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Beginning college involves changes that can increase one's vulnerability to loneliness and associated negative outcomes. Parent and friend relationships are potential protective factors against loneliness given their positive association with adjustment. The present longitudinal study, with data collection at baseline, 1 month, and 2 months later, assessed the comparative effects of self-reported parent and friend relationship quality on loneliness in first-year college students (N = 101; 80 female, Mage = 18.36). At baseline, parent and friend relationship quality were negatively associated with loneliness. Longitudinal data revealed that friend relationship quality interacted with time, such that its effects on loneliness attenuated over the course of 2 months. By contrast, parent relationship quality continued to predict lower loneliness 2 months post-baseline. These results highlight the importance of close relationships and suggest that targeting relationship quality could be effective in helping youth transition to college. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document provides insights into lipid-based nanosystems and their potential therapeutic applications. Lipid-based nanosystems, such as solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN), nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC), liposomes, and others, have been extensively studied for their ability to improve drug transport and efficacy through various routes of administration. The document highlights 16 research articles published in a special issue on lipid-based nanosystems, covering topics such as breast cancer treatment, anti-tumor efficacy, antidepressant activity, and ocular drug delivery. The most investigated diseases include cancer, brain diseases, ocular diseases, skin diseases, microbial infections, and metabolic diseases. The authors express their gratitude to the contributors and reviewers of the special issue for their valuable contributions. [Extracted from the article]

Hereditary Transthyretin Amyloidosis is a rare, progressive and life-threatening systemic disease with predominant peripheral and autonomic nervous system involvement caused by mutation of the transthyretin protein. The most common TTR mutation regarding to ATTRv is a substitution of a Methionine for a Valine at position 30 that predisposes TTR to form aggregates and fibrils. S100A8 protein levels were measured in plasma samples from ATTRV30M patients and healthy donors. Additionally, S100A8/9 levels were measured in Schwann cells after incubation with human WT or V30M TTR. Moreover, bone marrow derived macrophages of either genetic background were generated and the expression of S100A8/9 was measured in response to toll like receptors agonists. S100A8/A9 mRNA levels are decreased in HSF V30M mice as compared with the WT. Moreover, S100A8 protein levels were found downregulated in plasma samples from ATTRV30M patients. Furthermore, we provide evidence for a dysregulated S100 expression by Schwann cells in response to TTRV30M and by mutated macrophages in response to toll like receptors agonists. The presence of TTRV30M impacts S100 expression, possibly contributing to the impaired immune activation of Schwann cells in nerves from ATTRV30M patients. This may be linked to the diminished immune cellular infiltration in these nerves, contributing in this way for the neuronal dysfunction present in the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the acoustic inverse problem modeled in the time domain featuring wave velocity reconstruction in the presence of sharp interfaces is addressed using an integer design variable approach. The medium being reconstructed is assumed piecewise constant, with single-material obstacles embedded in a homogeneous background. The wave equation is modeled using the Finite Element Method (FEM). The inversion procedure aims at finding the parameter field that minimizes a least-squares misfit function with respect to data generated from a synthetic model. The proposed optimization methodology is based on a sequential Integer Linear Programming (ILP) formulation used in the field of Topology Optimization (TO). Since this is a gradient-based technique, the sensitivity with respect to the integer design variable is evaluated by the adjoint method. Sensitivities are modified using both damping filters and Helmholtz-type Partial Differential Equation (PDE) filters to deal with the ill-posedness that is inherent to this class of inverse problem. The integer design variable is binary, associating each point of the domain either to the homogeneous background or to the embedded obstacles. This description naturally incorporates the sharp interface hypothesis, whereas a continuous design variable may generate transition regions with intermediate values and no clearly defined boundary. The damping filter is successful in controlling instabilities by incorporating the whole optimization history to the design update. Furthermore, the generality and effectiveness of the proposed framework are evaluated by addressing 2D problems from the literature and a proposed 3D case, all featuring sharp interfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hereditary amyloid transthyretin (ATTRv) amyloidosis is a fatal neurodegenerative disorder, first identified in Portugal. The most common transthyretin (TTR) mutation in ATTRv results from an exchange of a methionine for a valine at position 30 (V30M). ATTRv is characterized by the extracellular deposition of aggregates and fibrils of mutant forms of TTR, particularly in the nerves and ganglia of the peripheral nervous system (PNS). This phenotype is often accompanied by the lack of inflammatory infiltrates, despite the importance of macrophages in removal of TTR deposits in ATTRv patients. The mechanisms underlying this impairment of inflammatory responses in ATTRv patients are poorly understood. Here, we show a significant down-regulation in the expression of several chemokines by bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDM) generated from V30M TTR mice upon stimulation with toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) and TLR2 agonists. The phosphorylation of the MAP kinase p38, important for TLR4 and TLR2 signaling pathways, was also down-regulated in V30M macrophages, as compared with wild-type (WT) ones. The present study contributes with new insights to unravel the molecular mechanisms underlying the lack of inflammatory immune responses observed in ATTRv patients and may help in the development of new immune therapeutic strategies for the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Developing new bioprocesses to produce chemicals and fuels with reduced production costs will greatly facilitate the replacement of fossil-based raw materials. In most fermentation bioprocesses, the feedstock usually represents the highest cost, which becomes the target for cost reduction. Additionally, the biorefinery concept advocates revenue growth from the production of several compounds using the same feedstock. Taken together, the production of bio commodities from low-cost gas streams containing CO, CO2, and H2, obtained from the gasification of any carbon-containing waste streams or off-gases from heavy industry (steel mills, processing plants, or refineries), embodies an opportunity for affordable and renewable chemical production. To achieve this, by studying non-model autotrophic acetogens, current limitations concerning low growth rates, toxicity by gas streams, and low productivity may be overcome. The Acetobacterium wieringae strain JM is a novel autotrophic acetogen that is capable of producing acetate and ethanol. It exhibits faster growth rates on various gaseous compounds, including carbon monoxide, compared to other Acetobacterium species, making it potentially useful for industrial applications. The species A. wieringae has not been genetically modified, therefore developing a genetic engineering method is important for expanding its product portfolio from gas fermentation and overall improving the characteristics of this acetogen for industrial demands. Results: This work reports the development and optimization of an electrotransformation protocol for A. wieringae strain JM, which can also be used in A. wieringae DSM 1911, and A. woodii DSM 1030. We also show the functionality of the thiamphenicol resistance marker, catP, and the functionality of the origins of replication pBP1, pCB102, pCD6, and pIM13 in all tested Acetobacterium strains, with transformation efficiencies of up to 2.0 × 103 CFU/μgDNA. Key factors affecting electrotransformation efficiency include OD600 of cell harvesting, pH of resuspension buffer, the field strength of the electric pulse, and plasmid amount. Using this method, the acetone production operon from Clostridium acetobutylicum was efficiently introduced in all tested Acetobacterium