Preliminary Measurement Properties of the Early Childhood Occupational Profile (ECOPE)

Background: This study established the preliminary psychometric properties of the Early Childhood Occupational Profile (ECOPE; Moore & Bowyer, 2018) and investigated the perspectives of occupational therapists on the clinical utility of the tool. Method: An embedded mixed methods research design was used to support the use of different research questions and unique sets of data. National and international occupational therapists administered the ECOPE on video case studies and on children from their caseload. These data were analyzed using the Rasch goodness of fit statistics to evaluate the validity and reliability of the ECOPE. The participating occupational therapists also completed an anonymous survey to gather information on the clinical utility of the tool. Results: The Rasch goodness of fit statistics indicated the ECOPE strongly measures the construct of occupational participation and reliably detects differences in young children’s occupational participation skills. Qualitative data from occupational therapists indicated the ECOPE has strong clinical utility and a positive impact on treatment planning. Conclusion: This study established the preliminary reliability, validity, and clinical utility of the ECOPE. The ECOPE is an occupation-based assessment that reflects the distinct value of occupational therapy while evaluating the young child’s occupational participation skills in the natural contexts of home or community

Surface materials of the Viking landing sites

Martian surface materials viewed by the two Viking landers (VL-1 and VL-2) range from fine-grained nearly cohesionless soils to rocks. Footpad 2 of VL-1, which landed at 2.30 m/s, penetrated 16.5 cm into very fine grained dunelike drift material; footpad 3 rests on a rocky soil which it penetrated ≈3.6 cm. Further penetration by footpad 2 may have been arrested by a hard substrate. Penetration by footpad 3 is less than would be expected for a typical lunar regolith. During landing, retroengine exhausts eroded the surface and propelled grains and rocks which produced craters on impact with the surface. Trenches excavated in drift material by the sampler have steep walls with up to 6 cm of relief. Incipient failure of the walls and failures at the end of the trenches are compatible with a cohesion near 10–10^2 N/m^2. Trenching in rocky soil excavated clods and possibly rocks. In two of five samples, commanded sampler extensions were not achieved, a situation indicating that buried rocks or local areas with large cohesions (≥10 kN/m^2) or both are present. Footpad 2 of VL-2, which landed at a velocity between 1.95 and 2.34 m/s, is partly on a rock, and footpad 3 appears to have struck one; penetration and leg strokes are small. Retroengine exhausts produced more erosion than occurred for VL-1 owing to increased thrust levels just before touchdown. Deformations of the soil by sampler extensions range from doming of the surface without visible fracturing to doming accompanied by fracturing and the production of angular clods. Although rocks larger than 3.0 cm are abundant at VL-1 and VL-2, repeated attempts to collect rocks 0.2–1.2 cm across imbedded in soil indicate that rocks in this size range are scarce. There is no evidence that the surface sampler of VL-2, while it was pushing and nudging rocks ≈25 cm across, spalled, chipped, or fractured the rocks. Preliminary analyses of surface sampler motor currents (≈25 N force resolution) during normal sampling are consistent with cohesionless frictional soils (ϕ ≈ 36°) or weakly cohesive frictionless soils (C < 2 kN/m^2). The soil of Mars has both cohesion and friction

Student Psychosocial Well-being and Burnout During Level II Fieldwork: An Explanatory Mixed Methods Analysis

The purpose of this study was to explore the influence fieldwork educator support has on stress, burnout, and self-efficacy, and examine how both students and fieldwork educators support student psychosocial well-being and protective factors during Level II fieldwork (FWII). An explanatory sequential mixed method design was used, including a student cross-sectional survey (n=129) followed by one student (n=5) and two fieldwork educator focus groups (n=12). Outcome measures utilized for the cross-sectional survey included the Perceived Stress Scale, self-developed Perceived Fieldwork Educator Support Questionnaire, Oldenburg Burnout Inventory, and New General Self-Efficacy Scale. Results showed that statistically significant correlations existed among perceived fieldwork educator support and the following: stress (r=-0.443, p\u3c.01), self-efficacy (r=0.221, p\u3c.05), and burnout (r=-0.468, p\u3c.01). Findings of this study demonstrate that greater perceived fieldwork educator support was linked to lower stress, lower burnout, and greater self-efficacy. Themes identified included factors that influenced fieldwork student well-being during FWII; roles perceptions and expectations affected experiential education success; communication was key for promoting student well-being and collaborative relationships; and opportunities to improve experiential education. Protective factors preventing the development of stress and burnout for students included high self-efficacy and perceived fieldwork educator support. Results from this study can assist fieldwork coordinators and fieldwork sites with program development that promotes student psychosocial well-being and supportive relationship building between students and fieldwork educators during FWII

Microbiota of maize kernels as influenced by Aspergillus flavus infection in susceptible and resistant inbreds

BackgroundNearly everything on Earth harbors a microbiome. A microbiome is a community of microbes (bacteria, fungi, and viruses) with potential to form complex networks that involve mutualistic and antagonistic interactions. Resident microbiota on/in an organism are determined by the external environment, both biotic and abiotic, and the intrinsic adaptability of each organism. Although the maize microbiome has been characterized, community changes that result from the application of fungal biocontrol strains, such as non-aflatoxigenic Aspergillus flavus, have not.MethodsWe silk channel inoculated field-grown maize separately with a non-aflatoxigenic biocontrol strain (K49), a highly toxigenic strain (Tox4), and a combination of both A. flavus strains. Two maize inbreds were treated, A. flavus-susceptible B73 and A. flavus-resistant CML322. We then assessed the impacts of A. flavus introduction on the epibiota and endobiota of their maize kernels.ResultsWe found that the native microbial communities were significantly affected, irrespective of genotype or sampled tissue. Overall, bacteriomes exhibited greater diversity of genera than mycobiomes. The abundance of certain genera was unchanged by treatment, including genera of bacteria (e.g., Enterobacter, Pantoea) and fungi (e.g., Sarocladium, Meyerozyma) that are known to be beneficial, antagonistic, or both on plant growth and health.ConclusionBeneficial microbes like Sarocladium that responded well to A. flavus biocontrol strains are expected to enhance biocontrol efficacy, while also displacing/antagonizing harmful microbes

