Culture

The experiment was performed at the Research Center for Nuclear Physics (RCNP) in Osaka. The research team, lead by scientists from TU Darmstadt and the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy-Ion Research, and from the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science, discuss the new findings in a contribution to the latest issue of the journal "Science".

The strong interaction binds neutrons and protons together to atomic nuclei. The knowledge of properties of nuclei and their theoretical description is basis for our understanding of nuclear matter and the development of the universe. Laboratory-based studies of reactions between atomic nuclei provide means to explore nuclear properties. These experiments allow to test and verify theories that describe properties of extended nuclear matter at different conditions, as present, for instance, in neutron stars in the universe. Several theories predict the formation of nuclear clusters like helium nuclei in dilute nuclear matter. This effect is expected to occur at densities significantly lower than saturation density of nuclear matter, as present in the inner part of heavy nuclei. A theory developed in Darmstadt by Dr. Stefan Typel predicts that such a condensation of helium nuclei should also occur at the surface of heavy nuclei. Goal of the experiment, which is presented in the latest issue of "Science", was the verification of this prediction.

The present experiment bombarded tin isotopes with high-energy protons and detected and identified the scattered protons as well as knocked-out helium nuclei. Dr. Junki Tanaka and Dr. Yang Zaihong could demonstrate that the reaction occurs as a direct "quasi-elastic" scattering of the protons off preformed helium nuclei in the surface of tin nuclei. The extracted cross sections for different tin isotopes reveal a decrease of the formation probability with the neutron excess of the nuclei, which impressively confirms the theoretical prediction. This new finding, which has far-reaching consequences for our understanding of nuclei and nuclear matter, will now be studied in more detail in experimental programs planned at RCNP, and in inverse kinematics at RIKEN and the new FAIR facility at GSI, where also unstable heavy neutron-rich nuclei are accessible.

The White-lipped peccary Tayassu pecari is a boar-like hoofed mammal found throughout Central and South America. These animals roam the forest in bands of 50 to 100 individuals, eating a wide variety of foods. In Brazil's Atlantic Rainforest, they prefer the fruit of the jussara palm Euterpe edulis.

The jussara is very abundant in this biome, probably thanks to vast amounts of dung, urine, and soil trampling by peccaries as well as tapirs (Tapirus terrestris) and other fruit-eating animals, or frugivores. This behavior releases forms of nitrogen, a key element in plant growth.

A study supported by São Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP and published in the journal Functional Ecology showed that in areas free of these frugivores the level of ammonium, a form of nitrogen in soil, was up to 95% lower. The findings evidence for the first time the importance of these animals to the nitrogen cycle and serve as yet another warning of the ecosystem losses caused when large mammals disappear from tropical forests.

"Any farmer knows how crucial the nitrogen cycle is to achieve high crop yields. Studies in other environments have already shown that the presence of ruminants stimulates the growth of grasses thanks to the effect of their excretions on the nitrogen cycle, including optimization of microorganism activity. Our latest study has now shown that large fruit-eating mammals provide the same service in tropical forests," said Nacho Villar, first author of the article. Villar is a researcher affiliated with São Paulo State University's Institute of Biosciences (IB-UNESP) in Rio Claro, Brazil. Currently he is a postdoctoral fellow at the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW).

The study also shows that these animals redistribute nitrogen, fertilizing areas that would otherwise be nutrient-poor, and hence sustain plant growth. According to the researchers' estimates, such areas receive four times more ammonium and 50 times more nitrate than areas without frugivores.

The study was part of the Thematic Project "Ecological consequences of defaunation in the Atlantic Rainforest", for which the principal investigator was Mauro Galetti, a professor at IB-UNESP, and was conducted under the auspices of FAPESP's Research Program on Biodiversity Characterization, Conservation, Restoration and Sustainable Use (BIOTA-FAPESP)).

The researchers used South America's leading herbivore exclosure experiment, comprising 86 forest plots measuring 15 square meters in Serra do Mar State Park (São Paulo State), Brazil's largest continuous Atlantic Rainforest reserve. Half the plots have been fenced since 2010 to prevent the entry of large mammals. All animals can roam freely into and out of the other plots.

Camera traps on fenced and open plots demonstrated the presence or absence of White-lipped peccaries, Collared peccaries (Pecari tajacu) and tapirs, among other frugivores.

Microorganisms, ammonium and nitrate

In this study, the researchers analyzed soil samples from eight exclusion plots and their paired open controls, collected in the wet and dry seasons. Jussara palm abundance varied across the different plots.

In soil from open plots, ammonium levels were 95% higher, and rates of nitrification (conversion of ammonium to nitrate) were also higher owing to the frugivore-driven abundance of microorganisms in the soil. Although plants absorb ammonium, their metabolism can immediately use nitrate, which is therefore considered more valuable in terms of plant growth.

"Peccaries account for 80% to 90% of the total mammal biomass in the Atlantic Rainforest. Large groups of these animals roam extensive territories, fertilizing the forest," Villar said. "Tapir density is lower, so their contribution to the nitrogen cycle isn't as great, but the amount excreted by each individual is considerable, as is each animal's range as it disperses seeds." Another study by the same group had already shown how peccaries and tapirs contribute to plant species diversity and abundance (read more at: https://agencia.fapesp.br/31840).

