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Sterkfontein, in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site (Gauteng Province, South Africa), lies on a low hill overlooking the Blaaubank River, close to numerous other fossil-rich hominin-bearing sites (including Swartkrans, Kromdraai, Drimolen, Malapa, and Cooper’s Cave; Figure 10.1). Lying within the narrow pre-Cambrian Malmani dolomite formation, the caves contain deposits that record the paleoenvironmental context related to hominin evolution from roughly 3.7 million years until the Upper Pleistocene, as well as the hominins themselves (Broom, 1936; Brain, 1981; Kuman, 1994a; Reynolds and Kibii, 2011; Granger et al., 2015; Val and Stratford, 2015; Stratford, 2017).
To determine associations of alcohol use with cognitive aging among middle-aged men.
Method:
1,608 male twins (mean 57 years at baseline) participated in up to three visits over 12 years, from 2003–2007 to 2016–2019. Participants were classified into six groups based on current and past self-reported alcohol use: lifetime abstainers, former drinkers, very light (1–4 drinks in past 14 days), light (5–14 drinks), moderate (15–28 drinks), and at-risk drinkers (>28 drinks in past 14 days). Linear mixed-effects regressions modeled cognitive trajectories by alcohol group, with time-based models evaluating rate of decline as a function of baseline alcohol use, and age-based models evaluating age-related differences in performance by current alcohol use. Analyses used standardized cognitive domain factor scores and adjusted for sociodemographic and health-related factors.
Results:
Performance decreased over time in all domains. Relative to very light drinkers, former drinkers showed worse verbal fluency performance, by –0.21 SD (95% CI –0.35, –0.07), and at-risk drinkers showed faster working memory decline, by 0.14 SD (95% CI 0.02, –0.20) per decade. There was no evidence of protective associations of light/moderate drinking on rate of decline. In age-based models, light drinkers displayed better memory performance at advanced ages than very light drinkers (+0.14 SD; 95% CI 0.02, 0.20 per 10-years older age); likely attributable to residual confounding or reverse association.
Conclusions:
Alcohol consumption showed minimal associations with cognitive aging among middle-aged men. Stronger associations of alcohol with cognitive aging may become apparent at older ages, when cognitive abilities decline more rapidly.
The places in which people live and spend time are steeped in history, memory, and meaning from the intersection of daily life, environmental interactions, cultural practices, and ritual. Geologic features, plants, animals, and ecosystems merge with these cultural histories, forming critical parts of the landscape and areas of “high cultural salience,” or “cultural keystone places” (CKPs). We identify Kumqaq’ (Point Conception) and the surrounding area in California as a Chumash CKP. Ethnohistoric accounts and contemporary Chumash community members have long demonstrated the importance of Point Conception in Chumash worldview and identity, whereas biologists, ecologists, and conservationists reference the area's rich biodiversity and significance as a biogeographical boundary. Recent archaeological survey of the coastline surrounding Kumqaq’ highlights these connections, identifying over 50 archaeological sites—including shell middens, villages, lithic scatters, and rock art—with at least 9,000 years of occupation. Ongoing collaborations among archaeologists, the Nature Conservancy, and Chumash community members help document and understand the long-term linkages between cultural and biological diversity and how integrating these perspectives can help ensure the resilience of this nexus of human and natural history in the Anthropocene future.
The March 2019 release of the Appellate Body's compliance report in United States – Measures Affecting Trade in Large Civil Aircraft (Second Complaint) marks yet another chapter in the ongoing Boeing–Airbus dispute. While raising numerous new and old subsidy issues, this paper focuses on one specific aspect, the evaluation of the financial contributions and benefits associated with the Department of Defense (DOD) R&D procurement contracts. The paper describes the differing views taken by the panels compared to the Appellate Body. It highlights two issues that led to an extremely lengthy proceeding: (1) the black or white nature of the decision regarding the characterization of contracts which have features of both purchases of services and joint ventures; and (2) the difficulty in demonstrating a financial contribution flowing from payments for R&D for military systems to Boeing's civil aircraft production. It concludes that this case represents a failure of the WTO dispute settlement system and underscores flaws in the ASCM in that after fifteen years of litigation, no determination was made as to whether or not the DOD R&D contracts examined here constituted impermissible subsidies.
