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NEW YORK, NY--March 2, 2021--In March and April 2020, mental health claim lines for individuals aged 13-18, as a percentage of all medical claim lines, approximately doubled over the same months in the previous year. At the height of the spring wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, this rise in mental health claim lines amounted to 97.0 percent in March and 103.5 percent in April. These are among the many findings in FAIR Health's new white paper, the seventh in its COVID-19 studies, The Impact of COVID-19 on Pediatric Mental Health: A Study of Private Healthcare Claims.

In those same months of March and April 2020, all medical claim lines (including mental health claim lines) decreased by approximately half (53.3 percent in March 2020 and 53.4 percent in April 2020), FAIR Health found. That pattern of increased mental health claim lines and decreased medical claim lines continued through November 2020, though to a lesser extent.

Defining the pediatric population as individuals aged 0-22 years, and focusing on the age groups 13-18 years and 19-22 years, FAIR Health studied the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on US pediatric mental health. To do so, FAIR Health analyzed data from its database of over 32 billion private healthcare claim records, tracking month-by-month changes from January to November 2020 compared to the same months in 2019. Aspects of pediatric mental health investigated include overall mental health, intentional self-harm, overdoses and substance use disorders, top mental health diagnoses, reasons for emergency room visits and state-by-state variations.

The decrease in all medical claim lines is likely due to widespread restrictions on nonemergency medical care in spring 2020 and continuing avoidance of such care even after restrictions were lifted in May. It is striking, therefore, that one component of medical care, mental healthcare, increased significantly even while overall medical care was falling.

Other findings reported in the white paper include:

Comparing August 2019 to August 2020 in the Northeast, for the age group 13-18, there was a 333.93 percent increase in intentional self-harm claim lines as a percentage of all medical claim lines, a rate higher than that in any other region in any month studied for that age group.

Claim lines for intentional self-harm as a percentage of all medical claim lines in the 13-18 age group increased 90.71 percent in March 2020 compared to March 2019. The increase was even larger when comparing April 2020 to April 2019, nearly doubling (99.83 percent).

For the age group 13-18, claim lines for overdoses increased 94.91 percent as a percentage of all medical claim lines in March 2020 and 119.31 percent in April 2020 over the same months the year before. Claim lines for substance use disorders also increased as a percentage of all medical claim lines in March (64.64 percent) and April (62.69 percent) 2020 as compared to their corresponding months in 2019.

For the age group 6-12, from spring to November 2020, claim lines for obsessive-compulsive disorder and tic disorders increased as a percentage of all medical claim lines from their levels in the corresponding months of 2019.

For the age group 13-18, in April 2020, claim lines for generalized anxiety disorder increased 93.6 percent as a percentage of all medical claim lines over April 2019, while major depressive disorder claim lines increased 83.9 percent and adjustment disorder claim lines 89.7 percent.

In general, the age group 19-22 had mental health trends similar to but less pronounced than the age group 13-18.

FAIR Health President Robin Gelburd stated: "The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on mental health, particularly on that of young people. The findings in our new report have implications for all those responsible for the care of young people, including providers, parents, educators, policy makers and payors."

This is the seventh in a series of studies released by FAIR Health on the COVID-19 pandemic. The first study examined projected US costs for COVID-19 patients requiring inpatient stays, the second the impact of the pandemic on hospitals and health systems, the third the impact on healthcare professionals, the fourth key characteristics of COVID-19 patients, the fifth the impact on the dental industry and the sixth risk factors for COVID-19 mortality.

Optomechanical microcavities are extremely small structures with diameters of less than 10 micrometers (about a tenth of a human hair) inside which light and mechanical vibrations are confined. Thanks to their small size and to efficient microfabrication techniques that enable them to hold intense light energy and interact with mechanical waves, microcavities can be used as mass and acceleration sensors and in Raman scattering (a spectroscopy technique deployed to analyze materials, including gases, liquids, and solids). A sound understanding of these phenomena can contribute in future to advances in areas such as biomedicine, including the development of sensors to detect molecules that serve as cancer markers, for example.

A study conducted at the University of Campinas’s Photonics Research Center (Photonicamp), in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, investigated a less well-known process associated with optomechanical coupling, creating a theoretical model that was validated by simulations and comparisons with experimental results recorded in the literature. The researchers report the study in an article published in Physical Review Letters.

“Two independent phenomena take place in these systems,” physicist Thiago Alegre told Agência FAPESP. “On one hand, light exerts pressure on the cavity in which it’s confined. On the other, mechanical vibrations scatter the light. Interaction between the two may occur in two different ways. If the scattered light remains inside the device, the result is called dispersive interaction. If the light escapes from the cavity, it’s known as dissipative interaction.”

Alegre is a professor at the University of Campinas’s Gleb Wataghin Institute of Physics (IFGW-UNICAMP) and a researcher with Photonicamp. He was the principal investigator for the study. The lead author of the article is André Garcia Primo, who was his PhD student at the time. FAPESP supported the study via a direct doctorate scholarship awarded to Primo, and scholarships or grants for five other projects (17/19770-1, 20/06348-2, 18/15580-6, 18/15577-5 and 18/25339-4).

Professors Newton Cesário Frateschi and Gustavo Silva Wiederhecker acted as principal investigators.

Dispersive interaction is well-understood and a basis for important advances in optomechanics, such as the LIGO interferometer that detected gravitational waves in 2016, for example, but dissipative interaction has rarely been explored in experiments. “The scarcity of experiments is due mainly to the lack of a theoretical foundation capable of accounting for the strength of dissipative interaction for a given device,” Alegre said. “Our study proposes a theoretical formulation for both dispersive and dissipative interaction.”

