Recent ucla items

Graph-Based Anti-Money Laundering in Bitcoin

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Anti-money laundering (AML) in cryptocurrency networks represents one of the most challenging problems at the intersection of financial security, legal compliance, and machine learning. Bitcoin's pseudonymous design has been widely exploited for illicit financial activities such as ransomware, dark-market transactions, and money laundering. However, the open and immutable nature of the Bitcoin blockchain simultaneously creates an unprecedented forensic opportunity in which the full history of every transaction is publicly available as a traversable graph. Consequently, the development of automated methods to detect these illicit transactions is imperative for global financial security.This thesis uses a comparative framework for detecting illicit Bitcoin transactions using the Elliptic Dataset. The thesis establishes machine learning baselines including Logistic Regression, Random Forest, XGBoost, and Multilayer Perceptron, and then we subsequently also conduct a systematic comparison...

Automatic identification of compounds in molecular mixtures from liquid-phase infrared spectra.

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Interpreting spectroscopy data is a critical bottleneck in automating chemical research and industrial characterization. Particularly within infrared (IR) spectroscopy, identifying compounds in complex, liquid-phase chemical mixtures largely relies on expert knowledge, as variable peak assignment, broadening, and shifts hinder data-driven methods. Here, we show that an algorithmic approach can identify components in both simulated and experimental mixture spectra with high accuracy despite nonlinearities in liquid-phase IR data. The method is comprehensively benchmarked with a dataset of over 44 000 simulated liquid-phase IR spectra for mixtures and achieves up to 90% accuracy in identifying molecular components across a dataset of binary and ternary liquid mixtures. Our strategy is robust to perturbation of spectra, and its accuracy is capped by near-identical liquid-phase IR spectra that limit the resolution of chemical identification, imposing theoretical limits on achieving...

Experiences and Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Individuals with Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Individuals who receive an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) following a life-threatening cardiac arrhythmia often face substantial challenges, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Despite their clinical significance, research examining whether these symptoms differ from PTSD symptoms following external trauma (e.g., assault, accidents) and evaluating evidence-based PTSD interventions in this population remains limited. This dissertation comprised two studies designed to characterize the psychological experiences and treatment needs of these individuals and evaluate Written Exposure Therapy (WET), a brief trauma-focused intervention, in this population.Study 1 used semi-structured interviews with individuals who had received an ICD and reported heightened cardiac trauma-related PTSD symptoms (N = 6). Reflexive thematic analysis examined the alignment of participants’ descriptions with DSM-5 PTSD criteria and the Enduring Somatic Threat (EST) model of medically...

The mental health and well-being effects of wildfire smoke: a scoping review.

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Background

Smoke from wildfires is a growing public health risk due to the enormous amount of smoke-related pollution that is produced and can travel thousands of kilometers from its source. While many studies have documented the physical health harms of wildfire smoke, less is known about the effects on mental health and well-being. Understanding the effects of wildfire smoke on mental health and well-being is crucial as the world enters a time in which wildfire smoke events become more frequent and severe. We conducted a scoping review of the existing information on wildfire smokes impact on mental health and well-being and developed a model for understanding the pathways in which wildfire smoke may contribute to mental health distress.

Methods

We conducted searches using PubMed, Medline, Embase, Google, Scopus, and ProQuest for 1990-2022. These searches yielded 200 articles. Sixteen publications met inclusion criteria following screening and eligibility assessment....

Strong, Striving, and Stressed: Goal-Striving Stress and Allostatic Load among Black Women

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Background: Black women experience disproportionate health burdens driven by chronic exposure to stressors shaped by intersecting racial and gender inequality. Allostatic load (AL), a biomarker of cumulative physiological wear and tear, captures the long-term health impact of chronic stress. Identifying psychosocial factors that contribute to AL is important for understanding how social and structural stressors shape physiological health among Black women. Goal-striving stress (GSS), defined as the psychosocial stress associated with striving toward goals while facing constrained opportunities and systemic barriers, may capture an important yet understudied dimension of stress within this population. This study examines the relationship between GSS and AL among Black women.Methods: Data were drawn from the Nashville Stress and Health Study (NSAHS, 2011-2014), an epidemiological community sample of non-Hispanic Black and White adults ages 22–69 in Nashville, Tennessee. Analyses...

Contemporary Chinese America: Immigration, Ethnicity, and Community Transformation

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Contemporary Chinese America: Immigration, Ethnicity, and Community Transformation

Chinatown: The Socioeconomic Potential of an Urban Enclave

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Chinatown: The Socioeconomic Potential of an Urban Enclave

Social Media for Diabetes Self-Management Education and Support among Hispanic Adults with Type 2 Diabetes

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Background. Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) affects over 34 million adults in the U.S., with a significant impact on Hispanic communities, who face higher complication rates and access barriers. Diabetes Self-Management Education and Support (DSMES) can improve glycemic outcomes and self-efficacy, but participation remains low, especially among underserved populations. The rise of digital technologies and social media may present new opportunities for culturally relevant diabetes education and support.Aims. (1) Examine the effectiveness of Social Media Use for Self-Management Education and Support for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Adults: Systematic Literature Review and Meta-Analysis. (2) Assess the quality of TikTok-based T2DM information in English and Spanish using the Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialists' seven self-care behaviors (ADCES7) framework. (3) Analyze TikTok content about T2DM in English and Spanish using thematic analysis and computational psycholinguistics.Methods....

Broadband Sampling Phase Locked Loop with Noise Shifting Colpitts Oscillator

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The problem of designing a low-noise broadband phase locked loop (PLL) becomes exceptionally intriguing as more and more electronic devices have been integrated to achieve Internet of Things. This thesis investigates a broadband sampling PLL architecture incorporating a noise-shifting Colpitts oscillator to improve phase-noise performance.The sampling phase detector is first analyzed from both mixer-based and time-domain perspectives. Phase-noise generation in LC oscillators is then reviewed using phasor-based and impulse sensitivity function (ISF) interpretations. Several baseline oscillator topologies, including cross-coupled LC, noise-filtered cross-coupled, Colpitts, and Clapp oscillators, are compared under common design constraints. A g_m-boosted noise-shifting Colpitts oscillator is designed and evaluated. ISF and noise modulation function simulations show that the proposed topology reduces the effective ISF near the zero crossings, explaining its improved phase-noise performance....

Statistical Modeling to Forecast Player-Level Shot Output in Premier League Matches

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Shot volume is a fundamental indicator of attacking involvement in soccer because shots occur more frequently than goals and provide a more stable measure of opportunity. This thesis develops a statistical framework for predicting player-level shot output in Premier League matches using player match logs and match-level team context. The model predicts shots per 90 minutes from long-term shooting rate, recent form, non-penalty expected goals, shot-creating actions, team possession, team attacking form, opponent defensive form, venue, and position. Out-of-sample validation compares a shooting-only baseline, expanded linear model, count models, and a quadratic linear specification. The final approach translates predicted shots per 90 into expected match-level shot totals using expected minutes and then maps those totals to Poisson probabilities. A case study for Bukayo Saka against Chelsea illustrates how the method produces interpretable probabilities for over/under shotlines....

Model-free estimation of completeness, uncertainties, and outliers in atomistic machine learning using information theory

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

An accurate description of information is relevant for a range of problems in atomistic machine learning (ML), such as crafting training sets, performing uncertainty quantification (UQ), or extracting physical insights from large datasets. However, atomistic ML often relies on unsupervised learning or model predictions to analyze information contents from simulation or training data. Here, we introduce a theoretical framework that provides a rigorous, model-free tool to quantify information contents in atomistic simulations. We demonstrate that the information entropy of a distribution of atom-centered environments explains known heuristics in ML potential developments, from training set sizes to dataset optimality. Using this tool, we propose a model-free UQ method that reliably predicts epistemic uncertainty and detects out-of-distribution samples, including rare events in systems such as nucleation. This method provides a general tool for data-driven atomistic modeling and...

Double Concerto

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Double Concerto is a work inspired by an instrumental genre which would not exist, had it not been for the husband-and-wife duo of Heinz and Ursula Holliger, for whom dozens of works for oboe and harp have been written by several of the greatest composers of the last century, including Elliott Carter, Hans Werner Henze, André Jolivet, Witold Lutosławski, Frank Martin, Alfred Schnittke, Tōru Takemitsu, and Isang Yun. This work is modeled off of the instrumentation of Lutosławski’s own Double Concerto (oboe, harp, two percussionists, and twelve strings), composed in 1980; although not a structural derivative of Lutosławski’s work, Double Concerto endeavors to expand on the tonal and textural qualities inherent with such an ensemble, with each movement pursuing different sonorities and compositional processes.

Environmental Justice in Watts: Community-Led Research on Lead Contamination, Policy Advocacy, and Inclusion

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Watts, Los Angeles, California, is a culturally vibrant community burdened by environmental injustice. This dissertation describes collaborative research that supports community goals in addressing environmental concerns. It presents the positioning of this research in the relevant disciplines (Background), a framework we co-developed and co-published to support participatory action research and community-university partnerships (Chapter 1), a policy brief we co-authored on exploring the probability of pipes containing lead in Watts (Chapter 2), a report we co-authored documenting lead contamination in the Watts public housing developments and private properties and press coverage of the research (Chapters 3 and Appendix), a paper showing how racial and spatial identity impact environmental justice organizing in Watts (Chapter 4), a co-developed memorandum of understanding between UCLA and the Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC) and the Better Watts Initiative (BWI)...

Maximizing efficiency of dataset compression for machine learning potentials with information theory

Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Machine learning interatomic potentials (MLIPs) balance high accuracy and lower costs compared to density functional theory calculations, but their performance often depends on the size and diversity of training datasets. Large datasets improve model accuracy and generalization but are computationally expensive to produce and train on, while smaller datasets risk discarding rare but important atomic environments and compromising MLIP accuracy/reliability. Here, we develop an information-theoretical framework to quantify the efficiency of dataset compression methods and propose an algorithm that maximizes this efficiency. By framing atomistic dataset compression as an instance of the minimum set cover (MSC) problem over atom-centered environments, our method identifies the smallest subset of structures that contains as much information as possible from the original dataset while pruning redundant information. The approach is extensively demonstrated on the GAP-20 and TM23 datasets...

