Joining Together

President's column about LITA as a welcoming organization and the hope that it will continue under Core

The Persistence of Blue Ash in the Aftermath of Emerald Ash Borer May Be Due to Adult Oviposition Preferences and Reduced Larval Performance

We examined the health of mature blue ash, Fraxinus quadrangulata, in two forests in southwestern Ohio in relation to that of mature white ash, F. americana, and examined the potential importance of oviposition preferences and larval resistance in the persistence of blue ash. Both blue ash and white ash were largely unaffected by emerald ash borer in 2012. By 2018, nearly 90% of the blue ash trees observed in these forests had full or nearly full canopies, as opposed to less than 20% of the white ash encountered in our studies. In 2021, blue ash maintained a similar degree of canopy health as in 2018, but no standing live mature white ashes remained. Bark removals revealed no current or past larval feeding attempts in blue ash in 2018 or 2021, except for one attacked and killed tree in 2018. All white ash trees examined were attacked. In a laboratory bioassay with cut stems, emerald ash borer larvae fed less and grew significantly more slowly on blue ash than on white ash. Both reduced larval performance and reduced adult oviposition likely contribute to the persistence of blue ash in forests devastated by emerald ash borer

Uncomplicating the business of repositories

In this presentation, we discuss how our library runs our repository in production to meet the needs of our “business” as efficiently as possible. We have an interest in limiting the number of digital platforms we manage, for the purposes of sustainability and efficiency, but we must also consider how well a general platform can meet specific user needs. A governance group of administrators, in conference with stakeholders and developers, seeks to find the best way to accommodate each collection or functional need, with an eye to minimizing technical complexity, offering stakeholders self-serve options when possible, and maintaining a single canonical copy of each object. We will present some case studies of how material has been handled in our developing digital ecosystem, where preservation and access sometimes present conflicting priorities. We are exploring how our repository can best evolve to support our aims of making data and documents freely available

Defensive Design: Developing a System-Agnostic Repository for Sustainable Long-Term Preservation

Colenda, the University of Pennsylvania Libraries’ digital repository, was designed to promote longterm preservation. Its infrastructure is comprised of components selected to concentrate on factors that are of the most importance and that pose the greatest risks for long-term preservation of digital assets: safe file storage, the ability to track changes to objects over time, mechanisms for object management and discoverability, and migration paths that guarantee that objects can be safely migrated to new software and new versions of existing systems while preventing data loss. Favoring a pluggable architecture and preservation of software-agnostic representations of objects in order to keep future repository development plans flexible and open, our approach minimizes the risk of data loss in the long term and has allowed us to design a system in which the right tools for the task are always an option. In this paper, we will enumerate the risks/concerns influencing our design decisions and show how our approach addresses them while retaining a connection to the central open-source projects of the community, Fedora and Samvera, that make up significant portions of our stack

Food Deserts

A food desert is a geographical area in which there is not easy access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food.https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/public_health_posters/1013/thumbnail.jp

Toxicity of Bupropion Overdose Compared With Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors

OBJECTIVES: Adolescent depression and attempted and completed suicide are increasing in the United States. Because suicide is often impulsive, the means of self-harm are frequently items of convenience like medication. Authors of a recent study compared tricyclic antidepressant overdose to bupropion overdose. Fluoxetine and escitalopram are the only agents with Food and Drug Administration approval for pediatric depression, but off-label bupropion prescriptions are common. We sought to compare the effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and bupropion in overdose. METHODS: This was an analysis of the National Poison Data System from June 2013 through December 2017 for adolescent (ages 10–19) exposures to SSRIs or bupropion coded as “suspected suicide.” Demographics, clinical effects, therapies, and medical outcome were analyzed. RESULTS: There were 30 026 cases during the study period. Sertraline and fluoxetine accounted for nearly 60%, whereas bupropion was reported in 11.7%. Bupropion exposure was significantly associated with death (0.23% vs 0%; P < .001) or serious outcome (58.1% vs 19%; P < .001) as well as the 10 most common clinical effects, including seizures (27.0% vs 8.5%; P < .001) and hallucinations (28.6% vs 4.3%; P < .001). Bupropion exposure was significantly associated with the need for cardiopulmonary resuscitation (0.51% vs 0.01%; P < .001), intubation (4.9% vs 0.3%; P < .001), vasopressors (1.1% vs 0.2%; P < .001), and benzodiazepines (34.2% vs 5.5%; P < .001). There was a significant increase in all exposures and in proportion of serious outcomes over time. CONCLUSIONS: Adolescents who attempt self-harm are at higher risk for serious morbidity and poor outcomes with bupropion than with SSRIs. These risks, and the patient’s propensity for self-harm, should be evaluated when therapy with bupropion is considered

Farm animal careers and perception of ‘fit’ in undergraduate veterinary students: A mixed methods study

BackgroundRecruitment and retention of farm veterinarians have been the focus of recent research. Previous work suggests that a feeling of ‘fit’ is important for students to consider a farm career. The aim of this study was to identify whether students feel that they ‘fit’ in farm practice and reasons for their answer.MethodsAn online survey was distributed to students at all British and Irish veterinary schools. A mixed methods approach was considered, with thematic analysis on free text answers and regression analysis on demographic variables.ResultsThematic analysis identified six themes: career opportunities, nature of farm veterinary work, relationships and interactions, individual experiences, expectations and perceptions, and no perceived barriers. Females, marginalised ethnic groups and those from an urban/suburban background were all identified as having significantly (p < 0.05) less agreement with the statement ‘I feel able to pursue a career in farm practice’.LimitationsSurvey limitations include those with a clear bias being likely to respond. However, alignment of the qualitative and quantitative results increased confidence in the findings of this mixed methods approach.ConclusionThis study confirms that biases that exist within wider society do have an influence on veterinary undergraduates' intentions to pursue a farm animal career. This is vital to consider both at a university level and when considering students' experiences on placements. Urgent action is required to improve inclusivity in the farm animal veterinary sector

The Consequences of Remote and Hybrid Instruction During the Pandemic

Using testing data from 2.1 million students in 10,000 schools in 49 states (plus D.C.), we investigate the role of remote and hybrid instruction in widening gaps in achievement by race and school poverty. We find that remote instruction was a primary driver of widening achievement gaps. Math gaps did not widen in areas that remained in-person (although there was some widening in reading gaps in those areas). We estimate that high-poverty districts that went remote in 2020-21 will need to spend nearly all their federal aid on academic recovery to help students recover from pandemic-related achievement losses