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NASA infrared imagery revealed several areas of strong thunderstorms around the center of the recently organized Tropical Storm Maysak.

Tropical Depression 10W formed during the early morning hours on Aug. 28 and quickly organized and strengthened into a tropical storm.

Infrared Data Provides a Temperature Check

Infrared data provides temperature information, and the strongest thunderstorms that reach highest into the atmosphere have the coldest cloud top temperatures.

On Aug. 28 at 9:15 a.m. EDT (1315 UTC), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured an infrared image of cloud top temperatures in Maysak that showed a quick burst of strength. MODIS found the powerful thunderstorms that developed were as cold as or colder than minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 62.2 degrees Celsius) near Maysak's center. Surrounding that area were cloud top temperatures were as cold as minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 56.6. degrees Celsius). All of those areas were generating heavy rain. The storm also appeared somewhat elongated from west to east.

Less than 2 hours later, infrared data showed those cloud tops were cooling, meaning they dropped in altitude. At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC), the Joint Typhoon Warning Center noted, "Satellite imagery depicts an elongated low level circulation center partially obscured by deep convection [wind] sheared slightly to the southwest. Cloud tops have cooled significantly over the past 6 hours as the convection has continued to consolidate."

Maysak's Status on Aug. 28, 2020

At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC), the center of Tropical Storm Maysak was located near latitude 16.3 degrees north and longitude 129.5 degrees east. That is about 619 miles south of Kadena Air Base, Okinawa Island, Japan. Maysak is moving to the west-southwest and has maximum sustained winds near 35 knots (40 mph).

Maysak is forecast to move northwest and pass just to the west of Okinawa Island on Aug. 31 as it tracks north.

New research could improve the odds that people with obsessive-compulsive disorder will receive a therapy that really works for them - something that eludes more than a third of those who currently get OCD treatment.

The study, performed at the University of Michigan, suggests the possibility of predicting which of two types of therapy will help teens and adults with OCD: One that exposes them to the specific subject of their obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors, or one that focuses on general stress reduction and a problem-solving approach.

While the researchers caution that it's too early for their work to be used by patients and mental health therapists, they're planning and conducting further studies that will test the framework and see if it also applies to children with OCD or obsessive tendencies.

Comparing therapies

The new study, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, examines advanced brain scans of 87 teens and adults with moderate to severe OCD who were randomly assigned 12 weeks of one of the two types of therapy.

The researchers found that in general, both types of therapy reduced the symptoms that participants experienced. The approach known as 'exposure therapy', a form of cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT, was more effective and reduced symptoms more as time went on, compared with stress-management therapy or SMT.

But when the researchers looked back at the brain scans taken before the patients began therapy, and linked them to individual treatment response, they found striking patterns.

The brain scans were taken while patients performed a simple cognitive task and responded to a small monetary reward if they did the task correctly.

Those who started out with more activation in brain circuits for processing cognitive demands and reward during the tests were more likely to respond to CBT - but those who started out with less activation in those same areas during the same tests were more likely to respond well to SMT.

"We found that the more OCD-specific form of therapy, the one based on exposure to the focus of obsession and compulsion, was better for relieving symptoms, which in itself is a valuable finding from this head-to-head randomized comparison of two treatment options," says Stephan Taylor, M.D., the study's senior author and a professor of psychiatry at Michigan Medicine, U-M's academic medical center. "But when we looked at the brain to see what was behind that response, we found that the more strength patients had in certain brain areas were linked to a greater chance of responding to exposure-based CBT."

Key brain regions involved

The brain regions and circuits that had the strongest links to treatment have already been identified as important to OCD - and have even been targets for treatment with an emerging therapy called transcranial magnetic stimulation.

Specifically, stronger activity in the circuit called the cinguloopercular network during the cognitive task, and stronger activity in the orbitostriato-thalamic network when the reward was at stake, was associated with better response to exposure-based CBT. But lower activity in both regions was associated with better response to the stress-reduction SMT.

The effects didn't vary across age groups.

"These findings speak to a mechanism for therapy's effects, because the brain regions associated with those effects overlap substantially with those implicated previously in this disorder," says Luke Norman, Ph.D., who led the work as a U-M neuroscience postdoctoral fellow. "This suggests we need to draw upon the most-affected networks during therapy itself, but further research is needed to confirm."

The brain scans were done while patients underwent a test that required them to correctly pick the correct letter out of a display, and offered a potential monetary reward if they performed the task correctly. This measured both their ability to exert control over their cognitive processes in picking out the right letter, and the extent to which the promise of a reward motivated them.

One of the areas most linked to CBT treatment response was the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC). Past research has already linked it to OCD and treatment response in general, and it's thought to play a key role in self-regulation of response to OCD triggers. Previously, the U-M team had shown that in general, people with OCD tend to have reduced activation in the rACC when asked to perform tasks that involve cognitive control.

Among those who responded best to CBT, the researchers saw stronger pre-treatment activation in areas of the brain associated with learning how to extinguish fear-based responses to something that has caused fear in the past.

Because exposure therapy for OCD involves facing the thing or situation that provokes obsessive and fearful responses, having a stronger ability to be motivated by rewards might help someone stick with therapy despite having to face their triggers.

