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Argentine ants are a major pest in California. In this study, a biodegradable calcium alginate hydrogel with an aqueous boric acid bait was tested against Argentine ant populations in a citrus orchard and a vineyard. A new continuous method was developed to produce large quantities of hydrogel bait for the field test. Foraging activity levels of ants were compared between baited and untreated zones. For both study sites, four to five monthly bait applications throughout summer provided a greater than 80% reduction in ant activity. Based on spatial analyses by distance indices, the baited areas were characterized by gaps (areas with lower ant counts) and the untreated control zones were characterized by patches (areas with higher ant counts). This indicated area-wide suppression of Argentine ants. For the citrus orchard, post-baiting panel trap monitoring showed reductions of both ants and Asian citrus psyllid in the baited zone compared to the control. For the vineyard, mid-season soil analyses indicated that the impact of boric acid baiting on soil boron concentration was negligible. In sum, the calcium alginate hydrogel bait with boric acid as an active ingredient may provide a promising solution for Argentine ant baiting.

Language and social symptoms improve with age in some autistic toddlers, but not in others, and such outcome differences are not clearly predictable from clinical scores alone. Here we aim to identify early-age brain alterations in autism that are prognostic of future language ability. Leveraging 372 longitudinal structural MRI scans from 166 autistic toddlers and 109 typical toddlers and controlling for brain size, we find that, compared to typical toddlers, autistic toddlers show differentially larger or thicker temporal and fusiform regions; smaller or thinner inferior frontal lobe and midline structures; larger callosal subregion volume; and smaller cerebellum. Most differences are replicated in an independent cohort of 75 toddlers. These brain alterations improve accuracy for predicting language outcome at 6-month follow-up beyond intake clinical and demographic variables. Temporal, fusiform, and inferior frontal alterations are related to autism symptom severity and cognitive impairments at early intake ages. Among autistic toddlers, brain alterations in social, language and face processing areas enhance the prediction of the childs future language ability.

BackgroundSocial affective and communication symptoms are central to autism spectrum disorder (ASD), yet their severity differs across toddlers: Some toddlers with ASD display improving abilities across early ages and develop good social and language skills, while others with "profound" autism have persistently low social, language and cognitive skills and require lifelong care. The biological origins of these opposite ASD social severity subtypes and developmental trajectories are not known.MethodsBecause ASD involves early brain overgrowth and excess neurons, we measured size and growth in 4910 embryonic-stage brain cortical organoids (BCOs) from a total of 10 toddlers with ASD and 6 controls (averaging 196 individual BCOs measured/subject). In a 2021 batch, we measured BCOs from 10 ASD and 5 controls. In a 2022 batch, we  tested replicability of BCO size and growth effects by generating and measuring an independent batch of BCOs from 6 ASD and 4 control subjects. BCO size was analyzed within the context of our large, one-of-a-kind social symptom, social attention, social brain and social and language psychometric normative datasets ranging from N = 266 to N = 1902 toddlers. BCO growth rates were examined by measuring size changes between 1- and 2-months of organoid development. Neurogenesis markers at 2-months were examined at the cellular level. At the molecular level, we measured activity and expression of Ndel1; Ndel1 is a prime target for cell cycle-activated kinases; known to regulate cell cycle, proliferation, neurogenesis, and growth; and known to be involved in neuropsychiatric conditions.ResultsAt the BCO level, analyses showed BCO size was significantly enlarged by 39% and 41% in ASD in the 2021 and 2022 batches. The larger the embryonic BCO size, the more severe the ASD social symptoms. Correlations between BCO size and social symptoms were r = 0.719 in the 2021 batch and r = 0. 873 in the replication 2022 batch. ASD BCOs grew at an accelerated rate nearly 3 times faster than controls. At the cell level, the two largest ASD BCOs had accelerated neurogenesis. At the molecular level, Ndel1 activity was highly correlated with the growth rate and size of BCOs. Two BCO subtypes were found in ASD toddlers: Those in one subtype had very enlarged BCO size with accelerated rate of growth and neurogenesis; a profound autism clinical phenotype displaying severe social symptoms, reduced social attention, reduced cognitive, very low language and social IQ; and substantially altered growth in specific cortical social, language and sensory regions. Those in a second subtype had milder BCO enlargement and milder social, attention, cognitive, language and cortical differences.LimitationsLarger samples of ASD toddler-derived BCO and clinical phenotypes may reveal additional ASD embryonic subtypes.ConclusionsBy embryogenesis, the biological bases of two subtypes of ASD social and brain development-profound autism and mild autism-are already present and measurable and involve dysregulated cell proliferation and accelerated neurogenesis and growth. The larger the embryonic BCO size in ASD, the more severe the toddler's social symptoms and the more reduced the social attention, language ability, and IQ, and the more atypical the growth of social and language brain regions.

