Changing Rural Communities: An Exploration of Older Adults' Experiences

This research was designed to better understand the perceptions and experiences of older adults who live in small towns and rural areas. In this qualitative study, 13 individuals were interviewed to gain an in-depth understanding of their experiences related to aging, community change, and well-being. Participants ranged in age from 69 to 90. Two articles report the results of this research in Chapters Three and Four. The first article presents the themes that reflect the participants' perceptions of living in changing communities. Data analysis revealed five themes: elders were saddened by losses in their community but were resigned to accept them; diversity among the rural communities affected views about community; dwindling social networks and opportunities left elders feeling isolated and lonely; attachment to place was strong, and commitment to stay on despite concerns for the future. The second article focuses on the daily life experiences, challenges, and strategies of older adults living in rural communities. Four key themes emerged from participants' responses about their lived experiences in communities that have undergone long-term changes: social interactions were limited; sense of social connectedness had weakened; daily life experiences depended on community and individual characteristics; and elders sought to manage challenges. Overall, there was a strong desire to remain in rural areas in spite of challenging conditions, with attachment to place being a factor contributing to the commitment to age in place. Daily experiences and challenges for participants were influenced by both community and individual characteristics. Person-environment relationships served as environmental comfort, maintenance, or distress for rural elders. Participants expressed disappointment in the deteriorating social interactions and social connections in their communities, resulting in feelings of isolation and loneliness. Future research should include a closer examination of the environmental characteristics that serve as resources or stressors for rural elders and of the personal competencies that help older adults adapt to changing environments and manage their lives effectively. These studies help identify specific environmental and personal characteristics that either promote or hinder well-being for elderly living in rural communities

The sensitivity of Euro-Atlantic regimes to model horizontal resolution

There is growing evidence that the atmospheric dynamics of the Euro-Atlantic sector during winter is driven in part by the presence of quasi-persistent regimes. However, general circulation models typically struggle to simulate these with, for example, an overly weakly persistent blocking regime. Previous studies have showed that increased horizontal resolution can improve the regime structure of a model but have so far only considered a single model with only one ensemble member at each resolution, leaving open the possibility that this may be either coincidental or model dependent. We show that the improvement in regime structure due to increased resolution is robust across multiple models with multiple ensemble members. However, while the high-resolution models have notably more tightly clustered data, other aspects of the regimes may not necessarily improve and are also subject to a large amount of sampling variability that typically requires at least three ensemble members to surmount

Enhanced nutrient supply and intestinal microbiota development in very low birth weight infants

BACKGROUND: Promoting a healthy intestinal microbiota may have positive effects on short- and long-term outcomes in very low birth weight (VLBW; BW = 28 weeks) infants and a steeper decrease in relative Staphylococcus abundance in extremely preterm (EP, gestational age <28 weeks) infants as compared to controls. Relative Bifidobacterium abundance tended to increase more in MVP controls compared to the intervention group. Abundance of pathogens was not increased in the intervention group. Higher relative Bifidobacterium abundance was associated with improved weight gain. CONCLUSION: Nutrition may affect richness, diversity, and microbiota composition. There was no increase in relative abundance of pathogens among infants receiving enhanced nutrient supply. Favorable microbiota development was associated with improved weight gain.Peer reviewe

Erratum to: Neuromodulation of lumbosacral spinal networks enables independent stepping after complete paraplegia (Nature Medicine, (2018), 24, 11, (1677-1682), 10.1038/s41591-018-0175-7)

© 2018, Springer Nature America, Inc. In the version of this article originally published, Dimitry G. Sayenko’s affiliations were not correct. The following affiliation for this author was missing: Department of Neurosurgery, Center for Neuroregeneration, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA. This affiliation has been added for the author, and the rest of the affiliations have been renumbered accordingly. The error has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of this article

Neuromodulation of lumbosacral spinal networks enables independent stepping after complete paraplegia