Personalizing OCD treatment

The findings suggest a path to personalizing the choice of therapy not by doing brain scans on everyone with OCD - which would be impractical - but by using everyday tests that measure the kinds of characteristics that might predict better success with one therapy or the other.

Kate Fitzgerald, M.D., a pediatric OCD specialist at Michigan Medicine who is co-senior author of the paper and leads multiple studies of OCD therapy for children and adolescents, explains that easily administered behavioral tests could be developed to help therapists recommend CBT to those who have the most cognitive control and reward responsiveness, and SMT to those who would benefit most from being taught to relax and use problem-solving techniques to improve their response to stressors.

But computer-based brain-training exercises that can strengthen these tendencies, and rewards for exposing oneself to the thing or action that triggers OCD symptoms, may hold the potential to improve therapy response, she says.

"This kind of research may help inform efforts to do cognitive control training and ramp up the circuits that help patients overcome conflict between obsessive fears and insight that these fears don't make sense so that patients can dismiss the fear as improbable, rather than trying to make it go away with compulsive behaviors," she says. "Our research shows that different brains respond to different treatments, and if we can build on this knowledge we could move toward a more precision-medicine approach for OCD."

In children and teens, whose brains are still maturing, there's an especially good chance of helping them improve their brains' control functions.

New research to advance OCD understanding

Fitzgerald and her team are currently recruiting young people with diagnosed OCD, and OCD-like tendencies, for a clinical trial that provides CBT and includes brain scanning before and after therapy.

Since OCD symptoms typically start in the tween years, though diagnosis may not occur until the teen or young adult years, it's important to study children with sub-clinical symptoms, she notes.

Though the study involves in-person interactions for the brain scans, the CBT exposure therapy is done through video chat. In fact, Fitzgerald says, this can make it easier for children and teens to confront the item or situation that triggers their OCD-like impulses, because these are often found in the home environment.

"We need families and patients to engage with researchers in studies like these," says Fitzgerald. "Only through research can we understand what works best for different groups of patients. And perhaps by doing so we can expand the availability of the most evidence-based OCD therapies - including by engaging psychologists and clinical social workers in leading treatment programs, in addition to psychiatrists at specialized centers."

NIMS, HUE and HUSM have succeeded in developing a method of easily and cheaply producing an adhesive structure capable of repeated attachment and detachment. The design of this structure was inspired by the adhesive spatula-shaped hairs (setae) found on the footpads of flies, while the method of producing it was hinted at by seta formation in fly pupae. These environmentally sound technologies could potentially contribute to a more sustainable society.

Many types of manufactured products are reinforced with strong adhesives. However, the use of these adhesives hampers recycling processes (i.e., sorting and decomposition), countering efforts to promote a circular economy. For this reason, adhesive technologies capable of repeated attachment and detachment have been designed and developed. The biomimetic approach to the development of high-performance adhesive technologies seeks to imitate elaborate adhesive structures found in living organisms. However, this approach is frequently costly as it requires the use of MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) to create complex structures.

This research group focused on biological adhesive structures (e.g., insect footpads) known to form in an energy efficient manner at room temperature. The group developed adhesive structures and efficient methods of creating them by mimicking biological processes. In this research project, the group specifically focused on the adhesive, spatula-shaped setae that grow on fly footpads as a model for the development of adhesive structures that can be repeatedly attached to and detached from objects. The group observed the biological process by which the setae are formed in pupal fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) by staining fly legs for immunohistochemical analysis and labeling cytoskeletal actin with fluorescent dyes. As a result, the group discovered that adhesive spatulate footpad setae are formed in a simple two-step process: (1) seta forming cells elongate and cytoskeletal actin filaments in the cells accumulate at the distal tips of the elongated cells, forming the spatula-like frameworks, and (2) cuticle deposits form on the surfaces of the setae, solidifying them. The group then succeeded in developing a similar, simple two-step process to fabricate an adhesive spatulate structure at room temperature by (1) stretching nylon fibers to form a spatulate structure and (2) solidifying it. The structure's adhesive strength and ease of detachment were confirmed to vary, depending on the direction in which it is pulled away from the object to which it is attached?similar to the mechanisms insects use to attach or detach themselves to/from objects. A single spatulate fiber is sufficiently strong to suspend a silicon wafer from it weighing 52.8 g. Extrapolating from this, a bundle of 756 fibers (9 cm2 in cross-sectional area) can be expected to support a person weighing 60 kg.

This adhesive structure, capable of repeated attachment and detachment, may offer a variety of new robotic applications. For example, it may be integrated into the arms of industrial robots to enable them to better handle slippery objects, and it may be incorporated into the legs of outdoor robots to allow them to climb vertical walls like insects. The reusable adhesive structure and the low-cost, energy-efficient production method are environmentally friendly technologies that can potentially contribute to making society more sustainable.

PITTSBURGH--It wasn't long after Hurricane Laura hit the Gulf Coast Thursday that people began flying drones to record the damage and posting videos on social media. Those videos are a precious resource, say researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, who are working on ways to use them for rapid damage assessment.

By using artificial intelligence, the researchers are developing a system that can automatically identify buildings and make an initial determination of whether they are damaged and how serious that damage might be.

