Development of the Dutch ICF Activity Inventory: Investigating and evaluating rehabilitation needs of visually impaired adults

Rens, G.H.M.B. van [Promotor]Nispen, R.M.A. van [Copromotor

Ancient Egypt 1922 Part 1

Part 1 of the 1922 Ancient Egypt books. Contents include the tree of the Herakleopolite Nome, the sarcophagus of Pa-Ramessu, and knots.https://knowledge.e.southern.edu/kweeks_coll/1018/thumbnail.jp

Rehabilitation needs and activity limitations of adults with a visual impairment entering a low vision rehabilitation service in England

Purpose- To evaluate outcome measures of the Participation and Activity Inventory (PAI) in a sample of adults with acquired visual impairment entering vision rehabilitation. Both Priority Scores, indicating level of rehabilitative need, and Person Measures, indicating goal difficulty, were considered. Methods- Participants were newly registered adults with visual impairment within Leicestershire, United Kingdom. The importance and difficulty of 48 goals of the PAI were assessed, as were demographic factors, clinical visual function (visual acuity, contrast sensitivity, reading function) and psychosocial function (adjustment to visual loss, depression, anxiety and fear of falling). Priority scores were calculated as the product of importance and difficulty of each goal. All questionnaires were Rasch analysed, and person and item measures of perceived difficulty with goals were derived. Results- Sixty people (mean age ± S.D. = 75.8 ± 13.8 years) took part. PAI goals with greatest rehabilitative need were reading (6.82 ± 2.91), mobility outdoors (6.55 ± 3.92), mobility indoors within an unfamiliar environment (5.52 ± 3.93) and writing (5.27 ± 3.02). Greater rehabilitative need was associated with younger age (β = −0.46, p < 0.001), and with higher depressive symptomatology (β = 0.35, p < 0.01; model R2 34%). Goals with greatest difficulty were mending clothing (−1.95 ± 0.35 logits) and hobbies and crafts (−1.32 ± 0.23 logits). Greater difficulty was associated with higher depressive symptomatology (β = 0.39, p < 0.001), lower visual acuity (β = 0.42, p < 0.001) and lower adjustment of visual loss (β = 0.31, p < 0.01; model R2 53%). Conclusions- Key rehabilitation needs for adults at entry to services require both optical and non-optical interventions. As rehabilitative need was not associated with the level of visual impairment, eyecare professionals should not wait until the end of medical treatment before referral for support. Similarly, rehabilitative need was associated with younger age, indicating the importance to refer younger people with sight loss at an early stage. The use of structured assessment, such as the PAI, ensures goals that have an impact upon quality of life are specifically identified. Depression screening on entry to rehabilitation is relevant as it predicts both perceived difficulty and rehabilitative need

Disentangling evolutionary, plastic and demographic processes underlying trait dynamics: a review of four frameworks

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.Biologists are increasingly interested in decomposing trait dynamics into underlying processes, such as evolution, plasticity and demography. Four important frameworks that allow for such a decomposition are the quantitative genetic animal model (AM), the ‘Geber’ method (GM), the age-structured Price equation (APE) and the integral projection model (IPM). However, as these frameworks have largely been developed independently, they differ in the assumptions they make, the data they require, as well as their outcomes and interpretation. Here, we evaluate how each framework decomposes trait dynamics into underlying processes. To do so, we apply them to simulated data for a hypothetical animal population. Individual body size was affected by, among others, genes, maternal effects and food intake. We simulated scenarios with and without selection on body size and with high and low heritability. The APE and IPM provided similar results, as did the AM and GM, with important differences between the former and the latter. All frameworks detected positive contributions of selection in the high but not in the low selection scenarios. However, only the AM and GM distinguished between the high and low heritability scenarios. Furthermore, the AM and GM revealed a high contribution of plasticity. The APE and IPM attributed most of the change in body size to ontogenetic growth and inheritance, where the latter captures the combined effects of plasticity, maternal effects and heritability. We show how these apparent discrepancies are mostly due to differences in aims and definitions. For example, the APE and IPM capture selection, whereas the AM and GM focus on the response to selection. Furthermore, the frameworks differ in the processes that are ascribed to plasticity and in how they take into account demography. We conclude that no single framework provides the ‘true’ contributions of evolution, plasticity and demography. Instead, different research questions require different frameworks. A thorough understanding of the different definitions of their components is necessary for selecting the most appropriate framework for the question at hand and for making biologically meaningful inferences. This work thus supports both future analysis and the careful interpretation of existing work.This work was funded by the Swiss NationalScience Foundation project grants (31003A_141110 and 31003A_159462/1 toEP, 31003A_146445 to AO) and an ERC starting grant (#337785 to AO)

How do parents experience patching or dichoptic action video gaming as amblyopia treatment? A qualitative study exploring treatment preferences and information needs to facilitate decision-making

Purpose: To explore parents' experiences, preferences and information needs when either patching treatment or dichoptic action video gaming is used as an amblyopia treatment for their child. Methods: A qualitative study was carried out on parents whose newly diagnosed amblyopic children participated in a randomised controlled trial (RCT) comparing the effects of dichoptic action video gaming versus patching. A purposive heterogenic sample was selected for an additional interview after the study period. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with one or both parents and transcribed verbatim, and a thematic analysis was performed. Results: Ten families agreed to participate: seven in the patching group and three in the gaming group. Two themes emerged from the data exploring experiences with treatment: (1) factors influencing compliance and (2) burden with treatment. Parents reported creating a routine which improved compliance with patching, as opposed to gaming where parents felt less need to conduct the treatment themselves as it was performed in the outpatient clinic. In both groups, parents experienced an information hiatus regarding the role of refractive error. In deciding the type of treatment to be used, parents preferred to deliberate the choice with the healthcare professional and discuss considerations resulting in shared decisions. The emerging themes were (1) effect and efficiency of treatment, (2) organisational aspects of treatments and (3) their child's traits. Conclusion: This study provides insight into the experiences of parents whose children underwent different types of amblyopia therapy. Both treatments have their own advantages and disadvantages. For parents, the effectiveness and efficiency of treatment were the most important aspects when deciding the method of management. Parents wish to come to a well-informed, shared decision regarding the type of amblyopia treatment.</p

