Canada and the First World War: A Canadian War Museum Internet Exhibition

Canada and the First World War is the largest internet resource ever developed by the Canadian War Museum. The goal of this site is to provide visitors across the country and around the world with the most comprehensive and authoritative site for the history of Canada and Canadians in the First World War. Like our permanent galleries, the site’s goal is to tell the story of Canada’s role in the First World War at the international, national, and personal levels. While the CWM’s collection dictated, to some degree, the extent of the storyline, this will be an important site for researchers, students, and the interested public

Considering Positive Psychology Constructs of Life Satisfaction and School Connectedness When Assessing Symptoms Related to Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Children and adolescents diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) demonstrate significant difficulty with academic and behavioral functioning. This, in turn, can lead to lower educational attainment and vocational achievement, which has serious long-term consequences and costs to individuals and society (Barkley, 2002, 2006; Mannuzza, Klein, Bessler, Malloy, & LaPadula, 1993). Researchers from a positive psychology framework suggest that ADHD symptoms (i.e., inattention, hyperactivity/impulsivity) alone may not fully explain academic impairment (Diener, Scollon, & Lucas, 2004). From the standpoint of positive psychology, life satisfaction and school connectedness are important constructs that examine positive life functioning; however, they have been understudied, particularly in the area of ADHD. The current study investigated the relationship between ADHD symptoms and these positive psychological constructs. Results indicate that as ADHD symptoms increase, life satisfaction decreases; however, no relationship between ADHD symptoms and school connectedness was found. Beyond our primary analysis, we examined the relationship between gender and these variables. Results suggest that gender significantly moderates the relationship between ADHD and life satisfaction, with life satisfaction ratings decreasing for males as ADHD symptoms increase, yet remaining stable for females. ADHD symptoms did not significantly predict changes in school connectedness

The risk of multiple anthropogenic and climate change threats must be considered for continental scale conservation and management of seagrass habitat

Globally marine-terrestrial interfaces are highly impacted due to a range of human pressures. Seagrass habitats exist in the shallow marine waters of this interface, have significant values and are impacted by a range of pressures. Cumulative risk analysis is widely used to identify risk from multiple threats and assist in prioritizing management actions. This study conducted a cumulative risk analysis of seagrass habitat associated with the Australian continent to support management actions. We developed a spatially explicit risk model based on a database of threats to coastal aquatic habitat in Australia, spanning 35,000 km of coastline. Risk hotspots were identified using the model and reducing the risk of nutrient and sediment pollution for seagrass habitat was assessed. Incorporating future threats greatly altered the spatial-distribution of risk. High risk from multiple current threats was identified throughout all bioregions, but high risk from climate change alone manifested in only two. Improving management of nutrient and sediment loads, a common approach to conserve seagrass habitat did reduce risk, but only in temperate regions, highlighting the danger of focusing management on a single strategy. Monitoring, management and conservation actions from a national and regional perspective can be guided by these outputs

Drug prescriptions and dementia incidence: a medication-wide association study of 17000 dementia cases among half a million participants

Previous studies have suggested that some medications may influence dementia risk. We conducted a hypothesis-generating medication-wide association study to investigate systematically the association between all prescription medications and incident dementia. We used a population-based cohort within the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) databank, comprising routinely-collected primary care, hospital admissions and mortality data from Wales, UK. We included all participants born after 1910 and registered with a SAIL general practice at ≤60 years old. Follow-up was from each participant's 60th birthday to the earliest of dementia diagnosis, deregistration from a SAIL general practice, death or the end of 2018. We considered participants exposed to a medication if they received ≥1 prescription for any of 744 medications before or during follow-up. We adjusted for sex, smoking and socioeconomic status. The outcome was any all-cause dementia code in primary care, hospital or mortality data during follow-up. We used Cox regression to calculate hazard ratios and Bonferroni-corrected p values. Of 551 344 participants, 16 998 (3%) developed dementia (median follow-up was 17 years for people who developed dementia, 10 years for those without dementia). Of 744 medications, 221 (30%) were associated with dementia. Of these, 217 (98%) were associated with increased dementia incidence, many clustering around certain indications. Four medications (all vaccines) were associated with a lower dementia incidence. Almost a third of medications were associated with dementia. The clustering of many drugs around certain indications may provide insights into early manifestations of dementia. We encourage further investigation of hypotheses generated by these results. [Abstract copyright: © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ.