The proposal involves perturbation theory, which assumes that the optomechanical interaction is reasonably weak so that light and mechanical vibrations can be treated independently in an initial approximation. The description of optomechanical coupling is simplified when optical and mechanical behavior are calculated separately.

“The novelty is the way we performed the last step,” Primo said. “Essentially, contrary to what has always been done, we considered the behavior of light in the device to be physically and mathematically affected by the possibility that light can escape the cavity. When we took this into account, we realized that both the dispersive and dissipative interaction could be described with a high degree of precision.”

In the final part of the study, the researchers tested their theory by means of two experimental examples that are well-documented in the literature. In one experiment, they investigated an optomechanical cavity made of silicon and showed that both interactions, the dispersive and the dissipative, were relevant to explaining the phenomena observed. “We showed that our theory accords fully with the experiment performed and can therefore be deemed a valuable instrument to obtain devices in which these unconventional phenomena are boosted,” Alegre said.

The second example involved plasmonic optomechanical nanocavities made of gold. Nanocavities confine far smaller amounts of light than microcavities and essentially behave like nanolenses. It is possible to detect the mechanical motion of individual molecules coupled with these devices. This possibility has a wide array of applications, including the detection of chemical compounds in biological media to identify substances that can indicate pathological conditions, for example. “We showed with this theory that although it had never been reported, the dissipative scattering of light by molecules is extremely important for the optomechanical phenomena in these systems,” Primo said.

Alegre added that some of the results obtained in recent experiments and not yet fully understood are correctly described when the model produced by the study he led is taken into account.

The study gives the first detailed description of a volcanic eruption from Sierra Negra found on Isla Isabela - the largest of the Galápagos Islands and home to nearly 2,000 people.

The findings, published in Nature Communications, reveal how the volcano inflated and fractured before it erupted and captures a new level of detail for any eruption from a volcano on the islands.

Networks of ground-based seismic and GPS monitoring stations, and satellites, captured data for 13 years before Sierra Negra's eruption, in June 2018.

The surface of the volcano rose during this time, indicating a gradual accumulation of molten rock - known as magma - found in a reservoir under the volcano. The signals were among the largest ever recorded at a volcano of this type, experts say.

The Galápagos Islands have fascinated scientists since Charles Darwin's visit on board the HMS Beagle in 1835. Yet their remote location, in the Pacific Ocean, about 1000km off the Ecuadorian coast, means there were big gaps in scientists' understanding of the volcanic processes that formed them and control their activity.

This eruption provided a rare opportunity to fill some of the gaps, researchers say. An international team, led by the University of Edinburgh, Pennsylvania State University in the US and the Instituto Geofísico in Ecuador, integrated geophysical data with analysis of the chemical composition of the erupted lava. They were supported in doing so by the Parque Nacional Galápagos.

Sierra Negra's eruption continued for nearly two months, spurting out lava flows which extended 10 miles to the island's coast. Fresh earthquakes accompanied the eruption and emptying of the magma reservoir.

After the eruption, the hills within a six-mile wide hollow at the summit of the volcano - known as a caldera - were nearly two meters higher. This phenomenon, known as caldera resurgence, is important for understanding when and where eruptions happen, scientists say. However, it is rare and has never been observed to this extent before.

The team also discovered that the ascending magma permanently uplifted what they call a 'trapdoor' in the floor of the caldera. This raised its surface and, in a complex interplay, triggered large earthquakes that led to the eruption.

The 2018 eruption was a stark reminder of the potential threat to life, livelihoods, and the iconic wildlife of the Galápagos - including the slow moving giant tortoise and land iguana - the researchers said.

This new understanding of volcano behaviour will allow local scientists to track the evolution of volcanic unrest before future eruptions and communicate warnings to local authorities and the public.

Dr Andrew Bell from the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences who led the research, said: "The 2018 eruption of Sierra Negra was a really spectacular volcanic event, occurring in the 'living laboratory' of the Galápagos Islands. Great team work, and a bit of luck, allowed us to capture this unique dataset that provide us with important new understanding as to how these volcanoes behave, and how we might be able to better forecast future eruptions."

Peter La Femina from The Pennsylvania State University in the US, said: "The power of this study is that it's one of the first times we've been able to see a full eruptive cycle in this detail at almost any volcano. We've monitored Sierra Negra from when it last erupted in 2005 through the 2018 eruption and beyond, and we have this beautiful record that's a rarity in itself."

Mario Ruiz from the Instituto Geofísico, the national monitoring agency of Ecuador, said: "Based on constant monitoring of activity of Galapagos volcanoes since 2013, we detected a dramatic increase of seismicity and a steady uplift of crater floor at Sierra Negra. Soon we contacted colleagues from United Kingdom, United States and Ireland and proposed them to work together to investigate the mechanisms leading to an impending eruption of this volcano. This research is an example of international collaboration and partnership."

Resveratrol is a plant compound found primarily in red grapes and Japanese knotweed. Its synthetic variant has been approved as a food ingredient in the EU since 2016. At least in cell-based test systems, the substance has anti-inflammatory properties. A recent collaborative study by the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich and the Institute of Physiological Chemistry at the University of Vienna has now shown that the bitter receptor TAS2R50 is involved in this effect. The team of scientists led by Veronika Somoza published its results in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Bitter food ingredients not only influence the taste of a food, but often also exert other physiological effects. For example, resveratrol not only tastes bitter, but also reduces biomarkers of inflammation as shown in various clinical trials including, e.g., patients with metabolic syndrome and related disorders. No research group had yet investigated whether bitter receptors also play a role in this.

