Empathic Neural Responses Predict Group Allegiance.

Watching another person in pain activates brain areas involved in the sensation of our own pain. Importantly, this neural mirroring is not constant; rather, it is modulated by our beliefs about their intentions, circumstances, and group allegiances. We investigated if the neural empathic response is modulated by minimally-differentiating information (e.g., a simple text label indicating another's religious belief), and if neural activity changes predict ingroups and outgroups across independent paradigms. We found that the empathic response was larger when participants viewed a painful event occurring to a hand labeled with their own religion (ingroup) than to a hand labeled with a different religion (outgroup). Counterintuitively, the magnitude of this bias correlated positively with the magnitude of participants' self-reported empathy. A multivariate classifier, using mean activity in empathy-related brain regions as features, discriminated ingroup from outgroup with 72% accuracy; the classifier's confidence correlated with belief certainty. This classifier generalized successfully to validation experiments in which the ingroup condition was based on an arbitrary group assignment. Empathy networks thus allow for the classification of long-held, newly-modified and arbitrarily-formed ingroups and outgroups. This is the first report of a single machine learning model on neural activation that generalizes to multiple representations of ingroup and outgroup. The current findings may prove useful as an objective diagnostic tool to measure the magnitude of one's group affiliations, and the effectiveness of interventions to reduce ingroup biases

Heat-load simulator for heat sink design

Heat-load simulator is fabricated from 1/4-inch aluminum plate with a contact surface equal in dimensions and configuration to those of the electronic installation. The method controls thermal output to simulate actual electronic component thermal output

Trends and correlates of marijuana use among late middle-aged and older adults in the United States, 2002–2014

BACKGROUND: Recent trend studies suggest that marijuana use is on the rise among the general population of adults ages 18 and older in the United States. However, little is known about the trends in marijuana use and marijuana-specific risk/protective factors among American adults during the latter part of adulthood. METHOD: Findings are based on repeated, cross-sectional data collected from late middle-aged (ages 50–64) and older adults (ages 65 and older) surveyed as part of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health between 2002 and 2014. RESULTS: The prevalence of past-year marijuana use among late middle-aged adults increased significantly from a low of 2.95% in 2003 to a high of 9.08% in 2014. Similarly, the prevalence of marijuana use increased significantly among older adults from a low of 0.15% in 2003 to a high of 2.04% in 2014. Notably, the upward trends in marijuana use remained significant even when accounting for sociodemographic, substance use, behavioral, and health-related factors. We also found that decreases in marijuana-specific protective factors were associated with the observed trend changes in marijuana use among late middle-aged and older adults, and observed a weakening of the association between late-middle aged marijuana use and risk propensity, other illicit drug use, and criminal justice system involvement over the course of the study. CONCLUSIONS: Findings from the present study provide robust evidence indicating that marijuana use among older Americans has increased markedly in recent years, with the most evident changes observed between 2008 and 2014

Ring cusp/hollow cathode discharge chamber performance studies

An experimental study was performed to determine the effects of hollow cathode position, anode position, and ring cusp magnetic field configuration and strength on discharge chamber performance. The results are presented in terms of comparative plasma ion energy cost, extracted ion fraction, and beam profile data. Such comparisons are used to demonstrate whether changes in performance are caused by changes in the loss rate of primary electrons to the anode or the loss rate of ions to discharge chamber walls or cathode and anode surfaces. Results show: (1) the rate of primary electron loss to the anode decreases as the anode is moved downstream of the ring cusp toward the screen grid; (2) the loss rate of ions to hollow cathode surfaces are excessive if the cathode is located upstream of a point of peak magnetic flux density at the discharge chamber centerline; and (3) the fraction of the ions produced that are lost to discharge chamber walls and ring magnet surfaces is reduced by positioning of the magnet rings so the plasma density is uniform over the grid surface, and adjusting their strength to a level where it is sufficient to prevent excessive ion losses by Bohm diffusion

Do Complexity Measures of Frontal EEG Distinguish Loss of Consciousness in Geriatric Patients Under Anesthesia?

While geriatric patients have a high likelihood of requiring anesthesia, they carry an increased risk for adverse cognitive outcomes from its use. Previous work suggests this could be mitigated by better intraoperative monitoring using indexes defined by several processed electroencephalogram (EEG) measures. Unfortunately, inconsistencies between patients and anesthetic agents in current analysis techniques have limited the adoption of EEG as standard of care. In attempts to identify new analyses that discriminate clinically-relevant anesthesia timepoints, we tested 1/f frequency scaling as well as measures of complexity from nonlinear dynamics. Specifically, we tested whether analyses that characterize time-delayed embeddings, correlation dimension (CD), phase-space geometric analysis, and multiscale entropy (MSE) capture loss-of-consciousness changes in EEG activity. We performed these analyses on EEG activity collected from a traditionally hard-to-monitor patient population: geriatric patients on beta-adrenergic blockade who were anesthetized using a combination of fentanyl and propofol. We compared these analyses to traditional frequency-derived measures to test how well they discriminated EEG states before and after loss of response to verbal stimuli. We found spectral changes similar to those reported previously during loss of response. We also found significant changes in 1/f frequency scaling. Additionally, we found that our phase-space geometric characterization of time-delayed embeddings showed significant differences before and after loss of response, as did measures of MSE. Our results suggest that our new spectral and complexity measures are capable of capturing subtle differences in EEG activity with anesthesia administration-differences which future work may reveal to improve geriatric patient monitoring

