Behavioral responses of adult female tobacco hornworms, Manduca sexta, to hostplant volatiles change with age and mating status

We present evidence for two behaviors influenced by intact, vegetative plant odor — upwind flight and abdomen curling — in female Manduca sexta and demonstrate the influence of the age and mating status of the moths on these behaviors. We compared the behavioral responses of laboratory-reared M. sexta. of discrete ages and physiological states (2,3, and 4 day old for virgin; 2 and 3 day old for mated) as individual moths flew upwind in a flight tunnel to a source of hostplant volatiles. We monitored odor-modulated flight and abdomen curling in the presence of volatiles released by potted hostplants. Mated 3 day old females exhibited the highest incidence of odor-modulated flight and abdomen curling. Similarly, as virgin moths aged, a greater percentage of the individuals displayed odor-modulated flight patterns and abdomen curling. In contrast, younger virgin moths exhibited high levels of abdomen curling only after contact with the plant

Teaching health advocacy to medical students: a comparison study.

CONTEXT: Many encourage service learning and health advocacy training in medical student education, but related evaluation is limited. OBJECTIVES: To assess (1) impact of a required community health advocacy training for medical students on student attitudes, knowledge, and skills; (2) student characteristics associated with higher advocacy knowledge and skills; and (3) perspectives of community-based organizations (CBOs). DESIGN: Cross-sectional surveys. SETTING: University of Miami Miller School of Medicine (UMMSM) Regional Medical Campus and main campus. PARTICIPANTS: Medical students at both UMMSM campuses. INTERVENTION: Required community health advocacy training for first- and second-year students including classroom experiences and hands-on project in partnership with a CBO. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Student characteristics, health advocacy-related attitudes, self-reported and objective knowledge, and skills. Scores were compared between campuses, with multivariable modeling adjusting for individual student characteristics. Community-based organization perspectives were assessed via separate surveys. RESULTS: Ninety-eight (77%) regional campus students (intervention group) and 139 (30%) main campus students (comparison group) completed surveys. Versus the comparison group, the intervention group reported greater: mean knowledge of community health needs: 34.6 versus 31.1 (range: 11-44, P \u3c .01), knowledge about CBOs: 3.0 versus 2.7 (range 1-4, P \u3c .01) and knowledge of community resources: 5.4 versus 2.3 (range, 0-11, P \u3c .01), and mean skill scores: 12.7 versus 10.5 (score range: 4-16, P \u3c .01), following the intervention. Using adjusted analysis across both groups, female gender was associated with higher attitudes score. High level of previous community involvement was associated with higher attitude and skill scores. Higher self-reported educational debt was associated with higher skill scores. Community-based organization perspectives included high satisfaction and a desire to influence the training of future physicians. CONCLUSIONS: Medical student advocacy training in partnership with community-based organizations could be beneficial in improving student advocacy knowledge and skills in addressing community health issues and in developing sustainable community partnerships

The USMLE® Step 2 clinical skills patient note corpus

© 2022 The Authors. Published by ACL. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://aclanthology.org/2022.naacl-main.208This paper presents a corpus of 43,985 clinical patient notes (PNs) written by 35,156 examinees during the high-stakes USMLE® Step 2 Clinical Skills examination. In this exam, examinees interact with standardized patients - people trained to portray simulated scenarios called clinical cases. For each encounter, an examinee writes a PN, which is then scored by physician raters using a rubric of clinical concepts, expressions of which should be present in the PN. The corpus features PNs from 10 clinical cases, as well as the clinical concepts from the case rubrics. A subset of 2,840 PNs were annotated by 10 physician experts such that all 143 concepts from the case rubrics (e.g., shortness of breath) were mapped to 34,660 PN phrases (e.g., dyspnea, difficulty breathing). The corpus is available via a data sharing agreement with NBME and can be requested at https://www.nbme.org/services/data-sharing.Published versio

