Older women’s health outcomes during retirement

The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to examine selected health outcomes in women aged 55 years and older during retirement and to determine whether a relationship exists between women’s health outcomes and aspects of retirement, including status (part or full-time retirement), type (voluntary or forced retirement), and timing (early-prior to age 65-or on-time). This study was guided by the Roy’s Adaptation Model, with health viewed as adaptations to the focal stimulus of retirement within the model’s four adaptive modes: physiological, self-concept, role function, and interdependence. Eighty women aged 55 years and older who were retired at least part-time from working outside the home were recruited using convenience sampling from senior and community settings within five southeastern US states (North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Arkansas, and Louisiana). The average age of participants was 66 years. The average retirement age was 62 years. The majority of women were white, married, non-caregivers, and resided in rural areas. Health outcomes and health conditions were collected using self-report questionnaires by participants. Health outcomes included physical function, self-assessed health, functionality, and social support. Health conditions included chronic conditions such as diabetes, chronic heart disease, and memory impairment. Differences in the proportion of women grouped by retirement type, timing, or status were examined for measures in each of the four adaptation modes. Retirement group differences were compared using one-way ANOVA and Chi-square tests. Women’s retirement experiences were explored using open-ended questions. This study generated new knowledge regarding how retirement status, type, and timing relate to essential health outcomes for the fast-growing population of women retirees in the United States. Type of retirement was found to be significantly associated with variables representing all four RAM adaptive modes, with forced retirement showing poorer health outcomes compared to voluntary retirement. Retirement type may have important implications in multiple health-related aspects of what is often a lengthy two-decade retirement period for women. A greater proportion of forced retirees reported diabetes, stroke, and memory loss compared to voluntary retirees in this study. This is significant due to connections previously described in the literature between these health conditions. Forced retirement type was related to lower self-rated health, lower functionality, less participation in volunteer activities, and less emotional support from others. Women of minority race/ethnicity in this study were more likely to have forced retirements than white women. Forced retirement can create an economically-challenging situation that impacts health through a myriad of pathways including lowering self-esteem, decreasing quality of life, and decreasing health-seeking behaviors. The ability to better predict and address health changes in older women will aid in preserving their safety and independence and help offer the best quality of life for as long as possible. This new knowledge reveals useful information for clinicians and has important implications that may lead to early interventions for this population to improve health outcomes during retirement. In addition, labor or corporate employers should consider strategies that include greater job flexibility options to increase employee retention and re-evaluate current policies when planning women’s retirement

Early college high school leadership: a closer look

The Early College High School Initiative (ECHSI) was a bold experiment with the goal of providing greater access to higher education for traditionally underrepresented groups of students. Since 2002, the early college high school (ECHS) concept has resulted in the creation or restructuring of more than 280 schools nationwide. Students who attend ECHS have the opportunity to earn a diploma and a college degree during the four or five years that they attend high school. The schools are typically located on the campus of a college or university. North Carolina’s first ECHS programs opened in 2004. Today, there are 83 ECHS programs in North Carolina, more than any other state. Early college high schools are among the state’s top performing schools, with above average graduation rates and high levels of student success in high school and college courses. While there is a growing body of research related to the Early College High School Initiative, much of the existing literature pertains to the school design and implementation process, the evaluation and success of Early College High School programs, the perceptions of students and teachers, and the unique culture of these schools. Few studies have focused on the leadership of the Early College High School. The purpose of this study was to examine the leadership practices of early college high school principals. Five principals from five different Early College High Schools were included in this multi-site case study. In addition, each principal selected one of his/her colleagues who was also included in the study. The goal of my research was to understand how the early college high school principal balances the various demands of the position while serving as the only administrator in his/her school. In addition, I sought to identify the practices, strategies and behaviors the principals used which they and/or their colleagues believed to positively impact the graduation rate and/or student achievement at the school. The results of this study found that Early College High School principals were student-centered leaders who demonstrated several characteristics of servant leadership. They worked collaboratively with teachers and others to monitor and support students. These principals had high expectations, focused on building relationships, empowered teachers to take on leadership roles, and communicated a clear vision for their schools

