BOLD v4: A Centralized Bioinformatics Platform for DNA-Based Biodiversity Data.

BOLD, the Barcode of Life Data System, supports the acquisition, storage, validation, analysis, and publication of DNA barcodes, activities requiring the integration of molecular, morphological, and distributional data. Its pivotal role in curating the reference library of DNA barcodes, coupled with its data management and analysis capabilities, makes it a central resource for biodiversity science. It enables rapid, accurate identification of specimens and also reveals patterns of genetic diversity and evolutionary relationships among taxa.Launched in 2005, BOLD has become an increasingly powerful tool for advancing the understanding of planetary biodiversity. It currently hosts 17 million specimen records and 14 million barcodes that provide coverage for more than a million species from every continent and ocean. The platform has the long-term goal of providing a consistent, accurate system for identifying all species of eukaryotes.BOLD's integrated analytical tools, full data lifecycle support, and secure collaboration framework distinguish it from other biodiversity platforms. BOLD v4 brought enhanced data management and analysis capabilities as well as novel functionality for data dissemination and publication. Its next version will include features to strengthen its utility to the research community, governments, industry, and society-at-large.

Quality of life in assisted living facilities for seniors: A descriptive exploratory study.

INTRODUCTION: Promoting individuals' health across different life spans has always been key to a holistic nursing practice. Seniors are a diverse population who go through many physical and mental changes as they age. During the last decade, assisted living facilities (ALFs) have dramatically increased in numbers to provide care and living services in a home-like environment. AIM: The aim of this descriptive exploratory study was to explore the quality of life as perceived by seniors who reside in assisted living facilities (ALFs). DESIGN: This study utilized a descriptive exploratory design to investigate the quality of life of seniors living in ALFs. METHODS: Seventeen residents from two ALFs were interviewed to gather their perspectives on the quality of their lives while living in an ALF. The interviews were conducted by the researcher and were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. RESULTS: Three major themes surfaced from residents' descriptions: 'physical environment', 'social environment' and 'home-like atmosphere'. The quality of life in ALFs was found to be predominantly an outcome of the exchange between the personal capability of residents to adapt to changes and the capacity of the facility to meet residents' diverse needs. PATIENT OR PUBLIC CONTRIBUTION: Participants who discussed their quality of life in ALFs provided profound insights into this aspect of their lives. The findings from this study can potentially enlighten ALF stakeholders and enhance the quality of life for seniors residing in these facilities.

Perceptions of Service Climate in a Canadian healthcare system.

Perceptions of Service Climate in healthcare organizations are important because of their linkages to patient and organizational outcomes. This article presents findings from survey data collected from frontline nurses (n = 275) in Canada who were working in a provincial healthcare system that had recently undergone significant structural changes. The findings indicate that frontline nurses held a neutral view of the Service Climate overall but a strong and negative perception of Managerial Service Practices. The results suggest that some service practices existed in nurses' working environments; however, improvements could be made in the areas of recognizing and rewarding those who consistently provide high levels of quality service. This has implications for not only continuous quality improvement but also for the patient and staff experience in healthcare.

