Protocol for a construct and clinical validation study of MyCog Mobile: a remote smartphone-based cognitive screener for older adults.

INTRODUCTION: Annual cognitive screening in older adults is essential for early detection of cognitive impairment, yet primary care settings face time constraints that present barriers to routine screening. A remote cognitive screener completed on a patient's personal smartphone before a visit has the potential to save primary care clinics time, encourage broader screening practices and increase early detection of cognitive decline. MyCog Mobile is a promising new remote smartphone-based cognitive screening app for primary care settings. We propose a combined construct and clinical validation study of MyCog Mobile. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: We will recruit a total sample of 300 adult participants aged 65 years and older. A subsample of 200 healthy adult participants and a subsample of 100 adults with a cognitive impairment diagnosis (ie, dementia, mild cognitive impairment, cognitive deficits or other memory loss) will be recruited from the general population and specialty memory care centres, respectively. To evaluate the construct validity of MyCog Mobile, the healthy control sample will self-administer MyCog Mobile on study-provided smartphones and be administered a battery of gold-standard neuropsychological assessments. We will compare correlations between performance on MyCog Mobile and measures of similar and dissimilar constructs to evaluate convergent and discriminant validity. To assess clinical validity, participants in the clinical sample will self-administer MyCog Mobile on a smartphone and be administered a Mini-Cog screener and these data will be combined with the healthy control sample. We will then apply several supervised model types to determine the best predictors of cognitive impairment within the sample. Area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, accuracy, sensitivity and specificity will be the primary performance metrics for clinical validity. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The Institutional Review Board at Northwestern University (STU00214921) approved this study protocol. Results will be published in peer-reviewed journals and summaries provided to the study's funders.

Southern blight of water lily: The first host record of Agroathelia rolfsii on Nelumbo nucifera discovered in Florida, USA.

Nelumbo nucifera Gaertn. (Nelumbonaceae, Eudicots), also known as water lily or sacred lotus, is a nonnative and invasive plant commonly found in artificial ponds and natural lakes throughout Florida (UF-IFAS 2023; Wunderlin et al. 2023). In August 2020, a single sample of water lily plants showing large leaf spots were collected at a residence in Dunnellon, Marion County, Florida (80% disease prevalence with 40% leaf coverage). Symptoms and signs of the disease were necrotized adaxial leaf spots only, bordered by whitish mycelia and hyphae with clamp connections, and whitish to light brown sclerotia formed in the center (<0.7 mm diameter). Symptomatic tissue was plated on acid potato dextrose agar (APDA) amended with chloramphenicol (100 mg/L) and ampicillin (30mg/L), and incubated at 20 °C for one week. Data supporting the molecular identification of this putative pathogen were gathered by PCR amplification and Sanger sequencing of the complete internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and a fragment of the large subunit (LSU) of the rRNA gene (~1.5 kb) using primers ITS1F and LR5 (FDACS-DPI PPST 2020-105211, GenBank OR492009) (White et al. 1990). The identification of the host was confirmed by Sanger sequencing of three plant barcode fragments: ITS2 (ITS2-S2F/ITS4, OR492008), ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase large subunit (rbcL) (rbcLa-F/rbcLa-R, GenBank OR502388), and Maturase K (matK) (matK-KIM1R/matK-KIM3F, GenBank OR502389) (Fazekas et al. 2012). MegaBLAST queries of the ITS/LSU sequence obtained here recovered a 99.61% match to the fungal pathogen Agroathelia (=Athelia) rolfsii (Sacc.) Redhead & Mullineux. (Redhead and Mullineux 2023) (Amylocorticiaceae, Agaricomycotina) strain GP3 (GenBank JABRWF010000005) (Yan et al. 2021). MegaBLAST queries of three host plant DNA barcodes recovered matches of greater than 99.62% similarity to N. nucifera sequences. After diagnosis, symptomatic dried leaf samples were deposited at Plant Industry Herbarium Gainesville (PIHG 17807) and an axenic culture was deposited at the Agricultural Research Services Culture Collection (NRRL 66964). Koch's postulates were fulfilled by the inoculation of sclerotia (as in Terrones-Salgado et al. 2022) on adaxial leaf surface of four-week- old water lily transplants obtained from an artificial pond on campus (two plants with five leaves each). One additional transplant was not inoculated and served as a control; this plant remained asymptomatic during the experimentation period. Each transplant was kept in a 27-gallon plastic container (21W × 30L × 14H in) filled with tap water containing one tablespoon of 20-20-20 all-purpose-water-soluble plant fertilizer (VPG, TX, USA) in a plant biosafety level 2 greenhouse (23 °C, >50% relative humidity, and a 12-h/12-h photoperiod). All inoculated leaves showed necrotized areas after one week and new sclerotia were observed floating on the water surface after three weeks. Fungal pathogen was reisolated and reidentified subsequently. Agroathelia rolfsii is the causal agent of southern blight, also known as grey rot, and is reported from at least in 260 plant genera, including specialty crops such as citrus, cucumber, pepper, peanuts, pumpkin, and strawberry (Farr and Rossman 2018). Agroathelia rolfsii usually causes lower stem, crown, and root rots; consequently, leaf spots are a noteworthy presentation of symptoms for this fungus.

