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Social first impressions and perceived gender in autistic and non-autistic youth
No full textThis article was originally published in Scientific Reports. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-89083-0.
© The Author(s) 2025.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.First impressions of autistic individuals are more negative than those of their non-autistic peers. There is also a higher prevalence of gender diversity among autistic than non-autistic individuals. No studies to date have investigated the impact of perceived gender on social first impressions of autistic and non-autistic individuals. In this study, adult participants (i.e., undergraduate students) watched sixty 7–10 s video clips of 15 non-autistic females, 15 non-autistic males, 15 autistic females, and 15 autistic males engaging in a “get-to-know-you” conversation (video of participant only). Adult participants provided social first impression ratings and perceptions of gender (femininity, masculinity, and other/neither) for each participant using slider bars. Results showed that autistic youth received lower social ratings than non-autistic youth, and that girls overall were rated more favorably than boys. However, for autistic girls there was a significant correlation between perceived gender and social first impressions that did not exist in the other three groups. Specifically, autistic girls who were perceived as less feminine and more other/neither were also rated lower on social first impressions. These novel findings highlight a double penalty for autistic girls who diverge from societal expectations about both gender and typical social behavior
Neural network reorganization following early-life seizures: neuroprotective role of ACTH in preserving cognitive function
No full textHernan, AmandaAction potentials represent the fundamental mechanism by which neurons transmit and encode signals, governed by complex and interdependent neural coding schemes known as rate, temporal, and population coding. Disruptions to these schemes, particularly during early developmental periods, can lead to profound and enduring cognitive deficits. This thesis investigates how early-life neurological insults, specifically early-life seizures (ELS), disrupt neural dynamics and subsequently impair cognitive functions. We chose the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) as our primary region of interest due to its critical but less extensively studied role in cognitive processes compared to regions like the hippocampus. Utilizing electrophysiological, behavioral and computational approaches, including single-unit recordings, fear extinction learning, graph theoretical analysis, and Graph Attention Networks (GATs), we characterized disruptions in neuronal firing rates, neuronal spike-timing, and population connectivity in the mPFC following ELS. ☐ Our findings demonstrate that ELS significantly impairs cognitive function by inducing rigid temporal firing patterns, reducing firing rates, and disrupting population-level network dynamics essential for adaptive cognitive processing. Importantly, implementing a neuroprotective intervention using Adrenocorticotropic Hormone (ACTH), acting through melanocortin 4 receptor (MC4R) signaling pathways, effectively preserved neural coding dynamics and rescued cognitive performance post-ELS. This therapeutic approach highlights the centrality of maintaining flexible and dynamic neural network function as a critical determinant of cognitive resilience. ☐ The future direction of this dissertation extend beyond ELS, suggesting a convergent mechanistic model where disrupted neural dynamics underpin cognitive dysfunction across multiple neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders, including Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), Fragile X syndrome (FMR1), and traumatic brain injury (TBI). By emphasizing the preservation of neural network dynamics, this thesis advocates for a fundamental shift toward network-centric therapeutic strategies aimed at maintaining and restoring cognitive integrity across diverse neurological conditions.Ph.D.University of Delaware, Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Progra
Human plasma platelet activating factor acetylhydrolase engineered to be a catalytic bioscavenger for organophosphorus compounds
No full textBahnson, Brian J.Broomfield, ClarenceChemical weapons have cast a long shadow across human history in warfare, and more so in the modern age when organophosphorus compounds (OPs) can have dramatic lethal effects on humans, especially to unprepared or underequipped civilians. Inhibition of acetylcholinesterase by OPs creates a cholinergic crisis which culminates in death by respiratory arrest. Traditional chemotherapeutics can prevent death if given in a timely manner, however, their actions do not directly prevent nerve agent poisoning but attempt to treat the physiological responses. Alternative treatments like catalytic bioscavengers, enzymes which degrade the nerve agent molecules directly before reaching their target tissues, have shown promise in not only preventing death but also in alleviating cognitive deficits and reducing patient recovery times. Although in