Ava Harriet Chadbourne Correspondence

Entries include a handwritten biographical letter and handwritten and typed letters on University of Maine, Orono, School of Education, and personal stationery

Use of DNAs Expressing HIV-1 Env and Noninfectious HIV-1 Particles to Raise Antibody Responses in Mice

AbstractTwo DNA constructs encoding portions of the human immunodeficiency virus type-1 (HIV-1) genome have been used to raise antibody responses in BABL/c mice. One DNA (pNL4-3.env) expresses the natural form of the envelope glycoprotein (Env) of HIV-1-NL4-3 (NL4-3). The second (pNL4-3.dpol) produces noninfectious NL4-3 particles. These two DNAs (alone or in combination) raised only transient titers of anti-Env IgG. In the same group in which pNL4-3.dpol DNA raised only transient antibody responses to Env, this DNA raised persistent antibody responses to the p24 virion capsid protein (CA). Antibody responses to Env and CA also showed different abilities to be boosted. The final boosts of pNL4-3.dpol DNA increased titers of anti-CA antibody, but failed to boost the falling titers of anti-Env antibody. At peak titers of anti-Env activity, sera with relatively low ELISA titers of anti-Env IgG (end points of 1:6250) had good titers of neutralizing antibody (∼ 1:3800 for 50 TCID50 of NL4-3). At the end of the experiment (a time when anti-Env antibodies had fallen to near background levels), in vitro-restimulated splenocytes from both pNL4-3.env and pNL4-3.dpol DNA vaccine groups exhibited similar cytotoxic activity

Just transitions in cities and regions: a global agenda

This report provides a global synthesis of evidence on justice in transitions to low-carbon energy systems and processes of urbanization. While cities are important sites of energy consumption, analysis of urbanisation offers explanations of how social and spatial injustices are created through the building, fuelling, feeding, and funding of cities. We identify how sustainability transitions can reproduce inequalities – and hence become a potential source of injustice – by highlighting the terms on which transitions are contested, how urban poverty is conceived and measured, how and by whom knowledge about urban change is produced, how cities are planned, how divestment and investment are managed, and how infrastructure is financed. Evidence is presented from Africa, the Asia Pacific, Europe and North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, where the authors have been engaged in projects co-produced with regional research partners. A global agenda on just transitions identifies common and distinctive experiences in different social and spatial contexts. We argue that taking the social and spatial character of transitions seriously means questioning assumptions that underpin the management of transitions, including the strategy of mobilising resources for transitions by maintaining economic power at difference scales from the global to the household

Using chatbot technology to improve Brazilian adolescents' body image and mental health at scale: Randomized controlled trial

Accessible, cost-effective, and scalable mental health interventions are limited, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, where disparities between mental health needs and services are greatest. Microinterventions (ie, brief, stand-alone, or digital approaches) aim to provide immediate reprieve and enhancements in mental health states and offer a novel and scalable framework for embedding evidence-based mental health promotion techniques into digital environments. Body image is a global public health issue that increases young peoples' risk of developing more severe mental and physical health issues. Embedding body image microinterventions into digital environments is one avenue for providing young people with immediate and short-term reprieve and protection from the negative exposure effects associated with social media. This 2-armed, fully remote, and preregistered randomized controlled trial assessed the impact of a body image chatbot containing microinterventions on Brazilian adolescents' state and trait body image and associated well-being outcomes. Geographically diverse Brazilian adolescents aged 13-18 years (901/1715, 52.54% girls) were randomized into the chatbot or an assessment-only control condition and completed web-based self-assessments at baseline, immediately after the intervention time frame, and at 1-week and 1-month follow-ups. The primary outcomes were mean change in state (at chatbot entry and at the completion of a microintervention technique) and trait body image (before and after the intervention), with the secondary outcomes being mean change in affect (state and trait) and body image self-efficacy between the assessment time points. Most participants who entered the chatbot (258/327, 78.9%) completed ≥1 microintervention technique, with participants completing an average of 5 techniques over the 72-hour intervention period. Chatbot users experienced small significant improvements in primary (state: P<.001, Cohen d=0.30, 95% CI 0.25-0.34; and trait body image: P=.02, Cohen d range=0.10, 95% CI 0.01-0.18, to 0.26, 95% CI 0.13-0.32) and secondary outcomes across various time points (state: P<.001, Cohen d=0.28, 95% CI 0.22-0.33; trait positive affect: P=.02, Cohen d range=0.15, 95% CI 0.03-0.27, to 0.23, 95% CI 0.08-0.37; negative affect: P=.03, Cohen d range=-0.16, 95% CI -0.30 to -0.02, to -0.18, 95% CI -0.33 to -0.03; and self-efficacy: P=.02, Cohen d range=0.14, 95% CI 0.03-0.25, to 0.19, 95% CI 0.08-0.32) relative to the control condition. Intervention benefits were moderated by baseline levels of concerns but not by gender. This is the first large-scale randomized controlled trial assessing a body image chatbot among Brazilian adolescents. Intervention attrition was high (531/858, 61.9%) and reflected the broader digital intervention literature; barriers to engagement were discussed. Meanwhile, the findings support the emerging literature that indicates microinterventions and chatbot technology are acceptable and effective web-based service provisions. This study also offers a blueprint for accessible, cost-effective, and scalable digital approaches that address disparities between health care needs and provisions in low- and middle-income countries. Clinicaltrials.gov NCT04825184; http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04825184. RR2-10.1186/s12889-021-12129-1. [Abstract copyright: ©Emily L Matheson, Harriet G Smith, Ana C S Amaral, Juliana F F Meireles, Mireille C Almeida, Jake Linardon, Matthew Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, Phillippa C Diedrichs. Originally published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth (https://mhealth.jmir.org), 19.06.2023.

