The SuperCam Instrument Suite on the NASA Mars 2020 Rover: Body Unit and Combined System Tests.

The SuperCam instrument suite provides the Mars 2020 rover, Perseverance, with a number of versatile remote-sensing techniques that can be used at long distance as well as within the robotic-arm workspace. These include laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), remote time-resolved Raman and luminescence spectroscopies, and visible and infrared (VISIR; separately referred to as VIS and IR) reflectance spectroscopy. A remote micro-imager (RMI) provides high-resolution color context imaging, and a microphone can be used as a stand-alone tool for environmental studies or to determine physical properties of rocks and soils from shock waves of laser-produced plasmas.

A toxicology suite adapted for comparing parallel toxicity responses of model human lung cells to diesel exhaust particles and their extracts.

Epidemiological studies have shown that exposure to airborne particulate matter can be an important risk factor for some common respiratory diseases. While many studies have shown that particulate matter exposures are associated with inflammatory reactions, the role of specific cellular responses in the manifestation of primary hypersensitivities, and the progression of respiratory diseases remains unclear. In order to better understand mechanisms by which particulate matter can exert adverse health effects, more robust approaches to support studies are warranted.

The caudate signals bad reputation during trust decisions.

The ability to initiate and sustain trust is critical to health and well-being. Willingness to trust is in part determined by the reputation of the putative trustee, gained via direct interactions or indirectly through word of mouth. Few studies have examined how the reputation of others is instantiated in the brain during trust decisions.

Aberrant reward center response to partner reputation during a social exchange game in generalized social phobia.

Objective: Generalized social anxiety disorder (GSAD) is characterized by excessive fear of public scrutiny and reticence in social engagement. Previous studies have probed the neural basis of GSAD often using static, noninteractive stimuli (e.g.

A method for assessing the disinfection response of microbial bioaerosols retained in antimicrobial filter materials and textiles.

The diversity of applications utilizing antimicrobial laden textiles continues to grow, yet testing methods based on the liquid loading of cultures to challenge textiles remain unchanged. For bioaerosol applications, liquid challenge methods are unsuitable. We present a method of aerosol based loading and microbial recovery for contextual testing antimicrobial textiles.

Oxytocin selectively increases perceptions of harm for victims but not the desire to punish offenders of criminal offenses.

The neuropeptide oxytocin functions as a hormone and neurotransmitter and facilitates complex social cognition and approach behavior. Given that empathy is an essential ingredient for third-party decision-making in institutions of justice, we investigated whether exogenous oxytocin modulates empathy of an unaffected third-party toward offenders and victims of criminal offenses. Healthy male participants received intranasal oxytocin or placebo in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, between-subjects design.

Oxytocin receptor genetic variation promotes human trust behavior.

Given that human trust behavior is heritable and intranasal administration of oxytocin enhances trust, the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene is an excellent candidate to investigate genetic contributions to individual variations in trust behavior. Although a single-nucleotide polymorphism involving an adenine (A)/guanine (G) transition (rs53576) has been associated with socio-emotional phenotypes, its link to trust behavior is unclear. We combined genotyping of healthy male students (n = 108) with the administration of a trust game experiment.

Reduction of the Earth's magnetic field inhibits growth rates of model cancer cell lines.

Small alterations in static magnetic fields have been shown to affect certain chemical reaction rates ex vivo. In this manuscript, we present data demonstrating that similar small changes in static magnetic fields between individual cell culture incubators results in significantly altered cell cycle rates for multiple cancer-derived cell lines. This change as assessed by cell number is not a result of apoptosis, necrosis, or cell cycle alterations.

Reputation for reciprocity engages the brain reward center.

Brain reward circuitry, including ventral striatum and orbitofrontal cortex, has been independently implicated in preferences for fair and cooperative outcomes as well as learning of reputations. Using functional MRI (fMRI) and a "trust game" task involving iterative exchanges with fictive partners who acquire different reputations for reciprocity, we measured brain responses in 36 healthy adults when positive actions (entrust investment to partners) yield positive returns (reciprocity) and how these brain responses are modulated by partner reputation for repayment. Here we show that positive reciprocity robustly engages the ventral striatum and orbitofrontal cortex.

Molecular thermometry.

Conventional temperature measurements rely on material responses to heat, which can be detected visually. When Galileo developed an air expansion based device to detect temperature changes, Santorio, a contemporary physician, added a scale to create the first thermometer. With this instrument, patients' temperatures could be measured, recorded, and related to changing health conditions.

The neural bases of key competencies of emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to a set of competencies that are essential features of human social life. Although the neural substrates of EI are virtually unknown, it is well established that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a crucial role in human social-emotional behavior. We studied a unique sample of combat veterans from the Vietnam Head Injury Study, which is a prospective, long-term follow-up study of veterans with focal penetrating head injuries.

Guardians at the gate: patent protection of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies through product life cycle management--Part 3.