Understanding verbal fluency in healthy aging, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease

This is the author's accepted manuscript. This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.• Objective: Verbal fluency measures are frequently part of batteries designed to assess executive function, but are also used to assess semantic processing ability or word knowledge. The goal of the present study was to identify the cognitive components underlying fluency performance. • Method: Healthy young and older adults, adults with Parkinson’s disease, and adults with Alzheimer’s disease performed letter, category, and action fluency tests. Performance was assessed in terms of number of items generated, clustering, and the time course of output. A series of neuropsychological assessments were also administered to index verbal ability, working memory, executive function, and processing speed as correlates of fluency performance. • Results: Findings indicated that regardless of the particular performance measure, young adults performed the best and adults with Alzheimer’s disease performed most poorly, with healthy older adults and adults with Parkinson’s disease performing at intermediate levels. The exception was the action fluency task, where adults with Parkinson’s disease performed most poorly. The time course of fluency performance was characterized in terms of slope and intercept parameters and related to neuropsychological constructs. Speed of processing was found to be the best predictor of performance, rather than the efficiency of executive function or semantic knowledge. • Conclusions: Together, these findings demonstrate that the pattern of fluency performance looks generally the same regardless of how performance is measured. In addition, the primary role of processing speed in performance suggests that the use of fluency tasks as measures of executive function or verbal ability warrants reexamination.This work was conducted with grant support from the Kansas City Life Sciences Institute. Additional support was provided by the Digital Electronics Core of the Center for Biobehavioral Neurosciences in Communication Disorders, grant number P30 DC-005803, for assistance with the development of the digital ink assessment

What to do about Inequality? Support for the European Union and Further European Integration in the Republic of Ireland

This paper investigates individual’s perceptions of inequality and the impact this has on mass public opinion support for the European Union (EU) in the Republic of Ireland. This question is posed in the context of the onset of the economic and financial crisis of 2007/8 as the crisis can be regarded as a critical juncture in Ireland’s relationship with the EU as a result of the economic downturn and the widening of economic disparities individuals have experienced. Ireland is a critical case in examining EU support as since its accession to the EU in 1973 it is often considered an exemplar of what the EU could offer small member states with a strongly pro-integrationist mass public. Using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) multiple regression analysis on 2009 European Election Study (EES) data, this paper shows that individuals’ concerns about inequality lowers support for the EU as it is currently constituted, but increases support for continued European integration. This suggests that individual-levels of support may be in a precarious state, yet they can be salvaged as individuals in Ireland regard the EU as the institutional-driving force to address market-generated inequality

Novel multimorbidity clusters in people with eczema and asthma:a population-based cluster analysis

Eczema and asthma are allergic diseases and two of the commonest chronic conditions in high-income countries. Their co-existence with other allergic conditions is common, but little research exists on wider multimorbidity with these conditions. We set out to identify and compare clusters of multimorbidity in people with eczema or asthma and people without. Using routinely-collected primary care data from the U.K. Clinical Research Practice Datalink GOLD, we identified adults ever having eczema (or asthma), and comparison groups never having eczema (or asthma). We derived clusters of multimorbidity from hierarchical cluster analysis of Jaccard distances between pairs of diagnostic categories estimated from mixed-effects logistic regressions. We analysed 434,422 individuals with eczema (58% female, median age 47 years) and 1,333,281 individuals without (55% female, 47 years), and 517,712 individuals with asthma (53% female, 44 years) and 1,601,210 individuals without (53% female, 45 years). Age at first morbidity, sex and having eczema/asthma affected the scope of multimorbidity, with women, older age and eczema/asthma being associated with larger morbidity clusters. Injuries, digestive, nervous system and mental health disorders were more commonly seen in eczema and asthma than control clusters. People with eczema and asthma of all ages and both sexes may experience greater multimorbidity than people without eczema and asthma, including conditions not previously recognised as contributing to their disease burden. This work highlights areas where there is a critical need for research addressing the burden and drivers of multimorbidity in order to inform strategies to reduce poor health outcomes

