The National Project on Achievement in Twins (NatPAT) began in 2017 as part of the third funding cycle of the Florida Learning Disabilities Research Center, a program project grant funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Development. NatPAT will have a nationally representative sample of elementary school-aged twins in the United States. The overall goal of the project is to uncover salient factors, including genetic and environmental influences, which contribute to the co-development of reading and math performance during the critical developmental period of elementary school. Here we present the specific aims, methods and materials, and future directions of the project.

Experimental studies have reported on the anti-inflammatory properties of polyphenols. However, results from epidemiological investigations have been inconsistent, and especially studies using biomarkers for assessment of polyphenol intake have been scant. We aimed to characterize the association between plasma concentrations of 35 polyphenol compounds and low-grade systemic inflammation state as measured by high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP). A cross-sectional data analysis was performed based on 315 participants in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition cohort with available measurements of plasma polyphenols and hsCRP. In logistic regression analysis the odds and 95% confidence intervals (CI-s) of elevated serum hsCRP (>3 mg/L) were calculated within quartiles and per standard deviation (SD) higher level of plasma polyphenol concentrations. In multivariable-adjusted model, the sum of plasma concentrations of all polyphenols measured (per SD) was associated with 29% lower odds of elevated hsCRP (95% CI: 50%-1%). In the class of flavonoids, daidzein was inversely associated with elevated hsCRP (OR= 0.66, 95%CI 0.46-0.96). Among phenolic acids, statistically significant associations were observed for 3,5-dihydroxyphenylpropionic acid (OR=0.58, 95%CI 0.39-0.86), 3,4-dihydroxyphenylpropionic acid (OR= 0.63, 95% CI 0.46-0.87), ferulic acid (OR= 0.65, 95%CI 0.44-0.96), and caffeic acid (OR= 0.69, 95%CI 0.51-0.93). The odds of elevated hsCRP were significantly reduced for hydroxytyrosol (OR= 0.67, 95%CI 0.48-0.93). This study showed that polyphenol biomarkers are associated with lower odds of elevated hsCRP. Whether diet rich in bioactive polyphenol compounds could be an effective strategy to prevent or modulate deleterious health effects of inflammation should be addressed by further well-powered longitudinal studies.

We conducted active surveillance of acute respiratory viral infections (ARIs) among residents and healthcare personnel (HCP) at a long-term care facility during the 2015–2016 respiratory illness season. ARIs were observed among both HCP and patients, highlighting the importance of including HCP in surveillance programs.

Host condition depends in large part on the quality and quantity of available food and heavily influences the outcome of parasite infection. Although parasite fitness traits such as growth rate and size may depend on host condition, whether host food quality or quantity is more important to parasite fitness and within-host interactions is poorly understood. We provided individual mosquito hosts with a standard dose of a gregarine parasite and reared mosquitoes on two food types of different quality and two quantities. We measured host size, total parasite count and area, and average size of parasites within each treatment. Food quality significantly influenced the number of parasites in a host; hosts fed a low-quality diet were infected with more parasites than those provided a high-quality diet. In addition, we found evidence of within-host competition; there was a negative relationship between parasite size and count though this relationship was dependent on host food quality. Host food quantity significantly affected total parasite area and parasite size; lower food quantity resulted in smaller parasites and reduced overall parasite area inside the host. Thus both food quality and quantity have the potential to influence parasite fitness and population dynamics.

