single step. Among the myriad of efficient strategies for alkene difunctionalization, the 1,2‐diarylation mode stands out primarily due to its remarkable ability to incorporate two hindered aryl groups across the C=C bond in a versatile and straightforward manner. This review covers the recent advances in the 1,2‐diarylation of alkenes from 2018 to 2023, focusing on different transition metals employed as catalysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Virtue and Grace in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas" by Justin M. Anderson explores the relationship between virtue and grace in the theology of Thomas Aquinas. Anderson argues that contemporary virtue ethicists often overlook Aquinas's account of grace while admiring his account of virtues. He proposes a reading of Aquinas that emphasizes the inseparability of virtue and grace, and provides a diachronic and systematic analysis of Aquinas's reasoning. Anderson's work demonstrates that Aquinas's understanding of virtue is deeply rooted in theological concepts such as grace, sin, and divine providence. [Extracted from the article]

Motor stereotypies are common in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), intellectual disability, or sensory deprivation, as well as in typically developing children ("primary" stereotypies, pCMS). The precise pathophysiological mechanism for motor stereotypies is unknown, although genetic etiologies have been suggested. In this study, we perform whole-exome DNA sequencing in 129 parent-child trios with pCMS and 853 control trios (118 cases and 750 controls after quality control). We report an increased rate of de novo predicted-damaging DNA coding variants in pCMS versus controls, identifying KDM5B as a high-confidence risk gene and estimating 184 genes conferring risk. Genes harboring de novo damaging variants in pCMS probands show significant overlap with those in Tourette syndrome, ASD, and those in ASD probands with high versus low stereotypy scores. An exploratory analysis of these pCMS gene expression patterns finds clustering within the cortex and striatum during early mid-fetal development. Exploratory gene ontology and network analyses highlight functional convergence in calcium ion transport, demethylation, cell signaling, cell cycle and development. Continued sequencing of pCMS trios will identify additional risk genes and provide greater insights into biological mechanisms of stereotypies across diagnostic boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cirrhosis is associated with sarcopaenia and fat wasting, which drive decompensation and mortality. Currently, nutritional status, through body composition assessment, is not routinely monitored in outpatients. Given the deleterious outcomes associated with poor nutrition in decompensated cirrhosis, there is a need for remotely monitoring this to optimise community care. Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on patients monitored remotely with digital sensors post hospital discharge, to assess outcomes and indicators of new cirrhosis complications. 15 patients had daily fat mass measurements as part of monitoring over a median 10 weeks, using a Withing's bioimpedance scale. The Clinical Frailty Score (CFS) was used to assess frailty and several liver disease severity scores were assessed. Results: 73.3% (11/15) patients were male with a median age of 63 (52–68). There was a trend towards more severe liver disease based on CLIF-Consortium Acute Decompensation (CLIF-C AD) scores in frail patients vs. those not frail (53 vs 46, p = 0.072). When the cohort was split into patients who gained fat mass over 8 weeks vs. those that lost fat mass, the baseline CLIF-C AD scores and WBC were significantly higher in those that lost fat (58 vs 48, p = 0.048 and 11.2 × 109 vs 4.7 × 109, p = 0.031). Conclusions: This proof-of-principle study shows feasibility for remote monitoring of fat mass and nutritional reserve in decompensated cirrhosis. Our results suggest fat mass is associated with greater severity of acute decompensation and may serve as an indicator of systemic inflammatory response. Further prospective studies are required to validate this digital biomarker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metabolomics has a long history of using cosine similarity to match experimental tandem mass spectra to databases for compound identification. Here we introduce the Blur-and-Link (BLINK) approach for scoring cosine similarity. By bypassing fragment alignment and simultaneously scoring all pairs of spectra using sparse matrix operations, BLINK is over 3000 times faster than MatchMS, a widely used loop-based alignment and scoring implementation. Using a similarity cutoff of 0.7, BLINK and MatchMS had practically equivalent identification agreement, and greater than 99% of their scores and matching ion counts were identical. This performance improvement can enable calculations to be performed that would typically be limited by time and available computational resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ectonucleotidases CD39 and CD73 are present on immune cells and play important roles in cancer progression by suppressing antitumour immunity. As such, CD39 and CD73 on peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) are emerging as potential biomarkers to predict disease outcomes and treatment responses in cancer patients. This study aimed to examine T and B cells, including CD39 and CD73 expressing subsets, by flow cytometry in PBMCs from 28 patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) and to assess the correlation with the treatment modality, human papillomavirus (HPV) status, and relapse-free survival (RFS). The PBMCs were examined pre-, mid-, and post-radiotherapy with concurrent cisplatin chemotherapy or anti-epidermal growth factor receptor antibody (cetuximab) therapy. Combination radiotherapy caused changes to T and B cell populations, including CD39 and CD73 expressing subsets, but no such differences were observed between concurrent chemotherapy and cetuximab. Pretreatment PBMCs from HPV+ patients contained increased proportions of CD39−CD73−CD4+ T cells and reduced proportions of CD39−/+CD73+CD4+ T cells compared to the equivalent cells from HPV− patients. Notably, the pretreatment CD4+:CD8+ T cell ratios and CD39+CD73+CD19+ B cell proportions below the respective cohort medians corresponded with an improved RFS. Collectively, this study supports the notion that CD39 and CD73 may contribute to disease outcomes in HNSCC patients and may assist as biomarkers, either alone or as part of immune signatures, in HNSCC. Further studies of CD39 and CD73 on PBMCs from larger cohorts of HNSCC patients are warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the autonomous elliptical restricted three-body problem is used for obtaining Poincaré surface of sections in the photogravitational Sun–Saturn system. We have found the first-order exterior resonant orbits using the numerical technique of PSS and analysed the effects of eccentricity of the primaries' orbit, radiation pressure and Jacobi constant on locations, periods, eccentricities and semi-major axes of resonant periodic orbits. It is observed that these orbits surround both primaries for all values of eccentricity of the primaries' orbit and remain in the first-order exterior resonance with the Saturn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bismuth oxide nanoparticles with appropriate surface chemistry exhibit many interesting properties that can be utilized in a variety of applications. This paper describes a new route to the surface modification of bismuth oxide nanoparticles (Bi2O3 NPs) using functionalized beta-Cyclodextrin (β-CD) as a biocompatible system. The synthesis of Bi2O3 NP was done using PVA (poly vinyl alcohol) as the reductant and the Steglich esterification procedure for the functionalization of β-CD with biotin. Ultimately, the Bi2O3 NPs are modified using this functionalized β-CD system. The particle size of the synthesized Bi2O3 NPs is found to be in the range of 12–16 nm. The modified biocompatible systems were characterized