Remote Self-Administration of Cognitive Screeners for Older Adults Prior to a Primary Care Visit: Pilot Cross-Sectional Study of the Reliability and Usability of the MyCog Mobile Screening App.

BACKGROUND: Routine cognitive screening is essential in the early detection of dementia, but time constraints in primary care settings often limit clinicians' ability to conduct screenings. MyCog Mobile is a newly developed cognitive screening system that patients can self-administer on their smartphones before a primary care visit, which can help save clinics' time, encourage broader screening practices, and increase early detection of cognitive decline. OBJECTIVE: The goal of this pilot study was to examine the feasibility, acceptability, and initial psychometric properties of MyCog Mobile. Research questions included (1) Can older adults complete MyCog Mobile remotely without staff support? (2) Are the internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the measures acceptable? and (3) How do participants rate the user experience of MyCog Mobile? METHODS: A sample of adults aged 65 years and older (N=51) self-administered the MyCog Mobile measures remotely on their smartphones twice within a 2- to 3-week interval. The pilot version of MyCog Mobile includes 4 activities: MyFaces measures facial memory, MySorting measures executive functioning, MySequences measures working memory, and MyPictures measures episodic memory. After their first administration, participants also completed a modified version of the Simplified System Usability Scale (S-SUS) and 2 custom survey items. RESULTS: All participants in the sample passed the practice items and completed each measure. Findings indicate that the Mobile Toolbox assessments measure the constructs well (internal consistency 0.73 to 0.91) and are stable over an approximately 2-week delay (test-retest reliability 0.61 to 0.71). Participants' rating of the user experience (mean S-SUS score 73.17, SD 19.27) indicated that older adults found the usability of MyCog Mobile to be above average. On free-response feedback items, most participants provided positive feedback or no feedback at all, but some indicated a need for clarity in certain task instructions, concerns about participants' abilities, desire to be able to contact a support person or use in-app technical support, and desire for additional practice items. CONCLUSIONS: Pilot evidence suggests that the MyCog Mobile cognitive screener can be reliably self-administered by older adults on their smartphones. Participants in our study generally provided positive feedback about the MyCog Mobile experience and rated the usability of the app highly. Based on participant feedback, we will conduct further usability research to improve support functionality, optimize task instructions and practice opportunities, and ensure that patients feel comfortable using MyCog Mobile. The next steps include a clinical validation study that compares MyCog Mobile to gold-standard assessments and tests the sensitivity and specificity of the measures for identifying dementia.

Parasympathetic Nervous System Functioning Moderates the Associations between Callous-Unemotional Traits and Emotion Understanding Difficulties in Late Childhood.