Estrogen Receptor Expression In Sleep Regulatory Brain Regions: Effects of Genotypic and Phenotypic Sex

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Sleep disorders are a major public health concern with many known comorbidities, such as heart disease, depression, and anxiety. Women are more susceptible to sleep disorders such as insomnia. Previous studies have shown that males exhibit more resilient recovery phenotypes following sleep disruptions.1 There is a significant overlap in regulatory brain regions involving sleep and stress, particularly in the hypothalamus. We hypothesize that the resilience to sleep loss typically observed in males is a component of the sleep recovery response following psychological stress. The Four Core Genotype (FCG) is a mouse model that allows us to elucidate sex differences in sleep by separating genotypic and phenotypic aspects of sex. Brain regions responsible for homeostatic mechanisms of sleep and stress will be isolated from the hypothalamus following either one hour of sleep deprivation (GH) or restraint stress (RS). We performed fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) to visualize...

Chilling effects in the workplace: An analysis of ICE arrests and OSHA complaint inspections across the US, 2024-2025

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Under the 47th presidential administration, immigration has become increasingly criminalized through intensified ICE arrests, and workplace safety efforts have been reduced through budget cuts and decreased federal enforcement from OSHA. While immigration enforcement and its economic and political impact on workplace safety have been studied over the years, there is a gap in understanding whether a relationship exists between immigration enforcement and OSHA complaints.Drawing on the Theory of Work Adjustment and the Theory of Planned Behavior, this study hypothesizes that increased immigration enforcement may have spillover effects on occupational health and safety regulation outcomes. This may lead to a chilling effect, reducing workers’ willingness to report workplace violations and resulting in a decline in OSHA complaints and subsequent inspections. A secondary data analysis was conducted to examine whether an increase in ICE arrests from 2024 to 2025 is associated with declines...

A Comparative Study of Shear Bond Strength and Failure Mode of Glazing Resin on 3D-Printed Dental Material

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Three-dimensional (3D) printing has transformed digital dentistry, enabling chair-side and laboratory fabrication of provisional crowns, bridges, and definitive restorations from photopolymer resins. Surface glazing of these printed restorations is performed to seal the oxygen-inhibited layer, improve color stability, polish, and wear resistance. However, the compatibility of commercially available glaze coatings with newer 3D-printable resin chemistries is incompletely characterized, and clinically meaningful delamination of the glaze layer remains an under-reported failure mode.This in vitro study evaluated the shear bond strength (SBS) and failure mode of five commercially available light-cured glaze coatings applied to a 3D-printed permanent crown and bridge resin (EZPRINT Crown & Bridge 2.0; Aidite). 150 standardized disk specimens were fabricated and randomly assigned to three groups of thirty (n = 30): Group ID380, ID NANO GLAZE 380 nm (ID America); Group ID460, ID...

Institutional Characteristics and Financial Return in U.S. Higher Education

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This thesis examines how institutional characteristics are associated with median earnings ten years after entry across U.S. colleges and universities using institution-level data from the U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard. The analysis includes institutional control, predominant degree awarded, geographic region, location type, open-admission status, in-state tuition, median student debt, Pell Grant share, federal loan share, undergraduate enrollment, and completion rate. Missing predictor values were addressed using multiple imputation by chained equations. Multiple linear regression, log-linear regression, and random forest were used to evaluate these relationships. Across models, institutional control, predominant degree awarded, Pell Grant share, and completion rate emerged as important correlates of earnings outcomes. The log-linear model provided improved diagnostics and the preferred basis for interpretation. Overall, the findings suggest that earnings outcomes...

Detecting AI Generated Text via Peer Elicitation Games

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This thesis investigates the applicability of Peer Elicitation Games (PEG) to the task of AI-generated text detection. PEG, introduced by Chen et al., is a training-free, game theoretic framework that aligns a team of large language models and has them interact in a peer evaluation setting; reward utilities are computed using a determinant-based mutual information score which provably incentivizes truthful reporting without requiring ground truth. This study adapts the PEG framework to a binary bot detection task by applying it to a corpus of 10000 texts (5000 human-written and 5000 AI-generated), utilizing eight general-purpose instruction-tuned language models across four scaling configurations (3, 6, 7, and 8 models). We find that PEG does not reliably improve bot detection accuracy above the random baseline in any configuration. Majority vote accuracy ranges between 46.47% to 50.16%. Through this study, we identify main failure modes in this study that led to the inability...

VESTIBULE: A Soundtrack for Dance

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Vestibule is an original score composed for a three-movement dance production, created in collaboration with choreographer Kate Myers. This project extends the practice of composing for visual media beyond its home in film and television, treating dance as a visual medium with its own scoring logic. Drawing on minimalism and tactile sound-design sensibilities of experimental electronic music, the score integrates foley-based and ambient textures as core compositional material. The three movements trace stages of a personal journey: "Rooting," the most kinetic and production-forward movement, depicts the necessary disorder preceding growth; "Flowing" opens into a spacious, meditative ambience built from organic sound textures before introducing synthesizer and strings; and "Beaming" releases into joyful energy before settling into a warm, bittersweet string finale centered on acceptance. Vestibule reflects the potential of cross-medium collaboration and the challenge of embracing...

Insider Trading Against the Corporation

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Insider Trading Against the Corporation

Design and Optimization of a Reconnecting Plasmoid Thruster Using Permanent Magnet Field Architectures

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This thesis investigates whether permanent magnets can replace electromagnetic coils in a reconnecting plasmoid thruster, where magnetic reconnection drives Alfvenic plasma outflows and thrust scales as ? = ? 2?/?0, decoupling exhaust velocity from propellant ion mass. The magnetic topology required for plasmoid-unstable reconnection at ? ≳ 104 was reproduced using an optimized array of discrete permanent dipoles, formulated as constrained sparse regression over candidate magnet locations. Two algorithms were implemented in SIMSOPT: Greedy Permanent Magnet Optimization, which produced a binary layout of 178 magnets across 6 concentric rings at a fixed dipole moment of 11.3 A · m2 , and Relax-and-Split, which allowed continuous dipole strengths between 11.3 A · m2 and 61.2 A · m2 for closer field matching at higher fabrication cost. Both solutions reproduce the large-scale field reversal topology required for current sheet formation with good agreement against the NIMROD coil reference....

Touchy-Feely: An Exploratory Study on What Early Childhood Teachers Think About Rewarding and Shepherding Touch in a Transitional Routine Scenario

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This qualitative study explored early childhood teacher perceptions on the use of shepherding and rewarding touch in hypothetical routine transition scenarios. The study sought to understand what early childhood teachers thought about the use of each touch type, and the considerations they believed the teacher in the scenario made before using each touch type. Fourteen participants currently employed in classrooms with 3-to-5-year-old children were interviewed online using the Zoom video conferencing application. The study revealed that participants regarded affectionate-rewarding touch more highly than controlling-shepherding touch even though they believed shepherding touch was used more commonly in early childhood settings. The temporal environment in early childhood settings and power were themes that explained why shepherding touch was so much more common. Participants also shared their perspectives on the social-emotional and behavioral implications of each touch type, discussing...

The Effect of Sleep Deprivation on Social Avoidance in All-Female Wild-Type Mice

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Chronic sleep disruption is a major risk factor for anxiety, depression, and stress-related disorders, yet the behavioral consequences of sleep loss in females remain significantly understudied. The majority of preclinical sleep-stress research has been conducted in male animals, yet the field lacks an effective understanding of how sleep deprivation shapes stress susceptibility in females, who experience higher rates of insomnia and affective disorders. The purpose of this project is to determine whether chronic sleep deprivation induces social avoidance behavior in female mice and whether the severity of sleep loss modulates these behavioral outcomes. Using a graded sleep deprivation paradigm (six h/day or 12 h/day for 10 days), we assessed social interaction behavior before and after sleep disruption using an automated tracking system with a novel CD-1 male mouse stimulus. We compared time spent in the interaction zone, number of approaches, and total distance traveled before...

Use of Evidence-Based Type 2 Diabetes Preventive Therapies and Rates of Progression to Diabetes Among Veterans with Prediabetes by Race and Ethnicity, 2010–2019

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Use of Evidence-Based Type 2 Diabetes Preventive Therapies and Rates of Progression to Diabetes Among Veterans with Prediabetes by Race and Ethnicity, 2010–2019

Spatial Modeling of the Los Angeles County Fires

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Wildfire risk has become an urgent concern across the western United States, with California experiencing unprecedented fire seasons over the past two decades. Los Angeles County is a particularly compelling study area: its unique geography of coastal zones, dense urban development, and mountainous terrain creates highly heterogeneous fire regimes, further amplified by Santa Ana winds, prolonged droughts, and expanding development at the wildland–urban interface (WUI). High-profile events such as the 2019 Getty Fire, the 2021 Palisades Fire, and more recent incidents in 2025 have demonstrated how rapidly wildfires can ignite and spread within this region. Wildfires are inherently spatio-temporal phenomena whose risk is shaped by both environmental conditions and past events, making space-time statistical models—which jointly account for location and timing—especially well suited to this problem.In this thesis, I first develop exploratory analyses using kernel density estimates...

