Matthew Smith - US grants

hormone regulation /control mechanism

"Constructing Understandings of Earth Systems (CUES)" is a comprehensive treatment of the Earth and Space Science Content of the National Science Education Standards for middle school students. The materials address fundamental Earth Systems content. The Earth evolves as a synergistic physical system of interrelated phenomena, processes and cycles that may be affected by human activities. To support the integration of subject matter knowledge and the nature of science, students engage in guided and student-driven inquiry and use CD-ROM or Web-based tools to gather data and promote their explorations through photographs and visualizations. Students are expected to make informed decisions about science-based personal and social issues. The topics covered include the stucture of the solar system, cycles within Earth/Space Systems, flow of matter and energy in and on Earth and in ecosystems, plate tectonics and its effects, the water cycle and weather, fossils, processes that shape the land, change, renewable resources, and resource management and sustainability. The textbook is accompanied by content video, a teacher's guide, professional development materials and a website. The variety of assessments include discovering pre-conceptions, embedded assessments, standardized tests, and open-ended questions.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project focuses on the neural basis of perceptual learning in visual cortex. Although plasticity has been well documented in visual cortex, the time course of plasticity and the kinds of changes that occur in visual neurons have not been fully characterized. The proposed experiments aim to explore the development and nature of visual plasticity due to extensive training by monitoring the evolution of cortical neuronal responses relative to the time course of behavioral change. The change of psychometric and neurometric contrast response functions and the change in correlation within neuronal ensembles will be explored as more sensitive measures of plasticity. An understanding of the mechanisms of change in the cerebral cortex as a result of training is potentially very important for the medical treatment of humans with various kinds of brain damage. In particular, the treatment of strokes and other focal brain lesions can gain insight from the research in this proposal. In addition, knowledge of the limits of visual cortical plasticity are important in understanding diseases such as amblyopia, in which there are known changes in the cortex as a result of a visual impairment.

ABSTRACT

This award will address one of the most significant challenges in studying freshwater bacterial communities; having the ability to remotely sample and detect bacteria at high frequencies and with a high degree of specificity. A prototype insitu sensing system will be constructed with sample collection, filtration, cell lysis, RNA extraction/purification/concentration gene amplification, and data transmission capabilities onboard. The system will be designed for multi-day deployment in lakes and equipped with the ability to detect two common classes of freshwater bacteria. The award will have significant broader impacts through undergraduate, graduate, and minority training.

Collaborative Research: From Local to Extreme Environments: Deepening Earth Systems Science Understanding with GLOBE

This project is working to bring current ocean science research on marine environments and ecosystems into the GLOBE program and provide opportunities for GLOBE students to make comparisons between their local environments and extreme environments of the deep sea. Scientists and educators from the Ridge 2000 (R2K), InterRidge, and ChEss (Biogeography of Deep-Water Chemosynthetic Ecosystems) programs engaged in interdisciplinary studies of deep-sea systems are working in collaboration with the Center for Science and the Schools (CSATS) to support collaborations between marine scientists and elementary and secondary students. The foundation of this project is the "From Local to Extreme Environments" (FLEXE) program, in which students collect data in their local environment and compare it with equivalent data from partner schools and from an extreme environment, namely the deep sea. Hydrothermal vents and cold seeps are among the extreme environments being compared. Students, working either as a Tier 1 (stand-alone) or Tier 2 (paired with another school) effort, participate in three main activities: (1) protocol-driven fieldwork and analysis, and analysis of data from an extreme environment; (2) web-based interactions with scientists and students from partner schools; and (3) culminating activities that include reporting and peer review. New protocols to collect key environmental parameters (e.g., temperature, salinity), some of which can be adapted from existing GLOBE protocols, will be implemented each year. The FLEXE Forum provides an online data system for exploring Learning Activities developed for the project and for facilitating interactions between students and between students and scientists. Through this Forum, collaborating scientists submit scientific questions to the students for them to answer as they carry out their investigations, and provide feedback on the answers in a timely manner. As a culminating Wrap Up experience, students write template-based scientific reports that are peer-reviewed by other participating students. Teacher professional development resources, including Teacher's Guides, online training, and other web-based learning and assessment tools, are also being developed through this project. These combined activities are helping students to develop inquiry skills, learn about life in the marine environment and their local ecosystems, and gain new understanding of the fundamental integrated Earth system processes that control habitability in diverse settings.

Objective - The objective of this research is to investigate the non-linear properties of nano-scale active regions of barium strontium titanate (BST) thin films, their dependence upon deposition and patterning processes, and their manifestation in macro-scale observables including capacitance-voltage behavior. Important goals for this project include the development of non-linear computer-aided-design models and design techniques for BST circuits based on non-linear transmission line topologies. The approach is to use planar capacitor (varactor) structures, layered on a BST film, as the building block for more complex devices. The structures will be patterned using focused ion beam (FIB) milling to create nano-scale gaps.