© 2018, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature America, Inc. Spinal sensorimotor networks that are functionally disconnected from the brain because of spinal cord injury (SCI) can be facilitated via epidural electrical stimulation (EES) to restore robust, coordinated motor activity in humans with paralysis1–3. Previously, we reported a clinical case of complete sensorimotor paralysis of the lower extremities in which EES restored the ability to stand and the ability to control step-like activity while side-lying or suspended vertically in a body-weight support system (BWS)4. Since then, dynamic task-specific training in the presence of EES, termed multimodal rehabilitation (MMR), was performed for 43 weeks and resulted in bilateral stepping on a treadmill, independent from trainer assistance or BWS. Additionally, MMR enabled independent stepping over ground while using a front-wheeled walker with trainer assistance at the hips to maintain balance. Furthermore, MMR engaged sensorimotor networks to achieve dynamic performance of standing and stepping. To our knowledge, this is the first report of independent stepping enabled by task-specific training in the presence of EES by a human with complete loss of lower extremity sensorimotor function due to SCI

Euro-Atlantic weather regimes in the PRIMAVERA coupled climate simulations: impact of resolution and mean state biases on model performance

Recently, much attention has been devoted to better understand the internal modes of variability of the climate system. This is particularly important in mid-latitude regions like the North-Atlantic, which is characterized by a large natural variability and is intrinsically difficult to predict. A suitable framework for studying the modes of variability of the atmospheric circulation is to look for recurrent patterns, commonly referred to as Weather Regimes. Each regime is characterized by a specific large-scale atmospheric circulation pattern, thus influencing regional weather and extremes over Europe. The focus of the present paper is the study of the Euro-Atlantic wintertime Weather Regimes in the climate models participating to the PRIMAVERA project. We analyse here the set of coupled historical simulations (hist-1950), which have been performed both at standard and increased resolution, following the HighresMIP protocol. The models’ performance in reproducing the observed Weather Regimes is assessed in terms of different metrics, focussing on systematic biases and on the impact of resolution. We also analyse the connection of the Weather Regimes with the Jet Stream latitude and blocking frequency over the North-Atlantic sector. We find that—for most models—the regime patterns are better represented in the higher resolution version, for all regimes but the NAO-. On the other side, no clear impact of resolution is seen on the regime frequency of occurrence and persistence. Also, for most models, the regimes tend to be more tightly clustered in the increased resolution simulations, more closely resembling the observed ones. However, the horizontal resolution is not the only factor determining the model performance, and we find some evidence that biases in the SSTs and mean geopotential field might also play a role

Planck pre-launch status : The Planck mission

Peer reviewe

Current and emerging developments in subseasonal to decadal prediction

Weather and climate variations of subseasonal to decadal timescales can have enormous social, economic and environmental impacts, making skillful predictions on these timescales a valuable tool for decision makers. As such, there is a growing interest in the scientific, operational and applications communities in developing forecasts to improve our foreknowledge of extreme events. On subseasonal to seasonal (S2S) timescales, these include high-impact meteorological events such as tropical cyclones, extratropical storms, floods, droughts, and heat and cold waves. On seasonal to decadal (S2D) timescales, while the focus remains broadly similar (e.g., on precipitation, surface and upper ocean temperatures and their effects on the probabilities of high-impact meteorological events), understanding the roles of internal and externally-forced variability such as anthropogenic warming in forecasts also becomes important. The S2S and S2D communities share common scientific and technical challenges. These include forecast initialization and ensemble generation; initialization shock and drift; understanding the onset of model systematic errors; bias correct, calibration and forecast quality assessment; model resolution; atmosphere-ocean coupling; sources and expectations for predictability; and linking research, operational forecasting, and end user needs. In September 2018 a coordinated pair of international conferences, framed by the above challenges, was organized jointly by the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the World Weather Research Prograame (WWRP). These conferences surveyed the state of S2S and S2D prediction, ongoing research, and future needs, providing an ideal basis for synthesizing current and emerging developments in these areas that promise to enhance future operational services. This article provides such a synthesis