Culture

Think about how many different pieces of technology the average household has purchased in the last decade. Phones, TVs, computers, tablets, and game consoles don't last forever, and repairing them is difficult and often as expensive as simply buying a replacement.

Electronics are integral to modern society, but electronic waste (e-waste) presents a complex and growing challenge in the path toward a circular economy--a more sustainable economic system that focuses on recycling materials and minimizing waste. Adding to the global waste challenge is the prevalence of dishonest recycling practices by companies who claim to be recycling electronics but actually dispose of them by other means, such as in landfills or shipping the waste to other countries.

New research from the Hypothetical Materials Lab at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering develops a framework to understand the choices a recycler has to make and the role that digital fraud prevention could have in preventing dishonest recycling practices.

"Electronics have huge environmental impacts across their life cycle, from mining rare raw materials to the energy-intensive manufacturing, all the way to the complicated e-waste stream," said Christopher Wilmer, the William Kepler Whiteford Faculty Fellow and associate professor of chemical and petroleum engineering, who leads the Hypothetical Materials Lab. "A circular economy model is well-suited to mitigating each of these impacts, but less than 40 percent of e-waste is currently estimated to be reused or recycled. If our technology is going to be sustainable, it's important that we understand the barriers to e-waste recycling."

Some U.S. firms that have touted safe, ethical and green recycling practices never actually recycle much of what they receive; instead, their e-waste was illegally stockpiled, abandoned or exported. Between 2014 and 2016, the Basel Action Network used GPS trackers in electronics delivered to U.S. recyclers, showing that 30 percent of the products ended up overseas.

The researchers developed a model framework that analyzes dishonest end-of-life electronics management and what leads recyclers to pursue fraudulent activities. They find that the primary way to ensure an e-waste recycler will engage in honest practices with minimum supervision is to make it the more profitable option, either by decreasing the costs of recycling or increasing the penalties for fraudulent practices.

"The main barrier to honest recycling is its cost," said lead author Daniel Salmon, a graduate student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. "One of our main findings is that if we find a way to make it more profitable for companies to recycle, we will have less dishonest recycling. Targeted subsidies, higher penalties for fraud and manufacturers ensuring their electronics are more easily recyclable are all things that could potentially solve this problem."

The researchers also suggest the use of the blockchain as neutral, third-party supervision to avoid fraudulent recycling practices.

"Our model mentions the influence of monitoring and supervision, but self-reporting by companies enables dishonesty. On the other hand, something like the blockchain does not," said Wilmer, who founded Ledger, the first peer-reviewed scholarly journal dedicated to blockchain and cryptocurrency. "Relying on an immutable record may be one solution to prevent fraud and align behaviors across recyclers toward a circular economy."

The work is part of a larger NSF-funded convergence research project on the circular economy, which is led by Melissa Bilec, deputy director of the Mascaro Center, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Roberta A. Luxbacher Faculty Fellow at Pitt.

In recent years, many juvenile courts have adopted in-home detention with electronic monitoring tethers as an alternative to institutional incarceration. A new study examined whether this approach reduces recidivism among girls involved in the juvenile justice system. The study found that tethers failed to reduce reoffending among the girls; in fact, they may be harmful because in-home detention limits girls' access to treatment programs.

The study, by researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) and Michigan State University, appears in Justice Evaluation Journal, a publication of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.

"We believe this is the first study to examine tethers' effectiveness among girls," says Valerie R. Anderson, assistant professor of criminal justice at UC, who led the study. "Most criminal justice practices and policies have been developed for and tested on boys and men, then applied to girls. Our study will help inform policy and evidence-based practice for adjudicated girls."

In-home detention with electronic monitoring (or tethers) has been used widely among adults. Individuals are confined to home and wear tethers so their location can be monitored at all times; tethers are used primarily to ensure compliance with detention requirements, not necessarily to restrict those sentenced from leaving home.

Juvenile courts have begun to use this approach to reduce youth's future delinquency and involvement with the criminal justice system. Tethers are considered an alternative to residential placement as well as an early release alternative to institutional options for continued secure detention, but their effectiveness for girls is unclear.

In this study, researchers used data from a midsized Midwestern juvenile family court's delinquency and truancy divisions between 2004 and 2012. They evaluated the effectiveness of in-home detention with tethers on recidivism rates, comparing 155 girls who received in-home detention with tethers to a control group of 155 girls with characteristics similar to the first group who received either curfews or in-home detention without tethers. The girls' average age was 14 when they had their first contact with the courts, and most were youth of color.

Researchers assessed the girls on 41items across eight domains, including prior/current offenses, education, leisure and recreation, peer relationships, substance abuse, family circumstances, attitudes and orientation, and personality. They measured recidivism by whether girls received new court petitions one and two years after sentencing.

The study found that in-home detention tethers were not effective in reducing recidivism for girls. Girls who received a tether had significantly higher rates of recidivism two years after release from in-home detention (52 percent) than girls who did not receive a tether (35 percent).

The study also found that court petitions were more likely to be related to persons for girls who had been tethered; both tethered and nontethered girls had the same distribution across other types of offenses (e.g., property, drugs, status--offenses such as running away from home and truancy from school).

The authors suggest that gender-specific experiences of adjudicated girls may place them at greater risk for recidivism after at-home detention with tethers. Descriptive analyses of the girls sentenced to electronic monitoring showed that they had significantly higher scores on a measure of risk assessment that measured education, substance abuse, family dynamics, and other factors. This indicates that the girls likely required intensive levels of treatment and support, but by being restrained at home with electronic monitoring, they may have been restricted from fully engaging in treatment programs that could have led to reductions in their risk of recidivism.

In addition, tethering places girls under closer scrutiny, increasing opportunities for probation officers to observe violations, which may lead to new court petitions, the authors explain. And placing girls in homes that may be unstable and where they may experience domestic violence may further exacerbate girls' risk of reoffending.