Intellectual Merit - The varactors that will be developed have feature sizes on the same order of magnitude as the film's surface roughness - at this scale, the homogeneity of the film and resultant capacitance-voltage properties, switching speed and dielectric relaxation are not well understood. The exploitation of BST for microwave signal generation will require a thorough understanding of the non-linear properties and advancements in modeling methodologies.

Broader Impact - The devices that will be developed can have a great impact on society at large, as the functionality is integral to specialized systems such as military radar and many commercial telecommunications systems. Furthermore, the fundamental knowledge gained on non-linear behavior of BST will be useful to engineers and physicists working in related fields such as high-density memory. The PIs have a track-record of involving under-represented minorities in their research activities and will recruit female and minority students to perform this work.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The overall goal of this project is to understand how populations of neurons in visual cortex integrate diverse types of information provided by synaptic inputs, including eye movement signals and attentional modulation. Historically, much of our understanding of the visual system has been shaped by extracellular recordings from individual neurons in a single visual area. The proposed experiments will employ chronically implanted 100-electrode arrays in macaque visual area V4 in conjunction with stimulation and recording from single electrodes in the frontal eye fields (FEF). Area V4 is an ideal choice to explore questions of integration because of its place in the visual hierarchy. It receives input from early visual cortex as well as higher level regions, including FEF. We will begin by measuring the correlation structure within a population of V4 neurons during visual stimulation in order to determine how it differs from the known structure of correlation in primary visual cortex. Once this is complete, we will record simultaneously in FEF and V4 to determine the types of neurons that are connected between these areas, and test the hypothesis that the FEF to V4 pathway plays a role in attentional modulation. Finally, we will stimulate in FEF and record populations of neurons in V4. We expect that FEF input will serve to synchronize groups of V4 neurons, enabling them to provide a more effective input to downstream cortical areas. These experiments will provide crucial insight into how the visual cortex integrates over small regions of space using information about eye movements and attentional modulation to produce behaviorally relevant output.

The future of aquatic sciences will be grounded in the use of autonomous platforms and sensor networks to accumulate observations in real-time or near real-time. Although platforms capable of making rapid physical and chemical measurements are robust and commercially available, the design, fabrication, and deployment of autonomous sensors capable of making even modest biological measurements are in their infancy. While a number of biological sensors based on molecular analysis have been field deployed, these systems are inherently complex and have high production and running costs, and are limited in the number of assays they can perform. Additionally, these systems have complex operational procedures for system set up, deployment, and retrieval, and as such there is a low likelihood that in their current stage of development they will be broadly adopted. To address these existing limitations, a small autonomous in situ sampling and archival device is being developed. The Sample Filtration and Archiving (SaFA) system can be deployed in the aquatic environment where it will automatically collect and filter between 20-30 user defined time-stamped water samples of between 200-500 ml. Preservation of the genetic material in the captured biological material is performed by the subsequent addition of a stabilization buffer, making it available for downstream
interrogation in the laboratory using a range of molecular biological techniques upon retrieval. The SaFA instrument will therefore enable autonomous sample collection and archiving at high temporal resolution, for subsequent laboratory analysis. The SaFA will also allow increased sampling regimes to be performed in situ without the need for personnel to be deployed in the field, particularly during dangerous or inconvenient sampling periods, thereby increasing the resolution and scope of current microbial ecology studies. This multidisciplinary project will assist in the training and support of a
masters student at UPRM. The project will also support 2 summer engineering undergraduate students who will develop the electrical subsystems and package the instrument. We will also develop K-12 external outreach programs in both Puerto Rico and Wisconsin that address molecular biology and in situ instrumentation applications. Following utility studies by the PIs, microbial ecologists affiliated of the Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON) initiative, will have access to the prototype versions of the SaFA for evaluation purposes. To enable broad integration into the aquatic sciences the instrument will be ?open source? as all information relating to the construction and operation of the SaFA system will be download-able via a web site.

