News on New Delhi's foreign policy has recently been among the top stories in the media. On April 11, 2005, India started a strategic partnership with China, and, on June 29, 2005, signed a 10-year defense agreement with the United States. Western observers, however, have paid less attention to an ambitious Indian move in the military field: Project Seabird. This plan – with origins from the mid-1980s – is to be assessed in light of two geopolitical triangles juxtaposing on the Indian Ocean's background: U.S.-India-China relations and China-Pakistan-India relations. In this complicated geopolitical configuration, New Delhi is not simply a partner of China or the United States: India is emerging as a major power that follows its own grand strategy in order to enhance its power and interests.

Fundraising is an essential part of the political enterprise. In almost all countries, parties and candidates rely on donations in order to collect sufficient resources to finance their political activities. While most of the existing research in the past has focused on the motivation of donors to contribute to parties and candidates, this article starts from the premise that the level of donations can best be explained by an interplay of supply-side factors (donors) and demand-side factors (political actors). This article specifically focuses on the demand-side: which policy and strategies do political actors develop to seek donations from various sources? To this end, explanatory factors on three main dimensions – institutional, inter-party, intra-party – were examined with regards to the fundraising strategies of European political parties and foundations. Based on a combination of a document analysis and semi-structured interviews, the article will show how the regulatory framework, the possibility of a public backlash, party ideology and the general income structure of political parties influence their donation policy.

Objectives/Goals: This study tests how fiber microstructural integrity and myelination levels within the cingulum connectome are associated with information processing speed (IPS) in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). We investigate the functional impact of structural coherence, myelin content, and white matter hyperintensities (WMH) load on IPS. Methods/Study Population: Data from 63 RRMS and 25 healthy controls (HC) were used. We hypothesize that the structural integrity of the cingulum bundle and its structural network – or connectome – is distinctly associated with IPS function in people with RRMS (vs. HC) due to myelin-related plasticity across the wiring. Using diffusion spectrum imaging and high-resolution tract segmentation, we constructed individualized white matter connectomes. Diffusion quantitative anisotropy (QA) and myelin fractions (MWF) were used to quantify structural coherence and myelination. WMH load was measured with T2-FLAIR imaging. Bayesian–Pearson correlations, mixed-linear, and moderation models explored how fiber-specific QA, MWF, and WMH load relate to IPS function in RRMS, as measured by Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT). Results/Anticipated Results: We theorize that (1) QA in the cingulum connectome correlates with SDMT performance dimensionally, indicating that structural coherence in the white matter supports IPS function among both groups; (2) increased myelination will strengthen the positive association between QA and SDMT scores, suggesting that connectome-specific myelin content facilitates IPS; (3) conversely, WMH load within the cingulum connectome is expected to inversely correlate with SDMT scores, reflecting the detrimental impact of lesion burden on IPS function; (4) myelination in specialized tracts within the cingulum connectome play a compensatory role to support IPS function in the RRMS group. These investigations can offer a mechanistic clue to potential neuroplastic targets for cognitive interventions in MS. Discussion/Significance of Impact: By linking white matter integrity to cognitive function at the connectome level, this study can support neuroregenerative strategies to mitigate cognitive burden in RRMS. Our findings may advance understanding of how structural coherence, tract myelination, and WMH affect IPS, shaping personalized prognostic and therapeutic interventions.

Objectives/Goals: Access to accurate public health information is an essential component to ensuring health equity. We launched our social media channels on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok to highlight, engage with, and bring culturally tailored and language appropriate health and research information to our target communities. Methods/Study Population: Monitoring engagement patterns with our content on each platform influenced the development of a range of innovative campaigns in both English and Spanish that were informed by our core values of inclusivity, trust-building, ongoing bidirectional communication, and co-creation. These three platforms were chosen to ensure reach and engagement with the different demographics within our target populations. The campaigns included those that provided relevant and accurate health information, highlighted the diversity of our team, uplifted our community partners, and gave voice to our community members. This content included health-related infographics, mini-documentary reels, video essays, interviews, and photos. Results/Anticipated Results: We assessed effectiveness, reach, and engagement based on the robustness of the analytics for each platform. Facebook content, the majority of which is in Spanish, appealed more to older, Latino community members. TikTok content appealed more to younger (under 35), primarily English-speaking community members, while Instagram appealed more to organizational partners and community health workers. A 2023 trendline analysis of average monthly Instagram content reach and interactions indicated a moderate-to-strong relationship between our tailored content and audience engagement. Storytelling techniques consistently outperformed other content types across platforms, and community partner collaboration drastically enhanced our visibility, reach, and further validated our approach. Discussion/Significance of Impact: Social media has become increasingly central to bidirectional information dissemination. Implementing tailored strategies and leveraging storytelling techniques is an effective means of engaging diverse audiences, enhancing public health communication, and building and maintaining trust by providing accurate, accessible information.