BACKGROUND: Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are characterized by low empathy, guilt, and prosociality, putting children at risk for lifespan antisocial behavior. Elevated CU traits have been linked separately to difficulties with emotion understanding (i.e., identifying emotional states of others) and disrupted parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) functioning. However, no study has investigated how PNS functioning and emotion understanding are jointly related to CU traits. METHOD: We explored associations between CU traits, emotion understanding, and PNS functioning (indexed via respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]) among children aged 7-10 years old (n = 55). We also tested whether deficits in emotion understanding differ across specific emotions (i.e., fear, pain, happiness, anger). Each child's RSA was continuously recorded while they watched a film that included emotionally evocative social interactions. To assess emotion understanding, children identified emotions replayed in 1s animations of scenes from the film. Parents reported on child CU traits, conduct problems, and demographic information. RESULTS: Higher CU traits were related to lower emotion understanding (ß = -0.43, p = 0.03). PNS activity during the film moderated this association (ß = -0.47, p < 0.001), such that CU traits were associated with lower emotion understanding among children with mean (B = -0.01, t = -2.46, p = 0.02) or high (i.e., 1 SD > M; B = -0.02, t = -3.00, p < 0.001) RSA levels during the film, but not among children with low RSA levels (i.e., 1 SD < M; B = 0.00, t = -0.53, p = 0.60). Moreover, we found that the observed moderated associations are driven by deficits in fear, specifically. CONCLUSIONS: The link between poorer emotion understanding, fear understanding in particular, and CU traits was attenuated for children who demonstrated patterns of PNS functioning consistent with attentional engagement while viewing the emotion stimuli.

Childhood conduct problems and parent-child talk during social and nonsocial play contexts: a naturalistic home-based experiment.

Parent-child interactions are a critical pathway to emotion socialization, with disruption to these processes associated with risk for childhood behavior problems. Using computational linguistics methods, we tested whether (1) play context influenced parent-child socioemotional language, and (2) child conduct problems or callous-unemotional traits were associated with patterns of socioemotional or nonsocial language across contexts. Seventy-nine parent-child dyads (children, 5-6 years old) played a socioemotional skills ("social context") or math ("nonsocial context") game at home. We transcribed and analyzed game play, which had been audio recorded by participants. The social context elicited more socioemotional and cognitive words, while the nonsocial context elicited more mathematical words. The use of socioemotional language by parents and children was more strongly correlated in the social context, but context did not moderate the degree of correlation in cognitive or mathematical word use between parents and children. Children with more conduct problems used fewer socioemotional words in the social context, while children with higher callous-unemotional traits used fewer cognitive words in both contexts. We highlight the role of context in supporting socioemotionally rich parent-child language interactions and provide preliminary evidence for the existence of linguistic markers of child behavior problems. Our results also inform naturalistic assessments of parent-child interactions and home-based interventions for parents and children facing socioemotional or behavioral challenges.

Children's knowledge and feelings align in response to emotional music.

Examining emotion recognition and response to music can isolate recognition of and resonance with emotion from the confounding effects of other social cues (e.g., faces). In a within-sample design, participants aged 5-6 years in the eastern region of the United States (N = 135, Mage = 5.98, SDage = .54; 78 female, 56 male; eight Asian, 43 Black, 62 White, 13 biracial, and nine "other") listened to clips of calm, scary, and sad music. In separate sessions, participants identified the emotional content of the music or reported on the feelings elicited by the music clip, with above-chance accuracy. Emotion recognition was associated with age and higher levels of child emotional verbal expressivity. Children with higher parent-reported empathy reported greater resonance with the emotion conveyed by music, specifically for sad music. Recognition and resonance were correlated (i.e., alignment), although the relationship varied as a function of the emotion expressed, with the greatest alignment for sad music. Results provide insights into emotion recognition and resonance in the absence of direct social signals and provide evidence that children's ability to recognize and resonate with emotion differs depending on characteristics of the music and the child. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Susceptibility of centipede tongavine (Epipremnum pinnatum) commercially grown in nurseries in Florida to aroid leaf rust (Pseudocerradoa paullula).