Gum cells as a test system

To investigate this question, the team led by Veronika Somoza carried out experiments with a human cell line derived from a gum biopsy. The cells of this cell line are a suitable test system for investigating interactions between bitter substances, bitter receptors and the release of inflammatory markers. As the team shows for the first time, these cells have active bitter receptor genes and are also immunocompetent. That is, when the cells are treated with surface antigens from bacteria that trigger gingival inflammation, they release quantifiable amounts of the inflammatory marker interleukin-6.

Resveratrol reduces inflammatory markers

In the current study, resveratrol reduced the amount of inflammatory marker released by about 80 percent. Additional administration of the bitter-masking substance homoeriodictyol reduced this anti-inflammatory effect by about 17 percent. "This is remarkable because homoeriodictyol is a natural substance that has been shown to reduce the bitterness of food ingredients mediated via certain bitter receptors. These receptors include the bitter receptor TAS2R50, which is also expressed by the cells of our test system," explains Veronika Somoza, deputy director of the Institute of Physiological Chemistry in Vienna and director of the Leibniz Institute in Freising. Additional knock-down experiments performed by the researchers as well as computer-assisted structure-function analyses support this finding. "Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that this receptor type is involved in mediating the anti-inflammatory resveratrol effect," Somoza says.

She adds: "Of course, there is still a great deal of research to be done. Nevertheless, the study results already provided new insights to help elucidate the molecular interactions between bitter-tasting food ingredients, bitter receptors and immune responses. In the future, it will also be exciting to find out whether bitter substances and bitter receptors could play a role with regard to inflammatory gum diseases such as periodontitis."

CHICAGO, March 2, 2021 -- More than 70 percent of dentists surveyed by the American Dental Association (ADA) Health Policy Institute are seeing an increase of patients experiencing teeth grinding and clenching, conditions often associated with stress. This is an increase from ADA data released in the fall that showed just under 60 percent of dentists had seen an increase among their patients.

"Our polling has served as a barometer for pandemic stress affecting patients and communities seen through the eyes of dentists," said Marko Vujicic, Ph.D., chief economist and vice president of the ADA Health Policy Institute. "The increase over time suggests stress-related conditions have become substantially more prevalent since the onset of COVID-19."

The survey also found a little more than 60 percent of dentists saw an increase in other stress-related dental conditions including chipped and cracked teeth and TMD (temporomandibular joint disorder) symptoms such as headaches and jaw pain.

"As the pandemic continues, dentists are seeing stress-related dental conditions more and more," said Marcelo Araujo, D.D.S., M.S., Ph.D., ADA chief science officer. "It's more important than ever for people to maintain their dental health, including seeing the dentist regularly to address any issues that could have long-term impact."

Despite speculation from recent news reports that frequent mask-wearing may impact dental health and cause "mask mouth," the survey found no meaningful change in the prevalence reported for conditions such as bad breath and dry mouth compared to pre-pandemic.

WASHINGTON (Mar. 2, 2021) -- A report released today by the George Washington University Program on Extremism reveals new information about the 257 people charged in federal court for playing a role in the Jan. 6 attack on the United States Capitol. The report, "This is Our House!" A Preliminary Assessment of the Capitol Hill Siege Participants," also provides several recommendations aimed at combating domestic extremism.

The GW Program on Extremism tracked and categorized the people charged so far in the attack and the resulting report provides a preliminary assessment of the siege participants.

"The events of Jan. 6 may mark a watershed moment for domestic violent extremism in America," Seamus Hughes, deputy director of the GW Program on Extremism said. "Individuals came from all corners of our country, with a healthy mix of those with some operational planning and others taking advantage of the moment. This report identifies some clear steps we can take now to identify extremist groups and keep the public safe."

Here are the key findings from the report:

The 257 people charged in federal court so far represent a diverse group, including 221 men and 36 women. They came to the Capitol from 40 states and more than 90% traveled to Washington, D.C. from outside the Washington metro area. About 33 people had a military background, and of those, 36% had ties to extremist groups like the Proud Boys.

People involved in the siege were found to fall into one of three categories: militant networks characterized by hierarchical organization and chains of command; organized clusters, especially groups of family and friends; and inspired believers.

The participants in the attack came from more than 180 counties throughout the U.S., with the highest total cases by county coming from Los Angeles County in California, Franklin County in Ohio and Bucks County in Pennsylvania.

The alleged perpetrators face as many as 17 counts on their indictments. The charges range from trespassing and illegal entry, to conspiracy against the U.S. government and assault of law enforcement officers.

Social media played a big role in the evidence used to charge individuals. The report finds 15% of extremists publicly indicated their intent prior to storming the Capitol and 68% documented their crimes in real time.

The report also offers a series of recommendations aimed at learning more about domestic extremism and protecting the public. The authors urge Congress to establish a nonpartisan Domestic Extremism Commission to identify any systemic national security and policy failures. They also suggest that the intelligence community should learn more about the response leading up to the Jan. 6 attack, with the goal of finding concrete actions that could have been taken to prevent the violence. Finally, the authors recommend that the Biden Administration use existing structures to improve information sharing between the federal agencies tasked with combating violent extremism.

Researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology working in collaboration with colleagues at the Kanagawa Institute of Industrial Science and Technology and Nara Medical University in Japan have succeeded in preparing a material called cerium molybdate (γ-Ce2Mo3O13 or CMO), which exhibits high antiviral activity against coronavirus.

