A Systematic Review of Infant Use of Powered Mobility

Mobility, typically within the first year of life, allows infants to effectively explore their environment, usually via crawling and walking. They begin to learn how they can interact with objects or people in their environment and surroundings. While the ability to explore the environment is of great value to the life of an infant and considered a major developmental milestone, the start of independent mobility in infants has underlying importance beyond the ability of self-locomotion. Mobility has been shown to influence development within the following areas: perception, cognition, socialization (Campos et al., 2000) spatial skills and spatial cognitive development (Yan, Thomas & Downing, 1998). Campos et al. (2000) demonstrated that locomotor experience in infants, as a “crucial agent of developmental change” (p. 151) and a point of significance for psychological transitioning, can have a range of extensive consequences on their development. In typically developing children, the initiation of mobility will aid them in their development across the array of areas aforementioned; however, infants with mobility impairments may be inhibited from having locomotor experiences, thus impacting their developmental progress. Gibson’s Theory surrounding the idea of affordances exhibits the importance of mobility (Gibson, 1988). Affordances exist within the physical environment and are qualities or properties of objects or the environment that stimulate action possibilities. To learn about the affordances in one’s environment, Gibson (1988) asserts that learning entails exploratory activities. Exploratory locomotion promotes the development of a cognitive map to help infants piece together knowledge of their surroundings. Currently, powered mobility is turned to as an option to facilitate the developmental growth in infants who have a mobility impairment. In the last 20 years, the use of powered mobility by young children has increased significantly (Wiart, Darrah, Cook, Hollis, & May, 2003). A majority of those that use powered mobility devices use a joystick as a means of control (Fehr, Langbein, & Skaar, 2000). Unfortunately for young children, the use of a joystick to control a mobility device has proven difficult (Dennis et al., 2013; Galloway, Ryu, & Agrawal, 2008). Barriers restricting the extensive use of powered mobility devices in infants include behavioral, physical and family factors (Guerette, Tefft, & Furumasu, 2005). The Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) recommends early use of powered mobility for infants with a mobility impairment “to promote integration and psychosocial development, reduce passive dependency, and to enhance participation, function, and independence” (Rosen, et al., 2009, p. 219). With that being said, studies have been completed to assess infant driving. Researchers across many fields, such as occupational therapy, physical therapy, engineering, and computer science, have conducted studies with some form of powered mobility that they have either designed or that can be purchased to support infants who are mobility impaired as an aid to their development. Single subject cases and case studies such as Butler (1986), Deitz, Swinth, and White (2002), Kenyon et al. (2016), Sonday and Gretschel (2015) and an experimental study conducted by Jones, McEwen and Neas (2012) all demonstrated that the development of children with motor impairments is positively effected via the use of forms of powered mobility. Seeing that powered devices reflect positively on the lives of infants with mobility impairments, a systematic review of research of children using powered devices, in particular with a joystick, was conducted. Over the course of four months, various research studies were compiled and analyzed varying in infant ages, measures, and those including typically developing infants or not, to shape this systematic review. Research conducted thus far often compare various types or modifications of powered mobility devices to each other and analyze differences in child driving performance. However, there is a discrepancy between researchers as to how driving should be assessed and when it is feasible to give clients a power mobility device. Researchers have not collected data to specifically analyze the various capabilities and strengths toddler drivers have at various ages. Therefore, there is not sufficient research in existence that exemplifies any age appropriate driving skills when using a joystick device. The discovery after the completion of this systematic review is the need for targeted research as the larger question still remains the ability to describe the progression of infant driving skills with a joystick device

Recent Trends in Local-Scale Marine Biodiversity Reflect Community Structure and Human Impacts