spp., leading to non-native biochemical acetone production via plasmid-based expression. Conclusions: A. wieringae can be electrotransformed at high efficiency using different plasmids with different replication origins. The electrotransformation procedure and tools reported here unlock the genetic and metabolic manipulation of the biotechnologically relevant A.wieringae strains. For the first time, non-native acetone production is shown in A. wieringae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive systems that track, update, and utilize information about reward (consequences) and risk (uncertainty) are critical for adaptive decision-making as well as everyday functioning and well-being. However, it remains unclear how individual differences in reward and risk sensitivity are independently shaped by environmental influences and give rise to decision-making. Here, we investigated the impact of early life experience--a potent sculptor of development--on behavioral sensitivity to reward and risk. We administered a widely used decision-making paradigm to 55 adolescents and young adults who were exposed to early deprivation in the form of early institutional (orphanage) care (a type of early life adversity) and 81 comparison individuals who were reared by their biological parents and did not experience institutional care. Leveraging random coefficient regression and computational models, we observed that previously institutionalized individuals displayed general reward hyposensitivity, contributing to a decreased propensity to make decisions that stood to earn relatively large rewards relative to comparison individuals. By contrast, group differences in risk sensitivity were selectively observed on loss, but not gain, trials. These results are the first to independently and explicitly link early experiences to reward and risk sensitivity during decision-making. As such, they lay the groundwork for therapeutic efforts to identify and treat adversity-exposed individuals at risk for psychiatric disorders characterized by aberrant decision-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of agroforestry residues for energy purposes has long been a reality in Brazil. About 84.8% of the produced electricity comes from renewable resources; vegetable biomass contributes 9.1% to this total. This percentage has the potential to increase if Amazon biomass residues are processed to be used as fuel. The major difficulty for this scenario is the lack of available information on energy properties, mainly the HHVs for Amazon agroforestry biomass types. Considering that there are important deviations in the equations for predicting the HHVs of Amazon biomass types in the literature, the main objective of this work was to propose equations to determine the HHVs of these biomass types using the proximate or ultimate analysis results as input. The methodology adopted to develop such equations was simple and multiple linear regression methods, using experimental results for HHVs and proximate and ultimate analyses for biomass types from the north region of Brazil. Four distinct equations were considered based on ranges from the proximate and ultimate analyses of the biomass types to deliver better results. The obtained equations were validated by application to 28 other biomass types from the same region. The proposed HHV equations presented good agreement between predicted and experimental values, with errors below 5% for equations based on proximate analysis and below 3% for equations based on ultimate analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brain metastases (BrM) are common malignant lesions in the central nervous system, and pose a significant threat in advanced-stage malignancies due to delayed diagnosis and limited therapeutic options. Their distinct genomic profiles underscore the need for molecular profiling to tailor effective treatments. Recent advances in cancer biology have uncovered molecular drivers underlying tumor initiation, progression, and metastasis. This, coupled with the advances in molecular imaging technology and radiotracer synthesis, has paved the way for the development of innovative radiopharmaceuticals with enhanced specificity and affinity for BrM specific targets. Despite the challenges posed by the blood-brain barrier to effective drug delivery, several radiolabeled compounds have shown promise in detecting and targeting BrM. This manuscript provides an overview of the recent advances in molecular biomarkers used in nuclear imaging and targeted radionuclide therapy in both clinical and preclinical settings. Additionally, it explores potential theranostic applications addressing the unique challenges posed by BrM. [Display omitted] • Druggable diagnostic radiopharmaceuticals improve the diagnostic accuracy of BrM. • Targeted imaging helps patient stratification and guide BrM therapeutic options. • The expanding range of targets and of radiotheranostics benefit patients with BrM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the biggest concerns in the area of public health is caused by human intestinal parasites, which are found largely in tropical countries. The diagnosis of these parasitic diseases is done through physiological symptoms and fecal examination. Often, few professionals are available and able to perform this type of examination, which is considered time-consuming, requires trained personnel, prone to errors, and can cause eye strain in the specialist. In this paper, we investigate the use of the faster R-CNN object detection method to identify eggs of Schistosoma mansoni, forming a system to aid decision making in the diagnosis of fecal examination. A real database was built with 66 images prepared by the Kato–Katz method. Online and offline data augmentation techniques were used to obtain a larger number of samples. As a result, the proposed solution reached an average precision value of 0.765 for an IoU (intersection over union) of 0.50. The results and applicability of the system are promising and may be used in public health programs to assist health professionals in the diagnosis and monitoring of schistosomiasis in endemic areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international arbitrators' service market is diverse, with arbitrators operating out of different structures, varying from multinational law firms to small arbitral boutiques. Yet, despite this heterogeneity, this market is dominated by individuals in the sense that legal persons are rarely, if ever, selected to act as arbitrators directly. Albeit the idea that an arbitrator must be a natural person appears to be deeply ingrained in the dominant understandings of arbitration, this is, in fact, an exception to the way knowledge-intensive services are usually provided. This brings to the forefront a largely unexplored topic: why legal entities are not selected as arbitrators. Through a survey of 60 jurisdictions, we explore to what extent may legal persons be appointed to act as arbitrators and conclude that stand-alone legal reasons do not fully explicate this state of affairs. Against this background, we advance a further set of explanations for relating to conflict of interest rules, insulation from civil liability, as well as the peculiar price formation and power competition dynamics within the arbitration market. Culturally and socially shaped expectations on how arbitrations should be managed play a role too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leachate generation contains a variety of toxic compounds, and is a major problem for municipal solid waste (MSW). Microbial profile knowledge is essential to new alternatives and improvements in current treatments of these effluents. In this respect, the microbial community in the leachate from the sanitary landfill of the city of Foz do Iguaçu was analyzed. The 16S rDNA metabarcoding suggested the dominance of fermenting bacteria belonging to Firmicutes phylum, followed by Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Synergistetes. The most abundant genera were Sedimentibacter, Vulcanibacillus, and Anaerovorax. However, 60% of amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) were not classified taxonomically. In addition, an expressive abundance was attributed to the superphylum known as PVC group, little studied and with unknown scientific potential. The leachate acidogenic phase was masked in the chemical and physical analyzes. Nevertheless, it was evidenced in the metabarcoding methodology. No specifically methanogenic group was detected in significant abundance. Therefore, from bacterial community identification, a bioremediation process can be designed. Enriched culture media can be developed and targeted to the recovery of specific groups which may be involved in leachate biodegradation. What is more, the results expand the knowledge of bacterial diversity, especially from the presence of unknown genera in this