Testing biasedness of self-reported microbusiness innovation in the annual business survey.

This study tests for potential bias in self-reported innovation due to the inclusion of a research and development (R&D) module that only microbusinesses (less than 10 employees) receive in the Annual Business Survey (ABS). Previous research found that respondents to combined innovation/R&D surveys reported innovation at lower rates than respondents to innovation-only surveys. A regression discontinuity design is used to test whether microbusinesses, which constitute a significant portion of U.S. firms with employees, are less likely to report innovation compared to other small businesses. In the vicinity of the 10-employee threshold, the study does not detect statistically significant biases for new-to-market and new-to-business product innovation. Statistical power analysis confirms the nonexistence of biases with a high power. Comparing the survey design of ABS to earlier combined innovation/R&D surveys provides valuable insights for the proposed integration of multiple Federal surveys into a single enterprise platform survey. The findings also have important implications for the accuracy and reliability of innovation data used as an input to policymaking and business development strategies in the United States.

Rural US residents recognize anxiety better than urbanites and suburbanites but hold similar stigma.

PURPOSE: Recognizing signs of psychological distress is a critical first step in assisting people who are struggling with poor mental health to access help. However, community-level factors that impact recognition and stigma are underexplored. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between rurality, other community-level variables, and individual variables with regard to the recognition and stigma of anxiety. METHODS: We use a survey of US adults (N = 627), including a rural oversample, and a cloaked vignette approach. We assess the ability to identify anxiety and measure associated stigma. The analysis applies an ecological model in multinomial logistic regressions. FINDINGS: About half of the respondents recognize anxiety from a list of possibilities when provided with a vignette detailing common anxiety symptoms. Respondents living in rural areas are nearly twice as likely to correctly identify anxiety than nonrural respondents. About one-fifth of respondents agree with a statement designed to measure stigma: that exhibiting the symptoms is a sign of personal weakness. Respondents able to identify anxiety show less stigma. Respondents from counties with high mental health provider access were less likely to endorse the stigma statement. CONCLUSIONS: Rural areas seem poised to reduce the stigma associated with anxiety, because residents are more adept at identifying anxiety than people living elsewhere. Future work could focus on effective mechanisms for reducing stigma associated with anxiety in rural areas, and whether anxiety recognition and stigma are changing.

A revised calcium-dependent model of transcranial magnetic theta-burst stimulation.

OBJECTIVE: Calcium dependency is presently an essential assumption in modelling the neuromodulatory effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation. Y.Z.Huang et al.developed the first neuromodulation model to explain the bidirectional effects of theta-burst stimulation (TBS) based on the postsynaptic intracellular calcium concentration elevation. However, we discover that the published computer code is not consistent with the model formulation, neither do the parameters and derived plots consequently match the formulations. Here we intend to fix the computer code and re-calibrate the model. METHODS: We corrected the affected difference equations and re-calibrated the revised model with experimental data using non-convex optimisation based on a L2 penalty. RESULTS: The revised model outperforms the initial model in characterising the relative motor-evoked potential levels of TBS-induced after-effects in various conditions. CONCLUSIONS: We corrected the inconsistencies in the previous model and computer code and provided a complete calibration to support the research that is based on it. SIGNIFICANCE: This work improves the accuracy and secures the scope of the model, which is necessary to retain a rich body of research resulting from the model. Furthermore, this model provides both a quantitative model for several parameters of TBS and a basic model foundation for future refinement.

Food insufficiency and Twitter emotions during a pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic initially caused worldwide concerns about food insecurity. Tweets analyzed in real-time may help food assistance providers target food supplies to where they are most urgently needed. In this exploratory study, we use natural language processing to extract sentiments and emotions expressed in food security-related tweets early in the pandemic in U.S. states. The emotion joy dominated in these tweets nationally, but only anger, disgust, and fear were also statistically correlated with contemporaneous food insufficiency rates reported in the Household Pulse Survey; more nuanced and statistically stronger correlations are detected within states, including a negative correlation with joy.

Explaining the spatial variation in American life expectancy.

Since 1980, average life expectancy in the United States has increased by roughly five years; however, in recent years it has been declining. At the same time, spatial variation in life expectancy has been growing. To explore reasons for this trend, some researchers have focused on morbidity factors, while others have focused on how mortality trends differ by personal characteristics. However, the effect community characteristics may play in expanding the spatial heterogeneity has not yet been fully explored. Using a spatial Durbin error model, we explore how community and demographic factors influence county-level life expectancy in 2014, controlling for life expectancy in 1980 and migration over time, and analyzing men and women separately. We find that community characteristics are important in determining life expectancy and that there may be a role for policy makers in addressing factors that are associated with lower life expectancy in some regions.

Measuring network rewiring over time.

