Home and Parent Training Strategies for Pediatric Feeding Disorders: The Caregivers’ Perspective

Background: Twenty to 45% of the general pediatric population experience feeding problems. When children with disabilities exhibit feeding problems, they are more likely to develop maladaptive mealtime behaviors that may lead to poor nutrition. Home training to help treat a child’s feeding delay or disorder is a vital component of feeding treatment and supports holistic, family-centered treatment models. It is important for occupational therapists working with this population to understand the impact of these behaviors on individual and family functioning. Method: This quantitative study examined caregivers’ perspectives of the training families receive to support their child’s feeding delay or disorder, and how family mealtimes may be affected. One hundred and eight participants completed an online survey using primarily Likert scale questions. Results: Caregivers report that (a) they are receiving current and evidenced-based interventions; (b) they feel supported, yet feel they need more support; (c) family relationships are adversely affected by a child’s feeding challenges; (d) caregivers desire to connect with other caregivers of children with feeding delays or disorders; and (e) they need stress management and coping strategies. Conclusion: Feeding treatment is strengthened with more family-focused topics like family relationships and interactions, caregiver burden and stress management, and increased caregiver support

Within- and Between-Home Variability in Indoor-Air Insecticide Levels during Pregnancy among an Inner-City Cohort from New York City

BACKGROUND: Residential insecticide use is widespread in the United States, but few data are available on the persistence and variability in levels in the indoor environment. OBJECTIVE: The study aim was to assess within- and between-home variability in indoor-air insecticides over the final 2 months of pregnancy among a cohort of African-American and Dominican women from New York City. METHODS: Women not employed outside the home were enrolled between February 2001 and May 2004 (n = 102); 9 insecticides and an adjuvant were measured in 48-hr personal air samples and 2-week integrated indoor air samples collected sequentially for 7.0 ± 2.3 weeks (n = 337 air samples). RESULTS: Sixty-one percent of the women reported using pest control during the air samplings. Chlorpyrifos, diazinon, and propoxur were detected in 99–100% of personal and indoor samples (range, 0.4–641 ng/m(3)). Piperonyl butoxide (a pyrethroid adjuvant) was detected in 45.5–68.5% (0.2–608 ng/m(3)). There was little within-home variability and no significant difference in air concentrations within homes over time (p ≥ 0.2); between-home variability accounted for 88% of the variance in the indoor air levels of propoxur, 92% in chlorpyrifos, 94% in diazinon, and 62% in piperonyl butoxide (p < 0.001). Indoor and maternal personal air insecticide levels were highly correlated (r = 0.7–0.9, p < 0.001). Diazinon and chlorpyrifos levels declined 5-fold between 2001 and 2004 but were detected in all homes 1.5 and 2.5 years, respectively, after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ban on their residential use. CONCLUSION: Results showed that the insecticides were persistent in the home with little variability in air concentrations over the 2 months and contributed to chronic maternal inhalation exposures during pregnancy

Competition and habitat quality influence age and sex distribution in wintering rusty blackbirds.

Bird habitat quality is often inferred from species abundance measures during the breeding and non-breeding season and used for conservation management decisions. However, during the non-breeding season age and sex classes often occupy different habitats which suggest a need for more habitat-specific data. Rusty Blackbird (Euphagus carolinus) is a forested wetland specialist wintering in bottomland hardwood forests in the south-eastern U. S. and belongs to the most steeply declining songbirds in the U.S. Little information is available to support priority birds such as the Rusty Blackbird wintering in this threatened habitat. We assessed age and sex distribution and body condition of Rusty Blackbirds among the three major habitats used by this species in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley and also measured food availability. Overall, pecan groves had the highest biomass mainly driven by the amount of nuts. Invertebrate biomass was highest in forests but contributed only a small percentage to overall biomass. Age and sex classes were unevenly distributed among habitats with adult males primarily occupying pecan groves containing the highest nut biomass, females being found in forests which had the lowest nut biomass and young males primarily staying in forest fragments along creeks which had intermediate nut biomass. Males were in better body condition than females and were in slightly better condition in pecan groves. The results suggest that adult males occupy the highest quality habitat and may competitively exclude the other age and sex classes