Discriminatory Experiences, Critical Consciousness Development, and Well-Being Among Emerging Adults in and Beyond the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

As part of the developmental stage of emerging adulthood, youth may cultivate critical consciousness (CC) to transform oppressive systems. CC development may be influenced by discriminatory experiences and may affect well-being. To better understand longitudinal CC development and its relationship to discrimination and well-being (i.e., perceived stress, anxiety, hopefulness), we studied a U.S. national longitudinal cohort of emerging adult college students between the ages of 18 and 22 at baseline (M_age = 20.0, SD = 1.3) who completed four surveys between April 2020 and July 2021 (N = 684). The analytic sample was 63% women and 37% men (gender-diverse participants were removed due to small sample size) and 26% lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer/questioning, and other minoritized sexual identities. Self-identified race/ethnicity backgrounds were 54% white, 20% Asian/Pacific Islander, 9% Latinx, 5% Black, and 10% multiple races/ethnicities and/or as Middle...

Efficient Applications of Information-Theoretic Randomized Encodings to Constant-Round MPC

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Secure multiparty computation (MPC) allows mutually distrusting parties to jointly evaluate a function while keeping their inputs private. The recent protocol of [GLOS25] is, at the time of writing, the most asymptotically efficient constant-round MPC protocol known under minimal cryptographic assumptions. Although that work does not consider randomized encodings (RE), we show that RE are compatible with the underlying round-collapsing compiler framework. Using RE, we propose a candidate extension of the baseline protocol in the honest-but-curious honest-majority setting that reduces the κ factor in the communication complexity to κ o(1) when the circuit C has depth bounded by o(log κ). For constant-depth circuits, we remove the κ factor altogether. We then discuss the limitations of this result: the depth restriction restricts our new protocol to low-depth circuits and it is unclear whether optimizations such as the transpose protocol for SIMD circuits carry over from garbled...

End-of-Life Care Processes and Outcomes for Older Adults Treated by International Medical Graduates vs. US Medical Graduates

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

ImportanceInternational medical graduates (IMGs—physicians who graduated from a medical school outside the US) hold a significant role in the US healthcare system. Research suggests that clinicians’ attitudes towards end-of-life (EOL) care may vary across countries.ObjectiveTo compare EOL care processes and outcomes for older adults treated by IMGs vs. US medical graduates (USMGs).DesignCross-sectional study.ParticipantsA 20% random sample of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries aged 66 years or older who died in 2016–2019.Main MeasuresSeven EOL care-related measures: (i) palliative care counseling or hospice enrollment in the last 180 days of life; (ii) emergency department visits, (iii) hospital admissions, (iv) intensive care unit admissions, (v) use of mechanical ventilation or cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or (vi) feeding tube placement in the last 30 days of life; and (vii) death in an acute care hospital. We adjusted for beneficiary- and physician-level confounders;...

Forecasting NFL Futures Using an Improved Elo Model with Quantified Uncertainty

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This thesis is in collaboration with WagerWire and focuses on NFL futures markets, where wagers on outcomes such as Super Bowl winners and season win totals must account for long forecasting horizons and substantial uncertainty. This thesis develops a quantitative framework for NFL futures forecasting built around an optimized Elo rating system combined with Monte Carlo season simulation, with application to WagerWire’s secondary marketplace for futures tickets. The proposed Elo model incorporates margin-of-victory adjustments, a decaying K-factor, and a market-anchoring mechanism that considers market-betting closing lines. Preseason ratings are initialized using a combination of regressed prior-season Elo, Super Bowl futures odds, and sportsbook season win totals. Core model parameters are optimized through grid search using soft-label log loss against devigged closing odds across 11 NFL seasons, from the 2015-2016 through the 2025-2026 season. These game-level probabilities...

Towards Bidirectional Human–AI Scientific Reasoning: From Concept-Role Graphs to Negotiated Interpretation

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

As AI systems take on more of the cognitive work of science, a foundational question arises: how can human and AI reasoning be made legible to each other? This thesis argues that any productive human-AI scientific collaboration must employ an intermediate representation (IR) that makes each party’s reasoning visible, structured, and contestable.We present Syrup, a system in which humans and AI collaboratively reason about scientific papers through a shared concept-role graph, a network of concepts and their argumentative roles that both parties can inspect, restructure, and negotiate. Through design probe studies with researchers conducting paper revision and reading, we find that Syrup supports different modes of reasoning and facilitates human-AI communication.We situate the system within an investigation of representation consistency. An early two-step LLM graph-extraction pipeline tested whether such a representation could be canonically extracted; its failure modes shaped...

Comparison of TurboID and split-TurboID for Mitochondrial Proteome Mapping Under Depolarization Stress

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The mitochondrial proteome is a dynamic environment that undergoes significant remodeling under stress conditions such as depolarization and aging, contributing to mitochondrial dysfunction implicated in neurodegenerative disease, metabolic disorders, and cardiovascular pathology. Despite its biological importance, comprehensive characterization of the mitochondrial proteome under stress conditions remains challenging, as traditional approaches such as subcellular fractionation and co-immunoprecipitation are limited by their inability to capture transient interactions and condition-dependent protein associations in their native cellular context, necessitating proximity-dependent labeling approaches. While the recent development of biotinylating enzymes TurboID and split-TurboID have emerged as powerful proximity-dependent biotinylation tools for proteome mapping in living cells, a direct comparative evaluation of their performance for outer mitochondrial membrane (OMM) proximal...

Virtual Segregation- Black History, Politics and Resistance in Video Games

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Once thought of as a children’s toy, video games have developed into a valuable storytelling tool, adapting and creating stories that routinely permeate popular culture. As their influence has grown, so has the variety of stories being told through the medium. This includes stories centering Black diasporic experiences through folklore and cultural values. Yet, as Black presence in video games has increased, concentrated efforts to silence their voices through hate movements have emerged to a point where they have now grown to influence global politics.Most notably, Steve Bannon, the former Chief Political Strategist to Donald Trump, recognized the potential of radicalizing and weaponizing white male gamers as far back as 2005 within World of Warcraft communities. Bannon’s subsequent appointment as the head of far right website Breitbart News in 2012 put him in an ideal position to follow through on a far more ambitious project of radicalization which manifested as the GamerGate...

Direct-on-chip confined two-phase jet impingement cooling utilizing water with membrane-based phase separation

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Direct-on-chip confined two-phase jet impingement cooling utilizing water with membrane-based phase separation

Social Sentiment and Theatrical Success: An Analysis of Trailer Comments and Box Office Performance

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, along with the rise of streaming services, have had a substantial impact on theatrical box office performance. Studios are no longer solely focused on producing high-quality films but must also market them effectively to encourage audiences to attend theatrical screenings. One of the most important components of a film's marketing campaign is its official trailer. This study examines the relationship between audience reactions to trailers and eventual box office success by conducting sentiment analysis on YouTube comments associated with official movie trailers. Results indicate that positive sentiment is positively associated with commercial success, while also suggesting that additional factors contribute to theatrical performance.

LONGITUDINAL FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH IMPROVEMENT AND RISK IN YOUTHS AND YOUNG ADULTS WITH BIPOLAR SPECTRUM DISORDERS

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

LONGITUDINAL FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH IMPROVEMENT AND RISK IN YOUTHS AND YOUNG ADULTS WITH BIPOLAR SPECTRUM DISORDERS

Spectral composition of daytime light differentially shapes circadian dynamics in mice

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Light is the dominant environmental cue for circadian entrainment, yet the relative contributions of spectral composition and illuminance to daytime entrainment remain incompletely resolved. We tested the hypothesis that short-wavelength–enriched daytime light would promote more robust circadian regulation than longer-wavelength light in wild-type C57BL/6J mice. Adult male and female mice were exposed to one of six daytime lighting conditions that varied in spectral composition and intensity: 7000 K blue-enriched white light, 4500 K white light, or red light, each delivered at either 50 or 10 photopic lux. Daily locomotor activity was monitored using running wheels to assess entrainment under stable 12:12 light:dark conditions. Mice were subsequently challenged with a series of photic manipulations, including re-entrainment to phase shifts, negative masking, photic phase shifting in constant darkness, exposure to constant light, and entrainment to a skeleton photoperiod. Under...

Unprecedented Shifts in Hydrology Are Emerging Across California's Critical Basins: An Evaluation From 0.5 to 3.5°C

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract With advances in climate models and downscaling techniques, stakeholders anticipate high‐resolution analysis to inform regional to local changes in water management. Here, we produce hydrologic projections from an ensemble of Earth System Models (ESMs) that were selected and downscaled to support California's 5th Climate Assessment. An ensemble of 19 ESMs was downscaled to a 3‐km resolution across California using a statistical‐dynamical downscaling approach and subsequently run through two calibrated hydrology models. Although California has been extensively studied in the context of climate change, we provide the first evaluation of the warming thresholds at which hydroclimate metrics demonstrate statistically significant shifts. We show that present‐day to near‐term warming levels in Klamath and Northern Sierra Nevada basins, which serve as a critical source of water for California, show statistically significant decreases in snowfall and peak snowpack and associated...

A diagnostically challenging case of pemphigus foliaceus without histologic evidence of acantholysis

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A 77-year-old woman presented with pruritic, scaly, erythematous papules and plaques on the face which then spread to involve the trunk. Over nearly two years, five skin biopsies were performed which overall suggested a subacute to chronic eczematous process without acantholysis or intraepidermal bullae. After two years of failed treatment, antibody testing via enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay demonstrated elevated anti-Desmoglein-1 IgG and normal anti-Desmoglein-3 IgG, and a skin biopsy with direct immunofluorescence revealed IgG and C3 in the intercellular space. A diagnosis of pemphigus foliaceus was made, and the patient was treated with rituximab with significant improvement. Here, we present a diagnostically challenging case of pemphigus foliaceus in which multiple biopsies failed to detect acantholysis or intraepidermal bullae – classic histological findings of this condition, thus highlighting the importance of immunologic testing in the workup of suspected autoimmune...

Dietary Therapies for Gastrointestinal Disorders.

