California State University, Long Beach

Isoreticular chemistry is among the most powerful strategies for designing novel materials with optimizable pore geometry and properties. Of great significance to the further advance of isoreticular chemistry is the development of broadly applicable new concepts capable of guiding and systematizing the ligand‐family expansion as well as establishing correlations between dissimilar and seemingly uncorrelated ligands for better predictive synthetic design and more insightful structure and property analysis. Here ligand circuit concept is proposed and its use has been demonstrated for the synthesis of a family of highly stable, high‐performance pore‐space‐partitioned materials based on an acyclic ligand, trans, trans‐muconic acid. This work represents a key step toward developing highly porous and highly stable pore‐space‐partitioned materials from acyclic ligands. The new materials exhibit excellent sorption properties such as high uptake capacity for CO2 (81.3 cm³ g⁻¹) and C2H2 (165.4 cm³ g⁻¹) by CPM‐7.3a‐NiV. CPM‐7.3a‐CoV shows C2H6‐selective C2H6/C2H4 separation properties and its high uptakes for C2H4 (134.0 cm³ g⁻¹) and C2H6 (148.0 cm³ g⁻¹) at 1 bar and 298 K contribute to the separation potential of 1.35 mmol g⁻¹. The multi‐cycle breakthrough experiment confirms the promising separation performance for C2H2/CO2.

Background The clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR-p) syndrome enables early identification of individuals at risk of schizophrenia and related disorders. We differentiate between the stigma associated with the at-risk identification itself (‘labelling-related’ stigma) versus stigma attributed to experiencing mental health symptoms (‘symptom-related’ stigma) and examine their relationships with key psychosocial variables. Aims We compare labelling- and symptom-related stigma in rates of endorsement and associations with self-esteem, social support loss and quality of life. Method We assessed stigma domains of shame-related emotions, secrecy and experienced discrimination for both types of stigma. Individuals at CHR-p were recruited across three sites ( N = 150); primary analyses included those who endorsed awareness of psychosis risk ( n = 113). Paired-sample t -tests examined differences in labelling- versus symptom-related stigma; regressions examined associations with psychosocial variables, controlling for covariates, including CHR-p symptoms. Results Respondents reported greater symptom-related shame, but more labelling-related secrecy. Of the nine significant associations between stigma and psychosocial variables, eight were attributable to symptom-related stigma, even after adjusting for CHR-p symptoms. Conclusions Stigma attributed to symptoms had a stronger negative association with psychosocial variables than did labelling-related stigma among individuals recently identified as CHR-p. That secrecy related to the CHR-p designation was greater than its symptom-related counterpart suggests that labelling-related stigma may still be problematic for some CHR-p participants. To optimise this pivotal early intervention effort, interventions should address the holistic ‘stigmatising experience’ of having symptoms, namely any harmful reactions received as well as participants’ socially influenced concerns about what their experiences mean, in addition to the symptoms themselves.

Using data from a geopolitical forecasting tournament, Mellers et al. (2014) [Psychological strategies for winning a geopolitical forecasting tournament. Psychological Science, 25, 1106–1115] concluded that forecasting ability was improved by allowing participants to work in teams and providing them with probability training. Here, we reevaluated Mellers et al.’s conclusions using an item response theory framework that models latent ability from forecasting choices. We found that the relationship between latent ability estimates and forecast accuracy differed from the interpretation of the original findings once key extraneous variables were statistically controlled. The best fit models across the first 2 years of the tournament included one or more extraneous variables that substantially eliminated, reduced, and, in some cases, even reversed the effects of the experimental manipulations of teaming and training on latent forecasting ability. We also show that latent traits associated with strategic responding can discriminate between superforecasters and non-superforecasters, making it difficult to identify the latent factors that underlie the superforecasters’ superior performance.

In many scientific fields, sparseness and indirectness of empirical evidence pose fundamental challenges to theory development. Theories of the evolution of human cognition provide a guiding example, where the targets of study are evolutionary processes that occurred in the ancestors of present-day humans. In many cases, the evidence is both very sparse and very indirect (e.g., archaeological findings regarding anatomical changes that might be related to the evolution of language capabilities); in other cases, the evidence is less sparse but still very indirect (e.g., data on cultural transmission in groups of contemporary humans and non-human primates). From examples of theoretical and empirical work in this domain, we distill five virtuous practices that scientists could aim to satisfy when evidence is sparse or indirect: (i) making assumptions explicit, (ii) making alternative theories explicit, (iii) pursuing computational and formal modelling, (iv) seeking external consistency with theories of related phenomena, and (v) triangulating across different forms and sources of evidence. Thus, rather than inhibiting theory development, sparseness or indirectness of evidence can catalyze it. To the extent that there are continua of sparseness and indirectness that vary across domains and that the principles identified here always apply to some degree, the solutions and advantages proposed here may generalise to other scientific domains.