habitat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing trend to split problems into separate subproblems and develop separate models for each (e.g., different churn models for separate customer segments; different failure prediction models for separate university courses, etc.). While it may lead to better predictive models, the use of multiple models makes interpretability more challenging. In this paper, we address the problem of synthesizing the knowledge contained in a set of models without a significant loss of prediction performance. We focus on decision tree models because their interpretability makes them suitable for problems involving knowledge extraction. We detail the process, identifying alternative methods to address the different phases involved. An extensive set of experiments is carried out on the problem of predicting the failure of students in courses at the University of Porto. We assess the effect of using different methods for the operations of the methodology, both in terms of the knowledge extracted as well as the accuracy of the combined models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding adolescent decision-making is significant for informing basic models of neurodevelopment as well as for the domains of public health and criminal justice. System-based theories posit that adolescent decision-making is guided by activity related to reward and control processes. While successful at explaining behavior, system-based theories have received inconsistent support at the neural level, perhaps because of methodological limitations. Here, we used two complementary approaches to overcome said limitations and rigorously evaluate system-based models. Using decision-level modeling of fMRI data from a risk-taking task in a sample of 20001 decisions across 51 human adolescents (25 females, mean age = 15.00 years), we find support for system-based theories of decision-making. Neural activity in lateral PFC and a multivariate pattern of cognitive control both predicted a reduced likelihood of risk-taking, whereas increased activity in the NAcc predicted a greater likelihood of risk-taking. Interactions between decision-level brain activity and age were not observed. These results garner support for system-based accounts of adolescent decision-making behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gas fermentation is a promising way to convert CO-rich gases to chemicals. We studied the use of synthetic cocultures composed of carboxydotrophic and propionigenic bacteria to convert CO to propionate. So far, isolated carboxydotrophs cannot directly ferment CO to propionate, and therefore, this cocultivation approach was investigated. Four distinct synthetic cocultures were constructed, consisting of Acetobacterium wieringae (DSM 1911T) and Pelobacter propionicus (DSM 2379T), Ac. wieringae (DSM 1911T) and Anaerotignum neopropionicum (DSM 3847T), Ac. wieringae strain JM and P. propionicus (DSM 2379T), and Ac. wieringae strain JM and An. neopropionicum (DSM 3847T). Propionate was produced by all the cocultures, with the highest titer (;24mM) being measured in the coculture composed of Ac. wieringae strain JM and An. neopropionicum, which also produced isovalerate (;4mM), butyrate (;1mM), and isobutyrate (0.3mM). This coculture was further studied using proteogenomics. As expected, enzymes involved in the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway in Ac. wieringae strain JM, which are responsible for the conversion of CO to ethanol and acetate, were detected; the proteome of An. neopropionicum confirmed the conversion of ethanol to propionate via the acrylate pathway. In addition, proteins related to amino acid metabolism and stress response were highly abundant during cocultivation, which raises the hypothesis that amino acids are exchanged by the two microorganisms, accompanied by isovalerate and isobutyrate production. This highlights the importance of explicitly looking at fortuitous microbial interactions during cocultivation to fully understand coculture behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the phase diagram for strongly interacting matter using the 't Hooft determinant extended Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model with a Polyakov loop in the light and strange quark sectors (up, down and strange) focusing on the effect of a magnetic field dependence of the coupling strengths of these interactions. This dependence was obtained so as to reproduce recent lattice QCD results for the magnetic field dependence of the quarks dynamical masses. A finite magnetic field is known to induce several additional first-order phase transition lines with the respective Critical End Points (CEP) in the temperature-quark chemical potential phase diagram when compared to the zero magnetic field case. A study of the magnetic field dependence in the range eB = 0–0.6 GeV 2 of the location of these CEPs reveals that the initial one as well as several of the new ones only survive up to a critical magnetic field. Only two remain in the upper limit of the studied magnetic field strength. A comparison of the results obtained with versions of the model with and without Polyakov loop is also done. We also found that the inclusion of the magnetic field dependence on the coupling strengths, while not changing the qualitative features of the phase diagram, affects the location of these CEPs. The comparison of results with and without a regularization cutoff in the medium part of the integrals does not show a significant change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Multiple reactor approach contributes to reduce the decommissioning costs. • Possible lack of funds occurs for the oldest nuclear plant. • For the newest plant, lack of funds occurs only in case of a very brief operation time. • Plant insurance is an important reserve to cost the decommissioning project in case of a premature shut down. In the next future, several nuclear power plants would reach the end of operational life. Most of them are being evaluated for long-term operation, while the remaining should be permanently shut down. For these ones, it should exist a decommissioning fund large enough to cost the project. Since some plants delay to start to collect provisions for the decommissioning fund, there is an elevated risk of lack of funds. The present work aims to evaluate the evolution of the decommissioning fund and when, or if, the lack of funds occurs considering a hypothetical multiple reactor site. The Brazilian site was taken as benchmark for this hypothetical site. Scenarios addressing normal operation, long-term operation and premature shutdown were evaluated. The decommissioning costs were estimated according to the multiple reactor approach. The novelty of the present work relies on the evaluation of the adequacy of decommissioning fund against the cost estimation performed. It was found that the lack of funds occurs in some scenarios evaluated for the oldest plant and when it could not operate in the long term, as well as, for the newest plant, if required to shut it down prematurely after a very brief operating time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a solution to monitor the location of humans during their activity in the agriculture sector with the aim to boost productivity and efficiency is provided. Our solution is based on map-matching methods, that are used to track the path spanned by a worker along a specific activity in an agriculture culture. Two different cultures are taken into consideration in this study — olives and vines. We leverage the symmetry of the geometry of these cultures into our solution and divide the problem three-fold — initially, we estimate a path of a worker along the fields, then we apply the map-matching to such path and finally, a post-processing method is applied to ensure local continuity of the sequence obtained from map-matching. The proposed methods are experimentally evaluated using synthetic and real data in the region of Mirandela, Portugal. Evaluation metrics show that results for synthetic data are robust under several sampling periods, while for real-world data, results for the vine culture are on par with synthetic, and for the olive culture performance is reduced. [Display omitted] • Path-finding methods proposal for topology estimation on agriculture fields. • Post-processing methods proposal to ensure continuity from map-matching algorithms. • Proposed methods improve against baselines on olive and vine culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intestinal schistosomiasis is a chronic and debilitating disease that affects public health systems worldwide. Control interventions to reduce morbidity primarily involve the diagnosis and treatment of infected individuals. However, the recommended Kato-Katz (KK) parasitological method shows low sensitivity in individuals with low parasite loads and is not useful for monitoring elimination of parasite