This large frugivore biomass is attracted by the vast amount of fruit from jussara palms, whose abundance is due to fertilization of the soil by the animals' excretions (which also probably increase the palms' fruit-bearing capacity). The outcome is a virtuous cycle for animals, plants and soil microorganisms (also stimulated by the excretions), leading the researchers to propose the term "fruiting lawns" as a description of such areas. The term is considered analogous to the concept of grazing lawns, which refers to the positive feedback between ruminant food consumption and food availability in African savannas and other grassland landscapes.

The next steps in the group's research will include investigating whether the increase in nitrogen due to plants' interaction with large mammals boosts their carbon absorption and reduces the release of greenhouse gases from the soil. If so, plant-animal interaction should play a major role in regulating global climate change.

Liquids are ubiquitous in Nature: from the water that we consume daily to superfluid helium which is a quantum liquid appearing at temperatures as low as only a few degrees above the absolute zero. A common feature of these vastly different liquids is being self-bound in free space in the form of droplets. Understanding from a microscopic perspective how a liquid is formed by adding particles one by one is a significant challenge.

Recently, a new type of quantum droplets has been experimentally observed in ultracold atomic systems. These ones are made of alkaline atoms which are cooled down to extremely low temperatures of the order of nanokelvins. The main peculiarity of these systems is that they are the most dilute liquids ever experimentally observed. An extraordinary experimental control over the system opens the possibility of unraveling the mechanism leading to the formation of quantum droplets.

In a recent article published in Physical Review Letters, researchers from the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) Ivan Morera and the late Prof. Artur Polls led by Prof. Bruno Juliá-Díaz, in collaboration with Prof. Grigori Astrakharchik from UPC, present a microscopic theory of lattice quantum droplets which explains their formation.

The team of researchers has shown that the formation of the quantum droplet can be explained in terms of effective interactions between dimers (bound states of two particles). Moreover, by solving the four-body problem they have shown that tetramers (bound states of four particles) can appear and they can be interpreted as simple bound states of two dimers.

The properties of these tetramers already coincide with the ones of large quantum droplets which indicates that many of the feature properties of the many-body liquid are contained in the tetramer. They also discussed the possibility of observing these strongly correlated droplets in dipolar bosons or bosonic mixtures in optical lattices.

Researchers from Skoltech and the University of Texas Medical Branch (US) have shown how optoacoustics can be used for monitoring skin water content, a technique which is promising for medical applications such as tissue trauma management and in cosmetology. The paper outlining these results was published in the Journal of Biophotonics.

(swelling caused by fluid accumulation) or dehydration, which can also have cosmetic impacts. Right now, electrical, mechanical and spectroscopic methods can be used to monitor water content in tissues, but there is no accurate and noninvasive technique that would also provide a high resolution and significant probing depth required for potential clinical applications.

Sergei Perkov of the Skoltech Center for Photonics and Quantum Materials and his colleagues decided to test whether the optoacoustic method can be used for this purpose. In optoacoustic monitoring, tissue is irradiated with pulsed light, which causes thermoelastic expansion of the target that absorbs this light, and that target can be detected in ultrasound signals. In previous studies, optoacoustic spectroscopy has been shown to detect hemoglobin, melanin, and water, and the team decided to find out whether this method can be used both on tissue models and in vivo on real skin.

"The OA technique is safe for clinical applications because the amount of energy absorbed by the biological tissue that is required for signal detection is relatively small. The advantage of OA technique over other optical methods is that we need to deliver laser energy only in one direction--to the absorber, and after that we detect a generated ultrasound signal that does not attenuate much in biological tissues, whilst in order to detect the signal using optical methods, a light beam has to propagate to the absorber and back (or through the whole body part)," Dmitry Gorin, a Skoltech professor and coauthor of the paper, says.

The researchers built two-layered "skin phantoms" out of gelatin and milk and constructed some of them to mimic swelling under the top "epidermis" layer, using water. They also tested their optoacoustic detector on human wrists with no edema. The data they got was in good agreement with earlier published data on skin water content, and the team was able to identify optimal wavelengths for water content monitoring.

Next, the team plans to conduct similar experiments in vivo on real edema and to increase the number of different wavelengths used for OA signal generation in order to try to quantify the amount of water in different layers of the skin. This work will continue in collaboration with UTMB Galveston professor Rinat Esenaliev.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - "Buy low and sell high" says the old adage about investing in the stock market.

But a relatively new type of investment fund is luring unsophisticated investors into buying when values are at their highest, resulting in losses almost immediately, a new study has found.

The lure? Buying into trendy investment areas like cannabis, cybersecurity and work-from-home businesses.

"As soon as people buy them, these securities underperform as the hype around them vanishes," said Itzhak Ben-David, co-author of the study and professor of finance at The Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business.

"They appeal to people who are not sophisticated about investing. They may have an extra $500 and decide to try to make what they think is easy money in the stock market."

The research was presented earlier this month at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association and is available on the SSRN preprint server.