using different characterization techniques such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) and Differential Scanning Calorimetric analysis (DSC). Additionally, the antibacterial and anticancerous effects of the surface-modified Bi2O3 NP system were also investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An understanding of the drivers of individual fitness is a fundamental component of evolutionary ecology and life‐history theory. Reproductive senescence, mate and mating tactic choice and latent heterogeneity in individual quality interact to affect individual fitness.We sought to disentangle the effects of these fitness drivers, where longitudinal data are required to understand their respective impacts.We used reproductive allocation and success data from a long‐term (1989–2018) study of white‐throated dippers Cinclus cinclus in Switzerland to simultaneously examine the effects of female and male age, mating tactic, nest initiation date and individual heterogeneity on reproductive performance.We modelled quadratic and categorical effects of age on reproductive parameters. The probability of polygyny increased with age in both sexes before declining in older age classes. Similarly, hatching probability in monogamous pairs and the number of nestlings hatched in both monogamous and polygynous pairs increased with female age before declining later in life. As predicted, offspring survival in monogamous pairs increased with male age before declining in older age classes, but male age had no effect on offspring survival in polygynous nesting attempts.Our results demonstrate that parental age, mating tactic and individual heterogeneity all affect reproductive success, and that the impacts of senescent decline are expressed across different demographic components as a function of sex‐specific senescent decline and mating tactic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Groundwater is an essential water source for millions of Americans, and it is invaluable for those in the western United States. It is stored in underground aquifers, geological formations of permeable rock and pore space, which lie under every state in the country. But states have no uniform standard for how they manage the withdrawal of groundwater, and even states with somewhat similar legal regimes for water use allow users to extract groundwater differently. These disparities create a resource-use environment that is ripe for conflict. An interstate groundwater dispute, however, had never been decided in the U.S. Supreme Court until November 2021. For the aquifer at issue in Mississippi v. Tennessee, the Court endorsed equitable apportionment—a legal doctrine that it had historically applied only to interstate surface water disputes—in a myopic decision. The doctrine is illsuited to emerging groundwater conflicts in the West not only because it is less feasible for a hard-to-measure resource like aquifers, but also because its emphasis on total consumption is unsustainable for the region’s arid future. The more suitable doctrine of interstate nuisance focuses on current use and works backward to determine how states can sustainably use a water resource while doing minimal harm to each other. Current and emerging conflicts in the West, including those involving the Snake Valley and Ogallala Aquifers, would benefit from the application of interstate nuisance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated the impact of differentiation of self as an emotion regulation strategy on work and family conflict, ministerial job satisfaction, and burnout for pastors. Specifically, does differentiation of self provide a psychological resource for pastors coping with the experience of burnout as emotional exhaustion, given the unique social context of the pastor's family and the role emotional labor has in causing burnout in social service professions? A unique aspect of the pastorate is the pastor's family's social context of living with the congregation. Due to this unique social context, work and family conflict were investigated as predictors of pastoral burnout. A sample of pastors (N = 164) was surveyed to investigate the impact of differentiation and job satisfaction on personal and work-related burnout. Findings suggest that differentiation of self provides a resource against the personal experience of burnout, while ministerial job satisfaction buffers pastors against work-related burnout. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the environmental mechanisms that govern population change is a fundamental objective in ecology. Although the determination of how top‐down and bottom‐up drivers affect demography is important, it is often equally critical to understand the extent to which, environmental conditions that underpin these drivers fluctuate across time. For example, associations between climate and both food availability and predation risk may suggest the presence of trophic interactions that may influence inferences made from patterns in ecological data. Analytical tools have been developed to account for these correlations, while providing opportunities to ask novel questions regarding how populations change across space and time. Here, we combine two modeling disciplines—path analysis and mark‐recapture‐recovery models—to explore whether shifts in sea‐surface temperatures (SSTs) influenced top‐down (entanglement in fishing equipment) or bottom‐up (forage fish production) population constraints over 60 years, and the extent to which these covarying processes shaped the survival of a long‐lived seabird, the Royal tern. We found that hemispheric trends in SST were associated with variation in the amount of fish harvested along the Atlantic coast of North America and in the Caribbean, whereas reductions in forage fish production were mostly driven by shifts in the amount of fish harvested by commercial fisheries throughout the North Atlantic the year prior. Although the indirect (i.e., stock depletion) and direct (i.e., entanglement) impacts of commercial fishing on Royal tern mortality has declined over the last 60 years, increased SSTs during this time period has resulted in a comparable increase in mortality risk, which disproportionately impacted the survival of the youngest age‐classes of Royal terns. Given climate projections for the North Atlantic, our results indicate that threats to Royal tern population persistence in the Mid‐Atlantic will most likely be driven by failures to recruit juveniles into the breeding population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies have indicated that people are attracted to partners who resemble themselves or their parents, in terms of physical traits including eye color. We might anticipate this inclination to be relatively stable, giving rise to a sequential selection of similar partners who then represent an individual's "type". We tested this idea by examining whether people's sequential partners resembled each other at the level of eye color. We gathered details of the eye colors of the partners of participants (N = 579) across their adult romantic history (N = 3250 relationships), in three samples, comprising two samples which made use of self-reports from predominantly UK-based participants, and one which made use of publicly available information about celebrity relationship histories. Recorded partner eye colors comprised black (N = 39 partners), dark brown (N = 884), light brown (N = 393), hazel (N = 224), blue (N = 936), blue green (N = 245), grey (N = 34), and green (N = 229). We calculated the proportion of identical eye colors within each participant's relationship history, and compared that to 100,000 random permutations of our dataset, using t-tests to investigate if the eye color of partners across an individual's relationship history was biased relative to chance (i.e., if there was greater consistency, represented by higher calculated proportions of identical eye colors, in the original dataset than in the permutations). To account for possible eye color reporting errors and ethnic group matching, we ran the analyses restricted to White participants