Impact of Donor Milk on Short- and Long-Term Growth of Very Low Birth Weight Infants

Mother’s own milk (MOM) reduces the risk of morbidities in very low birth weight (VLBW) infants. When MOM is unavailable, donor breastmilk (DM) is used, with unclear impact on short- and long-term growth. This retrospective analysis compared anthropometric data at six time points from birth to 20–24 months corrected age in VLBW infants who received MOM supplements of preterm formula (n = 160) versus fortified DM (n = 161) during neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) hospitalization. The cohort was 46% female; mean birth weight and gestational age (GA) were 998 g and 27.3 weeks. Multilevel linear growth models assessed changes in growth z-scores short-term (to NICU discharge) and long-term (post-discharge), controlling for amount of DM or formula received in first 28 days of life, NICU length of stay (LOS), birth GA, and sex. Z-scores for weight and length decreased during hospitalization but increased for all parameters including head circumference post-discharge. Short-term growth was positively associated with LOS and birth GA. A higher preterm formula proportion, but not DM proportion, was associated with slower rates of decline in short-term growth trajectories, but feeding type was unrelated to long-term growth. In conclusion, controlling for total human milk fed, DM did not affect short- or long-term growth

Monitoring status and trends in genetic diversity for the Convention on Biological Diversity: An ongoing assessment of genetic indicators in nine countries

Recent scientific evidence shows that genetic diversity must be maintained, managed, and monitored to protect biodiversity and nature's contributions to people. Three genetic diversity indicators, two of which do not require DNA-based assessment, have been proposed for reporting to the Convention on Biological Diversity and other conservation and policy initiatives. These indicators allow an approximation of the status and trends of genetic diversity to inform policy, using existing demographic and geographic information. Application of these indicators has been initiated and here we describe ongoing efforts in calculating these indicators with examples. We specifically describe a project underway to apply these indicators in nine countries, provide example calculations, address concerns of policy makers and implementation challenges, and describe a roadmap for further development and deployment, incorporating feedback from the broader community. We also present guidance documents and data collection tools for calculating indicators. We demonstrate that Parties can successfully and cost-effectively report these genetic diversity indicators with existing biodiversity observation data, and, in doing so, better conserve the Earth's biodiversity

Synthesizing the scientific evidence to inform the development of the post-2020 Global Framework on Biodiversity

