Relationship Between Sleep and Behavior in Autism Spectrum Disorder: Exploring the Impact of Sleep Variability.

Objective:The relationship between sleep (caregiver-reported and actigraphy-measured) and other caregiver-reported behaviors in children and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) was examined, including the use of machine learning to identify sleep variables important in predicting anxiety in ASD. Methods:Caregivers of ASD (n = 144) and typically developing (TD) (n = 41) participants reported on sleep and other behaviors. ASD participants wore an actigraphy device at nighttime during an 8 or 10-week non-interventional study. Mean and variability of actigraphy measures for ASD participants in the week preceding midpoint and endpoint were calculated and compared with caregiver-reported and clinician-reported symptoms using a mixed effects model. An elastic-net model was developed to examine which sleep measures may drive prediction of anxiety. Results:Prevalence of caregiver-reported sleep difficulties in ASD was approximately 70% and correlated significantly (p < 0.05) with sleep efficiency measured by actigraphy. Mean and variability of actigraphy measures like sleep efficiency and number of awakenings were related significantly (p < 0.05) to ASD symptom severity, hyperactivity and anxiety. In the elastic net model, caregiver-reported sleep, and variability of sleep efficiency and awakenings were amongst the important predictors of anxiety. Conclusion:Caregivers report problems with sleep in the majority of children and adults with ASD. Reported problems and actigraphy measures of sleep, particularly variability, are related to parent reported behaviors. Measuring variability in sleep may prove useful in understanding the relationship between sleep problems and behavior in individuals with ASD. These findings may have implications for both intervention and monitoring outcomes in ASD

The experience of gambling problems in British professional footballers: A preliminary qualitative study

Media reports suggest high rates of gambling amongst professional footballers but little is known about how footballers develop and then seek help for gambling problems. Here, we report the findings of in-depth, qualitative interviews with 11 British professional footballers who had, or who were, being treated for gambling problems at a residential clinic. These individuals experienced gambling as a highly salient feature of life as a professional football player in UK professional leagues. Often gambling began as part of social networks of young players, but then progressed to gambling problematically in isolation. Factors that facilitated this transition included structural aspects of professional football as an occupation (e.g. high salaries, spare time, gambling as a shared leisure pursuit) as well as the competitive and emotional challenges of the game (e.g. loss of form, injury or contract release and their effects upon mood). Seeking help was delayed by a reluctance to disclose problems to peers and club managers, but facilitated by recommendations from other players with similar experiences

The Star Clusters in the Starburst Irregular Galaxy NGC 1569

We examine star clusters in the irregular, starburst galaxy NGC 1569 from HST images. In addition to the two known super star clusters, we identify 45 other clusters that are compact but resolved. Integrated UVI colors of the clusters span a large range, and suggest that ages range from 3 Myrs to 1 Gyr. However, most of the clusters were formed at the tail end of the recent starburst. Numerous clusters in addition to the know super star clusters are similar in luminosity to a small globular cluster. We examined the radial surface brightness of four of the clusters. Their half-light radii and core radii are in the range observed in present-day globular clusters. Therefore, conditions that produced the recent starburst have also been those necessary for producing compact, bright star clusters. We examine resolved stars in the outer parts of the two super star clusters. Cluster A is dominated by bright blue stars with a small population of red supergiants. Sub-components A1 and A2 have similar colors and a two-dimensional color map does not offer evidence that one component is dominated by red supergiants and the other not. The contradiction of the presence of red super- giants with Wolf-Rayet stars may instead not be a contradiction at all since there coexistence in a coeval population is not inconsistent with the evolution of massive stars. Cluster B is dominated by red supergiants, and this is confirmed by the presence of the stellar CO absorption feature in an integrated spectrum. The various age indicators are consistent with a picture in which cluster B is of order 10--20 Myrs old, and cluster A is >4-5 Myrs old.Comment: To be published in AJ, November 200

Impact of Pre-Exposure History and Host Genetics on Antibody Avidity Following Norovirus Vaccination

Background: Development of high avidity, broadly neutralizing antibodies (Abs) is a priority after vaccination against rapidly evolving, widely disseminated viruses like human norovirus. After vaccination with a multivalent GI.1 and GII.4c norovirus virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine candidate adjuvanted with alum and monophosphoryl lipid A (MPL), blockade Ab titers peaked early, with no increase in titer following a second vaccine dose. Methods: Blockade Ab relative avidity was evaluated by measuring the slope of blockade Ab neutralization curves. Results: Blockade Ab avidity to the GI.1 vaccine component peaked at day 35 (7 days after dose 2). Avidities to heterotypic genogroup I VLPs were not sustained at day 35 after vaccination or GI.1 infection, as measured from archived sera. Only secretor-positive participants maintained high avidity blockade Ab to GI.1 at day 180. Avidity to the GII.4c vaccine component peaked at day 7, remained elevated through day 180, and was not secretor dependent. Avidity to an immunologically novel GII.4 strain VLP correlated with preexisting Ab titer to an ancestral strain Epitope A. Conclusions: Host genetics and pre-exposure history shape norovirus vaccine Ab responses, including blockade Ab avidity. Avidity of potentially neutralizing Ab may be an important metric for evaluating vaccine responses to highly penetrant viruses with cross-reactive serotypes