These investment funds are a particular type of Exchange Trade Funds, or ETFs, which were first developed in the mid-1990s. ETFs are investment funds that are traded on stock markets and are set up like mutual funds, holding a variety of other stocks in their portfolios.

The popularity of ETFs is growing quickly. By the end of 2019, in excess of $4 trillion was invested in more than 3,200 ETFs. The original ETFs were broad-based products that mimicked index funds, meaning that they invested in large, diversified portfolios, such as the entire S&P 500, Ben-David said.

But more recently, some companies have introduced what Ben-David and his colleagues call "specialized" ETFs, which invest in specific industries or themes - usually ones that have received a lot of recent media attention, like work-from-home opportunities.

"These specialized ETFs are often promoted as the 'next big thing' to investors who are wowed by the past performance of the individual stocks and neglect the risks arising from under-diversified portfolios," said study co-author Byungwook Kim, a graduate student in finance at Ohio State.

For the study, the researchers used Center for Research in Security Prices data on ETFs traded in the U.S. market between 1993 and 2019.

They focused on 1,086 ETFs. Of those, 613 were broad-based, investing in a wide range of stocks. These are the Walmarts of ETFs, appealing to value-conscious consumers, Ben-David said.

The remaining 473 were specialized ETFs, investing in a specific industry, like cannabis, or multiple industries that are tied by a theme. These are the Starbucks of ETFs, appealing to consumers who are willing to pay more for what they see as higher quality, he said.

"The securities that are included in the portfolios of specialized ETFs are 'hot' stocks," said co-author Francesco Franzoni, professor of finance at USI Lugano and senior chair at the Swiss Finance Institute. "We found that these stocks received more media exposure, and more positive exposure, than other stocks in the time leading up to the ETF launch."

In 2019, the new ETFs included products focusing on cannabis, cybersecurity and video games. In 2020, new specialized ETFs covered stocks related to the Black Lives Matter movement, COVID-19 vaccine, and the work-from-home trend.

The performance of broad-based versus specialized ETFs was very different, the researchers found.

Broad-based ETFs had earnings over the study period that were relatively flat, the analysis showed. But specialized ETFs lost about 4 percent of value per year, with underperformance persisting at least five years after launch.

"Specialized ETFs, on average, have generated disappointing performance for their investors," said co-author Rabih Moussawi, assistant professor of finance at Villanova University.

"Specialized ETFs are launched near the peak of the value of their underlying stocks and start underperforming right after launch."

The study found that the types of investors who bought into specialized ETFs were different from those who invested in the broad-based products.

For example, large institutional investors who have professional managers, such as mutual funds, pension funds, banks and endowments, generally avoid specialized ETFs.

The study found that institutional investors own about 43 percent of the market capitalization of broad-based ETFs in their first year, but less than 1 percent of the capitalization of specialized ETFs.

In contrast, data from one online discount brokerage that caters to individual investors showed that its customers are much more likely to invest in specialized than broad-based ETFs.

Other research has suggested that investors using that discount brokerage exhibit "sensation-seeking behavior" and their holdings can be described as "experience and curiosity holdings," Ben-David said.

The results suggest that most people should be wary of investing in specialized ETFs, Ben-David said.

"If you purchase a specialized ETF, you are likely to lose money because their underlying stocks are overvalued," he said.

Pediatric laryngotracheal stenosis (LTS), a narrowing of the airway in children, is a complex medical condition. While it can be something a child is born with or caused by injury, the condition can result in a life-threatening emergency if untreated.

Treatment, however, is challenging. Depending on the severity, doctors will use a combination of endoscopic techniques, surgical repair, tracheostomy, or deployment of stents to hold the airway open and enable breathing.

While stents are great at holding the airway open and simultaneously allowing the trachea to continue growing, they can move around, or cause damage when they're eventually removed. New research published in Communications Biology and led by the University of Pittsburgh is poised to drastically improve the use of stents, demonstrating for the first time the successful use of a completely biodegradable magnesium-alloy tracheal stent that avoids some of these risks.

"Using commercial non-biodegradable metal or silicone based tracheal stents has a risk of severe complications and doesn't achieve optimal clinical outcomes, even in adults," said Prashant N. Kumta, Edward R. Weidlein Chair Professor of bioengineering at the Swanson School of Engineering. "Using advanced biomaterials could offer a less invasive, and more successful, treatment option."

In the study, the balloon-expandable ultra-high ductility (UHD) biodegradable magnesium stent was shown to perform better than current metallic non-biodegradable stents in use in both in lab testing and in rabbit models. The stent was shown to keep the airway open over time and have low degradation rates, displaying normal healing and no adverse problems.

"Our results are very promising for the use of this novel biodegradable, high ductility metal stent, particularly for pediatric patients," said Kumta, who also holds appointments in Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, and the McGowan Institute of Regenerative Medicine. "We hope this new approach leads to new and improved treatments for patients with this complex condition as well as other tracheal obstruction conditions including tracheal cancer."

Plant pathologists working at universities across 26 corn-producing states in the United States and in Ontario, Canada, compiled data about annual corn reductions caused by diseases. Estimated loss from each disease varied greatly by region.