Investigation of a deep-water carbonate seep complex in the late Eocene Rock Creek section of the Keasey Formation, northwestern Oregon State, provides new data on marine carbonate seep occurrences in the formation. Methane seep carbonate bodies, with a diversity of seep-related invertebrate taxa are scattered across western Washington and the Rock Creek seep described here, together with the previously described Vernonia-Timber Road seep and Crinoid lagerstätte at Mist expands the Keasey Formation methane seep signatures. These three sites illustrate different points on a continuum from effusive to diffusive expulsion of methane and biotic chemosynthetic activity. Lithologic descriptions include a richly fossiliferous carbonate body named the Primary seep site, carbonite pipes interpreted as flow conduits comprise the Secondary Site, and minor pockets of blebby nodules is the Tertiary site, all within a 35 m stratigraphic section. Lithologic facies contain six named and characterized mollusk associations. Two are low-diversity with recognized chemosymbiotic bivalves and four contain opportunistic taxa tolerant of toxic geochemistry, severe oxygen depletion and nutrition potentially based on chemosynthetic microbial productivity. Analysis of 18O and 13C isotopes from the carbonate rock and from benthic foraminifera indicate that the methane-charged fluid flow sedimentary layers and probably burrow was driven by sustained microbial anaerobic oxidation of methane.

The western yellowjacket, Vespula pensylvanica (Saussure), is an important seasonal pest of recreational and outdoor venues in the western United States. Its propensity to scavenge food increases the likelihood of stinging incidences. Control measures are limited to intensive trapping and treating subterranean nests. The only toxicant registered for baiting in the US is esfenvalerate, which is ineffective. The objective of this study was to determine the potential of the isoxazoline fluralaner as a bait toxicant. With microsatellite genotyping, a minimum of 27 different colonies were shown to forage at a single monitoring site. Some colonies disappeared after baiting, and new colonies were detected. The implications for baiting and monitoring are discussed. Minced chicken and hydrogel baits containing 0.022% and 0.045% fluralaner significantly reduced foraging yellowjackets. Several bait applications covering large areas will be necessary to provide long-term control.

[Figure: see text].

ObjectiveTo compare the perspectives of caregivers of children with autism receiving care at the Neurobehavior Healthy Outcomes Medical Excellence (HOME) Program, an interdisciplinary clinic that provides primary care and behavioral/mental health services for patients with autism and other developmental disabilities, with those responding to the 2016 National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH). We focused on ratings related to shared decision-making, care coordination, family-centered care, and care within a medical home.MethodsWe administered a subset of items from the 2016 NSCH to caregivers of children with autism enrolled in HOME and compared responses with the same items from a nationally representative group of caregivers of children with autism who completed the 2016 NSCH. We compared the proportions that reported receiving shared decision-making, care coordination, family-centered care, care within a medical home, and unmet needs among the 2 study groups using Poisson regression, controlling for age, sex, race/ethnicity, payor, autism severity, and intellectual disability (ID).ResultsCompared with the NSCH cohort (n = 1151), children enrolled in HOME (n = 129) were older, more often female, had severe autism, and had co-occurring ID. Caregivers perceived that children receiving care within HOME more often received family-centered, coordinated care within a medical home compared with a national sample of children with autism. HOME enrollees also reported increased access to behavioral treatments and adult transition services with less financial burden compared with the national sample.ConclusionAn interdisciplinary clinic model may best serve children with autism, especially those with higher severity symptoms and co-occurring conditions.

The answers people give when asked to “think of theunexpected” for everyday event scenarios appear to be moreexpected than unexpected. There are expected unexpectedoutcomes that closely adhere to the given information in ascenario, based on familiar disruptions and common plan-failures. There are also unexpected unexpected outcomes thatare more inventive, that depart from given information, addingnew concepts/actions. However, people seem to tend toconceive of the unexpected as the former more than the latter.Study 1 tests these proposals by analysing the object-conceptspeople mention in their reports of the unexpected and theagreement between their answers. Study 2 shows that object-choices are weakly influenced by recency, that is, the order ofsentences in the scenario. The implications of these results forideas in philosophy, psychology and computing are discussed.