Standard methods for pollination research with Apis mellifera

Fil: Delaplane, Keith S. University of Georgia. Department of Entomology; USA.Fil: Dag, Arnon. Ministry of Agriculture. Agricultural Research Organization. Gilat Research Center; Israel.Fil: Danka, Robert G. Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics, and Physiology Research; USA.Fil: Freitas, Breno M. Universidade Federal do Ceará. Departamento de Zootecnia - CCA; Brazil.Fil: Garibaldi, Lucas Alejandro. Universidad Nacional de Río Negro. Sede Andina; Argentina.Fil: Goodwin, Mark R. Plant and Food Research. The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Limited; New Zealand.Fil: Hormaza, José I. Instituto de Hortofruticultura Subtropical y Mediterranea La Mayora (IHSM La Mayora-CSIC-UMA); Spain.Fil: Garibaldi, Lucas Alejandro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina.In this chapter we present a synthesis of recommendations for conducting field experiments with honey bees in the context of agricultural pollination. We begin with an overview of methods for determining the mating system requirements of plants and the efficacy of specific pollinators. We describe methods for evaluating the pollen vectoring capacity of bees at the level of individuals or colonies and follow with methods for determining optimum colony field stocking densities. We include sections for determining post harvest effects of pollination, the effects of colony management (including glasshouse enclosure) on bee pollination performance, and a brief section on considerations about pesticides and their impact on pollinator performance. A final section gives guidance on determining the economic valuation of honey bee colony inputs at the scale of the farm or region

The unusual occurrence of green algal balls of <i>Chaetomorpha linum</i> on a beach in Sydney, Australia.

In spring 2014, thousands of green algal balls were washed up at Dee Why Beach, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Reports of algal balls are uncommon in marine systems, and mass strandings on beaches are even more rare, sparking both public and scientific interest. We identified the algal masses as Chaetomorpha linum by using light microscopy and DNA sequencing. We characterize the size and composition of the balls from Dee Why Beach and compare them to previous records of marine algal balls. We describe the environmental conditions that could explain their appearance, given the ecophysiology of C. linum

Social attention to activities in children and adults with autism spectrum disorder: effects of context and age

BackgroundDiminished visual monitoring of faces and activities of others is an early feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). It is uncertain whether deficits in activity monitoring, identified using a homogeneous set of stimuli, persist throughout the lifespan in ASD, and thus, whether they could serve as a biological indicator ("biomarker") of ASD. We investigated differences in visual attention during activity monitoring in children and adult participants with autism compared to a control group of participants without autism.MethodsEye movements of participants with autism (n = 122; mean age [SD] = 14.5 [8.0] years) and typically developing (TD) controls (n = 40, age = 16.4 [13.3] years) were recorded while they viewed a series of videos depicting two female actors conversing while interacting with their hands over a shared task. Actors either continuously focused their gaze on each other's face (mutual gaze) or on the shared activity area (shared focus). Mean percentage looking time was computed for the activity area, actors' heads, and their bodies.ResultsCompared to TD participants, participants with ASD looked longer at the activity area (mean % looking time: 58.5% vs. 53.8%, p &lt; 0.005) but less at the heads (15.2% vs. 23.7%, p &lt; 0.0001). Additionally, within-group differences in looking time were observed between the mutual gaze and shared focus conditions in both participants without ASD (activity: Δ = - 6.4%, p &lt; 0.004; heads: Δ = + 3.5%, p &lt; 0.02) and participants with ASD (bodies: Δ = + 1.6%, p &lt; 0.002).LimitationsThe TD participants were not as well characterized as the participants with ASD. Inclusion criteria regarding the cognitive ability [intelligence quotient (IQ) &gt; 60] limited the ability to include individuals with substantial intellectual disability.ConclusionsDifferences in attention to faces could constitute a feature discriminative between individuals with and without ASD across the lifespan, whereas between-group differences in looking at activities may shift with development. These findings may have applications in the search for underlying biological indicators specific to ASD. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT02668991

Revisiting metal fluorides as lithium-ion battery cathodes.

Metal fluorides, promising lithium-ion battery cathode materials, have been classified as conversion materials due to the reconstructive phase transitions widely presumed to occur upon lithiation. We challenge this view by studying FeF3 using X-ray total scattering and electron diffraction techniques that measure structure over multiple length scales coupled with density functional theory calculations, and by revisiting prior experimental studies of FeF2 and CuF2. Metal fluoride lithiation is instead dominated by diffusion-controlled displacement mechanisms, and a clear topological relationship between the metal fluoride F- sublattices and that of LiF is established. Initial lithiation of FeF3 forms FeF2 on the particle's surface, along with a cation-ordered and stacking-disordered phase, A-LixFeyF3, which is structurally related to α-/β-LiMn2+Fe3+F6 and which topotactically transforms to B- and then C-LixFeyF3, before forming LiF and Fe. Lithiation of FeF2 and CuF2 results in a buffer phase between FeF2/CuF2 and LiF. The resulting principles will aid future developments of a wider range of isomorphic metal fluorides.X.H. is supported by funding from EPSRC Doctoral Prize, Adolphe Merkle and the Swiss National Science Foundation (Program NRP70 No. 153990) and European Commission via MSCA (Grant 798169). A.S.E. acknowledges financial support from the Royal Society. E.C.M. acknowledges funding from European Commission via MSCA (Grant 747449) and RTI2018-094550-A-100 from MICINN. Z. L. acknowledges funding from the Faraday Institution via the FutureCat consortium. C.J.P. is supported by the Royal Society through a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit award, and EPSRC grant EP/P022596/1. A.L.G. acknowledges funding from the ERC (Grant 788144). This research was supported as part of the North Eastern Center for Chemical Energy Storage, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, and Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Award Number DE-SC0001294. Work done at Argonne and use of the Advanced Photon Source, an Office of Science User Facility operated for the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory, was supported by the US DOE under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. Work done at Diamond Light Source was under Proposal EE17315-1. The authors are grateful to Prof. G. Ceder and other NECCES members for many stimulating discussions concerning fluoride-based conversion reactions and on the origins of structural hysteresis. The authors also acknowledge the help from S. Dutton, T. Dean, A. Docker, M. Leskes and D. Keeble