Sex Differences in the Effect of Inflammation on Subjective Social Status: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Endotoxin in Healthy Young Adults.

It has been established that inflammation leads to a variety of changes in social experience, but one area of social experience that has been overlooked is subjective social status. Furthermore, given sex differences in the relationship between inflammation and social status, males may be more sensitive to inflammation-induced changes in social status. However, no previous studies in humans have examined this possibility. In the present study, healthy young participants (n = 115) were randomly assigned to receive either endotoxin, an experimental inflammatory challenge, or placebo. Participants reported their subjective social status at baseline (prior to injection), and approximately 2 h later (time of peak inflammatory response for the endotoxin group). Results, using ANCOVA analyses, indicated that males exposed to endotoxin, but not females, reported lower levels of subjective social status at the peak of inflammatory response (vs. placebo). These results suggest that males may be more sensitive to the effects of inflammation in certain social domains, such as perceived social status. Clinical Trial Registration: www.ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier NCT01671150

Crossed Module Bundle Gerbes; Classification, String Group and Differential Geometry

We discuss nonabelian bundle gerbes and their differential geometry using simplicial methods. Associated to any crossed module there is a simplicial group NC, the nerve of the 1-category defined by the crossed module and its geometric realization |NC|. Equivalence classes of principal bundles with structure group |NC| are shown to be one-to-one with stable equivalence classes of what we call crossed module gerbes bundle gerbes. We can also associate to a crossed module a 2-category C'. Then there are two equivalent ways how to view classifying spaces of NC-bundles and hence of |NC|-bundles and crossed module bundle gerbes. We can either apply the W-construction to NC or take the nerve of the 2-category C'. We discuss the string group and string structures from this point of view. Also a simplicial principal bundle can be equipped with a simplicial connection and a B-field. It is shown how in the case of a simplicial principal NC-bundle these simplicial objects give the bundle gerbe connection and the bundle gerbe B-field

Developing a Research Agenda for Adult Palliative Care: A Modified Delphi Study

Background: Little is known about research priorities in adult palliative care. Identifying research priorities for adult palliative care will help in increasing research quality and translation. Objective: The aim was to identify the views of health professionals' research priorities in adult palliative care that lead to development of a palliative care research agenda in Australia. Design: A modified three-round Delphi survey. Setting/Subjects: Palliative care researchers and clinicians in Australia were invited to participate. Results: A total of 25 panelists completed round 1, 14 completed round 2, and 13 completed round 3. Round 1 resulted in 90 research priorities in 13 categories. Round 2 showed consensus agreement on 19/90 research priorities. Round 3 resulted in the top 10 research priorities of the 19 achieving consensus in round 2. Panelists agreed that research is needed on the transition to palliative care; improving communication about prognosis; increasing access to palliative care for indigenous communities, people who wish to remain at home, and people in aged care; addressing family caregivers' needs; promoting patients' and families' decision making; improving cross-cultural aspects of palliative care; determining the effects of assisted dying legislation; and improving bereavement care in rural, remote, and Aboriginal populations. Conclusions: The expert panelists identified the top 10 research priorities for adult palliative care. These identified research priorities are the most urgent topics requiring attention to increase the quality of life of patients requiring palliative care and their family members

Goal-Focused Emotion-Regulation Therapy (GET) for young adult survivors of testicular cancer: a pilot randomized controlled trial of a biobehavioral intervention protocol.

BackgroundTesticular cancer diagnosis and treatment, especially given its threat to sexuality and reproductive health, can be distressing in the formative period of young adulthood and the majority of young survivors experience impairing, distressing, and modifiable adverse outcomes that can persist long after medical treatment. These include psychological distress, impairment in pursuit of life goals, persistent physical side effects, elevated risk of secondary malignancies and chronic illness, and biobehavioral burden (e.g., enhanced inflammation, dysregulated diurnal stress hormones). However, few targeted interventions exist to assist young survivors in renegotiating life goals and regulating cancer-related emotions, and none focus on reducing the burden of morbidity via biobehavioral mechanisms. This paper describes the methodology of a randomized controlled biobehavioral trial designed to investigate the feasibility and preliminary impact of a novel intervention, Goal-focused Emotion-Regulation Therapy (GET), aimed at improving distress symptoms, emotion regulation, goal navigation skills, and stress-sensitive biomarkers in young adult testicular cancer patients.MethodsParticipants will be randomized to receive six sessions of GET or Individual Supportive Therapy (ISP) delivered over 8 weeks. In addition to indicators of intervention feasibility, we will measure primary (depressive and anxiety symptoms) and secondary (emotion regulation and goal navigation skills, career confusion) psychological outcomes prior to (T0), immediately after (T1), and 12 weeks after (T2) intervention. Additionally, identified biomarkers will be measured at baseline and at T2.DiscussionGET may have the potential to improve self-regulation across biobehavioral domains, improve overall cancer adjustment, and address the need for targeted supportive care interventions for young adult cancer survivors.Trial registrationClinicaltrials.gov, NCT04150848. Registered on 28 October 2019