Transcriptomic profiling of host-parasite interactions in the microsporidian <i>Trachipleistophora hominis</i>

BACKGROUND: Trachipleistophora hominis was isolated from an HIV/AIDS patient and is a member of a highly successful group of obligate intracellular parasites. METHODS: Here we have investigated the evolution of the parasite and the interplay between host and parasite gene expression using transcriptomics of T. hominis-infected rabbit kidney cells. RESULTS: T. hominis has about 30 % more genes than small-genome microsporidians. Highly expressed genes include those involved in growth, replication, defence against oxidative stress, and a large fraction of uncharacterised genes. Chaperones are also highly expressed and may buffer the deleterious effects of the large number of non-synonymous mutations observed in essential T. hominis genes. Host expression suggests a general cellular shutdown upon infection, but ATP, amino sugar and nucleotide sugar production appear enhanced, potentially providing the parasite with substrates it cannot make itself. Expression divergence of duplicated genes, including transporters used to acquire host metabolites, demonstrates ongoing functional diversification during microsporidian evolution. We identified overlapping transcription at more than 100 loci in the sparse T. hominis genome, demonstrating that this feature is not caused by genome compaction. The detection of additional transposons of insect origin strongly suggests that the natural host for T. hominis is an insect. CONCLUSIONS: Our results reveal that the evolution of contemporary microsporidian genomes is highly dynamic and innovative. Moreover, highly expressed T. hominis genes of unknown function include a cohort that are shared among all microsporidians, indicating that some strongly conserved features of the biology of these enormously successful parasites remain uncharacterised. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-015-1989-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

A communal catalogue reveals Earth’s multiscale microbial diversity

Our growing awareness of the microbial world’s importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth’s microbial diversity

A communal catalogue reveals Earth's multiscale microbial diversity

Our growing awareness of the microbial world's importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth's microbial diversity.Peer reviewe

Climatic history of the northeastern United States during the past 3000 years

Many ecosystem processes that influence Earth system feedbacks – vegetation growth, water and nutrient cycling, disturbance regimes – are strongly influenced by multidecadal- to millennial-scale climate variations that cannot be directly observed. Paleoclimate records provide information about these variations, forming the basis of our understanding and modeling of them. Fossil pollen records are abundant in the NE US, but cannot simultaneously provide information about paleoclimate and past vegetation in a modeling context because this leads to circular logic. If pollen data are used to constrain past vegetation changes, then the remaining paleoclimate archives in the northeastern US (NE US) are quite limited. Nonetheless, a growing number of diverse reconstructions have been developed but have not yet been examined together. Here we conduct a systematic review, assessment, and comparison of paleotemperature and paleohydrological proxies from the NE US for the last 3000 years. Regional temperature reconstructions (primarily summer) show a long-term cooling trend (1000 BCE–1700 CE) consistent with hemispheric-scale reconstructions, while hydroclimate data show gradually wetter conditions through the present day. Multiple proxies suggest that a prolonged, widespread drought occurred between 550 and 750 CE. Dry conditions are also evident during the Medieval Climate Anomaly, which was warmer and drier than the Little Ice Age and drier than today. There is some evidence for an acceleration of the longer-term wetting trend in the NE US during the past century; coupled with an abrupt shift from decreasing to increasing temperatures in the past century, these changes could have wide-ranging implications for species distributions, ecosystem dynamics, and extreme weather events. More work is needed to gather paleoclimate data in the NE US to make inter-proxy comparisons and to improve estimates of uncertainty in reconstructions

Insect repellent and chemical agronomic treatments to reduce seed numberin'Afourer'mandarin. Effect on yield and fruit diameter

Obtaining citrus fruits without seeds is a recurrent objective for farmers as it is one of the most valued char-acteristics, especially in mandarins.'Afourer'tangor is a highly valuable well-established mandarin, and a highpercentage of seeded fruits are produced under cross-pollination conditions. Several agronomic techniques havebeen suggested to control presence of seeds, such as covering with nets and copper sulfate (CuSO4) and gib-berellic acid (GA3) treatments. Natural bee repellents are also proposed to reduce the number of seeds per fruit.In this study, we aimed to compare the effect of several agronomic treatments to reduce the seed number in'Afourer' mandarin. To this end, we assessed the effect of chemical and bee repellent treatments on the seednumber per fruit and the side effect on yield and fruit diameter. Under these experimental conditions the two beerepellents, one based on zinc and one based onCapsicum annuum, were not useful for reducing the seed numberper fruit in'Afourer'mandarin. The copper sulfate + GA3treatment reduced the seed number per fruit by only35%, and this efficiency was clearly not enough to reduce the seed number for commercial purposes. The mosteffective method to reduce the seed number per fruit was covering with nets, but this technique led to markedlyreduced yields. Yield data was highly variable. Fruit diameter correlated positively with the seed number, but itwas a weak relationship as the seed number explained only 15% of fruit size variability (R2= 0,15)