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Alterations in gastrointestinal function (digestion, absorption, motility, secretion, and elimination) play important roles in the pathophysiology of many gastrointestinal disorders. Food also strongly influences gastrointestinal health and disease. Some foods act as antigens that trigger an enteric immune response, while others can serve as substrates with direct or indirect biological effects. Food can also be metabolized by gut microbes into bioactive molecules that alter physiology. This review discusses the current research evidence and the clinical use of food as medicine through dietary therapies for the management of various gastrointestinal conditions, including disorders of gut-brain interaction, eosinophilic esophagitis, celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, gastroparesis, and short bowel syndrome with intestinal failure.

Pharmacist-Led Discharge Care to Reduce Postdischarge Health Care Utilization

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Importance: Pharmacist-led peridischarge transitions of care (TOC) interventions reduce adverse drug events after hospitalization. However, health care organizations do not usually see a financial incentive to fund these interventions. Objective: To test whether pharmacist-led TOC interventions could drive reductions in health care resource utilization after hospital discharge. Design, Setting, and Participants: This pragmatic randomized clinical trial was conducted in 2 urban teaching hospitals in the US. Participants were hospitalized adults aged 55 years or older taking 10 or more long-term prescribed medications or 3 or more high-risk medications (defined as anticoagulants, antiplatelet agents, or antihyperglycemics including insulin), enrolled between December 23, 2019, and December 30, 2022. Data were analyzed from January 2023 to June 2025. Intervention: Pharmacist-led peridischarge and postdischarge medication management with patients and their care partners, including...

CIPHER: An end-to-end framework for designing optimized aggregated spatial transcriptomics experiments.

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Motivation

Most imaging-based spatial transcriptomics methods measure individual genes, which limits scalability and typically requires integration with scRNA-seq to recover full cellular states. Recent approaches such as CISI, FISHnCHIPs, and ATLAS address this limitation by measuring aggregate transcriptional signatures, where multiple genes are pooled into each channel to increase throughput. While aggregate measurements improve scalability, they shift the problem from gene selection to feature design. For effective integration with scRNA-seq, these signatures must be not only discriminative in transcriptional space but also straightforward to measure, with balanced signal, sufficient dynamic range, and robustness to experimental noise. By optimizing decoding accuracy in isolation, existing methods leave substantial performance on the table.

Results

We present CIPHER (Cell Identity Projection using Hybridization Encoding Rules), a neural-network framework that...

Machine-Learning-Assisted Kinetics Modeling of CF3–X Plasmas for Sustainable Semiconductor Manufacturing

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Hydrofluorocarbon-based plasmas are widely used in semiconductor manufacturing for SiO2 etching and chamber cleaning; however, many of these chemistries have high global warming potential (GWP) and long atmospheric lifetimes, leading to regulatory phasedown by the Environmental Protection Agency. This work investigates CF3–X plasmas (X = H, F, I) with the goal of reducing, abating, or replacing high-GWP hydrofluorocarbon chemistries. Reduction was studied through adding secondary gases such as O2 and Ar. Abatement was evaluated using downstream O2 plasma for decomposing reactive species in the exhaust. Replacement examines lower-GWP CF3I plasma, where its limited kinetics data prompted the use of Machine Learning (ML)-assisted automatic differentiation (AD) inverse modeling to determine unknown iodine-related surface kinetics, leveraging halogen descriptors such as C–X bond dissociation energy, Si–X bond energy, and electronegativity (χ). CHF3/O2/Ar plasma was evaluated...

CMOS/MOSFET Semiconductor Device Manufacturing Capstone Lab Report

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

CMOS/MOSFET Semiconductor Device Manufacturing Capstone Lab Report

Predictors of Tobacco Use Behaviors Among Syrian Americans.

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Background

This study examines the prevalence and predictors of cigarette and hookah smoking among Syrian Americans, a growing U.S. immigrant population with historically high tobacco use.

Objectives

To assess tobacco use behaviors and identify demographic and behavioral predictors of cigarette and hookah use, as well as key motivators for tobacco use, among Syrian American adults.

Design

A cross-sectional survey study of Syrian American adults in 2 U.S. states.

Methods

Data were collected from 919 Syrian American adults in Southern California and Florida between 2018 and 2019. Multinomial regression analyses were used to identify demographic and behavioral predictors of cigarette and hookah use.

Results

Among participants, 16% were current cigarette users, and 37% were current hookah users, both exceeding U.S. national averages. Social occasions and flavored tobacco were key motivators for hookah use, with most participants perceiving hookah...

Domestic cat density is not associated with variation in avian risk assessment in a mega-city

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Domestic cats (Felis catus) kill an estimated 1.3–4.0 billion birds annually in the United States and are a major source of mortality for urban birds. While their lethal impacts are well documented, fewer studies address sublethal effects such as changes in avian risk assessment. We analyzed a dataset of 1,120 experimental approaches by human observers on 48 bird species across 11 sites in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, which varied in free-roaming cat and human population densities. Using Bayesian mixed models, we examined ecological and intrinsic predictors of avian flight initiation distance (FID). At the community scale, cat and human population densities had no significant effects on FID, suggesting that predator and human presence may already exceed a threshold across the urban landscape beyond which additional variation does not produce detectable changes in avian escape behavior. Species-specific analyses revealed that black phoebe (Sayornis nigricans) FID increased...

Evaluating Mitigation Strategies Against Indirect Prompt Injection in Tool-Using RAG Agents

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems that invoke external tools introduce a new attack surface: indirect prompt injection, where malicious instructions are embedded in retrieved documents rather than the user’s input. This thesis empirically evaluates four mitigation strategies—prompt-level defense, rule-based sanitization, tool-use restriction, and attribution gating—applied individually and as a full stack, against five attack types across three large language models (Claude Sonnet 4.6, GPT-4o, GPT-3.5-turbo) in a controlled 17,278-run experiment.The full mitigation stack reduces the attack success rate from 40.6% to 0.2% while preserving benign utility (90.6% to 90.2%) and improving latency. Among individual layers, rule-based sanitization is the strongest (3.2% ASR) while attribution gating provides negligible protection (40.9%). We introduce a novel attack category, information pollution (A5), in which the sentinel value is embedded as factual domain data rather than...

Native and Top-Down Mass Spectrometry of Small Amyloid Oligomers Elucidates Early Aggregation and Interactions with Homologous Proteins

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Amyloid proteins play a role in the pathology of numerous diseases, from dementias including Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease to Type 2 Diabetes. Amyloid proteins are characterized by a propensity to misfold into highly ordered β-sheet fibril structures. However, the early-stage oligomers of amyloid proteins have recently gained support for being the toxic species in amyloid pathology. Despite decades of research, no robust description of the early stages of oligomerization has been defined for any amyloid. α-synuclein, involved in Parkinson’s Disease, and islet amyloid polypeptide (amylin), implicated in Type 2 Diabetes, form two case studies demonstrating the utility of native and top-down mass spectrometry for elucidating early-stage oligomerization pathways and how the interactions of amyloids with homologous proteins impact aggregation. α-synuclein is a synaptic vesicle-associated protein whose homolog, β-synuclein, has been implicated in modulating α-synuclein...

Characterization of Sleep Architecture and Homeostatic Dysregulation in a Murine Mbnl2 Knockout Model of Myotonic Dystrophy Type One

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Sleep is a fundamental process to biological life, with extant organisms demonstrating functionally comparable forms of sleep across the entire tree of life; its ubiquity underpins its necessity, having emerged several hundred million years prior and remaining conserved into present day. Despite being a core component of our physiology, sleep is often disregarded—both in daily life, but especially within human health and disease, and particularly in Myotonic Dystrophy Type 1 (DM1), for which sleep and cognitive disruptions remain both the most severe reported symptoms and the least understood. In this study, we characterize changes to sleep architecture and sleep recovery resultant from knockout of Muscleblind-like protein 2 (Mbnl2), an alternative splicing regulator implicated in the etiology DM1. We report light phase-specific increases to REM proportions, REM sleep fragmentation, aberrant reductions in alpha and theta power spectra consistent with clinical symptoms, and disrupted...

How Atlanta Got its Arts Center: Urban Politics, Production of Space, and Arts Philanthropy in 1960s Atlanta

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This dissertation tells the story of how Atlanta got its arts center. Opened in 1968 along Atlanta’s famed Peachtree Street, the Atlanta Memorial Arts Center was the culmination of a near decade-long struggle by city leaders to establish cultural roots and was the first of its kind in the US to house “all the arts under one roof.” Drawing on extensive archival research conducted at Emory University’s Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Archive, this dissertation details the development of the Atlanta Memorial Arts Center from conception to completion, including the segregation-tinged battle over an arts center in Piedmont Park, the strategic merging of the Art Association and Symphony Guild into the Atlanta Arts Alliance, Inc., and the legal and logistical battle over the McBurney Estate, an existing Art Association property whose bequest came with strings attached.Ultimately, I position the arts center as a physical manifestation...

Detecting Burnout in Healthcare Reddit Discourse: A Comparative Study of Traditional and Neural Text Classifcation Models

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Burnout among healthcare workers has important implications for well-being, stability, and quality of care, yet large-scale measurement remains difficult using traditional survey-based methods. This thesis investigates the use of natural language processing and machine learning to identify burnout-related language in Reddit comments from healthcare- related communities. Reddit data from 2016 to 2024 were collected from multiple subreddits and labeled as burnout or control using a rule-based framework.The study evaluates Logistic Regression with TF-IDF features, a Simple Recurrent Neural Network (RNN), a Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory network (BiLSTM), and fine-tuned BERT models. To address class imbalance, models were assessed under both a full imbalanced setting with class-weighted learning and an undersampled 3:1 control-to-burnout setting. Logistic Regression provided a strong baseline, the Simple RNN showed limited performance, and the BiLSTM and BERT produced the strongest...