transmission at later stages. In the current study, we evaluated the accuracy of serum reactivity levels of different immunoglobulin isotypes in an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), utilizing Schistosoma mansoni crude extracts, with the aim to improve the diagnosis of infected individuals with low parasite loads. The serum reactivity of IgM and IgG subclass antibodies (IgG1, IgG3, and IgG4) against soluble adult worm and egg antigen preparations was evaluated in residents from a schistosomiasis-endemic area in northern Minas Gerais, Brazil. The parasitological status of the study population was determined through fecal examination with multiple parasitological tests to create a consolidated reference standard (CRS) plus a fecal DNA detection test (q-PCR). Twelve months after praziquantel treatment, a second serum sample was obtained from the population for reexamination. A two-graph receiver operating characteristic curve (TG-ROC) analysis was performed using the serum reactivity of non-infected endemic controls and egg-positive individuals, and the cut-off value was established based on the intersection point of the sensibility and specificity curves in TG-ROC analyses. The diagnostic accuracy of each serological test was evaluated in relation to the parasitological CRS and to the combination of CRS plus qPCR results. The data revealed that serum reactivity of IgM and IgG3 against S. mansoni antigens did not allow identification of infected individuals from the endemic area. In contrast, serum IgG1 and IgG4-reactivity against schistosome antigens could distinguish between infected and non-infected individuals, with AUC values ranging between 0.728–0.925. The reactivity of IgG4 anti-soluble egg antigen - SEA (sensitivity 79 %, specificity 69 %, kappa = 0.49) had the best diagnostic accuracy, showing positive reactivity in more than 75 % of the infected individuals who eliminated less than 12 eggs per gram of feces. Moreover, serum IgG4 reactivity against SEA and against soluble worm antigen preparation (SWAP) was significantly reduced in the serum of infected individuals after 12 months of confirmed parasitological cure and in the absence of re-infection. These results reinforce that the described IgG4 anti-SEA ELISA assay is a sensitive alternative for the diagnosis of active intestinal schistosomiasis in individuals from endemic areas, including in those with a very low parasite load. • Serum reactivity of IgM and IgG3 to S. mansoni extract had no diagnostic value in endemic area. • Serum IgG1 and IgG4 antibodies were reactive against S. mansoni extract in most of the low-burden infected individuals. • Serology-based IgG1 reactivity showed improved sensitivity, but lower specificity to diagnose schistosomiasis. • Serology-based IgG4 reactivity against SEA antigens showed the best diagnostic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) is a widely used in the neurobehavioral assessment of neonates in clinical practice and research. Lester's data reduction system for the NBAS items is the most often used in research, but the few factor analytic studies carried out with it leave gaps in its validation. The current study aimed to test and compare (a) the factorial structure of the Lester's data reduction system for the NBAS and (b) an alternative data reduction system, slightly modified from Lester's system. The NBAS was administered to 196 healthy Portuguese full-term infants (51% male) in the first 72 h of life (M = 43.63 h). Construct validity of the data reduction systems was tested through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Lester's original system was compared to three alternative models, two of which included a revision of the scoring rules for three items and the exclusion of five items. The CFA generally supported the six-factor structure. However, fit indices for Lester's original model were only fair. An alternative, revised model with a second-order factor - Self-Organizing System - demonstrated a better fit. The results provide evidence to support a modified form of Lester's six behavioral clusters as a data reduction model for the NBAS items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), I.P., has been actively participating in the implementation of actions and measures aimed at the transition to research practices based on Open Science principles. In this context, on 5 May 2014, FCT adopted a set of recommendations regarding the management and sharing of the data resulting from the research it funds, based on the application of Open Science principles in several FCT funding instruments. Recently, considering the evolution of scientific research methods, of Open Science policies and of data management and sharing practices at a global level, FCT considered important to present a policy with established principles and requirements to be met by the beneficiaries of its funding. This communication aims to present the analysis, foundations and performed work, with the objective of framing the FCT data management and sharing policy in the current state of the art, as well as the respective adoption, implementation and operationalization plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In February 2021, the Foundation for Science and Technology of Portugal (FCT) announced its decision to adopt Plan S. Plan S aims to ensure that from 2021 onwards, all scholarly publications on the results from research funded by public or private grants must be published in Open Access journals or platforms, and/or made immediately available through open access repositories without embargo and with copyright retention. Compliance with Plan S can be achieved via three different routes: publication in an Open Access journal or platform, publication in a closed venue with the manuscript deposit made immediately openly available in a repository, or publication under the umbrella of a transformative agreement. Plan S also follows ten fundamental principles, which imply multiple challenges to the funders, but also to authors and their institutions. These challenges equate to, in some cases, to complete changes in paradigm. With adequate and well-articulated measures, the authors believe that the adoption of Plan S by FCT will result in a better projection of the funded research work. Ultimately, this will lead, in the long run, to a better return on investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated daily associations between helping behaviors and emotional well‐being during late adolescence, examining whether these links depend on the recipient of help (i.e., friend vs. roommate), type of help (i.e., instrumental vs. emotional), and individual differences in the helper (i.e., gender and empathy). First‐year college students (N = 411, 63.5% women, Mage = 18.62 years) completed diary checklists for eight days, reporting whether they provided instrumental and emotional support to a friend or roommate, and positive and negative emotions. On days that adolescents provided instrumental assistance to friends they felt more positive affect, but men also felt more negative affect. Providing instrumental and emotional support to roommates and providing emotional support to friends did not predict daily emotions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We conducted a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and propensity score (PS) studies comparing survival and major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCEs) of patients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) with multiple (MAG) versus single arterial grafting (SAG). MEDLINE, Web of Science and Cochrane Library were used to find relevant literature (1960–2018). Survival at a follow-up ≥1 year, MACCEs and early outcomes were evaluated. Time-to-event outcomes were collected through hazard ratio (HR) along with their variance, and the other endpoints using frequencies from matched sample or adjusted odds ratios. Random effect models were used to compute combined statistical measures and 95% confidence intervals (CI) through generic inverse variance method (time-to-event) or Mantel-Haenszel method (binary events). Twenty-nine PS cohorts and 8 RCTs comprising 122,832 patients (52,178 MAG and 70,654 SAG) were included in this meta-analysis. MAG was associated with lower early mortality (OR: 0.82, 95%CI: 0.71–0.95, p =.007), long-term mortality (HR: 0.76, 95%CI: 0.73–0.78, p <.001) and MACCEs (HR: 0.85, 95%CI: 0.79–0.91, p <.001). Increased risk of sternal wound complications (SWC) was only observed when the bilateral internal mammary artery configuration was used for MAG (OR MAG BIMA: 1.96, 95%CI: 1.37–2.81, p <.001). Although the BIMA configuration increases the risk of SWC, MAG improves both early and long-term survival as well as MACCEs in CABG. Unlabelled Image • This meta-analysis suggests a benefit of MAG vs. SAG in long-term survival and MACCEs. • BIMA configuration in MAG associates with higher risk of sternal complications. • Powered RCTs are needed to settle MAG vs. SAG issue which ROMA trial aims to address. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the identification problem of acoustic parameters in the frequency domain is examined by means of a topology optimization (TO) approach. Data measured by acoustic receivers are collected from synthetic models and used as a reference in the optimization problem which aims at estimating the acoustic media properties that minimize a least-squares cost functional. A two-step optimization procedure is proposed to deal with multi-phase acoustic media problems by using linear and peak function material interpolation schemes. The idea is to use features from the multi-material topology optimization to reconstruct acoustic models with an increased level of sharpness. From the first step with linear interpolation, phase candidates are defined by a curve fitting process considering the summation of Gaussian curves and, therefore, this solution is used to create the peak material model for the second step. Thus, a multi-material model that is usually applied to design problems with predefined material candidates can be also used to solve this identification problem without prior knowledge of the exact properties of the model to be reconstructed. The optimization problem is solved by using a BFGS algorithm while the Levenberg-Marquardt Algorithm (LMA) is used to solve the least-squares curve-fitting problem. The proposed approach is analyzed through 2D numerical examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans make decisions across a variety of social contexts. Though social decision-making research has blossomed in recent decades, surprisingly little is known about whether social decision-making preferences are consistent across different domains. We conducted an exploratory study in which participants made choices about 2 types of close others: parents and friends. To elicit decision making preferences, we pit the interests in parents and friends against one another. To assess the consistency of preferences for close others, decision making was assessed in three domains—risk taking, probabilistic learning, and self–other similarity judgments. We reasoned that if social decision-making preferences are consistent across domains, participants ought to exhibit the same preference in all three domains (i.e., a parent preference, based on prior work), and individual differences in preference magnitude ought to be conserved across domains within individuals. A combination of computational modeling, random coefficient regression, and traditional statistical tests revealed a robust parent-over-friend preference in the risk taking and probabilistic learning domains but not the self–other similarity domain. Preferences for parent-over-friend in the risk-taking domain were strongly associated with similar preferences in the probabilistic learning domain but not the self-other similarity domain. These results suggest that distinct and dissociable value-based and social–cognitive computations underlie social decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, a number of ontology-driven healthcare systems have been leveraged by the Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies that offer opportunities to improve abnormal situation detection when integrating medical wearables and cloud infrastructure. Usually, these systems rely on standardised IoT ontologies to represent sensor data observations. The ETSI Smart Applications REFerence ontology (SAREF) is an extensible industry-oriented standard. In this paper, we explain the need for interoperability of IoT healthcare applications and the role of standardised ontologies to achieve semantic interoperability. In particular, we discuss the verbosity problem of SAREF when used for real-time electrocardiography (ECG), emphasizing the requirement of representing time series. We compared the main ontologies in this context, according to quality, message size (payload), IoT-orientation and standardisation. Here we describe the first attempt to extend SAREF for specific e-Health use cases related to ECG data, the SAREF4health extension, which tackles the verbosity problem. Ontology-driven conceptual modelling was applied to develop SAREF4health, in which an ECG ontology grounded in the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO), which plays the role of a reference model. The methodology was enhanced by following a standardisation procedure and considering the RDF implementation of the HL7 Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standard. The validation of SAREF4health includes the responses to competency questions, as well as the development and tests of an IoT Early Warning System prototype that uses ECG data and collision identification to detect accidents with truck drivers in a port area. This prototype integrates an existing ECG wearable with a cloud infrastructure, demonstrating the performance impact of SAREF4health considering IoT constraints. Our results show that SAREF4health enables the semantic interoperability of IoT solutions that need to deal with frequency-based time series. Design decisions regarding the trade-off between ontology quality and aggregation representation are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Female representation has been slowly but steadily increasing in many sectors of society. One sector where one would expect to see gender parity is the movie industry, yet the representation of females in most functions within the U.S. movie industry remain surprisingly low. Here, we study the historical patterns of female representation among actors, directors, and producers in an attempt to gain insights into the possible causes of the lack of gender parity in the industry. Our analyses reveals a remarkable temporal coincidence between the collapse in female representation across all functions and the advent of the Studio System, a period when the major Hollywood studios controlled all aspects of the industry. Female representation among actors, directors, producers and writers dropped to extraordinarily low values during the emergence and consolidation of the Studio System that in some cases have not yet recovered to pre-Studio System levels. In order to explore some possible mechanisms behind these patterns, we investigate the association between the gender balance of actors, writers, directors, and producers and a number of economic indicators, movie industry indicators, and movie characteristics. We find robust, strong, and significant associations which are consistent with an important role for the gender of decision makers on the gender balance of other industry functions. While in no way demonstrating causality, our findings add new perspectives to the discussions of the reasons for female under-representation in fields such as computer science and medicine, that have also experienced dramatic changes in female representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neuroscientists who have studied bullying have primarily focused on the psychopathology of diagnosable offenders or the resulting symptomatology of victimization. Less attention has been given to theories that suggest that bullying may be an interpersonal strategy. In an exploratory study, we recruited a sample of adolescents (N = 24) who engaged in high rates of delinquent behavior and collected self-report ratings of bullying behaviors. During an fMRI scan, adolescents observed instances of social exclusion and social inclusion. The adolescents' self-reported bullying was associated with greater ventral striatum, amygdala, medial prefrontal cortex, and insula activation when viewing social exclusion > social inclusion. Activation in these regions is commonly associated with reward-learning, salience monitoring, and motivational processes, suggesting that bullies show altered processing of interpersonal cues and social dynamic experiences in their environment. Our findings highlight the need for developmental neuroscientists to further explore the role of social motivation in processing socio-affective information, with a particular focus on goal-directed antisocial behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extent to which individuals are inclined to judge unfamiliar others as trustworthy can have important implications for social functioning. Using multivariate pattern analysis, a neural phenotype of trust bias was identified in 48 human adolescents (ages 14–18 years, 26 female). Adolescents who exhibited more similar brain response to faces at the extremes of a trustworthy gradient were more likely to rate neutral faces as trustworthy. This relation between neural pattern representation and trust bias was evinced in the amygdala. Amygdala–insula connectivity dissimilarity to faces at the extremes of the trustworthy gradient was associated with greater trust bias to neutral