Laura Kephart’s Letter to Leonard Kephart May, 20 1946

This edition was created based on the letter from Laura (L.M. on envelope) Kephart to her son, Leonard Kephart. The casual nature of this letter leads the transcriber to believe this was one of many regular correspondences between mother and son. In the letter, Laura discusses an article that Leonard had written, wondering about how much he had been paid to do the work described; her recent infatuation with crossword puzzles and their igniting of her curiosity with language, which she followed by creating entertaining tongue twisters; a production of a play depicting the founding of Cornell University; brief updates on family members Manton and Lucy –there is a strange paragraph that seems to be in reference to the railroad strike of May 1946 during her section about Lucy, but the content of the paragraph is perplexing, to say the least – and a tragic car wreck from a few days prior, which resulted in injury and death to two pedestrians and damage to businesses

A review of Ireland's waterbirds, with emphasis on wintering migrants and reference to H5N1 avian influenza

Ireland is characterised by its diversity and large abundance of wetlands, making it attractive to a wide variety of waterbirds throughout the year. This paper presents an overview of Ireland's waterbirds, including ecological factors relevant to the potential introduction, maintenance, transmission and spread of infectious agents, including the H5N1 avian influenza virus, in Ireland. Particular emphasis is placed on five groups of wintering migrants (dabbling and sieving wildfowl, grazing wildfowl, diving wildfowl, waders and gulls), noting that the H5N1 avian influenza virus has mainly been isolated from this subset of waterbirds. Ireland's wetlands are visited during the spring and summer months by hundreds of thousands of waterbirds which come to breed, predominantly from southern latitudes, and during the autumn and winter by waterbirds which come from a variety of origins (predominantly northern latitudes), and which are widely distributed and often congregate in mixed-species flocks. The distribution, feeding habits and social interactions of the five groups of wintering migrants are considered in detail. Throughout Ireland, there is interaction between different waterbird populations (breeding migrants, the wintering migrants and resident waterbird populations). There is also a regular and complex pattern of movement between feeding and roosting areas, and between wetlands and farmland. These interactions are likely to facilitate the rapid transmission and spread of the H5N1 avian influenza virus, if it were present in Ireland

Structural and biochemical characterization of the exopolysaccharide deacetylase Agd3 required for Aspergillus fumigatus biofilm formation

The exopolysaccharide galactosaminogalactan (GAG) is an important virulence factor of the fungal pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus. Deletion of a gene encoding a putative deacetylase, Agd3, leads to defects in GAG deacetylation, biofilm formation, and virulence. Here, we show that Agd3 deacetylates GAG in a metal-dependent manner, and is the founding member of carbohydrate esterase family CE18. The active site is formed by four catalytic motifs that are essential for activity. The structure of Agd3 includes an elongated substrate-binding cleft formed by a carbohydrate binding module (CBM) that is the founding member of CBM family 87. Agd3 homologues are encoded in previously unidentified putative bacterial exopolysaccharide biosynthetic operons and in other fungal genomes. The exopolysaccharide galactosaminogalactan (GAG) is an important virulence factor of the fungal pathogen Aspergillus fumigatus. Here, the authors study an A. fumigatus enzyme that deacetylates GAG in a metal-dependent manner and constitutes a founding member of a new carbohydrate esterase family.Bio-organic Synthesi

Genetic diversity and cryptic population re-establishment: management implications for the Bojer's skink (Gongylomorphus bojerii)

