ADHD and Attention Problems in Children With and Without Spina Bifida

Objectives: To identify differences in the diagnosis and treatment of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) between typically developing children and children with spina bifida. Method: Sixty-eight children with spina bifida and 68 demographically matched, typically developing children participated in a larger, longitudinal study. Rates of maternal, paternal, and teacher reports of attention problems, as well as rates of maternal reports of ADHD diagnosis, diagnosing provider, pharmaceutical treatment, mental health treatment, and academic accommodations were obtained at 5 time points over a period of 8 years and were compared across groups. Results: Children with spina bifida were more likely to have an ADHD diagnosis and attention problems. Attention problems and ADHD diagnoses were first reported at earlier time points for children with spina bifida than typically developing children. Among children with ADHD or attention problems, children with spina bifida were more likely to be treated with medication, but they were just as likely to use mental health services and receive resource services at school. Conclusions: Children with spina bifida were diagnosed with ADHD and identified as having attention problems more frequently and at an earlier age. This finding could be due to earlier symptom development, greater parental awareness, or more contact with providers. Among those with ADHD or attention problems, stimulant medication was more likely to be prescribed to children with spina bifida, despite research that suggests it may not be as beneficial for them. Further research on the effectiveness of ADHD pharmacological treatment for children with spina bifida is recommended

What Does Weight Have to Do with It? Parent Perceptions of Weight and Pain in a Pediatric Chronic Pain Population

Tailored pain management strategies are urgently needed for youth with co-occurring chronic pain and obesity; however, prior to developing such strategies, we need to understand parent perspectives on weight in the context of pediatric chronic pain. Participants in this study included 233 parents of patients presenting to a multidisciplinary pediatric chronic pain clinic. Parents completed a brief survey prior to their child\u27s initial appointment; questions addressed parents\u27 perceptions of their child\u27s weight, and their perceptions of multiple aspects of the relationship between their child\u27s weight and chronic pain. The majority (64%) of parents of youth with obesity accurately rated their child\u27s weight; this group of parents was also more concerned (p \u3c 0.05) about their child\u27s weight than parents of youth with a healthy weight. However, the majority of parents of youth with obesity did not think their child\u27s weight contributed to his/her pain, or that weight was relevant to their child\u27s pain or pain treatment. Overall, only half of all parents saw discussions of weight, nutrition, and physical activity as important to treating their child\u27s pain. Results support the need for addressing parents\u27 perceptions of their child\u27s weight status, and educating parents about the relationship between excessive weight and chronic pain

Decomposability of soil organic matter over time: the Soil Incubation Database (SIDb, version 1.0) and guidance for incubation procedures

The magnitude of carbon (C) loss to the atmosphere via microbial decomposition is a function of the amount of C stored in soils, the quality of the organic matter, and physical, chemical, and biological factors that comprise the environment for decomposition. The decomposability of C is commonly assessed by laboratory soil incubation studies that measure greenhouse gases mineralized from soils under controlled conditions. Here, we introduce the Soil Incubation Database (SIDb) version 1.0, a compilation of time series data from incubations, structured into a new, publicly available, open-access database of C flux (carbon dioxide, CO2, or methane, CH4). In addition, the SIDb project also provides a platform for the development of tools for reading and analysis of incubation data as well as documentation for future use and development. In addition to introducing SIDb, we provide reporting guidance for database entry and the required variables that incubation studies need at minimum to be included in SIDb. A key application of this synthesis effort is to better characterize soil C processes in Earth system models, which will in turn reduce our uncertainty in predicting the response of soil C decomposition to a changing climate. We demonstrate a framework to fit curves to a number of incubation studies from diverse ecosystems, depths, and organic matter content using a built-in model development module that integrates SIDb with the existing SoilR package to estimate soil C pools from time series data. The database will help bridge the gap between point location measurements, which are commonly used in incubation studies, and global remote-sensed data or data products derived from models aimed at assessing global-scale rates of decomposition and C turnover. The SIDb version 1.0 is archived and publicly available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3871263 (Sierra et al., 2020), and the database is managed under a version-controlled system and centrally stored in GitHub (https://github.com/SoilBGC-Datashare/sidb, last access: 26 June 2020)

Reviews and syntheses: The promise of big diverse soil data, moving current practices towards future potential

In the age of big data, soil data are more available and richer than ever, but – outside of a few large soil survey resources – they remain largely unusable for informing soil management and understanding Earth system processes beyond the original study. Data science has promised a fully reusable research pipeline where data from past studies are used to contextualize new findings and reanalyzed for new insight. Yet synthesis projects encounter challenges at all steps of the data reuse pipeline, including unavailable data, labor-intensive transcription of datasets, incomplete metadata, and a lack of communication between collaborators. Here, using insights from a diversity of soil, data, and climate scientists, we summarize current practices in soil data synthesis across all stages of database creation: availability, input, harmonization, curation, and publication. We then suggest new soil-focused semantic tools to improve existing data pipelines, such as ontologies, vocabulary lists, and community practices. Our goal is to provide the soil data community with an overview of current practices in soil data and where we need to go to fully leverage big data to solve soil problems in the next century

An open-source database for the synthesis of soil radiocarbon data: International Soil Radiocarbon Database (ISRaD) version 1.0