"In-home detention with tethers is touted as more cost-effective than institutional incarceration and this type of approach may appear better than detention centers, but it is still a punitive sanction that fails to fully address the risks and needs of girls and their families," notes Laura Rubino, a Ph.D. candidate in criminal justice at UC, who coauthored the study. Instead, the study's authors call for programs for girls in the juvenile justice system that address social support, safety, and mental health.

The authors point to several limitations of their study, including shortcomings of the archival data (e.g., restricted flexibility in measurement, lack of measures of gender identity). In addition, racial/ethnic minority and LGBTQ+ girls are overrepresented in the legal system and consistently experience harsher treatment than their counterparts, which requires more research to understand the effects of in-home detention sanctions with diverse groups of youth.

HOUSTON - (June 21, 2021) - Rice University bioengineers collaborated on a six-year study that systematically analyzed how the surface architecture of breast implants influences the development of adverse effects, including an unusual type of lymphoma.

Every year, about 400,000 people receive silicone breast implants in the United States. According to FDA data, most of those implants need to be replaced within 10 years due to the buildup of scar tissue and other complications.

A team including researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Rice, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Baylor College of Medicine published its findings online today in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

"The surface topography of an implant can drastically affect how the immune response perceives it, and this has important ramifications for the [implants'] design," said Omid Veiseh, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Rice who began the research six years ago during a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT. "We hope this paper provides a foundation for plastic surgeons to evaluate and better understand how implant choice can affect the patient experience."

The findings, were co-authored by two dozen researchers, including co-lead authors Veiseh and Joshua Doloff of Johns Hopkins University, MIT's Robert Langer and two of Veiseh's collaborators from the Texas Medical Center, Baylor's Courtney Hodges and MD Anderson's Mark Clemens.

Human impact

Veiseh, whose lab focuses on developing and studying biocompatible materials, said he is particularly excited about the discovery that surface architecture can be tuned to reduce host immune responses and fibrosis to breast implants.

"There's a lot we still don't understand about how the immune system orchestrates its response to implants, and it is really important to understand that within the context of biomaterials," Veiseh said.

Veiseh continued the research after joining Rice's faculty in 2017 as a CPRIT Scholar from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. He and two Ph.D. students from his lab, Amanda Nash and Samira Aghlara-Fotovat, collaborated on the project with the research groups of MD Anderson's Clemens and Baylor's Hodges to correlate findings from MIT animal studies with clinical data from human patients.

"Clinically, we have observed that patients exposed to textured-surface breast implants can develop breast implant-associated large cell lymphoma (BIA-ALCL), but this has not occurred with smooth-surface implants," said Clemens, an associate professor of plastic surgery at MD Anderson who leads a multidisciplinary treatment team on the disease. "This paper gives important novel insights into cancer pathogenesis with clear implications for preventing disease before it develops."

Veiseh said the work also provided important clues that will guide follow-up studies.

"That's the most exciting part of this: it could lead to safer, more compatible biomaterials and implant designs," Veiseh said.

Surface analysis

Silicone breast implants have been in use since the 1960s. The earliest versions had smooth surfaces, but patients with these implants often experienced a complication called capsular contracture, in which scar tissue formed around the implant and squeezed it, creating pain or discomfort as well as visible deformities. Implants could also flip after implantation, requiring surgical adjustment or removal.

In the late 1980s, some companies introduced rougher surfaces intended to reduce capsular contracture rates and make implants stay in place. The textured surfaces have peaks of varying heights. The peaks of some average hundreds of microns.

In 2019, the FDA requested breast implant manufacturer Allergan recall highly textured breast implants that had an average surface roughness of about 80 microns due to risk of BIA-ALCL, a cancer of the immune system.

In 2015, Veiseh and Doloff, then postdocs in the lab of MIT's Langer, began testing five commercially available implants with different surface designs to see how they would interact with surrounding tissue and the immune system. These included the highly textured one that had been previously recalled, one that was completely smooth and three that were somewhere in between.

Experimental results

In a study of rabbits, the researchers found tissue exposed to the more heavily textured implant surfaces showed signs of increased activity from macrophages -- immune cells that normally clear out foreign cells and debris.

All of the implants stimulated immune cells called T cells, but in different ways. The study found implants with rougher surfaces stimulated more pro-inflammatory T cell responses. Among the non-smooth implants, those with the smallest degree of roughness (4 microns) stimulated T cells that appeared to inhibit tissue inflammation.

The findings suggest that rougher implants rub against surrounding tissue and cause more irritation. This may explain why the rougher implants can lead to lymphoma: The hypothesis is that some of the texture sloughs off and gets trapped in nearby tissue, where it provokes chronic inflammation that can eventually lead to cancer.

The researchers also tested miniaturized versions of implants in mice. They manufactured these implants using the same techniques used to manufacture human-sized versions, and showed that more highly textured implants provoked more macrophage activity, more scar tissue formation and higher levels of inflammatory T cells. The researchers worked with the Hodges' lab at Baylor to perform single-cell RNA sequencing of immune cells from these tissues to uncover the specific signals that made the immune cells more inflammatory.

"The surface properties of the implants have profoundly different effects on key signals between immune cells that help recognize and respond to foreign materials," said Hodges, an assistant professor of molecular and cellular biology at Baylor. "The results show that the lightly textured surface avoided the strong negative cytokine immune response induced by the rough surface."

Toward safer implants

After their animal studies, the researchers examined how human patients respond to different types of silicone breast implants by collaborating with MD Anderson on the analysis of tissue samples from BIA-ALCL patients.

They found evidence of the same types of immune responses observed in the animal studies. For example, they observed that tissue samples from patients that had been host to highly textured implants for many years showed signs of a chronic, long-term immune response. They also found that scar tissue was thicker in patients who had more highly textured implants.

"Doing across-the-board comparisons in mice, rabbits and then in human [tissue samples] really provides a much more robust and substantial body of evidence about how these compare to one another," Veiseh said.

