Plausible values (PVs) are a standard multiple imputation tool for analysis of large education survey data, which measures latent proficiency variables. When latent proficiency is the dependent variable, we reconsider the standard institutionally generated PV methodology and find it applies with greater generality than shown previously. When latent proficiency is an independent variable, we show that the standard institutional PV methodology produces biased inference because the institutional conditioning model places restrictions on the form of the secondary analysts’ model. We offer an alternative approach that avoids these biases based on the mixed effects structural equations model of Schofield (Modeling measurement error when using cognitive test scores in social science research. Doctoral dissertation. Department of Statistics and Heinz College of Public Policy. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University, 2008).

From early on, infants show a preference for infant-directed speech (IDS) over adult-directed speech (ADS), and exposure to IDS has been correlated with language outcome measures such as vocabulary. The present multi-laboratory study explores this issue by investigating whether there is a link between early preference for IDS and later vocabulary size. Infants’ preference for IDS was tested as part of the ManyBabies 1 project, and follow-up CDI data were collected from a subsample of this dataset at 18 and 24 months. A total of 341 (18 months) and 327 (24 months) infants were tested across 21 laboratories. In neither preregistered analyses with North American and UK English, nor exploratory analyses with a larger sample did we find evidence for a relation between IDS preference and later vocabulary. We discuss implications of this finding in light of recent work suggesting that IDS preference measured in the laboratory has low test-retest reliability.

Background: Saccade and pupil responses are potential neurodegenerative disease biomarkers due to overlap between oculomotor circuitry and disease-affected areas. Instruction-based tasks have previously been examined as biomarker sources, but are arduous for patients with limited cognitive abilities; additionally, few studies have evaluated multiple neurodegenerative pathologies concurrently. Methods: The Ontario Neurodegenerative Disease Research Initiative recruited individuals with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), frontotemporal dementia, progressive supranuclear palsy, or Parkinson’s disease (PD). Patients (n=274, age 40-86) and healthy controls (n=101, age 55-86) viewed 10 minutes of frequently changing video clips without instruction while their eyes were tracked. We evaluated differences in saccade and pupil parameters (e.g. saccade frequency and amplitude, pupil size, responses to clip changes) between groups. Results: Preliminary data indicates low-level behavioural alterations in multiple disease cohorts: increased centre bias, lower overall saccade rate and reduced saccade amplitude. After clip changes, patient groups generally demonstrated lower saccade rate but higher microsaccade rate following clip change to varying degrees. Additionally, pupil responses were blunted (AD, MCI, ALS) or exaggerated (PD). Conclusions: This task may generate behavioural biomarkers even in cognitively impaired populations. Future work should explore the possible effects of factors such as medication and disease stage.

Despite the recognition that bone histology provides much information about the life history and biology of extinct animals, osteohistology of extinct marsupials is sorely lacking. We studied the bone histology of the ca. 15-million-year-old Nimbadon lavarackorum from Australia to obtain insight into its biology. The histology of thin sections of five femora and five tibiae of juveniles, subadult, and adult Nimbadon lavarackorum was studied. Growth marks in the bones suggest that N. lavarackorum took at least 7–8 years (and likely longer) to reach skeletal maturity. The predominant bone tissue during early ontogeny is parallel-fibered bone, whereas an even slower rate of bone formation is indicated by the presence of lamellar bone tissue in the periosteal parts of the compacta in older individuals. Deposition of bone was interrupted periodically by lines of arrested growth or annuli. This cyclical growth strategy indicates that growth in N. lavarackorum was affected by the prevailing environmental conditions and available resources, as well as seasonal physiological factors such as decreasing body temperatures and metabolic rates.