"Current damage assessments are mostly based on individuals detecting and documenting damage to a building," said Junwei Liang, a Ph.D. student in CMU's Language Technologies Institute (LTI). "That can be slow, expensive and labor-intensive work."

Satellite imagery doesn't provide enough detail and shows damage from only a single viewpoint -- vertical. Drones, however, can gather close-up information from a number of angles and viewpoints. It's possible, of course, for first responders to fly drones for damage assessment, but drones are now widely available among residents and routinely flown after natural disasters.

"The number of drone videos available on social media soon after a disaster means they can be a valuable resource for doing timely damage assessments," Liang said.

Xiaoyu Zhu, a master's student in AI and Innovation in the LTI, said the initial system can overlay masks on parts of the buildings in the video that appear damaged and determine if the damage is slight or serious, or if the building has been destroyed.

Sophia Antipolis, France - 27 Aug 2020: Vegetarian foods are not equally healthy, according to research presented today at ESC Congress 2020.

"Our study highlights the variable nutritional quality of plant foods," said author Dr. Matina Kouvari of Harokopio University, Athens, Greece. "This finding was more evident in women. Prior research has shown that women tend to eat more plant-based foods and less animal-based products than men. But our study suggests that this does not guarantee healthier food choices and in turn better health status."

Most dietary studies define plant-based diets simply as "vegetarian" or "low in meat", thereby treating all plant foods as equal. The unique aspect of this study was that it examined the type of plant-based foods consumed, in addition to the overall amount. Healthy plant-based products were principally the least processed foods, such as whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, olive oil, and tea/coffee. Unhealthy plant-based products consisted of juices, sweetened beverages, refined grains, potatoes, and any kind of sweets (e.g. chocolate, Greek traditional desserts, etc.).

The study examined the link between the amount and quality of plant-based foods and heart health over a 10-year period.

In 2001 and 2002, the ATTICA study randomly selected a sample of adults living in Athens who did not have cardiovascular disease or other chronic conditions. The current analysis was conducted in 146 obese participants with normal blood pressure, blood lipids, and blood sugar. Diet was assessed using a questionnaire about usual habits in the previous year. It listed 156 foods and beverages commonly consumed in Greece, with photographs to help define portion sizes.

Within a decade, nearly half of these obese participants had developed high blood pressure, high blood lipids, and high blood sugar - a combination that is particularly risky for heart health.

Men who consumed more plant-based foods were less likely to have this decline in health status. A trend was also observed in women, but it did not reach statistical significance.

Regarding the quality of plant-based foods, healthier choices were linked with maintaining normal blood pressure, blood lipids, and blood sugar. Conversely, consuming unhealthy plant-based foods was associated with developing high blood pressure, high blood lipids, and high blood sugar. These relationships were stronger in women compared to men.

Dr. Kouvari said: "Eating less meat is beneficial for heart health, particularly when it is replaced with nutritious plant foods such as whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and olive oil."

She noted that the analysis was conducted in obese individuals and the findings should not be extended to other weight categories.

Sophia Antipolis, France - 27 Aug 2020: Bacteria and other microorganisms in the digestive tract are linked with dozens of health conditions including high blood pressure, high blood lipids, and body mass index (BMI) according to research presented today at ESC Congress 2020.1

"Our study indicates that microbiota might have an important role in maintaining health and could help us develop novel treatments," said study author Dr. Hilde Groot of University Medical Centre Groningen, the Netherlands.

The human gut microbiome is the totality of microorganisms (generally bacteria and single-celled organisms called archaea) and their collective genetic material present in the digestive tract. Small-scale studies have suggested a link between the gut microbiome and individual diseases.

This study, for the first time, investigated multiple diseases and other traits in one cohort - revealing the staggering extent to which the microbiome influences sickness and health. The analysis used genetic data as a proxy for microbiome composition.

Dr. Groot explained: "Previous research has shown that the human gut microbiome composition could be partially explained by genetic variants. So, instead of directly measuring the make-up of the microbiome, we used genetic alterations to estimate its composition."

The study included 422,417 unrelated individuals in the UK Biobank who had undergone genotyping to identify their genetic make-up. Information was also collected on a wide range of diseases and other characteristics including BMI and blood pressure. The average age of participants was 57 years and 54% were women.

The researchers found that higher levels of eleven bacteria (estimated from genetic data) were associated with a total of 28 health and disease outcomes. These included chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), atopy (a genetic tendency to develop allergic diseases like asthma and eczema), frequency of alcohol intake, high blood pressure, high blood lipids, and BMI.

To take one example, higher levels of the genus Ruminococcus were linked with increased risk of high blood pressure.

Regarding alcohol consumption, Dr. Groot said: "What we eat and drink is connected to microbiome content, so we studied the links with meat, caffeine, and alcohol. We observed a relationship between raised levels of Methanobacterium and drinking alcohol more often. It is important to stress that this is an association, not a causal relation, and more research is needed."

A real strength of the study was conducting a broad analysis in the same group of people. Dr. Groot said: "Considering that the results were observed in one cohort, this cautiously supports the notion that microbiota and the substances they produce (called metabolites) provide links between numerous diseases and conditions. The findings may help identify common pathways. Nevertheless, more research (for example in other cohorts) is needed to validate our findings."