Modifications to the Aesop's fable paradigm change New Caledonian crow performances

While humans are able to understand much about causality, it is unclear to what extent non-human animals can do the same. The Aesop's Fable paradigm requires an animal to drop stones into a water-filled tube to bring a floating food reward within reach. Rook, Eurasian jay, and New Caledonian crow performances are similar to those of children under seven years of age when solving this task. However, we know very little about the cognition underpinning these birds' performances. Here, we address several limitations of previous Aesop's Fable studies to gain insight into the causal cognition of New Caledonian crows. Our results provide the first evidence that any non-human animal can solve the U-tube task and can discriminate between water-filled tubes of different volumes. However, our results do not provide support for the hypothesis that these crows can infer the presence of a hidden causal mechanism. They also call into question previous object-discrimination performances. The methodologies outlined here should allow for more powerful comparisons between humans and other animal species and thus help us to determine which aspects of causal cognition are distinct to humans

Inter-transcriber reliability for two systems of prosodic annotation: ToBI (Tones and Break Indices) and RaP (Rhythm and Pitch)

Speech researchers often rely on human annotation of prosody to generate data to test hypotheses and generate models. We present an overview of two prosodic annotation systems: ToBI (Tones and Break Indices) (Silverman et al., 1992), and RaP (Rhythm and Pitch) (Dilley & Brown, 2005), which was designed to address several limitations of ToBI. The paper reports two large-scale studies of inter-transcriber reliability for ToBI and RaP. Comparable reliability for both systems was obtained for a variety of prominence- and boundary-related agreement categories. These results help to establish RaP as an alternative to ToBI for research and technology applicationsNational Science Foundation (U.S.) (NSF grant BCS 0847653

Balancing resource protection and development in a highly regulated river: The role of conjunctive use

The central position of water in social and economic development drives the imperative for water storage, particularly in water-stressed parts of the world. A consequence is that rivers are perceived primarily as locations for water storage as we seek to manage risks to social welfare and development. Assurance of supply becomes the dominant paradigm shaping decisions about allocation of water from impoundments. When this paradigm is deeply ingrained it constrains decision-making around flow management for other purposes, particularly for sustaining ecological systems. Ten years ago South Africa introduced progressive legislation for water resource management (the National Water Act of 1998) which enshrines the ecological Reserve. This requirement for the environment is not considered as a water use, because the environment is the resource. However, due to the very complex Reserve determination process, and perhaps a lack of political will, the ecological Reserve has proved difficult to implement and has only now started to be implemented in some river systems. In the case of the lower uMngeni River in KwaZulu-Natal, besides releases to maintain a minimum river flow (the so called ‘compensation flows’, which were never designed as environmental flows), for nearly 20 years there has been an unofficial policy to allow spates on between 1 and 4 days per year to make possible the continuation of the prestigious Dusi Canoe Marathon. The total amount of water involved is just over 1.2% of the river’s virgin MAR, although in years perceived to be dry the releases may be cut to as little as 0.3% of the virgin MAR. While these releases have been tolerated for the continuation of a high-value recreational industry, they are in fact aligned, albeit with a fraction of the necessary volume, with the environmental flows that would be required if the ecological Reserve had been determined. The releases for these events therefore have a dual or conjunctive value, serving both environmental and recreational purposes at the same time. We suggest that considerations of conjunctive use offer practical opportunities for balancing resource protection and development in regulated rivers. Keywords: resource protection, regulated rivers, assurance of supply, conjunctive use, ecological Reserve, environmental water allocation, environmental flows, recreational use, canoein