Investigating the Mechanisms Driving Referent Selection and Retention in Toddlers at Typical and Elevated Likelihood for Autism Spectrum Disorder.

It was suggested that children's referent selection may not lay memory traces sufficiently strong to lead to retention of new word-object mappings. If this was the case we expect incorrect selections to be easily rectified through feedback. Previous work suggested this to be the case in toddlers at typical likelihood (TL) but not in those at elevated likelihood (EL) for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (Bedford et al., ). Yet group differences in lexical knowledge may have confounded these findings. Here, TL (N = 29) and EL toddlers (N = 75) chose one of two unfamiliar objects as a referent for a new word. Both groups retained the word-referent mapping above chance when their choices were immediately reinforced but were at chance after corrective feedback. The same pattern of results was obtained when children observed another experimenter make the initial referent choice. Thus, children's referent choices lay memory traces that compete with subsequent correction; these strong word-object associations are not a result of children actively choosing potential referents for new words

Vaginal progesterone prophylaxis for preterm birth (the OPPTIMUM study): a multicentre, randomised, double-blind trial

Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME) Programme, a Medical Research Council (MRC) and National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) partnership. The EME Programme is funded by the MRC and NIHR, with contributions from the Chief Scientist Office in Scotland and National Institute for Social Care and Research in Wales

Countermeasures for Preventing and Treating Opioid Overdose

The only medication available currently to prevent and treat opioid overdose (naloxone) was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nearly 50 years ago. Because of its pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties, naloxone has limited utility under some conditions and would not be effective to counteract mass casualties involving large-scale deployment of weaponized synthetic opioids. To address shortcomings of current medical countermeasures for opioid toxicity, a trans-agency scientific meeting was convened by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases/National Institutes of Health (NIAID/NIH) on August 6 and 7, 2019, to explore emerging alternative approaches for treating opioid overdose in the event of weaponization of synthetic opioids. The meeting was initiated by the Chemical Countermeasures Research Program (CCRP), was organized by NIAID, and was a collaboration with the National Institute on Drug Abuse/NIH (NIDA/NIH), the FDA, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). This paper provides an overview of several presentations at that meeting that discussed emerging new approaches for treating opioid overdose, including the following: (1) intranasal nalmefene, a competitive, reversible opioid receptor antagonist with a longer duration of action than naloxone; (2) methocinnamox, a novel opioid receptor antagonist; (3) covalent naloxone nanoparticles; (4) serotonin (5-HT)1A receptor agonists; (5) fentanyl-binding cyclodextrin scaffolds; (6) detoxifying biomimetic “nanosponge” decoy receptors; and (7) antibody-based strategies. These approaches could also be applied to treat opioid use disorder.</p

Session 11: Louder Education with Alex Skolnick

Education and rock’n’roll have long had a complicated, somewhat contentious coexistence. From Alice Cooper’s anthem “School’s Out” to Pink Floyd’s recording of children defiantly singing “We don’t need no education,” rock in the 70s was rife images of disenchanted youth rising up against parents, teachers and educational institutions. Hard rock and heavy metal built upon these examples in the 80s and beyond. Indeed, it is the all too oppressive, creativity-stifling environment of too many school systems and the psychologically crippling social experiences accompanying them that cause youngsters to make a seemingly overnight Kafkaesque transformation from cute, cuddly cherubs one day to Slayer t-shirt clad malcontents the next. Louder Education represents the concept that education and rock needn\u27t be mutually exclusive. Coined by guitarist Alex Skolnick, the term was first used as the title of a web series centered on a New York after-school music program, THOR (co-hosted by Alex and THOR founder Chris Harfenist and airing on MetalInjection.com). Louder Ed’s latest configuration is Alex’s lecture and musical demonstration showing that instead of shunning students’ interest in music – metal and otherwise - parents and teachers should embrace it. The presentation includes, but is not limited to, the following components: Music is exciting and stimulating to its fans. Connecting it with formal education can open up new channels of learning previously unrealized, foster discipline and study habits applicable to academic subjects, and be a gateway to further appreciation of arts and culture (musical and otherwise). The anti-school imagery found in rock, while often misinterpreted, does not represent a rejection of learning (many of its biggest instigators, including Alice Cooper and Pink Floyd’s members, are highly intelligent, well spoken and learned people). Rather it is an encouragement of independent thinking and a questioning of conformity. Youths are consistently fed the image of “the musician” as a slacker lacking in both intelligence and impulse control (admittedly not helped by certain artists’ behavior). Instead, the focus needs to shift to musicians such as Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson (a pillar of Britain’s business community), Queen’s Brian May (Astrophysics PhD, university chancellor), Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello (Harvard grad/activist) jazz musician Vijay Iyer (Physics PhD, Harvard professor), Henry Rollins (writer, activist), Frank Zappa (late composing genius/social critic) and others who successfully combine sound with smarts. Scholastic topics abound in rock music, especially heavy metal. Take literature, for example. What better way to stimulate students interest in Mark Twain, Samuel Coleridge and Ernest Hemingway than through such songs as, respectively, “Tom Sawyer” (Rush), Rhyme of The Ancient Mariner (Iron Maiden) and For Whom the Bell Tolls (Metallica)

Dataset for Observation of Zitterbewegung in photonic microcavities

Dataset for Observation of Zitterbewegung in photonic microcavities</p

Public health impact of a US ban on menthol in cigarettes and cigars: A simulation study

Introduction: The US Food and Drug Administration most recently announced its intention to ban menthol cigarettes and cigars nationwide in April 2021. Implementation of the ban will require evidence that it would improve public health. This paper simulates the potential public health impact of a ban on menthol in cigarettes and cigars through its impacts on smoking initiation, smoking cessation and switching to nicotine vaping products (NVPs). Methods: After calibrating an established US simulation model to reflect recent use trends in cigarette and NVP use, we extended the model to incorporate menthol and non-menthol cigarette use under a status quo scenario. Applying estimates from a recent expert elicitation on the behavioural impacts of a menthol ban, we developed a menthol ban scenario with the ban starting in 2021. We estimated the public health impact as the difference between smoking and vaping-attributable deaths and life-years lost in the status quo scenario and the menthol ban scenario from 2021 to 2060. Results: As a result of the ban, overall smoking was estimated to decline by 15% as early as 2026 due to menthol smokers quitting both NVP and combustible use or switching to NVPs. These transitions are projected to reduce cumulative smoking and vaping-attributable deaths from 2021 to 2060 by 5% (650 000 in total) and reduce life-years lost by 8.8% (11.3 million). Sensitivity analyses showed appreciable public health benefits across different parameter specifications. Conclusions and relevance: Our findings strongly support the implementation of a ban on menthol in cigarettes and cigars