The present study is a single-site quality improvement project within pediatric primary care involving the implementation of a digital version of the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers--Revised. We evaluated the impact of the digital screener on the likelihood of physician referral for a developmental evaluation or autism diagnosis, and the age of the patients at the time of the event. Patients were children 16-30 months old seen for 18 and 24 months' well-child visits (1279 encounters), who screened positive for risk for autism spectrum disorder on the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers--Revised without a previously documented autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. Comparisons were made between a cohort of children screened with the paper and pencil version of the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers--Revised before the digital version was implemented and a cohort of children screened during the intervention period. Patients were followed until 48 months and referrals were obtained from electronic health records. Patients screened with the digital Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers--Revised were five times more likely to be referred for a developmental evaluation. The automatic scoring, risk assessment, and referral decision support features helped to improve screening outcomes. In this clinic, process change to a digital screening method with automatic guidance for next steps improved adherence to evidence-based clinical care.

It is well known engaged students perform better in any course (Nash, 2005, Angelino et. al 2007, Revere and Kovach 2011). However in the online classroom environment engaging students can be a challenge especially with quantitative material. With over 12 combined years of online teaching, the authors have collected useful data that help analyze current courses and discover patterns to enhance future endeavors. This paper establishes a list of best teaching practices specifically related to online teaching in an effort to better engage students and ultimately enhance the online educational experience. The primary focus of this paper looks at courses in which most of the material is quantitative in nature, the tools identified are easily applied across any curriculum. Though some of the tools are self-evident, such as clear and consistent communication, there are others that are less obvious that help to keep a class invigorating and students present.

The western yellow jacket, Vespula penyslvanica (Saussare), is a serious seasonal pest of outdoor venues in the western United States. In the spring, queens and low numbers of workers were captured in heptyl-butyrate-baited traps until early July, when the number of foragers dramatically increased. Microsatellite data suggest that 18 colonies were actively foraging within the park in 2012. Foragers from 11 different colonies were collected at one trap site. In 2012 and 2013, sufficient numbers of foragers were not captured until early August when baiting trials were initiated. Baits were prepared with canned chicken mixed with fipronil for a final concentration of 0.025%. In 2012, a single baiting provided >96% reduction of foragers for at least two months. A second baiting late in the season provided >80% reductions. In 2013, one baiting trial resulted in a 74% and a 93% reduction. A bait acceptance study was conducted in 2014 to test a bait consisting of the juices from canned chicken and 0.025% fipronil incorporated into a hydrogel, and provided a much longer lasting bait in the field.

To demonstrate the capability of computer vision analysis to detect atypical orienting and attention behaviors in toddlers with autism spectrum disorder. One hundred and four toddlers of 16-31 months old (mean = 22) participated in this study. Twenty-two of the toddlers had autism spectrum disorder and 82 had typical development or developmental delay. Toddlers watched video stimuli on a tablet while the built-in camera recorded their head movement. Computer vision analysis measured participants' attention and orienting in response to name calls. Reliability of the computer vision analysis algorithm was tested against a human rater. Differences in behavior were analyzed between the autism spectrum disorder group and the comparison group. Reliability between computer vision analysis and human coding for orienting to name was excellent (intra-class coefficient 0.84, 95% confidence interval 0.67-0.91). Only 8% of toddlers with autism spectrum disorder oriented to name calling on >1 trial, compared to 63% of toddlers in the comparison group (p = 0.002). Mean latency to orient was significantly longer for toddlers with autism spectrum disorder (2.02 vs 1.06 s, p = 0.04). Sensitivity for autism spectrum disorder of atypical orienting was 96% and specificity was 38%. Older toddlers with autism spectrum disorder showed less attention to the videos overall (p = 0.03). Automated coding offers a reliable, quantitative method for detecting atypical social orienting and reduced sustained attention in toddlers with autism spectrum disorder.

BackgroundTheories of brain abnormality in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have focused on underconnectivity as an explanation for social, language, and behavioral deficits but are based mainly on studies of older autistic children and adults.MethodsIn 94 ASD and typical toddlers ages 1 to 4 years, we examined the microstructure (indexed by fractional anisotropy) and volume of axon pathways using in vivo diffusion tensor imaging of fronto-frontal, fronto-temporal, fronto-striatal, and fronto-amygdala axon pathways, as well as posterior contrast tracts. Differences between ASD and typical toddlers in the nature of the relationship of age to these measures were tested.ResultsFrontal tracts in ASD toddlers displayed abnormal age-related changes with greater fractional anisotropy and volume than normal at younger ages but an overall slower than typical apparent rate of continued development across the span of years. Posterior cortical contrast tracts had few significant abnormalities.ConclusionsFrontal fiber tracts displayed deviant early development and age-related changes that could underlie impaired brain functioning and impact social and communication behaviors in ASD.