The Transformers architecture has recently emerged as a revolutionary paradigm in the field of deep learning, particularly excelling in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Computer Vision (CV) applications. Despite its success, the security implications of Transformers have not been comprehensively explored, encompassing a broad spectrum of both hardware and software vulnerabilities. This paper aims to address this critical gap by conducting an extensive exploration of security challenges confronting Transformers from both software and hardware perspectives. While software-related concerns like adversarial attacks, private inference, and watermarking have been studied, the paper sheds light on previously underexplored hardware vulnerabilities such as trojans and side-channel attacks. By unraveling the intricacies of these hardware threats, the study aims to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of Transformer security. It presents an in-depth analysis of recent advancements in the security of Transformers. Additionally, it outlines existing challenges and forecasts future research trends, offering insights for researchers and practitioners aiming for the secure and resilient design and deployment of Transformers. The survey categorizes different attacks and defenses related to Transformers, helping researchers identify gaps and opportunities in this area. Furthermore, it defines a roadmap for a unified security framework, serving as a foundational starting point for developers seeking to implement robust security measures.

Many parents are the primary caregivers for their adult children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). But who do parents of adult children with IDD turn to for help? For this study, 518 parents of adult children with IDD completed a national online survey. We examined the social support networks of parents of adults with IDD, including members of their support networks and satisfaction with network members. Findings indicate that parents of adults with IDD have few types of supporters within their support networks. Parents reported varying levels of satisfaction with support received from network members, though they were most highly satisfied with support received from their child’s other parent. The strongest correlates of network variety (having more types of supporters within parents’ social network) were greater satisfaction with spousal support and larger household incomes. The strongest correlates of parent satisfaction with their social support network included parents who were in better physical health, identifying as Black, having more friends with disabilities, and having more supporters in their social support network. Our findings highlight the significant role that positive spousal relationships play in the social support networks of parents of adult children with IDD and underscore the need to strengthen the social support networks of families of adults with IDD, particularly those from marginalized groups.

Modeling the impact of police crackdowns on criminal networks is a complex problem. A single strategy can indeed have very different results depending on the setting, and the targeted criminal networks. When evaluating police crackdowns that seek to disrupt the cohesion of criminal networks, and in turn their level of activity, some research has found evidence that deterrence of some actors led to a lower cohesion in the network, and lower criminal activities. Alternatively, there is also evidence that police crackdowns could increase the cohesion of criminal networks by stimulating the sense of belonging and loyalty of network actors to the group and reinforce the opposition to the police. These opposing conclusions form the cohesion/identity continuum that explains the impact of law enforcement operations on the cohesion, and level of activities of criminal networks. The aim of this research is to understand how the characteristics of online criminal networks may impact the cohension/identity, and the police strategies used to disrupt criminal activities. Our results show that, while market activity appears to decrease after police interventions, their impact on market cohesion is small. Our results raise questions about the existence of online communities and of online criminal social identity in the context of darknet drug dealing. It is indeed possible that the anonymity, uncertainty and low levels of generalized trust associated with the darknet hinder its capacity to foster high cohesion and social identification between users in ways similar to physical drug networks.

Purpose This study aims to investigate gender differences in tobacco quit rates and weight gain among employees undergoing a cessation program with a health and wellness coach. Design This project was a retrospective observational study of an employee population. Setting All data were collected during health coaching sessions by nationally certified health coaches. Subjects 211 men and women (116 males, 95 females, age 51.3 ± 9.9 years) enrolled in a Tobacco cessation health coaching program (TCHC) between January 2020 and December 2021. Measures Data were compared between genders for quit rate, weight, body mass index (BMI), and nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) usage across 12-month follow-ups. Analysis Descriptive statistics, repeated measures ANOVA, and independent samples t-test. Results Significantly more men than women successfully quit by the goal date set with their coach ( P < 0.05). There was a significant reduction in tobacco use across 12 months, leading to the participant’s quit date ( P < 0.001). Women (Weight lost ± SD= 1.49 lbs. ±16.06 lbs.) lost significantly more weight than men (0.7 lbs. ± 8.5 lbs.; P < 0.001). NRT users lost significantly more weight than non-users ( P = .007). Conclusion Health and wellness coaching was effective for participants to successfully stop tobacco use while in this program by their quit date. The coaching program also elicited weight loss while achieving smoking cessation for both men and women.

We propose a novel regression tree method named “TreeFuL,” an abbreviation for ‘Tree with Fused Leaves.’ TreeFuL innovatively combines recursive partitioning with fused regularization, offering a distinct approach to the conventional pruning method. One of TreeFuL's noteworthy advantages is its capacity for cross‐validated amalgamation of non‐neighboring terminal nodes. This is facilitated by a leaf coloring scheme that supports tree shearing and node amalgamation. As a result, TreeFuL facilitates the development of more parsimonious tree models without compromising predictive accuracy. The refined model offers enhanced interpretability, making it particularly well‐suited for biomedical applications of decision trees, such as disease diagnosis and prognosis. We demonstrate the practical advantages of our proposed method through simulation studies and an analysis of data collected in an obesity study.

Polymers are a primary building block in many biomaterials, often interacting with anisotropic backgrounds. While previous studies have considered polymer dynamics within nematic solvents, rarely are the the effects of...