Objectives/Goals: To present an asset-based approach to advance minoritized patients’ participation in clinical research by elevating experienced Black research participants’ motivations and decision-making processes, favorable sociocultural research contexts, and impactful research questions to reduce chronic disease burden and improve quality of life. Methods/Study Population: Data will be extracted from a pilot study to develop an asset-based approach to clinical research with young Black adults living with chronic pain. Participants will be Black patients at an academic medical institution on the West Coast, ages 21 to 44, currently or formerly have chronic pain, and current or previous electronic health record-captured enrollment in a clinical research study. Approximately 25 Black patients will participate in semi-structured focus groups with topics including: motivations for research participation, access to research, preferred research activities, perceived research benefits, favorable structural and cultural contexts, considerations of past ethical and trust violations, and alignment of research questions and patient needs. Data will be collected Fall ‘24 and analyzed in Winter ‘25. Results/Anticipated Results: We will examine experienced Black clinical research participants’ decision-making processes for participating in research, including access to studies, perceived value of research, community support, and alignment of study goals with their personal interests and needs. Results will illuminate the sociocultural, structural, and historical contexts under which Black patients have successfully participated in clinical research, and types of studies they have participated in, and recruitment procedures that have been effective. Also, we will examine the conditions for successful study completion. Investigators will also learn about the types of clinical research questions that minoritized patients believe will have an immediate and long term impact on their lived experienced with chronic illness. Discussion/Significance of Impact: The results will challenge deficit models of minority research participation that focus solely on barriers to participation, previous ethical harms, and violations of trust/trustworthiness by elevating the motivations, favorable contexts, and empirical priorities of experienced Black clinical research participants.

Objectives/Goals: We operationalized our evaluation using the RE-AIM framework, by defining its dimensions as nodes within a net effect diagram in the form of radar charts to visually display group variation among nodes. This enhanced our ability to measure the reach, effectiveness, and implementation of our efforts in under-resourced Los Angeles communities. Methods/Study Population: We applied the RE-AIM framework to guide the operationalization of evaluation methods, defining the RE-AIM dimensions generally with a focus on reach, effectiveness, and implementation. We developed and defined a standardized scoring system for metrics that contributed to the RE-AIM dimensions of focus, using data from our activities such as health education workshops targeting diverse, under-resourced populations in Los Angeles. Our standardized scoring system ranged from 1 to 5, reflecting the degree of success within each metric/dimension. Scores were mapped in net effect diagrams in the form of radar charts to enable comparative analysis and visualization, highlighting a variety of grouped variables (i.e., language, locations, and adaptation). Results/Anticipated Results: The operationalized and developed scoring system allowed us to standardize assessment across the RE-AIM dimensions, making it possible to visualize our impact through net effect diagrams. These diagrams illustrated variations in reach, effectiveness, and implementation across different community engagement activities stratified by group variables, providing insights into our impact and areas for adjustment. Preliminary results suggest that the net effect diagram effectively captures both broad and nuanced impacts and serves as a viable application of the RE-AIM framework. The use of standardized scoring enhances data comparability and offers a dynamic visual tool for monitoring ongoing and future initiatives while serving as a tool to display and report our impact. Discussion/Significance of Impact: Operationalizing evaluation with the RE-AIM framework and implementing a standardized scoring system allows us to visualize and monitor effectiveness in real time. This system supports data-driven decision-making for our sustainable, impactful community engagement initiatives ultimately contributing to our goal of improving health equity.

