Mutualisms in a warming world: How increased temperatures affect the outcomes of multi-mutualist interactions.

In nature, plant species simultaneously interact with many different mutualistic partners. These mutualists may influence one another through direct interference or indirectly by competing for shared reward resources or through alteration of plant traits. Together, these mutualists also may combine to affect plant hosts in ways that may not be predictable based on pairwise interactions. Given that the outcome of mutualistic interactions often depends on environmental conditions, multi-mutualist effects on one another, and their plant hosts may be affected by global changes. Here, we grew focal plants under simulated global warming conditions and manipulated the presence of partner mutualists to test how warming affects the outcome of interactions between focal plants and their partners (nitrogen-fixing rhizobia, ant defenders, and pollinators) and interactions among these partner mutualists. We find that warming alters the fitness benefits plants receive from rhizobium resource mutualists but not ant mutualists and that warming altered plant investment in all mutualists. We also find that mutualist partners interact, often by altering the availability of plant-produced rewards that facilitate interactions with other partners. Our work illustrates that global changes may affect some but not all mutualisms, often asymmetrically (e.g., affecting investment in the mutualist partner but not plant host benefits) and also highlights the ubiquity of interactions between the multiple mutualists associating with a shared host.

Exploring the perceptions and acceptability of an integrated lifestyle database for public health research and service commissioning: a qualitative study.

AIM: Public health lifestyle databases at local authority level are currently poorly aligned across the UK. The integration of lifestyle databases at a regional level could provide a rich resource to support research and help inform public health leads and service commissioners in improving service delivery, facilitating decision-making and developing key public health policies. Prior to its implementation, the acceptability of an integrated lifestyle database should be explored. The aim of this study was to consult with public health stakeholders to explore the acceptability of developing and implementing a regional integrated lifestyle database across four key areas of public health: smoking cessation, diet, physical activity and alcohol consumption. METHOD: Qualitative interviews were conducted with public health stakeholders recruited from across the East Midlands region of England. All interviews were conducted using video conferencing software and recorded, transcribed, and analysed using the Framework approach. Sixteen public health stakeholders were purposively identified and invited to participate in interviews. RESULTS: Stakeholders viewed the integrated database as having potential to support research, service development and commissioning decisions. Barriers such as providers' reluctance to reveal their business strategies to rival organisations, cost of setting up and running the proposed database, complex information-sharing and governance were identified. CONCLUSION: An integrated lifestyle database has the potential to support research and service commissioning regionally. However, several barriers were identified that must be addressed prior to the development and implementation of an integrated database.

Opening and closure of intraventricular neuroendoscopic procedures in infants under 1 year of age: institutional technique, case series and review of the literature.

PURPOSE: Intraventricular neuroendoscopic techniques, particularly third ventriculostomy, are employed increasingly in the management of infantile hydrocephalus. However, surgical access to the ventricular cavities is associated with a risk of post-operative cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leak. Here, we describe a structured, multi-layered approach to wound opening and closure which aims to maximise the natural tissue barriers against CSF leakage. We present a series of patients undergoing this technique and subsequently review the literature regarding opening and closure techniques in paediatric intraventricular neuroendoscopic procedures. METHODS: We performed a retrospective case series analysis of patients under 1 year of age who underwent intraventricular neuroendoscopic procedures in a single institution over a 5-year period. Patients were identified from an institutional operative database, and operation notes and clinical records were subsequently reviewed. RESULTS: 28 patients fulfilled the inclusion criteria for this study. The mean age at operation was 9 weeks. 27 patients underwent endoscopic third ventriculostomy whilst 1 underwent endoscopic septostomy, and all patients underwent our structured, multi-layered opening and closure technique. Follow-up ranged from 4 months to 5 years. There were no cases of post-operative CSF leak, infection or wound breakdown. 12 patients remained shunt-free at the last follow-up, with the remaining 16 requiring shunt insertion for progressive hydrocephalus at a mean of 24 days post-operatively. CONCLUSION: Various methods aiming to prevent post-operative CSF leak have been reported in the literature. We propose that our institutional technique may be of benefit in minimising this risk in infants undergoing endoscopic third ventriculostomy and similar intraventricular neuroendoscopic procedures.

Effects of multiple mutualists on plants and their associated arthropod communities.