Metformin is widely used in pregnancy, despite lack of long-term safety for children. We hypothesised that metformin exposure in utero is associated with increased cardiovascular risk. We tested this hypothesis in a follow-up study of children born to obese mothers who had participated in a randomised controlled trial of metformin versus placebo in pregnancy (EMPOWaR). We measured body composition, peripheral blood pressure (BP), arterial pulse wave velocity and central haemodynamics (central BP and augmentation index) using an oscillometric device in 40 children of mean (SD) age 5.78 (0.93) years, exposed to metformin (n = 19) or placebo (n = 21) in utero. There were no differences in any of the anthropometric or vascular measures between metformin and placebo-exposed groups in univariate analyses, or after adjustment for potential confounders including the child’s behaviour, diet and activity levels. Post-hoc sample size calculation indicated we would have detected large clinically significant differences between the groups but would need an unfeasible large number to detect possible subtle differences in key cardiovascular risk parameters in children at this age of follow-up. Our findings suggest no evidence of increased cardiovascular risk in children born to obese mothers who took metformin in pregnancy and increase available knowledge of the long-term safety of metformin on childhood outcomes.
XtendFlex® technology from Bayer allows growers to apply glyphosate, glufosinate, and dicamba POST to cotton. Since the evolution and spread of glyphosate-resistant weed species, early POST applications with several modes of action have become common. However, crop injury potential from these applications warrants further examination. Field studies were conducted from 2015 to 2017 at two locations in Mississippi to evaluate XtendFlex® cotton injury from herbicide application. Herbicide applications were made to XtendFlex® cotton at the three- to six-leaf stage with herbicide combinations composed of two-, three-, and four-way combinations of glyphosate, glufosinate, S-metolachlor, and three formulations of dicamba. Data collection included visual estimations of injury, stand counts, cotton height, total mainstem nodes, and nodes above whiteflower at first bloom. Data collection at the end of the season included cotton height, total mainstem nodes, and nodes above cracked boll. Visual estimations of injury from herbicide applications were highest at 3 d following applications containing glufosinate + S-metolachlor (36% to 41% injury) and glufosinate + S-metolachlor in combination with dicamba + glyphosate (39% to 41% injury), regardless of the dicamba formulation. Crop injury decreased at each rating interval and dissipated by 28 d following applications (P = 0.3748). Height reductions were present at first bloom and at the end of the season (P < 0.0001), although cotton yield was unaffected (P = 0.2089), even when injury at 3 d after application was greater than 30%. Results indicate that growers may apply a variety of herbicide tank mixtures to XtendFlex® cotton and expect no yield penalty. Furthermore, if growers are concerned with cotton injury after herbicide applications, the use of glufosinate in combination with S-metolachlor should be approached with caution in XtendFlex® cotton.
In this paper, we describe the system design and capabilities of the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope at the conclusion of its construction project and commencement of science operations. ASKAP is one of the first radio telescopes to deploy phased array feed (PAF) technology on a large scale, giving it an instantaneous field of view that covers $31\,\textrm{deg}^{2}$ at $800\,\textrm{MHz}$. As a two-dimensional array of 36$\times$12 m antennas, with baselines ranging from 22 m to 6 km, ASKAP also has excellent snapshot imaging capability and 10 arcsec resolution. This, combined with 288 MHz of instantaneous bandwidth and a unique third axis of rotation on each antenna, gives ASKAP the capability to create high dynamic range images of large sky areas very quickly. It is an excellent telescope for surveys between 700 and $1800\,\textrm{MHz}$ and is expected to facilitate great advances in our understanding of galaxy formation, cosmology, and radio transients while opening new parameter space for discovery of the unknown.
Clarifying the relationship between depression symptoms and cardiometabolic and related health could clarify risk factors and treatment targets. The objective of this study was to assess whether depression symptoms in midlife are associated with the subsequent onset of cardiometabolic health problems.
Methods
The study sample comprised 787 male twin veterans with polygenic risk score data who participated in the Harvard Twin Study of Substance Abuse (‘baseline’) and the longitudinal Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging (‘follow-up’). Depression symptoms were assessed at baseline [mean age 41.42 years (s.d. = 2.34)] using the Diagnostic Interview Schedule, Version III, Revised. The onset of eight cardiometabolic conditions (atrial fibrillation, diabetes, erectile dysfunction, hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, myocardial infarction, sleep apnea, and stroke) was assessed via self-reported doctor diagnosis at follow-up [mean age 67.59 years (s.d. = 2.41)].