Avian Ecosystem Services and Disservices Within a Mixed Landscape of Intensive Agriculture and Grassland

Much of the Midwest region of the United States is farmed intensively for corn and soybeans. Grasslands and prairies, once abundant in this landscape, are now found in small patches embedded within the agricultural matrix. These grasslands provide habitat for populations of birds, which forage both in natural and nearby cultivated habitats. Birds provide ecosystem services in this system by consuming herbivorous pest arthropods, or disservices by consuming beneficial predatory arthropods that would otherwise consume pests. I conducted a series of experimental and observational studies to examine the pest control services and disservices provided by birds within this study system. First, I conducted exclosure experiments using cages to exclude birds from corn and soybean crops adjacent to a prairie. I found that birds provided significant net services in corn, but significant net disserves in the adjacent soybean crops. The next year, I again conducted exclosure experiments in soybeans, and measured the effect of birds on both leaf damage by pests and soybean grain yield. I found that exclosure plots had lower levels of leaf damage by pests than control plots, but there was no resulting effect on crop yield. I also found that sites with higher bird species richness had lower levels of leaf damage by pests. Finally, I further examined the diets of grassland/soybean field bird communities via DNA barcoding. I compared the diets of different bird species and birds captured at different sites. I found that the bird community consumed a wide variety of prey species, and that diets differed by both bird species and capture site. I also found that birds consumed more herbivorous than predatory arthropods. My findings suggest that birds responded opportunistically to prey availability, and are likely able to respond quickly to pest outbreaks. The combined results of this dissertation suggest that birds have the potential to provide surprisingly large economic effects within an intensively farmed corn and soybean landscape. Grassland and prairie habitat near farmland provides a source population of birds that provide these top-down trophic interactions. Furthermore, birds provide services beyond those provided by beneficial arthropod natural enemies, while disservices are limited

2021 Environmental Data from 12 Rights-of-Way

Environmental data collected from 12 electric powerline right of way sites in Northern Illinois, 2021. </p

Anthropogenic and Climatic Factors Differentially Affect Waterbody Area and Connectivity in an Urbanizing Landscape: A Case Study in Zhengzhou, China

Urbanization alters the distribution and characteristics of waterbodies, potentially affecting both the habitat availability and connectivity for aquatic wildlife. We used Landsat satellite imagery to observe temporal and spatial changes in open-water habitats in Zhengzhou, a rapidly growing city in central China. We classified open water into six categories: perennial rivers, seasonal rivers and streams, canals, lakes, ponds, and reservoirs. From 1990 to 2020, in 5-year intervals, we identified, counted, and measured the area of each kind of waterbody, and we used a model selection approach with linear regressions to ask which climate and anthropogenic drivers were associated with these changes. We also used Conefor software to examine how these changes affected the landscape connectivity for waterfowl. Over the study period, lakes and canals were the only waterbody types to show statistically significant changes in surface area, increasing by 712% and 236%, respectively. Changes in lakes and canals were positively correlated with the length of water pipeline in the city. The connectivity of waterbodies fluctuated over the same period, mirroring fluctuations in the perennial Yellow River. Ponds contributed very little to landscape connectivity, and the importance of reservoirs decreased over time. Conversely, canals played an increasingly important role in landscape connectivity over time. Counterintuitively, the connectivity of waterbodies increased in the built-up part of the city. Our results show that urbanization can have unexpected effects—both positive and negative—on the connectivity and area of open-water habitats. These effects are likely to be important for waterfowl and other aquatic organisms

Competition and Habitat Quality Influence Age and Sex Distribution in Wintering Rusty Blackbirds