Cross-National Differences in Victimization : Disentangling the Impact of Composition and Context

Varying rates of criminal victimization across countries are assumed to be the outcome of countrylevel structural constraints that determine the supply ofmotivated o¡enders, as well as the differential composition within countries of suitable targets and capable guardianship. However, previous empirical tests of these ‘compositional’ and ‘contextual’ explanations of cross-national di¡erences have been performed upon macro-level crime data due to the unavailability of comparable individual-level data across countries. This limitation has had two important consequences for cross-national crime research. First, micro-/meso-level mechanisms underlying cross-national differences cannot be truly inferred from macro-level data. Secondly, the e¡ects of contextual measures (e.g. income inequality) on crime are uncontrolled for compositional heterogeneity. In this paper, these limitations are overcome by analysing individual-level victimization data across 18 countries from the International CrimeVictims Survey. Results from multi-level analyses on theft and violent victimization indicate that the national level of income inequality is positively related to risk, independent of compositional (i.e. micro- and meso-level) di¡erences. Furthermore, crossnational variation in victimization rates is not only shaped by di¡erences in national context, but also by varying composition. More speci¢cally, countries had higher crime rates the more they consisted of urban residents and regions with lowaverage social cohesion.

A Holistic Perspective on the Dynamics of G035.39-00.33 : The Interplay between Gas and Magnetic Fields

Magnetic field plays a crucial role in shaping molecular clouds and regulating star formation, yet the complete information on the magnetic field is not well constrained owing to the limitations in observations. We study the magnetic field in the massive infrared dark cloud G035.39-00.33 from dust continuum polarization observations at 850 mu m with SCUBA-2/POL-2 at JCMT for the first time. The magnetic field tends to be perpendicular to the densest part of the main filament (F-M), whereas it has a less defined relative orientation in the rest of the structure, where it tends to be parallel to some diffuse regions. A mean plane-of-the-sky magnetic field strength of similar to 50 mu G for F-M is obtained using the Davis-Chandrasekhar-Fermi method. Based on (CO)-C-13 (1-0) line observations, we suggest a formation scenario of F-M due to large-scale (similar to 10 pc) cloud-cloud collision. Using additional NH3 line data, we estimate that F-M will be gravitationally unstable if it is only supported by thermal pressure and turbulence. The northern part of F-M, however, can be stabilized by a modest additional support from the local magnetic field. The middle and southern parts of F-M are likely unstable even if the magnetic field support is taken into account. We claim that the clumps in F-M may be supported by turbulence and magnetic fields against gravitational collapse. Finally, we identified for the first time a massive (similar to 200 M-circle dot, collapsing starless clump candidate, "c8," in G035.39-00.33. The magnetic field surrounding "c8" is likely pinched, hinting at an accretion flow along the filament.Peer reviewe

Active inference, sensory attenuation and illusions.

Active inference provides a simple and neurobiologically plausible account of how action and perception are coupled in producing (Bayes) optimal behaviour. This can be seen most easily as minimising prediction error: we can either change our predictions to explain sensory input through perception. Alternatively, we can actively change sensory input to fulfil our predictions. In active inference, this action is mediated by classical reflex arcs that minimise proprioceptive prediction error created by descending proprioceptive predictions. However, this creates a conflict between action and perception; in that, self-generated movements require predictions to override the sensory evidence that one is not actually moving. However, ignoring sensory evidence means that externally generated sensations will not be perceived. Conversely, attending to (proprioceptive and somatosensory) sensations enables the detection of externally generated events but precludes generation of actions. This conflict can be resolved by attenuating the precision of sensory evidence during movement or, equivalently, attending away from the consequences of self-made acts. We propose that this Bayes optimal withdrawal of precise sensory evidence during movement is the cause of psychophysical sensory attenuation. Furthermore, it explains the force-matching illusion and reproduces empirical results almost exactly. Finally, if attenuation is removed, the force-matching illusion disappears and false (delusional) inferences about agency emerge. This is important, given the negative correlation between sensory attenuation and delusional beliefs in normal subjects--and the reduction in the magnitude of the illusion in schizophrenia. Active inference therefore links the neuromodulatory optimisation of precision to sensory attenuation and illusory phenomena during the attribution of agency in normal subjects. It also provides a functional account of deficits in syndromes characterised by false inference and impaired movement--like schizophrenia and Parkinsonism--syndromes that implicate abnormal modulatory neurotransmission