and to high-confidence eye color data; we then ran the analyses again in relation to the complete dataset. We found some limited evidence for some consistency of eye color across people's relationship histories in some of the samples only when using the complete dataset. We discuss the issues of small effect sizes, partner-report bias, and ethnic group matching in investigating partner consistency across time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cardiovascular disease (CVD), including elevated blood pressure (BP), is known to promote Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk. Although brain amyloid load is a recognized hallmark of pre-symptomatic AD, its relationship to increased BP is less known. The objective of this study was to examine the relationship of BP to brain estimates of amyloid-β (Aβ) and standard uptake ratio (SUVr). We hypothesized that increased BP is associated with increased SUVr. Methods: Using data from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), we stratified BP according to the Seventh Joint National Committee (JNC) on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure Classification (JNC VII). Florbetapir (AV-45) SUVr was derived from the averaged frontal, anterior cingulate, precuneus, and parietal cortex relative to the cerebellum. A linear mixed-effects model enabled the elucidation of amyloid SUVr relationships to BP. The model discounted the effects of demographics, biologics, and diagnosis at baseline within APOE genotype groups. The least squares means procedure was used to estimate the fixed-effect means. All analyses were performed using the Statistical Analysis System (SAS). Results: In non-ɛ4 carrier MCI subjects, escalating JNC categories of BP was associated with increasing mean SUVr using JNC-4 as a reference point (low-normal (JNC1) p = 0.018; normal (JNC-1) p = 0.039; JNC-2 p = 0.018 and JNC-3 p = 0.04). A significantly higher brain SUVr was associated with increasing BP despite adjustment for demographics and biological variables in non-ɛ4 carriers but not in ɛ4-carriers. This observation supports the view that CVD risk may promote increased brain amyloid load, and potentially, amyloid-mediated cognitive decline. Conclusion: Increasing levels of JNC classification of BP is dynamically associated with significant changes in brain amyloid burden in non-ɛ4 carriers but not in ɛ4-carrier MCI subjects. Though not statistically significant, amyloid burden tended to decrease with increasing BP in ɛ4 homozygote, perhaps motivated by increased vascular resistance and the need for higher brain perfusion pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: High levels of loneliness are associated with negative health outcomes and there are several different types of interventions targeted at reducing feelings of loneliness. It is therefore important to accurately measure loneliness. A key unresolved debate in the conceptualisation and measurement of loneliness is whether it has a unidimensional or multidimensional structure. The aim of this study was to examine the dimensional structure of the widely used UCLA Loneliness Scale and establish whether this factorial structure is equivalent in men and women. Methods and sample: Two online UK-based samples were recruited using Prolific. The participants in Study 1 were 492 adults, selected to be nationally representative by age and gender, whilst the participants in Study 2 were 290 older adults aged over 64. In both studies, participants completed the UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3) as part of a larger project. Results: In both studies, the best fitting model was one with three factors corresponding to 'Isolation,' 'Relational Connectedness,' and 'Collective Connectedness.' A unidimensional single factor model was a substantially worse fit in both studies. In both studies, there were no meaningful differences between men and women in any of the three factors, suggesting measurement invariance across genders. Conclusion: These results are consistent with previous research in supporting a multidimensional, three factor structure to the UCLA scale, rather than a unidimensional structure. Further, the measurement invariance across genders suggests that the UCLA scale can be used to compare levels of loneliness across men and women. Overall the results suggest that loneliness has different facets and thus future research should consider treating the UCLA loneliness scale as a multidimensional scale, or using other scales which are designed to measure the different aspects of loneliness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Harvest of wild organisms is an important component of human culture, economy, and recreation, but can also put species at risk of extinction. Decisions that guide successful management actions therefore rely on the ability of researchers to link changes in demographic processes to the anthropogenic actions or environmental changes that underlie variation in demographic parameters.Ecologists often use population models or maximum sustained yield curves to estimate the impacts of harvest on wildlife and fish populations. Applications of these models usually focus exclusively on the impact of harvest and often fail to consider adequately other potential, often collinear, mechanistic drivers of the observed relationships between harvest and demographic rates. In this study, we used an integrated population model and long‐term data (1973–2016) to examine the relationships among hunting and natural mortality, the number of hunters, habitat conditions, and population size of blue‐winged teal Spatula discors, an abundant North American dabbling duck with a relatively fast‐paced life history strategy.Over the last two and a half decades of the study, teal abundance tripled, hunting mortality probability increased slightly (<0.02), and natural mortality probability increased substantially (>0.1) at greater population densities. We demonstrate strong density‐dependent effects on natural mortality and fecundity as population density increased, indicative of compensatory harvest mortality and compensatory natality. Critically, an analysis that only assessed the relationship between survival and hunting mortality would spuriously indicate depensatory mortality due to multicollinearity between abundance, natural mortality and hunting mortality.Our findings demonstrate that models that only consider the direct effect of hunting on survival or natural mortality can fail to accurately assess the mechanistic impact of hunting on population dynamics due to multicollinearity among demographic drivers. This multicollinearity limits inference and may have strong impacts on applied management actions globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measures of student satisfaction are commonly used to compare universities. Student satisfaction with higher education institutions in the UK is assessed yearly using the National Student Survey (NSS). The most recent revision of the NSS suggests that the satisfaction questions form eight different subscales. The aim of this research was to empirically test whether the NSS questions form eight separate subscales. We used the public data from the NSS from 2019 and clustering methods to examine the structure of the data. We tested the structure of the NSS questions when the data was analysed as a whole (i.e. at the 'top' national level across all universities and courses). We also assessed the clustering of data for 78 course subjects separately to see the most frequent number of clusters across courses (i.e. at the 'bottom' individual course level). At the top (national) level, we found a four cluster or two cluster solution (when excluding both an item on the student union and a general satisfaction item), rather than an eight cluster solution. At the bottom (course) level, the most common cluster solution was two clusters, but with considerable variation, ranging from one to eight clusters. Our findings thus suggest that there is considerable variation in the structure of the NSS and that this variation can depend on analytical level (top national