"This group of plant pathologists takes a step back to estimate what has gone wrong in corn fields in each of their states," said Iowa State University plant pathologist Daren Mueller, who was involved in this project. "Collectively, and across years, corn disease loss estimates provide folks a zoomed out view of what diseases are affecting corn in the U.S. and Canada."

To Mueller, these data represent one of the pieces of a good research project. Researchers can use these data to justify new research projects that can help mitigate the impacts of certain diseases. These data can also serve as a benchmark to measure the impact their research might have on corn production.

"It's interesting to compare the losses over the years," Mueller said. "We started doing these estimates in 2012." All diseases loss data are posted on the Crop Protection Network. Mueller is also encouraged by the excellent collaboration among scientists across so many states.

The last four years of their data are compiled in an article recently published in Plant Health Progress. According to Mueller, "If you grow, breed, scout, study, eat, or really anything with corn, it is good to know what can go wrong when growing the crop. This article provides an overview of the effect of diseases on corn over the past four years."

The U.S. fishing and seafood sector generated more than $200 billion in annual sales and supported 1.7 million jobs in recent years. It experienced broad declines in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 public health crisis, according to a new NOAA Fisheries analysis released today. While losses vary by sector, by region and by industry, data and information from this report may help businesses and communities assess losses and inform long-term recovery and resilience strategies.

According to analysts, COVID-19 protective measures instituted in March across the United States and globe contributed to an almost-immediate impact on seafood sector sales. There was a strong start to the year, with a 3 percent increase in commercial fish landings revenue in January and February. However, revenues declined each month from a 19 percent decrease in March to a 45 percent decrease by July. This translates to a 29 percent decrease across those 7 months, as compared to 5-year averages and adjusted for inflation.

Restaurant closures, social distancing protocols, and other safety measures also contributed to losses in other sectors of the seafood economy. By the end of second quarter 2020, 78 percent of aquaculture, aquaponics, and allied businesses reported COVID-19 impacts with 74 percent experiencing lost sales. The analysis noted outdoor seating at restaurants in warm months and a pivot to direct delivery at some supermarkets provided an outlet for some aquaculture sales. Also, the recreational charter/for-hire fishing industry was completely shut down in the spring with some phased reopenings in the early summer. The new analysis contains regional snapshots to help industries understand local impacts to key fisheries.

"In the coming months and years, scientists and economists will work to obtain a more complete picture of COVID-19's impact on U.S. seafood and the Blue Economy. It is our hope that this initial analysis provides a foundation that the industry researchers and planners can draw upon as they plan for the future," said NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator Chris Oliver.

On the trade front, international markets were negatively affected by disruptions in harvesting, processing and shipping. U.S. seafood exports declined 18 percent in value in the January to June period, when compared to the past five years. Fresh product exports experienced steeper declines when compared to frozen product exports. The value of seafood imports into the United States declined 4 percent in value in this period. These declines were offset by U.S. consumer demand for tuna imports (canned and in pouches), which increased 25 percent in this 6-month period, peaking to 49 percent in June.

The report notes that some U.S. industry losses may be offset by the infusion of emergency federal relief funding. In May, NOAA allocated $300 million in fisheries aid to states, territories, and tribes as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. They, with the help of interstate commissions, are distributing these much-needed funds to eligible fishery participants. Furthermore, in September, the Secretary of Agriculture made $530 million available through the Seafood Trade Relief Program to support fishermen and industries impacted by retaliatory tariffs from foreign governments.

"NOAA Fisheries stands with our fishermen, seafood industries, and coastal communities who have suffered great economic hardship this year due to COVID-19," added Oliver. "The United States is a global leader in sustainable, world class fisheries. Our goal is to help all those up and down the U.S. seafood supply chain rebound, recover and strengthen resilience as we plan strong returns to sea in 2021 and beyond."

COLUMBIA, Mo. - When he was in middle school, teachers would give Sam Curran a list of words to type in a computer to practice his vocabulary. But Sam, who has autism, was unable to stay focused on the task and required a significant amount of one-to-one direction from a teacher to complete his work. After his mother, Alicia, persuaded his teachers to allow Sam to change the colors of the words, he was able to complete work more independently and began making remarkable progress.

Now 20 years old, Sam's mother continues to ensure his special interests are leveraged in an effort to continue to help him grow and develop. A new survey from the MU Thompson Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders has found that similar strategies for children with disabilities can help reduce anxiety and improve mental health.

Kerri Nowell, a pediatric clinical psychologist at the MU Thompson Center, together with colleagues Stephen Kanne, Cynthia Brown and Courtney Jorgenson, developed the survey for caregivers of youth with autism to assess various special interests they may have and determine if those special interests were interfering with the child's development. After analyzing nearly 2,000 responses, in addition to possible reductions of anxiety and improvements of mental health, Nowell found that many caregivers also recognize the child's special interests as outlets that can potentially benefit them in social interactions or future employment and educational opportunities.

