Nurses’ Perceptions of Community Health Workers in Health Care

The purpose of this study was to explore registered nurses’ and social workers’ experiences working with community health workers (CHWs) in clinics and homecare. Six nurses participated in individual, semi-structured interviews. Analysis of interview transcripts revealed that CHWs are considered vital members of the health care team. Their expert knowledge of community resources and ability to bridge cultural and language gaps make them ideally placed to impact social determinants of health. The role of the CHW is evolving. Team building and role clarity are essential elements for successful integration of CHWs on health care teams. The investigator was unable to recruit social workers for this study. Further research is needed to solicit social workers’ perceptions of the CHW role in health and human services

Registered Nurses’ Perceptions of Community Health Workers

Objective: The objective was to explore the experiences of Registered Nurses and Licensed Social Workers who work directly with Community Health Workers (CHWs) in health care. Design and Sample: A descriptive qualitative design was utilized. Six registered nurses participated in semi-structured interviews. Interviews were audiotaped. Content analysis consisted of identifying themes and patterns that emerged from the narratives. Results: Three themes were identified, 1) the importance of role clarity, 2) relationship building, and 3) filling in gaps in care. Conclusions: Nurses consider CHWs to be vital members of the health car team. CHWs’ extensive knowledge of community resources and their ability to provide culturally sensitive care has benefits for both patients and health professionals. The role of the CHW is evolving. Clear delineation roles is an important factor in the implementation of new health professions

Sound production in male and female corkwing wrasses and its relation to visual behaviour

In fish, social interactions are commonly accompanied by acoustic signalling. Males have been found to produce sounds in a large range of species, but female sounds have received considerably less attention. But even in males, there remain significant taxonomical gaps, e.g. in one of the largest fish families, the wrasses. Here, we investigate sound production in territorial males and females of the corkwing wrasse in a field study in Norway. We complemented an in-depth analysis of the visual and acoustic behavioural repertoire of territorial males by descriptions of female behaviours. Males as well as females produced sounds in courtship and agonistic contexts. We recorded four types of sounds and found significant differences between male and female sound properties. We hereby provide one of the first descriptions of sound production in wrasses and, to our knowledge, the first one to also investigate female sound production. Our study shows that wrasses are an underappreciated family when it comes to sound production. With a repertoire of four different calls, corkwing wrasses are remarkably versatile among fishes. Our results highlight the potential and importance of future research about sound communication in neglected taxa, and in both sexes.publishedVersio

Two of the most common crustacean zooplankton Meganyctiphanes norvegica and Calanus spp. produce sounds within the hearing range of their fish predators

Sound is an effective channel for the transfer of information underwater. While it is known that fish and whales can use sound for communication, and as a cue to localise predators and prey, much less is known about sound production in invertebrates. Here we describe sounds produced by two of the most common marine crustacean zooplankton in the Northern hemisphere: Northern krill (Meganyctiphanes norvegica) and copepods (Calanus spp.). The recorded sounds were taxon-specific and within the hearing range of common planktivorous fish. We recorded similar sounds in the laboratory and in the field. In krill, the sound co-occurred with a tail flip, and the amplitude of the sound was correlated to the displacement distance of the animal, indicating a potential sound producing mechanism. Our findings highlight the possibility that zooplankton sounds could be used as a cue for their predators and for intraspecific communication.publishedVersio

Genomic degradation of a young Y chromosome in Drosophila miranda

Background: Y chromosomes are derived from ordinary autosomes and degenerate because of a lack of recombination. Well-studied Y chromosomes only have few of their original genes left and contain little information about their evolutionary origin. Here, we take advantage of the recently formed neo-Y chromosome of Drosophila miranda to study the processes involved in Y degeneration on a genomic scale. Results: We obtained sequence information from 14 homologous bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) clones from the neo-X and neo-Y chromosome of D. miranda, encompassing over 2.5 Mb of neo-sex-linked DNA. A large fraction of neo-Y DNA is composed of repetitive and transposable-element-derived DNA (20% of total DNA) relative to their homologous neo-X linked regions (1%). The overlapping regions of the neo-sex linked BAC clones contain 118 gene pairs, half of which are pseudogenized on the neo-Y. Pseudogenes evolve significantly faster on the neo-Y than functional genes, and both functional and non-functional genes show higher rates of protein evolution on the neo-Y relative to their neo-X homologs. No heterogeneity in levels of degeneration was detected among the regions investigated. Functional genes on the neo-Y are under stronger evolutionary constraint on the neo-X, but genes were found to degenerate randomly on the neo-Y with regards to their function or sex-biased expression patterns. Conclusion: Patterns of genome evolution in D. miranda demonstrate that degeneration of a recently formed Y chromosome can proceed very rapidly, by both an accumulation of repetitive DNA and degeneration of protein-coding genes. Our data support a random model of Y inactivation, with little heterogeneity in degeneration among genomic regions, or between functional classes of genes or genes with sex-biased expression patternsThis research is funded by NIH Grant GM076007 and a Sloan Fellowship to DB. BAC library construction was funded by a Wellcome Trust grant to P Keightley and B Charlesworth. P Andolfatto provided funds for the sequence of two BAC clonesS

