Surveys of Southern Flying Squirrel Activity Following Timber Harvest in Southern Indiana

Southern flying squirrels (Glaucomys volans) are gliding small mammals that are ecologically important seed dispersers and prey species across their wide range, which extends from southern Canada to Central America. Because of their reliance on forest structure for efficient movement and on forest composition for hard mast production to provide winter food items, habitat use by G. volans may be impacted by timber harvest. Responses of G. volans to timber harvests remains understudied throughout their range, and studies are especially lacking within the Central Hardwoods Region that includes Indiana. Our study in the Hardwood Ecosystem Experiment (HEE) in southern Indiana examined responses in G. volans activity to even- and uneven-aged forestry using passive acoustic sampling. We examined data from Anabat II recorders positioned within and around harvested areas for ultrasonic G. volans vocalizations to determine activity levels in uneven-aged, even-aged, and no harvest treatments in the year following treatment. We identified G. volans calls via comparison to a library of known calls. We used the mean number of calls per night as an estimate of G. volans activity. Our preliminary results found G. volans activity in the treatment area edge and surrounding forest for all treatment types. We found the greatest activity in the interior of uneven-aged patch cuts, whereas even-aged clearcuts and no harvest treatment interiors had lower levels of activity. We found no activity in the interior of even-aged shelterwoods. These results suggest that uneven-aged harvests have less impact on G. volans activity than even-aged forest management

Barriers and facilitators to implementing a longitudinal dementia education programme into undergraduate healthcare curricula: a qualitative study

Background As the numbers of people with dementia worldwide rises, there is a need for improved knowledge and awareness about the condition across the healthcare workforce. There are concerns that traditional models of healthcare education, which focus on short-term episodes of care, limit student understanding of long-term conditions. We therefore designed and delivered the Time for Dementia programme at five Universities in the UK. Through longitudinal contact with families living with dementia, healthcare students gain increased understanding about the experiences of living with dementia. However, implementing new educational models brings challenges. To enable implementation of similar programmes in other educational institutions, this study aimed to identify the common barriers and facilitators of implementing these types of longitudinal programmes at scale. Methods To understand the facilitators and barriers of implementing a longitudinal dementia educational programme, a qualitative study was completed. Between October and December 2018, twelve in-depth semi-structured interviews were completed with university teaching staff (n = 6), programme administrators (n = 4), and Alzheimer’s Society staff (n = 2) that had key responsibilities for implementing Time for Dementia. Interview questions explored participants experiences, the facilitators, and the challenges encountered when implementing the programme. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Results The analysis identified five key themes: “Leadership characteristics”, “Organisational and student buy-in”, “Perceived value and motivating factors”, “Team coalition and support”, and “Time and fit”. Implementation of the programme was enhanced by resilient leaders managing the challenges of curricular change. Their belief in the value of the programme, stakeholder buy-in, and supportive team working enabled challenges to be overcome. Workload was reduced and student buy-in increased as time progressed and as more resources became available. A flexible approach to implementation was recommended to ensure the programme fits within the established curriculum. Conclusion Curricular change is a challenging task, yet necessary, if we are to improve care for people with long term conditions such as dementia. This study highlights the common barriers and facilitators experienced when implementing a longitudinal educational programme at scale. The findings presented in this study can be used by other educational institutions to manage curricular change efforts

Profiles in Community-Engaged Learning

To provide a snapshot of the many impressive manifestations of community-engaged learning at the University of San Francisco, a 2014-2015 Faculty Learning Community (FLC), supported by the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE), has collected the following profiles of selected faculty members across all the schools and colleges. This report was prepared by members of the CTE’s Faculty Learning Community on Community-Engaged Learning: Kevin D. Lo, Facilitator (School of Management), Emma Fuentes (School of Education), David Holler (College of Arts and Sciences), Tim Iglesias (School of Law), Susan Roberta Katz (School of Education), Star Moore (Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good), Chenit Ong-Flaherty (School of Nursing and Health Professions), Jennifer Parlamis (School of Management) Susan Pauly-O’Neill (School of Nursing and Health Professions). Our intent with this report is to offer USF administrators and incoming faculty members a sense of what’s being done well in community-engaged learning (CEL), while also pointing out what challenges remain as we establish our identity as a university that prioritizes community engagement. (Incidentally, we prefer the term “community-engaged learning” to “service-learning,” which we feel more precisely defines the scope of our activities. For more about this designation, please see the Executive Report on Community Engaged Learning issued by this same committee in June 2015.) Community-engaged learning as defined by Eyler and Giles is “a form of experiential education where learning occurs through a cycle of action and reflection as students . . . seek to achieve real objectives for the community and deeper understanding and skills for themselves. In the process, students link personal and social development with academic and cognitive development . . . experience enhances understanding; understanding leads to more effective action.” (qtd. in Bandy, Vanderbilt Center for Teaching, “What Is Service Learning or Community Engagement?”). We invited at least two faculty members from each school/college to answer several questions about the application of CEL in their courses. After providing a brief overview of activities in each course, we asked each professor what works well and what challenges persist. The successes and the challenges, as you’ll see, vary widely, and yet they clearly delineate, limited though our present sample size is, the great variety and energy and commitment our faculty have demonstrated in working with community partners and students. It is our hope that this report is merely the beginning of a much more ambitious project to be taken up by the McCarthy Center which will provide many more profiles of professors in the months and years to come

