Global database of cement production assets and upstream suppliers.

Cement producers and their investors are navigating evolving risks and opportunities as the sector's climate and sustainability implications become more prominent. While many companies now disclose greenhouse gas emissions, the majority from carbon-intensive industries appear to delegate emissions to less efficient suppliers. Recognizing this, we underscore the necessity for a globally consolidated asset-level dataset, which acknowledges production inputs provenance. Our approach not only consolidates data from established sources like development banks and governments but innovatively integrates the age of plants and the sourcing patterns of raw materials as two foundational variables of the asset-level data. These variables are instrumental in modeling cement production utilization rates, which in turn, critically influence a company's greenhouse emissions. Our method successfully combines geospatial computer vision and Large Language Modelling techniques to ensure a comprehensive and holistic understanding of global cement production dynamics.

Do African American adolescents internalize direct online discrimination? Moderating effects of vicarious online discrimination, parental technological attitudes, and racial identity centrality.

African American adolescents have become more active users of digital media, which may increasingly expose them to direct online discrimination based on their racial and gender identities. Despite well-documented impacts of offline discrimination, our understanding of if and how direct online discrimination affects African American adolescents similarly remains limited. Guided by intersectional and ecological frameworks, we examined the association between direct online discrimination and internalized computing stereotypes in African American adolescents. Further, we explored the moderating effects of systemic and individual factors - vicarious online discrimination, parental technological attitudes, and racial identity centrality - on this association by adolescent gender. Utilizing data from 1041 African American parent-adolescent dyads, we found a positive association between adolescents' direct online discrimination and internalized computing stereotypes. Surprisingly, greater vicarious online discrimination mitigated this association for both male and female adolescents. Further, parental technological attitudes and racial identity centrality mitigated this association only for female but not male adolescents. Our findings highlight the importance of understanding the impact of media on adolescents' online experiences from intersectional and systemic perspectives. We discuss the implications for prospective research and educational programs focused on African American adolescents' digital media use and online experiences.

Mentoring in STEM higher education: a synthesis of the literature to (re)present the excluded women of color.

Mentoring initiatives for undergraduate and graduate women of color (WOC) have provided peer-to-peer relationships and counterspaces to disrupt the inequitable treatment of students in STEM higher education (HE). This literature synthesis explores intersectionality in STEM HE mentoring through pursuing the following research questions: (1) What impact do the social contexts of WOC have on their mentoring experiences in STEM HE? (2) What role does intersectionality play in the structural organization of WOC mentoring models in STEM HE? (3) How has intersectionality shaped the life experiences of WOC mentors and mentees? and (4) How can mentoring models utilize intersectionality to incorporate the experiences of WOC in STEM HE? Thematic findings from literature related to STEM HE mentoring suggest a reinforcement of deficit mentoring models (Fix the URM), a symbolic application of intersectionality (branding gender-race), and a lack of paradigmatic shifts (catch-all). Our specific recommendations presented in this article challenge the epistemic oppression and epistemic violence that current STEM HE mentoring models operationalize. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40594-022-00367-7.

Online Developmental Science to Foster Innovation, Access, and Impact.

We propose that developmental cognitive science should invest in an online CRADLE, a Collaboration for Reproducible and Distributed Large-Scale Experiments that crowdsources data from families participating on the internet. Here, we discuss how the field can work together to further expand and unify current prototypes for the benefit of researchers, science, and society.

Using automatic face analysis to score infant behaviour from video collected online.

Online testing of infants by recording video with a webcam has the potential to improve the replicability of developmental studies by facilitating larger sample sizes and by allowing methods (including recruitment) to be specified in code. However, the recorded video still needs to be manually scored. This labour-intensive process puts downward pressure on sample sizes and requires subjective judgements that may not be reproducible in a different laboratory. Here we present the first fully automatic pipeline, using a face analysis software-as-a-service and a discriminant-analysis classifier to score infant videos acquired online. We compare human and machine performance for looking time and preferential looking paradigms; machine performance demonstrates a promising proof of principle for looking time and is above chance in classifying preferential looking. Additionally, we studied the characteristics of the video and the child that influenced automated scoring, so that future studies can acquire data that maximises the performance of automatic gaze coding and/or focus on improving automatic coding for particularly challenging data. We believe this technology has great promise for developmental science.

Split-Brain Babies? Differences in Representation of Bilaterally and Unilaterally Presented Visual Stimuli in Infancy.

Information needed for perception and action is often distributed across the two hemispheres of the human brain. During development, representations lateralized due to topographic sensory maps may be available independently before they can be integrated across hemispheres. These studies (total N = 211) investigate visual interhemispheric integration in two domains in infancy. In Experiment 1, infants (8-14 months) showed stronger evidence of representing the equality of two shapes when the shapes were presented in the same visual hemifield. In Experiments 2-4, infants (10-19 months) showed evidence of greater familiarization when shown 16 dots in one hemifield than when shown 8 dots in each hemifield. The possibility that interhemispheric integration poses an unusually late-resolved challenge in infant vision is discussed.

