Common Ribs of Inhibitory Synaptic Dysfunction in the Umbrella of Neurodevelopmental Disorders

The term neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) is an umbrella term used to group together a heterogeneous class of disorders characterized by disruption in cognition, emotion, and behavior, early in the developmental timescale. These disorders are heterogeneous, yet they share common behavioral symptomatology as well as overlapping genetic contributors, including proteins involved in the formation, specialization, and function of synaptic connections. Advances may arise from bridging the current knowledge on synapse related factors indicated from both human studies in NDD populations, and in animal models. Mounting evidence has shown a link to inhibitory synapse formation, specialization, and function among Autism, Angelman, Rett and Dravet syndromes. Inhibitory signaling is diverse, with numerous subtypes of inhibitory interneurons, phasic and tonic modes of inhibition, and the molecular and subcellular diversity of GABAA receptors. We discuss common ribs of inhibitory synapse dysfunction in the umbrella of NDD, highlighting alterations in the developmental switch to inhibitory GABA, dysregulation of neuronal activity patterns by parvalbumin-positive interneurons, and impaired tonic inhibition. Increasing our basic understanding of inhibitory synapses, and their role in NDDs is likely to produce significant therapeutic advances in behavioral symptom alleviation for interrelated NDDs. Highlights • Human studies and animal models need to be bridged in neurodevelopmental disorders • Inhibitory signaling emerges as a common contributor to neurodevelopmental disorders • Inhibitory signaling is diverse in mode, source, and target • Systematic evaluation of inhibitory diversity is lacking in neurodevelopment • Understanding of inhibitory signaling diversity will advance therapeutic strategie

Fiscal Paradise: Foreign Tax Havens and American Business

The offshore tax haven affiliates of American corporations account for more than a quarter of US foreign investment, an nearly a third of the foreign profits of US firms. This paper analyzes the origins of this tax haven activity and its implications for the US and foreign governments. Based on the behavior of US fins in 1982, it appears that American companies report extraordinarily high profit rates on both their real and their financial investments in tax havens. We calculate from this behavior that the tax rate that maximizes tax revenue for a typical haven is around 6%. The revenue implications for the US are more complicated, since tax havens may ultimately enhance the ability of the US government to tax the foreign earnings of American companies.

COMMERCE AND TRADE Multilevel Distribution Companies: Regulate Under Business Opportunities Act

The Act provides for regulation of multilevel distribution companies under the Business Opportunities Ac

COMMERCE AND TRADE Fair Business Practices Act: Revise Provisions Relating to Administrative Actions

The Act extensively revises provisions relating to actions by the administrator of the Fair Business Practices Act of 1975. The Act permits the administrator to issue cease and desist orders and to impose civil penalties. The Act provides additional court-imposed remedies, including restitution to injured consumers

COMMERCE AND TRADE Fair Business Practices Act: Revise Provisions Relating to Administrative Actions

The Act extensively revises provisions relating to actions by the administrator of the Fair Business Practices Act of 1975. The Act permits the administrator to issue cease and desist orders and to impose civil penalties. The Act provides additional court-imposed remedies, including restitution to injured consumers

Non-local dispersal

We consider a model of spatial spread that has applications in both material science and biology. The classical models are based upon partial differential equations, in particular reaction-diffusion equations. Here the dispersal term is given in terms of an integral operator and we restrict ourselves to the scalar case

Neuron splitting in compute-bound parallel network simulations enables runtime scaling with twice as many processors

Neuron tree topology equations can be split into two subtrees and solved on different processors with no change in accuracy, stability, or computational effort; communication costs involve only sending and receiving two double precision values by each subtree at each time step. Splitting cells is useful in attaining load balance in neural network simulations, especially when there is a wide range of cell sizes and the number of cells is about the same as the number of processors. For compute-bound simulations load balance results in almost ideal runtime scaling. Application of the cell splitting method to two published network models exhibits good runtime scaling on twice as many processors as could be effectively used with whole-cell balancing

Between beats

For this project, I wrote and directed a short film. The film follows a young woman's life in the days preceding the one-year anniversary of her boyfriend's suicide. It shows the aftermath of the event rather than the event itself. The narrator is a writer, so we see her struggle to continue to do what she loves amidst the turmoil of her emotions. How do you do what you love, when the person closest to you is gone? How can you access the places of your mind that you need to write, when they are numb, inaccessible? We see her bond more closely with a neighboring friend as she goes through this internal struggle to accept her history and truly make it a part of her past. The purpose of this film is to create a piece of moving and current art that will evoke critical thought and stirring emotions from its viewer.Thesis (B.?.)Honors Colleg