She concluded: "Follow-up studies are required to study causality before giving concrete advice to the public and health professionals. This study provides clues where to go."

Philadelphia, August 27, 2020 - A new study from the Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) found that teen drivers and drivers 65 years and older - two age groups at a higher risk of being involved in an automobile accident - are more likely to be driving vehicles that are less safe, putting them at even higher risk of injury. The findings underscore the need for these groups to prioritize driving the safest vehicle they can afford. The findings were published today in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention.

Both younger and older drivers face unique challenges in reducing their crash risk. Newly licensed drivers have the highest crash risk of any age group, and older drivers have the highest crash fatality rate of any age group, with many of these crashes related to physical changes in health. Additionally, drivers of all age groups living in lower-income neighborhoods are disproportionately represented in fatal crashes, and younger and older residents in those neighborhoods are more likely to face financial challenges in securing a vehicle with key safety characteristics than their peers in wealthier neighborhoods.

One promising approach to reduce injuries related to crashes is to ensure drivers are behind the wheel of the safest vehicles they can afford. To better assess the risk presented to these vulnerable driver groups, this study adds important empirical data describing the extent to which they are driving vehicles with fewer critical safety characteristics.

"Survey studies had previously found that younger drivers were more likely to drive vehicles that were older, smaller and lacked certain safety features, but there had yet to be a population-based study that really explored this question for different ages and income levels," says Kristi Metzger, PhD, MPH, a statistical scientist at CIRP and first author of the study. "To that end, we conducted the first large-scale study to estimate the prevalence of important vehicle safety criteria among a statewide driver population."

The researchers analyzed data from the NJ Safety and Health Outcomes data warehouse, which includes all crash and licensing data for the state of New Jersey from 2010 to 2017. They then used National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Product Information Catalog and Vehicle Listing platform to decode the VIN of each crash-involved vehicle to obtain model year, presence of electronic stability control (ESC), vehicle type, engine horsepower, and presence of front, side, and curtain airbags. ESC is a key safety feature that helps a driver maintain vehicle control on curves and slippery roads and reduces crash fatality risk on a level comparable to seat belts.

The study showed that teens and older drivers were more likely than middle-aged adults to drive older cars that did not have ESC or side and curtain air bags. Additionally, drivers of all ages from lower-income neighborhoods were less likely to drive newer, safer cars. On average, young drivers from lower-income neighborhoods drove vehicles that were almost twice as old as their peers from higher-income neighborhoods. Young drivers from high-income neighborhoods were 53% more likely to drive cars with side airbags, and older drivers from high-income neighborhoods were 35% more likely to have vehicles with side airbags than older drivers from low-income neighborhoods.

"All drivers should strive to be in the safest vehicle they can afford, regardless of age or income level," says Dr. Metzger. "There are many vehicles available with key safety features that won't break the bank, some for less than $7,000."

Scientists have discovered how a biological switch helps animals make the seasonal changes crucial for survival, such as growing a warm winter coat and adjusting body temperatures.

The findings reveal how the brain responds to short and long days to allow animals to adapt to changing conditions and governs vital behaviour such as breeding cycles.

Researchers say the study in sheep could help explain the timings of seasonal adaptations in a number of species such as birds, reptiles and mammals.

The body's internal clock choreographs cycles in hormone levels and affects traits such as sleep and hunger. These alter over the course of the day - known as circadian rhythms - and are influenced by genetics.

Similar rhythms are also seen seasonally, but until now it was unclear how genes play a role in the biological changes that fluctuate between winter and summer.

Researchers led by the Universities of Edinburgh and Manchester studied an endocrine gland attached to the brain called the pituitary gland in sheep experiencing short or long lengths of day.

Brain tissue was analysed for gene activity across time, allowing scientists to observe the biological processes that happen in response to different day lengths.

They found that one of two possible biological mechanisms is activated within the pituitary gland depending on whether the day is long or short.

In summer when nights are long, the brain generates hormones that cause a cascade of gene activity leading to biological characteristics associated with summer.

When nights are short in winter, the switch is flipped - night-time hormones are released for longer, triggering biological processes linked to winter.

The study found that in the sheep brain, both processes involve a circadian gene known as BMAL2, which is found in many animals but whose role in the seasonal clock was previously unknown.

The study, published in Nature Communications, was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. The DOI is 10.1038/s41467-020-18061-z.

The Roslin Institute receives strategic investment funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and it is part of the University of Edinburgh's Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies.

Professor Simone Meddle, who co-led the research from the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute, said: "Fluctuations in hormones and behaviour are part of a delicate biological orchestra that is crucial to life. Many animals depend on seasonal changes in their biology to survive and our findings are a crucial part of the puzzle to understand the underlying processes."

Professor Andrew Loudon, who co-led the study from the University of Manchester, said: "The genetic 'flip-flop' timer we have identified is key to functions such as fertility as sheep transition between winter and summer. We speculate that this genetic timer is likely to be fundamental to yearly changes in many species."

Topological superconductors (TSCs) are new kind of topological quantum states with fully superconducting gapped band structure in the bulk, but support gapless excitations called Majorana zero modes (MZMs) at the boundaries. Because of their nonlocal correlation and non-Abelian statistic nature, MZMs are proposed as the qubits of topological quantum computation. Hence, searching and operating the MZMs in TSC materials is now an important topic in condensed matter physics.