The authors said they hope their datasets will help other researchers optimize the design of silicone breast implants and other types of medical silicone implants for better safety.

"We are pleased that we were able to bring new materials science approaches to better understand issues of biocompatibility in the area of breast implants," said Langer, the study's senior author and MIT's David H. Koch Institute Professor. "We also hope the studies that we conducted will be broadly useful in understanding how to design safer and more effective implants of any type."

New York (June 21, 2021)--The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) has published an updated version of the AGS Minimum Geriatrics Competencies for Graduating Medical Students, which were created to ensure that medical school graduates across the U.S. are prepared to provide high-quality care for us all as we age. A refresh of the original set first published more than a decade ago, the 27 competencies integrate new concepts that have emerged more recently in the field of geriatrics, including frailty and person-centered care, and are framed around five key areas of focus for all geriatrics healthcare professionals.

"The updated competencies reflect an evolution in how we frame the work of geriatrics health professionals, a greater understanding of frailty, and a greater focus nationally on ensuring that care is person-centered and driven by individual goals," explained AGS President Peter Hollmann, MD, AGSF. "With these competencies, the field of geriatrics has defined not just what all physicians should know as they embark on their careers but also how they should put that knowledge into practice."

The updated AGS Minimum Geriatrics Competencies for Graduating Medical Students are organized around the Geriatrics 5Ms, a framework developed in 2017 by Frank Molnar, MD, Allen Huang, MD, AGSF, and Mary Tinetti, MD, AGSF, around five key areas: Mind, Mobility, Medications, Multicomplexity, and what Matters most. Clinical educators in medical schools are rapidly adopting the 5Ms as a framework for teaching medical students the skills, knowledge, and abilities they should have to provide high-quality clinical care for older adults. In the updated competencies set, each of the Ms contains new or modified competencies. Of particular note, multicomplexity, which describes the person who benefits most from geriatrics care, includes guidance on integrating a health equity lens into the practice of medicine.

"When we added a 27th competency, we believed it was critically important to highlight how important it is that physicians not only understand the impact that ageism and other forms of discrimination can have on the health of older adults but also take steps to overcome their own bias in addressing issues of health equity," AGS CEO Nancy E. Lundebjerg, MPA, said.

A workgroup of AGS leaders co-chaired by Rosanne Leipzig, MD, PhD, Andrea W. Schwartz, MD, and Mandi Sehgal, MD, updated the 26 original competencies using a modified Delphi method to reach a group consensus based on expert and stakeholder input and a literature review. Having presented their work at the 2021 AGS Virtual Annual Scientific Meeting, the team is currently working on a paper describing their methodology and key qualitative findings from their research. The updated competencies are now available on the AGS website here.

Moving forward, the AGS will continue to advocate that undergraduate medical education prepares graduating physicians to care for us all as we age. AGS is also developing educational tools to help educators to integrate attention to the new competencies into their programs.

WACO, Texas (June 21, 2021) - A new analysis of Venus' surface shows evidence of tectonic motion in the form of crustal blocks that have jostled against each other like broken chunks of pack ice. Published in the PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), the study -- which includes contributions by Baylor University planetary physicist Peter James, Ph.D. -- found that the movement of these blocks could indicate that Venus is still geologically active and give scientists insight into both exoplanet tectonics and the earliest tectonic activity on Earth.

"We have identified a previously unrecognized pattern of tectonic deformation on Venus, one that is driven by interior motion just like on Earth," said Paul Byrne, Ph.D., associate professor of planetary science at North Carolina State University and lead and co-corresponding author of the work. "Although different from the tectonics we currently see on Earth, it is still evidence of interior motion being expressed at the planet's surface."

Venus had long been assumed to have an immobile solid outer shell, or lithosphere, just like Mars or Earth's moon. In contrast, Earth's lithosphere is broken into tectonic plates, which slide against, apart from, and underneath each other on top of a hot, weaker mantle layer.

James, an assistant professor of planetary geophysics and founder of Baylor University's Planetary Research Group, was part of the international group of researchers involved with the study. He has taken part in three NASA missions and specializes in using of spacecraft data to study the crusts and mantles of planets and moons.

"Earth is the only planet in the solar system with plate tectonics, so our planet is quite exceptional in that regard," James said. "That is particularly interesting when it comes to Venus: Why does a planet like Venus -- roughly the same size as Earth and made of the same types of rocks -- not behave the same way as Earth geologically?"

To answer that question, the team used radar images from NASA's Magellan mission to map the surface of Venus. In examining the extensive Venusian lowlands that make up most of the planet surface, they saw areas where large blocks of the lithosphere seem to have moved: pulling apart, pushing together, rotating and sliding past each other like broken pack ice over a frozen lake.

James provided calculations of the various mechanisms that could be responsible for the force driving the geologic activity on Venus. NASA's Magellan spacecraft measured the gravity field of Venus -- the subtle changes in the strength of gravity in different places on the planet. James was able to use this gravity field to demonstrate that viscous mantle flow, or slow churning, is strongly coupled to the crust.

"The mantle inside Venus pushes and pulls on the surface of the planet more strongly than Earth's mantle does. These calculations of the driving forces corroborated the discovery of block motion and helped us have a better understanding of how it works," James said.

The interior mantle flow found by the study's calculations is significant because it hasn't been demonstrated on a global scale previously. The movement of these crustal blocks could also indicate that Venus is still geologically active.

"We know that much of Venus has been volcanically resurfaced over time, so some parts of the planet might be really young, geologically speaking," Byrne said. "But several of the jostling blocks have formed in and deformed these young lava plains, which means that the lithosphere fragmented after those plains were laid down. This gives us reason to think that some of these blocks may have moved geologically very recently - perhaps even up to today."

The researchers are optimistic that Venus' newly recognized "pack ice" pattern could offer clues to understanding tectonic deformation on planets outside of our solar system, as well as on a much younger Earth.

