Modeling of drinking and driving behaviors among adolescents and young adults in the United States: Complexities and Intervention outcomes.

Alcohol-impaired driving is a formidable public health problem in the United States, claiming the lives of 37 individuals daily in alcohol-related crashes. Alcohol-impaired driving is affected by a multitude of interconnected factors, coupled with long delays between stakeholders' actions and their impacts, which not only complicate policy-making but also increase the likelihood of unintended consequences. We developed a system dynamics simulation model of drinking and driving behaviors among adolescents and young adults.

Using piecewise regression to identify biological phenomena in biotelemetry datasets.

Technological advances in the field of animal tracking have greatly expanded the potential to remotely monitor animals, opening the door to exploring how animals shift their behaviour over time or respond to external stimuli. A wide variety of animal-borne sensors can provide information on an animal's location, movement characteristics, external environmental conditions and internal physiological status. Here, we demonstrate how piecewise regression can be used to identify the presence and timing of potential shifts in a variety of biological responses using multiple biotelemetry data streams.

Mapping the complex causal mechanisms of drinking and driving behaviors among adolescents and young adults.

Background: The proportion of motor vehicle crash fatalities involving alcohol-impaired drivers declined substantially between 1982 and 1997, but progress stopped after 1997. The systemic complexity of alcohol-impaired driving contributes to the persistence of this problem. This study aims to identify and map key feedback mechanisms that affect alcohol-impaired driving among adolescents and young adults in the U.

Tallgrass prairie wildlife exposure to spray drift from commonly used soybean insecticides in Midwestern USA.

Insecticides are widely used in the Midwestern USA to combat soybean aphids (Aphis glycines), a globally important crop pest. Broad-spectrum foliar insecticides such as chlorpyrifos, lambda-cyhalothrin, and bifenthrin (hereafter, "target insecticides") are toxic to wildlife in laboratory settings; however, little information exists regarding drift and deposition of these insecticides in fragmented tallgrass prairie grasslands such as those in Minnesota, USA. To address this information gap, target insecticide spray drift and deposition were measured on passive samplers and arthropods in grasslands adjacent to crop fields in Minnesota.

Recovery from work: testing the effects of chronic internal and external workload on health and well-being.

Background: The aim of this study was to examine the effects of reduced recovery opportunities on health, associated with chronic internal workload (ie, during work) and external workload (ie, following work).

Methods: Data from two consecutive surveys (2013 and 2016) from the Norwegian Living Conditions Survey on Work Environment were used. To assess a dose-response association between workload and health, self-reported ratings of internal workload (ie, having too much to do and skipping lunch breaks during work) and external workload (ie, using mobile technology for work-related issues during leisure time) over the two time periods were divided into tertile groups representing low, medium and high workload.

Cholecystokinin-1 receptor agonist induced pathological findings in the exocrine pancreas of non-human primates.

Background And Aims: Cholecystokinin (CCK) may potentially be used to treat obesity. However, it is well-known to induce acute pancreatitis and pancreas neoplasia in rodents, but not in primates. Here we report the nonclinical safety profile of a long-acting CCK-1 receptor (CCK-1R) agonist, NN9056, in rats and monkeys to support a First-in-Man clinical trial with NN9056.

Mitigating gender bias in student evaluations of teaching.

Student evaluations of teaching are widely believed to contain gender bias. In this study, we conduct a randomized experiment with the student evaluations of teaching in four classes with large enrollments, two taught by male instructors and two taught by female instructors. In each of the courses, students were randomly assigned to either receive the standard evaluation instrument or the same instrument with language intended to reduce gender bias.

Correction: Evaluating outcomes of management targeting the recovery of a migratory songbird of conservation concern.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.7717/peerj.4319.

Population trends in warblers are linked to strong migratory connectivity.

Migratory species can experience limiting factors at different locations and during different periods of their annual cycle. In migratory birds, these factors may even occur in different hemispheres. Therefore, identifying the distribution of populations throughout their annual cycle (i.