Stimulated Raman Scattering of Lasers with Orbital Angular Momentum in the Kinetic Regime

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The nonlinear optics of plasmas (NLOP) is a fundamental topic within plasma physics. A sub-area of NLOP is laser-plasma interactions (LPI) that involve three-wave coupling. Three wave LPI processes are of interest for inertial fusion energy (IFE) and are a fundamental nonlinear plasma physics research area. Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) is one LPI of interest where an incident pump laser decays into a scattered electromagnetic wave (EM) and an electron plasma wave (EPW). There is much interest in SRS backscatter where the direction of the scattered EM wave is opposite that of the pump. Much previous research on SRS has involved the study of how plane waves propagate in plasmas. However, in IFE the lasers are broken up into multiple finite-width and length speckles which are related to Gaussian-limited laser pulses, which can be decomposed into Laguerre-Gaussian modes. A Laguerre-Gaussian mode can have orbital angular momentum (OAM).The interaction of finite-width Gaussian...

Estimating and discovering heterogeneous treatment effects using machine learning in epidemiological studies: a practical guide

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract: Machine learning-based heterogeneous treatment effect (HTE) estimation and discovery have recently received substantial attention in the healthcare literature. In particular, meta-learner frameworks and causal forests have been widely used in estimating the conditional average treatment effect (CATE). Such advances in HTE estimation and discovery have allowed researchers to assess HTE patterns in their data. Here, we provide a comprehensive and practical guide as well as statistical codes for researchers to implement these models effectively. Specifically, we provide an overview of core motivations for HTE analysis. Then, we describe a methodological overview of popular machine learning algorithms for CATE estimation and how to calibrate their model fit. After demonstrating an application example using a national sample of US older adults, we discuss some critical and practical considerations of HTE analysis with highly granular CATE. Finally, we...

A Rare Case of Methamphetamine-Induced Diffuse Gastrointestinal Ischemia

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Methamphetamine is a widely used substance known for cardiovascular and neurological complications; however, its gastrointestinal effects remain poorly understood. While rare, methamphetamine-induced gastrointestinal ischemia has high morbidity and mortality rates, with limited case reports in the literature. We present a case of a 48-year-old man with a history of gastroesophageal reflux disease, alcohol use disorder in remission, and previously documented methamphetamine use who presented with two weeks of episodic abdominal pain, nausea, and hematemesis. Significant laboratory and imaging findings included acute anemia, urine toxicology confirming the presence of amphetamines, and computed tomography imaging showing wall thickening in the distal esophagus and stomach. On endoscopy, he was found to have diffuse ulcerations in the distal esophagus and post-pyloric region with pathology indicative of methamphetamine-induced gastrointestinal ischemia. This case highlights...

Evaluation of effectiveness and safety of the CorPath GRX robotic system in endovascular embolization procedures of cerebral aneurysms.

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Background

Robotic-assisted neurointervention was recently introduced, with implications that it could be used to treat neurovascular diseases.

Objective

To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of the robotic-assisted platform CorPath GRX for treating cerebral aneurysms.

Methods

This prospective, international, multicenter study enrolled patients with brain aneurysms that required endovascular coiling and/or stent-assisted coiling. The primary effectiveness endpoint was defined as successful completion of the robotic-assisted endovascular procedure without any unplanned conversion to manual treatment with guidewire or microcatheter navigation, embolization coil(s) or intracranial stent(s) deployment, or an inability to navigate vessel anatomy. The primary safety endpoint included intraprocedural and periprocedural events.

Results

The study enrolled 117 patients (74.4% female) with mean age of 56.6 years from 10 international sites,. Headache was the...

A Festival of Light

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A Festival of Light is a new musical drama that reimagines the Chanukah story through a contemporary lens while remaining rooted in Jewish history, liturgy, and tradition. The drama opens amid the turbulent world of the Jewish people living under Greek rule, setting the stage for the cultural and religious pressures that would ultimately spark the Maccabean revolt. It then turns toward the profound grief of a people confronted with the desecration of their Holy Temple, a moment rendered in music of mourning and longing. From this darkness emerges the priestly Maccabee family, who lead the Jewish people in battle against their Greek occupiers. When they return victorious to the Holy Temple, they witness the miracle of light itself: the sacred Menorah burning against all odds, a symbol of hope that has endured for millennia. The work concludes with a jubilant finale celebrating the modern holiday of Chanukah and the enduring relevance of its themes for contemporary Jewish life....

Using Large Ensembles to Identify Regions of Systematic Biases in Moderate‐to‐Heavy Daily Precipitation

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract Because of internal variability in both the real‐world and global climate models, it is unclear whether disagreement between models and observations reflects true systematic differences, or different phasing of internal variability in the short observational period. Here, we address this issue through an examination of moderate‐to‐heavy precipitation in large ensembles of global climate models. We find that model inconsistency with a global observational product is lowest for extratropical precipitation in northern hemisphere winter. The inconsistency is systematically greater for the southern hemisphere winter, but the difference between hemispheres could be due to observational quality. Moderate‐to‐heavy extratropical winter precipitation is less inconsistent than moderate‐to‐heavy tropical precipitation in most models. Within the tropics, moderate‐to‐heavy precipitation is particularly inconsistent with the reference in regions including the Caribbean (especially during...

Critical Code: Information Tools for Media Library Preservation and Access at Critical Role Productions

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What information science methods and tools support media preservation and information access methods in independent and creator-owned studios? How might these tools be made to align with the ethos and ideals behind the management and longevity of these studios? How does Critical Role as a case study lend itself to critiques of existing IS tools and methods? In my work, I survey existing literature to answer questions of how library and information studies might contribute to the sustainability and future of creator-owned, independent studios. Using Critical Role as a case study, I explored Critical Role’s media production work and formulated ideas on how to address the information resource gap regarding long-term preservation efforts for their media assets with Linear Tape-Open, and structuring records in a formal content library with Critical Code Studies and Object-Oriented Programming ontologies.

Anterior middle cingulate cortex gamma-aminobutyric acid level is elevated in children with both familial and prenatal alcohol exposure-associated attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Background: Prior neuroimaging suggests brain differences between children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder due to prenatal alcohol exposure (ADHD+PAE) and non-exposed children with ADHD due to other, e.g., familial, causes (ADHD-PAE). There has been interest in regional brain levels of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and glutamate (Glu) measured in vivo with magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) as possible indicators of local inhibitory, respectively, excitatory activity in ADHD. For the first time, we report here a comparison of GABA and Glu in ADHD+PAE vs. ADHD-PAE. Methods: At 3 T, we used J-difference-edited single-voxel MRS to assay GABA and Glu in 28 children with ADHD+PAE, 20 with ADHD-PAE, and 28 typically developing (TD) controls, all aged 8-14 years. MRS was sampled from midline anterior middle cingulate cortex (aMCC), the "cognitive cingulate" considered functionally relevant to ADHD. Spectra were fit with custom software, including a unique technique...

On the Connection Between Global Hydrologic Sensitivity and Regional Wet Extremes

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract A highly uncertain aspect of anthropogenic climate change is the rate at which the global hydrologic cycle intensifies. The future change in global‐mean precipitation per degree warming, or hydrologic sensitivity, exhibits a threefold spread (1–3%/K) in current global climate models. In this study, we find that the intermodel spread in this value is associated with a significant portion of variability in future projections of extreme precipitation in the tropics, extending also into subtropical atmospheric river corridors. Additionally, there is a very tight intermodel relationship between changes in extreme and nonextreme precipitation, whereby models compensate for increasing extreme precipitation events by decreasing weak‐moderate events. Another factor linked to changes in precipitation extremes is model resolution, with higher resolution models showing a larger increase in heavy extremes. These results highlight ways various aspects of hydrologic cycle intensification...

Epigenetic Age Prediction in Dogs from K-mer Methylation Haplotypes

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This study constructs a canine epigenetic age clock from buccal swab whole-genome bisulfite sequencing using a k-mer haplotype encoding framework. A three-level hierarchical ensemble was applied across eight genomic loci, with five model families evaluated at each level; the best-performing model achieved a mean absolute error of 1.005 years and median absolute error of 0.419 years (Pearson r = 0.946), with a k = 2 control confirming that co-methylation patterns across neighboring CpGs carry age-related information beyond single-site methylation state. Locus importance and marginal predictive rank diverged in the genome ensemble, suggesting the model exploits complementary information across loci.

We Need Granular Sharing of De-Identified Data—But Will Patients Engage? Investigating Health System Leaders' and Patients' Perspectives on A Patient-Controlled Data-Sharing Platform

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Patient-controlled data-sharing systems are increasingly promoted as a way to empower patients with greater autonomy over their health data. Yet it remains unclear how different stakeholders, especially patients and health system leaders, perceive the benefits and challenges of enabling granular control over the sharing of de-identified medical data for research. To address this gap, we developed a high-fidelity prototype of a patient-controlled, web-based consent platform and conducted a two-phase mixed-methods study: semi-structured interviews with 16 health system leaders and a survey with 523 patient participants. While both groups appreciated the potential of such a platform to enhance transparency and autonomy, their views diverged in meaningful ways. Leaders viewed transparency and granular control through the lens of informed consent and institutional ethics, whereas patients interpreted these factors as safeguards against potential risks and uncertainties. Our findings...

Beyond Density: Examining the Relationship Between Station-Area Establishments and Rail Transit Ridership

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Numerous studies have explored the relationship between built environment characteristics and transit ridership. However, little research has tested whether the number or size of station-adjacent commercial establishments have an independent association with rail ridership. Using negative binomial regression, I analyze the association between rail station alightings and the number of commercial establishments in three size categories: less than 700 square feet, 701–2,000 square feet, and 2,001–5,000 square feet. I also test whether these relationships vary by distance from the rail station (within a quarter-mile and a half-mile buffers) and between weekdays and weekends. I find no statistical significance between the number of small and medium-large commercial establishments within a half-mile of a station and rail a lightings. A marginal association is observed between medium establishments and rail alightings at the half-mile on weekends, though the relationship is substantively...