Beyond the Bandwagon: Curating Cultural Memory at Milner Library

Archival and manuscript materials record human experience; they document how people have lived, worked, interacted, and thought about the world. These unique or rare materials make visible the experience and impact of individuals and organizations within their respective cultural, geographical, historical, local, and educational milieu. By exploring such documents and objects, patrons can see and investigate these relationships firsthand. Primary sources form the bedrock of humanistic research, personal inquiry, and engaged teaching. With this volume, we invite you to explore the unique and rare materials housed in Milner Library’s Special Collections and Dr. Jo Ann Rayfield University Archives as well as the services that bring them to life for readers worldwide. Contributed essays from scholars and collection stewards highlight how a small sample of these rich collections facilitate teaching and learning within the Illinois State University community and beyond.https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/mlp/1032/thumbnail.jp

How Much Shallow Coral Habitat Is There on the Great Barrier Reef?

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is a globally unique and precious national resource; however, the geomorphic and benthic composition and the extent of coral habitat per reef are greatly understudied. However, this is critical to understand the spatial extent of disturbance impacts and recovery potential. This study characterizes and quantifies coral habitat based on depth, geomorphic and benthic composition maps of more than 2164 shallow offshore GBR reefs. The mapping approach combined a Sentinel-2 satellite surface reflectance image mosaic and derived depth, wave climate, reef slope and field data in a random-forest machine learning and object-based protocol. Area calculations, for the first time, incorporated the 3D characteristic of the reef surface above 20 m. Geomorphic zonation maps (0–20 m) provided a reef extent estimate of 28,261 km2 (a 31% increase to current estimates), while benthic composition maps (0–10 m) estimated that ~10,600 km2 of reef area (~57% of shallow offshore reef area) was covered by hard substrate suitable for coral growth, the first estimate of potential coral habitat based on substrate availability. Our high-resolution maps provide valuable information for future monitoring and ecological modeling studies and constitute key tools for supporting the management, conservation and restoration efforts of the GBR

A comparative genomics screen identifies a Sinorhizobium meliloti 1021 sodM-like gene strongly expressed within host plant nodules

Background We have used the genomic data in the Integrated Microbial Genomes system of the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute to make predictions about rhizobial open reading frames that play a role in nodulation of host plants. The genomic data was screened by searching for ORFs conserved in α-proteobacterial rhizobia, but not conserved in closely-related non-nitrogen-fixing α-proteobacteria. Results Using this approach, we identified many genes known to be involved in nodulation or nitrogen fixation, as well as several new candidate genes. We knocked out selected new genes and assayed for the presence of nodulation phenotypes and/or nodule-specific expression. One of these genes, SMc00911, is strongly expressed by bacterial cells within host plant nodules, but is expressed minimally by free-living bacterial cells. A strain carrying an insertion mutation in SMc00911 is not defective in the symbiosis with host plants, but in contrast to expectations, this mutant strain is able to out-compete the S. meliloti 1021 wild type strain for nodule occupancy in co-inoculation experiments. The SMc00911 ORF is predicted to encode a “SodM-like” (superoxide dismutase-like) protein containing a rhodanese sulfurtransferase domain at the N-terminus and a chromate-resistance superfamily domain at the C-terminus. Several other ORFs (SMb20360, SMc01562, SMc01266, SMc03964, and the SMc01424-22 operon) identified in the screen are expressed at a moderate level by bacteria within nodules, but not by free-living bacteria. Conclusions Based on the analysis of ORFs identified in this study, we conclude that this comparative genomics approach can identify rhizobial genes involved in the nitrogen-fixing symbiosis with host plants, although none of the newly identified genes were found to be essential for this process