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the urgency not only of vaccine development and rollout but also of developing innovative materials and technologies with antiviral properties that could play a vital role in helping to contain the spread of the virus.

Conventional inorganic antimicrobial materials are often prepared with metals such as copper or photocatalysts such as titanium dioxide. However, metal-based materials can be prone to corrosion, and the effects of photocatalysts are usually limited under dark conditions.

Now, a research team led by Akira Nakajima of Tokyo Institute of Technology's Department of Materials Science and Engineering proposes a new type of an antiviral material that can overcome these drawbacks. The team successfully combined a relatively low-cost rare earth element cerium (Ce) with molybdenum (Mo), which is well known for its antibacterial effects, to prepare two types of cerium molybdate (Ce2Mo3O12 and γ-Ce2Mo3O13) in powder form.

Both powders exhibited antiviral activity against bacteriophage Φ6[1]. Notably, γ-Ce2Mo3O13 also exhibited high antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

The researchers infer that an effective combination of cerium with the molybdate ion as well as the specific surface area[2] are key factors contributing to the observed antiviral activity.

The study builds on earlier work led by Nakajima which demonstrated the antiviral activity of a material named LMO (La2Mo2O9), composed of lanthanum (La) oxide and molybdenum oxide. LMO's activity, however, was found to be better against non-envelope-type (bacteriophage Qβ) than against envelope-type (bacteriophage Φ6) viruses. Subsequent tests showed that incorporating cerium into the material to make La1.8Ce0.2Mo2O9 (LCMO) improved antiviral activity against bacteriophage Φ6. It was this remarkable finding that spurred further investigations into cerium molybdates (CMO) as promising materials with high antiviral activity against envelope-type viruses such as influenza and SARS-CoV-2.

To obtain the desired CMO powder samples with an almost single-crystal phase, the team conducted many trial experiments before successfully preparing Ce2Mo3O12 using the polymerizable complex method and γ-Ce2Mo3O13 through hydrothermal processing[3].

If standardized and mass-produced, CMO could be used in a wide range of materials such as resins, paper, thin films and paints. This would open up the possibility of using CMO coatings for high-contact surfaces such as door handles, straps inside vehicles, elevator buttons and escalator belts as well as walls, tiles and windows. Nakajima envisions that materials incorporating CMO could also be used in everyday items such as smartphones and clothing. He notes that applications for eye and face ware such as glasses and masks may take a little longer time to develop, but be on the horizon.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Parents may fear that if their high school student isn't motivated to do well in classes, there's nothing that will change that.

But a new study that followed more than 1,600 students over two years found that students' academic motivation often did change - and usually for the better.

Results showed that increasing students' sense of "belongingness" in school was one key way of increasing academic motivation.

"Our results point to a more hopeful picture for students who start out with lower levels of motivation - they tend to shift toward more adaptive profiles with better motivational characteristics over time," said Kui Xie, lead author of the study and professor of educational studies at The Ohio State University.

The study found that motivation was more complex than often assumed. Students often hold multiple types of motivation that drive their academic behavior. For example, some students may be motivated to do well in school by both their intrinsic love of learning, but also the desire to get a good job after graduation.

Results placed students into six different profiles, from worst, which was amotivated - those who were not motivated at all - to best, autonomous motivated, meaning the student had an inner desire to learn, with no outside influence needed.

The study was published recently in the Journal of Educational Psychology.

The study involved 1,670 students at 11 public high schools in central and northeastern Ohio who were in grades 9 to 11 when the study began.

The students completed surveys that assessed their motivation in two consecutive school years.

Motivation was measured by asking students how much statements like these described them: "I go to school because I experience pleasure and satisfaction while learning new things" and "I go to school because I need at least a high school diploma to find a high-paying job later on."

School belongingness was measured the first year in a survey that asked students how true statements like this were for them: "I feel like a real part of this school."

Of the six motivation profiles, the researchers considered two of them maladaptive, two of them adaptive and two in the middle.

The maladaptive profiles characterized students who had no motivation at all or were only motivated to go to school because they were forced.

"These are the students who are most at risk of dropping out if we can't find better ways to get them excited about school," said Xie, who heads Ohio State's Research Laboratory for Digital Learning.

The two most adaptive profiles included students who were entirely motivated by their love of learning, or who combined love of learning with some external motivations, such as the desire to get into a good college.

Many students did change their profiles between years one and two of the study, Xie said. Depending on which profile they started in, between 40% and 77% changed.

While students changed across all profiles, most often they switched to one of the adjacent profiles.

There was an overall positive change in students' motivation, results showed. For example, 8% of the students were in the most adaptive profile - autonomously motivated - in the first year, and that increased to 11.4% in the second year. The least adaptive profile, the amotivated, described 2.8% of the students in the first year, dropping to 2.1% in the second year.

The other good news in the study was that the most adaptive motivational profiles tended to be the most stable as far as membership between years one and two, according to Xie.

"That means that if we can find better ways to motivate students, if we can get them in a better profile, they tend to stay there," he said.

Why did students tend to move in a positive direction in terms of motivation?

"One reason may be simply because they're a year older and more developmentally mature," he said.

But the study did find two other factors that impacted how likely they were to become more motivated. One, not surprisingly, was prior achievement. Students who had higher grade point averages the first year were more likely to shift to or remain in profiles characterized by higher levels of academic motivation in year two of the study.

The other factor was school belongingness, with students who felt they were more a part of their school in the first year being more likely to move to or stay in a more adaptive profile in the second year.