principle, many potential catalytic scavengers can be developed using existing or modified proteins, current efforts have been focused almost exclusively on human butyrylcholinesterase and other human plasma proteins. Paraoxonase (PON) 1 is one such enzyme anchored to plasma lipoproteins. Research into PON1 as a catalytic scavenger has focus on a chimeric form developed at the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel) for enhanced expression and secretion in bacteria. While this is helpful in establishing the platform for multiple laboratories worldwide, it creates an immunological problem downstream in development when delivering a protein drug to humans. To this end, we started with human PON1 as our platform and translated successful mutations from the chimera PON platform to our human PON. Unique mutations for improved catalysis against bona fide organophosphorus nerve agents were attempted. We substituted a tryptophan near the putative active site residues (F347W) for enhanced substrate binding and reduced a bulky group at the periphery (Y71A) to encourage substrate promiscuity. By remaining focused on translational mutations from the chimera to the human PON platform, we sought to reduce the potential for immuno-clearance prior to clinical safety trials. Ultimately, the human PON mutants could not maintain the apparent catalytic efficiencies against OP nerve agents observed in the chimera PON platform. Our attention turned towards phospholipase A2s from human plasma and brain since these enzymes shared similar catalytic mechanisms to butyrylcholinesterase. Crystal structures from human plasma group-VIIA phospholipase exhibited non-aged complexes with OP nerve agents and insecticides which is beneficial for catalytic scavenger development. Human brain group-VIII phospholipase A2 also produced non-aged crystal structures. Both enzymes showed limited stereo preference for binding the more toxic OP stereoisomers (typically P(-)) which is preferential for developing catalytic bioscavengers. We are hopeful that discoveries on these platforms will provide protection in both the peripheral (plasma) and central (brain) compartments. Having the protein platform native in each compartment would potentially minimize aggressive immuno-clearance. A catalytic scavenger in the brain would need to have a KM for OP hydrolysis at or near the association constant of acetylcholinesterase for the OP. Human plasma platelet activating factor acetylhydrolase mutant W298H developed catalytic power against the OP nerve agent soman and transformed from being the victim of OP inhibition to the aggressor for OP destruction. To evaluate the significance of our W298H mutant, we must consider the catalytic bioscavenger power needed to overcome lethal concentrations of nerve agents. Recent work has demonstrated that an engineered PON1 needs a kcat /KM of 5 x 107 M-1 min-1 to provide protection to mammals against a lethal dose of OP nerve agents with no other administered therapeutics. This is substantially higher than the kcat /KM for W298H at 8 x 103 M-1 min-1. However, from a historical perspective, human wild type (WT) PON1 has limited catalytic power against G-type OPs and yet through directed evolution, researchers have been able to optimize catalytic efficiency from 1.7 x 107 M-1 min-1 in an evolved chimeric platform. Our success in plasma PAF-AH W298H is just a start and opens the door for future protein engineering projects including a directed evolution approach and exploring substrate promiscuity. Preventing the effects of chemical weapons either on the battlefield or against civilian targets through the advancement of new medical countermeasures stands not only as a moral imperative for mankind but as a paramount concern for global security.University of Delaware, Department of Chemistry and BiochemistryPh.D
Suicidal Ideation, Cognitive Control, and Sleep in Veterans in a Residential Treatment Facility: A Pilot Study
No full textThis article was originally published in Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/sltb.70011.
© 2025 The Author(s). Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Association of Suicidology.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Introduction
Sleep disorder symptoms are associated with suicidal ideation, and wakefulness in the middle of the night is associated with an increased risk for suicide, potentially due to deficits in cognitive control. Little is known about daily-level associations among sleep and suicide or about the role of cognitive control in these associations.
Methods
Veterans (n = 32) with past-month suicidal ideation in a residential treatment unit were assessed for 28 days using the suicide visual analogue scale (S-VAS) to assess suicidal urges, a daily sleep diary, and self-reported cognitive control.
Results
Wakefulness in the middle of the night (1–4 a.m.) was associated with the most severe suicidal ideation. Nocturnal wakefulness and sleep quality were each associated with next-day suicidal ideation intensity. Self-reported cognitive control deficits were associated with more intense suicidal ideation. The association between nocturnal wakefulness and suicidal ideation was partially accounted for by self-reported impulsive behavior (7% of variance).
