Evaluating Bioinformatic Pipeline Performance for Forensic Microbiome Analysis*,†,‡

Microbial communities have potential evidential utility for forensic applications. However, bioinformatic analysis of high-throughput sequencing data varies widely among laboratories. These differences can potentially affect microbial community composition and downstream analyses. To illustrate the importance of standardizing methodology, we compared analyses of postmortem microbiome samples using several bioinformatic pipelines, varying minimum library size or minimum number of sequences per sample, and sample size. Using the same input sequence data, we found that three open-source bioinformatic pipelines, MG-RAST, mothur, and QIIME2, had significant differences in relative abundance, alpha-diversity, and beta-diversity, despite the same input data. Increasing minimum library size and sample size increased the number of low-abundant and infrequent taxa detected. Our results show that bioinformatic pipeline and parameter choice affect results in important ways. Given the growing potential application of forensic microbiology to the criminal justice system, continued research on standardizing computational methodology will be important for downstream applications.     

Sample Mining and Data Mining: Combined Real-Time and Retrospective Approaches for the Identification of Emerging Novel Psychoactive Substances

Novel psychoactive substances (NPS) are synthetic drugs that pose serious public health and safety concerns. A multitude of NPS have been identified in the United States, often implicated in forensic investigations. The most common and effective manner for identifying NPS is by use of mass spectrometry and the true utility lies within nontargeted acquisition techniques. During this study, a liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-QTOF-MS) assay was developed, validated, and implemented for forensic toxicology testing. A SCIEX TripleTOF™ 5600 + with SWATH^® acquisition was used. Resulting data were compared against an extensive library database containing more than 800 compounds. The LC-QTOF-MS assay was applied to the reanalysis of biological sample extracts to discover emergent NPS. More than 3,000 sample extracts were analyzed, and more than 20 emerging NPS were detected for the first time. Among these were isopropyl-U-47700, 3,4-methylenedioxy-U-47700, fluorofuranylfentanyl, N-methyl norfentanyl, 2F-deschloroketamine, 3,4-methylenedioxy-alpha-PHP, eutylone, and N-ethyl hexedrone.     

Intergovernmental Relations in the UK: Time for a Radical Overhaul?

Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic have put relationships between the UK government and its devolved counterparts under growing strain. Tensions generated by both of these developments have exposed the inadequacies of the existing, under-developed system for bringing governments together in the UK. The limitations of the current system include the ad hoc nature of intergovernmental meetings, and their consultative rather than decision-making character. Drawing upon an analysis of how intergovernmental relationships are structured in five other countries, the authors offer a number of suggestions for the reconfiguration of the UK model. They explore different ways of enabling joint decision making by its governments, and argue against the assumption that England can be represented adequately by the UK administration. Without a serious attempt to address this dysfunctional part of the UK’s territorial constitution, there is every prospect that relations between these different governments will continue to deteriorate.     

The Longitudinal Role of Self-Concept Clarity and Best Friend Delinquency in Adolescent Delinquent Behavior

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Adolescence tends to be characterized by a temporary peak in delinquent behavior, and friends in particular play a key role in the initiation and the development...     

The Role of Intentional Self Regulation,Lower Neighborhood Ecological Assets,and Activity Involvement in Youth Developmental Outcomes

Extracurricular activities provide a key context for youth development, and participation has been linked with positive developmental outcomes. Using data from the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development (PYD), this study explored how the intentional self regulation ability of youth interacted with participation in extracurricular activities to affect PYD among adolescents living in neighborhoods with relatively low ecological assets. In total, 545 youth were included in the study (50.3% female). Most of the youth were European American (41%) or Latino (37%; African American, 10%; Asian American, 7%; Native American, 4%; and other, 1%). In general, youth with the greatest capacity to self regulate benefitted the most, as compared to their peers with less capacity to self regulate, from involvement in extracurricular activities. Consistent with a developmental systems perspective, and specifically with bioecological theory, the findings from this study confirmed that, within lower asset settings, children with the most positive person-level factors (intentional self regulation) benefit the most from proximal processes such as extracurricular activity involvement.     

Identifying Trajectories of Adolescents’ Depressive Phenomena: An Examination of Early Risk Factors

Few studies have examined risk factors of childhood and early adolescent depressive symptomatology trajectories. This study examined self-report depressive symptomatology across a 6-year time period from 2nd to 8th grade to identify latent groups of individuals with similar patterns of depressive phenomena in a sample of 951 children (440 girls, 511 boys). Analyses, using semiparametric group modeling (SGM), identified 5 trajectory groups for girls and boys: low depressed stables, low depressed risers, mildly depressed stables, moderately depressed changers, and moderately depressed risers. Individual risk factors, with the exception of shy/withdrawn behavior, were significantly different across trajectory group membership for boys and girls, as was low-income status for boys. Boys in the low depressed and mildly depressed stable trajectory groups had significantly higher levels of antisocial behavior, attention problems, and lower social competency compared to girls in similar groups. These results suggest that universal prevention programs implemented in early elementary school that target selected risk factors may be helpful in reducing future adolescent mental health problems, specifically depressive symptomatology.     

Involvement in Internet Aggression During Early Adolescence

The current study examined concurrent and longitudinal predictors of early adolescents’ involvement in Internet aggression. Cross-sectional results (N = 330; 57% female) showed that the likelihood of reporting Internet aggression was higher among youth who spent more time using Internet-based technologies to communicate with friends and who were themselves targets of Internet aggression. Offline relational aggression and beliefs supportive of relational and physical aggression also predicted concurrent involvement in Internet aggression. We used longitudinal data (N = 150; 51% female) to distinguish between youth who were aggressive in traditional contexts only (i.e., school) from those who were aggressive both online and offline. These results indicated that youth who were aggressive both online and offline were older at the initial assessment, were targets of Internet aggression, and held beliefs more supportive of relational aggression than youth who were aggressive offline only. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.