Does Caregiver Use of Portable Technology Impact Attachment for Infants and Young Children?

Ellie Olson, OTR/L, the primary collaborator for this project, is the owner of Fall City Children’s Therapy. In collaboration with occupational therapy (OT) students and faculty advisors, Renee Watling, Maggie Hayes, and Yvonne Swinth, the research question, “Does caregiver use of portable technology impact attachment for infants and young children?” was developed. This systematic review resulted in 12 articles meeting inclusion and exclusion criteria. The articles reported mixed results: (1) association between parent technology use and child attachment, (2) no association between parent technology use and child attachment, and (3) other associations besides parent technology use and child attachment, including quality of interactions during and after parent cell phone use, parent responsiveness to child, and increased negative child behaviors. After reviewing the research/literature, it was recommended that parents be cautious about their technology use around their children and take into consideration potential impacts portable technology use may have. Knowledge translation for this project consisted of compiling and synthesizing research into an informational brochure distributed to caregivers at Fall City Children’s Therapy and University of Puget Sound occupational therapy teaching clinic. A post-brochure survey assessed knowledge gained by consumers and change in attitude toward technology use from after reading the informational brochure. Seven surveys were completed and all respondents reported caregiver technology use had an impact on parent child attachment including, quality of attachment, caregiver-child interaction, and increased child protest behavior. Of the respondents, a majority indicated that they were planning on changing their technology use around their children. In the future, it was recommended for further exploration of the impact of caregiver\u27s technology usage specifically on children’s emotional regulation

The response of microphytobenthos to physical disturbance, herbicide, and titanium dioxide nanoparticles exposure

The research leading to these results received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 730984, ASSEMBLE Plus project. AJW was funded by the John Templeton Grant 60501, “Putting the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis to the Test”. DMP and AJB were supported by the NERC Blue-coast award (NE/N016009/1).The microphytobenthos that form transient biofilms are important primary producers in intertidal, depositional habitats, yet we have only a limited understanding of how they respond to the cumulative impacts of the growing range of anthropogenic stressors to which they are exposed. We know even less about how the temporal alignment of exposure – such as duration and exposure sequence – may affect the response. Estuarine biofilms were cultured in mesocosms and exposed to the herbicide glyphosate and titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles in different sequences (glyphosate-first or TiO2-first), as well as in the presence and absence of physical disturbance. We found that at environmentally realistic chemical concentrations, the order of exposure was less important than the total stressor scenario in terms of impacts on key functional attributes and diatom community structure. Physical disturbance did not have an impact on functional attributes, regardless of exposure sequence.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

A Reversible Phase Transition for Sodium Insertion in Anatase TiO₂

Anatase TiO2 is a potential negative electrode for sodium-ion batteries. Thesodium storage mechanism is, however, still under debate, yet its comprehension is required to optimize the electrochemical properties. To clarify the sodium storage mechanism occurring in anatase, we have used both electrochemical and chemical routes from which we obtained similar trends. During the first discharge, an irreversible plateau region is observed which corresponds to the insertion of Na+ within the interstitial sites of anatase and is accompanied by a drastic loss of the long-range order as revealed by X-ray diffraction, high resolution of high angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscope (HAADF-STEM), and pair distribution function (PDF) analysis. Further structural analysis of the total scattering data indicates that the sodiated phase displays a layered-like rhombohedral R3m structure built from the stacking of Ti and Na slabs. Because of the initial 3D network of anatase, the reduced phase shows strong disorder due to cationic intermixing between the Ti and Na slabs and the refined chemical formula is (Na0.43Ti0.57)3a□0.22Na0.39Ti0.39)3bO2, where □ refers to vacancy. The presence of high valence Ti ions in the Na layers induces a contraction of the c-parameter as compared to the ordered phase. Upon desodiation, the structure further amorphized and the local structure probed by PDF is shown to be similar to the anatase TiO2, suggesting that the 3D network is recovered. The reversible sodium insertion/deinsertion is thus attributed to the rhombohedral active phase formed during the first discharge, and an oxidized phase featuring the local structure of anatase. Due to the amorphous nature of the two phases, the potential-composition curves are characterized by a sloping curve. Finally, a comparison between the intercalation of lithium and sodium into anatase TiO2 performed by DFT calculations confirmed that, for the sodiated phase, the rhombohedral structure is more stable than the tetragonal phase observed during the lithiation of nanoparticles