"I think there might be misconceptions out there about people with autism," said Nowell, who is also an assistant clinical professor in the MU School of Health Professions. "We know a lot of kids with autism get really focused on a particular thing, and while some may view a special interest as an oddity or cause for concern, the special interest can actually help reduce the child's anxiety and be used as a positive reinforcer or educational opportunity."

For example, Nowell suggests if a child is particularly fascinated with a specific television show, the parent or caregiver may consider using the show as a reward if the child completes a less desirable task like cleaning their room or finishing their homework. If a school assignment requires writing about a specific topic, the child can write about their special interest as a way to incorporate their passion into their schoolwork.

"Are there ways we can use this research to develop interventions where we can capitalize on their special interests and maybe modify them in a way that serves to their advantage?" Nowell said. "In middle school when students start learning about how to use the local library to conduct research, perhaps we can use that as an opportunity to incorporate their special interest in a way that supports their development and helps them become engaged members of society."

Sam's mother, Alicia Curran, added that if parents, educators and health care providers can be creative and find a spark that motivates individuals with autism or neurodevelopmental disabilities, they may be surprised by what they can unlock.

"We as parents often make the mistake of thinking our children might not be capable of doing something," Curran said. "What I have learned is that you have to find the hook, something that ignites their motivation, and not only will they perform better, but you will find out that there is so much more potential that can be unlocked in the population of individuals on the autism spectrum. When Sam was able to change the colors to whatever he wanted--boom. He was suddenly able to complete the task with minimal oversight."

Since the autism spectrum is so wide, Nowell's research is also aimed at better evaluating and diagnosing kids with autism, which can potentially lead to defining specific subsets of autism down the road as researchers learn more about how the neurodevelopmental disorder presents itself in different populations.

"My over-arching goal is to try to get a really good, in-depth understanding of what it means to have autism and all the different ways it can look," Nowell said. "The research is geared toward better supporting those with autism so they can be as successful as possible as they get older."

Exactly what kills a person with COVID-19?

How do those deaths differ from the deaths of people whose lungs fail rapidly because of other infections or injuries?

And what can hospital teams pressed into service on overtaxed COVID-19 wards do to try to keep patients from dying, despite strained circumstances?

All of these questions have sparked discussion - and even conspiracy theories - since the pandemic began. Now, two studies from Michigan Medicine may help answer them.

The bottom line: COVID-19 deaths are indeed different from other lung failure deaths. But, the researchers conclude, the kind of care needed to help sustain people through the worst cases of all forms of lung failure is highly similar. It just needs to be fine-tuned to focus on the damage COVID-19 does to the lungs.

Both studies rely on a standardized in-depth examination of medical records of people who died at Michigan Medicine, the University of Michigan's academic medical center. For each death, the researchers determined which organ system dysfunction most directly resulted in the person's death, or the decision to remove the patient from life support.

In 82 people with COVID-19 who died in the spring and early summer of 2020, that examination of records found that 56% died primarily from the failure of their lungs.

That means they died due to the damage caused by the coronavirus, even if they had other problems and complications of COVID-19 at the time of death. The findings are published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

That's more than twice the rate that researchers saw in the other study, which is based on more than 380 people with similarly severe lung failure who died at the same hospital in years before COVID-19 arose.

In that study, published last summer in Critical Care (DOI:10.1186/s13054-020-03108-w), only 22% of people with lung failure died because of the damage and dysfunction in their lungs.

In both groups, sepsis was the primary cause of death for 26% of patients - which shows the importance of preventing and treating this complication that can arise from an infection and shut down organs throughout the body. Sepsis was the leading cause of death in the non-COVID group, with lung dysfunction and brain/nerve dysfunction close behind.

"These findings underscore the importance of trying to deliver evidence-based interventions for respiratory failure in COVID-19 patients as the pandemic continues, especially as professionals who don't normally treat this condition or work in an ICU are pulled into service," says Scott Ketcham, M.D., the internal medicine resident who led both studies. "This means prone positioning, a good working knowledge of mechanical ventilation, appropriate selection of patients to receive heated high flow oxygen, and early recognition and treatment of infection. In other words, following guidelines developed before by those who specialize in treating respiratory failure like acute respiratory distress syndrome and sepsis."

Help for those pulled into COVID-19 critical care

The COVID-19 patients in the new study were treated before evidence emerged about the effects of dexamethasone and remdesivir on progression of severe cases of the disease, says Hallie Prescott, M.D., M.Sc., the associate professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine who is senior author of the paper. Those options have likely increased survival in the time since.

"There was a lot of talk in the beginning of the pandemic that this was new, and that best supportive care principles already used in ICUs didn't hold true," she says. "But increasingly we realized that all the things we've learned in the past 20 years probably will save people with COVID-19, and that the more we learn about it, the more it seems consistent with ARDS in general. Therapies specific to the respiratory component of this disease will almost surely improve survival."

Prescott and her colleagues have offered a number of webinars and online resources to help providers unused to caring for respiratory failure and sepsis. For instance, simply placing patients in the prone position isn't sufficient - it's also important to move them often so that they don't develop sores that can become entry points for secondary infections.