Fermented feeds are being considered as practical alternatives to antimicrobial growth promoters (AGP) supplemented in nursery pig diets. This study aimed to investigate health-promoting effects of fermented barley in weaned pigs challenged with Escherichia coli K88 +. A total of 37 piglets were weaned at 21 ± 1 day of age (6.41 ± 0.47 kg of BW) and assigned to either of the following five treatment groups: (1) unchallenged control (UCC; n = 7), (2) challenged control (CC; n = 7), (3) AGP (CC + 0.1% AGP; n = 7), (4) Ferm1 (challenged and fed homofermentative Lactobacillus plantarum (Homo)-fermented barley; n = 8) and (5) Ferm2 (challenged and fed heterofermentative L. buchneri (Hetero)-fermented barley; n = 8). The control diet included unfermented barley. Barley was fermented with either Homo or Hetero for 90 days under anaerobic conditions. On day 10, all pigs except those in UCC group were orally inoculated with E. coli K88 + (6 × 109 colony forming units/ml). The pre-planned orthogonal test was performed to compare (1) UCC and CC, (2) CC and AGP, (3) CC and Ferm1 + Ferm2, as well as (4) Ferm1 and Ferm2. Challenged control pigs showed shorter (P < 0.05) villus height (VH) in the duodenum and deeper (P < 0.05) crypt depth (CD) in the jejunum than UCC pigs. The AGP group had higher (P < 0.05) VH and lower (P < 0.05) IL-6 gene expression in the jejunum compared with CC group. Compared to CC, Ferm1 and Ferm2 had decreased (P < 0.05) CD in the duodenum, IL-6 gene expression in the jejunum and rectal temperature at 24 h post-challenge. Pigs fed fermented barley diets showed greater (P < 0.05) faecal abundance of Clostridium Cluster IV and Lactobacilli than those fed UCC diet. Ferm2-fed pigs showed lower (P < 0.05) concentrations of band cells, eosinophils and lymphocytes at 6, 24 and 48 h after challenge, respectively, and lower (P < 0.05) faecal abundance of Enterobacteriaceae 24 h after challenge than the Ferm1-fed pigs. In conclusion, the substitution of unfermented barley with fermented barley in a nursery diet showed similar results as those shown by AGP supplementation in terms of enhancing the intestinal morphology and modulating faecal microbiota composition, as well as down-regulating the pro-inflammatory cytokines; therefore, fermented barley can be a possible nutritional strategy for managing nursery pigs fed diets without in-feed AGP.

With the surging number of digital devices penetrating our daily routines, the risks inherent to cybersecurity—the protection of data on digital products connected to the Internet—have also increased since these devices (e.g., connected home devices, personal monitoring) collect, process, analyze and store users’ sensitive personal information. Thus, there is a pressing need to assist users in being aware of and dealing with potential cybersecurity threats. With the proposition that fulfilling the need starts with developing an in-depth understanding of the user behaviors in the context of cybersecurity, an exploratory study was conducted that employed three mixed qualitative and quantitative research methods—a trend analysis, an interview study, and an online survey study. The paper reports the user characteristics on (1) awareness levels of cybersecurity issues, (2) uses of digital devices, and (3) means of dealing with the privacy issues in product use. The results of the studies were translated into eight personas that systematically reflect distinct characteristics of users, which can help designers empathize with their potential users vulnerable to cybersecurity risks.

In a 2017 article, Holen and colleagues reported evidence for a 130 000-year-old archaeological site in California. Acceptance of the site would overturn current understanding of global human migrations. The authors here consider Holen et al.’s conclusions through critical evaluation of their replicative experiments. Drawing on best practice in experimental archaeology, and paying particular attention to the authors’ chain of inference, Magnani et al. suggest that to argue convincingly for an early human presence at the Cerutti Mastodon site, Holen et al. must improve their analogical foundations, test alternative hypotheses, increase experimental control and quantify their results.

Existing studies suggest that wavy leading edges (WLEs) offer substantial reduction of broadband noise generated by an aerofoil undergoing upstream vortical disturbances. In this context, there are two universal trends in the frequency spectra of the noise reduction which have been observed and reported to date: (i) no significant reduction at low frequencies followed by (ii) a rapid growth of the noise reduction that persists in the medium-to-high frequency range. These trends are known to be insensitive to the aerofoil type and flow condition used. This paper aims to provide comprehensive understandings as to how these universal trends are formed and what the major drivers are. The current work is based on very-high-resolution numerical simulations of a semi-infinite flat-plate aerofoil impinged by a prescribed divergence-free vortex in an inviscid base flow at zero incidence angle, continued from recent work by the authors (Turner & Kim, J. Fluid Mech., vol. 811, 2017, pp. 582–611). One of the most significant findings in the current work is that the noise source distribution on the aerofoil surface becomes entirely two-dimensional (highly non-uniform in the spanwise direction as well as streamwise) at high frequencies when the WLE is involved. Also, the sources downstream of the LE make crucial contributions to creating the universal trends across all frequencies. These findings contradict the conventional LE-focused one-dimensional source analysis that has widely been accepted for all frequencies. The current study suggests that the universal trends in the noise-reduction spectra can be properly understood by taking the downstream source contributions into account, in terms of both magnitude and phase variations. After including the downstream sources, it is shown in this paper that the first universal trend is due to the conservation of total (surface integrated) source energy at low frequencies. The surface-integrated source magnitude that decreases faster with the WLE correlates very well with the noise-reduction spectrum at medium frequencies. In the meantime, the high-frequency noise reduction is driven almost entirely by destructive phase interference that increases rapidly and consistently with frequency, explaining the second universal trend.