Well-being of professional older adults' caregivers in Alberta's assisted living and long-term care facilities: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: For the care need of older adults, long-term care (LTC) and assisted living (AL) facilities are expanding in Alberta, but little is known about the caregivers' well-being. The purpose of the study was to investigate the physical health conditions, mental and emotional health (MEH), health behaviour, stress levels, quality of life (QOL), and turnover and absenteeism (TAA) among professional caregivers in Alberta's LTC and AL facilities. METHODS: This cross-sectional survey involved 933 conveniently selected caregivers working in Alberta's LTC and AL facilities. Standardised questions were selected from the Canadian Community Health Survey, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, and Short Form-36 QOL survey revalidated and administered to the participants. The new questionnaire was used to assess the caregivers' general health condition (GHC), physical health, health behaviour, stress level, QOL, and TAA. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Cronbach alpha, Pearson's correlation, one-way analysis of variance, and multiple linear regression. RESULTS: Of 1385 surveys sent to 39 facilities, 933 valid responses were received (response rate = 67.4%). The majority of the caregivers were females (90.8%) who were ≥ 35 years (73.6%), worked between 20 to 40 h weekly (67.3%), and were satisfied with their GHC (68.1%). The Registered Nurses had better GHC (mean difference [MD] = 0.18, p = 0.004) and higher TAA than the Health Care Aides (MD = 0.24, p = 0.005). There were correlations between caregivers' TAA and each of MEH (r = 0.398), QOL (r = 0.308), and stress (r = 0.251); p < 0.001. The most significant predictors of TAA were the propensity to quit a workplace or the profession, illness, job stress, and work-related injury, F (5, 551) = 76.62, p < 0.001, adjusted R2 = 0.998. CONCLUSION: Reducing the caregivers' job stressors such as work overload, inflexible schedule, and poor remuneration, and improving their quality of life, health behaviour, and mental, emotional, and physical health conditions may increase their job satisfaction and reduce turnover and absenteeism.

Perceived strategies for reducing staff-turnover and improving well-being and retention among professional caregivers in Alberta's continuing-care facilities: A qualitative study.

This qualitative study explored potential factors that lead to turnover and absenteeism and how to improve well-being and retention among professional older-adult-caregivers in Alberta's assisted living (AL) and long-term care (LTC) facilities. Four hundred and forty-seven participants aged 45-54 years were interviewed through a five-item, content-validated open-ended questionnaire. The questionnaire was self-administered in the English language and the soft copy of their responses was transferred into NVIVO version 12 software for coding. A thematic narrative analysis grounded in the "happy productive worker" theory was completed. The main themes were caregivers' perception of the factors affecting their well-being, absenteeism, and turnover, and caregivers' suggestions on ways to improve their well-being and retention. Participants reported that their professional well-being was suboptimal. They suggested that their employers should provide them with the needed social, psychological, and professional support, improve wages and hire more staff to ameliorate absenteeism and turnover rates.

Meaningful moves: A meaning-based view of nurses' turnover.

Nurses' turnover is a major global problem with significant service and cost implications. Although sizeable research inquiries have been made into the antecedents, the dynamics, and the consequences of nurses' turnover, there is still a lack of fine-grained understanding of the psychological states that reflect the cumulative impact of different antecedents and immediately precede nurses' intentions to quit either from their unit/organization and/or their profession. This paper introduces and develops a meaning-based view of nurses' turnover. This perspective distinguishes between meaning in work (based on the nurses' relationship with their work) and meaning at work (based on the nurses' relationship with their work environment) and explain the implications of high/low meaning in and at work on nurses' turnover. This meaning-based view of nurses' turnover offers nurses, administrators and policy makers a deeper and a more nuanced understanding of turnover and promises more tailored remedies for the turnover problem.

Exploring the role of shift work in the self-reported health and wellbeing of long-term and assisted-living professional caregivers in Alberta, Canada.

BACKGROUND: Numerous studies have found negative outcomes between shift work and physical, emotional, and mental health. Many professional caregivers are required to work shifts outside of the typical 9 am to 5 pm workday. Here, we explore whether shift work affects the health and wellbeing of long-term care (LTC) and assisted-living (AL) professional caregivers. METHOD: The Caring for Professional Caregivers research study was conducted across 39 LTC and AL facilities in Alberta, Canada. Of the 1385 questionnaires distributed, 933 surveys (67.4%) were returned completed. After identifying 49 questions that significantly explained variances in the reported health status of caregivers, we examined whether there was a relationship between these questions and reported health status of caregivers working night shifts. RESULTS: We found significant differences between responses from those working different shifts across six of seven domains, including physical health, health conditions, mental/emotional health, quality of life, and health behaviors. In particular, we found that night shift caregivers were more likely to report incidents of poor heath (i.e., they lacked energy, had regular presences of neck and back pain, regular or infrequent incidents of fatigue or low energy, had difficulty falling asleep, and that they never do exercise) and less likely to report incidents of good health (i.e., did not expect their health to improve, were not satisfied with their health, do not have high self-esteem/were happy, were unhappy with their physical appearance, and do not get a good night's sleep), compared to caregivers working other shifts. CONCLUSIONS: Our study shows that professional caregivers working the night shift experience poor health status, providing further evidence that night shift workers' health is at risk. In particular, caregivers reported negative evaluations of their physical, mental/emotional health, lower ratings of their quality of life, and negative responses to questions concerning whether they engage in healthy behaviors. Our findings can support healthcare stakeholders outline future policies that ensure caregivers are adequately supported so that they provide quality care.

