Factors Affecting The Ability Of Rosa Multiflora To Invade And Persist In The Understory Of Southern Appalachian Forests

Rosa multiflora (MR) is an invasive shrub brought to the United States from east Asia in the 1800s. MR is shade intolerant, but recently, has invaded the forest understory in the southern Appalachians, raising the question of how it persists under shady conditions. MR may succeed in the understory by growing in canopy gaps and may tolerate varying light conditions. Also, MR has evergreen stems, which may augment CO2 assimilation by leaves. Weekly phenological measurements on MR shrubs showed that MR leafed out before native vegetation and kept some leaves longer than native species. Thus, MR gains a competitive advantage by using high light prior to canopy leaf out and after canopy senescence to gain carbon. Gas exchange measurements showed higher total daily carbon gain in the spring before canopy leaf out and lower amounts when the canopy was full out and even after senescence. The photosynthesis of MR leaves and stems differed significantly. MR appears to be successful in the forest understory because of its early spring carbon gain before canopy leaf out, due to its early leaf out. The influence of stem photosynthesis may contribute to carbon gain in the winter when the canopy is leafless

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency–Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research

Optimising exposure for children and adolescents with anxiety, OCD and PTSD: a systematic review

Cognitive-behavioural therapy is an effective treatment for anxiety disorders in children and young people, however, many do not benefit. Behavioural exposure appears to be the critical ingredient in the treatment of anxiety disorders. Research with adults has identified innovative strategies to optimise exposure-based treatments, yet it is not clear how to optimise the effects of exposure for children and young people. This review was a preliminary exploration of the association between potential optimisation strategies and treatment procedures and outcomes for the treatment of child anxiety symptoms/disorders. We searched PsychInfo and Medline databases using a systematic search strategy and identified 29 articles. We found preliminary evidence that some specific strategies may enhance the effects of exposure, such as dropping safety behaviours, parents and therapists discouraging avoidance, and the use of homework. However, not one significant finding was replicated by another study for the same time point using the same methodology. To a large degree, this lack of replication reflects a limited number of studies combined with a lack of consistency across studies around conceptualisations, methodological approaches, and outcome measures making it difficult to make meaningful comparisons between studies and draw firm conclusions. Examination is needed of a wide range of theoretically-driven potential optimisation strategies using methodologically robust, preclinical studies with children and young people. Furthermore, the methods used in future research must enable comparisons across studies and explore developmental differences in the effects of particular optimisation strategies

The Effect Of Fine Arts on Language and Literacy Skills in Children

Abstract Current techniques of teaching literacy to elementary school students are commonly limited to the use of standard reading programs such as Macmillan , McGraw Hill and Houghton (LaJevic , 2013). Although systematic , these approaches do not allow for children to experience various ways of learning or engagement with these structured literacy programs. This study will utilize the constructivist approach to explore how children's experiences and reflections enhance natural literacy development. The purpose of this study is to determine if creativity and engagement in the arts enhance language and literacy skills in children. By integrating art practices with literacy tasks , specifically dance and visual arts , children will use such active experiences to enhance specific language and literacy skills. Children , who participate in artistic activities , will excel in subsequent oral and written language activities. Current art integration in classrooms and has been minimal and undervalued. Funding for art programs have substantially decreased making this study significant and necessary in order to discuss benefits of arts in school settings. The study was completed in a school in Greenville , North Carolina and will include five students who are at a second grade reading level. Pre-experimental language and literacy testing was completed before the study in the areas of spelling , reading , and oral language. Experimentally , the children have participated in listening , dance and visual art activities. Following each activity , each child was asked to generate words and statements relating to that activity. Dependent variables will include number and type (part of speech) of words generated (written) , and number/type of written statements for each activity. Following each group activity , a group discussion was conducted followed by collection of data relating to word and sentence generation. Relationships of data to standardized measures of oral/written language were completed

