Belowground DNA-based techniques: untangling the network of plant root interactions

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Radiation-induced accelerated aging of the brain vasculature in young adult survivors of childhood brain tumors

Background. Cranial radiotherapy may damage the cerebral vasculature. The aim of this study was to understand the prevalence and risk factors of cerebrovascular disease (CVD) and white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) in childhood brain tumors (CBT) survivors treated with radiotherapy.Methods. Seventy CBT survivors who received radiotherapy were enrolled in a cross-sectional study at a median 20 years after radiotherapy cessation. The prevalence of and risk factors for CVD were investigated using MRI, MRA, and laboratory testing. Tumors, their treatment, and stroke-related data were retrieved from patients' files.Results. Forty-four individuals (63%) had CVD at a median age of 27 years (range, 16-43 years). The prevalence rates at 20 years for CVD, small-vessel disease, and large-vessel disease were 52%, 38%, and 16%, respectively. Ischemic infarcts were diagnosed in 6 survivors, and cerebral hemorrhage in 2. Lacunar infarcts were present in 7, periventricular or deep WMHs in 34 (49%), and mineralizing microangiopathy in 21 (30%) survivors. Multiple pathologies were detected in 44% of the participants, and most lesions were located in a high-dose radiation area. Higher blood pressure was associated with CVD and a presence of WMHs. Higher cholesterol levels increased the risk of ischemic infarcts and WMHs, and lower levels of high-density lipoprotein and higher waist circumference increased the risk of lacunar infarcts.Conclusions. Treating CBTs with radiotherapy increases the risk of early CVD and WMHs in young adult survivors. These results suggest an urgent need for investigating CVD prevention in CBT patients.</div

CIHR Health System Impact Fellows: Reflections on “Driving Change” Within the Health System

Learning health systems necessitate interdependence between health and academic sectors and are critical to address the present and future needs of our health systems. This concept is being supported through the new Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Health System Impact (HSI) Fellowship, through which postdoctoral fellows are situated within a health system-related organization to help propel evidence-informed organizational transformation and change. A voluntary working group of fellows from the inaugural cohort representing diversity in geography, host setting and personal background, collectively organized a panel at the 2018 Canadian Association for Health Services and Policy Research Conference with the purpose of describing this shared scholarship experience. Here, we present a summary of this panel reflecting on our experiential learning in a practice environment and its ability for impact

Evidence-based Kernels: Fundamental Units of Behavioral Influence

This paper describes evidence-based kernels, fundamental units of behavioral influence that appear to underlie effective prevention and treatment for children, adults, and families. A kernel is a behavior–influence procedure shown through experimental analysis to affect a specific behavior and that is indivisible in the sense that removing any of its components would render it inert. Existing evidence shows that a variety of kernels can influence behavior in context, and some evidence suggests that frequent use or sufficient use of some kernels may produce longer lasting behavioral shifts. The analysis of kernels could contribute to an empirically based theory of behavioral influence, augment existing prevention or treatment efforts, facilitate the dissemination of effective prevention and treatment practices, clarify the active ingredients in existing interventions, and contribute to efficiently developing interventions that are more effective. Kernels involve one or more of the following mechanisms of behavior influence: reinforcement, altering antecedents, changing verbal relational responding, or changing physiological states directly. The paper describes 52 of these kernels, and details practical, theoretical, and research implications, including calling for a national database of kernels that influence human behavior

Non-affirmative Theory of Education as a Foundation for Curriculum Studies, Didaktik and Educational Leadership

This chapter presents non-affirmative theory of education as the foundation for a new research program in education, allowing us to bridge educational leadership, curriculum studies and Didaktik. We demonstrate the strengths of this framework by analyzing literature from educational leadership and curriculum theory/didaktik. In contrast to both socialization-oriented explanations locating curriculum and leadership within existing society, and transformation-oriented models viewing education as revolutionary or super-ordinate to society, non-affirmative theory explains the relation between education and politics, economy and culture, respectively, as non-hierarchical. Here critical deliberation and discursive practices mediate between politics, culture, economy and education, driven by individual agency in historically developed cultural and societal institutions. While transformative and socialization models typically result in instrumental notions of leadership and teaching, non-affirmative education theory, previously developed within German and Nordic education, instead views leadership and teaching as relational and hermeneutic, drawing on ontological core concepts of modern education: recognition; summoning to self-activity and Bildsamkeit. Understanding educational leadership, school development and teaching then requires a comparative multi-level approach informed by discursive institutionalism and organization theory, in addition to theorizing leadership and teaching as cultural-historical and critical-hermeneutic activity. Globalisation and contemporary challenges to deliberative democracy also call for rethinking modern nation-state based theorizing of education in a cosmopolitan light. Non-affirmative education theory allows us to understand and promote recognition based democratic citizenship (political, economical and cultural) that respects cultural, ethical and epistemological variations in a globopolitan era. We hope an American-European-Asian comparative dialogue is enhanced by theorizing education with a non-affirmative approach