Epipremnum pinnatum (L.) Engl., (Araceae, Monocots) known as dragon-tail plant or centipede tongavine, is the most cultivated aroid species worldwide (Boyce 2004). In 2022, symptomatic dragon-tail plants, collected from plant nurseries in south Florida (e-Xtra Fig.1). Symptoms included round leaf spots often with a yellow halo and erupting pustules mainly distributed in the underside of the leaves. Visits to the nurseries revealed a 60% incidence of approximability 50 mature plants, with some leaves showing up to 30% of tissue damage. The putative pathogen was identified morphologically as Pseudocerradoa paullula (Syd. & P. Syd.) M. Ebinghaus & Dianese (Pucciniaceae, Basidiomycota) (Ebinghaus et al. 2022), characterized by the production of pseudosuprastomatal uredinia with globose to subglobose urediniospores, light-brown, echinulate (1 µm height), 24-31 µm diam with thick walls, 1.5-2.5 µm in height (n=30). Identical morphological features reported by Urbina et al. (2023) (e-Xtra Fig. 1). PCR amplification followed by Sanger sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large subunit (LSU) of the ribosomal RNA genes (Aime 2006) together with LSU internal species specific primer (Urbina et al. 2023) were used to confirm the identification of the pathogen (GenBank ON887194-ON887196). MegaBlast (Chen et al. 2015) searches resulted in a >99% sequence similarity to a P. paullula specimen collected in Florida (2019-101665, GenBank ON887197). Host identification was made by using the Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase-oxygenase (rbcL. GenBank ON887186, ON887187) and Maturase K (matK) loci (GenBank ON887190, ON887191) (Fazekas et al. 2012). Both barcodes resulted in >99.13% sequence similarity to voucher J.R. Abbott 24912 FLAS (GenBank GU135198 and GU135036, respectively). Symptomatic dried specimens were deposited in the Plant Industry Herbarium (PIHG 16229 - 16232). Koch's postulates were fulfilled using urediniospores collected from an infected E. pinnatum sample that was kept in darkness at 4°C for seven days until inoculation. Eight potted dragon-tail plants were inoculated by hand rubbing urediniospores against upper and lower leaf surfaces and three plants were used as controls. All plants were misted with sterile water and covered with plastic bags (23 °C, >90% RH, 12/12 h daylight). Bags were removed 48 h after inoculation, plants were set in a climate-controlled greenhouse (~30 °C, ~65% RH, 12/12 h light cycle) and monitored daily for symptoms. Chlorotic spots appeared after 10 days, and pustules after 25 days while the non-inoculated controls remained symptomless. Aroid leaf rust is known to infect several aroid species, including dragon-tail (Shaw 1995), which some varieties capable to outdoors in USDA 9a hardiness zones (Wunderlin et al. 2023), but the rust fungus has not been observed on any species of Epipremnum in the landscape yet, suggesting that its susceptibility could be driven by plant growth conditions that favor pathogen infection (e.g., excess of humidity and nutrients, dense planting, overhead irrigation, etc.). Here we encourage dragon-tail plant growers to be aware of its susceptibility to P. paullula and to stay vigilant of the culture conditions to avoid plants from getting infected with this airborne pathogen.

First Report of Leaf Blight Caused by Curvularia aeria and C. senegalensis on Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) in Florida, USA.

