Using Vector Autoregression Modeling to Reveal Bidirectional Relationships in Gender/Sex-Related Interactions in Mother-Infant Dyads.

Vector autoregression (VAR) modeling allows probing bidirectional relationships in gender/sex development and may support hypothesis testing following multi-modal data collection. We show VAR in three lights: supporting a hypothesis, rejecting a hypothesis, and opening up new questions. To illustrate these capacities of VAR, we reanalyzed longitudinal data that recorded dyadic mother-infant interactions for 15 boys and 15 girls aged 3 to 11 months of age.

COVID-19 Containment Efforts of a Low-Resource Nation: The First Four Months in Nepal.

A novel coronavirus (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 or SARS-CoV-2) was identified in hospitalized patients in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. It rapidly spread across the globe within the span of a few months. Nepal is a low-resource country with limited critical care delivery infrastructure.

Multifractal signatures of perceptual processing on anatomical sleeves of the human body.

Research into haptic perception typically concentrates on mechanoreceptors and their supporting neuronal processes. This focus risks ignoring crucial aspects of active perception. For instance, bodily movements influence the information available to mechanoreceptors, entailing that movement facilitates haptic perception.

A timeline of female stress urinary incontinence: how technology defined theory and advanced treatment.

Background: Prevailing theories and treatments of female stress urinary incontinence are built on 120 years of evolution in understanding the structure and function of the female bladder neck and urethra and of considering why treatments failed. In our management of patients, it is important to understand and appreciate how our management of female stress urinary incontinence has evolved and which treatments have prevailed as we advance our knowledge for future treatments.

Aims: The purpose of this review is to describe how advances in technology impacted and shaped prevailing theories or understanding of the pathophysiology of stress urinary incontinence and influences our treatment approach.

G-OnRamp: Generating genome browsers to facilitate undergraduate-driven collaborative genome annotation.

Scientists are sequencing new genomes at an increasing rate with the goal of associating genome contents with phenotypic traits. After a new genome is sequenced and assembled, structural gene annotation is often the first step in analysis. Despite advances in computational gene prediction algorithms, most eukaryotic genomes still benefit from manual gene annotation.

Multiplicative-cascade dynamics supports whole-body coordination for perception via effortful touch.

Effortful touch by the hand is essential to engaging with and perceiving properties of objects. The temporal structure of whole-body coordination must reflect the prospective control that provides for both the engagement with and perception of properties of the hefted objects. In the present study, we found signatures of multifractality in the time series of fluctuations in Euclidean displacement in the participants' center of pressure (CoP) as they hefted weighted objects to perceive their heaviness and length.

Facilitating Growth through Frustration: Using Genomics Research in a Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience.

A hallmark of the research experience is encountering difficulty and working through those challenges to achieve success. This ability is essential to being a successful scientist, but replicating such challenges in a teaching setting can be difficult. The Genomics Education Partnership (GEP) is a consortium of faculty who engage their students in a genomics Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE).

Static, Dynamic, and Cognitive Fit of Exosystems for the Human Operator.

Objective: To define static, dynamic, and cognitive fit and their interactions as they pertain to exosystems and to document open research needs in using these fit characteristics to inform exosystem design.

Background: Initial exosystem sizing and fit evaluations are currently based on scalar anthropometric dimensions and subjective assessments. As fit depends on ongoing interactions related to task setting and user, attempts to tailor equipment have limitations when optimizing for this limited fit definition.

Six1 proteins with human branchio-oto-renal mutations differentially affect cranial gene expression and otic development.

Single-nucleotide mutations in human result in amino acid substitutions in either the protein-protein interaction domain or the homeodomain, and cause ∼4% of branchio-otic (BOS) and branchio-oto-renal (BOR) cases. The phenotypic variation between patients with the same mutation, even within affected members of the same family, make it difficult to functionally distinguish between the different mutations. We made four of the BOS/BOR substitutions in the Six1 protein (V17E, R110W, W122R, Y129C), which is 100% identical to human in both the protein-protein interaction domain and the homeodomain, and expressed them in embryos to determine whether they cause differential changes in early craniofacial gene expression, otic gene expression or otic morphology.

Relativistic DFT Calculations of and Provide Detailed Structural Insight of Cyclopentadienyl Binding in CpWH.

Experimental measurements of the one-bond scalar coupling of CpWH in tetrahydrofuran ( = 73.4 Hz and = 4.8 Hz) are compared to density functional theory calculations of the same based upon geometries minimized utilizing a variety of approximate functionals typically utilized to calculate organometallic geometries.