Primary healthcare provider knowledge, beliefs and clinic-based practices regarding alternative tobacco products and marijuana: a qualitative study.

Use prevalence of alternative tobacco products and marijuana has increased dramatically. Unfortunately, clinical guidelines have focused on traditional cigarettes with limited attention regarding these emerging public health issues. Thus, it is critical to understand how healthcare professionals view this issue and are responding to it. This qualitative study explored knowledge, beliefs and clinic-based practices regarding traditional and alternative tobacco products (cigar-like products, smokeless tobacco, hookah, e-cigarettes) and marijuana among rural and urban Georgia primary healthcare providers. The sample comprised 20 healthcare providers in primary care settings located in the Atlanta Metropolitan area and rural southern Georgia who participated in semi-structured interviews. Results indicated a lack of knowledge about these products, with some believing that some products were less harmful than traditional cigarettes or that they may be effective in promoting cessation or harm reduction. Few reported explicitly assessing use of these various products in clinic. In addition, healthcare providers reported a need for empirical evidence to inform their clinical practice. Healthcare providers must systematically assess use of the range of tobacco products and marijuana. Evidence-based recommendations or information sources are needed to inform clinical practice and help providers navigate conversations with patients using or inquiring about these products.

Discerning applicants' interests in rural medicine: a textual analysis of admission essays.

BACKGROUND: Despite efforts to construct targeted medical school admission processes using applicant-level correlates of future practice location, accurately gauging applicants' interests in rural medicine remains an imperfect science. This study explores the usefulness of textual analysis to identify rural-oriented themes and values underlying applicants' open-ended responses to admission essays. METHODS: The study population consisted of 75 applicants to the Rural Physician Leadership Program (RPLP) at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. Using WordStat, a proprietary text analysis program, applicants' American Medical College Application Service personal statement and an admission essay written at the time of interview were searched for predefined keywords and phrases reflecting rural medical values. From these text searches, derived scores were then examined relative to interviewers' subjective ratings of applicants' overall acceptability for admission to the RPLP program and likelihood of practicing in a rural area. RESULTS: The two interviewer-assigned ratings of likelihood of rural practice and overall acceptability were significantly related. A statistically significant relationship was also found between the rural medical values scores and estimated likelihood of rural practice. However, there was no association between rural medical values scores and subjective ratings of applicant acceptability. CONCLUSIONS: That applicants' rural values in admission essays were not related to interviewers' overall acceptability ratings indicates that other factors played a role in the interviewers' assessments of applicants' acceptability for admission.

Variability of acute extracellular action potential measurements with multisite silicon probes.

Device miniaturization technologies have led to significant advances in sensors for extracellular measurements of electrical activity in the brain. Multisite, silicon-based probes containing implantable electrode arrays afford greater coverage of neuronal activity than single electrodes and therefore potentially offer a more complete view of how neuronal ensembles encode information. However, scaling up the number of sites is not sufficient to ensure capture of multiple neurons, as action potential signals from extracellular electrodes may vary due to numerous factors. In order to understand the large-scale recording capabilities and potential limitations of multisite probes, it is important to quantify this variability, and to determine whether certain key device parameters influence the recordings. Here we investigate the effect of four parameters, namely, electrode surface, width of the structural support shafts, shaft number, and position of the recording site relative to the shaft tip. This study employs acutely implanted silicon probes containing up to 64 recording sites, whose performance is evaluated by the metrics of noise, spike amplitude, and spike detection probability. On average, we find no significant effect of device geometry on spike amplitude and detection probability but we find significant differences among individual experiments, with the likelihood of detecting spikes varying by a factor of approximately three across trials.

Eyeglass allergic contact dermatitis.

Allergic contact dermatitis is a common problem. The distribution of the eruption with which a patient presents is the key to identifying the offending agent. The ability to quickly recognize characteristic presentations of common allergens is valuable. We present a case of red plaques on the face. The distribution of these plaques pointed clearly to eyeglasses as the cause. Eyeglass frames are manufactured from various materials that have the potential to act as allergens.

GABA transporter function, oligomerization state, and anchoring: correlates with subcellularly resolved FRET.