To identify a TSC, one should first ascertain its topological classification. The topological classification highly depends on the symmetries including time-reversal symmetry, particle-hole symmetry, and especially the crystalline symmetries. Without the consideration of crystalline symmetries, the Bogoliubov-deGennes (BdG) Hamiltonians of the 1D superconductors only have the Z2 classification. The mirror reflection symmetry and rotational symmetries can enhance the classification to Z class. Nevertheless, the topological classification of superconductors with general magnetic symmetries is still an open question.

In a new research article published in the Beijing-based National Science Review, scientists from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and Princeton University in New Jersey, USA proposed the method to classify the topological superconducting phase by examining the compatibility between different MZMs. Co-authors Jinyu Zou, Qing Xie, Zhida Song and Gang Xu analyzed the topological classification of gapped superconducting wires with local magnetic symmetries (LMSs). They found that an effective BDI class TSC can be realized in MxT or C2zT invariant wire. Remarkably, the new TSC phases characterized by Zh invariant in C4zT case and Zh \oplus Zc invariant in C6zT case are discovered.

In the article titled "New types of topological superconductors under local magnetic symmetries". The authors focus on the 1D superconducting wires with LMSs T'= MxT, C2zT, C4zT and C6zT. "The operation of T' does not change the position of electrons. Hence it acts on the BdG Hamiltonian like a time-reversal operator". Combining T' and particle-hole symmetry P leads to a chiral symmetry S = T'P. The BdG Hamiltonian can adopt the diagonalized form according to the chiral symmetry. And the MZMs are the eigenstates of the chiral symmetry S. The authors find "MZMs having chiral eigenvalues s and -s can couple to each other and be eliminated." Following the guideline, they analysis the compatibility of the MZMs at the end of the 1D superconducting wires with LMSs, and summarize their topological classification as listed in Table I.

The MxT and C2zT cases are equivalent to the BDI class with chiral topological invariant Zc. While C4zT case is characterized by helical Zh invariant, which indicate multiple Majorana Kramer pairs at the end of the superconducting wire. In the C6zT case, "the topology of the whole BdG Hamiltonian is classified by Zh \oplus Zc,". In such a novel topological phase, "the helical and chiral MZMs can coexist."

"To illustrate the TSC phase with the LMS C4zT, we construct a 1D anti-ferromagnetic chain along z-direction" the scientists add. They give the topological phase diagram of the model as shown in Fig1. "In the nontrivial TSC phase, the open quantum wire traps an integer pairs of MZMs at its ends." they also show the MZMs through numerical and analytical calculation.

"These results not only enrich the variety of the 1D TSC, but also provide luxuriant building blocks for the construction of new type 2D and 3D TSCs" they forecast at the end of the article, "For example, one can couple the 1D TSCs in y direction to construct a 2D TSC. The high symmetry lines ky = 0 and ky =pi in momentum space preserve the 1D LMS. With proper parameters, the ky = 0 and ky =pi lines can belong to distinct topological phase, and result in the gapless propagating Majorana edge states connecting the conducting bands and valence bands."

In the last couple of years, organic solar cells (OSCs) based on non-fullerene (NF) acceptors have tremendous progress in the power conversion efficiency (PCE). The majority of state-of-the-art OSCs in the lab is based on the so-called bulk heterojunction (BHJ) architecture consisting of a photoactive layer in blend of an electron donor and acceptor. The presence of numerous microscopic p-n junctions in BHJs enables sufficient surface areas where charge separation occurs, so that the photocurrent and PCE are increased. The device characteristics in BHJ-OSCs are critically affected by the nanostructure or morphology of BHJ films, featuring interpenetrating and continuous networks with domain sizes ideally comparable to the exciton diffusion length.

In comparison to BHJs, sequential film deposition to form planar heterojunctions (PHJ) is attractive because the morphology of donor and acceptor components can be controlled more independently. The large vertical phase separation naturally occurring in PHJs facilitates the extraction of photogenerated carriers toward the two electrodes. The limited area of donor/acceptor (D/A) interfaces has critically hampered the photovoltaic efficiencies in PHJ-OSCs. With stringent orthogonal processing solvents or thermal deposition (of the second layer) of the donor and acceptor films, the resultant devices often underperform those with BHJ structures, due to poor exciton dissociation. For this reason, the interdiffusions of acceptors into the donor phase have been applied with solvent engineering to increase the D/A interfacial area, resulting in increased short-circuit current (Jsc) in PHJ-OSCs.

Very recently, based on the polymeric donor PBDBT-2F and NF-acceptor Y6, researchers proposed a strategy to improve the photovoltaic performance and thermal stability for sequentially deposited PHJ-OSCs through dispersing the donor components into the acceptor-dominant phase. By this method, they achieve a champion PCE of 15.4% in the PBDBT-2F/Y6 based PHJ solar cells, reaching one of the highest values reported on PHJ-OSCs with sequential film casting. Moreover, the charge transport balance in the PHJ devices is favorably improved with the incorporation of donors into the Y6-dominant phase. These modifications suppress bimolecular recombination and accelerate charge sweep-out. In a morphological standpoint, the favorable intermolecular π-π staking in Y6 is hardly affected at diluted concentrations of donor dispersions, which, on the other hand, modifies the photophysical process in PHJ-solar cells. Of importance, with the described donor dispersion, the PHJ films exhibit enhanced morphology robustness in association with smaller negative effects on the charge sweep-out in solar cells under thermal conditions. As a result, a better thermal stability in the PHJ-devices with donor dispersions has been achieved, with regard to that of BHJ solar cells.