"This may be one area where we can help students become more motivated," Xie said. "Belongingness is something schools can change. They can find ways to help students feel like they are part of the school community."

These results confirm those of a similar study by Xie and colleagues, published last year in the journal Contemporary Educational Psychology, that found the same six motivational profiles, plus one other, in a different, much larger sample of students.

Because the previous study involved 10,527 students, it could identify a rarer profile that wasn't seen in this smaller sample size, he said.

Overall, both studies suggest that schools should routinely assess students' motivation in order to identify students who are most at risk for dropping out or underperforming. Then, schools can create personalized intervention programs that target students based on their motivational profile, he said.

Most importantly, with a routine assessment plan on students' motivation, schools can implement interventions before students disengage or drop out from academic activities.

"When we design interventions, we should think about gradually shifting students to more adaptive profiles," Xie said.

"We need to tailor the motivation strategies to specific profiles. There is no one universal strategy that will work for all groups."

Electric scooters or "e-scooters" are taking over cities worldwide and have broad appeal with tourists. Although e-scooter use declined during the COVID-19 pandemic, its popularity could rebound rapidly, especially if travelers start to substitute scooters for transit on some shorter trips. Shared e-scooters in particular, are a rapidly emerging mode of transportation, but present a host of regulatory challenges from equitable distribution to parking infrastructure to pedestrian safety, among others.

Understanding travel demand patterns of shared e-scooter use and the demographics most likely to use this alternative form of transportation are expected to be a moving target for several years and a challenge for city, regional and transportation planners. Several other researchers have investigated spatial patterns of e-scooter demand, but they have had inconclusive or contradictory findings and have examined large zones rather than specific street segments.

This shortfall is what led a researcher from Florida Atlantic University's Charles E. Schmidt College of Science and collaborators from the University of Florida to try to figure out what drives spatial patterns of e-scooter use. Their solution? They have built the first segment-level model that allows for capturing built environment variables more precisely. Also, they identify and account for likely destinations for scooter users such as transit stops, commercial areas and parks.

For the study, published in the journal Transportation Research Part A, researchers analyzed Washington, D.C. because of its availability of wide-open data, including built environment data and the maturity of its shared mobility market. Washington D.C. has been a leader in micro-mobility since the launch of its bikeshare program in 2008. The city started permitting dockless bikeshare in 2017 and soon after started an electric shared scooter pilot in 2018.

Results of the study provide a clear picture of trip generation and trip attraction sources for shared e-scooter trips in Washington D.C. And it turns out that both built environment and demographic factors matter. Tourism appears to be a considerable driver in scooter use; tourist attractions, hotels and metro stops are all predictive of higher destinations, with a larger effect on Saturdays than on weekdays. The areas of predicted high scooter traffic are almost all in the downtown area, near the Mall, the White House and Congress. Hotels, streetcar stops and circulator stops all approximately double the number of expected scooter destinations, with the number of bus stops having a smaller effect.

Researchers also discovered, after controlling for other types of destinations, public transit stops of all kinds - metro stops, bus stops, circulator stops and streetcar stops - are predictive of scooter destinations. For the demographic variables, younger median age, percentage of bachelor's degrees and population density, each were positive predictors of both trip origins and trip destinations. Trip origins and destinations are highly centralized in Washington D.C. and anchored to the scooters' start-of-day locations.

"Unlike destinations, trip origins are primarily predicted by the supply of scooters available on a given segment over the course of a day," said Louis A. Merlin, Ph.D., lead author and an assistant professor, Department of Urban and Regional Planning in FAU's Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. "Our model has the ability to identify segments with high levels of expected scooter demand, correctly identifying 56 to 60 percent of segments in the top 5 percent of usage in trip destinations. Therefore, transportation planners can use this model or similar ones customized for their city to identify street segments with a high demand for scooter parking. Such models can also predict areas of redevelopment that will likely need the provision of scooter parking."

Findings showed that built environment variables also had a statistically significant relationship with trip origins - commercial square feet and condo square feet are positively correlated. In contrast, residential floor space, parks, and national parks are negatively correlated. However, all of these effects are smaller than in the corresponding trip destinations models.

"We believe the evidence is more persuasive that riders are using scooters for transit access and egress. By leveraging a derived-demand framework, we have attempted to control for the most common types of origins and destinations for scooter travel - residences, commercial areas, tourist stops, parks, and hotels," said Merlin. "The fact that transit stops are still significant after controlling for these other destination types suggests that the stops themselves are likely an attractor for scooter trip destinations."

For the study, researchers used four weeks of data between June 17 and July 14, 2019, and selected this period because it represents the month of highest use. From this period, they selected data for four weeks of weekdays, Monday to Thursday, for a total of 16 weekdays and four Saturdays. The data standard that scooter companies use is called General Bikeshare Feed Specification (GBFS). GBFS data attributes include scooter ID, latitude and longitude of scooter location, and battery level. To protect users' privacy, only the data of "free vehicles" (scooters not in use) is available.

An associate professor from RUDN University found out the effect of the number and size of pores on the permeability of bone implants by biological fluids. The results of the study could help choose the optimal physical parameters of implants. The results of the study were published in the International Journal of Engineering.

For an implant to survive in the body and to take the place of bone tissue, it should be made of a non-toxic, biologically inert, and wearproof material. However, at the same time, it should be light, porous, and permeable by biological liquids. If an implant does not interfere with the transfer of oxygen, minerals, and nutrients, new bone tissue and blood vessels start to grow around it, and a patient's regeneration is more successful. However, it is still unclear what level of porosity secures the best permeability and bone restoration. An engineer from RUDN University was the first to carry out a numerical simulation of these characteristics and to provide a quantitative evaluation of the correlation between porosity and permeability.