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) is an important economic crop in Florida and worldwide. In November 2021, a leaf blight was reported on tomato plants (hybrid cherry and artisan tomatoes) from a small farm in Miami-Dade County, Florida. About 100 plants showed symptoms with disease severity of 15% and disease incidence of 80%. Symptoms on the leaves started as small dark spots and coalesced to form larger necrotic lesions over time. Symptomatic leaf tissues were cut into 5-mm pieces, surface disinfected with 70% ethanol for 30 s and 1% NaClO for 5 min, then cultured on PDA for 3 to 5 days at 25°C. Isolations were conducted in three rounds, with 15 samples in each round. Except for the saprophytes, fungal isolates of Curvularia were consistently recovered from tissues in each round. Single spore isolates grouped in two morphotypes (CT1 and CT3, CT2 and CT4) were examined for morphological and molecular identification. Colonies on PDA were dark yellow-green, with a fluffy surface, then both morphotypes turned black, although CT2 and CT4 were light yellow at the edges. CT1 and CT3 produced light-brown, straight to curved conidia with smooth walls and 1 to 3 septa, 18 to 28 ✕ 9 to 12 µm (n=60), and dark-brown stromatic synnemata (> 200 µm in length) in the center of the colony after ~30 days of incubation in PDA. CT2 and CT4 produced brown, mostly curved conidia, 14 to 23 ✕ 8 to 9 µm (n=60), with slightly rugose walls and 3-4 septa, without synnemata. A dehydrated culture of each isolate was deposited in the Plant Industry Gainesville Herbarium [(PIGH, accession numbers 17443 (CT1), 17444 (CT2), 17445 (CT3), 17446 (CT4)]. Total DNA was extracted using DNeasy Plant Pro Kit (Qiagen, Germantown, MD) followed by PCR amplification and Sanger sequencing of the internal transcribed spacers (ITS) and the Large Subunit (LSU) of the rRNA gene, together with the protein coding gene glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), elongation factor 1- (TEF1) and -tubulin (TUB) (Marin-Felix et al. 2020; Himashi et al. 2021; Manamgoda et al. 2012; Myllys et al. 2002) (GenBank accession numbers ITS-LSU: OQ657944-OQ657947, GAPDH: OQ689438 to OQ689441, TEF1: OQ689442 to OQ689445, TUB: OQ689446 to OQ689449). Curvularia clavata as the molecular marker (96% identity) was used for identification. Sequence similarity of 100% in GAPDH, ITS and LSU was obtained in megaBLAST searches for both groups of morphotypes, CT1 and CT3 to Curvularia aeria (Bat., J.A. Lima & C.T. Vasconc.) Tsuda type culture CBS 294.61, and CT2 and CT4 to Curvularia senegalensis (Speg.) Subram. culture CBS 149.71. Pathogenicity tests were conducted with each isolate on six tomato plants that were 6- weeks-old. The seeds used in the tests were provided by the farm, and the variety 'Red Bounty' was also used. Inoculation was accomplished by spraying a spore suspension (1 x 106 spores/ml) of each of the four isolates (CT1 to CT4) and by placing 6-mm PDA plugs of the isolates on the leaves. Six tomato plants were used as the control. All plants were covered by plastic bags and placed in a greenhouse at 23-27°C. The inoculated plants developed small dark spots on leaves 2 weeks after inoculation, and the leaves inoculated by plugs of the fungal isolates had large necrotic lesions, which were similar to those observed on tomato plants from the field. The pathogenicity tests were repeated three times, Curvularia was consistently isolated from inoculated leaves after the symptoms developed, and they were confirmed morphologically in each test. No symptoms were observed from the control plants. Curvularia aeria and C. senegalensis are known foliar pathogens on several important crops, but not tomatoes. To our knowledge, this is the first report of C. aeria and C. senegalensis causing leaf blight in tomatoes worldwide. This finding is important because it will extend the host range of C. aeria and C. senegalensis to tomato, it also implied the essentiality of crop rotation in disease management.

Detection of aroid leaf rust Pseudocerradoa paullula on Swiss cheese plant Monstera deliciosa in the continental USA.