The goal of this contract is to provide support of National Toxicology Program (NTP) hazard identification activities targeted toward the prevention of diseases or adverse effects caused by environmental exposure to chemical or physical agents. This contract consists of four components, three primarily involved in the testing of environmental chemicals or therapeutics for their ability to induce immunosuppression, hypersensitivity responses and autoimmunity, and a research and development component. During this period we have conducted studies to examine the relative potencies of four brominated dioxins and furans as compared with their chlorinated counterparts. In depth studies continue to examine the underlying mechanisms by which differential and highly life stage specific immune effects occur following exposure to 1,2,5,6 dibenzanthracene. Additional in-depth studies are investigating the use of antigens other than Sheep Red Blood Cells to evaluate the T-dependent antibody response. We have evaluated several compounds for their potential to induce dermal hypersensitivity including: 2-Methoxy-4-nitroaniline, 2-ethylhexyl p-methoxycinnamate, and a newly formulated vehicle for dermal toxicity studies. The in-life phase of a study to examine the potential of the dietary supplement resveratrol to influence the onset and severity of autoimmune disease in a murine model of type 1 diabetes has been completed and the data analysis is ongoing. The research and development efforts in this contract are directed towards the development of new methods in order to obtain more sensitive endpoints for identifying environmental or therapeutic agents with the potential of having adverse effects on the immune system and inlammatory/immune mediated diseases, and studies aimed at elucidating the mechanisms by which chemicals may alter immune function at the cellular and molecular level. Projects associated with this aspect of the contract for this reporting period have focused on validation activities for alternative endpoints used to assess dermal sensitization.

Many questions remain about what causes organisms to occur where they do. Answers to those questions are gradually being solved for for plants and animals but little is known about the distribution patterns of microbes. Ectomycorrhizal fungi are beneficial microbes that help plants obtain nutrients, resist diseases, and tolerate drought. This project will study the biodiversity and biogeography of ectomycorrhizal fungi in economically important trees in southern South America such as Nothofagus (southern beech). The main goals of this work are to document the evolutionary history of Nothofagus-associated fungi from South America, determine how environmental variables affect fungal diversity, and understand more about how fungi disperse around the globe. Fungi will be documented by DNA sequencing from environmental samples and via collections of fungal specimens (e.g. mushrooms).

This project is an international collaboration that will include research, education, and cultural exchange among biologists, students, and citizen scientists from the USA, Chile, and Argentina. In addition to scientific publications on fungal biodiversity, fungal evolution, and fungi that are new to science, this project will also produce a free, bilingual, online e-book detailing the common and charismatic fungi from Nothofagus forests in Chile and Argentina. This work will increase scientific literacy about fungi in South America and data from the project will enhance native Nothofagus forestry and will inform conservation decision-making for Nothofagus.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Under natural conditions, our visual experience is characterized by frequent eye movements as we scan a rich visual environment. Most experiments, however, have focused on neural responses under visually and behaviorally impoverished conditions, sacrificing realistic conditions for tractability. There is a growing realization that the brain's activity under these conditions does not always generalize to more natural settings, and experiments that probe neuronal dynamics under more complicated situations are needed. The long-term goal of this application is to determine how neural circuits in the primate brain act to generate coherent visual perception despite frequent eye movements and changes in internal cognitive state. The frontal eye field (FEF), a part of prefrontal cortex critical for controlling saccadic eye movements, plays a key role in this function through its unique position in the cortical hierarchy. FEF neurons serve both visual and motor functions, with connections to subcortical structures that control the eyes and to visual cortical areas. How do FEF neurons act in this gateway, serving the dual functions of integrating visual information to guide eye movements and informing the visual system about planned motor commands? One clue comes from studies of the phenomenon of predictive remapping, in which neurons shift their spatial preferences prior to an impending saccade. This occurs in FEF neurons as well as other cortical areas, and hints at the frequent and dynamic changes in their response properties. What kinds of dynamic changes are brought on by motor planning? How does the information necessary to generate these dynamics propagate through neuronal circuits? We will address these questions in three specific aims, the first of which uses rapidly presented sparse noise stimuli, an approach developed in early visual areas, to probe the dynamics of FEF neuronal responses. We hypothesize that FEF neurons have precise temporal dynamics, enabling responses to rapidly flashed stimuli, and nonlinear spatial summation, leading to strong responses to small stimuli that are perceived as potential saccade targets. The second specific aim is to measure the predictively remapped response with high spatial and temporal precision using the same noise stimulus. We hypothesize that remapping manifests as a gradual shift in the receptive field in the peri-saccadic time period, and this occurs for both guided saccades and more naturalistic spontaneous saccades. In the third specific aim, we attempt to isolate the neuronal circuitry responsible for these dynamic changes by recording simultaneously from a population of FEF neurons. We hypothesize that local circuitry within FEF is invoked to transfer information between neurons prior to an eye movement. The overall result of this study will be to establish the role of FEF in integrating visual perception and motor control during active vision, and to construct a framework for using receptive field mapping and population recordings to measure dynamic changes in neural circuits across visual and motor systems. This will aid in developing treatments for neurological disorders of vision and rehabilitation after traumatic brain injury or disease.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project proposes to test adaptations of the Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSMP) designed to increase the likelihood of widespread use in workplace settings. CDSMP, which has been proven efficacious in community trials, is a six-week program that is designed to help individuals better manage their chronic disease and its many complications. Although there is considerable interest among worksite health promotion practitioners for a chronic disease program, CDSMP has not been adapted and tested in workplace settings. In this study, we will determine a) if the CDSMP program tailored to worksites can be efficacious, b) the comparative effectiveness of the worksite tailored CDSMP when compared to the original CDSMP and c) the cost-effectiveness (average and incremental) and return on investment of the two interventions. The participating sites are seven organizations from a rural county in Southwest Georgia. Our partner for the project is the local YMCA. YMCA staff will be trained to implement the program which will foster sustainability. Participants will be randomly assigned to 1) workplace-tailored CDSMP, 2) 'usual care' CDSMP, and 3) control group. Data will collect at baseline, 6-month follow-up and 12-months follow-up. The control group will be a delayed intervention group that will be randomly assigned to an intervention group after taking the 6 month survey. The primary outcome measures include blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose, BMI, diet, physical activity and tobacco use and the secondary measures including patient-provider communication, quality of life, medical adherence, and work performance and productivity. An average cost-effectiveness analysis will compare interventions to control and an incremental cost-effectiveness analysis will be conducted comparing each intervention to one another. The hypotheses will be tested using a growth modeling approach examining changes over time. This will enable us to maximize the dissemination and implementation of CDSMP across worksite populations by using approaches which are realistic for most work organizations.