Although most studies of mutualisms focus on a single partner at a time, host species often associate with multiple mutualist partners simultaneously. Because of potential interactions between mutualists, only studying a single type of mutualism could lead to a biased perspective of mutualism benefit and how mutualisms may scale-up to affect communities. The legume Chamaecrista fasciculata engages in a resource mutualism with nitrogen-fixing rhizobia and also forms symbiotic interactions with ants by providing nectar in exchange for defense against herbivores. Although they provide very different benefits to the plant, both mutualists receive carbon resources from the plant. As a result, these two mutualists are likely to interact, potentially competing for carbon resources or mutually benefitting each other via their positive effects on plant hosts. In a full-factorial field experiment, we explored how rhizobia and ants influence one another, C. fasciculata fitness, and the associated arthropod community. Ants reduced plant allocation to rhizobia, but ants also increased rhizobia contamination of uninoculated plants, suggesting that ants may disperse rhizobia. In turn, rhizobia increased ant abundances, with ants preferentially tending plants with rhizobia. Chamaecrista fasciculata received substantial fitness benefits from rhizobia; in contrast, associating with ants reduced fitness. Additionally, the mutualists interacted to influence the abundance of other arthropods found on the plants. Rhizobia increased arthropod abundances, likely because more nitrogen-rich leaf tissue was more attractive to arthropod herbivores, but ants negated these increases. As these results illustrate, multiple mutualists may interact, influencing each other's abundance and the abundance of other community members.

The relationship between motor proficiency and mental health outcomes in young adults: A test of the Environmental Stress Hypothesis.

Growing evidence has highlighted the importance of motor proficiency in relation to psychosocial outcomes including self-perceived competence in various domains, perceived social support, and emotional areas such as anxiety and depression. The Environmental Stress Hypothesis-elaborated (Cairney, Rigoli, & Piek, 2013) is a proposed theoretical framework for understanding these relationships and recent studies have begun examining parts of this model using child and adolescent populations. However, the extent to which the relationships between these areas exist, persist or change during early adulthood is currently unclear. The current study aimed to investigate the Environmental Stress Hypothesis in a sample of 95 young adults aged 18-30years and examined the mediating role of physical self-worth and perceived social support in the relationship between motor proficiency and internalising symptoms. The McCarron Assessment of Neuromuscular Development (McCarron, 1997) was used to assess motor proficiency, the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) provided a measure of internalising symptoms, and the Physical Self Perceptions Profile (Fox & Corbin, 1989) and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet, Dahlem, Zimet, & Farley, 1988) were used to investigate the possible mediating role of physical self-worth and perceived social support respectively. Potential confounding variables such as age, gender and BMI were also considered in the analysis. Structural Equation Modelling revealed that perceived social support mediated the relationship between motor proficiency and internalising symptoms, whereas, the mediating role of physical self-worth was non-significant. The current results provide support for part of the model pathways as described in the Environmental Stress Hypothesis and suggest an important relationship between motor proficiency and psychosocial outcomes in young adults. Specifically, the results support previous literature regarding the significant role of perceived social support for mental well-being and suggest that an intervention that considers social support may also indirectly influence mental health outcomes in young adults who experience movement difficulties.

Quantifying nonadditive selection caused by indirect ecological effects.

In natural biological communities, species interact with many other species. Multiple species interactions can lead to indirect ecological effects that have important fitness consequences and can cause nonadditive patterns of natural selection. Given that indirect ecological effects are common in nature, nonadditive selection may also be quite common. As a result, quantifying nonadditive selection resulting from indirect ecological effects may be critical for understanding adaptation in natural communities composed of many interacting species. We describe how to quantify the relative strength of nonadditive selection resulting from indirect ecological effects compared to the strength of pairwise selection. We develop a clear method for testing for nonadditive selection caused by indirect ecological effects and consider how it might affect adaptation in multispecies communities. We use two case studies to illustrate how our method can be applied to empirical data sets. Our results suggest that nonadditive selection caused by indirect ecological effects may be common in nature. Our hope is that trait-based approaches, combined with multifactorial experiments, will result in more estimates of nonadditive selection that reveal the relative importance of indirect ecological effects for evolution in a community context.

Regulation of endogenous transmembrane receptors through optogenetic Cry2 clustering.

Transmembrane receptors are the predominant conduit through which cells sense and transduce extracellular information into intracellular biochemical signals. Current methods to control and study receptor function, however, suffer from poor resolution in space and time and often employ receptor overexpression, which can introduce experimental artefacts. We report a genetically encoded approach, termed Clustering Indirectly using Cryptochrome 2 (CLICR), for spatiotemporal control over endogenous transmembrane receptor activation, enabled through the optical regulation of target receptor clustering and downstream signalling using noncovalent interactions with engineered Arabidopsis Cryptochrome 2 (Cry2). CLICR offers a modular platform to enable photocontrol of the clustering of diverse transmembrane receptors including fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR), platelet-derived growth factor receptor (PDGFR) and integrins in multiple cell types including neural stem cells. Furthermore, light-inducible manipulation of endogenous receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) activity can modulate cell polarity and establish phototaxis in fibroblasts. The resulting spatiotemporal control over cellular signalling represents a powerful new optogenetic framework for investigating and controlling cell function and fate.