"One of the neat things about planet research like this is that it helps us understand why our own planet works the way it does," James said. "The theme of our Planetary Research Group at Baylor is a quote from C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity: 'Aim at heaven and you will get Earth thrown in.' That quote is intended in a spiritual context -- we should seek the kingdom of God before all else, and then this kingdom-mindset can even bear fruit in a secular sense. We like the double meaning of using space research to understand our own planet better."

Science related to Venus is especially timely -- NASA recently announced that it would be sending two new spacecrafts to Venus, VERITAS and DAVINCI+. These will be the first NASA missions launched to Venus since the 1980s. Additionally, the European Space Agency announced last week that it would be sending its own spacecraft called Envision to Venus.

"Strategically, this research is positioning Baylor to be involved with upcoming spacecraft missions. Venus is becoming a bigger priority for space agencies around the world, and we're plugged in to the exciting science opportunities that are on the horizon," James said.

Baylor will continue to be part of Venus research through James' lab. Rudger Dame, a Ph.D. candidate in James' lab, is focusing on Venus for his dissertation research. He has an internship this summer with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, under the advisement of Sue Smrekar, the principal investigator for the recently announced VERITAS spacecraft.

In addition, James is collaborating with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to study the planet Mercury's crust. He also led a recent study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters about the discovery of a mysterious huge mass of material on the far side of the Moon -- beneath the largest crater in our solar system. The mass -- at least five times larger than the Big Island of Hawaii -- may contain metal from an asteroid that may have crashed into the Moon and formed the crater.

The South Pole-Aitken basin -- thought to have been created about 4 billion years ago -- is "one of the best natural laboratories for studying catastrophic impact events, an ancient process that shaped all of the rocky planets and moons we see today."

Women's electoral candidacies skyrocketed nationwide in the wake of the 2016 presidential election, which many saw as good news for democracy. But behavioral scholars have long maintained that women are more risk-averse than men, and thus are not as likely to sustain a prolonged political career -- involving election losses as well as wins -- the way men candidates traditionally have.

But behavioral scholars have long maintained that women are more risk-averse than men, and thus are not as likely to sustain a prolonged political career -- involving election losses as well as wins -- the way men candidates traditionally have.

Further, naysayers in a variety of media clips voiced that women were "sore losers," and they predicted that the surge of women entering politics at that time would have little long-term impact.

A new University of California, Davis, study suggests, however, that nationwide data show women are in politics for the long haul.

No 'flash in the pan'

"Contrary to those narratives, our results show that the surge in women candidates is unlikely to be a 'flash in the pan' for women's political representation," said Rachel Bernhard, co-author of the study and assistant professor of political science at UC Davis. "Far from being 'sore losers,' women who run for office are just as likely to persist as men."

Bernhard said the post-2016 surge has already created an increase in the base number of women candidates -- and therefore repeat candidates in the future -- such that women's representation in politics is unlikely to return to pre-2016 levels.

The paper, "Men and women candidates are similarly persistent after losing elections," was published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Bernhard and co-author Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, a political scientist and an assistant professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Women not more likely to quit than men

Researchers analyzing 200,000-plus local and state candidates, running in more than 22,000 jurisdictions throughout the United States from 1950 to 2018, found that women who lose elections are no more likely to quit politics than men who lose. They argue that if women are more cautious and risk-averse, as researchers in economics, political science and social psychology have previously suggested, it is at the point they choose to either run for office or not -- not after a loss.

"Rather than rebutting previous theory, our results suggest a more nuanced theory of gender and political candidate persistence," researchers said in the paper.

Researchers also collected dozens of media clips from 2018, including from Fox News and the Christian Science Monitor, in which the recent surge in women candidates for office was seen by those commenting as temporary.

Election data was collected from a variety of sources, including California local races, and mayoral and state legislative races nationwide.

These are the arenas where most candidates begin their political careers, and where more women are likely to run for election. The elections researchers analyzed included school district, community college district, city and county elections as well as legislative elections.

"Unsurprisingly, those who win their races are much more likely to run for office in subsequent elections," researchers said in their paper. Among state legislative candidates throughout the country, winners are 51 percentage points more likely to run again than losers; among California local candidates, 18 percentage points; and among mayoral candidates nationwide, 47 percentage points.

In these data, propensity to run again after loss are similar for women candidates and men candidates, researchers found.

In analyzing the data, researchers found no statistically significant differences in candidates' responses to losing these races. In state legislative elections, for example, men who lose are 38 percentage points less likely to run again than when they win, while women are 39 percentage points less likely to run again. Overall, the effect of losing for first-time candidates is more likely to discourage them from running again than for experienced candidates, but again there were no distinguishable differences by gender.

"Once women overcome the barriers of running for office in the first place, they are just as likely to persist as men," Bernhard said.

"Since many women who ran in 2018 and 2020 will have to wait four years to run again, it's too soon for us to say exactly what the long-term effects of those surges were -- but based on the data we have, we are optimistic that many of those women are here to stay.

"We hope that these results will be encouraging for the people and organizations who are investing in women and working to get more women in office," she said. "While there is a lot of work to be done to get to gender equality in politics, this study shows that those investments aren't lost even when women lose elections."

The idea that a small number of "bad apples" are responsible for an outsized share of complaints against police officers has gained considerable traction over the last four decades. A new study considered the extent to which police misconduct is likely to be reduced by removing police officers identified early in their careers as being at risk for misconduct. The study concluded that replacing the top 10 percent of police identified as being the most likely to generate use-of-force complaints with officers who have not or are less likely to do so would reduce use-of-force complaints by just 6 percent over a 10 year period.

Conducted by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University, the study appears in Criminology & Public Policy, a publication of the American Society of Criminology.