Fil: Díaz, Sandra. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba; Argentina.Fil: Broadgate, Wendy. Future Earth; Suecia.Fil: Declerck, Fabrice. Bioversity International; Italia.Fil: Dobrota, Susanna. Future Earth; Suecia.Fil: Krug, Cornelia. bioDISCOVERY; Suecia.Fil: Moersberg, Hannah. Future Earth; Francia.Fil: Obura, David. Coastal Oceans Research and Development – Indian Ocean; Kenya.Fil: Spehn, Eva. Forum Biodiversity; Suiza.Fil: Tewksbury, Joshua. Future Earth; Estados Unidos.Fil: Verburg, Peter. Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; Países Bajos.Fil: Zafra Calvo, Noelia. Future Earth; Suecia.Fil: Bellon, Mauricio. Comisión Nacional para el Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad; México.Fil: Burgess, Neil. United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre; Reino Unido.Fil: Cariño, Joji. Forest Peoples Programme; Reino Unido.Fil: Castañeda Alvarez, Nora. Global Crop Diversity Trust; Alemania.Fil: Cavender-Bares, Jeannine. University of Minnesota; Estados Unidos.Fil: Chaplin Kramer, Rebecca. Stanford University; Estados Unidos.Fil: De Meester, Luc. Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; Bélgica.Fil: Dulloo, Ehsan. Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research; Francia.Fil: Fernández-Palacios, José María. Universidad de La Laguna; España.Fil: Garibaldi, Lucas A. Universidad Nacional de Río Negro. Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural; Argentina.Fil: Garibaldi, Lucas A. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural; Argentina.Fil: Hill, Samantha. United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre; Reino Unido.Fil: Isbell, Forest. University of Minnesota; Estados Unidos.Fil: Leadley, Paul. Université Paris-Saclay; Francia.Fil: Liu, Jianguo. Michigan State University; Estados Unidos.Fil: Mace, Georgina M. University College London; Reino Unido.Fil: Maron, Martine. The University of Queensland; Australia.Fil: Martín-López, Berta. Leuphana University Lüneburg; Alemania.Fil: McGowan, Philip. University of Newcastle; Australia.Fil: Pereira, Henrique. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research; Alemania.Fil: Purvis, Andy. Imperial College London. Grand Challenges in Ecosystems and the Environment; Reino Unido.Fil: Reyes-García, Victoria. Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona; España.Fil: Rocha, Juan. Future Earth; Suecia.Fil: Rondinini, Carlo. Sapienza-Università di Roma; Italia.Fil: Shannon, Lynne. University of Cape Town; Sudáfrica.Fil: Shaw, Rebecca. World Wildlife Fund; Estados Unidos.Fil: Shin, Yunne Jai. University of Cape Town. Marine Research Institute. Department of Biological Sciences; Sudáfrica.Fil: Snelgrove, Paul. Memorial University of Newfoundland; Canadá.Fil: Strassburg, Bernardo. International Institute for Sustainability; Brasil.Fil: Subramanian, Suneetha.United Nations University; Japón.Fil: Visconti, Piero. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis; Austria.Fil: Watson, James. Wildlife Conservation Society; Estados Unidos.Fil: Zanne, Amy. The George Washington University; Estados Unidos.Fil: Bruford, Michael. Cardiff University; Gales.Fil: Colli, Licia. Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore; Italia.Fil: Azeredo de Dornelas, Maria. University of St Andrews; Escocia.Fil: Bascompte, Jordi. Universität Zürich; Suiza.Fil: Forest, Felix. Royal Botanic Gardens; Reino Unido.Fil: Hoban, Sean. The Morton Arboretum; Estados Unidos.Fil: Jones, Sarah. Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research; Francia.Fil: Jordano, Pedro. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; España.Fil: Kassen, Rees. University of Ottawa; Canadá.Fil: Khoury, Colin. Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research; Francia.Fil: Laikre, Linda. Stockholms Universitet; Suecia.Fil: Maxted, Nigel. University of Birmingham; Reino Unido.Fil: Miloslavich, Patricia. Universidad Simón Bolívar; Venezuela.Fil: Moreno Mateos, David. Basque Centre for Climate Change; España.Fil: Ogden, Rob. The University of Edinburgh; Reino Unido.Fil: Segelbacher, Gernot. Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg; Alemania.Fil: Souffreau, Caroline. Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; Bélgica.Fil: Svenning, Jens Christian. Aarhus University; Dinamarca.Fil: Vázquez, Ella. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; México.This report is the result of a meeting which aimed to offer scientific guidance to the development under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework focussing on its contribution to the 2030 Mission and 2050 Vision. We provide a synthesis of the scientific and technical justification, evidence base and feasibility for outcome-oriented goals on nature and its contributions to people, including biodiversity at different levels from genes to biomes. The report is structured to respond to the Zero Draft of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework

The development and validation of a scoring tool to predict the operative duration of elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background: The ability to accurately predict operative duration has the potential to optimise theatre efficiency and utilisation, thus reducing costs and increasing staff and patient satisfaction. With laparoscopic cholecystectomy being one of the most commonly performed procedures worldwide, a tool to predict operative duration could be extremely beneficial to healthcare organisations. Methods: Data collected from the CholeS study on patients undergoing cholecystectomy in UK and Irish hospitals between 04/2014 and 05/2014 were used to study operative duration. A multivariable binary logistic regression model was produced in order to identify significant independent predictors of long (> 90 min) operations. The resulting model was converted to a risk score, which was subsequently validated on second cohort of patients using ROC curves. Results: After exclusions, data were available for 7227 patients in the derivation (CholeS) cohort. The median operative duration was 60 min (interquartile range 45–85), with 17.7% of operations lasting longer than 90 min. Ten factors were found to be significant independent predictors of operative durations > 90 min, including ASA, age, previous surgical admissions, BMI, gallbladder wall thickness and CBD diameter. A risk score was then produced from these factors, and applied to a cohort of 2405 patients from a tertiary centre for external validation. This returned an area under the ROC curve of 0.708 (SE = 0.013, p  90 min increasing more than eightfold from 5.1 to 41.8% in the extremes of the score. Conclusion: The scoring tool produced in this study was found to be significantly predictive of long operative durations on validation in an external cohort. As such, the tool may have the potential to enable organisations to better organise theatre lists and deliver greater efficiencies in care