Monstera deliciosa Liebm. (Araceae, Monocots), sometimes referred to as Swiss cheese plant, is one of the most common aroids used as an indoor and landscape ornamental plant (Cedeño et al. 2020). Production of M. deliciosa and other closely related Araceae species represents an important sector of the ornamental nursery business worldwide. Swiss cheese plant is believed to have originated in the tropical forests of southern Mexico, where its fruit is considered a delicacy due to its sweet, exotic flavor (Cedeño et al. 2020). Since 2019, symptomatic Monstera plants from two plant nurseries and residential properties in South Florida were submitted for disease diagnosis to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of Plant Industry (FDACS-DPI) in Gainesville, Florida, and to the University of Florida, Tropical Research and Education Center Plant Clinic in Homestead, Florida. Symptoms included small chlorotic spots on the leaf surface, which expanded and became brown to reddish-brown often with a yellow halo and produced uredinia with abundant urediniospores. The pathogen was identified morphologically as the rust fungus Pseudocerradoa (=Puccinia) paullula (Syd. & P. Syd.) M. Ebinghaus & Dianese (Pucciniaceae, Basidiomycota) (Ebinghaus et al. 2022), characterized by the production of pseudosuprastomatal uredinia. Uredinospores light-brown and globose, echinulate (1 µm height), reddish to light brown, 24 - 31 µm diameter, with thick walls, 1.5 - 2.5 µm height (n=15). Teliospores 2-celled, light-yellow and ellipsoidal, 23 - 28 × 19 - 24 µm (n =15) were observed in sori appearing as dark-brown leaf spots on the adaxial side of the leaves (e-Xtra Fig. 1). Molecular characterization of the fungal pathogen was based on the small subunit (SSU), internal transcribed spacer (ITS), and large subunit (LSU) of the ribosomal RNA genes (Aime 2006) with the addition of a LSU internal primer specific for the rust species Ppaullula_int-forward 5'ATAGTTATTGGCTTTGATTTACA-3' designed in this study to increase the quality and the sequence read length due to a 3'- ~21-Ts-homopolymer (e-Xtra Fig. 2) (GenBank accession number ON887196, ON887197, OQ275200, OQ275201). In addition to morphological identification, the host plant was identified using the Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase-oxygenase (rbcL) and Maturase K (matK) genes (Fazekas et al. 2012) (GenBank accession numbers ON887189, ON887193, respectively). MegaBlast searches confirmed the morphological identification with 100% identity to M. deliciosa vouchers GQ436772 and MK206496, respectively (Chen et al. 2015). Dried specimens were deposited in the Plant Industry Herbarium Gainesville (PIHG 16226, 16227, 17154, 17155). Molecular identification of the rust pathogen P. paullula was carried out through megaBlast (Chen et al. 2015) searches together with a phylogenetic analysis performed in RAxML v8 (Stamatakis 2014) (e-Xtra Fig. 3). Koch's postulates were performed by using urediniospores, collected from an infected sample and were kept for 7 days at 4 C, as an inoculum source. Healthy rooted M. deliciosa plants were inoculated by rubbing the inoculum on both leaf surfaces at >90% RH, room temperature, 12/12 light cycle. After the incubation period (48 h), plants were placed in a climate-controlled greenhouse and watered twice a week, ~30 C, ~65 RH, 12/12 light cycle. After three weeks, all inoculated plants developed symptoms resembling those observed on the samples submitted for disease diagnosis. Controls did not show symptoms. Spores from the pustules of inoculated plants were identified as P. paullula by both morphology and molecular means. The genus Pseudocerradoa comprises P. paullula and its sister species P. rhaphidophorae (Syd.) M. Ebinghaus & Dianese. Both species can be distinguished by size and coloration of urediniospores and their host range within the Araceae. Pseudocerradoa rhaphidophorae produces smaller urediniospores and only occurs on Rhaphidophora species (Shaw 1995). Pseudocerradoa paullula is not considered fully established in Florida, since the host distribution is mainly restricted to indoors and M. deliciosa is rarely used as an outdoor ornamental (Wunderlin et al. 2023). Here we name the disease caused by P. paullula as "aroid leaf rust", due to its ability to infect several species in this plant family. Other closely related hosts reported as susceptible to this pathogen are Monstera standleyana G.S.Bunting (as M.s. cv. variegata), Monstera adansonii var. laniata (Schott) Mayo & I.M. Andrade, Monstera subpinnata (Schott) Engl., Typhonodorum lindleyanum Schott, and Stenospermation sp. (Shaw 1991, 1992, 1995). To date, the aroid leaf rust was only known from Australia, China, Japan, Malaysia, and Philippines (Lee et al. 2012; Shaw 1991). Based on our review, P. paullulla was intercepted once from Malaysia in 2014 at the port of Los Angeles, USA (BPI voucher 893085). This present study reports the establishment of P. paullula in Florida, USA infecting M. deliciosa.

