A global synthesis reveals biodiversity-mediated benefits for crop production

Human land use threatens global biodiversity and compromises multiple ecosystem functions critical to food production. Whether crop yield-related ecosystem services can be maintained by a few dominant species or rely on high richness remains unclear. Using a global database from 89 studies (with 1475 locations), we partition the relative importance of species richness, abundance, and dominance for pollination; biological pest control; and final yields in the context of ongoing land-use change. Pollinator and enemy richness directly supported ecosystem services in addition to and independent of abundance and dominance. Up to 50% of the negative effects of landscape simplification on ecosystem services was due to richness losses of service-providing organisms, with negative consequences for crop yields. Maintaining the biodiversity of ecosystem service providers is therefore vital to sustain the flow of key agroecosystem benefits to society. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2019 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).

A pragmatic cluster randomised trial evaluating three implementation interventions

Background Implementation research is concerned with bridging the gap between evidence and practice through the study of methods to promote the uptake of research into routine practice. Good quality evidence has been summarised into guideline recommendations to show that peri-operative fasting times could be considerably shorter than patients currently experience. The objective of this trial was to evaluate the effectiveness of three strategies for the implementation of recommendations about peri-operative fasting. Methods A pragmatic cluster randomised trial underpinned by the PARIHS framework was conducted during 2006 to 2009 with a national sample of UK hospitals using time series with mixed methods process evaluation and cost analysis. Hospitals were randomised to one of three interventions: standard dissemination (SD) of a guideline package, SD plus a web-based resource championed by an opinion leader, and SD plus plan-do-study-act (PDSA). The primary outcome was duration of fluid fast prior to induction of anaesthesia. Secondary outcomes included duration of food fast, patients' experiences, and stakeholders' experiences of implementation, including influences. ANOVA was used to test differences over time and interventions. Results Nineteen acute NHS hospitals participated. Across timepoints, 3,505 duration of fasting observations were recorded. No significant effect of the interventions was observed for either fluid or food fasting times. The effect size was 0.33 for the web-based intervention compared to SD alone for the change in fluid fasting and was 0.12 for PDSA compared to SD alone. The process evaluation showed different types of impact, including changes to practices, policies, and attitudes. A rich picture of the implementation challenges emerged, including inter-professional tensions and a lack of clarity for decision-making authority and responsibility. Conclusions This was a large, complex study and one of the first national randomised controlled trials conducted within acute care in implementation research. The evidence base for fasting practice was accepted by those participating in this study and the messages from it simple; however, implementation and practical challenges influenced the interventions' impact. A set of conditions for implementation emerges from the findings of this study, which are presented as theoretically transferable propositions that have international relevance. Trial registration ISRCTN18046709 - Peri-operative Implementation Study Evaluation (POISE

'Motivate': the effect of a Football in the Community delivered weight loss programme on over 35-year old men and women's cardiovascular risk factors

The purpose of this study was to examine whether an innovative, inclusive and integrated 12-week exercise, behaviour change and nutrition advice-based weight management programme could significantly improve the cardiovascular risk factors of overweight and obese men and women over the age of 35. One hundred and ninety-four men and 98 women (mean age = 52.28 ± 9.74 and 51.19 ± 9.04) attending a community-based intervention delivered by Notts County Football in the Community over one year, took part in the study. Height (m), weight (kg), fitness (meters covered during a 6 min walk) and waist circumference (cm) were measured at weeks 1 and 12 as part of the intervention. Changes in body weight, waist circumference and fitness for men and women were measured by a 2-way repeated measures ANOVA, with significance set to p < 0.05.Weight, waist circumference and fitness significantly improved over time in both men (4.96 kg, 6.29 cm, 70.22 m; p < 0.05) and women (4.26 kg, 5.90 cm, 35.29 m; p < 0.05). The results demonstrated that the FITC lead weight loss intervention was successful in significantly improving cardiovascular risk factors in both men and women. In particular, the weight loss reductions achieved were comparable to those seen in similar, more costly men-only programmes. This is the first study to demonstrate the efficacy of such an intervention in an inclusive, mixed gender programme and more specifically, in women

Teaching the Process of Science: Faculty Perceptions and an Effective Methodology