Fungi comprise one of the most successful groups of life on Earth. They inhabit most of the world's environments, where they perform numerous functions (e.g., nutrient cycling, foundations of food webs, etc.) that are central to healthy ecosystems. Importantly, fungi interact with all other forms of life, including plants, animals and bacteria -- in associations that range from beneficial to antagonistic. Zygomycete fungi, the focus of this research project, are an ancient group in which most of the morphological and ecological traits associated with Kingdom Fungi first arose, but their evolutionary history and ecological associations have not yet been well resolved. This project will reconstruct the genealogical relationships of this earliest branch in fungal evolutionary history, resolve the origins of symbiotic relationships between plants and zygomycetes, reveal how complex body plans evolved in the group, elucidate mechanisms of mating genetics between organisms with complex and differing life cycles, and develop genomic barcodes to facilitate identification of unknown fungi. The results of this research will contribute to many scientific disciplines and to society. Expanding and maintaining expertise on these fungi is critical for the field of biology, human health and productivity, and safe food production. This project includes training of the next generation of mycologists, dissemination of information on basic fungal biology, development of teaching resources, expansion of biological database and web resources, development of research materials including strain cultures and genomes for the wider scientific community, and broadening of participation of underrepresented groups in STEM disciplines.

Zygomycetes are filamentous fungi that lack flagella and that produce simple but defined reproductive structures. An initial analysis of zygomycete genomes support the hypothesis that the group is a pivotal transition point between certain flagellated Fungi and their specific life histories, and what became the dominant eukaryotic terrestrial clade of Fungi (the fleshy fungi, e.g., mushrooms). Because the zygomycetes are the first terrestrial fungi that exhibit fruiting bodies, understanding how these structures evolved will provide a basis for understanding the origins of complex morphogenesis (e.g., multicellularity) in the Fungi, as well as the evolution of complex life histories. Zygomycetes also display a diversity of ecological relationships with plants (mycorrhizae), animals (pathogens) and bacteria (endosymbionts). Resolving the phylogenetic origins of these interactions will provide an evolutionary framework for elucidating molecular and biochemical mechanisms that govern these interactions, and in doing so, will have direct impacts on research into natural and managed ecosystems and human welfare. This research will also refine molecular environmental sampling techniques, resulting in a more accurate census of zygomycete biodiversity, especially in soil ecosystems. By gathering orders of magnitude more genome-scale data and integrating it with biochemical, morphological, subcellular, and fossil data layers, this elusive region of the fungal genealogy of life will be illuminated and will provide a foundation for broad scale biological research.

Microscopic fungi (microfungi) represent a diverse assemblage that is distributed worldwide and includes bread molds, plant pathogens, powdery mildews, rusts, slime molds, and water molds. A large percentage of these organisms are harmless or even beneficial, but some cause disease and death in animals, plants, and other fungi resulting in major economic loss and serious negative implications for human and ecosystem health. Despite their importance, little is known about their distribution, diversity, ecology, or host associations. This project is a collaborative effort involving 38 institutions in 31 states and aims to consolidate data from specimens housed in biodiversity collections for 2.3 million microfungi specimens and make these data available through online resources. The consolidation and increased accessibility of these data is critical to inform and promote new and innovative research, education and community engagement around this little-known but important group of organisms.