Ann Arbor, August 27, 2020 -- A new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier, identifies emerging patterns in the rate of and age at premature death from alcoholic (alcohol-associated) liver disease (ALD) in the United States over the last two decades. Significantly, the study documents that since the early 2000s, ALD death rates among non-Hispanic whites, particularly women, have increased more rapidly than rates among non-Hispanic blacks. Findings indicate that mortality is significantly impacted by socioeconomic and sociodemographic factors, the clinical course of ALD, and co-existing conditions.

"Empirical evidence from our study adds to the growing literature suggesting that previously large gaps between women and men in alcohol-related harms, including mortality, are narrowing," explained co-investigator Aaron M. White, PhD, Senior Scientific Advisor to the Director, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA. "Of particular concern is the largest increase that occurred among younger women ages 25--34. Because it usually takes 10 or more years of drinking to develop liver disease, premature mortality before 35 years of age is quite unusual and cause for serious public health concerns."

Investigators drew death certificate data from the 1999--2018 Multiple Cause of Death database compiled by the National Center for Health Statistics. Each death certificate contains a single underlying cause of death, up to 20 additional contributing causes, and sociodemographic data. From 1999 to 2018, 281,243 individuals ages 25--69 died prematurely of ALD. Researchers looked at other factors reported as contributing to the cause of death: demographic characteristics (e.g., sex, race/Hispanic origin, marital status, education); the type of ALD (e.g., alcoholic fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis; alcoholic cirrhosis of the liver); and comortalities (e.g., alcohol use disorder, tobacco use disorder, hepatitis C infection, diabetes, hypertension, injuries).

Highlights of the study's findings include:

--Although men consistently had higher ALD death rates, gaps between men and women for ALD death rates have narrowed in the past two decades, especially among people ages 25--34 years. The rate ratio of men to women dropped from roughly 3:1 in 1999 to 2:1 in 2018.

--Women died of ALD on average about two to three years earlier than men, possibly due to the more rapid increase in alcohol misuse and relatively higher occurrence of alcoholic hepatitis in women at younger ages, coupled with higher prevalence of severe obesity among women.

--Years of potential life lost (YPLL), an indicator of premature death, increased more rapidly for women than men, especially after the economic recession in 2008. Since then, individuals with less than a college education, irrespective of sex, experienced a more rapid increase in ALD death rates than their college-educated counterparts.

--Compared to non-Hispanic whites, the age-adjusted ALD death rates among non-Hispanic blacks have been either declining or stagnant during this period or slowly increasing since 2008.

--Alcohol involvement in liver disease remained highest among Hispanics. Historically, sex disparities in drinking were more pronounced in Hispanics than in other racial/ethnic groups. The authors suggest that heightened rates among Hispanic women may be attributed to increases in female drinking driven by acculturation.

The authors conclude that the study supports population-level interventions and policies to reduce alcohol consumption and improve access to, and quality of, ALD treatment. Their findings may serve to raise public awareness of the rising levels of death from ALD and the groups at greatest risk, encouraging both physicians and patients to engage more frequently in discussions about alcohol consumption. To address narrowing sex gaps in premature death from ALD, greater emphasis should be placed on implementation of abstinence programs, early detection of ALD, and education about hazardous drinking levels for women.

Dr. White cautioned: "Because alcohol consumption tends to increase during periods of economic uncertainty, ALD mortality could spike as the current economic crisis persists. In addition, disruption of quality care delivery could increase rates of mortality in patients with end-stage ALD while disruption of alcohol use disorder treatment and recovery programs could lead to relapses and exacerbation of ALD."

NIMS and AIST have jointly succeeded in fabricating a giant magnetoresistive (GMR) device comprising single-crystal Heusler alloys on an practical silicon substrate. The team demonstrated for the first time that a single-crystal magnetoresistive device can be bonded onto the surface of a polycrystalline electrode using a wafer bonding technique. The fabrication of high-performance single-crystal devices has proven challenging, and these results may provide new guidance in the development of larger capacity hard disk drives (HDDs).

Some Heusler alloys (e.g., Co2MnSi) are known to possess half metallic property?substances that act as conductors to electrons of only one spin orientation when their atoms are in an orderly arrangement. In previous research, a high-quality GMR device was fabricated using half-metallic Heusler alloys. This device was reported to exhibit an extremely large magnetoresistance ratio, a characteristic vital to the development of hard disk read heads compatible with HDDs with nearly five times the recording density of current HDDs. However, the fabrication of this GMR device required the use of a heat-resistant single-crystal magnesium oxide (MgO) substrate with an appropriate lattice structure, which is considerably more costly than using the industrially established small MgO substrate. In addition, HDD read heads need to be fabricated on a polycrystalline magnetic shield, despite the fact that it is impossible to grow a single-crystal device directly on the surface of a polycrystalline film with crystal grains having various lattice orientations. Moreover, Heusler alloys have to be annealed at a temperature of at least 300°C to form an orderly atomic ordering. However, this annealing process also damages the magnetic shield layer. These issues have prevented practical applications of GMR devices comprising single-crystal Heusler alloys.