The Effects of Starburst Activity on Low Surface Brightness Disk Galaxies

Although numerous simulations have been done to understand the effects of intense bursts of star formation on high surface brightness galaxies, few attempts have been made to understand how localized starbursts would affect both the color and surface brightness of low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies. To remedy this, we have run 53 simulations involving bursts of star formation activity on LSB galaxies, varying both the underlying galaxy properties and the parameters describing the starbursts. We discovered that although changing the total color of a galaxy was fairly straightforward, it was virtually impossible to alter a galaxy's central surface brightness and thereby remove it from the LSB galaxy classification without placing a high (and fairly artificial) threshold for the underlying gas density. The primary effect of large amounts of induced star formation was to produce a centralized core (bulge) component which is generally not observed in LSB galaxies. The noisy morphological appearance of LSB galaxies as well as their noisy surface brightness profiles can be reproduced by considering small bursts of star formation that are localized within the disk. The trigger mechanism for such bursts is likely distant/weak tidal encounters. The stability of disk central surface brightness to these periods of star formation argues that the large space density of LSB galaxies at z = 0 should hold to substantially higher redshifts.Comment: 38 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables, tarred and compressed Also available on http://guernsey.uoregon.edu/~kare

Noise Affects Multimodal Communication During Courtship in a Marine Fish

Selection pressures on signals can be substantially modified by a changing environment, but we know little about how modified selection pressures act on multimodal signals. The currently increasing levels of anthropogenic noise in the ocean may affect the use of acoustic signaling relative to other modalities. In the Painted Goby (Pomatoschistus pictus), visual and acoustic signals are associated during courtship behavior, but females usually rely more heavily on acoustic signals than on visual signals in mate choice. In an aquarium experiment, we compared male courtship behavior and female spawning decisions between silent treatments and treatments with additional noise. We found that the relationships between male characteristics, male visual and acoustic courtship, and spawning success were affected by noise. A path analysis revealed that females pay more attention to visual courtship in noisy circumstances compared to control. We conclude that environmental stressors can cause shifts in the use of different signaling modalities for spawning decisions and discuss how selection pressures on multimodal signals may change with increasing noise-levels

CRIQ: An innovative measure using comparison awareness to avoid self-presentation tactics

The article presents a new measure for career role identification, the Career Role Identification Questionnaire (CRIQ). In constructing the CRIQ, we used the Comparison Awareness Inducing Technique (CAIT), a new and innovative method to reduce the effects of self-presentation tactics. The results show that the CRIQ measures identification with the six career roles conceptualized by Hoekstra (2011). The inventory has reliable scales and a clear factorial structure. Furthermore, the CAIT receives some support as a new way to deal with the problem of social desirability in self-report measures. The CAIT technique is thought to induce comparison awareness and thus suppress various response tendencie

Effects of sound from seismic surveys on fish reproduction, the management case from Norway

Anthropogenic noise has been recognized as a source of concern since the beginning of the 1940s and is receiving increasingly more attention. While international focus has been on the effects of noise on marine mammals, Norway has managed seismic surveys based on the potential impact on fish stocks and fisheries since the late 1980s. Norway is, therefore, one of very few countries that took fish into account at this early stage. Until 1996, spawning grounds and spawning migration, as well as areas with drifting eggs and larvae were recommended as closed for seismic surveys. Later results showed that the effects of seismic surveys on early fish development stages were negligible at the population level, resulting in the opening of areas with drifting eggs and larvae for seismic surveys. Spawning grounds, as well as concentrated migration towards these, are still closed to seismic surveys, but the refinement of areas and periods have improved over the years. Since 2018, marine mammals have been included in the advice to management. The Norwegian case provides a clear example of evidence-based management. Here, we examine how scientific advancements informed the development of Norwegian management and how management questions were incorporated into new research projects in Norway.publishedVersio

Predicting the effects of anthropogenic noise on fish reproduction

Aquatic animals use and produce sound for critical life functions, including reproduction. Anthropogenic noise is recognized as a global source of environmental pollution and adequate conservation and management strategies are urgently needed. It becomes therefore critical to identify the reproductive traits that render a species vulnerable to acoustic disturbances, and the types of anthropogenic noise that are most likely to impact reproduction. Here, we provide predictions about noise impact on fish reproduction following a two-step approach: first, we grouped documented effects of noise into three mechanistic categories: stress, masking and hearing-loss, and test which type of noise (continuous vs intermittent and regular vs irregular) was most likely to produce a significant response in each category with either a meta-analysis or a quantitative review, depending on data availability. Second, we reviewed existing literature to predict which reproductive traits would render fish most sensitive to stress, masking and hearing-loss. In step one, we concluded that continuous sounds with irregular amplitude and/or frequency-content (e.g. heavy ship traffic) were most likely to cause stress, and continuous sounds were also most likely to induce masking and hearing-loss. From step two we concluded that the vulnerability of a species to noise-induced stress will mainly depend on: (1) its potential to reallocate reproduction to more quiet times or locations, and (2) its vulnerability to masking and hearing-loss mainly on the function of sound communication in its reproductive behaviour. We discuss in which stages of reproduction fish are most likely to be vulnerable to anthropogenic noise based on these findings.publishedVersio