Specimen data generated by this project will be used to assess natural and human-induced environmental changes on microfungi distributions, and evaluate the impact of these changes on the function and health of ecosystems. This project fills a critical gap in the national digitization effort by contributing images, digitizing specimen label data, and linking associated ancillary data for over 1.2 million North American specimens of microfungi. Additionally, nomenclature and taxonomic information will be updated to reflect the newest practices as dictated by the International Codes for Nomenclature. These data will provide a foundation for making informed decisions by agribusinesses, educators, forest managers, government agencies, horticulturalists, policy makers, researchers, and the general public. The broader education goals of this project will be facilitated through the development and implementation of a teaching module for high school biology on the economic importance of microfungi. This award is made as part of the National Resource for Digitization of Biological Collections through the Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections program and all data resulting from this award will be available through the national resource (iDigBio.org).

This project will document the world-wide diversity of ambrosia fungi - the nutritional symbionts of the wood-boring fungus-farming ambrosia beetles. The farming of fungi has evolved in at least 12 different bark beetle groups, and these groups have radiated into more than 3,500 species. Despite the evolutionary success of this relationship, estimates suggest that the identity of the fungal symbiont is unknown for over 90% of beetles. Global movement of wood products has made many ambrosia beetles invasive, and many of the symbiotic fungi have become pathogens to tree crops. This project will document the ambrosia beetle-fungal symbiosis and characterize the fungal community for each ambrosia beetle genus using new molecular and culturing techniques. Two graduate students will be trained in field and laboratory techniques. The project will also disseminate research findings through an exhibit of beetle calligraphy at the Harn Museum of Modern Art in Gainesville, FL, and a national citizen science project entitled 'Backyard Bark Beetles'. Researchers will also enhance international collaboration and infrastructure by running an ambrosia beetle identification workshop in tropical Asia to help inspectors identify the most invasive species.

The first aim of this project is to comprehensively sample ambrosia beetle-fungal symbioses to investigate the level of symbiont specificity. Three globally-invasive ambrosia beetle-fungus complexes will then be sampled to investigate how the fungal symbiont community has changed over time following vector dispersal, invasion, and contact with new communities. The third and ultimate goal of the project is to use phylogenetic and comparative methods to reconstruct the pattern of ambrosia beetle-fungus coevolution. With new data on fungus communities, it will be possible to compare the influence of beetle phylogeny, geographic origin, latitude and other factors on beetle-fungus relationships. This project will implement a series of methods to achieve the research goals, including high-throughput DNA metabarcoding, a new 'RNA metabarcoding' approach to investigate fungal metabolic prominence, and a RADseq-based approach to reconstruct population genetic history, Together, this research will produce a comprehensive dataset on the identity and movements of ambrosia and their fungal symbionts in both their native and invaded regions that will provide essential baseline data to help control the global impact of both ambrosia beetles and ambrosia fungi.

This project is funded by Integrative Strategies for Understanding Neural and Cognitive Systems (NSF-NCS), a multidisciplinary program jointly supported by the Directorates for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), Education and Human Resources (EHR), Engineering (ENG), and Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE). Even basic perception of the world is not as simple as light coming into the eyes or sound coming into the ears. Rather, perception involves combining the incoming sensory information with cognitive processes such as past experiences, knowledge about the world, and personal tendencies. In other words, two people observing the same events (i.e., receiving the same sensory information) can arrive at different interpretations of what is happening in the environment. How the brain combines sensory information with these cognitive processes, and where this occurs in the brain, is incompletely understood. The key innovation of this project is to use a brain-computer interface (BCI) to tease apart which aspects of the brain's activity are sensory versus cognitive and how the two are combined in the brain to produce perception of the world. BCIs are widely-known for their ability to help paralyzed patients and amputees by allowing them to move a computer cursor or robotic arm simply by thinking about moving. Few studies have used BCIs as an experimental tool to understand sensory areas of the brain, as this project seeks to do. This work is likely to lead to a deeper understanding of how we perceive the world, as well as insights into how BCI can be used to help treat psychiatric disorders and recover function after injury. Furthermore, the investigators are developing BCI-based lab exercises for undergraduate courses, training researchers to become well-versed in experimental and computational neuroscience, and involving undergraduates, including women and underrepresented minorities, in the research.

This project focuses on visual area V4, which is known to be a crossroads for sensory and cognitive processes during visual perception. To dissect what aspects of neural activity are sensory versus cognitive, the investigators train animal subjects to volitionally modulate their V4 activity. The BCI provides subjects with moment-by-moment auditory feedback of their V4 activity. This project assesses what aspects of V4 activity can be volitionally (i.e., cognitively) modulated, how volitional modulation of V4 activity affects visual perception, and how malleable is the interaction between V4 and another brain area (prefrontal cortex) during visual perception. The key advantage of using BCI for this study is that it allows the investigators to challenge the subjects to produce particular patterns of neural activity. The investigators can specify in the BCI which patterns of activity yield a reward. This technique allows them to assess what aspects of the neural activity can be volitionally controlled by the animal (i.e., cognitive), and what aspects are hard-wired to the outside world (i.e., sensory). The applications of this BCI paradigm are extremely broad, and can be used to study other sensory, cognitive, and motor systems.