The U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) physical activity monitor datasets for 2011–12 and 2013–14 were released in late 2020. To date, there has been limited interpretation of these nationally representative wrist‐worn accelerometer data (summarized and reported in Monitor Independent Movement Summary [MIMS] units) and their relationships with health‐related outcomes. This study examined the associations between free‐living DailyMIMS (volume), Peak 1MIMS and Peak 30MIMS (intensity), and risk of Metabolic Syndrome (MetS). Data from adults (N=3787; 18–80+ years) in the 2011–12 and 2013–14 NHANES cycles with health examination and accelerometry data were included. Accelerometer data were processed into Peak 1MIMS and Peak 30MIMS (MIMS/min), and DailyMIMS (MIMS/day). Design‐based generalized linear and logistic regressions, and a sample‐weighted decision tree, were used to examine associations between MIMS variables and MetS risk factors. Lower Peak 1MIMS, Peak 30MIMS, and DailyMIMS were observed for every one‐unit increase in the number of risk factors −3.9 [95% CI: −4.3, −3.4] and −2.3 [−2.6, −2.1] MIMS/min, (−672.1 [−772.7, −571.5] MIMS/day, respectively, all p< 0.001). The Decision Tree classified individuals ≥ 46.5 years with a DailyMIMS ≥ 12 245 MIMS/day and a Peak 30MIMS < 45.1 MIMS/min as having MetS (≥ 3 risk factors). Individuals < 46.5 years with a Peak 1MIMS ≥ 62.9 MIMS/min were classified with 0 risk factors. Higher DailyMIMS and PeakMIMS were associated with an absence of MetS risk factors, with a progressive decline as the number of risk factors increased. These findings may be considered as preliminary benchmarks for DailyMIMS and PeakMIMS associated with cardiometabolic risk.

Drought occurs globally and can have deleterious effects on built and natural systems and societies. With the increasing human footprint on our planet, so has increased the anthropogenic influence on drought and water scarcity, leading to the development of notions of “anthropogenic drought” and “water bankruptcy”. Understanding the human dimension of drought is complex and requires a data-driven nexus approach to better understand the involved processes and address the implications of water deficits around the world. Just as it transcends scales and geographical boundaries, drought is neither restricted to a single hydrologic state in the water cycle nor are its effects confined to one sector. Drought impacts the water, energy, and food sectors, ecosystem services, socioeconomics, public policy, politics, etc. from local to regional and global scales. We argue that drought mitigation strategies and policy developments must be addressed with a multidisciplinary perspective that benefits from a nexus approach rooted in analytics, informatics, and data (AID). The United Nations University (UNU) Sustainability AID Programme employs such an approach to aid the monitoring, forecasting, and projection of drought, both from climatic and anthropogenic perspectives, and its multifaceted impacts across a variety of sectors and spatiotemporal scales. After a broad overview of this UNU Programme’s vision, and to support stakeholders and decision-makers, we present a drought resource database for drought-related information, data, and analysis tools. Our aim is not to compile an exhaustive list of all available data and tools. Instead, we prioritize mature datasets and AID tools while actively highlighting opportunities to develop new data and tools, fostering nexus research.

Background: Nearly half of American adults have hypertension; however, reliable, continuous, noninvasive blood pressure (BP) measurement (cNIBP) for inpatient and outpatient use is not currently available. This study evaluated a new method for cNIBP measurement called resonance sonomanometry (RSM). RSM derives blood pressure using first-principles physics, is applicable to any artery, and requires no calibration, blood vessel deformation, or dependence on demographic inputs. Methods: A prospective, observational feasibility study was undertaken to compare carotid artery BP measurements with a prototype ultrasound-based cNIBP device incorporating RSM, to arterial catheter BP measurements in the radial arteries of 60 test subjects. Catheter measurements were obtained from a distal peripheral artery (radial), oscillometric cuff from the brachial artery, and RSM was obtained from a central artery (carotid). This study was the first-in-human study for the RSM method in comparison to arterial catheters. Results: RSM-induced arterial resonance was observed in all tested subjects. For each of the subjects, the arterial resonant frequency increased with increasing BP during systole, and decreased with diastole (consistent with the cardiac cycle), as predicted by the physical model. RSM-derived BP traces were qualitatively similar to catheter data, exhibiting features such as the dicrotic notch. The RSM method yielded similar diastolic BP (DBP), but lower systolic BP (SBP) compared to the arterial catheter, likely due to expected peripheral pulse amplification. RSM DBP was not significantly different from the catheter (+1.5mmHg, p = 0.187), while BP cuff DBP was significantly different from the catheter (−4.3mmHg, p=0.002). There were significant differences in the catheter to RSM SBP (34.1 mmHg, p < 0.01), consistent with the aforementioned expectations from a central-versus-peripheral continuous pressure measurement. Conclusions: RSM is a novel BP measurement technique that could enable cNIBP measurements with accuracy required in hospitals. While the data are promising, significant future work remains. The study was meant to test the RSM method, not the device or form factor. Consequently, the form factor will need to be improved prior to clinical use. The prototype was designed for manual operation; thus, future work will also be needed to enhance the ability of the device to autonomously locate and track the artery for ease of use.