Casting a wide net: use of diverse model organisms to advance toxicology

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Hahn, M. E., & Sadler, K. C. Casting a wide net: use of diverse model organisms to advance toxicology. Disease Models & Mechanisms, 13, (2020): dmm.043844, doi: 10.1242/dmm.043844.Toxicology – the study of how chemicals interact with biological systems – has clear relevance to human health and disease. Persistent exposure to natural and synthetic chemicals is an unavoidable part of living on our planet; yet, we understand very little about the effects of exposure to the vast majority of chemicals. While epidemiological studies can provide strong statistical inference linking chemical exposure to disease, research in model systems is essential to elucidate the mechanisms of action and to predict outcomes. Most research in toxicology utilizes a handful of mammalian models that represent a few distinct branches of the evolutionary tree. This narrow focus constrains the understanding of chemical-induced disease processes and systems that have evolved in response to exposures. We advocate for casting a wider net in environmental toxicology research to utilize diverse model systems, including zebrafish, and perform more mechanistic studies of cellular responses to chemical exposures to shift the perception of toxicology as an applied science to that of a basic science. This more-inclusive perspective will enrich the field and should remain central to research on chemical-induced disease.K.C.S. acknowledges support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)(5R01AA018886). M.E.H. acknowledges support from the National Institute ofEnvironmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) through the Boston University SuperfundResearch Program (P42ES007381) and the Woods Hole Center for Oceans andHuman Health (NIEHS grant P01ES028938 and National Science Foundation grantOCE-1840381)

Field dependence of gaseous ion mobility: Test of approximate formulas

The accuracies of three approximate formulas were tested by comparison with special cases for which accurate results could be found. The Wannier free flight theory was found to be superior, and can be extended to yield a formula without further adjustable constants that gives an exact result at low electric fields and good results at medium and high fields. It is applicable for any ion neutral force law and mass ratio

Leptotyphlops maximus

Number of Pages: 1Integrative BiologyEarth and Planetary Science

The Myth of Network Neutrality and What We Should Do About It

A quarter century ago, there was a very influential paper that shaped thinking on how best to design what we now call the Internet. The article offered a design principle called "end-to-end." The idea was to keep the inner part of a computer network as simple as possible and allow the "intelligence" to reside at the edges of the network closer to the end user. Proponents of this grand design have pushed for net neutrality legislation, which would discourage access providers from placing any intelligence in the inner part of the network. Their ideal of a "dumb network" would be achieved by preventing access providers from charging content providers for prioritized delivery and other quality enhancements made possible by placing intelligence at the center of the network. This essay examines the merits of the end-to-end argument as it relates to the net neutrality debate. First, we review the evidence on the current status of the Internet, concluding that all bits of information are not treated equally from an economic standpoint. Second, we demonstrate that because consumers and business place a premium on speed and reliability for certain kinds of Internet services, network owners and specialized service providers have responded with customized offerings. Third, we consider our findings in the context of the current legislative proposals involving net neutrality. Fourth, we consider some of the problems with regulating prices and quality of service, which is essentially what the net neutrality proponents propose. Our principle conclusions are that the end-to-end principle does not make sense from an economic perspective and that further regulation of the Internet is not warranted at this point in time.Technology and Industry

The Impact of Driver Cell Phone Use on Accidents

Cell phone use is increasing worldwide, leading to a concern that cell phone use while driving increases accidents. Several countries, three states and Washington, D.C. have banned the use of hand-held cell phones while driving. In this paper, we develop a new approach for estimating the relationship between cell phone use while driving and accidents. Our approach is the first to allow for the direct estimation of the impact of a cell phone ban while driving. It is based on new survey data from over 7,000 individuals. This paper differs from previous research in two significant ways: first, we use a larger sample of individual-level data; and second, we test for selection effects, such as whether drivers who use cell phones are inherently less safe drivers, even when not on the phone. The paper has two key findings. First, the impact of cell phone use on accidents varies across the population. This result implies that previous estimates of the impact of cell phone use on risk for the population, based on accident-only samples, may be overstated by about one-third. Second, once we correct for endogeneity, there is no significant effect of hands-free or hand-held cell phone use on accidents.