First report of cedar-quince rust Gymnosporangium clavipes on fruit of dwarf hawthorn Crataegus uniflora in Florida, USA.

The dwarf hawthorn Crataegus uniflora Münchh. (Rosaceae, Maloideae) is a small deciduous tree species native to the central and eastern US and south into northern Mexico. Dwarf hawthorn is drought tolerant and commonly found in disturbed areas (e.g., hedges and roadsides). In May 2021, we observed several individuals of dwarf hawthorn growing on the border of an empty field in the Natural Area Teaching Laboratory at The University of Florida main campus in Gainesville, Alachua County, Florida, USA (N29.633382, W82.368350) that were severely infected by fruit galls with visible, whitish aecia (e-Xtra Fig.1). The affected fruit were collected and transported to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services - Division of Plant Industry headquarters in Gainesville for identification (FDACS-DPI, 2021-107788). The conspicuous rust fungus, occurring on the fruit (fructicolous), consisted of tubular aecia (roestelioid), 4 - 5 mm in length × 0.5 mm in diameter, with whitish peridia containing bright orange spores in masses. Aeciospores were semigloboid to globoid, some with an angular side, with bright orange contents, 26 - 31 µm in diameter (n= 20). The wall was densely verrucose, hyaline, 3 - 4 µm wide. Side and wall ornamentation are considered diagnostic features (EPPO Bulletin, 2006). Peridial cells of the aecia were hyaline, angular (pentagonal to hexagonal) to irregular, with a thin, convoluted wall, 41- 57 × 30 - 35 µm (n =10). Aeciospores were detected on blackish, mummified berries five months after the initial collection and aecium disappearance. This persistence demonstrates one of the adaptations allowing the pathogen to remain in a given location (e-Xtra Fig.1). The morphological characteristics are consistent with those of Gymnosporangium clavipes Cooke & Peck (Gymnosporangiaceace, Pucciniaceae, Pucciniomycotina) described by Kern (1973). A voucher was deposited in the DPI Herbarium (PIHG, specimen number 15618). The morphological identification was confirmed by molecular identification: following DNA extraction (DNeasy Plant Pro extraction kit, Qiagen Corporation, Hilden, Germany), we amplified a fragment of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and the large subunit (LSU) via PCR using the primer pairs Rust2inv/LR6 and Rust28S/LR5 (OK337508) (Aime, 2006); amplicons were then Sanger sequenced. NCBI megaBlast searches (Chen et al. 2015) of the resulting fungal sequences revealed high identity (ITS and LSU) to two G. clavipes vouchers: NYBG461394 (99.86%, Genbank accession no. MN605691) sequenced in the latest publication addressing species delimitation in Gymnosporangium (Zhao et al., 2020), and PPST 2020-104160 (99.72%, GenBank MW148514): the first report of this rust occurring on Crataegus marshallii Eggleston (McVay et al., 2021), also recently found in Gainesville, Florida. Phylogenetic analyses were carried out in the phylogenetic package RAxMLv8.0.0 (Stamatakis, 2014) (e-Xtra Fig. 2) further supports placement of 2021-107788 within G. clavipes. The heteroecious nature of this rust fungus precludes Koch's postulates. Based on exhaustive reviews of collection indices and literature, a specimen of G. clavipes on C. uniflora exists at the U.S. National Fungus collections (BPI 117783A) collected in Newfield, New Jersey in 1888 (Farr & Rossman, 2022); this rust fungus has a host range of at least 18 other species of Crataegus (Farr and Rossman, 2022; McVay et al., 2021; Zhao et al., 2020). This report represents the first published record of G. clavipes on dwarf hawthorn, and the first report in Florida.