The mouse gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) transporter mGAT1 was expressed in neuroblastoma 2a cells. 19 mGAT1 designs incorporating fluorescent proteins were functionally characterized by [(3)H]GABA uptake in assays that responded to several experimental variables, including the mutations and pharmacological manipulation of the cytoskeleton. Oligomerization and subsequent trafficking of mGAT1 were studied in several subcellular regions of live cells using localized fluorescence, acceptor photobleach Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET), and pixel-by-pixel analysis of normalized FRET (NFRET) images. Nine constructs were functionally indistinguishable from wild-type mGAT1 and provided information about normal mGAT1 assembly and trafficking. The remainder had compromised [(3)H]GABA uptake due to observable oligomerization and/or trafficking deficits; the data help to determine regions of mGAT1 sequence involved in these processes. Acceptor photobleach FRET detected mGAT1 oligomerization, but richer information was obtained from analyzing the distribution of all-pixel NFRET amplitudes. We also analyzed such distributions restricted to cellular subregions. Distributions were fit to either two or three Gaussian components. Two of the components, present for all mGAT1 constructs that oligomerized, may represent dimers and high-order oligomers (probably tetramers), respectively. Only wild-type functioning constructs displayed three components; the additional component apparently had the highest mean NFRET amplitude. Near the cell periphery, wild-type functioning constructs displayed the highest NFRET. In this subregion, the highest NFRET component represented approximately 30% of all pixels, similar to the percentage of mGAT1 from the acutely recycling pool resident in the plasma membrane in the basal state. Blocking the mGAT1 C terminus postsynaptic density 95/discs large/zona occludens 1 (PDZ)-interacting domain abolished the highest amplitude component from the NFRET distributions. Disrupting the actin cytoskeleton in cells expressing wild-type functioning transporters moved the highest amplitude component from the cell periphery to perinuclear regions. Thus, pixel-by-pixel NFRET analysis resolved three distinct forms of GAT1: dimers, high-order oligomers, and transporters associated via PDZ-mediated interactions with the actin cytoskeleton and/or with the exocyst.

Spatial correlation between submillimetre and Lyman-alpha galaxies in the SSA 22 protocluster.

Lyman-alpha emitters are thought to be young, low-mass galaxies with ages of approximately 10(8) yr (refs 1, 2). An overdensity of them in one region of the sky (the SSA 22 field) traces out a filamentary structure in the early Universe at a redshift of z approximately 3.1 (equivalent to 15 per cent of the age of the Universe) and is believed to mark a forming protocluster. Galaxies that are bright at (sub)millimetre wavelengths are undergoing violent episodes of star formation, and there is evidence that they are preferentially associated with high-redshift radio galaxies, so the question of whether they are also associated with the most significant large-scale structure growing at high redshift (as outlined by Lyman-alpha emitters) naturally arises. Here we report an imaging survey of 1,100-microm emission in the SSA 22 region. We find an enhancement of submillimetre galaxies near the core of the protocluster, and a large-scale correlation between the submillimetre galaxies and the low-mass Lyman-alpha emitters, suggesting synchronous formation of the two very different types of star-forming galaxy within the same structure at high redshift. These results are in general agreement with our understanding of the formation of cosmic structure.

The applicant pool: the genesis of the physician pipeline.

As medical schools across the nation consider the recent call made by the Association of American Medical Colleges to increase numbers of medical school students by 30% by 2015, it is important to explore the characteristics of the applicant pool. Understanding the make-up of the pool of recent applicants to the University of Kentucky College of Medicine can assist us in defining areas where the pool could be expanded in the future. Reviewing data from 2002-2006, we will examine the Kentucky county of origin of our applicants and matriculants. We will describe demographic characteristics of our applicants and matriculants with regard to gender, race and ethnicity, and international backgrounds. We will also look at factors that may discourage or dissuade prospective applicants from seeking admission to medical school including undergraduate grades, denial of the initial application to medical school, and cost considerations.

Laptop computer-induced erythema ab igne: a case report.

Erythema ab igne is a condition characterized by reticulated telangiectasia and hyperpigmentation caused by repeated long-term exposure to infrared radiation insufficient to produce a burn. We report a case of laptop computer-induced erythema ab igne.

Alopecia areata.

Alopecia areata (AA) is a nonscarring, autoimmune, inflammatory, hair loss on the scalp, and/or body. Etiology and pathogenesis are still unknown. The most common site affected is the scalp. Histopathology is characterized by an increased number of the catagen and telogen follicles, the presence of inflammatory lymphocytic infiltrate in the peribulbar region ("swarm of bees"). Corticosteroids are the most popular drugs for the treatment of this disease. Etiologic and pathogenic mechanisms, as well as other current treatments available will be discussed in this article.

A comparison of applicant and matriculant trends, and rising costs of medical education in United States medical schools and at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine.

This paper addresses fluctuations in the applicant and matriculant pools both across United States medical schools and at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine (UKCOM) for 1992-2002. It also presents data regarding the increasing costs of a medical education. Over the past decade, both nationally and at the UKCOM, there has been an over-all reduction in the number of applicants to medical school. In this changing applicant pool, the percentage of female matriculants has increased both nationally and at the UKCOM. However, the number of underrepresented minorities applying to and matriculating in the US and at the UKCOM has dropped since the mid-1990s. Although the applicant pool has decreased in size over the time period examined, the academic quality of applicants as measured by the undergraduate grade point average and Medical College Admission Test scores has increased both nationally and at UKCOM. Costs of a medical education have risen over time, as has the debt burden of medical school graduates due to increasing undergraduate debt, consumer debt, and medical school tuition. Potential causes for and implication of these changing trends are discussed.