"The internal structure of implant material is as important for bone reconstruction as its biocompatibility. It is still unknown whether the process of bone tissue regeneration depends on implant porosity and whether it affects permeability. The results of experimental studies of this issue are unclear. A model of the material structure allows us to simulate the processes that an implant undergoes in a body and to evaluate the importance of its parameters in quantitative terms," said Kazem Reza Kasyzadeh, an associate professor at the Department of Mechanical and Instrumental Engineering of the Engineering Academy, RUDN University.

The team used a 3D printer to create two groups of structures made of identical cubic cells with a plane length of 1.8 mm in the first group and 2 mm in the second one. Then, three cylinder-shaped objects (8 mm high and 14 mm in diameter) were added to each group. The levels of porosity in them varied from 34% to 72%, and the pores were 0.8 to 1.3 mm in diameter in the first group and 0.9 to 1.5 mm in the second one. To test their permeability, the engineers used three water and glycerin mixtures with different density and viscosity levels. Then, the team modeled the flow of liquids and their pressure on the porous structures of the implants at different rates. After that, the scientists calculated the permeability coefficient of each structure based on the models. Although the calculations failed to match the experimental data, they followed the same trend: the higher the porosity, the more permeable are the materials. Permeability also correlated with the size of the pores: a 20% diameter reduction led to a 76% decrease of permeability.

"Potentially, our results could help reduce the number of experimental tests of new bone implant structures. We managed to confirm that both the number of pores in a structure and their size affect material permeability. Therefore, if the mechanical properties of a material permit it, its permeability could be increased by means of changing the pore size while keeping its porosity on the same level," added Kazem Reza Kashyzadeh from RUDN University.

Wildlife tourism including white shark cage-diving is growing in popularity, but these industries remain highly contentious amongst tourists, conservationists, and scientists alike.

Many voice concerns about possible negative impacts - especially when it targets potentially dangerous animals - while proponents cite the socio-economic benefits to justify wildlife tourism activities.

In reality, wildlife tourism is complex, requiring managers to balance the benefits and drawbacks to determine what is acceptable for such industries.

To help solve this question of "is wildlife tourism good or bad?", a tool to help managers assess these industries has been created by scientists from Flinders University, the Georgia Aquarium, and Southern Cross University with help from environmental, marine parks, and tourism managers from the South Australian Department for Environment and Water, and a veterinarian/university animal welfare officer.

The resulting framework, published in Conservation Letters, uses 26 factors to assess the industry's tractability, socioeconomic values, and effects on conservation, animal welfare, and ecosystem impacts, says research leader Dr Lauren Meyer, from the Flinders University Southern Shark Ecology Group and Georgia Aquarium.

Bringing together these five distinct categories into one framework enables a more comprehensive assessment, combining the various pros and cons typical of wildlife tourism industries.

"The latest study provides an inventory of relevant factors incorporating a range of different industry sectors, current knowledge, and research needs," says co-author and Flinders Associate Professor Charlie Huveneers.

To put the new framework to the test, the authors applied it to the white shark cage-diving industry on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula. Here, three operators host up to 10,000 passengers and generate about $8 million a year.

The industry is well regulated with limits on the number of licences, days they can operate, and amount of attractant they can use.

Recent research from Dr Meyer found that while food-based attractant (bait and berley) had no impact on white shark diet (they still swim around eating their normal prey items), it can affect the diet of fish and rays that live at these offshore islands.

The framework also enabled the comparison of the costs and benefits to white sharks versus the other fish and rays, revealing the wholistic acceptability of the industry and identifying key areas for improvement.

The results show that while public opinion varies towards white shark cage-diving, the contribution to public education and awareness, and scientific research is high, Dr Meyer says.

"The conservation outcomes for target and non-target species is high, owing to the protected status of the Neptune Islands Group Marine Park Sanctuary Zone where the industry operates," she says.

Unsurprisingly, the industry offers substantial regional economic benefits, but while the effects on white shark was well managed, the welfare of fishes and rays was identified as requiring further attention.

Associate Professor Charlie Huveneers, who has studied shark behaviour and ecology for more than 10 years, including white sharks, says the new framework shows how efficient collaboration between scientists, managers and the industry will help minimise negative effects on white sharks, but it also highlighted areas which could be further improved.

Specifically, the framework identified key priorities for future biological, socioeconomic, and cultural heritage research, ensuring comprehensive management of a divisive industry.

Northwestern Engineering researchers have developed a theoretical model to design soft materials that demonstrate autonomous oscillating properties that mimic biological functions. The work could advance the design of responsive materials used to deliver therapeutics as well as for robot-like soft materials that operate autonomously.

The design and synthesis of materials with biological functions require a delicate balance between structural form and physiological function. During embryonic development, for instance, flat sheets of embryonic cells morph through a series of folds into intricate three-dimensional structures such as branches, tubes, and furrows. These, in turn, become dynamic, three-dimensional building blocks for organs performing vital functions like heartbeat, nutrient absorption, or information processing by the nervous system.

Such shape-forming processes, however, are controlled by chemical and mechanical signaling events, which are not fully understood on the microscopic level. To bridge this gap, researchers led by Monica Olvera de la Cruz designed computational and experimental systems that mimic these biological interactions. Hydrogels, a class of hydrophilic polymer materials, have emerged as candidates capable of reproducing shape changes upon chemical and mechanical stimulation observed in nature.