The modern biodiversity crisis reflects global extinctions and local introductions. Human activities have dramatically altered rates and scales of processes that regulate biodiversity at local scales [1-7]. Reconciling the threat of global biodiversity loss [2, 4, 6-9] with recent evidence of stability at fine spatial scales [10,11] is a major challenge and requires a nuanced approach to biodiversity change that integrates ecological understanding. With a new dataset of 471 diversity time series spanning from 1962 to 2015 from marine coastal ecosystems, we tested (1) whether biodiversity changed at local scales in recent decades, and (2) whether we can ignore ecological context (e.g., proximate human impacts, trophic level, spatial scale) and still make informative inferences regarding local change. We detected a predominant signal of increasing species richness in coastal systems since 1962 in our dataset, though net species loss was associated with localized effects of anthropogenic impacts. Our geographically extensive dataset is unlikely to be a random sample of marine coastal habitats; impacted sites (3% of our time series) were underrepresented relative to their global presence. These local-scale patterns do not contradict the prospect of accelerating global extinctions [2,4,6-9] but are consistent with local species loss in areas with direct human impacts and increases in diversity due to invasions and range expansions in lower impact areas. Attempts to detect and understand local biodiversity trends are incomplete without information on local human activities and ecological context

Kelp carbon sink potential decreases with warming due to accelerating decomposition

Cycling of organic carbon in the ocean has the potential to mitigate or exacerbate global climate change, but major questions remain about the environmental controls on organic carbon flux in the coastal zone. Here, we used a field experiment distributed across 28° of latitude, and the entire range of 2 dominant kelp species in the northern hemisphere, to measure decomposition rates of kelp detritus on the seafloor in relation to local environmental factors. Detritus decomposition in both species were strongly related to ocean temperature and initial carbon content, with higher rates of biomass loss at lower latitudes with warmer temperatures. Our experiment showed slow overall decomposition and turnover of kelp detritus and modeling of coastal residence times at our study sites revealed that a significant portion of this production can remain intact long enough to reach deep marine sinks. The results suggest that decomposition of these kelp species could accelerate with ocean warming and that low-latitude kelp forests could experience the greatest increase in remineralization with a 9% to 42% reduced potential for transport to long-term ocean sinks under short-term (RCP4.5) and long-term (RCP8.5) warming scenarios. However, slow decomposition at high latitudes, where kelp abundance is predicted to expand, indicates potential for increasing kelp-carbon sinks in cooler (northern) regions. Our findings reveal an important latitudinal gradient in coastal ecosystem function that provides an improved capacity to predict the implications of ocean warming on carbon cycling. Broad-scale patterns in organic carbon decomposition revealed here can be used to identify hotspots of carbon sequestration potential and resolve relationships between carbon cycling processes and ocean climate at a global scale.publishedVersio

The future of higher education in the knowledge-based economy: developing innovative approaches to integrated articulation and credit transfer in Australia

The Integrated Articulation and Credit Transfer project (IACT) is an action research project which is developing innovative strategies and models which may overcome the barriers to articulation pathways, partnerships and agreements between the education and training sectors in Australia. The project seeks to improve the level of industry input into articulation pathway development, and to improve the levels of transferability and sustainability of articulation models and pathways between stakeholders. Ultimately, the project seeks to make articulation pathways easier to establish for stakeholders and more seamless for students. A key area of the connectivity essential to the success of an articulation pathway that is given little attention in the articulation pathway debate is the role of industry and the potential for an articulation pathway to meet, at least to some degree, the workforce requirements and skills shortages of the industry. The IACT project is exploring not only the level of connectivity that currently exists between industry and the education and training sectors for the purpose of the development of articulation and credit transfer pathways, but also how industry determines its role. An 'industry-determined' articulation pathway model involves consulting with industry to gather their views on what articulation pathway model/s would assist their industry in meeting their current and anticipated workforce requirements, before consulting with education and training providers. Once the workforce requirements of the industry have been firmly established, interested education and training providers develop solutions to meet this industry need. The research is investigating what factors and processes are crucial to the development of 'industry determined' pathway models. It is also testing whether these factors can be used as a model of engagement between industry, Vocational Education and Training (VET) and Higher Education (HE) leading to the development of articulation pathways that can be duplicated by these three sectors in a range of industry areas. The study is significant because, in this model, industry is not only participating in the process as an equal partner but, for the first time, is in a prominent negotiating role from the outset of the articulation pathway development journey

Engagement for sustainable communities: industry as the driver in tertiary education pathway development

