The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of an immersive learning (IL) course in which university students planned, developed, and implemented a 2-week day camp for children with ...disabilities. To assess perceptions and associated dispositional constructs, university students completed reflection activities before, during, and post camp (immediate, and 3 years after). The results indicate perceptions were impacted both during the IL course and across several timepoints after the completion of course. Comfort interacting with people with disabilities was the primary construct maintained 3-years after the camp, and results indicate the camp experience impacted career choices. Implications and areas for future research are discussed.
This case study explores the experiences of one early childhood special educator. Through multiple interviews the following questions were examined: (a) what are the challenges faced by an early ...childhood special educator? and (b) what are the experiences and needs in teaching a student with autism spectrum disorder? The findings of this study included reexamining more comprehensive pre-service teacher preparation and in-service work. Key challenges were managing behaviors of students with autism, as well as the multidisciplinary nature of working with families and paraprofessionals, and how these factors precipitated role overload and isolation. The findings of this study are consistent with previous literature. They outline many of the same challenges experienced by other educators in the desire for more multidisciplinary support and direct exposure in working with students and families. These core issues are foundational in the need for more comprehensive pre-service preparation in early childhood special education. The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.
Manipulatives are a commonly used intervention that provide visual instruction known to promote mathematical learning; however, the impact on students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is less ...understood. Improving mathematical procedural understanding is important for students with ASD given these skills can help increase access to more advanced mathematics and future opportunities (e.g., postsecondary education). This study expanded upon previous research and compared the ability of students with ASD to solve mathematical problems when using concrete and app-based manipulatives. A single-case alternating treatment design was used to explore differences in steps completed independently per minute (i.e., efficiency) and accuracy when using both types of manipulatives. Two participants were more efficient when using the app-based manipulative while one was more efficient with the concrete manipulative. Similar to previous research, all participants indicated they preferred the app-based condition. Limitations and future research are included.
Atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition has been shown to decrease plant species richness along regional deposition gradients in Europe and in experimental manipulations. However, the general response of ...species richness to N deposition across different vegetation types, soil conditions, and climates remains largely unknown even though responses may be contingent on these environmental factors. We assessed the effect of N deposition on herbaceous richness for 15,136 forest, woodland, shrubland, and grassland sites across the continental United States, to address how edaphic and climatic conditions altered vulnerability to this stressor. In our dataset, with N deposition ranging from 1 to 19 kg N·ha−1·y−1, we found a unimodal relationship; richness increased at low deposition levels and decreased above 8.7 and 13.4 kg N·ha−1·y−1 in open and closed-canopy vegetation, respectively. N deposition exceeded critical loads for loss of plant species richness in 24% of 15,136 sites examined nationwide. There were negative relationships between species richness and N deposition in 36% of 44 community gradients. Vulnerability to N deposition was consistently higher in more acidic soils whereas the moderating roles of temperature and precipitation varied across scales. We demonstrate here that negative relationships between N deposition and species richness are common, albeit not universal, and that fine-scale processes can moderate vegetation responses to N deposition. Our results highlight the importance of contingent factors when estimating ecosystem vulnerability to N deposition and suggest that N deposition is affecting species richness in forested and nonforested systems across much of the continental United States.
Executive functions refer to a set of higher-order cognitive processes involved in the control and organization of information to serve goal-directed behaviors. Skills in executive functioning are ...developed throughout childhood and adolescence and have been shown to be predictive of academic achievement. The coordination of these complex processes is critically dependent on brain maturation and connectivity, including key neurodevelopmental processes like myelination and synaptogenesis. Among other factors, research highlights the influential effect of nutrition and diet on these neurodevelopmental processes, which may impact executive function performance in healthy and deficient populations. This review considers the research to date on the role of key nutrients that have been identified for executive function development and their underlying neurophysiological processes in school-aged children.
Guidelines recommend the use of nutritional support during hospital stays for medical patients (patients not critically ill and not undergoing surgical procedures) at risk of malnutrition. However, ...the supporting evidence for this recommendation is insufficient, and there is growing concern about the possible negative effects of nutritional therapy during acute illness on recovery and clinical outcomes. Our aim was thus to test the hypothesis that protocol-guided individualised nutritional support to reach protein and caloric goals reduces the risk of adverse clinical outcomes in medical inpatients at nutritional risk.