The researchers developed a theoretical model for a hydrogel-based shell that underwent autonomous morphological changes when induced by chemical reactions.

"We found that the chemicals modified the local gel microenvironment, allowing swelling and deswelling of materials via chemo-mechanical stresses in an autonomous manner," said de la Cruz, Lawyer Taylor Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering. "This generated dynamic morphological change, including periodic oscillations reminiscent of heartbeats found in living systems."

A paper, titled "Chemically Controlled Pattern Formation in Self-oscillating Elastic Shells," was published March 1 in the journal PNAS. Siyu Li and Daniel Matoz-Fernandez, postdoctoral fellows in Olvera de la Cruz's lab, were the paper's co-first authors.

In the study, the researchers designed a chemical-responsive polymeric shell meant to mimic living matter. They applied the water-based mechanical properties of the hydrogel shell to a chemical species, a chemical substance that produces specific patterned behavior -- in this case, wave-like oscillations -- located within the shell. After conducting a series of reduction-oxidation reactions -- a chemical reaction that transfers of electrons between two chemical species -- the shell generated microcompartments capable of expanding or contracting, or inducing buckling-unbuckling behavior when mechanical instability was introduced.

"We coupled the mechanical response of the hydrogel to changes in the concentration of the chemical species within the gel as a feedback loop," Matoz-Fernandez said. "If the level of chemicals goes past a certain threshold, water gets absorbed, swelling the gel. When the gel swells, the chemical species gets diluted, triggering chemical processes that expel the gel's water, therefore contracting the gel."

The researchers' model could be used as the basis to develop other soft materials demonstrating diverse, dynamic morphological changes. This could lead to new drug delivery strategies with materials that enhance the rate of diffusion of compartmentalized chemicals or release cargos at specific rates.

"One could, in principle, design catalytic microcompartments that expand and contract to absorb or release components at a specific frequency. This could lead to more targeted, time-based therapeutics to treat disease," Li said.

The work could also inform the future development of soft materials with robot-like functionality that operate autonomously. These 'soft robotics' have emerged as candidates to support chemical production, tools for environmental technologies, or smart biomaterials for medicine. Yet the materials rely on external stimuli, such as light, to function.

"Our material operates autonomously, so there's no external control involved," Li said. "By 'poking' the shell with a chemical reaction, you trigger the movement."

The researchers plan to build on their findings and further bridge the gap between what's possible in nature and the science lab.

"The long-term goal is to create autonomous hydrogels that can perform complex functions triggered by clues as simple as a local mechanical deformation," Olvera de la Cruz said.

Nearly everything author Malcolm Gladwell said about how information spreads in his 2000 bestseller "The Tipping Point" is wrong, according to a recent study led by UCLA professor of sociology Gabriel Rossman.

"The main point of 'The Tipping Point' is if you want your idea to spread, you find the most popular person in the center of any given network and you sell them on your idea, and then they'll sell the rest of the world on it," Rossman said.

But Rossman's latest study, recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, pokes holes in that widely accepted notion by showing how the presence of even just a bit of advertising or other mass communication -- "top-down" information that comes from outside the network -- effectively equalizes the influence of everyone across the network.

Rossman, together with co-author Jacob Fisher of Duke University and the University of Michigan, used a statistical programming language called R to build out network maps based on several different datasets. One set harnessed Twitter posts, along with retweets and mentions, over two weeks in 2011. Another used the Democratic National Committee email network from WikiLeaks' 2016 data dump. Another used the emails of Enron executives subpoenaed in 2002. Six others were randomly generated.

These provided a network structure -- a web of dots and lines showing how users in each network were connected to one another. Once those maps existed, Rossman and Fisher were able to see how quickly an idea might spread throughout the network if it started from the network's single most important person or if it started from someone chosen at random.

They looked at that information spread in several ways, comparing via computer simulation how information moved throughout the networks when it came solely through word-of-mouth within a network ("bottom up"), when it came solely through external advertising or public information ("top down") and when it came through varying bottom-up and top-down combinations.

What they discovered refutes Gladwell's concept that network position is always paramount. They found that in instances where there is even a small amount of advertising -- even when it is just a quarter of a percent as strong as word-of-mouth -- there's virtually no difference between the influence of the person at the center of a network and those further out on the string.

"It's not that word-of-mouth doesn't matter -- it's that nobody is particularly important for the word-of-mouth process," Rossman said. "What we saw is that when advertising doesn't exist, when advertising is exactly zero, it looks like whoever is Mr. Popular, whoever has the most central connections, really matters. And in that scenario, if you start with that person at the center of the network, like the leader of an organization or company, rather than the intern, then whatever you're selling gets an uptick."

But it takes only an incredibly weak amount of advertising to effectively neutralize the dominance of Mr. Popular, Rossman said. "Just a small amount changes the dynamic so that it practically doesn't matter whether you start with Mr. Popular or the intern."

Rossman is an expert on information spread in culture and mass media and is the author of "Climbing the Charts: What Radio Airplay Tells Us About the Diffusion of Innovation."

The findings of his latest study, he notes, have wide-ranging implications, from selling products to a specific audience to understanding how to share information on vaccines with vulnerable communities.

"There's a reasonably big body of literature that says you should find someone who appears to be structurally important to the network you're trying to connect with," he said. "We're arguing that, if advertising exists, you can just pick somebody at random in the network and you'll get just as good results as if you found the absolutely ideal person to start with."

The amount of green space surrounding children's homes could be important for their risk of developing ADHD. This is shown by new research results from iPSYCH.