level vs. bottom course level). We review the implications of differing cluster structures for how the NSS is used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the framework of Elliptical Restricted Three-Body Problem (ERTBP), we consider the equations of motion of an infinitesimal body in dimensionless synodic coordinate system with eccentric anomaly as an independent variable to obtain halo orbits around Sun–Mars collinear Lagrangian points L 1 , L 2 , and L 3 . The analytical Lindstedt–Poincaré method of up to third-order approximation is used to obtain a first guess for planar Lyapunov and three-dimensional halo orbits. Differential correction (DC) and natural parameter continuation techniques are used to obtain bifurcation from Lyapunov to halo orbits and to study the stability of halo orbits. The effects of radiation pressure on various parameters of halo orbits around all three collinear Lagrangian points are studied. Also, halo orbits and their parameters obtained in the framework of Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem (CRTBP) and Elliptical Restricted Three-Body Problem (ERTBP) are compared graphically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The estimation of demographic parameters is a key component of evolutionary demography and conservation biology. Capture–mark–recapture methods have served as a fundamental tool for estimating demographic parameters. The accurate estimation of demographic parameters in capture–mark–recapture studies depends on accurate modeling of the observation process. Classic capture–mark–recapture models typically model the observation process as a Bernoulli or categorical trial with detection probability conditional on a marked individual's availability for detection (e.g., alive, or alive and present in a study area). Alternatives to this approach are underused, but may have great utility in capture–recapture studies. In this paper, we explore a simple concept: in the same way that counts contain more information about abundance than simple detection/non‐detection data, the number of encounters of individuals during observation occasions contains more information about the observation process than detection/non‐detection data for individuals during the same occasion. Rather than using Bernoulli or categorical distributions to estimate detection probability, we demonstrate the application of zero‐inflated Poisson and gamma‐Poisson distributions. The use of count distributions allows for inference on availability for encounter, as well as a wide variety of parameterizations for heterogeneity in the observation process. We demonstrate that this approach can accurately recover demographic and observation parameters in the presence of individual heterogeneity in detection probability and discuss some potential future extensions of this method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clostridium (Clostridioides) difficile infection (CDI) remains an urgent threat to patients in health systems worldwide. Recurrent CDI occurs in up to 30% of cases due to sustained dysbiosis of the gut microbiota which normally protects against CDI. Associated costs of initial and recurrent episodes of CDI impose heavy financial burdens on health systems. Vancomycin and metronidazole have been the mainstay of therapy for CDI for many years; however, these agents continue to cause significant disruption to the gut microbiota and thus carry a high risk of recurrence for CDI patients. Treatment regimens are now turning towards novel narrow spectrum antimicrobial agents which target C. difficile while conserving the commensal gut microbiota, thus significantly reducing risk of recurrence. One such agent, fidaxomicin, has been in therapeutic use for several years and is now recommended as a first‐line treatment for CDI, as it is superior to vancomycin in reducing risk of recurrence. Another narrow spectrum agent, ridnilazole, was recently developed and is undergoing evaluation of its potential clinical utility. This review aimed to summarize experimental reports of ridinilazole and assess its potential as a first‐line agent for treatment of CDI. Reported results from in vitro assessments, and from hamster models of CDI, show potent activity against C. difficile, non‐inferiority to vancomycin for clinical cure and non‐susceptibility among most gut commensal bacteria. Phase I and II clinical trials have been completed with ridinilazole showing high tolerability and efficacy in treatment of CDI, and superiority over vancomycin in reducing recurrence of CDI within 30 days of treatment completion. Phase III trials are currently underway, the results of which may prove its potential to reduce recurrent CDI and lessen the heavy health and financial burden C. difficile imposes on patients and healthcare systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The management of sustainable harvest of animal populations is of great ecological and conservation importance. Development of formal quantitative tools to estimate and mitigate the impacts of harvest on animal populations has positively impacted conservation efforts.The vast majority of existing harvest models, however, do not simultaneously estimate ecological and harvest impacts on demographic parameters and population trends. Given that the impacts of ecological drivers are often equal to or greater than the effects of harvest, and can covary with harvest, this disconnect has the potential to lead to flawed inference.In this study, we used Bayesian hierarchical models and a 43‐year capture–mark–recovery dataset from 404,241 female mallards Anas platyrhynchos released in the North American midcontinent to estimate mallard demographic parameters. Furthermore, we model the dynamics of waterfowl hunters and habitat, and the direct and indirect effects of anthropogenic and ecological processes on mallard demographic parameters.We demonstrate that density dependence, habitat conditions and harvest can simultaneously impact demographic parameters of female mallards, and discuss implications for existing and future harvest management models.Our results demonstrate the importance of controlling for multicollinearity among demographic drivers in harvest management models, and provide evidence for multiple mechanisms that lead to partial compensation of mallard harvest. We provide a novel model structure to assess these relationships that may allow for improved inference and prediction in future iterations of harvest management models across taxa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the importance of green‐winged teal (Anas crecca) as a harvested species in North America, recent information on variation in vital rates among regions is lacking. We used band recovery data and hierarchical autoregressive models to examine temporal and age‐sex‐class variation in survival, hunting mortality, and nonhunting mortality probabilities of green‐winged teal banded at Kgun Lake on the Yukon‐Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska, USA, from 1997–2019. We used data from 10,554 adult and juvenile green‐winged teal of known sex and age banded and released at Kgun Lake, and 1,245 hunter recoveries. Estimates of annual survival probability for adult females and males ranged from 0.44 (95% CI = 0.29–0.54) to 0.49 (95% CI = 0.37–0.68) and 0.56 (95% CI = 0.50–0.61) to 0.58 (95% CI = 0.50–0.64), respectively, during our study period. Estimates of annual survival probability for juvenile females and males ranged from 0.36 (95% CI = 0.18–0.56) to 0.46 (95% CI = 0.31–0.71) and 0.51 (95% CI = 0.38–0.61) to 0.56 (95% CI = 0.44–0.71), respectively. Hunting mortality probability was greatest for juvenile males and least for adult females. Hunting mortality probability of juvenile males increased from 0.09 (95% CI = 0.05–0.13) in 1997 to 0.14 (95% CI = 0.11–0.18) in 2015. Nonhunting mortality probability was greater and more variable than hunting mortality probability for all age‐sex classes, indicating nonhunting mortality contributed most to total mortality of green‐winged teal banded at Kgun Lake during our study. Additionally, survival probability