Conclusions
Veterans reported the highest suicidal ideation in the middle of the night. These findings suggest the importance of assessing sleep, suicidal ideation, and cognitive control among veterans and the need to consider nocturnal wakefulness as an indicator of heightened risk for suicide among veterans.This project was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (R21MH123888 and R01 MH132740-01). This publication was made possible through core services and support from the Penn Mental Health AIDS Research Center (PMHARC), the NIH-funded program (P30 MH 097488), and the Penn INSPIRE Center, an NIMH-funded program (1P50MH127511-01)
Enhanced thermal response of 3D-printed bilayer hydrogels via nanoclay incorporation
No full textThis article was originally published in Molecular Systems Design & Engineering. The version of record is available at:https://doi.org/10.1039/d5me00018a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. Open Access Article. Published on 11 June 2025Selective adsorption of hazardous micropollutants from water remains a critical challenge in sustainable materials design. Herein, we demonstrate a combined computational–experimental approach to rationally engineer molecularly imprinted polymers for targeted porosity, using 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene as a model template. By simulating pre-polymerisation mixtures of monomers, crosslinkers, and solvent using molecular dynamics, we capture key template–monomer interactions and predict the resulting porosity of the final polymer network. Surface area and free volume predictions from simulations show excellent agreement with experimental nitrogen sorption data across varying solvent compositions. Our findings highlight a fundamental trade-off between imprinting efficiency (favoured in acetonitrile-rich environments) and porous structure (promoted by dimethyl sulfoxide). We validate that pre-polymerisation simulations alone can accurately guide formulations toward high-performance materials, opening new pathways for computationally-driven design of porous polymeric adsorbents.The authors gratefully acknowledge the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for funding this work. W. B. acknowledges support from a PhD studentship under grant number EP/R513155/1. This research was also supported in part by the EPSRC grant EP/V051083/1 (Manufacturing in Hospital: BioMed 4.0). Computational resources were provided by the University of Bath's High-Performance Computing (HPC) facility. The authors thank the technical staff at the University of Bath for assistance with nitrogen sorption analysis and scanning electron microscopy
Frontiers in blockchain for secure information sharing in next generation transportation systems
No full textNejad, MarkIncorporating connected mobility data into decision-making brings about significant data security and privacy challenges in next generation transportation systems. The problem becomes worse when the raw traffic data stream contains commuters' sensitive information that could be extracted by successful attackers. The challenges of data security and privacy must be addressed in order to create a secure information sharing environment for next generation transportation systems. ☐ Blockchain technology, which provides a tamper-resistant journal of state transition events, becomes an ideal candidate for realizing the goals of creating secure information sharing frameworks. However, existing blockchain technology and deployments also have their limitations, especially in data privacy. Because the saved data on the blockchain ledger can not be altered, we do not want to make sensitive information publicly available or record false information permanently without an authentication protocol. ☐ Innovations are needed to overcome barriers in blockchain technology for enabling secure and privacy-preserving information sharing in next generation transportation systems. This Ph.D. dissertation introduces three main innovations: (1) a zero-knowledge and Byzantine fault tolerant consensus that brings privacy-preserving to the blockchain consensus level for verifying and processing transactions, Chapter 2; (2) novel privacy-preserving authentication schemes for blockchain networks based on zero-knowledge proofs to increase security and safety in traffic management, autonomous truck fleets and ridesharing, Chapters 3, 4 and 5; and (3) blockchain-inspired architecture designs with access control policies that protect huge amounts of traffic and users' data and log access events into blockchain for traceability and accountability, Chapters 4 and 5.University of Delaware, Department of Civil and Environmental EngineeringPh.D
Coastal stressors reduce crop yields and alter soil nutrient dynamics in low-elevation farmlands
No full textThis article was originally published in Discover Agriculture. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s44279-025-00303-7
© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate
credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if you modified the licensed material.