faces, serving as a distinct circuit-level contributor to decision-making over and above of amygdala pattern similarity. These findings aid understanding of neural mechanisms contributing to individual differences in social evaluations of ambiguity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work we present some validation results for reactor core modeling with the Serpent code performed for the first cycle of the AP1000 reactor. The comparison with reported values of the assembly k ∞ for cold zero-power condition showed a discrepancy of 0.29%. The k ef for full-core static and burnup calculations of the very heterogeneous AP1000 reactor core also presented good agreement with reported values. The k ef for states with uniform fuel and moderator temperature distributions showed discrepancies below 0.91%. The boron worth curve obtained from burnup calculations with the Serpent code model results reproduced very well literature results despite using uniform temperature distributions in the modeling. In addition we discuss shadowing effects among burnable absorber rods (IFBA and Pyrex) and control rods which are, together with soluble boron, the control means throughout the first cycle. For instance, the presence of 9 Pyrex rods in an assembly decreased the average reactivity worth of one IFBA rod from 147 pcm to 33 pcm; and the presence of 28 IFBA rods in an assembly decreased the average reactivity worth of one Pyrex rod from 631 pcm to 277 pcm. The reactivity worth of a black control rod reduces about 20% when 28 IFBA rods are inserted in the fuel assembly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adolescence has been noted as a period of increased risk taking. The literature on normative neurodevelopment implicates aberrant activation of affective and regulatory regions as key to inhibitory failures. However, many of these studies have not included adolescents engaging in high rates of risky behavior, making generalizations to the most at-risk populations potentially problematic. We conducted a comparative study of nondelinquent community (n  = 24, mean age = 15.8 years, 12 female) and delinquent adolescents (n  = 24, mean age = 16.2 years, 12 female) who completed a cognitive control task during functional magnetic resonance imaging, where behavioral inhibition was assessed in the presence of appetitive and aversive socioaffective cues. Community adolescents showed poorer behavioral regulation to appetitive relative to aversive cues, whereas the delinquent sample showed the opposite pattern. Recruitment of the inferior frontal gyrus, medial prefrontal cortex, and tempoparietal junction differentiated community and high-risk adolescents, as delinquent adolescents showed significantly greater recruitment when inhibiting their responses in the presence of aversive cues, while the community sample showed greater recruitment when inhibiting their responses in the presence of appetitive cues. Accounting for behavioral history may be key in understanding when adolescents will have regulatory difficulties, highlighting a need for comparative research into normative and nonnormative risk-taking trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purinergic system includes P1 and P2 receptors, which are activated by ATP and its metabolites. They are expressed in adult neuronal and glial cells and are crucial in brain function, including neuromodulation and neuronal signaling. As P1 and P2 receptors are expressed throughout embryogenesis and development, purinergic signaling also has an important role in the development of the peripheral and central nervous system. In this review, we present the expression pattern and activity of purinergic receptors and of their signaling pathways during embryonic and postnatal development of the nervous system. In particular, we review the involvement of the purinergic signaling in all the crucial steps of brain development i.e. in neural stem cell proliferation, neuronal differentiation and migration as well as in astrogliogenesis and oligodendrogenesis. Then, we review data showing a crucial role of the ATP and adenosine signaling pathways in the formation of the peripheral neuromuscular junction and of central GABAergic and glutamatergic synapses. Finally, we examine the consequences of deregulation of the purinergic system during development and discuss the therapeutic potential of targeting it at adult stage in diseases with reactivation of the ATP and adenosine pathway. This article is part of the Special Issue on "Purinergic Signaling: 50 years". • Expression of P1 and P2 purinergic receptors during development is timely. • Involvement of purinergic signaling in neurogenesis and neuronal development. • Key role in synaptogenesis in the peripheral and central nervous system. • Deregulation in neurodevelopmental disorders and neurodegeneration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tendency to interpret ambiguous stimuli as threatening has been associated with a range of anxiety disorders. Responses to ambiguity may be particularly relevant to mental health during the transition from adolescence to adulthood ("emerging adulthood"), when individuals encounter unfamiliar challenges and navigate novel social situations. However, it remains unclear whether neural representations of ambiguity relate to risk for anxiety. The present study sought to examine whether multivariate representations of ambiguity — and their similarity to representations of threat — relate to appraisals of ambiguity or anxiety in a sample of emerging adults. Participants (N = 41) viewed threatening (angry), nonthreatening (happy), and ambiguous (surprised) facial stimuli while undergoing fMRI. Outside of the scanner, participants were presented with the same stimuli and categorized the ambiguous faces as positive or negative. Using representational similarity analyses (RSA), we investigated whether the degree of pattern similarity in responses to ambiguous, nonthreatening, and threatening faces within the amygdala related to appraisals of ambiguous stimuli and anxiety symptomatology. We found that individuals who evidenced greater similarity (i.e., less differentiation) in neural representations of ambiguous and nonthreatening faces within the left amygdala reported lower concurrent anxiety. Additionally, trial-level pattern similarity predicted subsequent appraisals of ambiguous stimuli. These findings provide insight into how neural representations of ambiguity relate to risk or resilience for the development of anxiety. • Emerging adults with greater ambiguity tolerance report lower anxiety. • Anxiety relates to amygdala pattern similarity between ambiguous and valenced cues. • Trial-level pattern similarity predicts later appraisals of ambiguous stimuli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PTCRIS (Portuguese Current Research Information System) is a program aiming at the creation and sustained development of a national integrated information ecosystem, to support research management according to the best international standards and practices. The PTCRIS ecosystem has several system types: CV, researchers and organisations management, project management, grant management and, also the systems for managing the outputs and outcomes of science, where The Scientific Open Access Repository of Portugal (RCAAP) is an important piece. RCAAP, has as main mission to promote, support and facilitate the adoption of the open access movement in scientific knowledge in Portugal through an organized repository's network. System integration for each one of the system type's referred in the PTCRIS ecosystem, passes by the adoption of a set of standards that we designate PTCRIS normative framework and it's aligned with international reference standards. One of the standards issued in this framework is the unique identifiers, particularly the researcher's unique identifiers. Following the best international practices, PTCRIS has selected ORCID for this purpose. ORCID is a non-profit organisation, community based and opened initiative. Besides supporting researcher's unique identifiers, it also make available services that, in the PTCRIS context, have the ability to ensure that one item is inserted once in the ecosystem. This paper describes the process of technical and functional requirements identification of RCAAP repositories for ORCID integration, a comparative analysis for each of the three DSpace platforms and the efforts made by RCAAP / PTCRIS teams along with the international community and other responsible entities (DuraSpace, ORCID and CINECA) to embrace the PTCRIS normative framework. As a result of these efforts, we can already affirm that one of DSpace variations will be fully compatible with PTCRIS defined requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The decommissioning of a nuclear power plant/site is a very complex process that is necessary to be performed at the end of its useful life to