They include the webinars offered by the Mi-COVID19 consortium that is studying and working to improve COVID-19 care in hospitals across Michigan, posts on the Life in the Fastlane blog for emergency and critical care education by Jack Iwashyna, M.D., Ph.D., from U-M and VA Ann Arbor, and a seminar that Prescott and Iwashyna presented through U-M's Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.

Conditions near death

In addition to looking at the cause of death and related medical measures, Ketcham and his colleagues also looked at the support that patients and families received in the last days of the patients' lives.

In both groups, more than two-thirds of patients were on ventilators or other significant respiratory support when they died, and more than three-quarters of patients died after life support was withdrawn.

But among the COVID-19 patients, the study finds that less than a third had an advance directive in place, stating their wishes should they become critically ill or need someone to make medical decisions for them.

During their COVID-19 hospitalization, about 80% of patients had a goals-of-care conversation with providers documented in their record - most often, one that a provider had by telephone with a family member.

Such conversations take into account the patient's current situation, as well as any advance directives or informal discussions with family they might have had before they became ill. They're important for informing later discussions about treatment or withdrawal of life support.

About 80% of patients received a visit from a spiritual care team member during their hospitalization - but of those who were placed on a ventilator, only 10% got to see a spiritual care provider before they were intubated, when they would have been able to interact more fully.

Ketcham notes that in the first months of the pandemic especially, but even in the months since, the ability of friends and family to connect in person or virtually with critically ill COVID-19 patients has been severely limited across the country. And even when hospital policies have allowed in-person visits, such as at the end of life at Michigan Medicine, family members haven't always wanted to come in person out of fear for their own health.

As a result, only one-third of the patients in the study had family or friends with them when they died, and 55% had neither a virtual visit with friends or family within 24 hours of their death, nor anyone but their care team present when they died.

"The medical therapies we use to treat COVID-19 patients are important, but it's also important to remember to care for, not just treat, these patients," says Ketcham. "We need to think about the individual as a whole, emotionally, spiritually and socially. We need to look at what we gain from visitation policies in terms of transmission, and how we can use technology to connect providers to families, and patients to families and friends."

A University of Saskatchewan study has found that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to significant worsening of already poor dietary habits, low activity levels, sedentary behaviour, and high alcohol consumption among university students.

The findings of the study--the first to assess changes in students' dietary intake, physical activity, and sedentary behaviour before and during the pandemic--are published today in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism.

"Our findings are important because university students, especially those most vulnerable for poor nutrition and sedentary behaviour, should be targeted for interventions aimed at maintaining and improving physical activity and dietary practices during this pandemic and beyond," said lead author and nutrition professor Gordon Zello.

The four-month study involved 125 graduate and undergraduate students at USask and the University of Regina who were the most vulnerable as they were living independently or had roommates or partners, and were responsible for buying and preparing their own meals.

The students responded to an online questionnaire about their food and drink consumption, physical activity and sedentary behaviour before and during the pandemic.

The study began just as Saskatchewan was imposing pandemic restrictions, so details of what students were eating prior to the pandemic and during it were fresh on the minds of students, said Zello.

"With pre-pandemic research already showing university students to be a vulnerable group for inadequate diet and physical activity, the measures imposed to curb the COVID pandemic presented a unique opportunity to examine further impact on their lives," Zello said.

The study found that the students consumed less food every day during the pandemic compared to before. For instance, they ate 20 per cent less meat, 44 per cent less dairy, and 45 per cent fewer vegetables. While they also drank considerably fewer beverages such as coffee and tea, their alcohol consumption increased significantly, said Zello.

"This dietary inadequacy combined with long hours of sedentary behaviour and decreased physical activity could increase health risks in this unique population during COVID-19 confinement and once the pandemic ends," Zello said.

Several reasons could explain the dietary shift, said Zello and co-investigators kinesiology professor Phil Chilibeck and post-doctoral fellow Leandy Bertrand. Psychological distress has been linked to poor diet quality, particularly increased consumption of alcohol. As well, students could be eating less to offset their lack of exercise and increased sedentariness.

Zello said measures implemented to fight COVID spread, such as reduced store and restaurant hours, may have limited students' shopping frequency and at-home availability of food.

While only 16 per cent of participants were meeting Canadian guidelines of 150 minutes of moderate to intense physical activity per week before the pandemic, that further decreased to 9.6 per cent during the pandemic.

Of those who were meeting Canadian activity guidelines before the pandemic, 90 per cent became less active. Meanwhile, the number of hours spent in sedentary behaviour rose by three hours, to about 11 hours a day.

"There's no doubt that measures such as the closures of gyms and other recreational facilities by the universities and other private and public establishments within the province resulted in reductions in the level of physical activity," the study states.

Another reason for the reduction in physical activity may be that many students were no longer walking to school after the universities moved to remote learning, it says.

About 55 per cent were employed before the pandemic, dropping to 49 per cent during the pandemic.

Families are complicated. For members of the Alligatoridae family, which includes living caimans and alligators - this is especially true. They are closely related, but because of their similarity, their identification can even stump paleontologists.

But after the recent discovery of a partial skull, the caimans of years past may provide some clarity into the complex, and incomplete, history of its relatives and their movements across time and space.