Product life cycle management, which necessarily utilizes a multi-disciplinary approach, is an essential tool for companies that develop or market therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). Too little attention to such a plan, or use of the wrong resources, could substantially curtail a product's life span. The most difficult part of the therapeutic antibody business is the development of high-quality, safe and effective products.

Guardians at the gate: patent protection for therapeutic monoclonal antibodies--part 1.

Patents provide one of the few protections companies can avail themselves of to help protect their therapeutic monoclonal antibody products. Just as the therapeutic monoclonal antibody field is constantly evolving, so too is the legal environment surrounding these inventions. In a series of articles, the general state of the law surrounding therapeutic antibodies will be explained, and important challenges to this technology area will be discussed.

Guardians at the gate: Biosimilar and patent reform legislation could fundamentally change the guards for therapeutic monoclonal antibodies--Part 2.

Patent protection and FDA exclusivities are the two principal forms of protection available to companies that develop therapeutic monoclonal antibodies. Propo-sed changes to both forms of protection are currently being debated in the United States Congress. Specifically, Congress is presently debating both biosimilar and patent reform legislations.

DNA interstrand crosslink repair in mammalian cells.

DNA damage by agents crosslinking the strands presents a formidable challenge to the cell to repair for survival and to repair accurately for maintenance of genetic information. It appears that repair of DNA crosslinks occurs in a path involving double strand breaks (DSBs) in the DNA. Mammalian cells have multiple systems involved in the repair response to such damage, including the Fanconi anemia pathway that appears to be directly involved, although the mechanisms and site of action remain elusive.

Neural correlates of economic game playing.

The theory of games provides a mathematical formalization of strategic choices, which have been studied in both economics and neuroscience, and more recently has become the focus of neuroeconomics experiments with human and non-human actors. This paper reviews the results from a number of game experiments that establish a unitary system for forming subjective expected utility maps in the brain, and acting on these maps to produce choices. Social situations require the brain to build an understanding of the other person using neuronal mechanisms that share affective and intentional mental states.

ERCC1 is required for FANCD2 focus formation.

The rare genetic disorder Fanconi anemia, caused by a deficiency in any of at least thirteen identified genes, is characterized by cellular sensitivity to DNA interstrand crosslinks and genome instability. The excision repair cross complementing protein, ERCC1, first identified as a participant in nucleotide excision repair, appears to also act in crosslink repair, possibly in incision and at a later stage. We have investigated the relationship of ERCC1 to the Fanconi anemia pathway, using depletion of ERCC1 by siRNA in transformed normal human fibroblasts and fibroblasts from Fanconi anemia patients.

Introduction to neuroeconomics.

Neuroeconomics has quickly attracted the attention of economists, psychologists, and neuroscientists. These scholars have joined to combine experimental methods and mathematical models from which novel results on brain and behavior have emerged. In this book the authors, who represent the cutting edge of this new discipline, draw connections between research in neuroeconomics and health economics.

Neural correlates of trust.

Trust is a critical social process that helps us to cooperate with others and is present to some degree in all human interaction. However, the underlying brain mechanisms of conditional and unconditional trust in social reciprocal exchange are still obscure. Here, we used hyperfunctional magnetic resonance imaging, in which two strangers interacted online with one another in a sequential reciprocal trust game while their brains were simultaneously scanned.

Neural signature of fictive learning signals in a sequential investment task.

Reinforcement learning models now provide principled guides for a wide range of reward learning experiments in animals and humans. One key learning (error) signal in these models is experiential and reports ongoing temporal differences between expected and experienced reward. However, these same abstract learning models also accommodate the existence of another class of learning signal that takes the form of a fictive error encoding ongoing differences between experienced returns and returns that "could-have-been-experienced" if decisions had been different.

Risk preference instability across institutions: a dilemma.

In this article we use laboratory experiments to ask a fundamental question: Do individuals behave as if their risk preferences are stable across institutions? In particular, we study the decisions of cash-motivated subjects in the repeated play of three different institutions: a value elicitation procedure for the sale of a risky asset, an English clock auction for the sale of a risky asset, and a first-price auction for the purchase of a riskless asset. We first do a simple categorical comparison of each subject's risk preferences across tasks by comparing the individual's decisions with an expected value maximizer. All subjects acted as if they were risk-loving in the English clock auctions and risk-averse in the first-price auctions.

The brain and the law.

Much has been written about how law as an institution has developed to solve many problems that human societies face. Inherent in all of these explanations are models of how humans make decisions. This article discusses what current neuroscience research tells us about the mechanisms of human decision making of particular relevance to law.

The impact of the certainty context on the process of choice.

In this study we examine how the introduction of a reference lottery with nonrandom outcomes alters the way in which choices among pairs of lotteries are made, even if it does not alter the choices. We use different domains (some of the lotteries produce gains, other losses) and different contexts (one member of the pair, the reference lottery, may be either risky or certain). In our experiment, the change from gain to loss domain affects choices: subjects are risk averse in the gain domain, but not in the loss domain.