allow its release from regulatory control and a new use of the site by the society. Typically, a decommissioning project requires the management of several tasks and resources. In case of multiple reactors site, this management becomes harder since the interdependencies between each plant could influence the way that the tasks could be executed as well as its schedules. In literature is possible to find different kinds of tools for planning and management purposes, some of them specific for nuclear installations decommissioning projects. This is the case of tools based on the ISDC. However, these tools do not allow to consider rightly the interdependencies and previous learning. Notwithstanding, most part of existent tools/methods requires a large quantity of data/information to produce consistent results. However, this data often is unknown, requiring assumptions to justify some values, which enhances the uncertainties of the results. To overcome these difficulties, the present work will introduce a management tool and detail its mathematical model. This mathematical model aims to cost estimate the decommissioning cost for budget/bid purposes. The main differential of the model is that it requires a significantly less data compared with models available in literature. As part of the work objectives, a novel method for attribute values to the difficulty values and contingencies is presented. In addition, a validation simulation is presented as well as a sensibility analysis. The validation was performed considering a Brazilian nuclear power plant as case study, which had its decommissioning cost estimated in about US$761.7 million. The sensibility analysis indicates that is interesting to postpone the beginning of decommissioning some years after plant shutdown since it allows not only some radiological results but also a cost reduction. Highlights • Novel management tool, including a mathematical model, for decommissioning cost estimation. • Multiple reactor and plants interdependencies possible to be considered. • Novel method for Difficult Factors and Contingencies values attribution. • Tool validation and sensibility analysis agrees with budget/bid precision requirements using a reduced quantity of data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The capacity to regulate emotion and the tendency to are complementary aspects of effective emotion regulation. • Regulatory capacity is supported primarily by interactions between lateral prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. • Preliminary results suggest that regulatory tendency and regulatory capacity share partially overlapping neural bases. • Links between regulatory capacity and tendency may differ in accordance with developmental stage and psychopathology. Abstract It is widely accepted that the ability to effectively regulate one's emotions is a cornerstone of physical and mental health. As such, it should come as no surprise that the number of neuroimaging studies focused on emotion regulation and associated processes has increased exponentially in the past decade. To date, neuroimaging research on this topic has examined two distinct but complementary features of emotion regulation – the capacity to effectively utilize a strategy to regulate emotion and to a lesser extent, the tendency to choose to regulate. However, theoretical accounts of emotion regulation have only recently begun to distinguish capacity from tendency. In the present review, we provide a novel framework for conceptualizing these two intertwined, yet distinct, facets of emotion regulation. First we characterize brain regions that support emotion generation and are thus targeted by emotion regulation. Next, we synthesize findings from the dozens of neuroimaging studies that have examined emotion regulation capacity, focusing in particular on the most commonly studied emotion regulation strategy – reappraisal. Finally, we discuss emerging neuroimaging research examining state and trait regulatory tendencies. We conclude by integrating findings from neuroimaging research on emotion regulation capacity and tendency and suggest ways that this integrated model can inform basic and translational neuroscientific research on emotion regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the validation of the Code for Thermal-hydraulic Evaluation of Nuclear Reactors with Plate Type Fuels (COTENP), a subchannel code which performs steady-state thermal-hydraulic analysis of nuclear reactors with plate type fuel assemblies operating with the coolant at low pressure levels. The code is suitable for design analysis of research, test, and multipurpose reactors. To solve the conservation equations for mass, momentum, and energy, we adopt the subchannel and control volume methods based on fuel assembly geometric data and thermal-hydraulic conditions. We consider the chain or cascade method in two steps to facilitate the analysis of whole core. In the first step, we divide the core into channels with dimensions equivalent to that of the fuel assembly and identify the assembly with largest enthalpy rise as the hot assembly. In the second step, we divide the hot fuel assembly into subchannels with size equivalent to one actual coolant channel and similarly identify the hot subchannel. The code utilizes the homogenous equilibrium model for two-phase flow treatment and the balanced drop pressure approach for the flow rate determination. The code results include detailed information such as core pressure drop, mass flow rate distribution, coolant, cladding and centerline fuel temperatures, coolant quality, local heat flux, and results regarding onset of nucleate boiling and departure of nucleate boiling. To validate the COTENP code, we considered experimental data from the Brazilian IEA-R1 research reactor and calculated data from the Chinese CARR multipurpose reactor. The mean relative discrepancies for the coolant distribution were below 5%, for the coolant velocity were 1.5%, and for the pressure drop were below 10.7%. The latter discrepancy can be partially justified due to lack of information to adequately model the IEA-R1 experiment and CARR reactor. The results show that the COTENP code is sufficiently accurate to perform steady-state thermal-hydraulic design analyses for reactors with plate type fuel assemblies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the stability of three patterns of infant regulatory behavior identified in the face-to-face still-face (FFSF) paradigm at 3 and 9 months--social-positive oriented, distressedinconsolable, and self-comfort oriented--and whether variations in infants' heart-rate were correlated with them. Although some studies have examined the stability of discrete infant behaviors, none have investigated the stability of early regulatory patterns across FFSF episodes over time. Flealthy full-term infants and their mothers (N = 112) were videotaped in the FFSF when infants were 3 and 9 months old. Infants' regulatory patterns were scored with the Coding System for Regulatory Patterns in the FFSF. Infants' heart-rate level during each episode of the FFSF was also assessed. The social-positive-oriented pattern was the most prevalent at both ages. Cross-tabulation analysis showed a robust stability (Cohen's κ = .72) of the regulatory patterns from 3 to 9 months. The heart-rate level of infants with a social-positive-oriented pattern at 3 and 9 months showed recovery to baseline levels following the still-face. In contrast, the heart-rate level of infants with a distressed-inconsolable pattern at 9 months increased from the still-face to the reunion episode, whereas the heart-rate level of infants with a self-comfort-oriented pattern at 9 months did not change from the still-face to the reunion episodes. These results suggest that infants exhibit distinct organized regulatory patterns as early as 3 months that are stable over a 6-month interval and associated with variations in infants' physiological responses across FFSF episodes at both ages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young adulthood is a developmental phase when individuals must navigate a changing social milieu that involves considering how their decisions affect close others such as parents and peers. To date, no empirical work has directly evaluated how young adults weigh these relationships against one another. We conducted a preregistered experiment in which we pitted outcomes for parents against outcomes for friends. Participants (N = 174, ages 18–30 years) played two runs of the Columbia Card Task—one in which gains benefited a parent and losses were incurred by a friend and another in which the opposite was true. We also tested whether age, relationship quality, and reward type earned for parents and friends (simulated vs. real) acted as moderating influences on parent–friend prioritization. Results showed that individuals were more likely to make decisions that benefited a parent at the