You do not have permission under this license to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party
material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material
is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted
use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativeommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 /.Saltwater intrusion (SWI) driven by sea level rise (SLR) is transforming coastal agricultural fields along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. In these regions, salinization is an increasing challenge for farmers, yet practical experience and effective management strategies for saline soils remain limited. To assess crop performance and nutrient dynamics under SWI, we conducted a four-year crop rotation, including sorghum (Sorghum bicolor), barley (Hordeum vulgare), and chloride-excluding (CE) soybean (Glycine max) across three SWI-affected farms and one no-salt site on the Lower Eastern Shore of Maryland, USA. We showed that sorghum exhibited the highest resilience to SWI of the evaluated crops, maintaining relative yields above 0.50, with better germination and survival under stress conditions, including drought, soil saturation, and herbivory. For all crops, yields increased with distance from the tidal waters, but barley frequently failed under saturated winter soils and soybean had more instances of zero yields in the plots. We found a strong inverse relationship between elevation above mean sea level (eMASL) and elevation relative to mean higher high water (eMHHW) and soil electrical conductivity (EC). Whereby soil EC increased exponentially below 0.75 m eMASL and 0.63 m eMHHW indicating key thresholds for crop success in low-lying coastal agricultural areas. Available soil phosphorus (P), ammonium (NH₄⁺), and nitrate (NO₃⁻) pools decreased over time in SWI-affected plots, whereas this decline was not observed at the no-salt site. Losses of P were up to 50% of the initial concentration. Our findings underscore the vulnerability of low-elevation coastal farmland to yield and nutrient loss and highlight the need for long-term adaptation strategies, including salt-tolerant crops and alternative land-use planning, to maintain agricultural viability in these transitional landscapes.This research was funded by the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture
(NIFA) [2018–68002–27915] and Chesapeake Bay Stewardship Fund—Small Watershed Grant from the National Fish and
Wildlife Foundation partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (Award No. 0603.20.071142)
ANALYZING BIOGEOGRAPHICAL TRENDS OF BENTHIC HABITATS IN GUAM USING WORLDVIEW-2/3 IMAGERY INTEGRATED WITH ADVANCED DEEP LEARNING
No full textenterBenthic habitatss—ecological communities inhabiting seafloor environments—
such as seagrass meadows and coral reefs, are vital components of coastal ecosystems
but face increasing threats from anthropogenic and climatic stressors. Traditional
remote sensing methods for mapping these habitats often struggle with fine-scale het erogeneity, label scarcity, and computational inefficiency. This study addresses these
challenges by integrating high-resolution WorldView-2/3 multispectral imagery with an
optimized deep learning framework to analyze biogeographical trends in the ecologically
distinct coastal zones of Guam. We propose Tiny-UNet—a lightweight U-Net-based
architecture tailored for benthic habitat segmentation, incorporating channel-wise at tention mechanisms and bilinear upsampling to enhance spectral-spatial feature extrac tion while minimizing computational complexity. The model was trained on a dataset
of nine labeled images that span two regions: Angana Bay and Manell Geus, annotated
with seven habitat classes. Strategic patch-based preprocessing and deterministic data
augmentation are applied to mitigate class imbalance and environmental variability,
such as sunglint, radiometric inconsistency, and clouds. We conducted experiments
and evaluated the performance of our proposed solution, which exhibits outstanding
performance for segmenting and classifying each of seven benthic classes, as well as in
its broader adaptability, when compared to the original U-Net design. The efficiency of
our framework (214K parameters vs 31M in the original U-Net) and the preservation
of the boundaries underscore its potential for scalable coastal monitoring. However,
persistent challenges in transitional zones—driven by environmental noise and spectral
ambiguities—require hybrid physics-AI models to disentangle overlapping signatures, active learning for label efficiency, and multi-sensor fusion to address dynamic condi tions. Integrating synthetic data generation and transformer architectures could fur ther mitigate class imbalance and sensor artifacts, balancing computational efficiency, model generalizability, and ecological precision for scalable coastal monitoring. This
work advances AI-driven marine conservation by balancing computational efficiency with ecological precision, o↵ering a pathway for adaptive management in data-limited
coastal ecosystems.ente
Health risks of under-five children with protein- energy malnutrition at a health Centre in Ngor-Okpala L.G.A of Imo State
No full textThis article was originally published in World Journal of Advanced Research and Reviews. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.30574/wjarr.2025.25.3.0798.
Copyright © 2025 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article. This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Liscense 4.0.Background: Protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) is an acute form of malnutrition caused by inadequate intake of calories and proteins and remains a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among children in Nigeria. This study assessed the health risks associated with protein-energy malnutrition among under-five children managed at a health centre in Ngor-Okpala Local Government Area, Imo State.
Method: The descriptive research design was adopted for the study, and a total of 350 respondents were sampled. The data were obtained through a structured questionnaire.
Results: The results indicated that 62.00% and 41.00% of the children were at health risk due to PEM. Parental education level, parity, poverty, and ignorance were some of the socio-demographic factors affecting PEM. (X² = 3.357, df = 2, p = 0.000) indicated that there was a significant relationship between PEM and parental socio-demographic background.
Conclusion: These findings point out that PEM poses serious health risks, while targeted health education programs focusing on nutrition by caregivers are of utmost urgency in the study area. Community-based interventions on proper nutrition can also greatly help to minimize the health risks of malnutrition in under-five children