Clinical practice models in nursing education: implication for students' mobility.

BACKGROUND: In accordance with the process of nursing globalization, issues related to the increasing national and international mobility of student and qualified nurses are currently being debated. Identifying international differences and comparing similarities for mutual understanding, development and better harmonization of clinical training of undergraduate nursing students is recommended. AIMS: The aim of the study was to describe and compare the nature of the nursing clinical practice education models adopted in different countries. METHODS: A qualitative approach involving an expert panel of nurses was adopted. The Nominal Group Technique was employed to develop the initial research instrument for data collection. Eleven members of the UDINE-C network, representing institutions engaged in the process of professional nursing education and research (universities, high schools and clinical institutes), participated. Three data collection rounds were implemented. An analysis of the findings was performed, assuring rigour. RESULTS: Differences and homogeneity are reported and discussed regarding: (a) the clinical learning requirements across countries; (b) the prerequisites and clinical learning process patterns; and (c) the progress and final evaluation of the competencies achieved. CONCLUSIONS: A wider discussion is needed regarding nursing student exchange and internalization of clinical education in placements across European and non-European countries. A clear strategy for nursing education accreditation and harmonization of patterns of organization of clinical training at placements, as well as strategies of student assessment during this training, are recommended. There is also a need to develop international ethical guidelines for undergraduate nursing students gaining international experience.

A rare cause of hypoactive delirium.

A 90-year-old man was transferred to a geriatric evaluation and management (GEM) unit for management of hypoactive delirium following a pneumonia and acute myocardial infarction complicated by septic shock. He was found to have central hypothyroidism and hypoadrenalism leading to the diagnosis of hypopituitarism. Cerebral imaging confirmed this was secondary to a pituitary haemorrhage. This case illustrates the complexity of assessment of delirium and its aetiologies. Hypoactive forms of delirium in particular can be difficult to detect and therefore remain undiagnosed. While this patient's delirium was likely multifactorial, his hypopituitary state explained much of his hypoactivity. His drowsiness, bradycardia, hypotension and electrolyte imbalance provided clinical clues to the diagnosis.

Mutualistic rhizobia reduce plant diversity and alter community composition.

Mutualistic interactions can be just as important to community dynamics as antagonistic species interactions like competition and predation. Because of their large effects on both abiotic and biotic environmental variables, resource mutualisms, in particular, have the potential to influence plant communities. Moreover, the effects of resource mutualists such as nitrogen-fixing rhizobia on diversity and community composition may be more pronounced in nutrient-limited environments. I experimentally manipulated the presence of rhizobia across a nitrogen gradient in early assembling mesocosm communities with identical starting species composition to test how the classic mutualism between nitrogen-fixing rhizobia and their legume host influence diversity and community composition. After harvest, I assessed changes in α-diversity, community composition, ß-diversity, and ecosystem properties such as inorganic nitrogen availability and productivity as a result of rhizobia and nitrogen availability. The presence of rhizobia decreased plant community diversity, increased community convergence (reduced ß-diversity), altered plant community composition, and increased total community productivity. These community-level effects resulted from rhizobia increasing the competitive dominance of their legume host Chamaecrista fasciculata. Moreover, different non-leguminous species responded both negatively and positively to the presence of rhizobia, indicating that rhizobia are driving both inhibitory and potentially facilitative effects in communities. These findings expand our understanding of plant communities by incorporating the effects of positive symbiotic interactions on plant diversity and composition. In particular, rhizobia that specialize on dominant plants may serve as keystone mutualists in terrestrial plant communities, reducing diversity by more than 40%.

The relationship between magical thinking, inferential confusion and obsessive-compulsive symptoms.

Inferential confusion is an under-researched faulty reasoning process in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Based on an overreliance on imagined possibilities, it shares similarities with the extensively researched construct of thought-action fusion (TAF). While TAF has been proposed as a specific subset of the broader construct of magical thinking, the relationship between inferential confusion and magical thinking is unexplored. The present study investigated this relationship, and hypothesised that magical thinking would partially mediate the relationship between inferential confusion and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. A non-clinical sample of 201 participants (M = 34.94, SD = 15.88) were recruited via convenience sampling. Regression analyses found the hypothesised mediating relationship was supported, as magical thinking did partially mediate the relationship between inferential confusion and OC symptoms. Interestingly, inferential confusion had the stronger relationship with OC symptoms in comparison to the other predictor variables. Results suggest that inferential confusion can both directly and indirectly (via magical thinking) impact on OC symptoms. Future studies with clinical samples should further investigate these constructs to determine whether similar patterns emerge, as this may eventually inform which cognitive errors to target in treatment of OCD.

Food label usage and reported difficulty with following a gluten-free diet among individuals in the USA with coeliac disease and those with noncoeliac gluten sensitivity.