Results
Total depression symptoms were longitudinally associated with incident diabetes (OR 1.29, 95% CI 1.07–1.57), erectile dysfunction (OR 1.32, 95% CI 1.10–1.59), hypercholesterolemia (OR 1.26, 95% CI 1.04–1.53), and sleep apnea (OR 1.40, 95% CI 1.13–1.74) over 27 years after controlling for age, alcohol consumption, smoking, body mass index, C-reactive protein, and polygenic risk for specific health conditions. In sensitivity analyses that excluded somatic depression symptoms, only the association with sleep apnea remained significant (OR 1.32, 95% CI 1.09–1.60).
Conclusions
A history of depression symptoms by early midlife is associated with an elevated risk for subsequent development of several self-reported health conditions. When isolated, non-somatic depression symptoms are associated with incident self-reported sleep apnea. Depression symptom history may be a predictor or marker of cardiometabolic risk over decades.
The Rapid ASKAP Continuum Survey (RACS) is the first large-area survey to be conducted with the full 36-antenna Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope. RACS will provide a shallow model of the ASKAP sky that will aid the calibration of future deep ASKAP surveys. RACS will cover the whole sky visible from the ASKAP site in Western Australia and will cover the full ASKAP band of 700–1800 MHz. The RACS images are generally deeper than the existing NRAO VLA Sky Survey and Sydney University Molonglo Sky Survey radio surveys and have better spatial resolution. All RACS survey products will be public, including radio images (with
$\sim$
15 arcsec resolution) and catalogues of about three million source components with spectral index and polarisation information. In this paper, we present a description of the RACS survey and the first data release of 903 images covering the sky south of declination
$+41^\circ$
made over a 288-MHz band centred at 887.5 MHz.
Agricultural intensification within forage systems has reduced grassland floral diversity by promoting ryegrass (Lolium spp.), damaging soil functionality which underpins critical ecosystem services. Diverse forage mixtures may enhance environmental benefits of pastures by decreasing nutrient leaching, increasing soil carbon storage, and with legume inclusion, reduce nitrogen fertilizer input. This UK study reports on how species-rich forage mixtures affect soil carbon, phosphorus, and nitrogen at dry, medium and wet soil moisture sites, compared to ryegrass monoculture. Increasing forage mixture diversity (from 1 to 17 species) affected soil carbon at the dry site. No effect of forage mixture on soil phosphorus was found, while forage mixture and site did interact to affect soil nitrate/nitrite availability. Results suggest that forage mixtures could be used to improve soil function, but longer-term studies are needed to conclusively demonstrate environmental and production benefits of high-diversity forages.
Glucose intolerance during pregnancy – a major driver of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) – has significant short- and long-term health consequences for both the mother and child. As GDM prevalence continues to escalate, there is growing need for preventative strategies. There is limited but suggestive evidence that myo-inositol (MI) and probiotics (PB) could improve glucose tolerance during pregnancy. The present study tested the hypothesis that MI and/or PB supplementation would reduce the risk of glucose intolerance during pregnancy. Female C57BL/6 mice were randomised to receive either no treatment, MI, PB (Lactobacillus rhamnosus and Bifidobacterium lactis) or both (MIPB) for 5 weeks. They were then provided with a high-fat diet for 1 week before mating commenced and throughout mating/gestation, while remaining on their respective treatments. An oral glucose tolerance test occurred at gestational day (GD) 16·5 and tissue collection at GD 18·5. Neither MI nor PB, separately or combined, improved glucose tolerance. However, MI and PB both independently increased adipose tissue expression of Ir, Irs1, Akt2 and Pck1, and PB also increased Pparγ. MI was associated with reduced gestational weight gain, whilst PB was associated with increased maternal fasting glucose, total cholesterol and pancreas weight. These results suggest that MI and PB may improve insulin intracellular signalling in adipose tissue but this did not translate to meaningful differences in glucose tolerance. The absence of fasting hyperglycaemia or insulin resistance suggests this is a very mild model of GDM, which may have affected our ability to assess the impact of these nutrients.
Maternal obesity is associated with obesity and metabolic disorders in offspring. However, there remains a paucity of data on strategies to reverse the effects of maternal obesity on maternal and offspring health. With maternal undernutrition, taurine supplementation improves outcomes in offspring mediated in part via improved glucose–insulin homeostasis. The efficacy of taurine supplementation in the setting of maternal obesity on health and well-being of offspring is unknown. We examined the effects of taurine supplementation on outcomes related to growth and metabolism in offspring in a rat model of maternal obesity.