Recent years have seen tremendous advances in the scientific study of networks, as more and larger data sets of relationships among nodes have become available in many different fields. This has led to pathbreaking discoveries of near-universal network behavior over time, including the principle of preferential attachment and the emergence of scaling in complex networks. Missing from the set of network analysis methods to date is a measure that describes for each node how its relationship (or links) with other nodes changes from one period to the next. Conventional measures of network change for the most part show how the degrees of a node change; these are scalar comparisons. Our contribution is to use, for the first time, the cosine similarity to capture not just the change in degrees of a node but its relationship to other nodes. These are vector (or matrix)-based comparisons, rather than scalar, and we refer to them as "rewiring" coefficients. We apply this measure to three different networks over time to show the differences in the two types of measures. In general, bigger increases in our rewiring measure are associated with larger increases in network density, but this is not always the case.

Drug screening using the sweat of a fingerprint: lateral flow detection of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol, cocaine, opiates and amphetamine.

Here, we describe the use of a fluorescence based lateral flow competition assay for the screening of four classes of drugs, viz, Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cocaine (through the detection of benzoylecgonine, BZE), opiates (through the detection of morphine, MOR) and amphetamine (AMP) present in the sweat of a fingerprint. The Drug Screening Cartridge was specifically developed for fingerprint sample collection and analysis. For this study, the cut-offs were set at: 190, 90, 68 and 80 pg/fingerprint for THC, BZE, MOR and AMP, respectively. Working with three UK coroners, the Drug Screening Cartridge, together with its fluorescence reader, was applied to the detection of drugs in the sweat of a fingerprint from deceased individuals. The study shows that there was sufficient sweat present on the fingertips to enable analysis and that the Drug Screening Cartridge could detect the presence, or absence, of each drug. The presence of the drugs was confirmed using LC-MS-MS analysis of a second fingerprint sample collected simultaneously. Excellent correlation was achieved between the results obtained from the Drug Screening Cartridge and the LC-MS-MS analysis of the fingerprint samples obtained from 75 individuals. The accuracy of the results was: 99% for THC; 95% for BZE; 96% for MOR and 93% for AMP. The results obtained using the Drug Screening Cartridge were also compared to toxicological analysis of blood and urine samples with good correlation. The accuracy of the results between the Drug Screening Cartridge and blood was: 96%, 92%, 88% and 97% for THC, BZE, MOR and AMP, respectively. The comparison with urine showed an accuracy ranging between 86% and 92%. This fingerprint sample method has a collection time of just 5 s and a total analysis time of <10 mins. These results show that the lateral flow Drug Screening Cartridge is an excellent screening test to provide information on drug use from the sweat in a single fingerprint sample.

Outcomes and Economic Benefits of Penn State Extension's Dining With Diabetes Program.

INTRODUCTION: Many diabetes education programs address the problem of diabetes, but little attention is given to the economic impact of such programs. Our objective was to assess the effectiveness of a community-based education program in improving diabetes-related lifestyle behaviors and biomarkers and ascertain the economic benefits of the program for adults aged 18 years or older with type 2 diabetes, prediabetes, or no diagnosis of diabetes in Pennsylvania. METHODS: From October 2012 through June 2015, Pennsylvania State University Extension's Dining with Diabetes program collected data on 2,738 adults with type 2 diabetes or prediabetes and adult family members without diabetes. The program consisted of 4 weekly 2-hour classes and a follow-up class conducted 3 months after the fourth 2-hour class. In the initial class and the follow-up class, participants completed a lifestyle questionnaire and their hemoglobin A1c and blood pressure were measured. Economic benefit was calculated as the medical expenditure cost savings resulting from program participation. RESULTS: At 3-month follow-up, a significant number of participants had improved their lifestyle behaviors (diet and physical activity), had reductions in hemoglobin A1c and blood pressure, and improved their diabetes status. The Dining with Diabetes program had a 5-year benefit-cost ratio of 2.49 to 3.35. CONCLUSION: Participants who completed the Dining with Diabetes program had significant improvements in diabetes-related biomarkers and lifestyle behaviors. If the Dining with Diabetes program were extended to half of the 1.3 million people living with diabetes in Pennsylvania and if they had similar improvements, the 1-year benefit to the state would be approximately $195 million, assuming a conservative 15% decrease in direct medical costs.

The impact of aminopyrene trisulfonate (APTS) label in acceptor glycan substrates for profiling plant pectin ß-galactosyltransferase activities.

Aminopyrene trisulfonate (APTS)-labelled disaccharides are demonstrated to serve as readily accessible acceptor substrates for galactosyltransferase activities present in Arabidopsis microsome preparations. The reductive amination procedure used to install the fluorophore results in loss of the ring structure of the reducing terminal sugar unit, such that a single intact sugar ring is present, attached via an alditol tether to the aminopyrene fluorophore. The configuration of the alditol portion of the labelled acceptor, as well as the position of alditol galactosylation, substantially influence the ability of compounds to serve as Arabidopsis galactosyltransferase acceptor substrates. The APTS label exhibits an unexpected reaction-promoting effect that is not evident for structurally similar sulfonated aromatic fluorophores ANDS and ANTS. When APTS-labelled ß-(1 â†’ 4)-Gal3 was employed as an acceptor substrate with Arabidopsis microsomes, glycan extension generated ß-(1 â†’ 4)-galactan chains running to beyond 60 galactose residues. These studies demonstrate the potential of even very short glycan-APTS probes for assessing plant galactosyltransferase activities and the suitability CE-LIF for CAZyme profiling.

