Linking soil microbial community structure to potential carbon mineralization: A continental scale assessment of reduced tillage

Potential carbon mineralization (Cmin) is a commonly used indicator of soil health, with greater Cmin values interpreted as healthier soil. While Cmin values are typically greater in agricultural soils managed with minimal physical disturbance, the mechanisms driving the increases remain poorly understood. This study assessed bacterial and archaeal community structure and potential microbial drivers of Cmin in soils maintained under various degrees of physical disturbance. Potential carbon mineralization, 16S rRNA sequences, and soil characterization data were collected as part of the North American Project to Evaluate Soil Health Measurements (NAPESHM). Results showed that type of cropping system, intensity of physical disturbance, and soil pH influenced microbial sensitivity to physical disturbance. Furthermore, 28% of amplicon sequence variants (ASVs), which were important in modeling Cmin, were enriched under soils managed with minimal physical disturbance. Sequences identified as enriched under minimal disturbance and important for modeling Cmin, were linked to organisms which could produce extracellular polymeric substances and contained metabolic strategies suited for tolerating environmental stressors. Understanding how physical disturbance shapes microbial communities across climates and inherent soil properties and drives changes in Cmin provides the context necessary to evaluate management impacts on standardized measures of soil microbial activity

Changes in muscle coordination patterns induced by exposure to a viscous force field

none4siBackground: Robotic neurorehabilitation aims at promoting the recovery of lost function after neurological injury by leveraging strategies of motor learning. One important aspect of the rehabilitation process is the improvement of muscle coordination patterns, which can be drastically altered after stroke. However, it is not fully understood if and how robotic therapy can address these deficits. The aim of our study was to find how muscle coordination, analyzed from the perspective of motor modules, could change during motor adaptation to a dynamic environment generated by a haptic interface. Methods: In our experiment we employed the traditional paradigm of exposure to a viscous force field to subjects that grasped the handle of an actuated joystick during a reaching movement (participants moved directly forward and back by 30 c m). EMG signals of ten muscles of the tested arm were recorded. We extracted motor modules from the pooled EMG data of all subjects and analyzed the muscle coordination patterns. Results: We found that the participants reacted by using a coordination strategy that could be explained by a change in the activation of motor modules used during free motion and by two complementary modules. These complementary modules aggregated changes in muscle coordination, and evolved throughout the experiment eventually maintaining a comparable structure until the late phase of re-adaptation. Conclusions: This result suggests that motor adaptation induced by the interaction with a robotic device can lead to changes in the muscle coordination patterns of the subject.noneOscari, Fabio; Finetto, Christian; Kautz, Steve A.; Rosati, GiulioOscari, Fabio; Finetto, Christian; Kautz, Steve A.; Rosati, Giuli

Effects of stroke severity and training duration on locomotor recovery after stroke: a pilot study

Background. Locomotor training using partial body weight– supported treadmill (BWST) walking has been widely investigated for people after stroke, yet there remains a lack of evidence concerning the optimal training duration and the effect of locomotor impairment severity. Previous protocols have not emphasized the transfer of locomotor skills from the BWST environment to overground. Objectives. To assess the feasibility of a program combining locomotor training using BWST with task-specific overground training and to obtain pilot data on the effects of severity and training duration on recovery of locomotion. Methods. Seven adults with chronic poststroke hemiparesis and gait speed less than 0.8 m/s were recruited to participate in a 12-week (36 session) locomotor training program. Each session comprised 20 to 30 minutes of training using BWST with manual assistance, followed by 10 to 15 minutes of overground training to transfer the skills trained in the BWST environment. Gait speed was the primary outcome measure. Results. Six out of the 7 enrolled individuals completed the intervention program; 1 was withdrawn due to transportation difficulties affecting compliance with the training schedule. Four of the 6 participants had a functionally significant improvement in walking speed after 36 sessions, defined as having achieved a 0.4 m/s gait speed or greater for those with initial severe gait speed impairment ( Conclusions. A locomotor training program combining walking using BWST and manual assistance with overground practice is feasible for people with chronic poststroke hemiparesis and moderate or severe gait speed impairment. This intervention shows promise for achieving functionally significant improvements in walking speed

Different aspects of hand grip performance associated with structural connectivity of distinct sensorimotor networks in chronic stroke

Abstract Knowledge regarding the neural origins of distinct upper extremity impairments may guide the choice of interventions to target neural structures responsible for specific impairments. This cross‐sectional pilot study investigated whether different brain networks explain distinct aspects of hand grip performance in stroke survivors. In 22 chronic stroke survivors, hand grip performance was characterized as grip strength, reaction, relaxation times, and control of grip force magnitude and direction. In addition, their brain structural connectomes were constructed from diffusion tensor MRI. Prominent networks were identified based on a two‐step factor analysis using the number of streamlines among brain regions relevant to sensorimotor function. We used regression models to estimate the predictive value of sensorimotor network connectivity for hand grip performance measures while controlling for stroke lesion volumes. Each hand grip performance measure correlated with the connectivity of distinct brain sensorimotor networks. These results suggest that different brain networks may be responsible for different aspects of hand grip performance, which leads to varying clinical presentations of upper extremity impairment following stroke. Understanding the brain network correlates for different hand grip performances may facilitate the development of personalized rehabilitation interventions to directly target the responsible brain network for specific impairments in individual patients, thus improving outcomes

Additional file 2 of Longitudinal trends in produce purchasing behavior: a descriptive study of transaction level data from loyalty card households

Additional file 2: Supplemental Table 1. Baseline1 and Rate of Change2 in Percent Produce Purchased by Age and Income Groups

Additional file 1 of Longitudinal trends in produce purchasing behavior: a descriptive study of transaction level data from loyalty card households

Additional file 1: Table 1. STROBE-nut: An extension of the STROBE statement for nutritional epidemiology

ContactMap: organizing communication in a social desktop

Modern work is a highly social process, offering many cues for people to organize communication and access information. Shared physical workplaces provide natural support for tasks such as (a) social reminding about communication commitments and keeping track of collaborators and friends, and (b) social data mining of local expertise for advice and information. However, many people now collaborate remotely using tools such as email and voicemail. Our field studies show that these tools do not provide the social cues needed for group work processes. In part, this is because the tools are organized around messages, rather than people. In response to this problem, we created ContactMap, a system that makes people the primary unit of interaction. ContactMap provides a structured social desktop representation of users' important contacts that directly supports social reminding and social data mining. We conducted an empirical evaluation of ContactMap, comparing it with traditional email systems, on tasks suggested by our fieldwork. Users performed better with ContactMap and preferred ContactMap for the majority of these tasks. We discuss future enhancements of our system and the implications of these results for future communication interfaces and for theories of mediated communication