Bird habitat quality is often inferred from species abundance measures during the breeding and non-breeding season and used for conservation management decisions. However, during the non-breeding season age and sex classes often occupy different habitats which suggest a need for more habitat-specific data. Rusty Blackbird (Euphagus carolinus) is a forested wetland specialist wintering in bottomland hardwood forests in the south-eastern U. S. and belongs to the most steeply declining songbirds in the U.S. Little information is available to support priority birds such as the Rusty Blackbird wintering in this threatened habitat. We assessed age and sex distribution and body condition of Rusty Blackbirds among the three major habitats used by this species in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley and also measured food availability. Overall, pecan groves had the highest biomass mainly driven by the amount of nuts. Invertebrate biomass was highest in forests but contributed only a small percentage to overall biomass. Age and sex classes were unevenly distributed among habitats with adult males primarily occupying pecan groves containing the highest nut biomass, females being found in forests which had the lowest nut biomass and young males primarily staying in forest fragments along creeks which had intermediate nut biomass. Males were in better body condition than females and were in slightly better condition in pecan groves. The results suggest that adult males occupy the highest quality habitat and may competitively exclude the other age and sex classes

Competition and Habitat Quality Influence Age and Sex Distribution in Wintering Rusty Blackbirds

Bird habitat quality is often inferred from species abundance measures during the breeding and non-breeding season and used for conservation management decisions. However, during the non-breeding season age and sex classes often occupy different habitats which suggest a need for more habitat-specific data. Rusty Blackbird (Euphagus carolinus) is a forested wetland specialist wintering in bottomland hardwood forests in the south-eastern U. S. and belongs to the most steeply declining songbirds in the U.S. Little information is available to support priority birds such as the Rusty Blackbird wintering in this threatened habitat. We assessed age and sex distribution and body condition of Rusty Blackbirds among the three major habitats used by this species in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley and also measured food availability. Overall, pecan groves had the highest biomass mainly driven by the amount of nuts. Invertebrate biomass was highest in forests but contributed only a small percentage to overall biomass. Age and sex classes were unevenly distributed among habitats with adult males primarily occupying pecan groves containing the highest nut biomass, females being found in forests which had the lowest nut biomass and young males primarily staying in forest fragments along creeks which had intermediate nut biomass. Males were in better body condition than females and were in slightly better condition in pecan groves. The results suggest that adult males occupy the highest quality habitat and may competitively exclude the other age and sex classes

Immunomodulatory and pro-oncologic effects of ketamine and isoflurane anesthetics in a murine model.

IntroductionVolatile and intravenous anesthetics may worsen oncologic outcomes in basic science animal models. These effects may be related to suppressed innate and adaptive immunity, decreased immunosurveillance, and disrupted cellular signaling. We hypothesized that anesthetics would promote lung tumor growth via altered immune function in a murine model and tested this using an immunological control group of immunodeficient mice.MethodsLewis lung carcinoma cells were injected via tail vein into C57BL/6 immunocompetent and NSG immunodeficient mice during exposure to isoflurane and ketamine versus controls without anesthesia. Mice were imaged on days 0, 3, 10, and 14 post-tumor cell injection. On day 14, mice were euthanized and organs fixed for metastasis quantification and immunohistochemistry staining. We compared growth of tumors measured from bioluminescent imaging and tumor metastasis in ex vivo bioluminescent imaging of lung and liver.ResultsMetastases were significantly greater for immunocompromised NSG mice than immunocompetent C57BL/6 mice over the 14-day experiment (partial η2 = 0.67, 95% CI = 0.54, 0.76). Among immunocompetent mice, metastases were greatest for mice receiving ketamine, intermediate for those receiving isoflurane, and least for control mice (partial η2 = 0.88, 95% CI = 0.82, 0.91). In immunocompetent mice, significantly decreased T lymphocyte (partial η2 = 0.83, 95% CI = 0.29, 0.93) and monocyte (partial η2 = 0.90, 95% CI = 0.52, 0.96) infiltration was observed in anesthetic-treated mice versus controls.ConclusionsThe immune system appears central to the pro-metastatic effects of isoflurane and ketamine in a murine model, with decreased T lymphocytes and monocytes likely playing a role