expense of a friend. Relationship quality and reward type moderated this effect, whereas age did not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Maternal presence has marked effects on adolescent neurocognition during risk taking, influencing teenagers to make safer decisions. However, it is currently unknown whether maternal buffering changes over the course of adolescence itself, and whether its effects are robust to individual differences in family relationship quality. In the current longitudinal study, 23 adolescents completed a risk‐taking task under maternal presence during an fMRI scan before and after the transition to high school. Behavioral results reveal that adolescent risk taking increased under maternal presence across a one‐year period. At the neural level, we found that adolescents reporting higher family conflict showed longitudinal increases in functional coupling between the anterior insula (AI) and ventral striatum (VS) when making safe decisions in the presence of their mother, which was associated with increased real‐world risk taking. These findings show that individual differences in family relationship quality undermine effective development of AI‐VS connectivity resulting in increased risk taking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Numerous studies have established that the social context greatly affects adolescent risk taking. However, it remains unexplored whether adolescents' decision‐making behaviors change when they take risks that affect other individuals such as a parent. In the current study, we sought to investigate how the social context influences risky decisions when adolescents' behavior affects their family using a formalized risk‐taking model. Sixty‐three early adolescents (Mage = 13.3 years; 51% female) played a risk‐taking task twice, once during which they could make risky choices that only affected themselves and another during which their risky choices only affected their parent. Results showed that adolescents reporting high family conflict made more risky decisions when taking risks for their parent compared to themselves, whereas adolescents reporting low family conflict made fewer risky decisions when taking risks for their parent compared to themselves. These findings are the first to show that adolescents change their decision‐making behaviors when their risks affect their family and have important implications for current theories of adolescent risk taking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The career of José Ferreira Marques is undoubtedly one of the most striking in the history of psychology in Portugal, particularly due to the role he played in the institutionalization of psychology in our education system, both in professional training through higher education and in the intervention of psychologists at all levels of schooling. Although much has been written about him in the context of the various tributes, these writings remained fragmentary and disconnected. It is this lack of an overall approach that the current article seeks to overcome. Precisely due to the special importance of his role at the institutional level, the life and career of José Ferreira Marques are closely linked to the evolution of Portuguese psychology in the second half of the 20th century. Given that the historiography of psychology in Portugal is scarce and equally disconnected, it became necessary to present in here not only a biographical sketch of Prof. Ferreira Marques, but also a historical background, in its antecedents and in the economic, social and political context, more extensive than would be necessary in other circumstances. This need had the additional advantage of highlighting the potential utility of the synthesis, in the historiography of psychology, between the perspective, currently so criticized, of the "great figure", and that of the "history of psychology in context". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adolescent decision-making is highly sensitive to input from the social environment. In particular, adult and maternal presence influence adolescents to make safer decisions when encountered with risky scenarios. However, it is currently unknown whether maternal presence confers a greater advantage than mere adult presence in buffering adolescent risk taking. In the current study, 23 adolescents completed a risk-taking task during an fMRI scan in the presence of their mother and an unknown adult. Results reveal that maternal presence elicits greater activation in reward-related neural circuits when making safe decisions but decreased activation following risky choices. Moreover, adolescents evidenced a more immature neural phenotype when making risky choices in the presence of an adult compared to mother, as evidenced by positive functional coupling between the ventral striatum and medial prefrontal cortex. Our results underscore the importance of maternal stimuli in bolstering adolescent decision-making in risky scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Increasing evidence supports a key role for inflammation in the neurodegenerative process of familial amyloidotic polyneuropathy (FAP). While there seems to be an overactivation of the neuronal interleukin-1 signaling pathway, the immune response is apparently compromised in FAP. Accordingly, little immune cell infiltration is observed around pre-fibrillar or fibrillar amyloid deposits, with the underlying mechanism for this phenomenon remaining poorly understood. Cathepsin E (CtsE) is an important intermediate for antigen presentation and chemotaxis, but its role in the pathogenesis of FAP disease remains unknown.Methods: In this study, we used both mouse primary macrophages and in vivo studies based on transgenic models of FAP and human samples to characterize CtsE expression in different physiological systems.Results: We show that CtsE is critically decreased in bone marrow-derived macrophages from a FAP mouse model, possibly contributing for cell function impairment. Compromised levels of CtsE were also found in injured nerves of transgenic mice and, most importantly, in naïve peripheral nerves, sensory ganglia, murine stomach, and sural nerve biopsies derived from FAP patients. Expression of CtsE in tissues was associated with transthyretin (TTR) deposition and differentially regulated accordingly with the physiological system under study. Preventing deposition with a TTR small interfering RNA rescued CtsE in the peripheral nervous system (PNS). In contrast, the expression of CtsE increased in splenic cells (mainly monocytes) or peritoneal macrophages, indicating a differential macrophage phenotype.Conclusion: Altogether, our data highlights the potential of CtsE as a novel FAP biomarker and a possible modulator for innate immune cell chemotaxis to the disease most affected tissues-the peripheral nerve and the gastrointestinal tract. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social groups aid human beings in several ways, ranging from the fulfillment of complex social and personal needs to the promotion of survival. Despite the importance of group affiliation to humans, there remains considerable variation in group preferences across development. In the current study, children and adolescents completed an explicit evaluation task of ingroup and out-group members during functional neuroimaging. We found that participants displayed age-related increases in bilateral amygdala, fusiformgyrus and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) activation when viewing in-group relative to out-group faces. Moreover, we found an indirect effect of age on in-group favoritism via brain activation in the amygdala, fusiform and OFC. Finally, with age, youth showed greater functional coupling between the amygdala and several neural regions when viewing in-group relative to out-group peers, suggesting a role of the amygdala in directing attention to motivationally relevant cues. Our findings suggest that the motivational significance and processing of group membership undergoes important changes across development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relative Age Effect (RAE) and Constituent Year Effect (CYE) seem to influence the process of training young tennis players. The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of these effects in the ranking of junior tennis players of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and its influence on the score obtained by such tennis players. The results show the presence of the RAE and the CYE (p = 0.05). The regression model identified that the variables "year" and "month" of birth predict the scores of athletes in the ITF ranking with an explained variance of 19%. In conclusion, the ranking composed of various age groups does not seem to be a classification strategy sensitive enough to prevent the RAE and the CYE among junior tennis players. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]