Michelle Stocker, an assistant professor of vertebrate paleontology in Virginia Tech's Department of Geosciences in the College of Science; Chris Kirk, of the University of Texas at Austin; and Christopher Brochu, of the University of Iowa, have identified a 42-million-year-old partial skull that may have belonged to one of the last prehistoric caimans to roam the United States.

"Any fossil that we find has unique information that it contributes to understanding the history of life," said Stocker, who is an affiliated faculty member of the Fralin Life Sciences Institute and the Global Change Center. "From what we have, we are able to understand a little bit more about the evolutionary history of caimans and the alligatorid group, which includes alligators and caimans."

Their findings were published in PeerJ, an open access peer-reviewed scientific mega journal covering research in the biological and medical sciences.

The fossil was discovered in 2010 at Midwestern State University's Dalquest Desert Research Site, which includes extensive exposures of the Devil's Graveyard Formation, a geologic formation in the Trans-Pecos volcanic field of West Texas.

The Devil's Graveyard Formation preserves fossils from the latter portion of the Eocene epoch, a period of time covering 15 million years of prehistory.

In 2011, Stocker and the team returned to the site to collect a key bone that remained in the hard sandstone block that once encapsulated the caiman skull.

"The Devil's Graveyard Formation provides a unique window into the evolution of North American vertebrates during the middle and late Eocene," said Kirk. "There are a host of extinct species that are only known from the Devil's Graveyard, including several primates, rodents, lizards, and now this new fossil caiman."

What they discovered was a partial skull. At the time of the discovery, paleontologists were convinced that the skull came from a closer relative to alligators than to caimans.

"When you are at the early diversification of groups, their features aren't as differentiable," said Stocker. "It was harder to tell if this is more closely related to caimans or to alligators because those two are really closely related already. And the differences between them are subtle, especially early in their evolutionary history."

The skull's braincase was a key component in the identification of the fossil. The braincase encases and protects the brain from injury. Since no two species have the same braincase, finding one can provide some much needed information for paleontologists.

After further investigation into this fossil's braincase, Stocker and the team were able to determine that this was, without a doubt, a caiman.

The caiman was deemed to be 42 million years old by using a combination of investigative techniques, including radiometric dating, biochronology, and biostratigraphy, where paleontologists use the relative order of the fossilized animals to find out how old the rocks are.

With the age of the fossil and its location in mind, paleontologists are able to add to an ever-growing story about a large biogeographic range contraction, or a climate-related extirpation, that occurred millions of years ago.

Roughly 56 million years ago, the planet was experiencing temperatures so hot and methane levels so high that no polar ice caps could form. For large cool-blooded reptiles like alligators and caimans, it was their time to thrive and soak up the sun. In fact, the conditions were so favorable that these early reptiles roamed as far north as northern Canada.

"The presence of a fossil caiman in the Devil's Graveyard, about 1,200 kilometers north of where caimans are found today, really says something about how different the climate of West Texas was in the middle Eocene", said Kirk.

But one epoch later, in the Oligocene, the entire world was experiencing cooler temperatures, forcing many species that require warm and humid conditions into more restricted geographic ranges.

Caiman populations, in particular, are now only found in South and Central America. Although, a small number of caimans have been found outside of this range and are thought to be invasive species.

"This caiman seems out of place," said Brochu."Caimans today are a South American radiation, and data from modern forms, including DNA, would suggest a very simple single origin from a North American ancestor. This new form, along with some older North American fossil caimans, suggests a far more complex early history with multiple crossings of the seaway that separated North and South America until fairly recently."

There is even more to know about caiman history. Since the specimen was an incomplete skull, and far from a complete skeleton, paleontologists still have some knowledge gaps to fill about their relationships.

"If we can find another individual, we will get a better sense of its relationships, and it might be able to say something about what variation could be present in this taxon, or how they grow, or where else they might be found," said Stocker. "This is a one-and-done kind of fossil right now. Hopefully there are more out there."

The fossil will be housed at the Texas Vertebrate Paleontology Collections at the University of Texas at Austin where it will be preserved and maintained in perpetuity.

There is more research to be done on other fossils that have been retrieved from Central and South American specimens, as well. Those fossils, in particular, are critical for understanding the early southern record of caiman history and clearing up the morphological and chronologic gaps that currently exist in the caiman fossil record.

In the end, all that lies on the horizon is to do more fieldwork, collect more fossils, and conduct more study.

Without museums, this identification couldn't have been possible. When paleontologists find new fossils, they must travel to museums, where they compare the new fossils with other specimens that have been collected.

Stocker maintains that the preservation and maintenance that museums do is just one reason that they need to be supported.

"Museums are important for science and for everybody who wants to understand our shared evolutionary history," said Stocker. "And collaboration is the way that science moves forward."

Researchers from University of Stavanger, University of Melbourne, and University of Wisconsin-Madison published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines how major projects undertaken by temporary organizations can be better managed so that cost overruns are minimized.

The study forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing is titled "Mobilizing the Temporary Organization: The Governance Roles of Selection and Pricing" and is authored by Elham Ghazimatin, Erik Mooi, and Jan Heide.