Response to Lisovski et al.

Lisovski et al.[1] describe the widely recognized limitations of light-level geolocator data for identifying short-distance latitudinal movements, recommend that caution be used when interpreting such data, intimated that we did not use such caution and argued that environmental shading likely explained the Golden-winged Warbler (Vermivora chrysoptera) movements described in our 2015 report [2]. Lisovski et al.

Evaluating outcomes of management targeting the recovery of a migratory songbird of conservation concern.

Background: Assessing outcomes of habitat management is critical for informing and adapting conservation plans. From 2013-2019, a multi-stage management initiative, led by the American Bird Conservancy (ABC), aims to create >25,000 ha of shrubland and early-successional vegetation to benefit Golden-winged Warblers () in managed forested landscapes of the western Great Lakes region. We studied a dense breeding population of Golden-winged Warblers at Rice Lake National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in Minnesota, USA, where ABC initiative management was implemented to benefit the species.

Fast Sampling, Analyses and Chemometrics for Plant Breeding: Bitter Acids, Xanthohumol and Terpenes in Lupulin Glands of Hops (Humulus lupulus).

Introduction: The valuable secondary metabolites in hops (bitter acids, xanthohumol, volatile monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes) are sequestered in lupulin glands (extracellular trichomes) which can be collected and analysed with little or no sample preparation.

Objectives: To determine whether high throughput screening of lupulin glands composition, by fast analyses and chemometrics, could be used for breeder selection of hops with key flavour attributes.

Methods: Lupulin glands from 139 plants (39 cultivars/advanced selections) were analysed by Raman and H NMR spectroscopy, and head-space solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) GC-FID.

Third-order terahertz response of gapped, nearly-metallic armchair graphene nanoribbons.

We use time dependent perturbation theory to study the terahertz nonlinear response of gapped intrinsic and extrinsic nearly-metallic armchair graphene nanoribbons of finite length under an applied electric field. Generally, the nonlinear conductances exhibit contributions due to single-photon, two-photon, and three-photon processes. The interference between each of these processes results in remarkably complex behavior for the third-order conductances, including quantum dot signatures that should be measurable with a relatively simple experimental configuration.

Multi time-step wavefront reconstruction for tomographic adaptive-optics systems.

In tomographic adaptive-optics (AO) systems, errors due to tomographic wavefront reconstruction limit the performance and angular size of the scientific field of view (FoV), where AO correction is effective. We propose a multi time-step tomographic wavefront reconstruction method to reduce the tomographic error by using measurements from both the current and previous time steps simultaneously. We further outline the method to feed the reconstructor with both wind speed and direction of each turbulence layer.

Dynamics of a recovering Arctic bird population: the importance of climate, density dependence, and site quality.

Intrinsic and extrinsic factors affect vital rates and population-level processes, and understanding these factors is paramount to devising successful management plans for wildlife species. For example, birds time migration in response, in part, to local and broadscale climate fluctuations to initiate breeding upon arrival to nesting territories, and prolonged inclement weather early in the breeding season can inhibit egg-laying and reduce productivity. Also, density-dependent regulation occurs in raptor populations, as territory size is related to resource availability.

Spatio-angular minimum-variance tomographic controller for multi-object adaptive-optics systems.

Multi-object astronomical adaptive optics (MOAO) is now a mature wide-field observation mode to enlarge the adaptive-optics-corrected field in a few specific locations over tens of arcminutes. The work-scope provided by open-loop tomography and pupil conjugation is amenable to a spatio-angular linear-quadratic-Gaussian (SA-LQG) formulation aiming to provide enhanced correction across the field with improved performance over static reconstruction methods and less stringent computational complexity scaling laws. Starting from our previous work [J.

Tornadic storm avoidance behavior in breeding songbirds.

Migration is a common behavior used by animals of many taxa to occupy different habitats during different periods. Migrant birds are categorized as either facultative (i.e.