Most scientific endeavors require science process skills such as data interpretation, problem solving, experimental design, scientific writing, oral communication, collaborative work, and critical analysis of primary literature. These are the fundamental skills upon which the conceptual framework of scientific expertise is built. Unfortunately, most college science departments lack a formalized curriculum for teaching undergraduates science process skills. However, evidence strongly suggests that explicitly teaching undergraduates skills early in their education may enhance their understanding of science content. Our research reveals that faculty overwhelming support teaching undergraduates science process skills but typically do not spend enough time teaching skills due to the perceived need to cover content. To encourage faculty to address this issue, we provide our pedagogical philosophies, methods, and materials for teaching science process skills to freshman pursuing life science majors. We build upon previous work, showing student learning gains in both reading primary literature and scientific writing, and share student perspectives about a course where teaching the process of science, not content, was the focus. We recommend a wider implementation of courses that teach undergraduates science process skills early in their studies with the goals of improving student success and retention in the sciences and enhancing general science literacy

Investigation of chemistry graduate teaching assistants’ teacher knowledge and teacher identity

Graduate students play an integral role in undergraduate chemistry education at doctoral granting institutions where they routinely serve as instructors of laboratories and supplementary discussion sessions. Simultaneously, graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) balance major research and academic responsibilities. Although GTAs have substantial instructional facetime with large numbers of undergraduate students, little is known about their conceptions of teaching or their identities as teachers. To investigate the knowledge that GTAs have regarding teaching in this unique context, their teaching identities, and how these developed, we conducted 22 interviews with graduate students from several universities at various levels in their graduate school career using a modified Teacher Beliefs Interview. Interviews were analyzed for two overarching teacher learning constructs: teacher knowledge and teacher identity. We characterized chemistry GTAs’ teacher knowledge and identity and determined major influencing factors. We found that chemistry GTAs often identified as a tutor or lab manager, which hindered their self‐investment in developing as teachers. The results presented herein contribute to an understanding of GTAs’ teacher knowledge, teacher identity, and their teaching context, from which training can be designed to best support GTA development.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155950/1/tea21618_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155950/2/tea21618.pd

The 'lost child' as figure of trauma and recovery in early post-war cinema: Fred Zinnemann's The Search (1948) and Natan Gross's Unzere Kinder (1948)

The article examines the figure of the ‘lost child’ in feature films of the immediate post-war period. The figure’s enormous symbolic value as innocent victim and future generation, granted the ‘lost child’ a key position in post-war discourse, including films which tried to grapple with the moral and physical destruction of the continent after 1945. National film industries, particularly of the perpetrator nation, employed the ‘lost child’ for genre stories in which the post-war chaos is being mastered and a new, masculine national self is re-built. However, films made by victim groups outside a national context rely on the ‘lost child’ to broach the destruction of their identity by war and persecution. Analysing two films, Fred Zinnemann’s The Search (1948) and Nata Gross’s Unzere Kinder (1948), I argue that they use the child figure to deal with traumatization and make it part of the reconstruction of communal intergenerational relations. This does not result in stories of masculine mastery but in narratives that incorporate moments of trauma process emerging around destroyed mother-child relations. The films, encoding traumatization in film language, develop a rich cinematic language along questions of identity and form a first instance of posttraumatic cinema

Systematically reviewing and synthesizing evidence from conversation analytic and related discursive research to inform healthcare communication practice and policy: an illustrated guide

Background Healthcare delivery is largely accomplished in and through conversations between people, and healthcare quality and effectiveness depend enormously upon the communication practices employed within these conversations. An important body of evidence about these practices has been generated by conversation analysis and related discourse analytic approaches, but there has been very little systematic reviewing of this evidence. Methods We developed an approach to reviewing evidence from conversation analytic and related discursive research through the following procedures: • reviewing existing systematic review methods and our own prior experience of applying these • clarifying distinctive features of conversation analytic and related discursive work which must be taken into account when reviewing • holding discussions within a review advisory team that included members with expertise in healthcare research, conversation analytic research, and systematic reviewing • attempting and then refining procedures through conducting an actual review which examined evidence about how people talk about difficult future issues including illness progression and dying Results We produced a step-by-step guide which we describe here in terms of eight stages, and which we illustrate from our ‘Review of Future Talk’. The guide incorporates both established procedures for systematic reviewing, and new techniques designed for working with conversation analytic evidence. Conclusions The guide is designed to inform systematic reviews of conversation analytic and related discursive evidence on specific domains and topics. Whilst we designed it for reviews that aim at informing healthcare practice and policy, it is flexible and could be used for reviews with other aims, for instance those aiming to underpin research programmes and projects. We advocate systematically reviewing conversation analytic and related discursive findings using this approach in order to translate them into a form that is credible and useful to healthcare practitioners, educators and policy-makers