"Our analysis suggests that removing predictably problematic police officers is unlikely to have a large impact on use-of-force citizen complaints," explains Aaron Chalfin, assistant professor of criminology at the University of Pennsylvania, who led the study. "Moreover, predicting who the problematic officers will be is difficult, so a better idea is to design early warning systems to deter problematic behavior and promote greater accountability."

Analyses of police departments across the United States suggest that a small share of officers accounts for a large share of complaints about misconduct against police. A common estimate is that the top 2 percent of officers account for about 50 percent of known misconduct. Such statistics suggest that reform efforts should focus on terminating the "bad apples" but, as the authors show, such a computation is misleading.

In this study, researchers used data from several sources, including: 1) citizen complaints that implicated Chicago police officers between 2012 and 2017 and 2) use-of-force data from the Chicago Police Department's tactical response reports from April 2011 to April 2016, focusing on the 11,283 officers employed by the department as of September 2017 and going back five years for each officer. The data were made available to the public by the Invisible Institute's Citizens Police Data Project, which hosts a collection of nearly 250,000 complaints against Chicago police officers filed since 1988. The study followed Chicago police officers hired between 2000 and 2007 for 10 years, ranking officers by the number of complaints they received early in their careers to predict future risk of having a complaint filed against them.

Researchers found that between September 2012 and September 2017, 2,885 complaints against Chicago police officers involved use of force. Looking backwards, the top 10 percent of officers accounted for 70 percent of the complaints, leading many observers to posit that the Chicago Police Department could appreciably reduce use-of-force complaints by removing a small number of "bad apples."

To determine whether this would be the most likely outcome, researchers carried out a policy simulation: First, they identified high-risk officers using information generated during their early-career 18-month probationary period, what the researchers termed an early warning system. Then they determined that there was considerable persistence in complaints over an officer's career, suggesting that, on average, officers identified as high risk early in their career persisted in being characterized as high risk later.

Next, the researchers simulated replacing the high-risk officers with officers less likely to have use-of-force complaints (using a variety of different configurations of officers) to estimate the share of citizen complaints over a 10-year period that would be abated solely by terminating officers at high risk of use-of-force complaints.

The study estimated that removing the top 10 percent of the police force (a very difficult task since current rates of termination are approximately 0.2 percent annually) with officers drawn from the middle of the distribution of officers would reduce total complaints just 4.6 percent and use-of-force complaints 6.1 percent. These estimates, which are rather small, reflect the difficulty of identifying "bad apples" early in officers' careers and suggest that a focus on computations that identify "bad apples" looking backwards (e.g., the top 10% of officers end up accounting for 70% of complaints) present a misleading view of the problem in policing.

The effects of terminating the top 10 percent of high-risk officers based on officers' rankings of likelihood using force during a five-year probationary period (instead of the 18-month probationary period) were larger, at 16 percent. But the authors caution that terminating such a large number of officers after five years of service would be politically challenging.

"Early warning systems that simply identify problematic officers and incapacitate them, either through termination or reassignment, are unlikely to lead to large reductions in the use of force," suggests Jacob Kaplan, a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University, who coauthored the study. "But early warning systems that are coupled with rigorous oversight and genuine accountability might have a larger effect by generating deterrence or spillover effects among officers who are unlikely to be flagged as being high risk, or by changing departmental culture."

What is needed in police departments, the authors say, is broad-based measures to improve managerial practices and increase accountability. Toward this end, they suggest that policymakers provide incentives for better and more complete reporting and discovery of police misconduct.

Among the study's limitations, the authors note that while police departments' early warning systems are not a panacea, they could produce more changes in use-of-force complaints above and beyond the estimates of this study. In addition, they note that their simulation did not identify the promise of early warning systems more generally or what the effects might be at scale.

Furthermore, the authors note that in a city like Chicago, even a small proportional reduction in use-of-force complaints can translate into hundreds fewer complaints annually. This, in turn, could save millions of dollars in settlements of lawsuits as well as improve relations between police and the community.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogenic bacterium present in many ecological niches, such as plant roots, stagnant water or even the pipes of our homes. Naturally very versatile, it can cause acute and chronic infections that are potentially fatal for people with weakened immune systems. The presence of P. aeruginosa in clinical settings, where it can colonise respirators and catheters, is a serious threat. In addition, its adaptability and resistance to many antibiotics make infections by P. aeruginosa increasingly difficult to treat. There is therefore an urgent need to develop new antibacterials. Scientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, have identified a previously unknown regulator of gene expression in this bacterium, the absence of which significantly reduces the infectious power of P. aeruginosa and its dangerous nature. These results, to be published in the journal Nucleic Acid Research, could constitute an innovative target in the fight against this pathogen.

RNA helicases perform essential regulatory functions by binding and unwinding various RNA molecules to perform their functions. RNA helicases are present in the genomes of almost all known living organisms, including bacteria, yeast, plants, and humans; however, they have acquired specific properties depending on the organism in which they are found. "Pseudomonas aeruginosa has an RNA helicase whose function was unknown, but which was found in other pathogens", explains Martina Valentini, a researcher leading this research in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Medicine at UNIGE Faculty of Medicine, and holder of an SNSF "Ambizione» grant. "We wanted to understand what its role was, in particular in relation to the pathogenesis of the bacteria and their environmental adaptation."

A severely reduced virulence

To do this, the Geneva team combined biochemical and molecular genetic approaches to determine the function of this protein. "In the absence of this RNA helicase, P. aeruginosa multiplies normally in vitro, both in a liquid medium and on a semi-solid medium at 37°C", reports Stéphane Hausmann, a researcher associate in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Medicine at UNIGE Faculty of Medicine and first author of this study. "To determine whether the infection capacity of the bacteria was affected, we had to observe it in vivo in a living organism."