Multinational evaluation of genetic diversity indicators for the Kunming‐Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework

Under the recently adopted Kunming‐Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, 196 Parties committed to reporting the status of genetic diversity for all species. To facilitate reporting, three genetic diversity indicators were developed, two of which focus on processes contributing to genetic diversity conservation: maintaining genetically distinct populations and ensuring populations are large enough to maintain genetic diversity. The major advantage of these indicators is that they can be estimated with or without DNA‐based data. However, demonstrating their feasibility requires addressing the methodological challenges of using data gathered from diverse sources, across diverse taxonomic groups, and for countries of varying socio‐economic status and biodiversity levels. Here, we assess the genetic indicators for 919 taxa, representing 5271 populations across nine countries, including megadiverse countries and developing economies. Eighty‐three percent of the taxa assessed had data available to calculate at least one indicator. Our results show that although the majority of species maintain most populations, 58% of species have populations too small to maintain genetic diversity. Moreover, genetic indicator values suggest that IUCN Red List status and other initiatives fail to assess genetic status, highlighting the critical importance of genetic indicators

Slowmation as a pedagogical scaffold for improving science teaching and learning

In this study, two classes of General Science Teaching Method preservice secondary teachers at Monash University (n = 38 in 2007 and n = 34 in 2008) developed Slowmation movies as part of their course work, then introduced Slowmation into the their science classrooms during their school practicum. On returning to university following their practicum these preservice teachers shared the Slowmations created by their students during the practicum, and discussed the impact of introducing this procedure on their students’ learning about science concepts. The classroom presentations and discussions of school students’ Slowmation movies post practicum provided valuable feedback to the preservice teachers about their teaching and their students’ learning. The data illustrated that these preservice teachers became aware of a range of conceptions held by their learners about particular science concepts through their students’ Slowmation movies and in so doing, influenced their understanding of science teaching and learning

Using Slowmation to stimulate thinking about pedagogical intent in science teaching and learning

Slowmation has been used in this study in such a way as to shed new light on pedagogical intent (van Manen, 1991) in developing preservice teachers understandings of the relationship between teaching and learning in secondary science classes. Pedagogical intent is an orientation to teaching that is concerned with responsiveness between learner and teacher (van Manen, 1991). Slowmation was introduced to 50 preservice secondary teachers in a two hour workshop in a science method course, who then encouraged their own high school students on practicum to create an animation in order to explore the secondary school students understanding of science concepts. The study examined how Slowmation could be used to (i) help preservice teachers recognize and respond to alternative conceptions in science (both their own and their students); (ii) examine the development of preservice teachers understandings of science teaching and learning; and (iii) create experiences for preservice teachers to introduce the notion of pedagogical intent and begin to move beyond seeing teaching as fun activities that work (Appleton, 2002). The study showed that getting secondary school students to create slowmations about science concepts was helpful for the preservice teachers in identifying their school students\u27 alternative conceptions and were a catalyst for discussions about pedagogical intent back in their university method course

Barriers to Human Milk Feeding at Discharge of Very-Low-Birth-Weight Infants: Maternal Goal Setting as a Key Social Factor

BackgroundWhile black mothers initiate human milk (HM) provision at lower rates than non-black mothers in the United States, some neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) report similar initiation rates regardless of race/ethnicity for mothers of very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) infants. However, racial disparity frequently becomes evident in the proportion of black infants who continue to receive HM feedings at NICU discharge. Since social factors have been associated with differences in HM provision for term infants, we sought to identify differences in social factors associated with HM feeding at discharge based on race/ethnicity.Materials and methodsA prospective cohort study of racially diverse mothers of VLBW infants measured social factors including maternal education, breastfeeding support, return to work/school, HM feeding goal, previous breastfeeding, or formula experience. Multivariate logistic regression modeling was applied to social factors to predict HM feeding at discharge. Additional regression models were created for racial/ethnic subgroups to identify differences.ResultsFor all 362 mothers, WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children) eligibility and maternal goal near time of discharge of providing any HM negatively and positively predicted HM feeding at discharge, respectively. Perceived breastfeeding support from the infant's maternal grandmother negatively predicted HM feeding at discharge for black mothers.ConclusionsFuture interventions to increase duration of HM provision in VLBW infants should focus on the establishment and maintenance of maternal HM feeding goals. Further studies of the familial support system of black mothers are warranted to determine multigenerational impact and potential interventions