Inhibiting androgen receptor nuclear entry in castration-resistant prostate cancer

Clinical resistance to the second-generation antiandrogen enzalutamide in castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), despite persistent androgen receptor (AR) activity in tumors, highlights the unmet medical need for next generation antagonists. We have identified and characterized tetra-aryl cyclobutanes (CBs) as a new class of competitive AR antagonists that exhibit a unique mechanism of action. These CBs are structurally distinct from current antiandrogens (hydroxyflutamide, bicalutamide, and enzalutamide), and inhibit AR-mediated gene expression, cell proliferation, and tumor growth in several models of CRPC. Conformational profiling revealed that CBs stabilize an AR conformation resembling an unliganded receptor. Using a variety of techniques, it was determined that the AR:CB complex was not recruited to AR-regulated promoters and, like apo AR, remains sequestered in the cytoplasm bound to heat shock proteins. Thus, we have identified third generation AR antagonists whose unique mechanism of action suggests that they may have therapeutic potential in CRPC

The psychometric properties of the subscales of the GHQ-28 in a multi-ethnic maternal sample: results from the Born in Bradford cohort

Background: Poor maternal mental health can impact on children’s development and wellbeing; however, there is concern about the comparability of screening instruments administered to women of diverse ethnic origin. Methods: We used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to examine the subscale structure of the GHQ-28 in an ethnically diverse community cohort of pregnant women in the UK (N = 5,089). We defined five groups according to ethnicity and language of administration, and also conducted a CFA between four groups of 1,095 women who completed the GHQ-28 both during and after pregnancy. Results: After item reduction, 17 of the 28 items were considered to relate to the same four underlying concepts in each group; however, there was variation in the response to individual items by women of different ethnic origin and this rendered between group comparisons problematic. The EFA revealed that these measurement difficulties might be related to variation in the underlying concepts being measured by the factors. Conclusions: We found little evidence to recommend the use of the GHQ-28 subscales in routine clinical or epidemiological assessment of maternal women in populations of diverse ethnicity

SNAPSHOT USA 2019 : a coordinated national camera trap survey of the United States

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.With the accelerating pace of global change, it is imperative that we obtain rapid inventories of the status and distribution of wildlife for ecological inferences and conservation planning. To address this challenge, we launched the SNAPSHOT USA project, a collaborative survey of terrestrial wildlife populations using camera traps across the United States. For our first annual survey, we compiled data across all 50 states during a 14-week period (17 August - 24 November of 2019). We sampled wildlife at 1509 camera trap sites from 110 camera trap arrays covering 12 different ecoregions across four development zones. This effort resulted in 166,036 unique detections of 83 species of mammals and 17 species of birds. All images were processed through the Smithsonian's eMammal camera trap data repository and included an expert review phase to ensure taxonomic accuracy of data, resulting in each picture being reviewed at least twice. The results represent a timely and standardized camera trap survey of the USA. All of the 2019 survey data are made available herein. We are currently repeating surveys in fall 2020, opening up the opportunity to other institutions and cooperators to expand coverage of all the urban-wild gradients and ecophysiographic regions of the country. Future data will be available as the database is updated at eMammal.si.edu/snapshot-usa, as well as future data paper submissions. These data will be useful for local and macroecological research including the examination of community assembly, effects of environmental and anthropogenic landscape variables, effects of fragmentation and extinction debt dynamics, as well as species-specific population dynamics and conservation action plans. There are no copyright restrictions; please cite this paper when using the data for publication.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Mammal responses to global changes in human activity vary by trophic group and landscape

Wildlife must adapt to human presence to survive in the Anthropocene, so it is critical to understand species responses to humans in different contexts. We used camera trapping as a lens to view mammal responses to changes in human activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Across 163 species sampled in 102 projects around the world, changes in the amount and timing of animal activity varied widely. Under higher human activity, mammals were less active in undeveloped areas but unexpectedly more active in developed areas while exhibiting greater nocturnality. Carnivores were most sensitive, showing the strongest decreases in activity and greatest increases in nocturnality. Wildlife managers must consider how habituation and uneven sensitivity across species may cause fundamental differences in human–wildlife interactions along gradients of human influence.Peer reviewe

Procalcitonin Is Not a Reliable Biomarker of Bacterial Coinfection in People With Coronavirus Disease 2019 Undergoing Microbiological Investigation at the Time of Hospital Admission

Abstract Admission procalcitonin measurements and microbiology results were available for 1040 hospitalized adults with coronavirus disease 2019 (from 48 902 included in the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infections Consortium World Health Organization Clinical Characterisation Protocol UK study). Although procalcitonin was higher in bacterial coinfection, this was neither clinically significant (median [IQR], 0.33 [0.11–1.70] ng/mL vs 0.24 [0.10–0.90] ng/mL) nor diagnostically useful (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, 0.56 [95% confidence interval, .51–.60]).</jats:p