Phyllosphere microbiology with special reference to diversity and plant genotype

The phyllosphere represents the habitat provided by the aboveground parts of plants, and on a global scale supports a large and complex microbial community. Microbial interactions in the phyllosphere can affect the fitness of plants in natural communities, the productivity of agricultural crops, and the safety of horticultural produce for human consumption. The structure of phyllosphere communities reflects immigration, survival and growth of microbial colonists, which is influenced by numerous environmental factors in addition to leaf physico-chemical properties. The recent use of culture-independent techniques has demonstrated considerable previously unrecognized diversity in phyllosphere bacterial communities. Furthermore, there is significant recent evidence that plant genotype can play a major role in determining the structure of phyllosphere microbial communities. The main aims of this review are: (i) to discuss the diversity of phyllosphere microbial populations; (ii) to consider the processes by which microbes colonize the phyllosphere; (iii) to address the leaf characteristics and environmental factors that determine the survival and growth of colonists; (iv) to discuss microbial adaptations that allow establishment in the phyllosphere habitat and (v) to evaluate evidence for plant genotypic control of phyllosphere communities. Finally, we suggest approaches and priority areas for future research on phyllosphere microbiology

Intraspecific Combinations of Flower and Leaf Volatiles Act Together in Attracting Hawkmoth Pollinators

Insects pinpoint mates, food and oviposition sites by olfactory cues. Recognizing and localizing a suitable target by olfaction is demanding. Odor sources emit characteristic blends of compounds that have to be identified against an environmentally derived olfactory background. This background, however, does not necessarily disturb the localization of a source. Rather, the contrary. Sex pheromones become more attractive to male moths when being presented against a relevant plant background. Here we asked whether such olfactory coaction also characterizes foraging cues. The tobacco hornworm Manduca sexta feeds on nectar from wild tobacco Nicotiana attenuata and sacred datura Datura wrightii flowers. We tested how leaf-derived volatile blends as a background affect the moths' approach to flower blends. We found coaction when a flower blend was presented against a conspecific leaf volatile background but not when the blend was presented against volatiles emitted by the other host plant or by a non-host plant. Hence, our results reveal a species-specific coaction between flower blend and leaf volatile background. The ability to integrate information from different odor sources on one plant might provide the moth with a fine-grained analysis of food site quality

Procedural and interpretive skills of medical students: experiences and attitudes of fourth-year students.

BACKGROUND: Recent data do not exist regarding fourth-year medical students\u27 performance of and attitudes toward procedural and interpretive skills, and how these differ from third-year students\u27. METHOD: Cross-sectional survey conducted in February 2006 of 122 fourth-year students from seven U.S. medical schools, compared with their responses in summer 2005. Students estimated their cumulative performance of 22 skills and reported self-confidence and perceived importance using a five-point Likert-type scale. RESULTS: The response rate was 79% (96/122). A majority reported never having performed cardioversion, thoracentesis, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, blood culture, purified protein derivative placement, or paracentesis. One fifth of students had never performed peripheral intravenous catheter insertion, phlebotomy, or arterial blood sampling. Students reported increased cumulative performance of 17 skills, increased self-confidence in five skills, and decreased perceived importance in three skills (two-sided P \u3c .05). CONCLUSIONS: A majority of fourth-year medical students still have never performed important procedures, and a substantial minority have not performed basic procedures

FILMPAR: A parallel algorithm designed for the efficient and accurate computation of thin film flow on functional surfaces containing micro-structure

A highly efficient and portable parallel multigrid algorithm for solving a discretised form of the coupled lubrication equations for three-dimensional, gravity-driven, continuous thin film free-surface flow over substrates containing micro-scale topography is presented. Although applicable to problems involving heterogeneous and distributed features, for illustrative purposes the algorithm is benchmarked for the case of flow over a single trench topography; this enables direct comparisons with complementary experimental data and existing serial multigrid solutions. Parallel performance is accessed and shown to lead to super-linear behaviour provided the finest multigrid mesh level employed is sufficiently so