The scientists then continued their research using Galleria mellonella larvae, a model insect for studying host-pathogen interactions. Indeed, the innate immune system of insects has important similarities with that of mammals. Moreover, these larvae can live at temperatures between 5°C and 45°C, which makes it possible to study bacterial growth at different temperatures, including that of the human body. Three groups of larvae were observed; the first, after injection of a saline solution, saw 100% of its population survive. In the presence of a normal strain of P. aeruginosa, less than 20% survived at 20 hours after infection. In contrast, when P. aeruginosa no longer possessed the RNA helicase gene, over 90% of the larvae remained alive. "The modified bacteria became almost harmless, while remaining very much alive," says Stéphane Hausmann.

Inhibiting without killing

The results of this work show that this regulator affects the production of several virulence factors in the bacteria. "In fact, this protein controls the degradation of numerous messenger RNAs coding for virulence factors", summarises Martina Valentini. "From an antimicrobial drug strategy point of view, switching off the pathogen's virulence factors rather than trying to eliminate the pathogen completely, means allowing the host immune system to naturally neutralise the bacterium and potentially reduces the risk for the development of resistance. Indeed, if we try to kill the bacteria at all costs, the bacteria will adapt to survive, which favours the appearance of resistant strains."

The Geneva team is currently continuing its work by screening a series of known drug molecules in order to determine whether any of them have the capacity to selectively block this protein, and to study in detail the inhibition mechanisms on which the development of an effective therapeutic strategy could be based.

(Vienna, Monday, 21 June, 2021) COVID-19 patients suffer from cognitive and behavioural problems two months after being discharged from hospital, a new study presented at the 7th Congress of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) has found.

Issues with memory, spatial awareness and information processing problems were identified as possible overhangs from the virus in post-COVID-19 patients who were followed up within eight weeks.

The research also found that one in 5 patients reported post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with 16% presenting depressive symptoms.

The study, conducted in Italy, involved testing neurocognitive abilities and taking MRI brain scans of patients two months after experiencing COVID-19 symptoms. More than 50% of patients experienced cognitive disturbances; 16%% had problems with executive function (governing working memory, flexible thinking, and information processing), 6% experienced visuospatial problems (difficulties judging depth and seeing contrast), 6% had impaired memory, and 25% manifested a combination of all these symptoms.

Cognitive and psychopathological problems were much worse in younger people, with the majority of patients aged under 50 demonstrating issues with executive functions.

In the whole sample, the greater severity of COVID-19 acute respiratory symptoms during hospital admission was associated with low executive function performance.

Additionally, a longitudinal observation of the same cohort at 10 months from COVID-19, showed a reduction of cognitive disturbances from 53 to 36%, but a persisting presence of PTSD and depressive symptoms.

Lead author of the study, Prof. Massimo Filippi, from the Scientific Institute and University Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Italy, explained, "Our study has confirmed significant cognitive and behavioural problems are associated with COVID-19 and persist several months after remission of the disease."

"A particularly alarming finding is the changes to executive function we found, which can make it difficult for people to concentrate, plan, think flexibly and remember things. These symptoms affected three in 4 younger patients who were of a working age".

No significant relationship was observed between cognitive performance and brain volume within the study.

"Larger studies and longer-term follow up are both needed, but this study suggests that COVID-19 is associated with significant cognitive and psychopathological problems", concluded Dr Canu, Researcher at the San Raffaele Hospital of Milan and first author of the study. "Appropriate follow-up and treatments are crucial to ensure these previously hospitalised patients are given adequate support to help to alleviate these symptoms."

Other COVID-19 findings at the 7th EAN Congress:

The study is one of four scientific presentations on the neurological symptoms of COVID-19, an area of research that is fast emerging, from this week's EAN Congress:

Research, led by Dr Mattia Pozzato of the Osperdale Maggiore Policlinico in Milan, found 77.4% of 53 patients reported developing at least one neurological symptom and 46.3% presented with more than three neurological symptoms between 5-10 months after being hospitalised with COVID-19. The most common of these symptoms were insomnia (65.9%), daytime sleepiness (46.3 %), and walking difficulties. Other less frequent symptoms included headaches, hyposmia (a reduced ability to smell) and hypogeusia (loss of taste). The authors concluded 90% of patients had post-COVID-19 symptoms, and that neurological symptoms form a significant part of these.

A research project presented by Professor Tamara S. Mischenko, Head of the Department of Neurology and Medical psychology at Karazin University, Ukraine, followed up 42 patients aged 32 to 54 after being hospitalised with COVID-19 after 2 to 4 months, finding that 95% had neurocognitive impairment symptom. All patients suffered from asthenic symptoms, increased fatigue, and anxiety/depression symptoms. Other symptoms included vestibular (balance) disorders, (59.2%), headaches, (50%) and reduced ability to smell (19%). Five patients also suffered ischaemic strokes in the two months after hospitalisation from COVID-19.

A study which looked at brain stem damage in COVID-19 patients from post-mortems showed a high percentage of neuronal damage and a higher number of small masses (called corpora amylacea) which are abundant in neurodegenerative diseases. Immunohistochemistry tests also revealed the presence of the virus in the brain stem. Measurements were compared with non-COVID-19 ICU patients. The author, Dr Tommaso Bocci, a neurologist and neurophysiologist at the University of Milan's Department of Neurological Science, said the study provides the first neuropathological, neurophysiological, and clinical evidence of the COVID-19-related brain stem involvement, especially at the medullary level, suggesting a neurogenic component of respiratory failure.

Washington, D.C. - June 20, 2021 - Increased screen time among young adults during the COVID-19 pandemic correlated with a rise in pandemic-related distress, according to research led by investigators at the Saint James School of Medicine on the Caribbean island nation, Saint Vincent. The increase in time spent viewing entertainment on a screen both prior to and during the pandemic was associated with a boost in anxiety scores. Students scored higher than non-students in pandemic-related distress. Surprisingly, the results showed no association of depression with screen time use, despite such associations having been found in previous research. The research will be presented at World Microbe Forum, taking place online June 20-24.