Quantifying the marine radiocarbon reservoir effect, offsets (ΔR), and ΔR variability over time is critical to improving dating estimates of marine samples while also providing a proxy of water mass dynamics. In the northeastern Pacific, where no high-resolution time series of ΔR has yet been established, we sampled radiocarbon (14C) from exactly dated growth increments in a multicentennial chronology of the long-lived bivalve, Pacific geoduck (Paneopea generosa) at the Tree Nob site, coastal British Columbia, Canada. Samples were taken at approximately decadal time intervals from 1725 CE to 1920 CE and indicate average ΔR values of 256 ± 22 years (1σ) consistent with existing discrete estimates. Temporal variability in ΔR is small relative to analogous Atlantic records except for an unusually old-water event, 1802–1812. The correlation between ΔR and sea surface temperature (SST) reconstructed from geoduck increment width is weakly significant (r2 = .29, p = .03), indicating warm water is generally old, when the 1802–1812 interval is excluded. This interval contains the oldest (–2.1σ) anomaly, and that is coincident with the coldest (–2.7σ) anomalies of the temperature reconstruction. An additional 32 14C values spanning 1952–1980 were detrended using a northeastern Pacific bomb pulse curve. Significant positive correlations were identified between the detrended 14C data and annual El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and summer SST such that cooler conditions are associated with older water. Thus, 14C is generally relatively stable with weak, potentially inconsistent associations to climate variables, but capable of infrequent excursions as illustrated by the unusually cold, old-water 1802–1812 interval.

Psychological scholarship on personality is uniting with political science to redefine existing theories. This is clearly the case with research on judicial behavior and the US Supreme Court. But if this new approach is to survive and thrive, it must employ measures equal to the task. We show that Supreme Court Individual Personality Estimates, which seek to estimate justices’ personalities by examining their concurring opinions, suffer from a number of important methodological deficits that critically limit their usefulness. We briefly discuss what kinds of improved personality measures scholars should use instead and offer an improved set of estimates for one trait with an application that demonstrates our cautionary tale.

The legal brief is a primary vehicle by which lawyers seek to persuade appellate judges. Despite wide acceptance that briefs are important, empirical scholarship has yet to establish their influence on the Supreme Court or fully explore justices’ preferences regarding them. We argue that emotional language conveys a lack of credibility to justices and thereby diminishes the party’s likelihood of garnering justices’ votes. The data concur. Using an automated textual analysis program, we find that parties who employ less emotional language in their briefs are more likely to win a justice’s vote, a result that holds even after controlling for other features correlated with success, such as case quality. These findings suggest that advocates seeking to influence judges can enhance their credibility and attract justices’ votes by employing measured, objective language.

Background: Eye movements reveal neurodegenerative disease processes due to overlap between oculomotor circuitry and disease-affected areas. Characterizing oculomotor behaviour in context of cognitive function may enhance disease diagnosis and monitoring. We therefore aimed to quantify cognitive impairment in neurodegenerative disease using saccade behaviour and neuropsychology. Methods: The Ontario Neurodegenerative Disease Research Initiative recruited individuals with neurodegenerative disease: one of Alzheimer’s disease, mild cognitive impairment, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson’s disease, or cerebrovascular disease. Patients (n=450, age 40-87) and healthy controls (n=149, age 42-87) completed a randomly interleaved pro- and anti-saccade task (IPAST) while their eyes were tracked. We explored the relationships of saccade parameters (e.g. task errors, reaction times) to one another and to cognitive domain-specific neuropsychological test scores (e.g. executive function, memory). Results: Task performance worsened with cognitive impairment across multiple diseases. Subsets of saccade parameters were interrelated and also differentially related to neuropsychology-based cognitive domain scores (e.g. antisaccade errors and reaction time associated with executive function). Conclusions: IPAST detects global cognitive impairment across neurodegenerative diseases. Subsets of parameters associate with one another, suggesting disparate underlying circuitry, and with different cognitive domains. This may have implications for use of IPAST as a cognitive screening tool in neurodegenerative disease.

Recent excavations by the Ancient Southwest Texas Project of Texas State University sampled a previously undocumented Younger Dryas component from Eagle Cave in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Texas. This stratified assemblage consists of bison (Bison antiquus) bones in association with lithic artifacts and a hearth. Bayesian modeling yields an age of 12,660–12,480 cal BP, and analyses indicate behaviors associated with the processing of a juvenile bison and the manufacture and maintenance of lithic tools. This article presents spatial, faunal, macrobotanical, chronometric, geoarchaeological, and lithic analyses relating to the Younger Dryas component within Eagle Cave. The identification of the Younger Dryas occupation in Eagle Cave should encourage archaeologists to revisit previously excavated rockshelter sites in the Lower Pecos and beyond to evaluate deposits for unrecognized, older occupations.