Radiocarbon is a critical constraint on our estimates of the timescales of soil carbon cycling that can aid in identifying mechanisms of carbon stabilization and destabilization and improve the forecast of soil carbon response to management or environmental change. Despite the wealth of soil radiocarbon data that have been reported over the past 75 years, the ability to apply these data to global-scale questions is limited by our capacity to synthesize and compare measurements generated using a variety of methods. Here, we present the International Soil Radiocarbon Database (ISRaD; http://soilradiocarbon.org, last access: 16 December 2019), an open-source archive of soil data that include reported measurements from bulk soils, distinct soil carbon pools isolated in the laboratory by a variety of soil fractionation methods, samples of soil gas or water collected interstitially from within an intact soil profile, CO2 gas isolated from laboratory soil incubations, and fluxes collected in situ from a soil profile. The core of ISRaD is a relational database structured around individual datasets (entries) and organized hierarchically to report soil radiocarbon data, measured at different physical and temporal scales as well as other soil or environmental properties that may also be measured and may assist with interpretation and context. Anyone may contribute their own data to the database by entering it into the ISRaD template and subjecting it to quality assurance protocols. ISRaD can be accessed through (1) a web-based interface, (2) an R package (ISRaD), or (3) direct access to code and data through the GitHub repository, which hosts both code and data. The design of ISRaD allows for participants to become directly involved in the management, design, and application of ISRaD data. The synthesized dataset is available in two forms: the original data as reported by the authors of the datasets and an enhanced dataset that includes ancillary geospatial data calculated within the ISRaD framework. ISRaD also provides data management tools in the ISRaD-R package that provide a starting point for data analysis; as an open-source project, the broader soil community is invited and encouraged to add data, tools, and ideas for improvement. As a whole, ISRaD provides resources to aid our evaluation of soil dynamics across a range of spatial and temporal scales. The ISRaD v1.0 dataset is archived and freely available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2613911 (Lawrence et al., 2019).Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry; European Research CouncilEuropean Research Council (ERC) [695101]; USGS Land Change Science mission area; US Department of AgricultureUnited States Department of Agriculture (USDA) [2018-67003-27935]; US Geological Survey Powell Center for the working group on Soil Carbon Storage and FeedbacksOpen access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Lung Cancer: Underlying Pathophysiology and New Therapeutic Modalities

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer are major lung diseases affecting millions worldwide. Both diseases have links to cigarette smoking and exert a considerable societal burden. People suffering from COPD are at higher risk of developing lung cancer than those without, and are more susceptible to poor outcomes after diagnosis and treatment. Lung cancer and COPD are closely associated, possibly sharing common traits such as an underlying genetic predisposition, epithelial and endothelial cell plasticity, dysfunctional inflammatory mechanisms including the deposition of excessive extracellular matrix, angiogenesis, susceptibility to DNA damage and cellular mutagenesis. In fact, COPD could be the driving factor for lung cancer, providing a conducive environment that propagates its evolution. In the early stages of smoking, body defences provide a combative immune/oxidative response and DNA repair mechanisms are likely to subdue these changes to a certain extent; however, in patients with COPD with lung cancer the consequences could be devastating, potentially contributing to slower postoperative recovery after lung resection and increased resistance to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Vital to the development of new-targeted therapies is an in-depth understanding of various molecular mechanisms that are associated with both pathologies. In this comprehensive review, we provide a detailed overview of possible underlying factors that link COPD and lung cancer, and current therapeutic advances from both human and preclinical animal models that can effectively mitigate this unholy relationship

Does Being Gritty Aid in Adjustment to College?

Objective: Although college adjustment has been previously predicted by multiple cognitive variables, there is a lack of insight concerning noncognitive variables. One of these noncognitive variables is grit, defined as the combination of perseverance and passion for long-term goals (Duckworth et al., 2007). The objective of this study is to examine how grit is related to overall adjustment to college. Method: Sixty-seven undergraduate students participated in this study. The participants completed an electronic survey. This study examined data regarding demographics, grit, adjustment to college, and mental health symptoms. Results: Bivariate correlations revealed that there was a significant relationship between grit and anxiety, depression, stress, and adjustment to college. A linear multiple regression identified grit as a significant predictor of attachment to college, over and above anxiety. Conclusions: The results of this study show that grit significantly predicts students’ attachment to college, above and beyond mental health symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress. Given the negative implications of dropout for both students and institutions, interventions to increase grit should be used to bolster retention.https://digitalcommons.assumption.edu/psychology-poster/1001/thumbnail.jp

Special Considerations in the Systematic Psychosocial Screening of Youth with Type 1 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE: The American Diabetes Association recommends psychosocial screening for individuals with type 1 diabetes (T1D). The purpose of this study is to present (a) several high priority decisions that program developers may encounter when building a new psychosocial screening program and (b) both the screening development process and results of one mental health screening program within a multidisciplinary pediatric diabetes clinic, with particular emphasis on parent-youth screening agreement and changes to elevation status over time. METHODS: Youth with T1D ages 12-17 and parents of youth with T1D ages 8-17 were administered mental health screeners as a part of outpatient diabetes visits over a 1-year period. Youth depression and anxiety were screened using self- and parent proxy-report versions of the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS). RESULTS: Youth (n = 154) and parents (n = 211) completed mental health screening measures, such that 228 youth were screened. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) between youth- and parent proxy-report agreement were good for the measures of depression (ICC = .787) and anxiety (ICC = .781), with parent proxy-reports significantly higher than youth self-reports of anxiety (p \u3c .01). Of the 93 youth with follow-up screening data and no youth- or parent proxy-reported elevation on the initial screener, 16.1% had at least one elevated screener within 1 year. CONCLUSIONS: Findings indicate that questions of who to screen and how often to screen may deserve increased scrutiny, as this screening program\u27s data suggest that there may be benefit to obtaining both youth- and parent report more often than annually