"This study highlights that the pandemic did not simply affect people physically, but emotionally and mentally, with various groups being impacted to a greater extent than others," said Michelle Wiciak, the presenting author on the research, M.D. candidate at Saint James School of Medicine. "It reiterates that there is an increased need for mental health support during disastrous times."

Nearly half of participants exhibited mild to moderate depression, with more than 70% ranging from mild to severe depression. Seventy percent of participants experienced mild to severe anxiety, and slightly more than 30% could potentially meet DSM-IV-TR criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Two hundred ninety-four responses were collected and validated based on the inclusion/exclusion criteria used in the surveys. Participants ranged from 18 to 28 years old.

Screen time use was not different between genders. Still, there were gender differences in average scores in depression, anxiety and distress from COVID-19.

"The study is unique in having evaluated mental health status as a function of screen time," said Wiciak. The authors also collected data from multiple countries. "Since the pandemic shifted work and education to online, we wanted to gain more insight into that transition's impact. We did find unexpected results, potentially paving the way for future research and various protective factors, which can be vital in keeping a person healthy during tumultuous times," added Wiciak.

Washington, DC - June 20, 2021 - Researchers from the Miami University in Ohio have optimized a new technique that will allow scientists to evaluate how potential inhibitors work on antibiotic-resistant bacteria. This technique, called native state mass spectrometry, provides a quick way for scientists to identify the best candidates for effective clinical drugs, particularly in cases where bacteria can no longer be treated with antibiotics alone. This research will be presented at the American Society for Microbiology World Microbe Forum online conference on June 21, 2021.

Overuse of antibiotics in the last century has led to a rise in bacterial resistance, leading to many bacterial infections that are no longer treatable with current antibiotics. In the United States each year, 2.8 million people are diagnosed with a bacterial infection that is resistant to one or more antibiotics, and 35,000 people die due to the resistant infection according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"One method of combatting antibiotic resistance is using a combination drug/inhibitor therapy," said Caitlyn Thomas, a Ph.D. candidate in chemistry, presenting author on the study. An example of this type of therapy is Augmentin, a prescription antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections of the respiratory tract, which is composed of the antibiotic amoxicillin and the inhibitor clavulanic acid. Clavulanic acid inactivates a key protein that the bacterium uses to become resistant to amoxicillin. With the bacterial protein inactivated, the antibiotic -- amoxicillin -- is left to kill the bacteria, thereby treating the infection.

Before any new inhibitor can be used in the clinic, scientists need to have a complete understanding of how the inhibitor works. In the current study, Thomas and her team studied a bacterial protein called metallo-beta-lactamase, which renders many clinical strains of bacteria resistant to all penicillin-like antibiotics. Penicillin-like antibiotics make up over 60% of the entire antibiotic arsenal that is available to treat bacterial infections.

While many research labs throughout the world are attempting to create new inhibitors that inactivate metallo-beta-lactamases, Thomas and collaborators instead analyze how these new inhibitors work. "Because metallo-beta-lactamases contain two metal ions we are able to use a variety of spectroscopic techniques to study them," said Thomas. "These experiments give us more insight into how to inhibitor behaves and whether it could potentially be a candidate for clinical use in the future."

Hundreds of potential inhibitors have been reported in the literature, and several patents have been filed dealing with metallo-beta-lactamase inhibitors. Some of the reported inhibitors work by removing a required component of the metallo-beta-lactamase. These same inhibitors may remove this same required component of other proteins in humans, causing serious side effects. Other inhibitors bind directly to the metallo-beta-lactamase and inactivate the protein; inhibitors of this type are optimal for any new inhibitor that could be used in the clinic.

Washington, D.C. - June 20, 2021 - Although two SARS-CoV-2 variants are associated with higher transmission, patients with these variants show no evidence of higher viral loads in their upper respiratory tracts compared to the control group, a Johns Hopkins School of Medicine study found.

The emergence and higher transmission of the evolving variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has been concerning. The researchers investigated B.1.1.7, the variant first identified in the UK, and B.1.351, the variant first identified in South Africa, to evaluate if patients showed higher viral loads, and consequently increased shedding and transmissibility.

Variants were identified using whole genome sequencing. Researchers used a large cohort of samples to show that the UK variant constituted 75% of the circulating viruses by April 2021. The researchers compared 134 variant samples to 126 control samples and with access to the patients' clinical information, were able to correlate the genomics data with the clinical disease and outcomes. All samples underwent additional testing to determine their viral load. The information was associated with the stage of the disease by looking at the days after the start of symptoms which added clarity in comparing viral shedding between groups.

"The reason why these variants show higher transmissibility is not yet clear," said Adannaya Amadi, lead author on the study. "However, our findings did show that the patients infected with these variants are less likely to be asymptomatic compared to the control group. Although those infected with the variants were not at higher risk for death or intensive care admission, they were more likely to be hospitalized."

This study was performed at Dr. Heba Mostafa's research laboratory at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, which has been performing large scale whole genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 for the State of Maryland and contributing data to the national publicly available surveillance figures.

The first global standards to embed health and wellbeing into the education system have been created amid a rise in mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Researchers at the Centre for Adolescent Health at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) led the two-year project at the invitation of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The two reports, to be launched this week in Geneva, provide a benchmarking framework to support the implementation of 'health promoting schools,' which aim to equally foster health and learning in all aspects of school life.

MCRI Professor Susan Sawyer said that profound links between children's health, wellbeing and learning have been demonstrated through the impact of COVID-19 on school closures.

"In addition to the disruptive effects on student engagement, learning outcomes and educational transitions, there is growing global evidence of the impact of school lockdowns on children's and adolescents' emotional distress and mental health," she said.

"There are concerns that students with major mental health disorders are at greater risk of permanently disengaging from education. While negatively affecting their future career prospects, early school leaving becomes a risk factor for poor health in adulthood.