A reference library for Canadian invertebrates with 1.5 million barcodes, voucher specimens, and DNA samples.

The reliable taxonomic identification of organisms through DNA sequence data requires a well parameterized library of curated reference sequences. However, it is estimated that just 15% of described animal species are represented in public sequence repositories. To begin to address this deficiency, we provide DNA barcodes for 1,500,003 animal specimens collected from 23 terrestrial and aquatic ecozones at sites across Canada, a nation that comprises 7% of the planet's land surface. In total, 14 phyla, 43 classes, 163 orders, 1123 families, 6186 genera, and 64,264 Barcode Index Numbers (BINs; a proxy for species) are represented. Species-level taxonomy was available for 38% of the specimens, but higher proportions were assigned to a genus (69.5%) and a family (99.9%). Voucher specimens and DNA extracts are archived at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics where they are available for further research. The corresponding sequence and taxonomic data can be accessed through the Barcode of Life Data System, GenBank, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, and the Global Genome Biodiversity Network Data Portal.

Expedited assessment of terrestrial arthropod diversity by coupling Malaise traps with DNA barcoding 1.

Monitoring changes in terrestrial arthropod communities over space and time requires a dramatic increase in the speed and accuracy of processing samples that cannot be achieved with morphological approaches. The combination of DNA barcoding and Malaise traps allows expedited, comprehensive inventories of species abundance whose cost will rapidly decline as high-throughput sequencing technologies advance. Aside from detailing protocols from specimen sorting to data release, this paper describes their use in a survey of arthropod diversity in a national park that examined 21 194 specimens representing 2255 species. These protocols can support arthropod monitoring programs at regional, national, and continental scales.

Biodiversity inventories in high gear: DNA barcoding facilitates a rapid biotic survey of a temperate nature reserve.

BACKGROUND: Comprehensive biotic surveys, or 'all taxon biodiversity inventories' (ATBI), have traditionally been limited in scale or scope due to the complications surrounding specimen sorting and species identification. To circumvent these issues, several ATBI projects have successfully integrated DNA barcoding into their identification procedures and witnessed acceleration in their surveys and subsequent increase in project scope and scale. The Biodiversity Institute of Ontario partnered with the rare Charitable Research Reserve and delegates of the 6th International Barcode of Life Conference to complete its own rapid, barcode-assisted ATBI of an established land trust in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. NEW INFORMATION: The existing species inventory for the rare Charitable Research Reserve was rapidly expanded by integrating a DNA barcoding workflow with two surveying strategies - a comprehensive sampling scheme over four months, followed by a one-day bioblitz involving international taxonomic experts. The two surveys resulted in 25,287 and 3,502 specimens barcoded, respectively, as well as 127 human observations. This barcoded material, all vouchered at the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario collection, covers 14 phyla, 29 classes, 117 orders, and 531 families of animals, plants, fungi, and lichens. Overall, the ATBI documented 1,102 new species records for the nature reserve, expanding the existing long-term inventory by 49%. In addition, 2,793 distinct Barcode Index Numbers (BINs) were assigned to genus or higher level taxonomy, and represent additional species that will be added once their taxonomy is resolved. For the 3,502 specimens, the collection, sequence analysis, taxonomic assignment, data release and manuscript submission by 100+ co-authors all occurred in less than one week. This demonstrates the speed at which barcode-assisted inventories can be completed and the utility that barcoding provides in minimizing and guiding valuable taxonomic specialist time. The final product is more than a comprehensive biotic inventory - it is also a rich dataset of fine-scale occurrence and sequence data, all archived and cross-linked in the major biodiversity data repositories. This model of rapid generation and dissemination of essential biodiversity data could be followed to conduct regional assessments of biodiversity status and change, and potentially be employed for evaluating progress towards the Aichi Targets of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020.