Establishing Form: Evidence for Constant Curvature Primitives as the Basis of Contour Encoding and Shape Representation in Human Vision

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A deep and pervasive mystery in vision science is how the visual system constructs enduring symbolic representations of object shape from transient and sub-symbolic registers of local contrast energy. Here, I focus on investigating the issue as it bears on the perception of smooth, 2D contour shape. A growing body of evidence suggests that smooth contours may be encoded using constant-curvature approximations that efficiently capture their essential geometry. In this dissertation, I investigate the possibility of specialized operators that could implement such encoding, along with the spatial properties that govern their operation, using a combination of computational modeling and psychophysical experimentation. Chapter 1 reviews evidence from several lines of research supporting the hypothesis that constant curvature serves as a fundamental primitive of smooth 2D contour representation. Chapter 2 details the implementation and evaluation of the Arclet Model: a biologically plausible...

Sleep Regulates DNA Repair and Retrotransposons in Stable Neuronal Genomes.

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Sleep and circadian disruptions have been linked to neuronal genome instability, aberrant retrotransposon activity, and cognitive deficits. Recent studies have demonstrated increases in double stranded DNA breaks (DSBs) after learning, along with an uptick in LINE-1 retrotransposon activity; but how sleep loss influences DNA damage, LINE-1 retrotransposon behavior, and memory remains unclear. We tested the performance of wild-type (WT) and Bmal1 muscle‑overexpressing (Bmal1 mOE) mutant male mice on a hippocampal‑dependent novel object location recognition (NOLR) task after 12 hours of sleep deprivation (SD). We then compared how SD and/or SD+NOLR affected the expression of c‑Fos, a marker of neural activity, γ‑H2AX - a phosphorylated histone variant that localizes at DSB sites, and LINE‑1 ORF1p - the nucleic acid chaperone protein of retrotransposon LINE-1 in the hippocampal regions: dentate gyrus (DG) and CA3. WT mice exposed to SD had impaired NOLR performance, whereas both...

Conceptual Scaffold Analysis Using Mature Lay Concepts when Constructing Qualitative Theory.

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

An important part of a qualitative project is the proposal preparation required for ethics review and funding application, yet proposals are relatively undeveloped at the beginning of a qualitative study. Here we describe a new method, Conceptual Scaffold Analysis, for applying a relevant, mature lay concept (from the literature) as a focus within a research proposal. This method enables analyzing and integrating a concept into your proposed methods, expedites inquiry, provides an organizing framework, and reconstructs understanding. We present a selection of mature concepts pertinent to nursing that may be used for Conceptual Scaffold Analysis. As a complete method, Conceptual Scaffold Analysis may serve as the qualitative (QUAL) component in a mixed method project, enhancing the qual method for the sequential component, thereby enabling advanced theory development. We present an example of Conceptual Scaffold Analysis on a topic critical to...

Semiconductor Quantum-Dot Device Modeling of Charge Stability Diagrams

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The rapid simulation and characterization of solid-state semiconductor quantum dot devices and architectures has been a challenging problem of growing interest as quantum technology scales. Fundamentally, quantum mechanics allows for information to be encoded through quantum superpositions and entanglement, procedures with no classical counterpart. For a certain class of problems, this enables exponential speedup, and lets us tackle problems that are inaccessible to a classical computer. Existing modalities (e.g. trapped ions, superconductors, semiconductor quantum dots, etc.) each boast distinct advantages and drawbacks, with no single platform exceptionally dominant. The mature silicon-based semiconductor industry that underpins modern technology comes from decades of accumulated fabrication expertise and infrastructure. As a result, semiconductor quantum dots based on these Group IV materials have an advantage through their compatibility with the existing chip fabrication industry.Approaches...

Reducing Code Greens and Enhancing Nurse Confidence Through Behavioral Health Training

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Background: Workplace violence (WPV) is a significant threat to nurse safety, particularly in Veterans Health Administration (VHA) medical-surgical settings where patients often present with complex psychiatric, medical, and social comorbidities. Although behavioral emergency responses (“Code Green” activations) are intended for true crises, anecdotal and unit-level data suggest many are initiated prematurely due to limited staff confidence in managing escalating patient behavior.Objectives: The purpose of this quality improvement project was to evaluate whether advanced de-escalation training modeled after Prevention and Management of Disruptive Behavior (PMDB) Level IV content could improve nurse confidence in managing aggressive patient behavior and reduce Code Green activations on a high-risk medical-surgical unit.Methods: This Doctor of Nursing Practice quality improvement project used a pre-test/post-test design at a Southern California VA Medical Center. Seventeen staff...

"We Are Joined, But We Are Not Blend": Non-Western International Students' Construction of Global Citizenship and Heritage Values in a Western-Oriented GCED Context

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This qualitative study examines how ten non-Western international students at Handong Global University (HGU), South Korea, construct and enact global citizenship within a Western-oriented Global Citizenship Education (GCED) framework. Using a phenomenological orientation, data were collected through in-depth interviews with participants from ten non-Western countries across Asia, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, and analyzed through reflexive thematic analysis. Five findings emerged. First, participants grounded global citizenship in relational, moral, and identity-based orientations, particularly empathy, hospitality, care, and accountability, aligning more closely with critical than soft GCED. Second, participants' issue priorities and civic aspirations were inseparable from their biographical and national contexts, with lived experiences of injustice, structural inequality, and political constraint shaping their engagement with global issues. Third, they drew...

Emerging therapies in acute ischemic stroke.

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Thrombolysis and mechanical thrombectomy have revolutionized the care of patients with acute ischemic stroke. The number of patients who can benefit from these treatments continues to increase as new studies demonstrate that not just time since stroke onset but also collateral circulation influences outcome. Technologies such as telestroke, mobile stroke units, and artificial intelligence are playing an increasing role in identifying and treating stroke. Stroke-systems-of-care models continue to streamline the delivery of definitive revascularization in the age of mechanical thrombectomy.

Investigating the Role of Mu Opioid Receptors on Indirect Pathway Medium Spiny Neurons in the Nucleus Accumbens on Opioid Reward in a Chronic Pain Model

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

While the role of the mu opioid receptor (MOR) in mesolimbic circuits has been widely studied for its role in opioid reward and addiction, its role on indirect pathway medium spiny neurons (MSNs) in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) is not fully understood. This study sought to understand the role of these neurons, using adenosine 2a receptors (A2aR) as a protein marker, in opioid reward under a chronic neuropathic pain mouse model. Whole-brain MOR ablation was carried out using the genetic paradigm A2a-Cre crossed with MORloxP/loxP mice. Following oxycodone conditioning, animals with MORs knocked out exhibited significantly greater oxycodone preference regardless of pain state compared to wildtype littermates Subsequently, a conditional MOR ablation from MSNs in the medial shell of the NAc was carried out using a novel CRISPR-Cas9 viral construct. Animals with bilateral MOR knock-out exhibited significantly greater oxycodone preference when compared to control unilateral or...

Impact of a Nurse Practitioner–Led Hypertension Telemonitoring on Adherence and Blood Pressure Control in Primary Care: A Quasi-Experimental Design

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Background: Hypertension (HTN) is a leading cause of cardiovascular disease, morbidity, and mortality in patients with uncontrolled blood pressure (BP). Lack of knowledge, inadequate self-care behaviors, and poor medication adherence contribute to suboptimal BP control despite available treatments. Nurse practitioners (NPs) can lead telehealth-supported interventions that promote self-management and improve BP outcomes. In primary care settings, a substantial number of adult patients present with uncontrolled BP with routine clinic visits. Literature reviews of randomized control trials (RCT) indicate that telehealth and patient-centered interventions address challenges such as health literacy, access, time, transportation, and financial constraints, especially in underserved populations. Objectives: The quality improvement project aimed to evaluate the effects of NP-led home BP telemonitoring (HBPT), education and lifestyle modification on BP control, adherence and self-management...

Metabolic assessments of neurostimulation therapy to reduce apnea (MANTRA) trial: rationale and methods

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

PurposeTo investigate the effects of hypoglossal nerve stimulation (HGNS) therapy on energy balance and insulin resistance among patients stabilized on HGNS.MethodsIn this randomized, within-subject crossover trial, we compare energy balance and insulin resistance during active HGNS (“HGNS-on”) versus HGNS withdrawal (“HGNS-off”) among 30 patients with OSA who have been stabilized on HGNS for ≥3 months. Participants will undergo between 2-4 weeks of each study phase (HGNS-on and HGNS-off), with the duration of HGNS-on and HGNS-off standardized within participants. Between the two study phases (HGNS-on and HGNS-off), patients resume HGNS for 1 week. At the end of each study phase, participants undergo fasting anthropometric measurements, blood sample collection, and home sleep testing. A subset of participants undergo additional assessments of energy expenditure (via doubly labeled water technique) and energy intake.ResultsThe primary outcome is energy balance, as calculated from...

Higher structure of non-invertible symmetries from Lagrangian descriptions

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The symmetry structure of a quantum field theory is determined not only by the topological defects that implement the symmetry and their fusion rules, but also by the topological networks they can form, which is referred to as the higher structure of the symmetry. In this paper, we consider theories with non-invertible symmetries that have an explicit Lagrangian description, and use it to study their higher structure. Starting with the 2d free compact boson theory and its non-invertible duality defects, we will find Lagrangian descriptions of networks of defects and use them to recover all the F-symbols of the familiar Tambara-Yamagami fusion category TY(ℤN, +1). We will then use the same approach in 4d Maxwell theory to compute F-symbols associated with its non-invertible duality and triality defects, which are 2d topological field theories. In addition, we will also compute some of the F-symbols using a different (group theoretical) approach that is not based on the Lagrangian...

