Hot Topic: Attention Cities--Heads Up on Solid Waste!

Time is running out to finalize regional solid waste plans. Make sure your city\u27s interests are represented

INFLUENCE OF EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING ON MEMORY FOR CONTEXTUAL DETAILS AND FALSE RECOGNITION

No previous studies had examined how all constructs of executive functioning (i.e., conflict inhibition, delay inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and working memory) relate to memory for contextual details and false recognition in early childhood controlling for general intelligence. Three and six-year-old children performed a laboratory-based episodic memory task and a battery of neuropsychological tasks. The relation between executive functioning and false recognition was diminished taking general intellectual ability into account. Executive functioning did not predict memory for contextual details in the full sample. However, when children who were at chance at recalling contextual details were excluded from analysis, executive functioning showed a trend for accounting for variance beyond age group and general intellectual ability. The inability of this effect to reach conventional statistical significance was likely due low statistical power resulting from the sample size reduction. Specifically, accuracy on the day/night task, a measure of conflict inhibition, was a significant predictor

Development of subjective and objective recollection: Evidence from event-related potentials

Memory, particularly memory for contextual details (i.e., recollection), undergoes significant development from middle childhood to young adulthood. This research examined the development of recollection utilizing participant's subjective reports as well as their objective accuracy for two contextual details (i.e., the color of the item and a semantic judgment made during encoding). The aims of the present studies were to examine age-related differences in subjective and objective recollection, the correspondence between these abilities, and their neural correlates. Participants included 6- to 8-year-old children, 12- to 13-year-old adolescents, and young adults. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during the encoding (Study 1) and retrieval (Study 2) portions of a memory paradigm. Age-related improvements in objective and subjective recollection were found in both studies. At encoding, ERP indices of recollection were present when recollection was indexed subjectively or by accuracy for the semantic judgment made during encoding. In contrast, ERP responses were not sensitive to recollection when memory for color was used as the measure of recollection. ERP effects associated with recollection at encoding were not influenced by age. This finding suggests that children, adolescents, and adults process items similarly at the encoding stage. During retrieval, a recollection effect was only present when recollection was indexed by subjective judgments. Further, this effect was influenced by participant age. The effect was absent in children, topographically widespread in adolescents, and, consistent with previous literature (for review see Rugg & Curran, 2007), maximal over left centro-parietal leads in adults. Collectively, these findings suggest that ERP effects associated with recollection may be more apparent using subjective versus objective measures and that improvement in memory performance from middle childhood to adulthood is primarily attributable to the development of consolidation, storage, or retrieval processes

Comparing the Costs and Acceptability of Three Fidelity Assessment Methods for Assertive Community Treatment

Successful implementation of evidence-based practices requires valid, yet practical fidelity monitoring. This study compared the costs and acceptability of three fidelity assessment methods: on-site, phone, and expert-scored self-report. Thirty-two randomly selected VA mental health intensive case management teams completed all fidelity assessments using a standardized scale and provided feedback on each. Personnel and travel costs across the three methods were compared for statistical differences. Both phone and expert-scored self-report methods demonstrated significantly lower costs than on-site assessments, even when excluding travel costs. However, participants preferred on-site assessments. Remote fidelity assessments hold promise in monitoring large scale program fidelity with limited resources

Comparison of Assertive Community Treatment Fidelity Assessment Methods: Reliability and Validity

Assertive community treatment is known for improving consumer outcomes, but is difficult to implement. On-site fidelity measurement can help ensure model adherence, but is costly in large systems. This study compared reliability and validity of three methods of fidelity assessment (on-site, phone-administered, and expert-scored self-report) using a stratified random sample of 32 mental health intensive case management teams from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Overall, phone, and to a lesser extent, expert-scored self-report fidelity assessments compared favorably to on-site methods in inter-rater reliability and concurrent validity. If used appropriately, these alternative protocols hold promise in monitoring large-scale program fidelity with limited resources

Implementing an Online Research Group about Classism in Counselor Education

In 2021, an online research group was created with counseling students from three different universities. This online research group consisted of masters counseling students and a lead research mentor and counselor educator. This research group was the first of its kind in its Program. This research team focused on intersectionality and classism. Topics of integrating the online world into counseling research, specifically, through this observed research group will be introduced in this documentation. This research team served as a catalyst to increase student morale during required remote learning. Implications driven from this student-centered, online research group will also be described. Discussion regarding ways to increasingly incorporate technology into counselor education pedagogy and research will also be included

The NASA Airborne Tropical TRopopause EXperiment (ATTREX): High-Altitude Aircraft Measurements in the Tropical Western Pacific

The February through March 2014 deployment of the NASA Airborne Tropical TRopopause EXperiment (ATTREX) provided unique in situ measurements in the western Pacific Tropical Tropopause Layer (TTL). Six flights were conducted from Guam with the long-range, high-altitude, unmanned Global Hawk aircraft. The ATTREX Global Hawk payload provided measurements of water vapor, meteorological conditions, cloud properties, tracer and chemical radical concentrations, and radiative fluxes. The campaign was partially coincident with the CONTRAST and CAST airborne campaigns based in Guam using lower-altitude aircraft (see companion articles in this issue). The ATTREX dataset is being used for investigations of TTL cloud, transport, dynamical, and chemical processes as well as for evaluation and improvement of global-model representations of TTL processes. The ATTREX data is openly available at https:espoarchive.nasa.gov

Rare variant analyses validate known ALS genes in a multi-ethnic population and identifies ANTXR2 as a candidate in PLS

BackgroundAmyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease affecting over 300,000 people worldwide. It is characterized by the progressive decline of the nervous system that leads to the weakening of muscles which impacts physical function. Approximately, 15% of individuals diagnosed with ALS have a known genetic variant that contributes to their disease. As therapies that slow or prevent symptoms continue to develop, such as antisense oligonucleotides, it is important to discover novel genes that could be targets for treatment. Additionally, as cohorts continue to grow, performing analyses in ALS subtypes, such as primary lateral sclerosis (PLS), becomes possible due to an increase in power. These analyses could highlight novel pathways in disease manifestation.MethodsBuilding on our previous discoveries using rare variant association analyses, we conducted rare variant burden testing on a substantially larger multi-ethnic cohort of 6,970 ALS patients, 166 PLS patients, and 22,524 controls. We used intolerant domain percentiles based on sub-region Residual Variation Intolerance Score (subRVIS) that have been described previously in conjunction with gene based collapsing approaches to conduct burden testing to identify genes that associate with ALS and PLS.ResultsA gene based collapsing model showed significant associations with SOD1, TARDBP, and TBK1 (OR = 19.18, p = 3.67 × 10–39; OR = 4.73, p = 2 × 10–10; OR = 2.3, p = 7.49 × 10–9, respectively). These genes have been previously associated with ALS. Additionally, a significant novel control enriched gene, ALKBH3 (p = 4.88 × 10–7), was protective for ALS in this model. An intolerant domain-based collapsing model showed a significant improvement in identifying regions in TARDBP that associated with ALS (OR = 10.08, p = 3.62 × 10–16). Our PLS protein truncating variant collapsing analysis demonstrated significant case enrichment in ANTXR2 (p = 8.38 × 10–6).ConclusionsIn a large multi-ethnic cohort of 6,970 ALS patients, collapsing analyses validated known ALS genes and identified a novel potentially protective gene, ALKBH3. A first-ever analysis in 166 patients with PLS found a candidate association with loss-of-function mutations in ANTXR2