Using an action research approach, the Integrated Articulation and Credit Transfer project has explored the nexus between industry and the tertiary education sector for the purpose of the development of articulation pathways between vocational and higher education. As a result of this applied research a Workforce Driven Engagement Model has been developed, resulting in an engagement model with broader application than articulation pathways. The central driver of the model is workforce need, and in this model industry participates as an equal partner in a key negotiating role. A Workforce Driven Engagement Model involves tertiary education providers – both vocational and higher education – consulting with industry about what articulation pathway models will assist in meeting their workforce requirements, before providers collaboratively develop the pathway. It may be assumed that this is what normally occurs, but in fact our research indicates that it is not. Australia’s sustainable economic and social well-being depends on more graduates with the requisite skills entering the workforce, and this can best be achieved if industry, vocational education and training and higher education work together to formulate a solution

Paraprotein sample exchange in Australia and New Zealand - 2018

Quantification of co-migrating paraproteins in the beta-region presents an ongoing challenge for laboratories performing serum protein electrophoresis. The between-laboratory variation may impact patient care if the patient uses different pathology services during plasma cell dyscrasia monitoring. To identify the practical difficulties and determine the extent of agreement in the reporting of beta-migrating paraproteins in Australia and New Zealand (NZ), sample exchanges were conducted in five Australian states and in NZ in early 2018. This study has highlighted the variation in quantification and reporting of beta-migrating paraproteins which could potentially affect patient monitoring and management

Kelp carbon sink potential decreases with warming due to accelerating decomposition

Cycling of organic carbon in the ocean has the potential to mitigate or exacerbate global climate change, but major questions remain about the environmental controls on organic carbon flux in the coastal zone. Here, we used a field experiment distributed across 28° of latitude, and the entire range of 2 dominant kelp species in the northern hemisphere, to measure decomposition rates of kelp detritus on the seafloor in relation to local environmental factors. Detritus decomposition in both species were strongly related to ocean temperature and initial carbon content, with higher rates of biomass loss at lower latitudes with warmer temperatures. Our experiment showed slow overall decomposition and turnover of kelp detritus and modeling of coastal residence times at our study sites revealed that a significant portion of this production can remain intact long enough to reach deep marine sinks. The results suggest that decomposition of these kelp species could accelerate with ocean warming and that low-latitude kelp forests could experience the greatest increase in remineralization with a 9% to 42% reduced potential for transport to long-term ocean sinks under short-term (RCP4.5) and long-term (RCP8.5) warming scenarios. However, slow decomposition at high latitudes, where kelp abundance is predicted to expand, indicates potential for increasing kelp-carbon sinks in cooler (northern) regions. Our findings reveal an important latitudinal gradient in coastal ecosystem function that provides an improved capacity to predict the implications of ocean warming on carbon cycling. Broad-scale patterns in organic carbon decomposition revealed here can be used to identify hotspots of carbon sequestration potential and resolve relationships between carbon cycling processes and ocean climate at a global scale

Kelp carbon sink potential decreases with warming due to accelerating decomposition

Cycling of organic carbon in the ocean has the potential to mitigate or exacerbate global climate change, but major questions remain about the environmental controls on organic carbon flux in the coastal zone. Here, we used a field experiment distributed across 28° of latitude, and the entire range of 2 dominant kelp species in the northern hemisphere, to measure decomposition rates of kelp detritus on the seafloor in relation to local environmental factors. Detritus decomposition in both species were strongly related to ocean temperature and initial carbon content, with higher rates of biomass loss at lower latitudes with warmer temperatures. Our experiment showed slow overall decomposition and turnover of kelp detritus and modeling of coastal residence times at our study sites revealed that a significant portion of this production can remain intact long enough to reach deep marine sinks. The results suggest that decomposition of these kelp species could accelerate with ocean warming and that low-latitude kelp forests could experience the greatest increase in remineralization with a 9% to 42% reduced potential for transport to long-term ocean sinks under short-term (RCP4.5) and long-term (RCP8.5) warming scenarios. However, slow decomposition at high latitudes, where kelp abundance is predicted to expand, indicates potential for increasing kelp-carbon sinks in cooler (northern) regions. Our findings reveal an important latitudinal gradient in coastal ecosystem function that provides an improved capacity to predict the implications of ocean warming on carbon cycling. Broad-scale patterns in organic carbon decomposition revealed here can be used to identify hotspots of carbon sequestration potential and resolve relationships between carbon cycling processes and ocean climate at a global scale

Data Carpentry R Ecology Lesson v2017.04.2

## R-ecology-lesson v2017.04.0 Initial release of the Data Carpentry R ecology lesson