A re-writable Analog Compute-in-Memory Architecture Incorporating a Charge-Trap-Transistor Based Digital-to-Analog Converter Per Cell

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Artificial-intelligence workloads are increasingly limited by the energy and latency cost of moving data between memory and compute units. Compute-in-memory (CiM) accelerators reduce this data movement by performing matrix-vector multiplications directly inside memory arrays. However, practical multi-bit CiM designs face a tradeoff among accuracy, energy efficiency, density, and re-write ability. This thesis presents an accurate, energy-efficient, and flexible architecture for multi-bit analog CiM using per-cell digital-to-analog converters (DACs). Rather than storing weights in charge-trap transistors (CTTs), CTTs calibrate compact per-cell DACs, enabling low-power multi-bit activation generation. Weights are stored in embedded dynamic random-access memory, allowing straightforward rewriting and flexible updates. An in-situ write-verify-write loop compensates for device mismatch and read-out-path non-idealities, enabling accurate current-mode computation. Circuit simulations...

Effect of Scheduled Feeding on the Deposition and Formation of Mutant Huntingtin Aggregates in a Mouse Model of Huntington’s Disease

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a rare neurodegenerative disorder caused by a mutation in the gene that encodes for huntingtin (HTT), resulting in misfolding and aggregation of the protein product. Mutant huntingtin misfolding and aggregation are key histopathological features of HD and are associated with progressive cortico-striatal dysfunction. Circadian-based interventions may offer a novel strategy to modify disease progression. Previous studies have shown improved sleep quality and activity rhythms by the circadian-based intervention time-restricted feeding (TRF) in a mouse model of HD, the bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC)-mediated transgenic mouse HD (BACHD), as well as behavioral ameliorations and a reduction in the deposits of beta-amyloid protein in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s Disease. Together, these findings suggest that TRF may influence pathological protein accumulation, including mutant huntingtin (mHtt). Therefore, we sought to investigate the effects of TRF...

Combination Immunotherapy and Yttrium-90 Radioembolization in Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Biological Rationale, Clinical Evidence, and Future Directions.

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Background/Objectives: The integration of locoregional and systemic therapies represents a promising strategy in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Yttrium-90 (Y-90) radioembolization provides durable local tumor control, while immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) improve systemic disease outcomes. This review evaluates the biological rationale, clinical evidence, and emerging role of combination Y-90 radioembolization and immunotherapy in HCC. Methods: A semi-systematic (PRISMA-informed) literature review of PubMed/MEDLINE through September 2025 was conducted, including clinical trials, retrospective and prospective studies, and translational investigations evaluating Y-90 radioembolization, immunotherapy, and their combination. Results: Preclinical and translational studies demonstrate that Y-90 radioembolization induces immunogenic cell death, enhances antigen presentation, and activates immune pathways including interferon signaling and STING-mediated responses,...

Invasive plants reduce functional feeding diversity and trophic interactions of insect herbivores on a remote tropical island.

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Invasive plants are a driver of global insect decline, yet their impacts on trophic interactions in insular tropical island ecosystems remain poorly understood. We investigated patterns of insect herbivory in the lowland rainforest of Moorea, French Polynesia-a remote tropical island in the South Pacific-on a total of twelve species of native, naturalized (introduced, non-invasive), and invasive host plants common in the forest. Using the functional feeding group-damage type system-a functional approach commonly applied in paleoecological studies that investigates traces of insect and fungal herbivory-we quantified the diversity and abundance of herbivory traces on fresh leaf litter and constructed weighted bipartite networks to assess community structure. Our results show a significantly reduced trophic interaction on invasive plants, which experienced substantially lower functional diversity and intensity of insect herbivory across all functional groups (e.g., stylophytic feeding,...

Exploring the Interpretability of OthelloGPT

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Large language models trained on sequential data have demonstrated surprising emergent capabilities, yet their internal computations remain poorly understood. This thesis investigates the mechanistic interpretability of OthelloGPT, a decoder-only transformer trained solely to predict legal moves in the board game Othello on a reduced 6 × 6 board.We apply two complementary interpretability techniques. First, we train linear and nonlinear probing classifiers on the model’s residual stream activations to test whether board state is encoded in a linearly accessible form. We used the probing classifiers to test whether board cell ownership (empty, mine, opponent) can be decoded from intermediate activations. We made a comparison with an 8-head Transformer variant of OthelloGPT. We find that board state is moderately readable but significantly less so than in a wider 8-head architecture, despite the 2-head model achieving higher task performance—a finding that challenges the assumption...

Multi-hazard risk assessment and management: pathways for the Sendai Framework and beyond

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract. Multi-hazard events pose increasingly complex challenges as natural hazards interact in cascading and compounding ways that amplify risks beyond individual hazards. Understanding these interactions – from hazard processes to cascading effects across social, economic, governance, and infrastructure systems – is critical for effective disaster risk management. National and international frameworks increasingly recognise these risk dynamics, most notably the United Nations Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030. The Sendai Framework Mid-Term Review (MTR) in 2023, however, identified substantial implementation challenges across its four priorities; these challenges include gaps in risk data governance, fragmented multi-scale coordination, insufficient investment mechanisms, and limited coverage of multi-hazard early warning systems. With the Sendai Framework approaching its conclusion, there is a pressing need to address these current shortcomings....

Attentional Biases in Self-Control Are Associated with Reward Cue-Related Brain Activity.

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Successfully resolving self-control conflicts requires individuals to integrate information about the hedonic value of a temptation with its impact on distant goals. Functional neuroimaging research demonstrates that cue-related activity in the brain's reward system predicts self-control failures ranging from weight gain and drug use to gambling disorders. Despite this work, it remains unclear what components of the decision-making process are associated with neural cue-reactivity. The present study integrates eye-tracking and computational modeling of food choices using the attentional Drift Diffusion Model with neural measures of food cue-reactivity in a sample of chronic dieters. Our results show that activity to tempting food cues in the nucleus accumbens and orbitofrontal cortex is associated with an attentional bias towards unhealthy food items during a food choice task. Moreover, functional and structural connectivity between the brain's reward system and a prefrontal region...

Salience Attribution and Sensory Over-Responsivity in Autism Spectrum Disorder: An Integrated Neuroimaging and Neuromodulation Study

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The integrity of human cognition relies on a delicate neural economy: the ability to efficiently gate sensory input and reserve attentional resources for the most salient environmental cues. In Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), this economy is calibrated distinctly, in most cases leading to Sensory Over-Responsivity (SOR) and atypical social engagement. This dissertation investigates the neural mechanisms underlying salience allocation in autism across three levels of analysis: task-based social-sensory integration, intrinsic network dynamics, and causal neuromodulation. Study 1 utilized functional MRI to examine how social relevance influences the processing of aversive sensory input. Results demonstrated that while typically developing youth show robust neural differentiation between social and nonsocial aversive stimuli, autistic youth exhibit reduced discrimination, responding primarily to the sensory intensity of the stimuli regardless of social context. Study 2 probed whether...

Role of community and sexual contacts as drivers of MPXV clade I.

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Initial investigation into the emerging mpox outbreak caused by novel monkeypox virus (MPXV) clade Ib in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo has identified signs of sustained human-to-human transmission and epidemiological links to sexual contacts involving female sex workers (FSWs), which have not been observed in previous clade Ia outbreaks. Using mathematical models incorporating age-dependent contact patterns, we quantified the role of frequent sexual interactions as opposed to community contacts in clade Ibs dynamics and found that this additional mode of transmission could explain its increased outbreak potential compared with clade Ia. As with the globally circulating clade IIb, which is transmitted predominantly among men who have sex with men, our findings reinforce the importance of protecting key population groups-specifically FSWs for clade Ib-in controlling ongoing mpox outbreaks.

Dysregulated DNA Methylation in Abca4-/- Retinal Pigment Epithelium: Insights into Early Stage of Stargardt Disease

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Stargardt disease (STGD1), the most common inherited juvenile macular degeneration, is caused by biallelic mutations in the ABCA4 gene. Currently, there is no approved treatment. In this study, we investigated early-stage epigenomic changes in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) of Abca4^-/- mice, a well-established model of STGD1. Reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) revealed hypermethylation of gene regions associated with disease-related pathways, implicating methyl-CpG-binding protein 2 (MeCP2) and RE1-silencing transcription factor (REST) as potential regulators. Notably, DNA methylation of a subset of genes preceded their transcriptional change and disease phenotypes in Abca4^-/- RPE. Together with the detected age-dependent increase in MeCP2 levels in Abca4^-/- RPE, these findings suggest that early DNA methylation changes may contribute to RPE dysfunction and eventual cell loss in STGD1.

Compound weather and climate events in 2025

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Compound weather and climate events in 2025

Dual Knockout Models of the Spatially and Functionally Conserved rgra and rgrb Zebrafish Genes Reveal the Requirement of RGR for the Integrity of Cone‐Mediated Photopic Vision, the Photopic Visual Cycle and Bruch's Membrane Morphology

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The retinal G protein-coupled receptor (RGR) is a visual cycle photoisomerase that photopically regenerates 11-cis-retinal (11cRAL). It plays a crucial role in sustaining vision. Here, we investigated the in vivo role of RGR in the cone photoreceptor-dominant, zebrafish retina, focusing predominantly on how visual function is impacted in the absence of RGR. There are two zebrafish RGR paralogs, rgra and rgrb, both with predominant expression in retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and Müller glia cells. Under standard light rearing conditions, bespoke rgrb^-/-; rgra^-/- double knockout zebrafish present with a ~21% reduction in optokinetic response (OKR) saccades per minute relative to wild-type (WT). This impaired visual behavior worsens in higher photopic conditions ranging from 20 000-81 000 lx. In contrast, no significant OKR defect is observed under dark-adapted conditions, consolidating the light-dependent role of RGR in vision. Retinoid profiling of...

