A Longitudinal Study Examining the Effects of COVID-19 on Refugees Four Years Postresettlement in the United States.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many refugee communities faced intensified economic and social challenges. This longitudinal study began three years prior to the COVID pandemic and examined the effects of COVID on refugee outcomes in the United States including employment, health insurance, safety, and discrimination. The study also examined participant perspectives on COVID-related challenges. Participants included 42 refugees who resettled approximately three years prior to the onset of the pandemic. Data were collected at six months, 12 months, two years, three years, and four years postarrival, with the pandemic beginning between years 3 and 4. Linear growth models examined how the pandemic impacted participant outcomes over time. Descriptive analyses examined perspectives regarding pandemic challenges. Results indicated that during the pandemic, employment and safety significantly decreased. Participant concerns regarding the pandemic centered on health, economic challenges, and isolation. Attention to refugee outcomes during the COVID pandemic highlight the need for social work practitioners to promote equitable access to information and social supports, particularly during times of uncertainty.

Thermophysiologies of Jurassic marine crocodylomorphs inferred from the oxygen isotope composition of their tooth apatite.

Teleosauridae and Metriorhynchidae were thalattosuchian crocodylomorph clades that secondarily adapted to marine life and coexisted during the Middle to Late Jurassic. While teleosaurid diversity collapsed at the end of the Jurassic, most likely as a result of a global cooling of the oceans and associated marine regressions, metriorhynchid diversity was largely unaffected, although the fossil record of Thalattosuchia is poor in the Cretaceous. In order to investigate the possible differences in thermophysiologies between these two thalattosuchian lineages, we analysed stable oxygen isotope compositions (expressed as δ18O values) of tooth apatite from metriorhynchid and teleosaurid specimens. We then compared them with the δ18O values of coexisting endo-homeothermic ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, as well as ecto-poikilothermic chondrichthyans and osteichthyans. The distribution of δ18O values suggests that both teleosaurids and metriorhynchids had body temperatures intermediate between those of typical ecto-poikilothermic vertebrates and warm-blooded ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, metriorhynchids being slightly warmer than teleosaurids. We propose that metriorhynchids were able to raise their body temperature above that of the ambient environment by metabolic heat production, as endotherms do, but could not maintain a constant body temperature compared with fully homeothermic ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. Teleosaurids, on the other hand, may have raised their body temperature by mouth-gape basking, as modern crocodylians do, and benefited from the thermal inertia of their large body mass to maintain their body temperature above the ambient one. Endothermy in metriorhynchids might have been a by-product of their ecological adaptations to active pelagic hunting, and it probably allowed them to survive the global cooling of the Late Jurassic, thus explaining the selective extinction affecting Thalattosuchia at the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary. This article is part of the theme issue 'Vertebrate palaeophysiology'.

Transfection of choanoflagellates illuminates their cell biology and the ancestry of animal septins.

As the closest living relatives of animals, choanoflagellates offer unique insights into animal origins and core mechanisms underlying animal cell biology. However, unlike traditional model organisms, such as yeast, flies, and worms, choanoflagellates have been refractory to DNA delivery methods for expressing foreign genes. Here we report a robust method for expressing transgenes in the choanoflagellate Salpingoeca rosetta, overcoming barriers that have previously hampered DNA delivery and expression. To demonstrate how this method accelerates the study of S. rosetta cell biology, we engineered a panel of fluorescent protein markers that illuminate key features of choanoflagellate cells. We then investigated the localization of choanoflagellate septins, a family of GTP-binding cytoskeletal proteins that are hypothesized to regulate multicellular rosette development in S. rosetta. Fluorescently tagged septins localized to the basal poles of S. rosetta single cells and rosettes in a pattern resembling septin localization in animal epithelia. The establishment of transfection in S. rosetta and its application to the study of septins represent critical advances in the use of S. rosetta as an experimental model for investigating choanoflagellate cell biology, core mechanisms underlying animal cell biology, and the origin of animals.

A combinatorial approach to synthetic transcription factor-promoter combinations for yeast strain engineering.