Project Summary Supported Employment (SE) is an evidenced based method that has been shown to increase employment rates in adults with severe mental illness (SMI). Despite the success of this program, more than 80% of adults with SMI remain unemployed. A limitation of SE is the job interview component, which utilizes staff-led role- play training. Many adults with SMI who participate in SE report feeling inadequately prepared for the job interview process. To fill this training need, our group recently completed a series of studies funded by NIMH to develop and test the efficacy of a virtual reality job interview training program (VR). The results demonstrated that the intervention was efficacious at improving job interview skills and receiving a job offer within 6 months of completing the training simulation. Thus, the overarching goal of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a virtual reality job interview skills training program (VR) in a large community-based mental health service provider via a randomized controlled trial and process evaluation. Thus, our aims are to 1) Evaluate whether SE+VR compared to SE Only enhances SE outcomes; 2) Evaluate mechanisms of employment outcomes and psychological distress; and 3) Conduct a multilevel, multidisciplinary, and mixed- method process evaluation of VR adoption and implementation to assess the acceptability, scalability, generalizability, and affordability of VR.

Project Summary The unemployment rate is quite high among adults with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Inadequate transition planning during high school and gaps between vocational needs and availability of evidence-based services help explain the struggles of transition-age youth at obtaining employment. There is a paucity of research on developing and evaluating services to support the transition to the work force after graduating from high school. The lack of available resources to support transition-age youth with an ASD speaks to the need to develop interventions that ameliorate obstacles to employment and help support the transition to the work force. Due to the social deficits characterizing ASD innovative interventions could target preparing job interview skills for students facing the transition to employment as the job interview is a critical gateway to securing a job offer. Thus, the overarching goal of this study is to modify an existing virtual reality job interview skills training program for use in high school students with ASD and to test the feasibility and effectiveness of conducting this intervention in a high school setting via a small controlled trial. Thus, our first aim is to modify the existing `Virtual Reality Job Interview Training' program to meet the specific needs of high school seniors with ASD. We will accomplish this by conducting in depth interviews with high school students with ASD and their vocational counselors to solicit feedback to modify the current training's learning goals, content, usability, and simulated interview scripts to meet the specific needs of transition age youth. An expert panel will determine the final modifications to the training program based on the results of the qualitative data analysis and their own views of the program. Our second aim is to conduct a pilot trial to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, portability, fidelity and preliminary effectiveness of the modified intervention in a randomized controlled trial. We will also explore potential mechanisms for effectiveness and collect pilot implementation data.

Understanding how different parts of the brain communicate is perhaps the most fundamental question of neuroscience because it is at the heart of understanding all brain functions and disorders. It is of clinical importance because numerous brain diseases - autism, schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder, and many others - are thought to be due to impaired communication among regions of the brain, and attention in particular is impaired in every major neurological disorder. Even though numerous studies have led to understanding of how single neurons respond to flashes of light or simplified visual objects like lines, relatively little work has been directed toward explicitly learning how groups of neurons communicate with each other, and how that communication enables attending to important information and filtering out distractions. The research described in this proposal seeks to reveal how different parts of the brain communicate to support visual perception. The central question addressed is how different parts of the brain communicate to help select the parts of the visual world that warrant focus, and ignore the parts of the world that are distracting. The specific research aims are designed to (1) reveal how communication between visual and prefrontal cortex modulates over time and how those interactions impact behavior (2) develop statistical approaches to optimize the ability to use stimulation to intervene between these brain regions, and (3) apply these methods with microstimulation in prefrontal cortex to modulate visual responses and, in turn, attentional mechanisms. Together, these aims will have important consequences for the understanding of attention, neuronal communication, and interventional approaches to manipulate the nervous system.

The Custom Fabrication Module provides our Participating Faculty and their laboratory staff with the resources and equipment necessary to design and build custom laboratory devices. Such custom devices, tailored to the particular needs of each experiment, can increase efficiency in existing experiments and open up possibilities for new experiments that would not be possible with commercially available devices. Vision research projects in any domain can benefit from these resources. The Custom Fabrication Module also provides training in the design and fabrication methods available to users, which can be critical in breaking down barriers of imagination as to what can be achieved with custom devices. In addition, the module provides guidance for users as they move through the stages of design, prototyping, and manufacturing of custom equipment. The goal is to enable users to rapidly move from concept to execution, and then allow them to implement their devices in an experimental setting and then revise as needed.