An Analysis of the Second Government Draft Report on the Costs and Benefits of Federal Regulations

This paper critically reviews the draft of the Office of Management and Budget's second report on the costs and benefits of federal regulation. The purpose of this analysis is to offer constructive recommendations for improving that report. Our main conclusion is that the OMB report represents an improvement over the previous year in terms of the quantity of information presented and the nature of the presentation. However, it still has some serious problems that need to be addressed. Perhaps the most serious deficiency is that the OMB fails to take adequate advantage of its in-house expertise in providing a candid assessment of the costs and benefits of regulation.

A Review of the Office of Management and Budget's Draft Guidelines for Conducting Regulatory Analyses

Also of interest from Hahn and Litan, " An Analysis of the Sixth Government Report on the Costs and Benefits of Federal Regulations ." The Office of Management and Budget recently released draft guidelines to federal agencies describing how they should conduct analyses to support regulatory decisions. Robert Hahn and Robert Litanbelieve that such guidelines can make the regulatory process more transparent and also help in devising policies that are economically sensible. In general, Robert Hahn and Robert Litanthink OMB's draft guidelines represent a step forward. The introduction of a requirement to provide a table summarizing the economic impacts of a regulation, and a requirement that uncertainty be handled more rigorously are welcome innovations. At the same time,the authorssuggest that OMB emphasize that benefit-cost analysis is preferred to cost-effectiveness analysis when information on monetized benefits and costs can be obtained at a reasonable cost. Although both tools are useful,theypropose that regulatory agencies strive to acquire enough information to perform benefit-cost analyses.Hahn and Litanalso recommend that OMB provide more guidance to agencies on defining reasonable policy alternatives. Finally,they argue that OMB should rethink its proposed policy on discounting.

An Analysis of the Tenth Government Report on the Costs and Benefits of Federal Regulations

This paper critically reviews the draft of the Office of Management and Budget's tenth report on the benefits and costs of federal regulations. The draft report is similar to previous reports, and does not break new ground. We offer seven recommendations, six for OMB and one for Congress, that would help hold lawmakers and regulators more accountable for the regulations they produce. Our recommendations focus on getting the regulatory agencies to produce better analysis, making that analysis more transparent and readily available, and making the regulatory process itself more transparent. We recommend that OMB: examine the extent to which regulations maximize net benefits; include a scorecard showing the number and percentage of final regulations that pass a benefit-cost test based on factors that can be quantified and monetized; request that all agencies report on the extent to which they comply with OMB's guidelines for conducting regulatory analysis using a regulatory scorecard for individual RIAs; provide guidelines for assessing the effectiveness of antiterrorism regulations; include a discussion of the costs and benefits of antitrust activities in its annual report; and facilitate the use of information markets for public and private purposes by issuing a prompt letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and encouraging Congress to lowering regulatory barriers to starting these markets. We also recommend that Congress require all agencies to comply with OMB's guidelines for conducting regulatory analysis.

Higgs masses and Electroweak Precision Observables in the Lepton-Flavor-Violating MSSM

We study the effects of Lepton Flavor Violation (LFV) in the scalar lepton sector of the MSSM on precision observables such as the W-boson mass and the effective weak leptonic mixing angle, and on the Higgs-boson mass predictions. The slepton mass matrices are parameterized in a model-independent way by a complete set of dimensionless parameters which we constrain through LFV decay processes and the precision observables. We find regions where both conditions are similarly constraining. The necessary prerequisites for the calculation have been added to FeynArts and FormCalc and are thus publicly available for further studies. The obtained results are available in FeynHiggs.Comment: LaTeX, 30 page