Design:
Wistar rats were randomised to: 1) control diet during pregnancy and lactation (CON); 2) CON with 1.5% taurine in drinking water (CT); 3) maternal obesogenic diet (MO); or 4) MO with taurine (MOT). Offspring were weaned onto the control diet for the remainder of the study.
Results:
At day 150, offspring body weights and adipose tissue weights were increased in MO groups compared to CON. Adipose tissue weights were reduced in MOT versus MO males but not females. Plasma fasting leptin and insulin were increased in MO offspring groups but were not altered by maternal taurine supplementation. Plasma homocysteine concentrations were reduced in all maternal taurine-supplemented offspring groups. There were significant interactions across maternal diet, taurine supplementation and sex for response to an oral glucose tolerance test , a high-fat dietary preference test and pubertal onset in offspring.
Conclusions:
These results demonstrate that maternal taurine supplementation can partially ameliorate adverse developmental programming effects in offspring in a sex-specific manner.
All Fire and Emergency Services (FES) personnel must balance FES work with their other responsibilities. Given that women tend to take on a greater responsibility for management of household/domestic activities than men, the on-call component of their FES work may be associated with very different challenges. Despite this, women have rarely been the focus of on-call research.
Aim:
To explore women’s on-call experiences in the FES by examining coping styles and strategies, with the goal of helping to innovate the way women are supported in FES roles.
Methods:
Relevant findings from two studies are included. The first study involved FES personnel from two agencies in Australia (n=24) who participated in a semi-structured interview. The second study was an anonymous online survey to determine work characteristics, sleep, stress, and coping in on-call workers more broadly, with workers from all industries across Australia (n=228) invited to participate.
Results:
Interview data identified two major themes in terms of coping with on-call work. Support (from family, social, and work), planning, and preparation were identified as important in helping women cope in the context of on-call unpredictability. Results from the survey (43% women) showed that on-call workers were an engaged group in terms of their coping, with 67% classified as having a positive coping style and 58% of women indicating that they agreed/strongly agreed with the statement, “I cope well with on-call work.”
Discussion:
Taken together, these data highlight engagement with positive coping by women who do on-call work, including in the FES. Importantly, positive coping strategies, such as talking about emotions, problem-solving, and seeking support have been linked to increased shift work tolerance in other populations. Coping style and strategies represent modifiable variables which could be specifically applied to assist women to manage the unique challenges associated with on-call work in the FES.
An adverse early life environment is associated with increased cardiovascular disease in offspring. Work in animal models has shown that maternal undernutrition (UN) during pregnancy leads to hypertension in adult offspring, with effects thought to be mediated in part via altered renal function. We have previously shown that growth hormone (GH) treatment of UN offspring during the pre-weaning period can prevent the later development of cardiometabolic disorders. However, the mechanistic basis for these observations is not well defined. The present study examined the impact of GH treatment on renal inflammatory markers in adult male offspring as a potential mediator of these reversal effects. Female Sprague-Dawley rats were fed either a chow diet fed ad libitum (CON) or at 50% of CON intake (UN) during pregnancy. All dams were fed the chow diet ad libitum during lactation. CON and UN pups received saline (CON-S/UN-S) or GH (2.5 µg/g/day; CON-GH/UN-GH) from postnatal day 3 until weaning (p21). Post-weaning males were fed a standard chow diet for the remainder of the study (150 days). Histological analysis was performed to examine renal morphological characteristics, and gene expression of inflammatory and vascular markers were assessed. There was evidence of renal hypotrophy and reduced nephron number in the UN-S group. Tumour necrosis factor-α, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1), intercellular adhesion molecular-1 and vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 gene expression was increased in UN-S offspring and normalized in the UN-GH group. These findings indicate that pre-weaning GH treatment has the potential to normalize some of the adverse renal and cardiovascular sequelae that arise as a consequence of poor maternal nutrition.
The prevalence of sleep problems among pregnant women is over 50%, and daytime sleepiness is among the most common sleep problems. Previous studies have associated antenatal sleep problems with adverse maternal health and neonatal outcomes, but the consequences of antenatal sleep problems and particularly daytime sleepiness on child psychological development have not been assessed prospectively.
Methods
In this prospective cohort study including 111 mother-child dyads, we examined the associations of maternal daytime sleepiness during pregnancy, assessed at 17 and 28 weeks of gestation using the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, with child neuropsychiatric problems and neuropsychological development, assessed with mother-rated questionnaires and individually administered neuropsychological tests, at child age 2.6–5.7 years (mean = 4.3 years).
