Innovative Industry: Environmental horticulture professionals’ perceptions on wildlife-friendly plants and a potential certification offering

Plants can improve people’s lives and mental health, but consumers have become increasingly concerned about the impact of plant production practices on the environment and wildlife. Previous research has not explored the interest and ability of plant producers and suppliers to provide wildlife friendly plant options for consumers. The University of Florida is considering the development of a wildlife-friendly plant certification to enhance production protocols for growers and connect consumers to sustainable plant options. This study explored perceptions of this certification through 11 in-depth interviews with environmental horticulture professionals. The study was guided by the following research questions: 1) What experiences do environmental horticulture professionals have with wildlife-friendly plants?, 2) What trends do environmental horticulture professionals see with consumers?, 3) What are the benefits and barriers to adopting this wildlife-friendly plant certification?, and 4) What communication strategies are needed to make this wildlife-friendly plant certification viable? Results indicate environmental horticulture professionals recognize the advantages of wildlife-friendly plants. However, the interviews revealed specific barriers to adoption and communication considerations that would impact certification diffusion. Implications of this research include a need for strategic programming regarding the wildlife-friendly plant certification and cohesive communication strategies among environmental horticulture organizations to educate professionals and consumers about wildlife-friendly plant options

Leveraging Skype in the Classroom for Science Communication: A Streaming Science – Scientist Online Approach

A growing need exists to identify, implement, and research alternative methods to communicate with, educate, and engage youth about science, in order to increase science literacy and knowledge of future societal decision-makers. Electronic field trips (EFTs) are one channel of non-formal communication and education that have been introduced in agricultural and natural resources to reach youth audiences with science-based information in real-time. EFTs can be conducted in several different ways due to the proliferation of video production and web-streaming technologies. The following professional development article offers science communication professionals and scientists a detailed model and specific steps to develop and host an EFT via the Skype in the Classroom platform. The outlined model builds off of prior application and research from the Streaming Science online science communication platform and offers a secondary model for effective EFT implementation and research. The authors describe the establishment of an online science communication network, the development of the Streaming Science: Scientist Online format, content creation, the production team structure, and mobile production hardware and software. Scientist Online EFT program outcomes in terms of participation are noted, as well as student outcomes in the form of excerpts to demonstrate student engagement are shared

Person-centred care in interventions to limit weight gain in pregnant women with obesity - a systematic review

Background Person-centred care, asserting that individuals are partners in their care, has been associated with care satisfaction but the value of using it to support women with obesity during pregnancy is unknown. Excessive gestational weight gain is associated with increased risks for both mother and baby and weight gain therefore is an important intervention target. The aims of this review was to 1) explore to what extent and in what manner interventions assessing weight in pregnant women with obesity use person-centred care and 2) assess if interventions including aspects of person-centred care are more effective at limiting weight gain than interventions not employing person-centred care. Methods Ten databases were systematically searched in January 2014. Studies had to report an intervention offered to pregnant women with obesity and measure gestational weight gain to be included. All included studies were independently double coded to identify to what extent they included three defined aspects of person-centred care: 1) “initiate a partnership” including identifying the person’s circumstances and motivation; 2) “working the partnership” through sharing the decision-making regarding the planned action and 3) “safeguarding the partnership through documentation” of care preferences. Information on gestational weight gain, study quality and characteristics were also extracted. Results Ten studies were included in the review, of which five were randomised controlled trials (RCT), and the remaining observational studies. Four interventions included aspects of person-centred care; two observational studies included both “initiating the partnership”, and “working the partnership”. One observational study included “initiating the partnership” and one RCT included “working the partnership”. No interventions included “safeguarding the partnership through documentation”. Whilst all studies with person-centred care aspects showed promising findings regarding limiting gestational weight gain, so did the interventions not including person-centred care aspects. Conclusions The use of an identified person-centred care approach is presently limited in interventions targeting gestational weight gain in pregnant women with obesity. Hence to what extent person-centred care may improve health outcomes and care satisfaction in this population is currently unknown and more research is needed. That said, our findings suggest that use of routines incorporating person-centredness are feasible to include within these interventions

Cellular Differentiation of Human Monocytes Is Regulated by Time-Dependent Interleukin-4 Signaling and the Transcriptional Regulator NCOR2.