Project Summary: The cortex must both track and process dynamically changing environments as well as store and combine diverse inputs to generate complex behavior. Further, the neuronal circuits that accomplish this must be malleable to changing contexts, such as during attention related tasks. Charged with these tasks it is perhaps unsurprising that the response dynamics of populations of cortical neurons is then dauntingly complex. Currently, we lack a deep understanding of the circuit mechanics that underlie the rich dynamics exhibited in the nervous system. This omission is particularly serious given the ever increasing breadth of data showing that neuronal dynamics, and its variability, is context- dependent and shared across large regions of the brain. Our proposal seeks to address several fundamental issues facing current network models. Namely, spiking network models with balanced excitation and inhibition are not currently capable of generating realistic transient activity, steady state activity, and neural variability within a single model. To address these shortcomings, we will develop an automated method for optimizing the parameters of network models. We will then validate the optimization method and resulting network models by comparing the population activity generated by the network models with that recorded in macaque visual area V4 and prefrontal cortex during discrimination and working memory tasks. To perform this comparison, it is a fruitless exercise to attempt to correspond each recorded neuron to a neuron in the network model. Instead, a key innovation of our proposal is that we will compare the low-dimensional representations of the population activity in the network model and the real data. The network models and optimization method that we build will be will be widely shared with the research community. If successful, the work proposed here will lead to a vastly deeper understanding of how neural circuits give rise to transient activity, steady-state activity, and neural variability, and equip the research community with the tools to make further discoveries in this direction.

Fungi play an essential role in forest ecosystems, breaking down leaf litter and woody debris that has fallen to the forest floor. As this organic matter is decomposed by fungi, much of it is incorporated into soils, adding to the significant carbon and nitrogen pools they harbor. There is growing recognition that ectomycorrhizal fungi, which form nutritional symbioses with many forest trees, can slow the breakdown of organic matter and stabilize soil carbon. This research seeks to critically assess how ectomycorrhizal fungal suppress organic matter decomposition, and to characterize the impacts of this suppression on soil carbon and nitrogen dynamics. Determining how ectomycorrhizal fungi mediate carbon and nutrient fluxes during the decomposition of organic matter will be useful for forest management focused on carbon retention in soils and on tree health. In addition, defining the scope of ectomycorrhizal fungal suppression of organic matter decomposition across diverse temperature and moisture conditions will be important for accurately formulating carbon and nitrogen dynamics in Earth system models. This project provides support for science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) graduate and undergraduate mentoring, K-12 experiential learning, and public engagement through collaborations with the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, Minute Earth, California Academy of Sciences, and the Florida Museum of Natural History.

The capacity of ectomycorrhizal fungi to modify organic matter decomposition is hypothesized to depend on three factors: organic matter chemistry, ectomycorrhizal fungal community composition, and environmental conditions. This hypothesis will be tested with a series of field-based experiments at research sites in Minnesota, Florida, and California. By utilizing a single research site in Minnesota in which a wide range of organic matter types are concurrently deployed across forest stands differing in ectomycorrhizal fungal community composition, the independent and interactive roles of organic matter chemistry and ectomycorrhizal fungal community composition can be determined while holding multiple environmental variables constant. At the same time, by deploying a common organic matter type across multiple sites varying in temperature and precipitation (in Minnesota, Florida, and California), the extent to which variation in edaphic conditions influence ectomycorrhizal fungal suppression of organic decomposition can also be assessed. Additionally, detailed analyses of the carbon held in various soil fractions will provide a critical missing link between ectomycorrhizal fungal-induced changes in organic matter decomposition rates and retention of carbon in soil.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

Dynamic population codes for perception PROJECT SUMMARY One of the most critical functions of sensory and motor systems is preparation for upcoming events. In sensory systems, this preparation confers a perceptual and behavioral advantage. When the location of an upcoming event is known, subjects respond with shorter reaction times and greater accuracy ? an internal state that is often referred to as spatial attention. Numerous regions throughout the cortex have been implicated as playing important roles in establishing and maintaining attention, making it clear that attention operates through the coordinated activity of neuronal populations throughout the brain. Typical studies of attention, however, have focused largely on averaged neuronal responses in a time window well after the time of stimulus onset, and nearly all have involved recordings from a single brain region at a time. We will investigate the population-level mechanisms by which neurons prepare for an anticipated stimulus and maintain an attentional state, focusing on the activity of neurons within visual and prefrontal cortex as well as the interactions between these regions. Our strategy is to employ population-level measures to reveal signals hidden from single-neuron and averaged approaches, and then link these measures to behavior. In the first specific aim, we measure how neurons in visual cortex prepare for an upcoming stimulus. We hypothesize that a diverse population code underlies attentional preparation in visual cortex and is reflected in the earliest responses. In the second specific aim, we determine how prefrontal cortex and visual cortex work in concert to prepare attention. We hypothesize that prefrontal cortex serves to maintain a stable attentional state in the absence of visual stimulation, and coordinated activity between these regions influences behavior. In the third specific aim, we seek to understand how preparation in visual cortex is adaptable based on context. We hypothesize that dynamic task demands influence the patterns by which visual cortex prepares, enabling attention to flexibly influence behavior in numerous situations. The overall result of this study will be to establish the role of population activity in dynamic visual perception, and to construct a framework by which to relate population recordings in multiple brain regions to visual perception and behavior. This will aid in developing treatments for neurological disorders of vision and rehabilitation after traumatic brain injury or disease.