BACKGROUND: Individuals with coeliac disease (CD) and those with noncoeliac gluten sensitivity (GS) have reported difficulty following a gluten-free diet (GFD); however, few studies have explored the link between the food label, gluten-free (GF) claims and the difficulty associated with following a GFD. METHODS: The present study surveyed adults with CD (n = 1,583) and adults with GS (n = 797) about their reported difficulty following a GFD, including assessing the role of food labels and GF claims, as well as other factors known to contribute to this difficulty. A two-sample t-test and chi-squared tests for equality of means or proportions were used for the descriptive data and ordinal logistic regression (OLR) was used to model associations. RESULTS: On average, individuals with GS reported slightly more difficulty following the GFD than did participants with CD. According to the OLR results, reading the food label often was significantly associated with less reported difficulty following a GFD, whereas consuming packaged processed foods and looking for GF claims more often were significantly associated with more reported difficulty for both respondent groups. CONCLUSIONS: Individuals with GS may rely more heavily on the GF claim for information about a product's gluten content. Individuals with CD, on the other hand, may be more experienced food label readers and may rely more on the ingredient list for finding GF foods. More studies are needed aiming to understand the role of the food label in facilitating consumers' ability to follow a GFD.

Does the Animal Fun program improve motor performance in children aged 4-6 years?

The Animal Fun program was designed to enhance the motor ability of young children by imitating the movements of animals in a fun, inclusive setting. The efficacy of this program was investigated through a randomized controlled trial using a multivariate nested cohort design. Pre-intervention scores were recorded for 511 children aged 4.83 years to 6.17 years (M=5.42 years, SD=3.58 months). Six control and six intervention schools were compared 6 months later following the intervention, and then again at 18 months after the initial testing when the children were in their first school year. Changes in motor performance were examined using the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency short form. Data were analyzed using multi-level-mixed effects linear regression. A significant Condition×Time interaction was found, F(2,1219)=3.35, p=.035, demonstrating that only the intervention group showed an improvement in motor ability. A significant Sex×Time interaction was also found, F(2,1219)=3.84, p=.022, with boys improving over time, but not girls. These findings have important implications for the efficacy of early intervention of motor skills and understanding the differences in motor performance between boys and girls.

Light-activated porphyrin-based formulations to inactivate bacterial spores.

AIM: The objective of this study was to develop porphyrin-based formulations to inactivate Bacillus spores. We probed the effect of porphyrins alone and in combination with germinants against both Bacillus cereus and Bacillus anthracis spores in the presence of light. METHODS AND RESULTS: We tested the effect of two different porphyrins, amine-modified protoporphyrin IX (PPIX) and meso-tetra (N-methyl-4-pyridyl) porphine tetra tosylate (TMP). Treatment with the porphyrins alone did not significantly influence spore viability. However, when spores were pretreated with a solution containing the germinants, l-alanine and inosine, the spore viability dropped by as much as 4.5 logs in the presence of light. The extent of inactivation depended on the germination conditions and the type of porphyrin used, with TMP being more effective. CONCLUSION: Porphyrins can be used effectively in combination with germinants to inactivate Bacillus spores. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY: The results of this study provide evidence that porphyrins can be used to inactivate Bacillus spores in the presence of germinants and light irradiation. This finding may be general and may be extended to spores of other pathogens.

Longitudinal health surveillance in a cohort of Gulf War veterans 18 years after first exposure to depleted uranium.

As part of a longitudinal surveillance program, 35 members of a larger dynamic cohort of 79 Gulf War I veterans exposed to depleted uranium (DU) during combat underwent clinical evaluation at the Baltimore Veterans Administration Medical Center. Health outcomes and biomonitoring results were obtained to assess effects of DU exposure and determine the need for additional medical intervention. Clinical evaluation included medical and exposure histories, physical examination, and laboratory studies including biomarkers of uranium (U) exposure. Urine collections were obtained for U analysis and to measure renal function parameters. Other laboratory measures included basic hematology and chemistry parameters, blood and plasma U concentrations, and markers of bone metabolism. Urine U (uU) excretion remained above normal in participants with embedded DU fragments, with urine U concentrations ranging from 0.006 to 1.88 µg U/g creatinine. Biomarkers of renal effects showed no apparent evidence of renal functional changes or cellular toxicity related to U body burden. No marked differences in markers of bone formation or bone resorption were observed; however, a statistically significant decrease in levels of serum intact parathyroid hormone and significant increases in urinary calcium and sodium excretion were seen in the high versus the low uU groups. Eighteen years after first exposure, members of this cohort with DU fragments continue to excrete elevated concentrations of uU. No significant evidence of clinically important changes was observed in kidney or bone, the two principal target organs of U. Continued surveillance is prudent, however, due to the ongoing mobilization of uranium from fragment depots.