Understanding genetic structure and diversity underpins the management of isolated populations. Small populations confined to islands may require effective genetic management for population persistence due to inbreeding and reduced genetic diversity. Endemic to the offshore islands of mainland Mauritius, the Bojer’s skink (Gongylomorphus bojerii) has previously been managed as two genetic units due to divergence between populations to the north and south-east. In 2009, a few individuals were discovered on the south-eastern island Ile de la Passe (IDLP), an island within its former range where the species was believed to have gone extinct. This island was later supplemented with translocations from other south-eastern islands, but individual geographic origin and the genetic consequences of these translocations remains unknown. Demographic population history and translocation events were reconstructed using a suite of microsatellite markers and the mitochondrial DNA cytochrome b gene, assessing two northern and three south-eastern populations to infer the geographic origin of the IDLP individuals, and to assess the population’s genetic diversity and structure. Although IDLP showed significant differentiation from all other populations, all analyses indicated a south-eastern origin, possibly founded by a single gravid female. Subsequent translocations have so far failed to ameliorate IDLP’s genetic diversity. In addition, admixture analysis was used to track translocation and gene-flow in IDLP. We recommend using additional translocations from other south-eastern islands to further genetically support IDLP. Our study highlights the need to clarify cryptic population structure and utilise post-translocation genetic monitoring among similarly managed populations, particularly endangered island populations

High sample throughput genotyping for estimating C-lineage introgression in the dark honeybee: an accurate and cost-effective SNP-based tool

The natural distribution of the honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) has been changed by humans in recent decades to such an extent that the formerly widest-spread European subspecies, Apis mellifera mellifera, is threatened by extinction through introgression from highly divergent commercial strains in large tracts of its range. Conservation efforts for A. m. mellifera are underway in multiple European countries requiring reliable and cost-efficient molecular tools to identify purebred colonies. Here, we developed four ancestry-informative SNP assays for high sample throughput genotyping using the iPLEX Mass Array system. Our customized assays were tested on DNA from individual and pooled, haploid and diploid honeybee samples extracted from different tissues using a diverse range of protocols. The assays had a high genotyping success rate and yielded accurate genotypes. Performance assessed against whole-genome data showed that individual assays behaved well, although the most accurate introgression estimates were obtained for the four assays combined (117 SNPs). The best compromise between accuracy and genotyping costs was achieved when combining two assays (62 SNPs). We provide a ready-to-use cost-effective tool for accurate molecular identification and estimation oinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Deterministic processes structure bacterial genetic communities across an urban landscape

Land-use change is predicted to act as a driver of zoonotic disease emergence through human exposure to novel microbial diversity, but evidence for the effects of environmental change on microbial communities in vertebrates is lacking. We sample wild birds at 99 wildlife-livestock-human interfaces across Nairobi, Kenya, and use whole genome sequencing to characterise bacterial genes known to be carried on mobile genetic elements (MGEs) within avian-borne Escherichia coli (n=241). By modelling the diversity of bacterial genes encoding virulence and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) against ecological and anthropogenic forms of urban environmental change, we demonstrate that communities of avian-borne bacterial genes are shaped by the assemblage of co-existing avian, livestock and human communities, and the habitat within which they exist. In showing that non-random processes structure bacterial genetic communities in urban wildlife, these findings suggest that it should be possible to forecast the effects of urban land-use change on microbial diversity

Identifying lineage effects when controlling for population structure improves power in bacterial association studies

Bacteria pose unique challenges for genome-wide association studies because of strong structuring into distinct strains and substantial linkage disequilibrium across the genome1,2. Although methods developed for human studies can correct for strain structure3,4, this risks considerable loss-of-power because genetic differences between strains often contribute substantial phenotypic variability5. Here, we propose a new method that captures lineage-level associations even when locus-specific associations cannot be fine-mapped. We demonstrate its ability to detect genes and genetic variants underlying resistance to 17 antimicrobials in 3,144 isolates from four taxonomically diverse clonal and recombining bacteria: Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae. Strong selection, recombination and penetrance confer high power to recover known antimicrobial resistance mechanisms and reveal a candidate association between the outer membrane porin nmpC and cefazolin resistance in E. coli. Hence, our method pinpoints locus-specific effects where possible and boosts power by detecting lineage-level differences when fine-mapping is intractable