The JCMT BISTRO Survey: The Magnetic Field Strength in the Orion A Filament

We determine the magnetic field strength in the OMC 1 region of the Orion A filament via a new implementation of the Chandrasekhar-Fermi method using observations performed as part of the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) B-Fields In Star-Forming Region Observations (BISTRO) survey with the POL-2 instrument. We combine BISTRO data with archival SCUBA-2 and HARP observations to find a plane-of-sky magnetic field strength in OMC 1 of B_pos=6.6±4.7 mG, where δB_pos=4.7 mG represents a predominantly systematic uncertainty. We develop a new method for measuring angular dispersion, analogous to unsharp masking. We find a magnetic energy density of ~1.7×10^-7 Jm^-3 in OMC 1, comparable both to the gravitational potential energy density of OMC 1 (~10^-7 Jm^-3), and to the energy density in the Orion BN/KL outflow (~10^-7 Jm^-3). We find that neither the Alfvén velocity in OMC 1 nor the velocity of the super-Alfvénic outflow ejecta is sufficiently large for the BN/KL outflow to have caused large-scale distortion of the local magnetic field in the ~500-year lifetime of the outflow. Hence, we propose that the hour-glass field morphology in OMC 1 is caused by the distortion of a primordial cylindrically-symmetric magnetic field by the gravitational fragmentation of the filament and/or the gravitational interaction of the BN/KL and S clumps. We find that OMC 1 is currently in or near magnetically-supported equilibrium, and that the current large-scale morphology of the BN/KL outflow is regulated by the geometry of the magnetic field in OMC 1, and not vice versa

Herschel and SCUBA-2 observations of dust emission in a sample of Planck cold clumps

Context. Analysis of all-sky Planck submillimetre observations and the IRAS 100 mu m data has led to the detection of a population of Galactic cold clumps. The clumps can be used to study star formation and dust properties in a wide range of Galactic environments. Aims. Our aim is to measure dust spectral energy distribution ( SED) variations as a function of the spatial scale and the wavelength. Methods. We examined the SEDs at large scales using IRAS, Planck, and Herschel data. At smaller scales, we compared JCMT/SCUBA-2 850 mu m maps with Herschel data that were filtered using the SCUBA-2 pipeline. Clumps were extracted using the Fellwalker method, and their spectra were modelled as modified blackbody functions. Results. According to IRAS and Planck data, most fields have dust colour temperatures T-C similar to 14-18K and opacity spectral index values of beta = 1.5-1.9. The clumps and cores identified in SCUBA-2 maps have T similar to 13K and similar beta values. There are some indications of the dust emission spectrum becoming flatter at wavelengths longer than 500 mu m. In fits involving Planck data, the significance is limited by the uncertainty of the corrections for CO line contamination. The fits to the SPIRE data give a median beta value that is slightly above 1.8. In the joint SPIRE and SCUBA-2 850 mu m fits, the value decreases to beta similar to 1.6. Most of the observed T-beta anticorrelation can be explained by noise. Conclusions. The typical submillimetre opacity spectral index fi of cold clumps is found to be similar to 1.7. This is above the values of diffuse clouds, but lower than in some previous studies of dense clumps. There is only tentative evidence of a T-beta anticorrelation and beta decreasing at millimetre wavelengths.Peer reviewe

Millets across Eurasia: chronology and context of early records of the genera Panicum and Setaria from archaeological sites in the Old World

We have collated and reviewed published records of the genera Panicum and Setaria (Poaceae), including the domesticated millets Panicum miliaceum L. (broomcorn millet) and Setaria italica (L.) P. Beauv. (foxtail millet) in pre-5000 cal b.c. sites across the Old World. Details of these sites, which span China, central-eastern Europe including the Caucasus, Iran, Syria and Egypt, are presented with associated calibrated radiocarbon dates. Forty-one sites have records of Panicum (P. miliaceum, P. cf. miliaceum, Panicum sp., Panicum type, P. capillare (?) and P. turgidum) and 33 of Setaria (S. italica, S. viridis, S. viridis/verticillata, Setaria sp., Setaria type). We identify problems of taphonomy, identification criteria and reporting, and inference of domesticated/wild and crop/weed status of finds. Both broomcorn and foxtail millet occur in northern China prior to 5000 cal b.c.; P. miliaceum occurs contemporaneously in Europe, but its significance is unclear. Further work is needed to resolve the above issues before the status of these taxa in this period can be fully evaluated