Despite the need for inducible promoters in strain development efforts, the majority of engineering in Saccharomyces cerevisiae continues to rely on a few constitutively active or inducible promoters. Building on advances that use the modular nature of both transcription factors and promoter regions, we have built a library of hybrid promoters that are regulated by a synthetic transcription factor. The hybrid promoters consist of native S. cerevisiae promoters, in which the operator regions have been replaced with sequences that are recognized by the bacterial LexA DNA binding protein. Correspondingly, the synthetic transcription factor (TF) consists of the DNA binding domain of the LexA protein, fused with the human estrogen binding domain and the viral activator domain, VP16. The resulting system with a bacterial DNA binding domain avoids the transcription of native S. cerevisiae genes, and the hybrid promoters can be induced using estradiol, a compound with no detectable impact on S. cerevisiae physiology. Using combinations of one, two or three operator sequence repeats and a set of native S. cerevisiae promoters, we obtained a series of hybrid promoters that can be induced to different levels, using the same synthetic TF and a given estradiol. This set of promoters, in combination with our synthetic TF, has the potential to regulate numerous genes or pathways simultaneously, to multiple desired levels, in a single strain.

Evolved hexose transporter enhances xylose uptake and glucose/xylose co-utilization in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Enhancing xylose utilization has been a major focus in Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain-engineering efforts. The incentive for these studies arises from the need to use all sugars in the typical carbon mixtures that comprise standard renewable plant-biomass-based carbon sources. While major advances have been made in developing utilization pathways, the efficient import of five carbon sugars into the cell remains an important bottleneck in this endeavor. Here we use an engineered S. cerevisiae BY4742 strain, containing an established heterologous xylose utilization pathway, and imposed a laboratory evolution regime with xylose as the sole carbon source. We obtained several evolved strains with improved growth phenotypes and evaluated the best candidate using genome resequencing. We observed remarkably few single nucleotide polymorphisms in the evolved strain, among which we confirmed a single amino acid change in the hexose transporter HXT7 coding sequence to be responsible for the evolved phenotype. The mutant HXT7(F79S) shows improved xylose uptake rates (Vmax = 186.4 ± 20.1 nmol•min(-1)•mg(-1)) that allows the S. cerevisiae strain to show significant growth with xylose as the sole carbon source, as well as partial co-utilization of glucose and xylose in a mixed sugar cultivation.

Palliative care training.

This article discusses a project that explored and addressed the palliative care education needs of staff working in two nursing homes, using a practice development framework. This has enhanced the provision of palliative care to residents in both homes, and provided ongoing training and awareness sessions for staff.

Dying with dementia: the views of family caregivers about quality of life.

OBJECTIVE: To document the views of family caregivers of persons with dementia about quality of life for their relative during the late and terminal stages of the disease, as part of an exploratory study of best quality care and support. METHODS: Fifteen former caregivers (five wives, five husbands, two sons, three daughters) participated in in-depth semistructured interviews. RESULTS: Participants identified three main sets of indicators of quality of life: the physical body, the physical and social environment and treatment with respect and dignity. The constructs 'quality of life' and 'quality of care' tended to be conflated in the experience of caregivers. An important role for caregivers was to interpret and represent the subjective experience of the person with dementia. CONCLUSION: Quality of life needs to be understood from multiple perspectives. Caregivers' views are a central part of this understanding and should be used to inform future research and service development.

Exploring the aetiology and management of venous eczema.

Many older people living at home or in residential settings in the community suffer from inflammation of the skin of the lower legs, or venous eczema. Management of this condition may depend on the background of the professional who carries out the initial assessment. Those with a tissue viability background may plan their care based on an assessment of the patient for suitability for compression, to reverse the venous hypertension which may be a causative factor of the eczema. On the other hand, professionals with a background in dermatology may base initial care plans on the use of emollients and topical steroids to reduce inflammation. This article examines the evidence base for our understanding of what causes venous eczema, questions whether current management of the condition is truly evidence-based, and argues for a more pro-active approach to both assessment and management of venous eczema.

Reintegrating seriously violent and personality-disordered offenders from a supermaximum security institution into the general offender population.

Offenders who have committed serious violent acts while incarcerated are often segregated and housed in supermaximum security facilities. Given the highly restricted regime under which they are detained, it is often difficult to decide if they are safe enough to be discharged. However, there is a need to reintegrate them into the general offender population in a lower security institution for humane, correctional, and financial reasons. We propose a transitional strategy to facilitate their reintegration by way of a maximum-security step-down treatment-oriented facility within which both their security requirements and treatment needs could be adequately met. The present study reports the results of such an approach. More than 80% of the offenders (n = 31) were reintegrated into a lower-security facility without relapsing and being returned to the supermaximum institutions within a follow-up period of 20 months. They also have lower institutional offense rate postreintegration compared to prereintegration.