of female green‐winged teal banded at Kgun Lake is less than published estimates for green‐winged teal banded in the boreal forest of Alaska. We recommend continuing consistent banding operations for green‐winged teal on the Yukon‐Kuskokwim Delta and other important breeding areas to further understand factors influencing nonhunting mortality and how they may vary seasonally and geographically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study examined the relationship between a broad variety of stressors, resources, and outcomes to identify targets of intervention to enhance the quality of life of cancer patients and contribute to a comprehensive model of cancer care. Methods: Five hundred and sixty persons with a diagnosis of cancer completed measures of stressors (past negative life events, current problems, current symptoms, comorbidities), resources (coping self‐efficacy, social support, satisfaction with care) and outcomes (emotional and functional well‐being). Results: Multivariate canonical correlations between pairs of canonical variates (stressors‐outcomes, Rc = 0.56; stressors‐resources, Rc = 0.42, resources‐outcomes Rc = 0.66) were significant (all ps < 0.0001), which confirmed the relationship between those components and supported proceeding to more granular levels of analysis. More refined analyses revealed that the most critical variables in relation to outcomes (i.e., emotional and functional well‐being), were current problems and symptoms among the stressors and coping self‐efficacy, social support and patient satisfaction among the resources. Conclusions: This study provided an approach to the discernment of the most critical aspects of interventions that may improve supportive care and quality of life outcomes. Thus, efforts to address current problems (e.g., financial, home life, work), as well as effective management of symptoms (e.g., pain, fatigue, sleep), using the coordinated integration of medical care, support services and psycho‐social interventions would provide the greatest impact on quality‐of‐life outcomes. Interventions that focus on problem solving and reinforce patient agency and activation may be most effective in sustaining quality of life outcomes into survivorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the relational ontology as a corrective to the truncated rationality of modernity. It further discusses learning and the development of new knowledge; disciplinary fragmentation particularly those from a Catholic-Christian faith background; Catholic theologian Romano Guardini writes on technological mind; involvement of Catholics and Christians in higher education and fragmentary conception of knowledge; and importance of the discipline Catholic institutions.

[Display omitted] • Biocompatible system was developed by the surface-modification of TiO 2 NPs with fluorescently modified betadex. • In vitro cytotoxic studies and cell viability of system was examined. • photocatalytic antimicrobial studies were executed against bacterial & fungal strains under UV light. In recent years, the rapid advancements in nanotechnology have spurred extensive research into the synthesis and modification of metal oxide nanoparticles, paving the way for their application across a wide spectrum of fields due to their unique properties and versatile surface characteristics. In the present study offers a thorough investigation into the synthesis, characterization, and application of a titanium dioxide (TD) based nano system with a surface architecture, that incorporates desirable features such as biocompatibility, thermal stability, photoluminescence, anticancer, and antimicrobial activity. Fluorescently modified macromolecules such as betadex were utilized for the surface integration to improve the surface characteristics of TD NPs. The developed nano system exhibited no harmful effects on non-pathogenic rat splenic cells, while displaying selective toxicity towards Dalton's lymphoma cells. Furthermore, the photocatalytic antimicrobial activity of this innovative system was assessed against various pathogenic species under UV light exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Single nuclei RNA sequencing (snRNA-seq) has evolved as a powerful tool to study complex human diseases. Single cell resolution enables the study of novel cell types, biological processes, cell trajectories, and cell–cell signaling pathways. snRNA-seq largely relies on the dissociation of intact nuclei from human tissues. However, the study of complex tissues using small core biopsies presents many technical challenges. Here, an optimized protocol for single nuclei isolation is presented for frozen and RNAlater preserved human kidney biopsies. The described protocol is fast, low cost, and time effective due to the elimination of cell sorting and ultra-centrifugation. Samples can be processed in 90 min or less. This method is effective for obtaining normal nuclei morphology without signs of structural damage. Using snRNA-seq, 16 distinct kidney cell clusters were recovered from normal and peri-transplant acute kidney injury allograft samples, including immune cell clusters. Quality control measurements demonstrated that these optimizations eliminated cellular debris and allowed for a high yield of high-quality nuclei and RNA for library preparation and sequencing. Cellular disassociation did not induce cellular stress responses, which recapitulated transcriptional patterns associated with standardized methods of nuclei isolation. Future applications of this protocol will allow for thorough investigations of small biobank biopsies, identifying cell-specific injury pathways and driving the discovery of novel diagnostics and therapeutic targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population growth and fitness are typically most sensitive to adult survival in long‐lived species, but variation in recruitment often explains most of the variation in fitness, as past selection has canalized adult survival. Estimating juvenile survival until age of independence has proven challenging, because marking individuals in this age class may directly affect survival. For Greater Sage‐grouse, uniquely marking juveniles in the first days of life likely results in adverse effects to survival, detection of juveniles is not perfect, and females adopt juveniles from other parents. These challenges are encountered by researchers studying avian and mammalian species with similar life histories, yet methods do not exist that explicitly estimate all these components of the recruitment process. We propose a novel data collection method and demographic model to simultaneously estimate rates of detection, survival, and adoption of juvenile individuals. Using multiple cameras to film the beginning of juvenile activity on specific days, we obtained counts of juveniles associated with marked females. Increases of juveniles to broods provided information that enabled us to estimate rates of adoption that can be applied at the population level. Losses from broods informed apparent survival. These losses could be attributed to death, or they could be chicks that were adopted by other females. We found evidence that apparent survival of juveniles was influenced by localized weather patterns when chicks were young. Similarly, we found that young chicks were more susceptible to the adverse effect of attending females being flushed by an observer. Both of these patterns diminished quickly as chicks aged. We provide the first‐ever estimates of interval‐specific adoption rates. Our results suggest that researchers should be cautious when designing studies to estimate juvenile survival. More importantly, they provide insight into adoption, a behavior that has been known to exist for decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors comment on a study by Ellen Fox and colleagues which described healthcare ethics practices in the U.S. Topics discussed include finding on most healthcare ethics consultation services (HCECs), types of HCECs described by Fox and colleagues in the surveyed population, and ways HCECs might be said to be missing the mark.

