Objectives: Activities that require active thinking, like occupations, may influence cognitive function and its change over time. Associations between retirement and dementia risk have been reported, however the role of retirement age in these associations is unclear. We assessed associations of occupation and retirement age with cognitive decline in the US community-based Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC)cohort.

Methods: We included 14,090 ARIC participants, followed for changes in cognition during up to 21 years. Information on current or most recent occupation was collected at ARIC baseline (1987–1989; participants aged 45–64 years) and categorized according to the 1980 US Census protocols and the Nam-Powers-Boyd occupational status score. Follow-up data on retirement was collected during 1999–2007 and classified as retired versus not retired at age 70. Trajectories of global cognitive factor scores from ARIC visit 2 (1990–1992) to visit 5 (2011–2013) were presented, and associations with occupation and age at retirement were studied using generalized estimating equation models, stratified by race and sex, and adjusted for demographics andcomorbidities.

Results: Mean age (SD) at first cognitive assessment was 57.0 (5.72) years. Higher occupational status and white- collar occupations were significantly associated with higher cognitive function at baseline. Occupation was associated with cognitive decline over 21 years only in women, and the direction of the effect on cognitive function differed between black and white women: in white women, the decline in cognitive function was greater in homemakers and low status occupations, whereas in black women, less decline was found in homemakers and low (compared to high) occupational status. Interestingly, retirement on or before age 70 was associated with less 21-year cognitive decline in all race-sex strata, except for blackwomen.

Conclusions: Associations between occupation, retirement age and cognitive function substantially differed by race and sex. Further research should explore reasons for the observed associations and race-sex differences.

The modern marine megafauna is known to play important ecological roles and includes many charismatic species that have drawn the attention of both the scientific community and the public. However, the extinct marine megafauna has never been assessed as a whole, nor has it been defined in deep time. Here, we review the literature to define and list the species that constitute the extinct marine megafauna, and to explore biological and ecological patterns throughout the Phanerozoic. We propose a size cut-off of 1 m of length to define the extinct marine megafauna. Based on this definition, we list 706 taxa belonging to eight main groups. We found that the extinct marine megafauna was conspicuous over the Phanerozoic and ubiquitous across all geological eras and periods, with the Mesozoic, especially the Cretaceous, having the greatest number of taxa. Marine reptiles include the largest size recorded (21 m; Shonisaurus sikanniensis) and contain the highest number of extinct marine megafaunal taxa. This contrasts with today’s assemblage, where marine animals achieve sizes of >30 m. The extinct marine megafaunal taxa were found to be well-represented in the Paleobiology Database, but not better sampled than their smaller counterparts. Among the extinct marine megafauna, there appears to be an overall increase in body size through time. Most extinct megafaunal taxa were inferred to be macropredators preferentially living in coastal environments. Across the Phanerozoic, megafaunal species had similar extinction risks as smaller species, in stark contrast to modern oceans where the large species are most affected by human perturbations. Our work represents a first step towards a better understanding of the marine megafauna that lived in the geological past. However, more work is required to expand our list of taxa and their traits so that we can obtain a more complete picture of their ecology and evolution.

Scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) allows for imaging, diffraction, and spectroscopy of materials on length scales ranging from microns to atoms. By using a high-speed, direct electron detector, it is now possible to record a full two-dimensional (2D) image of the diffracted electron beam at each probe position, typically a 2D grid of probe positions. These 4D-STEM datasets are rich in information, including signatures of the local structure, orientation, deformation, electromagnetic fields, and other sample-dependent properties. However, extracting this information requires complex analysis pipelines that include data wrangling, calibration, analysis, and visualization, all while maintaining robustness against imaging distortions and artifacts. In this paper, we present py4DSTEM, an analysis toolkit for measuring material properties from 4D-STEM datasets, written in the Python language and released with an open-source license. We describe the algorithmic steps for dataset calibration and various 4D-STEM property measurements in detail and present results from several experimental datasets. We also implement a simple and universal file format appropriate for electron microscopy data in py4DSTEM, which uses the open-source HDF5 standard. We hope this tool will benefit the research community and help improve the standards for data and computational methods in electron microscopy, and we invite the community to contribute to this ongoing project.

This article emerged as the human species collectively have been experiencing the worst global pandemic in a century. With a long view of the ecological, economic, social, and political factors that promote the emergence and spread of infectious disease, archaeologists are well positioned to examine the antecedents of the present crisis. In this article, we bring together a variety of perspectives on the issues surrounding the emergence, spread, and effects of disease in both the Americas and Afro-Eurasian contexts. Recognizing that human populations most severely impacted by COVID-19 are typically descendants of marginalized groups, we investigate pre- and postcontact disease vectors among Indigenous and Black communities in North America, outlining the systemic impacts of diseases and the conditions that exacerbate their spread. We look at how material culture both reflects and changes as a result of social transformations brought about by disease, the insights that paleopathology provides about the ancient human condition, and the impacts of ancient globalization on the spread of disease worldwide. By understanding the differential effects of past epidemics on diverse communities and contributing to more equitable sociopolitical agendas, archaeology can play a key role in helping to pursue a more just future.