Human in vitro generated monocyte-derived dendritic cells (moDCs) and macrophages are used clinically, e.g., to induce immunity against cancer. However, their physiological counterparts, ontogeny, transcriptional regulation, and heterogeneity remains largely unknown, hampering their clinical use. High-dimensional techniques were used to elucidate transcriptional, phenotypic, and functional differences between human in vivo and in vitro generated mononuclear phagocytes to facilitate their full potential in the clinic. We demonstrate that monocytes differentiated by macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF) or granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) resembled in vivo inflammatory macrophages, while moDCs resembled in vivo inflammatory DCs. Moreover, differentiated monocytes presented with profound transcriptomic, phenotypic, and functional differences. Monocytes integrated GM-CSF and IL-4 stimulation combinatorically and temporally, resulting in a mode- and time-dependent differentiation relying on NCOR2. Finally, moDCs are phenotypically heterogeneous and therefore necessitate the use of high-dimensional phenotyping to open new possibilities for better clinical tailoring of these cellular therapies

Dissecting the Shared Genetic Architecture of Suicide Attempt, Psychiatric Disorders, and Known Risk Factors

Background Suicide is a leading cause of death worldwide, and nonfatal suicide attempts, which occur far more frequently, are a major source of disability and social and economic burden. Both have substantial genetic etiology, which is partially shared and partially distinct from that of related psychiatric disorders. Methods We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of 29,782 suicide attempt (SA) cases and 519,961 controls in the International Suicide Genetics Consortium (ISGC). The GWAS of SA was conditioned on psychiatric disorders using GWAS summary statistics via multitrait-based conditional and joint analysis, to remove genetic effects on SA mediated by psychiatric disorders. We investigated the shared and divergent genetic architectures of SA, psychiatric disorders, and other known risk factors. Results Two loci reached genome-wide significance for SA: the major histocompatibility complex and an intergenic locus on chromosome 7, the latter of which remained associated with SA after conditioning on psychiatric disorders and replicated in an independent cohort from the Million Veteran Program. This locus has been implicated in risk-taking behavior, smoking, and insomnia. SA showed strong genetic correlation with psychiatric disorders, particularly major depression, and also with smoking, pain, risk-taking behavior, sleep disturbances, lower educational attainment, reproductive traits, lower socioeconomic status, and poorer general health. After conditioning on psychiatric disorders, the genetic correlations between SA and psychiatric disorders decreased, whereas those with nonpsychiatric traits remained largely unchanged. Conclusions Our results identify a risk locus that contributes more strongly to SA than other phenotypes and suggest a shared underlying biology between SA and known risk factors that is not mediated by psychiatric disorders.Peer reviewe

Children’s and adolescents’ rising animal-source food intakes in 1990–2018 were impacted by age, region, parental education and urbanicity

Animal-source foods (ASF) provide nutrition for children and adolescents’ physical and cognitive development. Here, we use data from the Global Dietary Database and Bayesian hierarchical models to quantify global, regional and national ASF intakes between 1990 and 2018 by age group across 185 countries, representing 93% of the world’s child population. Mean ASF intake was 1.9 servings per day, representing 16% of children consuming at least three daily servings. Intake was similar between boys and girls, but higher among urban children with educated parents. Consumption varied by age from 0.6 at <1 year to 2.5 servings per day at 15–19 years. Between 1990 and 2018, mean ASF intake increased by 0.5 servings per week, with increases in all regions except sub-Saharan Africa. In 2018, total ASF consumption was highest in Russia, Brazil, Mexico and Turkey, and lowest in Uganda, India, Kenya and Bangladesh. These findings can inform policy to address malnutrition through targeted ASF consumption programmes.publishedVersio

Incident type 2 diabetes attributable to suboptimal diet in 184 countries

The global burden of diet-attributable type 2 diabetes (T2D) is not well established. This risk assessment model estimated T2D incidence among adults attributable to direct and body weight-mediated effects of 11 dietary factors in 184 countries in 1990 and 2018. In 2018, suboptimal intake of these dietary factors was estimated to be attributable to 14.1 million (95% uncertainty interval (UI), 13.8–14.4 million) incident T2D cases, representing 70.3% (68.8–71.8%) of new cases globally. Largest T2D burdens were attributable to insufficient whole-grain intake (26.1% (25.0–27.1%)), excess refined rice and wheat intake (24.6% (22.3–27.2%)) and excess processed meat intake (20.3% (18.3–23.5%)). Across regions, highest proportional burdens were in central and eastern Europe and central Asia (85.6% (83.4–87.7%)) and Latin America and the Caribbean (81.8% (80.1–83.4%)); and lowest proportional burdens were in South Asia (55.4% (52.1–60.7%)). Proportions of diet-attributable T2D were generally larger in men than in women and were inversely correlated with age. Diet-attributable T2D was generally larger among urban versus rural residents and higher versus lower educated individuals, except in high-income countries, central and eastern Europe and central Asia, where burdens were larger in rural residents and in lower educated individuals. Compared with 1990, global diet-attributable T2D increased by 2.6 absolute percentage points (8.6 million more cases) in 2018, with variation in these trends by world region and dietary factor. These findings inform nutritional priorities and clinical and public health planning to improve dietary quality and reduce T2D globally.publishedVersio