Assessing the physical service setting: a look at emergency departments.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the attributes of the physical setting that are important for developing a positive service climate within emergency departments and to validate a measure for assessing physical service design. BACKGROUND: The design of the physical setting is an important and contributing factor for creating a service climate in organizations. Service climate is defined as employee perceptions of the practices, procedures, and behaviors that get rewarded, supported, and expected with regard to customer service and customer service quality. There has been research conducted which identifies antecedents within organization that promotes a positive service climate which in turn creates service-oriented behaviors by employees toward clients. The antecedent of the physical setting and its impact on perceptions of service climate has been less commonly explored. METHODS: Using the concept of the physical service setting (which may be defined as aspects of the physical, built environment that facilitate the delivery of quality service), attributes of the physical setting and their relationship with service climate were explored by means of a quantitative paper survey distributed to emergency nurses (n = 180) throughout a province in Canada. RESULTS: The results highlight the validity and reliability of six scales measuring the physical setting and its relation to service. Respondents gave low ratings to the physical setting of their departments, in addition to low ratings of service climate. CONCLUSIONS: Respondents feel that the design of the physical setting in the emergency departments where they work is not conducive to providing quality service to clients. Certain attributes of the physical setting were found to be significant in influencing perceptions of service climate, hence service quality, within the emergency department setting.

Organizational change strategies within healthcare.

This study explores ways in which healthcare organizations can improve their organizational fitness for change using Beer and Nohria's framework of Theory E (concentrating on the economic value of change) and Theory O (concentrating on the organization's long-term capabilities for change). Data were collected from senior leaders/medical directors from health regions in Alberta. The results show that even though there is a tendency for reliance on Theory E change strategies, the respondents demonstrated other preferred approaches to change.

Evaluating building performance in healthcare facilities: an organizational perspective.

PURPOSE: Using the environment as a strategic tool is one of the most cost-effective and enduring approaches for improving public health; however, it is one that requires multiple perspectives. The purpose of this article is to highlight an innovative methodology that has been developed for conducting comprehensive performance evaluations in public sector health facilities in Canada. BACKGROUND: The building performance evaluation methodology described in this paper is a government initiative. The project team developed a comprehensive building evaluation process for all new capital health projects that would respond to the aforementioned need for stakeholders to be more accountable and to better integrate the larger organizational strategy of facilities. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: The Balanced Scorecard, which is a multiparadigmatic, performance-based business framework, serves as the underlying theoretical framework for this initiative. It was applied in the development of the conceptual model entitled the Building Performance Evaluation Scorecard, which provides the following benefits: (1) It illustrates a process to link facilities more effectively to the overall mission and goals of an organization; (2) It is both a measurement and a management system that has the ability to link regional facilities to measures of success and larger business goals; (3) It provides a standardized methodology that ensures consistency in assessing building performance; and (4) It is more comprehensive than traditional building evaluations. CONCLUSION: The methodology presented in this paper is both a measurement and management system that integrates the principles of evidence-based design with the practices of pre- and post-occupancy evaluation. It promotes accountability and continues throughout the life cycle of a project. The advantage of applying this framework is that it engages health organizations in clarifying a vision and strategy for their facilities and helps translate those strategies into action and measurable performance outcomes.