This research team deposited a NiAl/CoFe buffer layer on the surface of a conventional, inexpensive silicon substrate and discovered that the substrate acquired significantly increased heat resistance and a smoother surface. The team then fabricated a GMR device comprising single-crystal Heusler alloys on the silicon substrate and confirmed that the device performs comparably to the GMR device grown on the MgO substrate. The team also grew a polycrystalline electrode film on the surface of another substrate and fabricated a GMR film device comprising single-crystal Heusler alloys on it. The team subsequently bonded the fabricated GMR film device onto a wafer using the latest three-dimensional integration technology. Through these processes, the team formed an extremely smooth, defect-free bonded interface between the polycrystalline and single crystal films by optimizing wafer bonding conditions. The team also confirmed that bonding the fabricated GMR film device onto a wafer did not negatively affect the device's magnetoresistive performance. The techniques the team developed are expected to eliminate the need to grow a single-crystal magnetoresistive device directly on a polycrystalline electrode film and completely resolve the damage issue caused by high-temperature treatment.

These techniques are applicable not only to the fabrication of GMR devices comprising single-crystal Heusler alloys but also for various other purposes, such as the integration of single-crystal tunneling magnetoresistance devices--another potentially promising high-performance technology--onto a heat-susceptible circuit board. The use of these techniques may promote practical use of high-performance single-crystal spintronic devices, thereby potentially contributing to the development of larger capacity HDDs and magnetoresistive random access memory.

Scientists at the Universities of Bath and Sussex have developed a new system that slowly releases ant pheromones to attract pests to an insecticide bait. This means that instead of spraying the whole crop with pesticides, traps can be placed in specific areas for more targeted protection.

Leaf-cutting ants are major pest species of agriculture and forestry in many areas of the tropics causing an estimated $8 billion damage each year to eucalyptus forestry in Brazil alone.

Traditional pesticides often degrade quickly and are not specific to particular pests, resulting in substantial wastage of pest control products, environmental contamination and harmful effects on other insects.

The team of chemists and chemical engineers at Bath used molecular sponges called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), to soak up the alarm pheromones of leaf cutter ants and then slowly release them to attract the insects to a trap.

In addition to experiments, they used computational modelling to simulate the movement of the pheromone molecule inside the pores of the MOFs to predict which structures would give the optimum capacity and speed of release.

They found that by altering the chemical groups within the basic framework structure, they could adjust the speed of release of the pheromones so that the chemicals could be released over a period of several months rather than days.

Field trials of the system by University of Sussex researchers in a eucalyptus plantation in Brazil showed that the pheromone-loaded MOFs had the desired effect in attracting the ants to a trap.

Professor Andrew Burrows, Head of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Bath and Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University's Centre for Sustainable and Circular Technologies, led the study that is published in the journal Dalton Transactions.

He said: "Insect pheromones have been used previously for attracting pests, but the trouble is they are quite volatile, so their effects don't last very long.

"Our metal-organic frameworks act as a kind of sponge where the pheromones can be encapsulated in the pores and then released slowly over time.

"Our proof-of-principle study shows that these materials are effective in delivering the pheromone and that the insects respond normally to it.

"This system could reduce the amount of pesticides sprayed on a crop and could be particularly useful for high value crops in small areas.

"We're currently looking at a range of other insect messenger chemicals including those that can be used to control moth pest species in UK fruit orchards."

A new diagnostic tool that can predict whether a cancer patient would respond to immunotherapy treatment has been developed by scientists at the University of Bath. This advance in precision medicine will allow clinicians to tailor treatments specifically to patients and avoid treatment paths that are unlikely to be successful.

Immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that helps a patient's immune system fight cancer and is having a profoundly positive impact on cancer treatments. Cancers evade detection by the immune system, making themselves invisible to the natural anti-tumour response and actively blocking it.

One type of immunotherapy, called immune checkpoint inhibitors, are antibodies that remove the brakes which the tumour has applied to the immune system. This re-activates the patients' natural anti-cancer response, which then destroys the tumour.

Whilst checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy is very successful in some patients, in others it has little or no effect. Given the inherent toxicity risks in these treatments, there has been a growing need to define which patients are most likely to benefit, avoiding unnecessary exposure to those who will not.

Researchers in Bath led by Professor Banafshé Larijani Director of the Centre for Therapeutic Innovation (CTI-Bath), working with other colleagues and the company FASTBASE Solutions Ltd, have now developed a prognostic tool using an advanced microscopy platform that identifies immune cell interactions with tumour cells and also reports on the activation status of immune-checkpoints that dampen the anti-tumour response.

The team published its findings in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

The team studied an immune checkpoint consisting of two proteins termed PD-1 (present on immune cells called T lymphocytes) and PD-L1 (present on other types of immune cells and on the surface of many different types of tumours).

Ordinarily, when PD-1 on the surface of T lymphocytes engages with PD-L1 on the surface of other immune cells, it effectively switches off the immune function of the T cell. In a healthy individual, these checkpoints tightly regulate the body's immune response, acting as an off-switch to prevent autoimmune and inflammatory disease.