Results
Independently of sociodemographic and perinatal covariates and maternal depressive and anxiety symptoms during and/or after pregnancy, maternal antenatal daytime sleepiness was associated with increased total [unstandardized regression coefficient (B) = 0.25 standard deviation (s.d.) units; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.01–0.48] and internalizing (B = 0.25 s.d.s: 95% CI 0.01–0.49) psychiatric problems and ADHD symptoms (B = 0.27 s.d.s: 95% CI 0.04–0.50) in children, and with poorer executive function, particularly in the areas of attention, working memory and inhibitory control (B = −0.39 s.d.s: 95% CI −0.69 to −0.10).
Conclusions
Maternal antenatal daytime sleepiness carries adverse consequences for offspring psychological development. The assessment of sleep problems may be an important addition to standard antenatal care.
Credibility and trustworthiness are the bedrock upon which any science is built. The strength of these foundations has been increasingly questioned across the sciences as instances of research misconduct and mounting concerns over the prevalence of detrimental research practices have been identified. Consequently, the purpose of this article is to encourage our scientific community to positively and proactively engage in efforts that foster a healthy and robust industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology. We begin by advancing six defining principles that we believe reflect the values of robust science and offer criteria for evaluating proposed efforts to change scientific practices. Recognizing that the contemporary scientific enterprise is a complex and diverse network of actors and institutions, we then conclude by identifying 12 stakeholders who play important roles in achieving a culture of robust science in I-O psychology and offer recommendations for actions we can take as members of these groups to strengthen our science.
Measurements of current rates of core-collapse supernovæ (CCSNe) suffer from significant uncertainties, probably due to the large fraction of CCSNe that explode in crowded regions which have bright background emission and significant dust extinction. Conventional optical (seeing-limited) SN surveys generally fail to detect them, but including them is crucial to the accurate determination of CCSN rates. Project SUNBIRD aims to tighten the present constraints on the fraction of CCSNe that are missed by conventional SN surveys. We are monitoring more than 25 dusty luminous infrared galaxies that are actively star-forming, for evidence of dust-obscured CCSNe, in an effort to characterise the population of CCSNes exploding in those nuclear regions of dusty LIRGs. We observe in the near-infrared, which is less affected by dust extinction compared to the optical; we are using Gemini South and Keck, and we make use of state-of-the-art laser guide-star adaptive optics instruments to achieve a spatial resolution <0’.1, which is sufficient to resolve close to the galactic nucleus.
During the project’s first year we discovered three CCSNe and one candidate one, with nuclear offsets as small as 200 pc, as cited in the poster. Aggregating the new discoveries with the CCSNe found in previous programmes employing AO, we compared the distribution of nuclear offsets of AO CCSN discoveries with all other documented CCSNe discovered in LIRGs. The poster showed that our method is singularly effective at uncovering CCSNe in the nuclear regions of LIRGs, and that while optical surveys dominate SNe discoveries far from a galaxy’s centre, near infra-red AO observations are needed to probe the regions within 1 kpc of the nucleus.
Elevated birth weight is linked to glucose intolerance and obesity health-related complications later in life. No studies have examined if infant birth weight is associated with gene expression markers of obesity and inflammation in a tissue that comes directly from the infant following birth. We evaluated the association between birth weight and gene expression on fetal programming of obesity. Foreskin samples were collected following circumcision, and gene expression analyzed comparing the 15% greatest birth weight infants (n=7) v. the remainder of the cohort (n=40). Multivariate linear regression models were fit to relate expression levels on differentially expressed genes to birth weight group with adjustment for variables selected from a list of maternal and infant characteristics. Glucose transporter type 4 (GLUT4), insulin receptor substrate 2 (IRS2), leptin receptor (LEPR), lipoprotein lipase (LPL), low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 1 (LRP1), matrix metalloproteinase 2 (MMP2), plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) and transcription factor 7-like 2 (TCF7L2) were significantly upregulated and histone deacetylase 1 (HDAC1) and thioredoxin (TXN) downregulated in the larger birth weight neonates v. controls. Multivariate modeling revealed that the estimated adjusted birth weight group difference exceeded one standard deviation of the expression level for eight of the 10 genes. Between 25 and 50% of variation in expression level was explained by multivariate modeling for eight of the 10 genes. Gene expression related to glycemic control, appetite/energy balance, obesity and inflammation were altered in tissue from babies with elevated birth weight, and these genes may provide important information regarding fetal programming in macrosomic babies.