When consumers return to the skies again, they may do so in Boeing's 787 Dreamliner. But the project, or "temporary organization," created to make this plane a reality ran much over-budget and created significant dissatisfaction among Boeing's customers. Such cost overruns are a common outcome of major engineering and construction projects. In fact, studies show that nine out of ten have significant cost overruns, with overruns above 100 percent quite common. The implications of cost overruns go beyond financial metrics and can include reputational damage, litigation, and future overreliance on rigid and formalized relationship features.

Managing suppliers and subcontractors, who can run into the hundreds in major projects, is an enormously difficult task. It necessitates considerable coordination and monitoring in a context where parties often have not worked together, they lack shared procedures or rules, and there is a great need to get up to speed quickly. As one of Boeing's engineers put it, "The importance of thorough planning, accounting for all interdependencies, cannot be overestimated."

Through studying 429 completed construction projects, the researchers find that supplier selection and pricing format decisions that reflect key characteristics of the project, such as the size of the project, duration, and type of customer, are best at reducing a significant part of the cost overruns observed. They conduct "what-if" analyses to show that the reductions in costs can be substantial. Ghazimatin adds that "We also show that the benefits from getting selection right outweigh those that result from getting pricing right, suggesting that selection should be, relatively speaking, a higher strategic priority for a firm. "

This study is particularly useful to managers who wish to minimize cost overruns in projects. Pricing and selection decisions, which are typically fixed at the start of a project, are predictive of cost overruns that can only be observed after a project is completed, typically after many months or years. The pricing and selection aspects studied--fixed vs. variable pricing and selection on price vs. ability--were proposed by industry representatives and thus have direct managerial relevance. Results also show that simple managerial heuristics, such as only relying on price-based selection or deploying fixed pricing, are unlikely to be effective at minimizing cost overruns.

Just like humans trying to stick to New Year's resolutions, guppies have varying levels of self-control, a new study shows.

Researchers from the University of Exeter and Ghent University studying the behaviours of Trinidadian guppies tested "inhibitory control" (suppressing unhelpful impulses or urges).
The tiny fish first learned how to swim into a cylinder to get food - then a cover was removed to make the cylinder transparent.

Inhibitory control was measured by whether a guppy resisted the urge to swim directly towards the food - bumping into the cylinder - or still swam around, relying on previous learning.

The findings revealed "consistent individual variation" - some guppies had more self-control than others.

"Studies of inhibitory control have traditionally focussed on a few bird and mammal species, but we now know it exists in a wide range of animals," said Dr Alessandro Macario, of Exeter's Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour.

"As well as finding consistent differences between individual guppies, the population of guppies we studied were, on average, half as able to control impulses as a different strain of guppies tested in a previous study under similar conditions.

"We can't be certain about the causes of this difference, but it's possible that the strain we studied had evolved in different social and environmental conditions - with less need for inhibitory control."

The study examined captive females, with each guppy tested multiple times.

In total, the fish inhibited the urge to swim directly at the food in 28.5% of trials.

No improvement was seen over time, but the researchers say this might have occurred if the guppies had been tested for longer.

Professor Darren Croft, also of the University of Exeter, said: "Our study is a first step towards understanding how inhibitory control has evolved in guppies.

"Guppies live in small rivers alongside predators so, for example, they might need the ability to hide and resist the urge to leave that hiding place to get food.

"The next step in this research is to examine the extent to which this trait affects guppies' chances of survival or reproduction."

Liwen Sang, independent scientist at International Center for Materials Nanoarchitectonics, National Institute for Materials Science (also JST PRESTO researcher) developed a MEMS resonator that stably operates even under high temperatures by regulating the strain caused by the heat from gallium nitride (GaN).

High-precision synchronization is required for the fifth generation mobile communication system (5G) with a high speed and large capacity. To that end, a high-performance frequency reference oscillator which can balance the temporal stability and temporal resolution is necessary as a timing device to generate signals on a fixed cycle. The conventional quartz resonator as the oscillator has the poor integration capability and its application is limited. Although a micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) (*1) resonator can achieve a high temporal resolution with small phase noise and superior integration capability, the silicon (Si)-based MEMS suffers from a bad stability at higher temperatures.

In the present study, a high-quality GaN epitaxial film was fabricated on a Si substrate using metal organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD)(*2) to fabricate the GaN resonator. The strain engineering was proposed to improve the temporal performance. The strain was achieved through utilizing the lattice mismatch and thermal mismatch between GaN and Si substrate. Therefore, GaN was directly grown on Si without any strain-removal layer. By optimizing the temperature decrease method during MOCVD growth, there was no crack observed on GaN and its crystalline quality is comparable to that obtained by the conventional method of using a superlattice strain-removal layer.

The developed GaN-based MEMS resonator was verified to operate stably even at 600K. It showed a high temporal resolution and good temporal stability with little frequency shift when the temperature was increased. This is because the internal thermal strain compensated the frequency shift and reduce the energy dissipation. Since the device is small, highly sensitive and can be integrated with CMOS technology, it is promising for the application to 5G communication, IoT timing device, on-vehicle applications, and advanced driver assistance system.