Objectives/Goals: Substantial evidence supports the use of community engagement in CTS. Yet, there is a lack of empirical basis for recommending a particular level of community engagement over others. We aimed to identify associations between level of community involvement and study process outcomes, focusing on procedures to promote enrollment and inclusion. Methods/Study Population: Using manifest content analysis, we analyzed community engagement (CEn) strategies of studies indexed in ClinicalTrials.gov, focusing on studies 1) associated with 20 medical schools located in 8 southern states in the Black Belt, 2) conducted in 2015–2019, and 3) on 7 topics: cancer, depression, anxiety, hypertension, substance use disorder, cardiovascular disease, and HIV/AIDS. Data source was the ClinicalTrials.gov entry and publication for each study. We categorized each study on level of community involvement as described by the study protocol CTSA Consortium Community Engagement Key Function Committee Task Force on the Principles of Community Engagement continuum. Outcomes included recruitment and representativeness. Other codes included funder type, study phase, study status, and time to enrollment. Results/Anticipated Results: Of 890 studies that met inclusion criteria, only 493 had published findings. 286 studies (58%) met enrollment targets. Only 9 studies described any level of CEn (1 outreach, 3 consult, 1 involvement, 3 collaboration, and 1 shared leadership). Time to enrollment for these 9 studies (mean 28.78 mos.) was shorter than for studies without CEn (mean 37.43 months) (n.s.). CEn studies reached significantly higher enrollment (CEn mean  = 2395.11, non-CEn mean  = 463.93), p Discussion/Significance of Impact: Results demonstrate the substantial effect of CEn on enrollment and inclusion in clinical studies. However, the infinitesimal number of studies that reported CEn did not allow comparisons of level of engagement on the outcomes. Findings highlight ethical questions surrounding the lack of publishing incomplete studies.

Objectives/Goals: We investigate how the gut microbiome protects against arsenic toxicity, showing antibiotic perturbation increases toxicity and causes interindividual susceptibility to a sepsis-like disease state in mice. Here, we aim to understand how baseline microbiomes from various mouse vendors impact these outcomes and characterize the observed disease. Methods/Study Population: We developed a novel mouse model where mice are exposed to an antibiotic (cefoperazone) for 2 days, followed by co-exposure to the antibiotic and 100 ppm arsenate. So far, we have evaluated C57BL/6N mice from MSU’s in-house colony, Taconic Biosciences (TAC), and Jackson Labs (JAX), along with C57BL/6J mice from JAX. To determine if the baseline microbiome drives inter-vivarium differences, we established in-house breeding colonies of TAC- and JAX-origin mice at MSU. This allowed us to assess whether, when housed under identical conditions, these mice still show differences in mortality based on their original microbiomes. To characterize the arsenic-induced sepsis-like disease, we performed blood biochemistry assays to quantify the white blood cell populations, and sepsis biomarkers used in clinical settings. Results/Anticipated Results: We observed differences in survival rates between genetically identical mice from MSU (45%), TAC (30%), and JAX (2.5%) in our model. From this, we characterized the baseline composition of the gut microbiomes of these mice and found they were significantly different from each other. We are still awaiting results from our in-house TAC and JAX experiments but expect them to have similar gut microbiome compositions to those directly purchased from TAC and JAX and respond similarly. In our blood biochemistry analysis, we found sick mice presented with low WBC counts and notable biomarkers indicative of liver, heart, and kidney distress. We also anticipate that 16S sequencing results of cecal contents will further support findings by providing evidence of a bacterial infection in the ceca of sick mice. Discussion/Significance of Impact: Collectively, our work demonstrates that antibiotic perturbation of the gut microbiome induces an inter-individual and inter-vivarium susceptibility to an arsenic-induced sepsis-like disease state. This work highlights the importance of considering antibiotic use in the risk assessment of arsenic to better protect the health of those exposed.

This article applies the lessons from the prior theory of responsive regulation in criminology to EU competition law and extends these lessons to argue in favour of an enhanced form of responsive competition law. First, it finds that EU competition law enforcement is already responsive in the traditional sense as it takes the reactions of undertakings into account when deciding which instrument to apply, in accordance with the enforcement pyramid developed by Braithwaite. An enforcement pyramid for EU competition law is presented. The objectives of competition law are found to be broad, and its key norms are open, facilitating responsiveness. This also allows competition law to develop to meet new societal demands, such as the need to control market power in the digital realm and to combat climate change. Next, the article examines the role of responsive and accountable behaviour by undertakings in competition law. First, it is found that in line with new forms of regulation concerning non-financial reporting, greenwashing, data protection, digital markets and services, and artificial intelligence, the special responsibility of dominant undertakings in competition law increasingly demands a pro-active approach to compliance. This also involves considering the interests of third parties and framing private governance in accordance with fundamental rights and legal principles. An enhanced degree of responsiveness of dominant undertakings results. Second, additional space is being created within competition law to accommodate undertakings that behave in a socially responsible manner, notably regarding sustainability. This is examined in relation to the issue of a fair share for consumers, and private enforcement by means of compliance agreements. After discussing potential objections to responsiveness in terms of democratic legitimacy, legal certainty, and redistribution of wealth, the article concludes that the developments sketched above indeed point towards the reinforcement of the responsive nature of competition law.

The Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (c. 2900–1600 bc) of Central Europe are characterized by burial practices that strongly differentiate between men and women through body placement and orientation in the grave, as well as through grave goods. The osteological sex estimation of the individuals from the cemeteries of Franzhausen I and Gemeinlebarn F corresponds to the gender expressed in the funerary practice in 98 per cent of cases. In this study, we investigate the remaining minority by applying ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography–high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC-HRMS) to identify sex-specific peptides in the dental enamel of 34 individuals, for which the published osteological sex estimation did not fit the gendered burial practice. The results reveal sex estimation and transcription errors, demonstrating that the chromosomal sex of the individuals usually aligns with the gendered burial treatment. We found burials with internally inconsistent gendered patterns (‘mixed-message burials’), but there is no evidence to suggest that a biologically male individual was deliberately buried as a woman or a biologically female individual was buried as a man.

Donald Trump has run for president three times with a distinct slogan of “Make America Great Again” (MAGA), endorsing an agenda that advocates for a return to traditional values, renewed support for gender hierarchies, and the exclusion of outsiders. This agenda has received widespread support from Americans mostly along party lines, but partisanship reflects only the tip of the iceberg. Going beyond party, we focus on the existing cross-pressures and intersections between race and gender to demonstrate the importance of attitudes supporting right-wing authoritarianism in explaining how Americans perceive the MAGA agenda. In contrast to the notion that women—characterized as primarily Democrats and supporters of peaceful activism—are less supportive of the MAGA agenda, our analyses demonstrate that white women do not meet this expectation. Utilizing a race-gendered intersectional methodology and data from the 2023 University of Notre Dame Attitudes Toward Democracy Survey (NDATD), we illustrate the nuances of right-wing authoritarianism as a political ideology that works differently across race-gender intersections in driving support for the MAGA agenda. Variation within gender by race, and in complementary fashion within race by gender, reveals crucial insight into the varied reactions within the electorate. Doing so challenges monolithic narratives of women voters and voters of color and highlights the advantages of an intersectional approach to analyzing contemporary politics.

Two recent models incorporating fairness considerations into the economics literature based on agents’ concerns about the distribution of payoffs between themselves and others (Fehr-Schmidt, 1999, Quarterly Journal of Economics. 114 (3), 769-816; Bolton-Ockenfels, 2000, American Economic Review. 90,166-193) are investigated using a new three-person ultimatum game: One person allocates a sum of money to two others, one of which is randomly chosen to accept or reject the offer. Rejection gives both the responder and the proposer zero income and a positive consolation prize for the non-responder. The data show essentially no reductions in rejection rates, holding offers constant, with and without consolation prizes, contrary to both models’ predictions.

For many years the Simultaneous Multi-Round Auction (SMRA) has been the primary auction design for spectrum sales worldwide. Recently, the core-selecting Combinatorial Clock Auction (CCA) has been used as an alternative to the SMRA in a number of countries promising strong incentives for truthful bidding and high efficiency as a result. We analyze the efficiency and auctioneer revenue of the CCA in comparison to SMRA and examine bidding behavior in both formats. The experiments are based on two value models, which resemble single- and multiband spectrum sales in the field. Such applications often allow for thousands of possible bundles. Bidders in the CCA submitted bids for only a fraction of all bundles with a positive valuation. Bundles were selected based on synergies and payoff after the primary bid rounds. As a consequence, we found efficiency of the CCA to be significantly lower than that of SMRA in the multi-band value model and auctioneer revenue of the CCA to be lower in both value models. In addition, we characterize several properties of the auction format, which result from the two-stage design and the payment and activity rules.

In this paper we study the belief formation processes of a group of outside observers making predictions about the actions of a player involved in a repeated game. We document four main results. First, there is substantial heterogeneity in the accuracy of our observers, with average accuracy being quite poor. Second, while there is no difference between the most and the least accurate observer in their initial beliefs, there are striking differences in their belief updating rules. The most accurate observers have a well-formulated model of player behavior, are good at best responding and quickly incorporate new information to their beliefs. The worst observers behave in an opposite manner on all three fronts. Third, when the game does not converge, subjects look beyond historical actions to make predictions and place more emphasis on forgone payoffs. Finally, we document that a “collective wisdom” emerges when our data are pooled across subjects and analyzed. Specifically, the accuracy of the group estimates becomes much higher than that of the average observer.