Another JA/COI1-independent role of OPDA detected in tomato embryo development.

Jasmonates (JAs) are ubiquitously occurring signaling compounds in plants formed in response to biotic and abiotic stress as well as in development. (+)-7-iso-jasmonoyl isoleucine, the bioactive JA, is involved in most JA-dependent processes mediated by the F-box protein COI1 in a proteasome-dependent manner. However, there is an increasing number of examples, where the precursor of JA biosynthesis, cis-(+)-12-oxophytodienoic acid (OPDA) is active in a JA/COI1-independent manner. Here, we discuss those OPDA-dependent processes, thereby giving emphasis on tomato embryo development. Recent data on seed coat-generated OPDA and its role in embryo development is discussed based on biochemical and genetic evidences.

Role of cis-12-oxo-phytodienoic acid in tomato embryo development.

Oxylipins including jasmonates are signaling compounds in plant growth, development, and responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. In Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) most mutants affected in jasmonic acid (JA) biosynthesis and signaling are male sterile, whereas the JA-insensitive tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) mutant jai1 is female sterile. The diminished seed formation in jai1 together with the ovule-specific accumulation of the JA biosynthesis enzyme allene oxide cyclase (AOC), which correlates with elevated levels of JAs, suggest a role of oxylipins in tomato flower/seed development. Here, we show that 35S::SlAOC-RNAi lines with strongly reduced AOC in ovules exhibited reduced seed set similarly to the jai1 plants. Investigation of embryo development of wild-type tomato plants showed preferential occurrence of AOC promoter activity and AOC protein accumulation in the developing seed coat and the embryo, whereas 12-oxo-phytodienoic acid (OPDA) was the dominant oxylipin occurring nearly exclusively in the seed coat tissues. The OPDA- and JA-deficient mutant spr2 was delayed in embryo development and showed an increased programmed cell death in the developing seed coat and endosperm. In contrast, the mutant acx1a, which accumulates preferentially OPDA and residual amount of JA, developed embryos similar to the wild type, suggesting a role of OPDA in embryo development. Activity of the residual amount of JA in the acx1a mutant is highly improbable since the known reproductive phenotype of the JA-insensitive mutant jai1 could be rescued by wound-induced formation of OPDA. These data suggest a role of OPDA or an OPDA-related compound for proper embryo development possibly by regulating carbohydrate supply and detoxification.

Synthesis of fluorescently labelled rhamnosides: probes for the evaluation of rhamnogalacturonan II biosynthetic enzymes.

Three fluorescently labelled saccharides 10-12, representing structures found in pectic glycan rhamnogalacturonan II (RG-II), were synthesised by chemical glycosylation of O-6 of diacetone-d-galactose followed by deprotection and reductive amination with amino-substituted fluorophore APTS. This convenient method installs a common aminogalactitol-based tether in order to preserve the integrity of the reducing end of specific carbohydrates of interest. APTS-labelled glycans prepared in this manner were purified by carbohydrate gel electrophoresis and subjected to capillary electrophoresis analysis, as a basis for the subsequent development of high sensitivity assays for RG-II-active enzymes.

Common genetic pathways regulate organ-specific infection-related development in the rice blast fungus.

Magnaporthe oryzae is the most important fungal pathogen of rice (Oryza sativa). Under laboratory conditions, it is able to colonize both aerial and underground plant organs using different mechanisms. Here, we characterize an infection-related development in M. oryzae produced on hydrophilic polystyrene (PHIL-PS) and on roots. We show that fungal spores develop preinvasive hyphae (pre-IH) from hyphopodia (root penetration structures) or germ tubes and that pre-IH also enter root cells. Changes in fungal cell wall structure accompanying pre-IH are seen on both artificial and root surfaces. Using characterized mutants, we show that the PMK1 (for pathogenicity mitogen-activated protein kinase 1) pathway is required for pre-IH development. Twenty mutants with altered pre-IH differentiation on PHIL-PS identified from an insertional library of 2885 M. oryzae T-DNA transformants were found to be defective in pathogenicity. The phenotypic analysis of these mutants revealed that appressorium, hyphopodium, and pre-IH formation are genetically linked fungal developmental processes. We further characterized one of these mutants, M1373, which lacked the M. oryzae ortholog of exportin-5/Msn5p (EXP5). Mutants lacking EXP5 were much less virulent on roots, suggesting an important involvement of proteins and/or RNAs transported by EXP5 during M. oryzae root infection.