Over the last three years, the rates of all the main nuclear reactions involving the destruction and production of 26Al in stars (26Al(n, p)26Mg, 26Al(n, α)23Na, 26Al(p, γ)27Si and 25Mg(p, γ)26Al) have been re-evaluated thanks to new high-precision experimental measurements of their crosssections at energies of astrophysical interest, considerably reducing the uncertainties in the nuclear physics affecting their nucleosynthesis. We computed the nucleosynthetic yields ejected by the explosion of a high-mass star (20 M⊙, Z = 0.0134) using the FRANEC stellar code, considering two explosion energies, 1.2 × 1051 erg and 3 × 1051 erg. We quantify the change in the ejected amount of 26Al and other key species that is predicted when the new rate selection is adopted instead of the reaction rates from the STARLIB nuclear library. Additionally, the ratio of our ejected yields of 26Al to those of 14 other short-lived radionuclides (36Cl, 41Ca, 53Mn, 60Fe, 92Nb, 97Tc, 98Tc, 107Pd, 126Sn, 129I, 36Cs, 146Sm, 182Hf, 205Pb) are compared to early solar system isotopic ratios, inferred from meteorite measurements. The total ejected 26Al yields vary by a factor of ~3 when adopting the new rates or the STARLIB rates. Additionally, the new nuclear reaction rates also impact the predicted abundances of short-lived radionuclides in the early solar system relative to 26Al. However, it is not possible to reproduce all the short-lived radionuclide isotopic ratios with our massive star model alone, unless a second stellar source could be invoked, which must have been active in polluting the pristine solar nebula at a similar time of a core-collapse supernova. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Short-lived radioactive isotopes (SLRs) with half-lives between 0.1 and 100 Myr can be used to probe the origin of the Solar system. In this work, we examine the core-collapse supernovae production of the 15 SLRs produced: 26Al, 36Cl, 41Ca, 53Mn, 60Fe, 92Nb, 97Tc, 98Tc, 107Pd, 126Sn, 129I, 135Cs, 146Sm, 182Hf, and 205Pb. We probe the impact of the uncertainties of the core-collapse explosion mechanism by examining a collection of 62 core-collapse models with initial masses of 15, 20, and 25 M⊙, explosion energies between 3.4 × 1050 and 1.8 × 1052 erg and compact remnant masses between 1.5 and 4.89 M⊙. We identify the impact of both explosion energy and remnant mass on the final yields of the SLRs. Isotopes produced within the innermost regions of the star, such as 92Nb and 97Tc, are the most affected by the remnant mass, 92Nb varying by five orders of magnitude. Isotopes synthesized primarily in explosive C-burning and explosive He-burning, such as 60Fe, are most affected by explosion energies. 60Fe increases by two orders of magnitude from the lowest to the highest explosion energy in the 15 M⊙ model. The final yield of each examined SLR is used to compare to literature models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which reveals digital repression of social movements, protest, and activism. It mentions that rise of digital and social media has brought substantial increases in attention to the repression of digital activists and movements and/or to the use of digital tools in repression, which is spread across many disciplines and areas of study.