Genetic characterization of clinical and environmental Vibrio parahaemolyticus from the Northeast USA reveals emerging resident and non-indigenous pathogen lineages

Gastric infections caused by the environmentally transmitted pathogen, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, have increased over the last two decades, including in many parts of the United States (US). However, until recently, infections linked to shellfish from the cool northeastern US waters were rare. Cases have risen in the Northeast, consistent with changes in local V. parahaemolyticus populations toward greater abundance or a shift in constituent pathogens. We examined 94 clinical isolates from a period of increasing disease in the region and compared them to 200 environmental counterparts to identify resident and non-indigenous lineages and to gain insight into the emergence of pathogenic types. Genotyping and multi-locus sequence analysis (MLSA) of clinical isolates collected from 2010 to 2013 in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine revealed their polyphyletic nature. Although 80% of the clinical isolates harbored the trh hemolysin either alone or with tdh, and were urease positive, 14% harbored neither hemolysin exposing a limitation for these traits in pathogen detection. Resident sequence type (ST) 631 strains caused seven infections, and show a relatively recent history of recombination with other clinical and environmental lineages present in the region. ST34 and ST674 strains were each linked to a single infection and these strain types were also identified from the environment as isolates harboring hemolysin genes. Forty-two ST36 isolates were identified from the clinical collection, consistent with reports that this strain type caused a rise in regional infections starting in 2012. Whole-genome phylogenies that included three ST36 outbreak isolates traced to at least two local sources demonstrated that the US Atlantic coastal population of this strain type was indeed derived from the Pacific population. This study lays the foundation for understanding dynamics within natural populations associated with emergence and invasion of pathogenic strain types in the region

Development of fad7-1 single mutant Arabidopsis thaliana plants that are resistant to aphids

Aphids are a group of sap-feeding insects that attack most of the world’s crops. The loss of function of fatty acid desaturase7 (FAD7) in Solanum lycopersicum (tomato plant) induces aphid resistance that is dependent upon the accumulation of plant defense hormones such as salicylic acid (SA). Tomato lacks most of the genetic resources found in the model plant Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). There is an analogous fad7-1 line of Arabidopsis; however, the line has a background mutation, the glabra-1 (gl1), that causes the absence of trichomes (small hairs), which are essential to plant defense. In order to study aphid resistance, a single mutant line of fad7-1 mutants were developed using cross breeding between the fad7-1/gl1 mutant and wild-type plants. Homozygous fad7-1 mutants were then identified using the Kasajima DNA extraction method, followed by the use of single nucleotide polymorphism-polymerase chain reaction (SNP-PCR) primers using allele-specific PCR. A phenotypic screening was then performed to screen out the plants with the glabra-1 mutation using the presence or absence of trichomes. Two single Arabidopsis fad7-1 mutant lines were identified, and subsequently verified using a bioassay to be aphid resistant relative to other genotypes as seen in tomato

Increased Metabolic Rate in X-linked Hypophosphatemic Mice

Hyp mice are a model for human X-linked hypophosphatemia, the most common form of vitamin D-resistant rickets. It has previously been observed that Hyp mice have a greater food consumption per gram body weight than do normal mice. This led to the search for some alteration in metabolism in Hyp mice. We found that oxygen consumption was significantly higher in Hyp mice than in normal C57BL/6J mice and this was accompanied by an increased percentage of cardiac output being delivered to organs of heat production (liver and skeletal muscle), to the skin, and to bone and a decreased percentage to the gastrointestinal tract of Hyp mice. The increased oxygen consumption in Hyp mice was not associated with increased plasma free T4 levels and was not affected by alterations in plasma phosphate produced by a low phosphate diet. The cause of the increased oxygen consumption is not known, and the role that this change and reported changes in distribution of cardiac output may play in the development of X-linked hypophosphatemia is also unknown. Study of the cardiovascular and thermoregulatory systems in Hyp mice should help increase understanding of the underlying mechanisms of this disease

Detection and Mapping of Quantitative Trait Loci that Determine Responsiveness

Exposure to 70% N2O evokes a robust antinociceptive effect in C57BL/6 (B6) but not in DBA/2 (D2) inbred mice. This study was conducted to identify quantitative trait loci (QTL) in the mouse genome that might determine responsiveness to N2O. Offspring from the F2 generation bred from B6 and D2 progenitors exhibited a broad range of responsiveness to N2O antinociception as determined by the acetic acid-induced abdominal constriction test. QTL analysis was then used to dissect this continuous trait distribution into component loci, and to map them to broad chromosomal regions. To this end, 24 spleens were collected from each of the following four groups: male and female F2 mice responding to 70% N2O in oxygen with 100% response (high-responders); and male and female F2 mice responding with 0% response (low-responders). Genomic DNA was extracted from the spleens and genotyped with simple sequence length polymorphism MapPairs markers. Findings were combined with findings from the earlier QTL analysis from BXD recombinant inbred mice [Brain Res 725 (1996) 23]. Combined results revealed two significant QTL that influence responsiveness to nitrous oxide on proximal chromosome 2 and distal chromosome 5, and one suggestive QTL on midchromosome 18. The chromosome 2 QTL was evident only in males. A significant interaction was found between a locus on chromosome 6 and another on chromosome 13 with a substantial effect on N2O antinociception