Creating an Instrument to Measure Student Response to Instructional Practices

BackgroundCalls for the reform of education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) have inspired many instructional innovations, some research based. Yet adoption of such instruction has been slow. Research has suggested that students’ response may significantly affect an instructor’s willingness to adopt different types of instruction.PurposeWe created the Student Response to Instructional Practices (StRIP) instrument to measure the effects of several variables on student response to instructional practices. We discuss the step‐by‐step process for creating this instrument.Design/MethodThe development process had six steps: item generation and construct development, validity testing, implementation, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and instrument modification and replication. We discuss pilot testing of the initial instrument, construct development, and validation using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses.ResultsThis process produced 47 items measuring three parts of our framework. Types of instruction separated into four factors (interactive, constructive, active, and passive); strategies for using in‐class activities into two factors (explanation and facilitation); and student responses to instruction into five factors (value, positivity, participation, distraction, and evaluation).ConclusionsWe describe the design process and final results for our instrument, a useful tool for understanding the relationship between type of instruction and students’ response.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136692/1/jee20162_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136692/2/jee20162.pd

Untreated severe dental decay: a neglected determinant of low Body Mass Index in 12-year-old Filipino children

Contains fulltext : 98500.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)BACKGROUND: Dental decay is the most common childhood disease worldwide and most of the decay remains untreated. In the Philippines caries levels are among the highest in the South East Asian region. Elementary school children suffer from high prevalence of stunting and underweight.The present study aimed to investigate the association between untreated dental decay and Body Mass Index (BMI) among 12-year-old Filipino children. METHODS: Data collection was part of the National Oral Health Survey, a representative cross-sectional study of 1951 11-13-year-old school children using a modified, stratified cluster sampling design based on population classifications of the Philippine National Statistics Office. Caries was scored according to WHO criteria (1997) and odontogenic infections using the PUFA index. Anthropometric measures were performed by trained nurses. Some socio-economic determinants were included as potential confounding factors. RESULTS: The overall prevalence of caries (DMFT + dmft > 0) was 82.3% (95%CI; 80.6%-84.0%). The overall prevalence of odontogenic infections due to caries (PUFA + pufa > 0) was 55.7% (95% CI; 53.5%-57.9%) The BMI of 27.1% (95%CI; 25.1%-29.1%) of children was below normal, 1% (95%CI; 0.5%-1.4%) had a BMI above normal. The regression coefficient between BMI and caries was highly significant (p 0) as compared to those without odontogenic infections had an increased risk of a below normal BMI (OR: 1.47; 95% CI: 1.19-1.80). CONCLUSIONS: This is the first-ever representative survey showing a significant association between caries and BMI and particularly between odontogenic infections and below normal BMI. An expanded model of hypothesised associations is presented that includes progressed forms of dental decay as a significant, yet largely neglected determinant of poor child development

Detecting ‘poachers’ with drones: Factors influencing the probability of detection with TIR and RGB imaging in miombo woodlands, Tanzania

Conservation biologists increasingly employ drones to reduce poaching of animals. However, there are no published studies on the probability of detecting poachers and the factors influencing detection. In an experimental setting with voluntary subjects, we evaluated the influence of various factors on poacher detection probability: camera (visual spectrum: RGB and thermal infrared: TIR), density of canopy cover, subject distance from the image centreline, subject contrast against the background, altitude of the drone and image analyst. We manually analysed the footage and marked all recorded subject detections. A multilevel model was used to analyse the TIR image data and a general linear model approach was used for the RGB image data. We found that the TIR camera had a higher detection probability than the RGB camera. Detection probability in TIR images was significantly influenced by canopy density, subject distance from the centreline and the analyst. Detection probability in RGB images was significantly influenced by canopy density, subject contrast against the background, altitude and the analyst. Overall, our findings indicate that TIR cameras improve human detection, particularly at cooler times of the day, but this is significantly hampered by thick vegetation cover. The effects of diminished detection with increased distance from the image centreline can be improved by increasing the overlap between images although this requires more flights over a specific area. Analyst experience also contributed to increased detection probability, but this might cease being a problem following the development of automated detection using machine learning