As global systems rapidly change, our collective ability to predict future ecological dynamics will become increasingly important for successful natural resource management. By merging stakeholder objectives with system uncertainty, and by adapting actions to changing systems and knowledge, adaptive resource management (ARM) provides a rigorous platform for making sound decisions in a changing world. Critically, however, applications of ARM could be improved by employing benchmarks (i.e., points of reference) for determining when learning is occurring through the cycle of monitoring, modeling, and decision‐making steps in ARM. Many applications of ARM use multiple model‐based hypotheses to identify and reduce systematic uncertainty over time, but generally lack benchmarks for gauging discovery of scientific evidence and learning. This creates the danger of thinking that directional changes in model weights or rankings are indicative of evidence for hypotheses, when possibly all competing models are inadequate. There is thus a somewhat obvious, but yet to be filled niche for including benchmarks for learning in ARM. We contend that carefully designed "ecological null models," which are structured to produce an expected ecological pattern in the absence of a hypothesized mechanism, can serve as suitable benchmarks. Using a classic case study of mallard harvest management that is often used to demonstrate the successes of ARM for learning about ecological mechanisms, we show that simple ecological null models, such as population persistence (Nt+1 = Nt), provide more robust near‐term forecasts of population abundance than the currently used mechanistic models. More broadly, ecological null models can be used as benchmarks for learning in ARM that trigger the need for discarding model parameterizations and developing new ones when prevailing models underperform the ecological null model. Identifying mechanistic models that surpass these benchmarks will improve learning through ARM and help decision‐makers keep pace with a rapidly changing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Incels (Involuntary celibates) are men who consider their lack of a sexual or romantic relationship key to their identity. We are continuing to learn about the low levels of wellbeing that exist amongst incels; the extent to which they differ in this respect from the general population and whether scales commonly used for psychological well-being can be used for this group. Using a sample of 72 incels and 72 controls from the 'open psychometrics' dataset, matched for age and nationality, we examined the structure of a commonly used measure for Depression, Anxiety and Stress (DASS) using Structural Equation Modelling and independent samples t -tests. We investigate if incels differ from a control group with regard to their mental health. Our analyses supported residual invariance, suggesting we could compare the groups. Incels were found to score higher on depression than controls, but the two groups did not significantly differ on reported anxiety and stress. We call for further work on incels, especially where clinically relevant measures are used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2-Cyclopentenone and its derivatives are highly esteemed synthetic intermediates in the realm of organic synthesis, showcasing their exceptional utility. Moreover, these compounds are favored structural motifs in numerous pharmaceutical drugs and natural products, further highlighting their significance. The advancement and discovery of effective methods to achieve these significant compounds have thus received a considerable amount of attention. An overview of the various methods that have been used to synthesize cyclopentenones is discussed in this review, which covers works from 2016 to 2023. 2-Cyclopentenone and its derivatives serve as valuable synthetic intermediates in organic synthesis as well as preferred structural motifs in many pharmaceutical drugs and natural products. The advancement and discovery of effective methods to achieve these significant compounds have thus received a considerable amount of attention. An overview of the various methods that have been used to synthesize cyclopentenones is discussed in this review, which covers works from 2016 to 2023. [Display omitted] • An overview of the various methods that have been used to synthesize cyclopentenones is discussed in this review, which covers works from 2016 to 2023. • 2-Cyclopentenone and its derivatives are widely recognized as valuable synthetic intermediates in the field of organic synthesis, demonstrating their remarkable usefulness. • The emergence of revolutionary transition-metal catalysis, organocatalysis, and Nazarov cyclization has expanded the range of synthetic methodologies, enabling the construction of complex cyclopentenone-containing compounds with remarkable regio- and stereochemical accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• WTe 2 thin films grown on sapphire by Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition MOCVD. • Diethyl tellurium (DETe) and tungsten hexacarbonyl (W(CO) 6) precursors. • 1 T' phase WTe 2 forms in temperature window between 350 and 500 °C. • Carbon deposition from DETe dominates at higher growth temperatures and pressures. • Nanocrystalline films are largely c-axis oriented with additional twist and tilt. The growth of tungsten ditelluride (WTe 2) thin films on c-plane sapphire substrates was demonstrated by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) using tungsten hexacarbonyl (W(CO) 6) and diethyltelluride (DETe) as precursors for W and Te, respectively, in a H 2 carrier gas. The effects of substrate temperature, reactor pressure, precursor and carrier gas flow rates, and chalcogen-to-metal ratio on the WTe 2 growth rate and film properties were determined. Substrate temperatures less than 500 °C were required to deposit WTe 2 which was found to be beneficial to suppress simultaneous carbon deposition from the DETe precursor. The films exhibited a fine-grained morphology independent of growth temperature. The layered crystalline 1 T' phase of WTe 2 was confirmed using high resolution X-ray diffraction (HRXRD) and cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) which revealed that the films were predominantly c-axis oriented with in-plane twist. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) demonstrated that the WTe 2 films were stable in air for a few days but eventually exhibited oxidation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The estimation of abundance and distribution and factors governing patterns in these parameters is central to the field of ecology. The continued development of hierarchical models that best utilize available information to inform these processes is a key goal of quantitative ecologists. However, much remains to be learned about simultaneously modeling true abundance, presence, and trajectories of ecological communities.Simultaneous modeling of the population dynamics of multiple species provides an interesting mechanism to examine patterns in community processes and, as we emphasize herein, to improve species‐specific estimates by leveraging detection information among species. Here, we demonstrate a simple but effective approach to share information about observation parameters among species in hierarchical community abundance and occupancy models, where we use shared random effects among species to account for spatiotemporal heterogeneity in detection probability.We demonstrate the efficacy of our modeling approach using simulated abundance data, where we recover well our simulated parameters using N‐mixture models. Our approach substantially increases precision in estimates of abundance compared with models that do not share detection information among species. We then expand this model and apply it to repeated detection/non‐detection data collected on six species of tits (Paridae) breeding at 119 1 km2 sampling sites across a P. montanus hybrid zone in northern Switzerland (2004–2020). We find strong impacts of forest cover and elevation on population persistence and colonization in all species. We also demonstrate evidence for interspecific competition on population persistence and colonization probabilities, where the presence of marsh tits reduces population persistence and colonization probability of sympatric willow tits, potentially decreasing gene flow among willow tit subspecies.While conceptually simple, our results have important implications for the future modeling of population abundance, colonization, persistence, and trajectories in community frameworks. We suggest potential extensions of our modeling in this paper and discuss how leveraging data from multiple species can improve model performance and sharpen ecological inference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Laurentide Ice Sheet (LIS) was the largest ice sheet during the last glacial period. An accurate representation of its behavior during the last deglaciation is critical to understanding its influence on and response to a changing climate. We use 10Be dating and Bayesian modeling to track the