The US government invests substantial sums to control the HIV/AIDS epidemic. To monitor progress toward epidemic control, PEPFAR, or the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, oversees a data reporting system that includes standard indicators, reporting formats, information systems, and data warehouses. These data, reported quarterly, inform understanding of the global epidemic, resource allocation, and identification of trouble spots. PEPFAR has developed tools to assess the quality of data reported. These tools made important contributions but are limited in the methods used to identify anomalous data points. The most advanced consider univariate probability distributions, whereas correlations between indicators suggest a multivariate approach is better suited. For temporal analysis, the same tool compares values to the averages of preceding periods, though does not consider underlying trends and seasonal factors. To that end, we apply two methods to identify anomalous data points among routinely collected facility-level HIV/AIDS data. One approach is Recommender Systems, an unsupervised machine learning method that captures relationships between users and items. We apply the approach in a novel way by predicting reported values, comparing predicted to reported values, and identifying the greatest deviations. For a temporal perspective, we apply time series models that are flexible to include trend and seasonality. Results of these methods were validated against manual review (95% agreement on non-anomalies, 56% agreement on anomalies for recommender systems; 96% agreement on non-anomalies, 91% agreement on anomalies for time series). This tool will apply greater methodological sophistication to monitoring data quality in an accelerated and standardized manner.

The proposal by Clarke and Beck offers a new explanation for the association between the approximate number system (ANS) and math. Previous explanations have largely relied on developmental arguments, an underspecified notion of the ANS as an “error detection mechanism,” or affective factors. The proposal that the ANS represents rational numbers suggests that it may directly support a broader range of math skills.

The Variables and Slow Transients Survey (VAST) on the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) is designed to detect highly variable and transient radio sources on timescales from 5 s to $\sim\!5$ yr. In this paper, we present the survey description, observation strategy and initial results from the VAST Phase I Pilot Survey. This pilot survey consists of $\sim\!162$ h of observations conducted at a central frequency of 888 MHz between 2019 August and 2020 August, with a typical rms sensitivity of $0.24\ \mathrm{mJy\ beam}^{-1}$ and angular resolution of $12-20$ arcseconds. There are 113 fields, each of which was observed for 12 min integration time, with between 5 and 13 repeats, with cadences between 1 day and 8 months. The total area of the pilot survey footprint is 5 131 square degrees, covering six distinct regions of the sky. An initial search of two of these regions, totalling 1 646 square degrees, revealed 28 highly variable and/or transient sources. Seven of these are known pulsars, including the millisecond pulsar J2039–5617. Another seven are stars, four of which have no previously reported radio detection (SCR J0533–4257, LEHPM 2-783, UCAC3 89–412162 and 2MASS J22414436–6119311). Of the remaining 14 sources, two are active galactic nuclei, six are associated with galaxies and the other six have no multi-wavelength counterparts and are yet to be identified.

The motion of a rigid sphere in ambient simple shear flow of a Newtonian fluid between infinite parallel walls is calculated via the lattice Boltzmann method for various particle Reynolds numbers, ${\textit {Re}}_p=Ga^2/\nu$, where $G$ is the velocity gradient of the shear; $a$ is the particle radius; and $\nu$ is the kinematic viscosity of the fluid. For a neutrally buoyant sphere, there exists a critical ${\textit {Re}}_p$ below which the hydrodynamic lift force has a single zero crossing, driving the particle to an equilibrium position at the centre of the channel. Above the critical ${\textit {Re}}_p$, the equilibrium position of the sphere undergoes a supercritical pitchfork bifurcation; inertial lift creates three equilibrium positions: an unstable equilibrium position at the centre and two stable equilibria equidistant from the centre. The critical ${\textit {Re}}_p$ occurs below the transition to unsteady flow, and increases with increasing particle confinement ratio, $\kappa =a/H$, where $H$ is the channel height. The equilibrium position of a non-neutrally buoyant sphere shifts toward a confining wall of the channel, in a manner that is dependent on the orientation, i.e. horizontal or vertical, of the channel. In both channel alignments, the gravitational force breaks the symmetry of the particle dynamics about the centreline of the channel, resulting in an imperfect bifurcation above a critical ${\textit {Re}}_p$. However, a sufficiently strong gravitational force will break the bifurcation and produce a single off-centre equilibrium position. We finally consider a neutrally buoyant sphere under the cessation or reversal of shear flow.

Borsboom et al. confuse biological approaches with extreme biological reductionism and common-cause models of psychopathology. In muddling these concepts, they mistakenly throw the baby out with the bathwater. Here, we highlight recent work underscoring the unique value of clinical and translational neuroscience approaches for understanding the nature and origins of psychopathology and for developing improved intervention strategies.