Impact of Social Determinants of Health and Demographics on Refill Requests by Medicare Patients Using a Conversational Artificial Intelligence Text Messaging Solution: Cross-Sectional Study.

Background: Nonadherence among patients with chronic disease continues to be a significant concern, and the use of text message refill reminders has been effective in improving adherence. However, questions remain about how differences in patient characteristics and demographics might influence the likelihood of refill using this channel.

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of an SMS-based refill reminder solution using conversational artificial intelligence (AI; an automated system that mimics human conversations) with a large Medicare patient population and to explore the association and impact of patient demographics (age, gender, race/ethnicity, language) and social determinants of health on successful engagement with the solution to improve refill adherence.

Bodywide fluctuations support manual exploration: Fractal fluctuations in posture predict perception of heaviness and length via effortful touch by the hand.

The human haptic perceptual system respects a bodywide organization that responds to local stimulation through full-bodied coordination of nested tensions and compressions across multiple nonoverlapping scales. Under such an organization, the suprapostural task of manually hefting objects to perceive their heaviness and length should depend on roots extending into the postural control for maintaining upright balance on the ground surface. Postural sway of the whole body should thus carry signatures predicting what the hand can extract by hefting an object.

Thermal cues drive plasticity of desiccation resistance in montane salamanders with implications for climate change.

Organisms rely upon external cues to avoid detrimental conditions during environmental change. Rapid water loss, or desiccation, is a universal threat for terrestrial plants and animals, especially under climate change, but the cues that facilitate plastic responses to avoid desiccation are unclear. We integrate acclimation experiments with gene expression analyses to identify the cues that regulate resistance to water loss at the physiological and regulatory level in a montane salamander (Plethodon metcalfi).

Non-linear Amplification of Variability Through Interaction Across Scales Supports Greater Accuracy in Manual Aiming: Evidence From a Multifractal Analysis With Comparisons to Linear Surrogates in the Fitts Task.

Movement coordination depends on directing our limbs to the right place and in the right time. Movement science can study this central requirement in the Fitts task that asks participants to touch each of two targets in alternation, as accurately and as fast as they can. The Fitts task is an experimental attempt to focus on how the movement system balances its attention to speed and to accuracy.

Additive genetic variance for lifetime fitness and the capacity for adaptation in an annual plant.

The immediate capacity for adaptation under current environmental conditions is directly proportional to the additive genetic variance for fitness, V (W). Mean absolute fitness, , is predicted to change at the rate , according to Fisher's Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection. Despite ample research evaluating degree of local adaptation, direct assessment of V (W) and the capacity for ongoing adaptation is exceedingly rare.

Characterizing the soil microbiome and quantifying antibiotic resistance gene dynamics in agricultural soil following swine CAFO manure application.

As agriculture industrializes, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are becoming more common. Feces from CAFOs is often used as fertilizer on fields. However, little is known about the effects manure has on the soil microbiome, which is an important aspect of soil health and fertility.

Exposure to water-accommodated fractions of two different crude oils alters morphology, cardiac function and swim bladder development in early-life stages of zebrafish.

The present study investigated the developmental toxicity of water-accommodated fractions (WAFs) of Oman crude oil (OCO) and Merey crude oil (MCO) on zebrafish (Danio rerio) in early-life stages (ELS). Based on total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), LC values manifested that OCO WAF was 1.2-fold more lethal to zebrafish embryos than MCO WAF.

Native Mass Spectrometry of Antimicrobial Peptides in Lipid Nanodiscs Elucidates Complex Assembly.

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are generally cationic and amphipathic peptides that show potential applications to combat the growing threat of antibiotic resistant infections. AMPs are known to interact with bacterial membranes, but their mechanisms of toxicity and selectivity are poorly understood, in part because it is challenging to characterize AMP oligomeric complexes within lipid bilayers. Here, we used native mass spectrometry to measure the stoichiometry of AMPs inserted into lipoprotein nanodiscs with different lipid components.

A note on the empirical Bayes heterogeneity variance estimator in meta-analysis.

This paper focuses on the empirical Bayes (EB) or Mandel-Paule estimator of the heterogeneity variance in meta-analysis, which was discussed by Morris and proposed in earlier publications by Mandel and Paule in an inter-laboratory context. The relationship of the EB estimator to other heterogeneity variance estimators typically used in meta-analysis is explored, and approximate variance estimators for the EB estimate of the heterogeneity variance are proposed based on the M-estimation method. Statistical inference for the overall treatment effect using the EB estimator and the proposed standard errors is discussed using two example data sets from meta-analysis applications.