recession of the southwest sector of the Labrador Dome of the LIS along an ~500-km-long transect west of Lake Superior during the last deglaciation. This transect reflects terrestrial ice-margin retreat and crosses multiple moraine sets, with the southwestern part of the transect deglaciated by ca. 19 ka and the northeastern part deglaciated by ca. 10 ka. The predominant behavior of the ice margin during this interval is near-constant retreat with retreat rates varying between ~59 m/a and 38 m/a. The moraine sets mark standstills and/or readvances that in total constitute only ~17% of the retreat interval. The spatial and temporal pattern of ice-margin retreat tracked here differs from existing reconstructions that are based on using isochrons to define ice-margin positions. Acknowledging the uncertainties associated with the modeled ages of ice-margin retreat, we suggest that the overall retreat pattern is consistent with forcing by a gradual increase in Northern Hemisphere, high-latitude summer insolation. The pattern of ice-margin retreat is inconsistent with Greenland ice-core temperature records, and thus these records may not be suitable to drive models of the LIS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Videos often contain subtle motions and color variations that cannot be easily observed. Examples include, for instance, head motion and changes in skin face color due to blood flow controlled by the heart pumping rhythm. A few techniques have been developed to magnify these subtle signals. However, previous techniques were targeted specifically towards magnification of either motion or color variations. Trying to magnify both aspects applying two of these techniques in sequence does not produce good results. We present a method for magnifying subtle motions and color variations in videos, which can be performed either separately or simultaneously. Our approach is based on the Riesz pyramid, which was previously used only for motion magnification. Besides modifying the local phases of the coefficients of this pyramid, we show how altering its local amplitudes and its residue can be used to magnify intensity/color variations. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our technique in multiple videos by magnifying both subtle motion and color variations simultaneously. [Display omitted] • Technique can be applied to multiple signals defined at different frequency bands. • Color magnification by scaling amplitude coefficients and residues of Riesz Pyramids. • A chrominance-based masking technique for defining regions for signal magnification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subgenual (sgACC) and perigenual (pgACC) anterior cingulate are important afferents of the amygdala, with different cytoarchitecture, connectivity, and function. The sgACC is associated with arousal mechanisms linked to salient cues, whereas the pgACC is engaged in conflict decision-making, including in social contexts. After placing same-size, small volume tracer injections into sgACC and pgACC of the same hemisphere in male macaques, we examined anterogradely labeled fiber distribution to understand how these different functional systems communicate in the main amygdala nuclei at both mesocopic and cellular levels. The sgACC has broad-based termination patterns. In contrast, the pgACC has a more restricted pattern, which was always nested in sgACC terminals. Terminal overlap occurred in subregions of the accessory basal and basal nuclei, which we termed "hotspots." In triple-labeling confocal studies, the majority of randomly selected CaMKIIa-positive cells (putative amygdala glutamatergic neurons) in hotspots received dual contacts from the sgACC and pgACC. The ratio of dual contacts occurred over a surprisingly narrow range, suggesting a consistent, tight balance of afferent contacts on postsynaptic neurons. Large boutons, which are associated with greater synaptic strength, were; 3 times more frequent on sgACC versus pgACC axon terminals in hotspots, consistent with a fast "driver" function. Together, the results reveal a nested interaction in which pgACC ("conflict/social monitoring") terminals converge with the broader sgACC ("salience") terminals at both the mesoscopic and cellular level. The presynaptic organization in hotspots suggests that shifts in arousal states can rapidly and flexibly influence decision-making functions in the amygdala. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heterogeneity in the intrinsic quality and nutritional condition of individuals affects reproductive success and consequently fitness. Black brant (Branta bernicla nigricans) are long‐lived, migratory, specialist herbivores. Long migratory pathways and short summer breeding seasons constrain the time and energy available for reproduction, thus magnifying life‐history trade‐offs. These constraints, combined with long lifespans and trade‐offs between current and future reproductive value, provide a model system to examine the role of individual heterogeneity in driving life‐history strategies and individual heterogeneity in fitness. We used hierarchical Bayesian models to examine reproductive trade‐offs, modeling the relationships between within‐year measures of reproductive energy allocation and among‐year demographic rates of individual females breeding on the Yukon‐Kuskokwim Delta, Alaska, using capture–recapture and reproductive data from 1988 to 2014. We generally found that annual survival tended to be buffered against variation in reproductive investment, while breeding probability varied considerably over the range of clutch size‐laying date combinations. We provide evidence for relationships between breeding probability and clutch size, breeding probability and nest initiation date, and an interaction between clutch size and initiation date. Average lifetime clutch size also had a weak positive relationship with apparent survival probability. Our results support the use of demographic buffering strategies for black brant. These results also indirectly suggest associations among environmental conditions during growth, fitness, and energy allocation, highlighting the effects of early growth conditions on individual heterogeneity, and subsequently, lifetime reproductive investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hope has been a topic of interest across many centuries and among diverse cultures, gaining particular relevance in crisis and change-seeking times. Research has shown that hope plays an important role in both the context of everyday life as well as in the context of illness. This paper presents an integrative theory of hope, which incorporates uncertainty and control as key drivers of the hope process and also includes appraisal and meaning.Discussion: This new hope theory states that hope emerges when a specific situation is appraised as uncertain and involves the discernment of the utility of primary and secondary control. For example, in the context of high uncertainty and low control, importance is given to the meaning-making and transcendence in maintaining hope. In the context of low uncertainty and high control, importance is given to the agency and self-efficacy components of hope.Conclusions: Although this integrative theory is based on current theory and evidence, it awaits empirical evidence for the integration of hope, uncertainty, and control in a process-oriented model of hope. The integrative theory may have clinical utility, particularly for serious illness and palliative care where uncertainty, hope and control transform with the trajectory of the illness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clostridioides difficile is a prominent cause of health care-related gastrointestinal illness in adults. C. difficile infection (CDI) has been researched for over 40 years; however, research on pediatric CDI specifically has lagged behind for various reasons. Over the past decade, C. difficile has been increasingly reported as a cause of a broad spectrum of gastrointestinal diseases in children, ranging from mild self-limiting diarrhea to severe conditions such as pseudomembranous colitis and toxic megacolon. Recent publications have shown a rise in CDI incidence in children in different parts of the world, especially in patients with particular comorbidities such as hematological malignancies and inflammatory bowel disease. In addition, rising CDI rates have been reported in children in the community without traditional risk factors for CDI. Due to the extensive use of sensitive molecular detection methods to diagnose CDI in many countries, differentiating children who require treatment from those colonized with toxigenic strains remains a problem. Consequently, the molecular epidemiology of pediatric CDI is poorly understood. Even though well-known C. difficile strains causing CDI in children have been described (including hypervirulent strains such as ribotypes 027 and 078), there is a paucity of information about specific C. difficile strains. This mini-review summarizes the information that is currently available on the molecular epidemiology of CDI in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]