Ancient Egypt 1921 Part 4

Part 4 of the 1921 Ancient Egypt books. Contents include models of Egyptian looms, the date of the Middle Empire, the tree of Herakleopolite Nome, and the ceremony of Anba Tarabo.https://knowledge.e.southern.edu/kweeks_coll/1017/thumbnail.jp

Host–parasite dynamics shaped by temperature and genotype : quantifying the role of underlying vital rates

Global warming challenges the persistence of local populations, not only through heat-induced stress, but also through indirect biotic changes. We study the interactive effects of temperature, competition and parasitism in the water flea Daphnia magna. We carried out a common garden experiment monitoring the dynamics of Daphnia populations along a temperature gradient. Halfway through the experiment, all populations became infected with the ectoparasite Amoebidium parasiticum, enabling us to study the interactive effects of temperature and parasite dynamics. We combined Integral Projection Models with epidemiological models, parameterized using the experimental data on the performance of individuals within dynamic populations. This enabled us to quantify the contribution of different vital rates and epidemiological parameters to population fitness across temperatures and Daphnia clones originating from two latitudes. Interactions between temperature and parasitism shaped competition, where Belgian clones performed better under infection than Norwegian clones. Infected Daphnia populations performed better at higher than at lower temperatures, mainly due to an increased host capability of reducing parasite loads. Temperature strongly affected individual vital rates, but effects largely cancelled out on a population-level. In contrast, parasitism strongly reduced fitness through consistent negative effects on all vital rates. As a result, temperature-mediated parasitism was more important than the direct effects of temperature in shaping population dynamics. Both the outcome of the competition treatments and the observed extinction patterns support our modelling results. Our study highlights that shifts in biotic interactions can be equally or more important for responses to warming than direct physiological effects of warming, emphasizing that we need to include such interactions in our studies to predict the competitive ability of natural populations experiencing global warming.publishedVersio

High Detection Rates of Enteropathogens in Asymptomatic Children Attending Day Care

BACKGROUND: Gastroenteritis morbidity is high among children under the age of four, especially amongst those who attend day care. OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence of a range of enteropathogens in the intestinal flora of children attending day care and to relate their occurrence with characteristics of the sampled child and the sampling season. METHODS: We performed three years of enteropathogen surveillance in a network of 29 child day care centers in the Netherlands. The centers were instructed to take one fecal sample from ten randomly chosen children each month, regardless of gastrointestinal symptoms at time of sampling. All samples were analyzed for the molecular detection of 16 enteropathogenic bacteria, parasites and viruses by real-time multiplex PCR. RESULTS: Enteropathogens were detected in 78.0% of the 5197 fecal samples. Of the total, 95.4% of samples were obtained from children who had no gastroenteritis symptoms at time of sampling. Bacterial enteropathogens were detected most often (most prevalent EPEC, 19.9%), followed by parasitic enteropathogens (most prevalent: D. fragilis, 22.1%) and viral enteropathogens (most prevalent: norovirus, 9.5%). 4.6% of samples related to children that experienced symptoms of gastroenteritis at time of sampling. Only rotavirus and norovirus were significantly associated with gastroenteritis among day care attendees. CONCLUSIONS: Our study indicates that asymptomatic infections with enteropathogens in day care attendees are not a rare event and that gastroenteritis caused by infections with these enteropathogens is only one expression of their presence

Host–parasite dynamics shaped by temperature and genotype: Quantifying the role of underlying vital rates

1. Global warming challenges the persistence of local populations, not only through heat-induced stress, but also through indirect biotic changes. We study the interactive effects of temperature, competition and parasitism in the water flea Daphnia magna. 2. We carried out a common garden experiment monitoring the dynamics of Daphnia populations along a temperature gradient. Halfway through the experiment, all populations became infected with the ectoparasite Amoebidium parasiticum, enabling us to study the interactive effects of temperature and parasite dynamics. We combined Integral Projection Models with epidemiological models, parameterized using the experimental data on the performance of individuals within dynamic populations. This enabled us to quantify the contribution of different vital rates and epidemiological parameters to population fitness across temperatures and Daphnia clones originating from two latitudes. 3. Interactions between temperature and parasitism shaped competition, where Belgian clones performed better under infection than Norwegian clones. Infected Daphnia populations performed better at higher than at lower temperatures, mainly due to an increased host capability of reducing parasite loads. Temperature strongly affected individual vital rates, but effects largely cancelled out on a population-level. In contrast, parasitism strongly reduced fitness through consistent negative effects on all vital rates. As a result, temperature-mediated parasitism was more important than the direct effects of temperature in shaping population dynamics. Both the outcome of the competition treatments and the observed extinction patterns support our modelling results. 4. Our study highlights that shifts in biotic interactions can be equally or more important for responses to warming than direct physiological effects of warming, emphasizing that we need to include such interactions in our studies to predict the competitive ability of natural populations experiencing global warming