The Effects of Calcium Content on the Federally Endangered Thalictrum Cooleyi of North Carolina Pocosins and Pine Savannas

Thalictrum cooleyi Ahles (Cooley’s meadowrue) is a federally endangered, herbaceous perennial found in very wet, loamy pine savannas of North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Pine savannas are characterized by palustrine hydrology and oligotrophic, acidic soils. Some rare plant species are associated with high calcium soils (calcicoles). An unpublished report suggested that soils associated with populations of this meadowrue have different chemistry and plant nutrient abundances than do soils where the plant is not present. Knowledge of soils and other habitat characteristics is crucial to T. cooleyi conservation. I collected soil samples near and away from T. cooleyi plants at Shaken Creek Preserve, Pender Co., NC, and had their nutrients analyzed (labs noted later). Soil with T. cooleyi present was distinctive from that lacking T. cooleyi, i.e., higher mean calcium content (719 ± 108 vs. 248 ± 33 mg/dm3), cation exchange capacity (CEC) (6.6 ± 0.5 vs. 4.5 ± 0.3 meq/100 cm3), and base saturation (60 ± 4 vs. 32 ± 3 %). Such values are characteristic of sandy, clay-based soils of the Coastal Plain, considered as relatively infertile soils. These results suggest that higher calcium content, CEC, and base saturation may be associated with the presence of Cooley’s meadowrue. I also asked whether calcium contents affect growth of T. cooleyi. In a greenhouse, I grew 57 plants in Fafard 3B® soilless substrate mix, 19 plants in each of three treatments suggested by the literature: 1) none (control), 2) 0.5% (low), or 3) 2.0% (high) powdered calcium carbonate (CaC03) by weight. I measured several growth responses of each plant every month for 7 mo. The mean longest leaf length, number of leaves, and total plant biomass did not differ significantly among treatments. This lack of response is not surprising, for not all plant growth metrics respond to higher calcium levels in the greenhouse, particularly in artificial soil mixes; plant response is complex and confounded. Edaphic factors other than calcium positively and negatively influence plant response, such as exposure to exchangeable aluminum, which can inhibit the growth of calcicoles. Pine savannas are fire-dependent communities. Fires are an integral part of the ecology of pine savannas, allowing thinning of shrubby undergrowth and of the canopy so herbaceous plants receive more light. They also elevate the availability of nutrients and mineralization in the soil (Wilbur and Christensen 1983). Whether caused by or correlated with T. cooleyi presence, chemical properties of soils, including calcium content, CEC, and base saturation, are somehow related to distribution of this endangered plant species

Gene-environment interactions in sarcoidosis

Susceptibility to most human diseases is polygenic with complex interactions between functional polymorphisms of single genes governing disease incidence phenotype or both. In this context the contribution of any discrete gene is generally modest for a single individual but may confer substantial attributable risk on a population level. Environmental exposure can modify the effects of a polymorphism either by providing a necessary substrate for development of human disease or because the effects of a given exposure modulate the effects of the gene. In several diseases genetic polymorphisms have been shown to be context-dependent i.e. the effects of a genetic variant are realized only in the setting of a relevant exposure. Since sarcoidosis susceptibility is dependent on both genetic and environmental modifiers the study of gene-environment interactions may yield important pathogenetic information and will likely be crucial for uncovering the range of genetic susceptibility loci. However the complexity of these relationships implies that investigations of geneenvironment interactions will require the study of large cohorts with carefully-defined exposures and similar clinical phenotypes. A general principle is that the study of gene-environment interactions requires a sample size at least several-fold greater than for either factor alone. To date the presence of environmental modifiers has been demonstrated for one sarcoidosis susceptibility locus HLADQB1 in African-American families. This article reviews general considerations obtaining for the study of gene-environment interactions in sarcoidosis. It also describes the limited current understanding of the role of environmental influences on sarcoidosis susceptibility genes. Originally published Clinics in Dermatology Vol. 25 No. 3 May-June 200