Tumour cells essentially hijack this mechanism by expressing PD-L1 on their surface enabling them to activate PD-1 on the T lymphocyte, thus switching off its anti-tumour function, allowing survival and the growth of the tumour.

Immunotherapy checkpoint inhibitors work by disrupting the interaction between the PD-L1 on the tumour and PD-1 on the T cell, and thus re-establish the patient's anti-tumour activity.

This new tool determines the extent of PD-1/PD-L1 interaction in a biopsy of the tumour, predicting whether the checkpoint inhibitor therapy is likely to have significant clinical benefit. The ground-breaking results show that immunotherapy-treated patients (with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer) displaying a low extent of PD-1/PD-L1 interaction, show significantly worse outcome than those with a high interaction.

Professor Larijani explained: "Currently, decisions on whether to proceed with checkpoint inhibitor treatment are based simply on whether PD-1 and PD-L1 are present in biopsies, rather than their functional state. However our work has shown it is far more important to know that the two proteins are actually interacting and therefore likely to be having a functional impact on tumour survival."

Professor José I López, from the Department of Pathology, Cruces University Hospital (Bilbao, Spain) and co-author of this study, said: "Immune checkpoint blockade is becoming a therapeutic milestone in some cancers in the last years.

"Patients are selected for this treatment option using immunohistochemistry, however, this technique does not reliably detect all of the candidates that would potentially benefit. Actually, up to 19% of patients supposedly negative do respond to this therapy."

Professor Stephen Ward, Vice-Chair of CTI-Bath and a co-author of the study, said: "The tool we have developed is an important step towards personalised medicine. By using it, we can precisely select who will benefit from immunotherapy.

"It will also show which patients are unlikely to respond well before they start a long course of treatment, and these patients can be offered a different treatment route.

"It should make treatment with these expensive biotherapeutics much more efficient for the NHS."

Dr Eunate Arana, Scientific Coordinator of BioCruces Health Research Institute, said: "We find this technology and its application in the field of immunotherapy truly interesting.

"Therefore, we are going to carry out a clinical trial in three hospitals of BioCruces and BioDonostia, the Basque Public Health network, that will allow us to evaluate the predictive capacity of this quantitative imaging platform, to improve patient stratification for lung cancer immunotherapy."

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has generated considerable interest over the past few decades, owing to its promising applications across a wide range of fields. But, it has also sparked an ongoing debate on whether the risks of using AI outweigh its benefits. The biggest concern with AI is a lack of governance, which gives large companies (popularly called as the "Big Tech") unlimited access to private data. Multiple scandals in the recent past have confirmed the threats of this--such as the infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal of 2018, in which Facebook conducted a major privacy breach by leaking confidential user information to a data-mining company. Moreover, although AI should be developed in a socially responsible way, governments often do not impose strict legislations on AI development, which may be detrimental--rather than beneficial--to the society.

In a new study published in Sustainable Development, Dr Jon Truby of Qatar University talks about how unregulated AI is a threat to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)--a set of guidelines created by the United Nations (UN) for the sustainable development of all countries. Dr Truby points out that this threat is especially prevalent in developing nations, which often relax AI regulations to attract investments from the Big Tech. Dr Truby explains, "In this study, I propose the need for proactive regulatory measures in AI development, which would help to ensure that AI operates to benefit sustainable development."

In his study, Dr Truby discusses three examples to show how unregulated AI can be detrimental to SDGs. To begin with, he focuses on SDG 16, a goal that was developed to tackle corruption, organized crime, and terrorism. He explains that because AI is commonly used in national security databases, it can be misused by criminals to launder money or organize crime. This is especially relevant in developing countries, where input data may be easily accessible because of poor protective measures. Dr Truby suggests that, to prevent this, there should be a risk assessment at each stage of AI development. Moreover, the AI software should be designed such that it is inaccessible when there is a threat of it being hacked. Such restrictions can minimize the risk of hackers obtaining access to the software.

Then, Dr Truby takes the example of SDG 8, a goal that seeks to increase public access to financial services. AI is regularly used in financial institutions to make banking simpler and more efficient. But, while learning, AI might inadvertently develop certain biases, such as reducing financial opportunities for certain minorities. Dr Truby explains that to avoid such biases, we need transparency in AI-driven processes. Human review and intervention at each step can ensure that such discrimination does not go unnoticed. Moreover, it is necessary to train software developers to recognize the harmful implications of biases, so that it can be regulated more efficiently.

Finally, Dr Truby explains how AI is a threat to SDG 10, a goal that focuses on equal opportunity. He explains how AI can be used by big firms to generate employment opportunities in developing countries and that this might threaten smaller businesses and local companies. However, if designed with sustainable development in mind, AI can create better job opportunities and increase productivity by removing labor-intensive jobs.

Inarguably, AI is a powerful technology that needs to be used carefully and efficiently. Although Dr Truby is optimistic about the future implications of AI, he believes that developers and legislators should exercise caution through effective governance. He concludes, "The risks of AI to the society and the possible detriments to sustainable development can be severe if not managed correctly. On the flip side, regulating AI can be immensely beneficial to development, leading to people being more productive and more satisfied with their employment and opportunities."