Reduced sensitivity to affiliation and psychopathic traits.

Psychopathy is characterized by affective and interpersonal deficits, deviant lifestyle, and antisocial behaviors. Much research has been dedicated to understanding the impairments in reinforcement learning, fear conditioning, and sensitivity to threat, distress, or fear in others, which are thought to underpin psychopathic traits. Fewer studies have examined deficits in affiliative processes, which could provide insight into mechanisms giving rise to the impairments in social bonding, closeness with others, and cooperation that also characterize individuals high on psychopathy. The current study examined whether reduced sensitivity to affiliation was related to psychopathic traits among 407 adults from the community (female, 59%). Sensitivity to affiliation was modeled as a latent construct capturing item-level variance shared across 4 measures that assessed sensitivity to emotional and physical cues of affiliation, including stimuli presented as videos or images, and via self-report ratings about sensitivity to positive affiliative and affective cues. Results indicated that lower sensitivity to affiliation was related to higher total psychopathy scores. In particular, in models parsing the overlap of psychopathy factor and facet scores, lower sensitivity to affiliation was uniquely related to higher Factor 1 and affective facet scores, as well as higher scores on a measure of callous-unemotional traits. Our findings provide support for the existence of important socioaffiliative and motivational deficits that may underpin the affective features of psychopathy and speak to the potential to target such mechanisms in interventions and treatments to reduce psychopathic traits. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Neurocognitive testing and cochlear implantation: insights into performance in older adults.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this case series was to assess the impact of auditory rehabilitation with cochlear implantation on the cognitive function of elderly patients over time. DESIGN: This is a longitudinal case series of prospective data assessing neurocognitive function and speech perception in an elderly cohort pre- and post-implantation. SETTING: University cochlear implant center. PARTICIPANTS: The patients were post-lingually deafened elderly female (mean, 73.6 years; SD, 5.82; range, 67-81 years) cochlear implant recipients (n=7). MEASUREMENTS: A neurocognitive battery of 20 tests assessing intellectual function, learning, short- and long-term memory, verbal fluency, attention, mental flexibility, and processing speed was performed prior to and 2-4.1 years (mean, 3.7) after cochlear implant (CI). Speech perception testing using Consonant-Nucleus-Consonant words was performed prior to implantation and at regular intervals postoperatively. Individual and aggregate differences in cognitive function pre- and post-CI were estimated. Logistic regression with cluster adjustment was used to estimate the association (%improvement or %decline) between speech understanding and years from implantation at 1 year, 2 years, and 3 years post-CI. RESULTS: Improvements after CI were observed in 14 (70%) of all subtests administered. Declines occurred in five (25%) subtests. In 55 individual tests (43%), post-CI performance improved compared to a patient's own performance before implantation. Of these, nine (45%) showed moderate or pronounced improvement. Overall, improvements were largest in the verbal and memory domains. Logistic regression demonstrated a significant relationship between speech perception and cognitive function over time. Five neurocognitive tests were predictive of improved speech perception following implantation. CONCLUSION: Comprehensive neurocognitive testing of elderly women demonstrated areas of improvement in cognitive function and auditory perception following cochlear implantation. Multiple neurocognitive tests were strongly associated with current speech perception measures. While these data shed light on the complex relationship between hearing and cognition by showing that CI may slow the expected age-related cognitive decline, further research is needed to examine the impact of hearing rehabilitation on cognitive decline.