The isotope dependence of plasma transport will have a significant impact on the performance of future D-T experiments in JET and ITER and eventually on the fusion gain and economics of future reactors. In preparation for future D-T operation on JET, dedicated experiments and comprehensive transport analyses were performed in H, D and H-D mixed plasmas. The analysis of the data has demonstrated an unexpectedly strong and favourable dependence of the global confinement of energy, momentum and particles in ELMy H-mode plasmas on the atomic mass of the main ion species, the energy confinement time scaling as ${\tau _E}\sim {A^{0.5}}$ (Maggi et al., Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion, vol. 60, 2018, 014045; JET Team, Nucl. Fusion, vol. 39, 1999, pp. 1227–1244), i.e. opposite to the expectations based only on local gyro-Bohm (GB) scaling, ${\tau _E}\sim {A^{ - 0.5}}$, and stronger than in the commonly used H-mode scaling for the energy confinement (Saibene et al., Nucl. Fusion, vol. 39, 1999, 1133; ITER Physics Basis, Nucl. Fusion, vol. 39, 1999, 2175). The scaling of momentum transport and particle confinement with isotope mass is very similar to that of energy transport. Nonlinear local GENE gyrokinetic analysis shows that the observed anti-GB heat flux is accounted for if collisions, E × B shear and plasma dilution with low-Z impurities (9Be) are included in the analysis (E and B are, respectively the electric and magnetic fields). For L-mode plasmas a weaker positive isotope scaling ${\tau _E}\sim {A^{0.14}}$ has been found in JET (Maggi et al., Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion, vol. 60, 2018, 014045), similar to ITER97-L scaling (Kaye et al., Nucl. Fusion, vol. 37, 1997, 1303). Flux-driven quasi-linear gyrofluid calculations using JETTO-TGLF in L-mode show that local GB scaling is not followed when stiff transport (as is generally the case for ion temperature gradient modes) is combined with an imposed boundary condition taken from the experiment, in this case predicting no isotope dependence. A dimensionless identity plasma pair in hydrogen and deuterium L-mode plasmas has demonstrated scale invariance, confirming that core transport physics is governed, as expected, by the 4 dimensionless parameters ρ*, ν*, β, q (normalised ion Larmor radius, collisionality, plasma pressure and safety factor) consistently with global quasi-linear gyrokinetic TGLF calculations (Maggi et al., Nucl. Fusion, vol. 59, 2019, 076028). We compare findings in JET with those in different devices and discuss the possible reasons for the different isotope scalings reported from different devices. The diversity of observations suggests that the differences may result not only from differences affecting the core, e.g. heating schemes, but are to a large part due to differences in device-specific edge and wall conditions, pointing to the importance of better understanding and controlling pedestal and edge processes.

Accumulating evidence suggests that deficits of visual selective attention may already occur at early stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD) like the prodromal phase of mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

Our study investigated visual selective attention in amnestic MCI and probable AD patients compared to healthy elderly controls. Groups were matched for age, gender and education. In combination with Bundesen's ‘theory of visual attention’, two mathematically independent and quantitative parameter estimates were derived from a partial report of briefly presented letter arrays: top-down control of attentional selection, representing task-related attentional weighting for prioritizing relevant visual objects, and spatial distribution of attentional weights across the left and right hemifield.

Compared to controls, MCI patients showed significantly reduced top-down controlled selection which further deteriorated in AD subjects. Moreover, attentional weighting was significantly unbalanced across hemifields in MCI and tended to be more lateralized in AD. The majority of patients was biased to the left. Across MCI and AD patients, carriers of the apolipoprotein E ɛ4 allele (ApoE4) revealed a leftward spatial bias. The leftward bias was the more pronounced the younger the ApoE4-positive patients and the earlier disease onset. ApoE4-negative subjects showed balanced attentional weighting.

These results indicate that impaired top-down control may be linked to early dysfunction of fronto-parietal cortico-cortical networks. Accompanying, an early interhemispheric asymmetry in temporo-parietal cortical interactions might cause a pathological spatial bias. As the inheritance of ApoE4 is associated with asymmetric parietal metabolism, a pathological spatial bias may function as early cognitive marker for detecting probable AD subjects.

Lateral gaze aversions which follow reflective or thought provoking questions are called conjugated lateral eye movements (CLEMs). This response was studied in 20 schizophrenic patients, 20 depressive patients and 20 healthy controls. Frontal and parietal EEG measures were recorded simultaneously with the question/answer task. There were no differences in CLEMs among the 3 groups. Schizophrenic and depressive patients demonstrated a significantly reduced EEG-power on the left and an increased power on the right in comparison with healthy controls. This may point to a functional interhemispheric ‘disconnection’ in patients. Comparative correlations revealed EEG-power increase during the occurrence of contralateral CLEMs in the whole 10 min task.

Family and twin studies point towards a partial heritability of suicidal behavior. We investigated the role of a comprehensive set of genes in this behavior. Their selection was driven by results from post mortem and genetic studies. 250 suicide attempters with various psychiatric disorders were compared with 2200 volunteers which were randomly selected from the general population. All subjects were administered standard psychiatric interviews including SCID as well as self-report questionnaires for anger-related traits. Especially, aggressive-impulsive behavior has been studied and associations with these intermediate phenotypes will be presented.

Additionally a large-scale gene expression analysis using cDNA-microarrays to identify new candidate-genes for suicide was conducted. We found several genes to be differentially expressed in the orbitofrontal cortex of suicide completers. Cross-validation experiments using quantitative RT-PCR validated a few genes so far. These genes have been genotyped in our patients and controls and associations with suicidal behavior and intermediate phenotypes, like aggression and impulsivity will be presented.

In acquired peripheral demyelinating disease only few publications point out the possibility of simultaneous involvement of the CNS. We describe two patients with chronic polyneuropathy and monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) developing a progressive dementia syndrome with extensive cerebral white matter alterations.