Vitamin D deficiency is associated with an increased risk of falls and fractures. Assuming this association is causal, we aimed to identify the number and proportion of hospitalisations for falls and hip fractures attributable to vitamin D deficiency (25 hydroxy D (25(OH)D) <50 nmol/l) in Australians aged ≥65 years. We used 25(OH)D data from the 2011/12 Australian Health Survey and relative risks from published meta-analyses to calculate population-attributable fractions for falls and hip fracture. We applied these to data published by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare to calculate the number of events each year attributable to vitamin D deficiency. In men and women combined, 8·3 % of hospitalisations for falls (7991 events) and almost 8 % of hospitalisations for hip fractures (1315 events) were attributable to vitamin D deficiency. These findings suggest that, even in a sunny country such as Australia, vitamin D deficiency contributes to a considerable number of hospitalisations as a consequence of falls and for treatment of hip fracture in older Australians; in countries where the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency is higher, the impact will be even greater. It is important to mitigate vitamin D deficiency, but whether this should occur through supplementation or increased sun exposure needs consideration of the benefits, harms, practicalities and costs of both approaches.

In most of the world Toxoplasma gondii is comprised of archetypal types (types I, II and III); however, South America displays several non-archetypal strains. This study used an experimental mouse model to characterize the immune response and parasite kinetics following infection with different parasite genotypes. An oral inoculation of 50 oocysts per mouse from T. gondii M4 type II (archetypal, avirulent), BrI or BrIII (non-archetypal, virulent and intermediate virulent, respectively) for groups (G)2, G3 and G4, respectively was used. The levels of mRNA expression of cytokines, immune compounds, cell surface markers and receptor adapters [interferon gamma (IFNγ), interleukin (IL)-12, CD8, CD4, CD25, CXCR3 and MyD88] were quantified by SYBR green reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Lesions were characterized by histology and detection by immunohistochemistry established distribution of parasites. Infection in G2 mice was mild and characterized by an early MyD88-dependent pathway. In G3, there were high levels of expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines IFNγ and IL-12 in the mice showing severe clinical symptoms at 8–11 days post infection (dpi), combined with the upregulation of CD25, abundant tachyzoites and tissue lesions in livers, lungs and intestines. Significant longer expression of IFNγ and IL-12 genes, with other Th1-balanced immune responses, such as increased levels of CXCR3 and MyD88 in G4, resulted in survival of mice and chronic toxoplasmosis, with the occurrence of tissue cysts in brain and lungs, at 14 and 21 dpi. Different immune responses and kinetics of gene expression appear to be elicited by the different strains and non-archetypal parasites demonstrated higher virulence.

Vitamin D deficiency (serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) concentration <50 nmol/l) is recognised as a public health problem globally. The present study details the prevalence and predictors of vitamin D deficiency in a nationally representative sample (n 3250) of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults aged ≥18 years. We used data from the 2012–2013 Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Survey (AATSIHS). Serum 25(OH)D concentrations were measured by liquid chromatography-tandem MS. Survey-weighted logistic regression models were used to determine the independent predictors of vitamin D deficiency. Approximately 27 % of adult AATSIHS participants were vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D deficiency was more prevalent in remote areas (39 %) than in non-remote areas (23 %). Independent predictors of vitamin D deficiency included assessment during winter (men, adjusted OR (aOR) 5·7; 95 % CI 2·2, 14·6; women, aOR 2·2; 95 % CI 1·3, 3·8) and spring (men, aOR 3·3; 95 % CI 1·4, 7·5; women, aOR 2·6; 95 % CI 1·5, 4·5) compared with summer, and obesity (men, aOR 2·6; 95 % CI 1·2, 5·4; women, aOR 4·3; 95 % CI 2·8, 6·8) compared with healthy weight. Statistically significant associations were evident for current smokers (men only, aOR 2·0; 95 % CI 1·2, 3·4), remote-dwelling women (aOR 2·0; 95 % CI 1·4, 2·9) and university-educated women (aOR 2·4; 95 % CI 1·2, 4·8). Given the high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in this population, strategies to maintain adequate vitamin D status through safe sun exposure and dietary approaches are needed.