Diversity and P-solubilizing ability of mycorrhizosphere bacteria associated with Pinus pinaster in the Landes forest ecosystem

Ectomycorrhizal fungi (ECM) and their associated mycorrhizosphere bacteria (MB) play a major role in phosphorous (P) nutrition of maritime pine, particularly in the Landes forest ecosystem considering the low bioavailability of P in its sandy-acidic soils. In order to characterize the MB associated to ECM, three collection campaigns of ECM root tips were performed from autumn 2005 to autumn 2006 throughout three forest stations. Five MB and nine ECM genera were identified overall through sequencing of 16S rDNA and mitochondrial large subunit rDNA fragment respectively. Dramatic seasonal changes were observed in the different MB-ECM associations especially in Burkholderia-Lactarius and Bacillus-Russula that were the most abundant ones. P-solubilizing ability of MB was shown to be taxon-dependent with a large majority of P-solubilizing isolates among Burkholderia, Pseudomonas and Paenibacillus contrary to Bacillus. Relationships between functional diversity of the MB-ECM associations and bioavailability of soil P remain to be investigated. (Résumé d'auteur)

Prolonged dialysis during ex vivo lung perfusion promotes inflammatory responses

Ex-vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) has extended the number of transplantable lungs by reconditioning marginal organs. However, EVLP is performed at 37°C without homeostatic regulation leading to metabolic wastes’ accumulation in the perfusate and, as a corrective measure, the costly perfusate is repeatedly replaced during the standard of care procedure. As an interesting alternative, a hemodialyzer could be placed on the EVLP circuit, which was previously shown to rebalance the perfusate composition and to maintain lung function and viability without appearing to impact the global gene expression in the lung. Here, we assessed the biological effects of a hemodialyzer during EVLP by performing biochemical and refined functional genomic analyses over a 12h procedure in a pig model. We found that dialysis stabilized electrolytic and metabolic parameters of the perfusate but enhanced the gene expression and protein accumulation of several inflammatory cytokines and promoted a genomic profile predicting higher endothelial activation already at 6h and higher immune cytokine signaling at 12h. Therefore, epuration of EVLP with a dialyzer, while correcting features of the perfusate composition and maintaining the respiratory function, promotes inflammatory responses in the tissue. This finding suggests that modifying the metabolite composition of the perfusate by dialysis during EVLP can have detrimental effects on the tissue response and that this strategy should not be transferred as such to the clinic

The Tulip 3 Framework: A Scalable Software Library for Information Visualization Applications Based on Relational Data

Tulip is an information visualization framework dedicated to the analysis and visualization of relational data. Based on a decade of research and development of this framework, we present the architecture, consisting of a suite of tools and techniques, that can be used to address a large variety of domain-specific problems. With Tulip, we aim to provide the developer with a complete library, supporting the design of interactive information visualization applications for relational data that can be tailored to the problems he or she is addressing. The current framework enables the development of algorithms, visual encodings, interaction techniques, data models, and domain-specific visualizations. The software model facilitates the reuse of components and allows the developers to focus on programming their application. This development pipeline makes the framework efficient for research prototyping as well as the development of end-user applications

The electrochemical storage mechanism in oxy-hydroxyfluorinated anatase for sodium-ion batteries

International audienceReplacing lithium ions with sodium ions as the charge carriers in rechargeable batteries can induce noticeable differences in the electrochemical storage mechanisms of electrode materials. Many material parameters, such as particle size, morphology, and the presence of defects, are known to further affect the storage mechanism. Here, we report an investigation of how the introduction of titanium vacancies into anatase TiO2 affects the sodium storage mechanism. From pair distribution function analysis, we observe that sodium ions are inserted into titanium vacancies at the early stage of the discharge process. This is supported by density functional theory calculations, which predict that sodium insertion is more favourable at vacancies than at interstitial sites. Our calculations also show that the intercalation voltage is sensitive to the anion coordination environment of the vacancy. Sodiation to higher concentrations induces a phase transition toward a disordered rhombohedral structure, similar to that observed in defect-free TiO2. Finally, we find that the X-ray diffraction pattern of the rhombohedral phase drastically changes depending on the composition and degree of disorder, providing further comprehension on the sodium storage mechanism of anatase