"Never before has there been such appreciation of the value of schools as sites for academic and social learning, but also as settings which can enhance student health and wellbeing."

MCRI's Dr Monika Raniti said 'health promoting schools' was about strengthening the capacity of the education system to be a health setting for learning and working.

"This whole-school approach has been shown to benefit several aspects of learning, health and wellbeing," she said. Yet there are huge gaps between the ideal of health promoting schools and current practices. Too often, schools lack adequate resources or must rely on the efforts of a small number of motivated staff who are already at capacity."

The researchers have developed eight 'health promoting schools' standards to direct government and school leadership efforts, which cover improving policy and increasing commitment, investment, resources and stakeholder engagement.

University of Melbourne's Dr Ruth Aston said the guidelines recognised the value of quality teaching and leadership practice that extended the vision for schools beyond their traditional focus on reading, writing and arithmetic.

Professor Sawyer said the health and education sectors would need to collaborate closely to implement these guidelines.

"This is arguably the greatest challenge facing health promoting schools as health and education sectors have historically been built from different DNA. Investment in a new workforce that can straddle both sectors is urgently needed," she said.

The standards cover both school and government policies and resources, school governance, leadership and community partnerships, a curriculum that supports health and wellbeing such as nutrition and safety, a social-emotional environment fostering equity and diversity and delivering school-linked health services.

(Vienna, Sunday, 20 June, 2021) Women who suffer from migraines are more likely to endure obstetric and postnatal complications, a study presented today at the 7th Congress of the European Academy of Neurology (EAN) has found.

Pregnant women with migraines had a higher risk of developing obstetric and post partum complications. Migraine pregnant women had increased risk of been admitted to high-risk departments- 6% in non-migraine pregnant women, 6.9% in migraine without aura and 8.7% in pregnant women who suffer from migraine with aura.

Pregnant migraine patients had significantly increased risk of gestational diagnosis of diabetes, hyperlipidemia and blood clots. During labour women who suffer from migraines had higher rates of epidural anaesthesia (p

The research carried out in Israel, analysed the pregnancies of 145,102 women between 2014-2020 (first pregnancy in the period per woman). Researchers investigated the mode of delivery, medical and obstetric complications in each trimester and the use of medications throughout the pregnancy. Within the research 12,222 women experienced migraines, and 1,576 had migraine with author.

The lead author of the study, Nirit Lev MD PhD, commented, "Our study confirms that women who suffer from migraine are at a greater risk of a host of medical and obstetric complications. As such, we are recommended that these women should be classed as 'high-risk' pregnancies and should therefore be treated according to a high-risk protocol."

During high-risk pregnancies, special monitoring and care throughout the pregnancy is required. Existing factors that contribute to a high-risk pregnancy include advanced maternal age, women who are carrying more than one baby and if complications arose during a previous pregnancy. Existing health problems, including diabetes, epilepsy and high-blood pressure, also mean women a placed under the high-risk protocol.

"Migraine sufferers were also found to have a greater risk of developing depression during their pregnancy and after giving birth", explained Professor Lev. "As a result, they should also be offered a neurological consultation during pregnancy adequate follow-up support after giving birth."

Migraines are one of the most prevalent neurological disorders, affecting more than one in ten people2. They are mainly characterised by an intense headache localised to one side of the head, with other symptoms including nausea, vomiting and increased sensitivity to light. The pain experienced during a migraine often worsens with movement or activity, making it an extremely debilitating disorder. Recent research has also found that migraine is three times more common in women than in men, and hormonal changes related to menstruation, menopause and childbirth results in worse migraine activity.

Historically, shared resources such as forests, fishery stocks, and pasture lands have often been managed with an aim toward averting "tragedies of the commons," which are thought to result from selfish overuse. Writing in BioScience (https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/biosci/biab052), Drs. Senay Yitbarek (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Karen Bailey (University of Colorado Boulder), Nyeema Harris (University of Michigan), and colleagues critique this model, arguing that, all too often, such conservation has failed to acknowledge the complex socioecological interactions that undergird the health of resource pools.

The authors, who describe themselves as Blackologists ("'not simply scholars that are Black but, rather, are scholars who deliberately leverage and intersect Blackness into advancing knowledge production"), elucidate a model in which researchers' life experiences provide "unique perspectives to critically examine socioecological processes and the challenges and solutions that arise from them." Because "BIPOC (for Black, Indigenous, and people of color) scholars endure systemic racism and a suite of professional barriers," say the authors, they "have an empathy and relatability to indigenous communities all over the world that are challenged by simply the desire to preserve their culture and sacred ties to the environment."

Through this lens, the authors explain that some conservation frameworks, such as the use of "fortress conservation" that excludes local communities, "occur in regions of the world with high biodiversity (e.g., tropics) and where communities of Black and Brown people are struggling for subsistence and equality." Rather than meeting their goal of preserving resources for the public good, such tactics risk disadvantaging the very populations whose knowledge and values may be most valuable in ameliorating ecological degradation. In particular, say the authors, such "displacement with prohibition" hampers the delivery of conservation goals because it relies on often inadequate management by outsiders.

The authors argue for a holistic, collaborative management practice that fully accounts for complex human-environment dynamics: "In particular, overlooked feedbacks between social and ecological processes, often highlighted by our experiences as BIPOC scholars, may shed light on effective remediation of the tragedy." Through this interdisciplinary model, say the authors, "resource users, the nature and manifestation of conflict itself, and the roles of humans as both resource users and conflict mediators provide insights into the tragedy and into the ways it can be overcome."

The authors close with a call for greater inclusion and diversity within the sciences, stating that Blackologists' experiences provide a unique perspective crucial for addressing resource depletion across spatial and temporal scales: "As Blackologists, we argue that the marginalization of our identities across disciplines advances the very tragedy scientific communities hope to avert."

The article was published on 19 June in honor of Juneteenth, the 155-year-old holiday celebrating the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans in the United States.