This award provides support to U.S. researchers participating in a project competitively selected by a 55-country initiative on global change research through the Belmont Forum. The Belmont Forum is a consortium of research funding organizations focused on support for transdisciplinary approaches to global environmental change challenges and opportunities. It aims to accelerate delivery of the international research most urgently needed to remove critical barriers to sustainability by aligning and mobilizing international resources. Each partner country provides funding for their researchers within a consortium to alleviate the need for funds to cross international borders. This approach facilitates effective leveraging of national resources to support excellent research on topics of global relevance best tackled through a multinational approach, recognizing that global challenges need global solutions.

Working together in this Collaborative Research Action, the partner agencies have provided support to foster global transdisciplinary research teams of natural (including climate), health and social scientists and stakeholders from across the globe to improve understanding of climate, environment and health pathways to protect and promote health. The projects will provide crucial new understanding into the health implications arising from the impacts of climate change and variability on; 1) the quality/quantity of food, 2) chronic exposure to increases/changes in heat and humidity and 3) changes in the distribution and incidence of a range of infectious diseases and emergence of novel pathogens. This award provides support for the U.S. researchers to cooperate in consortia that consist of partners from at least three of the participating countries to increase our knowledge of the complex linkages and pathways between the climate, environment and health to help solve complex challenges that face societies.

The Micro-Poll seeks to develop a multidisciplinary understanding the impact of environmental change on pollinator communities and crop production and resilience in Nepal. Pollinator decline is predicted to have negative impacts on human health as key micronutrients in insect pollinated crops such as vitamin A and folate are lost from the diet. This ?hidden hunger? is predicted to cause significant global health burdens. Pollinator loss disproportionately harms developing countries, as they are both less resilient to yield drops and more reliant on the micronutrients found in small-scale pollinator-dependent crops. Diversifying the diet by increasing access to micronutrient-rich fruits, vegetables and legumes may provide a long term, sustainable solution. The project will identify the crops providing key micronutrients and the dominant pollinators of these micronutrient-rich crops; investigate impact of change on key crop pollinators and the ensuing impact on crop production and micronutrient intake; and test the resilience of the insect pollination of micronutrient-rich crops. The project will work with local researchers and community organizations to carry-out the research and disseminate the findings to help decision-makers develop possible solutions to this challenge.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

Humans are not, by nature, logical creatures. It takes focus to maintain our composure and not let emotions color our judgement. When we can control our emotional state, we can get “in the zone” and perform well. Failing to do so, we’ll “have a bad day”, or just be “off”. Why does this happen? And, in terms of neurobiological mechanisms, how does this happen? Our emotions are regulated by internal states, such as arousal, attention, and motivation, brain-wide modulatory processes that impact neural function related to perception, decision making, and action. What are the neural mechanisms of those interactions? This project will explore the interactions between internal states and cognitive processing in the cerebral cortex. The investigators will leverage their expertise in “brain training” by giving subjects visual feedback about their neural activity so that they are directly aware of their internal states. In this way, they will study whether subjects are able to better regulate their internal states so that they are able to make perceptual judgments and perform motor skills more consistently at a high level of performance. The investigators will also organize workshops to bring together experts in areas related to this project, train researchers to become well-versed in experimental and computational neuroscience, and enhance the participation of undergraduates, women, and underrepresented minorities in the research.

This project involves three integrated research threads. First, the investigators will use multi-electrode recordings in several regions of the cerebral cortex simultaneously to identify brain-wide signatures of internal states and their effect on the communication between cortical areas. Second, they will train subjects to volitionally control their internal states using neurofeedback. Third, they will examine whether subjects can harness their internal states to accelerate learning and improve performance on challenging perceptual and motor tasks. In these studies, they will focus on three types of internal states -- one that guides us in the spatial world around us (spatial attention), one that manages our alertness throughout the day (arousal), and one that aids our effort in focusing on what lies ahead (motivation). They will study how these internal states interact and to what extent they can be volitionally controlled in three areas across the brain: visual area V4, prefrontal cortex, and motor cortex. Together, their work will provide i) a unified account of the impact of multiple internal states on brain-wide neural computations spanning perception and action, and ii) neurofeedback paradigms to enable subjects to harness their internal states for improved performance.

This project is funded by Integrative Strategies for Understanding Neural and Cognitive Systems (NCS), a multidisciplinary program jointly supported by the Directorates for Biology (BIO), Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), Education and Human Resources (EHR), Engineering (ENG), and Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE).

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.