Vibrational spectroscopy and chemometrics for rapid, quantitative analysis of bitter acids in hops (Humulus lupulus).

Hops, Humulus lupulus, are grown worldwide for use in the brewing industry to impart characteristic flavor and aroma to finished beer. Breeders produce many varietal crosses with the aim of improving and diversifying commercial hops varieties. The large number of crosses critical to a successful breeding program imposes high demands on the supporting chemical analytical laboratories.

Screening for anabolic steroids in urine of forensic cases using fully automated solid phase extraction and LC-MS-MS.

A screening method for 18 frequently measured exogenous anabolic steroids and the testosterone/epitestosterone (T/E) ratio in forensic cases has been developed and validated. The method involves a fully automated sample preparation including enzyme treatment, addition of internal standards and solid phase extraction followed by analysis by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS-MS) using electrospray ionization with adduct formation for two compounds. Urine samples from 580 forensic cases were analyzed to determine the T/E ratio and occurrence of exogenous anabolic steroids.

Retirement investment theory explains patterns in songbird nest-site choice.

When opposing evolutionary selection pressures act on a behavioural trait, the result is often stabilizing selection for an intermediate optimal phenotype, with deviations from the predicted optimum attributed to tracking a moving target, development of behavioural syndromes or shifts in riskiness over an individual's lifetime. We investigated nest-site choice by female golden-winged warblers, and the selection pressures acting on that choice by two fitness components, nest success and fledgling survival. We observed strong and consistent opposing selection pressures on nest-site choice for maximizing these two fitness components, and an abrupt, within-season switch in the fitness component birds prioritize via nest-site choice, dependent on the time remaining for additional nesting attempts.

Evidence of territoriality and species interactions from spatial point-pattern analyses of subarctic-nesting geese.

Quantifying spatial patterns of bird nests and nest fate provides insights into processes influencing a species' distribution. At Cape Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, recent declines in breeding Eastern Prairie Population Canada geese (Branta canadensis interior) has coincided with increasing populations of nesting lesser snow geese (Chen caerulescens caerulescens) and Ross's geese (Chen rossii). We conducted a spatial analysis of point patterns using Canada goose nest locations and nest fate, and lesser snow goose nest locations at two study areas in northern Manitoba with different densities and temporal durations of sympatric nesting Canada and lesser snow geese.

Quantification of 31 illicit and medicinal drugs and metabolites in whole blood by fully automated solid-phase extraction and ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

An efficient method for analyzing illegal and medicinal drugs in whole blood using fully automated sample preparation and short ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) run time is presented. A selection of 31 drugs, including amphetamines, cocaine, opioids, and benzodiazepines, was used. In order to increase the efficiency of routine analysis, a robotic system based on automated liquid handling and capable of handling all unit operation for sample preparation was built on a Freedom Evo 200 platform with several add-ons from Tecan and third-party vendors.

Collective modes of massive Dirac fermions in armchair graphene nanoribbons.

We report the plasmon dispersion characteristics of intrinsic and extrinsic armchair graphene nanoribbons of atomic width N = 5 using a p(z)-orbital tight binding model with third-nearest-neighbor (3nn) coupling. The hopping parameters are obtained by fitting the 3nn dispersions to those of an extended Hückel theory. The resultant massive Dirac fermion system has a band gap E(g) ≈ 64 meV.

Sky coverage modeling for the whole sky for laser guide star multiconjugate adaptive optics.

The scientific productivity of laser guide star adaptive optics systems strongly depends on the sky coverage, which describes the probability of finding natural guide stars for the tip/tilt wavefront sensor(s) to achieve a certain performance. Knowledge of the sky coverage is also important for astronomers planning their observations. In this paper, we present an efficient method to compute the sky coverage for the laser guide star multiconjugate adaptive optics system, the Narrow Field Infrared Adaptive Optics System (NFIRAOS), being designed for the Thirty Meter Telescope project.