A team of researchers from Aarhus University has studied how green space around the residence affects the risk of children and adolescents being diagnosed with ADHD. And the researchers find an association.

"Our findings show that children who have been exposed to less green surroundings in their residential area in early childhood, which we define as lasting up until age five, have an increased risk of receiving an ADHD diagnosis when compared to children who have been surrounded by the highest level of green space," says Malene Thygesen, who is one of the researchers behind the study.

ADHD is one of the most common psychiatric diagnoses among children and it affects those with the disorder in different ways. The reason why some children develop ADHD is still not fully known. ADHD may be hereditary, but other factors may also play a role. For this reason, there are strong arguments for research into the causes of children developing the diagnosis. One condition which has been of interest for research is children's access to green space, as previous studies have found an association with children's mental well-being and cognitive development.

A complete study

A single study does not provide sufficient basis to conclude that there exists an association between access to green environments and children's risk of developing ADHD, as this requires further studies. But the results of Malene Thygesen and the team's research are the same as those of previous similar research projects, and the study's research methods have taken into account many of the other factors which can also come into play in the development of ADHD.

"In the study we adjusted for gender, age, the child's year of birth, and the parents' psychiatric diagnosis and socio-economic status, and neighbourhood level socio-economic status. Our study is strong because it includes many individuals and because the information is very detailed. For example, we use data based on clinical diagnoses of ADHD made by specialists," says Malene Thygesen.

Perspectives for further research

The research article written on the basis of this study can be found in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives and may inspire researchers to continue studying the association between access to green spaces and the risk of children being diagnosed with ADHD or other diagnoses.

"It's interesting to think that living in green environments may be a protective factor for children in relation to the risk of developing ADHD."
Methodology

The study makes use of data on the addresses of more than 800,000 people born from 1992 and up until 2007, as well as information on clinical ADHD diagnoses from age five until 2016. In addition, the researchers use a specific measurement of how green the environment around a household is, the so-called normalized differential vegetation index. This measurement places the address in the middle of a quadratic area with 210 metres on each side, and on this basis calculates how green the surrounding area is.

Anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder are the three main eating disorders that 4 out of in 10 individuals living in Western Europe will experience at some point in their lives. In recent years, studies on the genetic basis of anorexia nervosa have highlighted the existence of predisposing genetic markers, which are shared with other psychiatric disorders. By analysing the genome of tens of thousands of British people, a team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), the University Hospitals of Geneva (HUG), King's College London, the University College London, the University of North Carolina (UNC) and The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have built on these initial results by discovering similarities between the genetic bases of these various eating disorders, and those of other psychiatric disorders. Eating disorders differ in their genetic association with anthropometric traits, like weight, waist circumference or body mass index. Thus, genetic predisposition to certain weight traits may be a distinctive feature of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa or binge-eating disorder. The study is published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

"Previous studies, which highlighted a genetic association between a high risk of anorexia nervosa and a low risk of obesity, have begun to lift the veil on certain aspects of how eating disorders develop that had been mostly neglected until then", explains Nadia Micali, Professor at the Department of Psychiatry at UNIGE Faculty of Medicine and Head of the Division of child and adolescent psychiatry at the HUG, who directed this work.
She continues, "However, the same work has not been done for the two other major eating disorders: bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder. The goal of our study was to understand similiarites and differences amongst all eating disorders in the role of genes governing body weight."

The genome of more than 20,000 people examined

To understand the similarities and differences between the genetic patterns of anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder, the research team analysed the genomes of more than 20,000 people. These were taken from two large population-based studies conducted in the UK: the UK Biobank and the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children.

First author, Dr Christopher Hübel, from King's College London said: "We were able to access volunteer's DNA, their basic health data (weight, age, etc.) and responses to health questionnaires, including possible psychiatric disorders and their eating disorder history. We are grateful for this access as we were able to conduct multifactorial analyses and calculate more than 250 polygenic scores for each person. Each polygenic score sums the risk genes involved in a specific trait, such as depression, for example. We calculated polygenic scores for psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and metabolic and physical traits, including insulin sensitivity, obesity and high BMI." Thus, the higher the score, the greater the genetic risk, whether it is blue eyes or the development of a given disease.

The research team then examined the associations between the polygenic scores of these volunteers (representing genetic liability to psychiatric disorders, metabolic and physical traits) and eating disorders.

A combination of psychiatric and body weight regulation genetic risk

The study shows that while there are great genetic similarities between anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder, there are also notable differences.

Nadia Micali details these results: "The similarities lie in the association with psychiatric risks: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder share genetic risk with certain psychiatric disorders, in particular for schizophrenia and depression, thus confirming the strong psychiatric component of these diseases. However, the big difference concerns the associated genetics of body weight regulation, which are opposite between anorexia on the one hand, and bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder on the other, the latter being linked to a high genetic risk of obesity, and high BMI."

A genetic predisposition to a heavy weight versus a light weight may constitute a determining factor that pushes individuals with similar psychiatric genetic risk to different eating disorders.

"The metabolic and physical component would therefore direct the individual either towards anorexia nervosa or towards bulimia nervosa or binge-eating disorder", analyses Nadia Micali. "Moreover, this study confirms a clear genetic relationship between binge-eating disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), that was already clinically observed, which might be linked to greater impulsivity, which is shared by these disorders."
The role of genetic patterns in body weight regulation identified in this study provides a better understanding of the genetic basis of eating disorders, and of how they differ in their genetic marking despite their similarities. This work could lead to better understand the development of eating disorders.