Transoral Robotic Surgery vs. Non-Transoral Robotic Surgery Tongue Resection for Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Transoral Robotic Surgery vs. Non-Transoral Robotic Surgery Tongue Resection for Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Design and TCAD-Based Evaluation of a 20 nm Bulk CMOS Technology Platform for Low-Power Logic Applications

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Design and TCAD-Based Evaluation of a 20 nm Bulk CMOS Technology Platform for Low-Power Logic Applications

American Thyroid Association 2026 Guidelines for Thyroid Disease in Preconception, Pregnancy, and Postpartum.

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Background

Thyroid disease in pregnancy, preconception, and postpartum is a common and clinically relevant problem. Since the publication of the American Thyroid Association (ATA) guidelines in 2017, substantial new clinical and scientific evidence has become available. The aim of these guidelines is to provide clinicians, patients, researchers, and policymakers with evidence-based recommendations on the care of women with thyroid disease before, during, and after pregnancy.

Methods

The clinical questions addressed were informed by prior ATA guidelines, stakeholder feedback, a global needs assessment, and input from the multidisciplinary task force. Systematic literature searches were conducted with the support from a medical librarian and evaluated using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation framework. Recommendations were formulated based on the quality of evidence, balance of benefits and harms, patient values, feasibility, and...

Droplet-Based Radiosynthesis and High-Throughput Optimization of Vinyl Sulfone Prosthetic Group ([¹⁸F]FVSB) and Peptide Bioconjugation.

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Fluorine-18 is often considered an ideal positron emitter owing to its excellent chemical, physiological, and nuclear properties. Consequently, the development of rapid, simple, and reliable ¹⁸F-labeling strategies remains critically important for synthesizing new radiopharmaceuticals for PET molecular imaging. A common approach involves the synthesis of ¹⁸F-labeled prosthetic groups that subsequently undergo bioconjugation with peptides or other biomolecules to generate ¹⁸F-labeled imaging probes. However, conventional synthetic methods for these prosthetic groups are often lengthy, require large quantities of precursor and solvent, and typically rely on elevated reaction temperatures. Herein, we report a droplet-based microscale synthetic methodology for the preparation of the [¹⁸F]FVSB prosthetic group that minimizes precursor and solvent usage, proceeds rapidly, and operates at relatively low temperatures. Conditions were optimized...

Living with Deferred Risk: Suppression, Settlement, and Stories in Southern California's Wildland-Urban Interface

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This dissertation argues that the current wildfire reality in Southern California is best understood through the concept of deferred risk—an accumulation of vulnerabilities that is obscured beneath socially produced assumptions of stability, control, and growth and which culminate in catastrophic wildfire. The author uses a mixed-method approach to (1) trace the ways that settlement campaigns and historical fire management choices in Southern California have led to such accumulation of risk, (2) explore the lived experience of deferred risk becoming realized through catastrophic wildfires such as the 2025 Palisades and Eaton fires, and (3) examine how experiences with wildfire are publicly narrated through analysis of newspaper coverage of the 2017 Thomas fire. Together, the chapters illustrate the ways in which historical management and settlement choices have led to an expectation of stability in the wildland-urban fringes in Southern California. In turn, this expectation of...

Gasoline Costs and Affordability Pressures in California: Impacts on Latino Households

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Gasoline Costs and Affordability Pressures in California: Impacts on Latino Households

Contesting Chinatown: Community Ownership in Urban Growth Politics in Los Angeles’ Chinatown, 1975-2012

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This dissertation examines the community politics of urban redevelopment in Los Angeles’ Chinatown from 1975-2012, using archival documents, interviews with community leaders, government staff, Chinatown residents, and small business owners, newspaper articles in English and Chinese, and Census Data. It asks: How do community groups—particularly those rooted in ethnic communities—acquire and exercise power in shaping urban redevelopment projects? What strategies do community groups use to gain legitimacy for representing community needs in addressing neighborhood redevelopment, public safety, and economic well-being? How do different community stakeholders define who counts as the community and what community needs are? How do groups deploy narratives tied to race, ethnicity, migration and class to create boundaries around who belongs to the community? In the 1970s, LA’s Chinatown began to rapidly grow as immigrants and refugees moved in from Southeast Asia, China, and...

A Geometric Approach to Low-Energy Trajectory Planning in the Circular Restricted Three Body Problem

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This work develops a framework to identify low-energy trajectories in the Circular Restricted Three Body Problem (CR3BP) based on the identification of minimal geodesics. We propose that minimal geodesics on a manifold described by a Randers metric that encodes the dynamics of the CR3BP correspond to natural, low-energy pathways through the state space of the physical three body system. We demonstrate the efficacy of this framework by comparing its results to both periodic low-energy orbits in the CR3BP and as-flown spacecraft ephemerides. This framework transforms the trajectory planning problem from an iterative boundary value problem in terms of time-dependent variables to a direct minimization problem solely parametrized by the curve length of the trajectory. Since the dynamics of a spacecraft traveling between celestial bodies in our Solar System can be modeled with the CR3BP, the proposed geometric framework is suitable for preliminary trajectory planning for missions within...

Aging, HOXB13 germline risk variants, and prostate cancer risk

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Aging and germline variants are two of the biggest biological risk factors for prostate cancer initiation. Common aging prostate diseases include benign prostate hyperplasia, prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia, and prostate adenocarcinoma, all of which involve dysregulated prostate cell growth and are associated with an expansion of progenitor-like luminal cells. Normal prostate tissue development depends on the transcription factor HOXB13. Carriers of specific germline HOXB13 variants experience higher risk of developing prostate cancer as well as earlier age of disease onset, which potentially signifies accelerated aging in prostate epithelium. More interestingly, distinct germline HOXB13 variants are found exclusively in individuals of distinct ancestries. It remains unclear to what extent these ancestry-associated germline HOXB13 variants alter the prostate aging signature, and how that may contribute to prostate cancer initiation. To address this question, this dissertation...

Enhancing Prescriber Readiness: An Educational Intervention on Long-Acting Injectable Antipsychotics for New Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioners

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Background: Long-acting injectable (LAI) antipsychotics improve adherence and reduce relapse risk, yet they remain underused. Early-career psychiatric–mental health nurse practitioners (PMHNPs) often report limited training and lower confidence with LAI selection, initiation, monitoring, and missed-dose management. Objectives: To evaluate whether a structured LAI education program improves early-career PMHNPs’ knowledge, confidence, and attitudes related to LAI implementation in routine practice. Design: This single-site quality improvement project used a single-group pretest and posttest design. Before participating in a 90-minute interactive education session, PMHNPs first completed a baseline survey, followed by an immediate post-session survey, and a follow-up survey 4 weeks later. Results: Of the 22 PMHNPs initially enrolled, 18 completed pre- and posttest surveys, for a retention rate of 81.8%. Mean knowledge scores increased from 7.50 (SD = 3.07) at pretest to 9.78 (SD...

Streaming Functional Encryption

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We initiate the study of streaming functional encryption (sFE) which is designed for scenarios in which data arrives in a streaming manner and is computed on in an iterative manner as the stream arrives. Unlike in a standard functional encryption (FE) scheme, in an sFE scheme, we (1) do not require the entire data set to be known at encryption time and (2) allow for partial decryption given only a prefix of the input. More specifically, in an sFE scheme, we can sequentially encrypt each data point x, in a stream of data x = X1... Xn as it arrives, without needing to wait for all n values. We can then generate function keys for streaming functions which are stateful functions that take as input a message x₁ and a state st, and output a value yi and the next state sti+1. For any k ≤ n, a user with a function key for a streaming function f can learn the first k output values y1... yk where (Yi, sti+1) = f(xi, sti) and st₁ = 1 given only ciphertexts for the first k elements x1......

Perceiving Gender Identity: Mental Representation, Categorization, and Evaluation of Transgender Targets

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Transgender individuals represent a growing share of the American population yet face disproportionate rates of violence, discrimination, and psychological adversity. Despite extensive documentation of these consequences, the cognitive and perceptual processes through which anti-transgender bias originates remain poorly understood. This dissertation blends social vision and social cognition frameworks to investigate how transgender individuals are mentally represented, visually categorized, and evaluatively penalized in social encounters.The first empirical chapter introduces a novel indirect measure of mental representations, the Group Q-Sort (GQ-Sort), applying it across four studies to examine how sexual and gender minority identities are mentally organized relative to one another and to broader gender categories. The second chapter turns to the face, examining across two studies whether transgender identity can be visually categorized from facial photographs and how that categorization...

Assessing the reduction in cancer risk from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons among wildland firefighters utilizing air purifying respirators

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Wildland urban interface (WUI) fires produce complex inhalation exposures in their smoke, one of those hazardous exposures are particulate bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). This study characterized the composition and size distribution of particulate bound PAHs measured in WUI simulated smoke generated in a chamber system. A filtration model was utilized to examine the filtration efficiency of a high performance respirator filter against particle bound PAHs in the generated smoke. Four combustion trials were performed containing biogenic and synthetic fuels to represent WUI combustion conditions. Samples were collected by a cascade impactor and analyzed via GC-MS, which allowed for speciation and calculation of toxic equivalency to determine the lifetime average daily dose and incremental lifetime cancer rick (ILCR). The study found that the particulate bound PAHs were predominately in the thoracic and respirable size ranges which indicated potential deposition in...

Advancing Atmospheric and Wildfire Science Education Through a Visual Science Communication Framework

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Atmospheric and wildfire science can be difficult for non-expert audiences to interpret when communicated primarily through technical language, static figures, or traditional lecture-based instruction. This thesis develops, documents, and evaluates jibber JABR, a multimedia science communication framework for atmospheric and wildfire education grounded in scientific accuracy, narrative structure, visual explanation, conversational accessibility, and classroom integration. Season One episodes translated topics including Southern California fire weather, Santa Ana winds, prescribed fire, biome-level fire danger, and wildfire vulnerability through interviews, narration, motion graphics, animations, and real-world examples. Episodes were integrated into UCLA general education Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences courses through homework, laboratory, discussion, and reflection assignments. Student feedback, episode-linked performance, and platform analytics suggest students valued the...