Catechol- O -methyltransferase Val158met polymorphism interacts with early experience to predict executive functions in early childhood: COMT and Executive Functions in Childhood

Numerous studies demonstrate that the Methionine variant of the catechol-O-methyltransferase Val158Met polymorphism, which confers less efficient catabolism of catecholamines, is associated with increased focal activation of prefrontal cortex (PFC) and higher levels of executive function abilities. By and large, however, studies of COMT Val158Met have been conducted with adult samples and do not account for the context in which development is occurring. Effects of early adversity on stress response physiology and the inverted U shape relating catecholamine levels to neural activity in PFC indicate the need to take into account early experience when considering relations between genes such as COMT and executive cognitive ability. Consistent with this neurobiology, we find in a prospective longitudinal sample of children and families (N=1292) that COMT Val158Met interacts with early experience to predict executive function abilities in early childhood. Specifically, the Valine variant of the COMT Val158Met polymorphism, which confers more rather than less efficient catabolism of catecholamines is associated with higher executive function abilities at child ages 48 and 60 months and with faster growth of executive function for children experiencing early adversity, as indexed by cumulative risk factors in the home at child ages 7, 15, 24, and 36 months. Findings indicate the importance of the early environment for the relation between catecholamine genes and developmental outcomes and demonstrate that the genetic moderation of environmental risk is detectable in early childhood

Electroactive poly(vinylidene fluoride) based materials: recent progress, challenges and opportunities

A poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) and its copolymers are polymers that, in specific crystalline phases, show high dielectric and piezoelectric values, excellent mechanical behavior and good thermal and chemical stability, suitable for many applications from the biomedical area to energy devices. This chapter introduces the main properties, processability and polymorphism of PVDF. Further, the recent advances in the applications based on those materials are presented and discussed. Thus, it shown the key role of PVDF and its copolymers as smart and multifunctional material, expanding the limits of polymer-based technologies.FCT (Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia) for financial support under the framework of Strategic Funding grants UID/FIS/04650/2019, and UID/QUI/0686/2019 and project PTDC/FIS-MAC/28157/2017, PTDC/BTMMAT/28237/2017, PTDC/EMD-EMD/28159/2017. The author also thanks the FCT for financial support under grant SFRH/BPD/112547/2015 (C.M.C.), SFRH/BPD/98109/2013 (V.F.C.), SFRH/BD/140698/2018 (R.B.P.), SFRH/BPD/96227/2013 (P.M.), SFRH/BPD/121526/2016 (D.M.C.), SFRH/BPD/97739/2013 (V. C.), SFRH/BPD/90870/2012 (C.R.). Financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) through project MAT2016-76039-C4-3-R (AEI/FEDER, UE) (including FEDER financial support) and from the Basque Government Industry and Education Departments under the ELKARTEK, HAZITEK and PIBA (PIBA-2018-06)

What’s retinoic acid got to do with it? Retinoic acid regulation of the neural crest in craniofacial and ocular development

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151310/1/dvg23308.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/151310/2/dvg23308_am.pd

A many-analysts approach to the relation between religiosity and well-being

The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset (N=10,535 participants from 24 countries). We recruited 120 analysis teams to investigate (1) whether religious people self-report higher well-being, and (2) whether the relation between religiosity and self-reported well-being depends on perceived cultural norms of religion (i.e., whether it is considered normal and desirable to be religious in a given country). In a two-stage procedure, the teams first created an analysis plan and then executed their planned analysis on the data. For the first research question, all but 3 teams reported positive effect sizes with credible/confidence intervals excluding zero (median reported β=0.120). For the second research question, this was the case for 65% of the teams (median reported β=0.039). While most teams applied (multilevel) linear regression models, there was considerable variability in the choice of items used to construct the independent variables, the dependent variable, and the included covariates

A Many-analysts Approach to the Relation Between Religiosity and Well-being

The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset (N = 10, 535 participants from 24 countries). We recruited 120 analysis teams to investigate (1) whether religious people self-report higher well-being, and (2) whether the relation between religiosity and self-reported well-being depends on perceived cultural norms of religion (i.e., whether it is considered normal and desirable to be religious in a given country). In a two-stage procedure, the teams first created an analysis plan and then executed their planned analysis on the data. For the first research question, all but 3 teams reported positive effect sizes with credible/confidence intervals excluding zero (median reported β = 0.120). For the second research question, this was the case for 65% of the teams (median reported β = 0.039). While most teams applied (multilevel) linear regression models, there was considerable variability in the choice of items used to construct the independent variables, the dependent variable, and the included covariates

On guided model-based analysis for ear biometrics

As a biometric, ears have major advantage in that they appear to maintain their shape with increasing age. Current approaches have exploited both 2D and 3D images of the ear in human identification. Contending that the ear is mainly a planar shape we use 2D images, which are also consistent with deployment in surveillance and other planar image scenarios. Capitalizing on explicit structures, we propose a new parts-based model which has an advantage in handling noise and occlusion. Our model is learned via a stochastic clustering algorithm and a training set of ear images. In this, the candidates for the model parts are detected using the Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT). We shall review different accounts of ear formation and consider some congenital ear anomalies which discuss apportioning various components to the ear’s complex structure, and illustrate that our parts-based approach is in accordance with this component-wise structure. In recognition, the ears are automatically enrolled and recognized from the parts selected via the model. The performance is evaluated on test sets selected from XM2VTS data. The model achieves promising results recognizing unoccluded ears and for occluded samples its performance is evaluated against PCA and a robust PCA. By results, both in modelling and recognition, our new model-based method does indeed appear to be a promising new approach to ear biometric

sj-docx-1-dst-10.1177_19322968241234072 – Supplemental material for Control-IQ Technology Use in Individuals With High Insulin Requirements: Results From the Multicenter Higher-IQ Trial

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-dst-10.1177_19322968241234072 for Control-IQ Technology Use in Individuals With High Insulin Requirements: Results From the Multicenter Higher-IQ Trial by Anders L. Carlson, Timothy E. Graham, Halis K. Akturk, David R. Liljenquist, Richard M. Bergenstal, Becky Sulik, Viral N. Shah, Mark Sulik, Peter Zhao, Peter Briggs, Ravid Sassan-Katchalski and Jordan E. Pinsker in Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology</p

sj-docx-2-dst-10.1177_19322968241234072 – Supplemental material for Control-IQ Technology Use in Individuals With High Insulin Requirements: Results From the Multicenter Higher-IQ Trial

Supplemental material, sj-docx-2-dst-10.1177_19322968241234072 for Control-IQ Technology Use in Individuals With High Insulin Requirements: Results From the Multicenter Higher-IQ Trial by Anders L. Carlson, Timothy E. Graham, Halis K. Akturk, David R. Liljenquist, Richard M. Bergenstal, Becky Sulik, Viral N. Shah, Mark Sulik, Peter Zhao, Peter Briggs, Ravid Sassan-Katchalski and Jordan E. Pinsker in Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology</p