The Effect of early nutritional support on Frailty, Functional Outcomes, and Recovery of malnourished medical inpatients Trial (EFFORT) is a pragmatic, investigator-initiated, open-label, multicentre study. We recruited medical patients at nutritional risk (nutritional risk screening 2002 NRS 2002 score ≥3 points) and with an expected length of hospital stay of more than 4 days from eight Swiss hospitals. These participants were randomly assigned (1:1) to receive either protocol-guided individualised nutritional support to reach protein and caloric goals (intervention group) or standard hospital food (control group). Randomisation was done with variable block sizes and stratification according to study site and severity of malnutrition using an interactive web-response system. In the intervention group, individualised nutritional support goals were defined by specialist dietitians and nutritional support was initiated no later than 48 h after admission. Patients in the control group received no dietary consultation. The composite primary endpoint was any adverse clinical outcome defined as all-cause mortality, admission to intensive care, non-elective hospital readmission, major complications, and decline in functional status at 30 days, and it was measured in all randomised patients who completed the trial. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT02517476.
5015 patients were screened, and 2088 were recruited and monitored between April 1, 2014, and Feb 28, 2018. 1050 patients were assigned to the intervention group and 1038 to the control group. 60 patients withdrew consent during the course of the trial (35 in the intervention group and 25 in the control group). During the hospital stay, caloric goals were reached in 800 (79%) and protein goals in 770 (76%) of 1015 patients in the intervention group. By 30 days, 232 (23%) patients in the intervention group experienced an adverse clinical outcome, compared with 272 (27%) of 1013 patients in the control group (adjusted odds ratio OR 0·79 95% CI 0·64–0·97, p=0·023). By day 30, 73 7% patients had died in the intervention group compared with 100 10% patients in the control group (adjusted OR 0·65 0·47–0·91, p=0·011). There was no difference in the proportion of patients who experienced side-effects from nutritional support between the intervention and the control group (162 16% vs 145 14%, adjusted OR 1·16 0·90–1·51, p=0·26).
In medical inpatients at nutritional risk, the use of individualised nutritional support during the hospital stay improved important clinical outcomes, including survival, compared with standard hospital food. These findings strongly support the concept of systematically screening medical inpatients on hospital admission regarding nutritional risk, independent of their medical condition, followed by a nutritional assessment and introduction of individualised nutritional support in patients at risk.
The Swiss National Science Foundation and the Research Council of the Kantonsspital Aarau, Switzerland.
Critical loads are thresholds of atmospheric deposition below which harmful ecological effects do not occur. Because lichens are sensitive to atmospheric deposition, lichen-based critical loads can ...foreshadow changes of other forest processes. Here, we derive critical loads of nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S) deposition for continental US and coastal Alaskan forests, based on nationally consistent lichen community surveys at 8855 sites. Across the eastern and western US ranges of 459 lichen species, each species' realized optimum was the N or S atmospheric deposition value at which it most frequently occurred. The mean of optima for all species at a site, weighted by their abundances, was defined as a community “airscore” indicative of species’ collective responses to atmospheric deposition. To determine critical loads for adverse community compositional shifts, we then modeled changes in airscores as a function of deposition, climate and forest habitat predictors in nonparametric multiplicative regression. Critical loads, indicative of initial shifts from pollution-sensitive toward pollution-tolerant species, occurred at 1.5 kg N ha−1 y−1 and 2.7 kg S ha−1 y−1. Importantly, these critical loads remain constant under any climate regime nationwide, suggesting both simplicity and nationwide applicability. Our models predict that preventing excess N deposition of just 0.2–2.0 kg ha−1 y−1 in the next century could offset the detrimental effects of predicted climate warming on lichen communities. Because excess deposition and climate warming both harm the most ecologically influential species, keeping conditions below critical loads would sustain both forest ecosystem functioning and climate resilience.
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•Lichens had sensitive critical loads (1.5 and 2.7 kg ha−1 y−1 for N and S).•Keeping deposition below critical loads avoids a shift to novel communities.•Reducing non-greenhouse gas emissions can offset detrimental climate-change effects.
Critical loads (CLs) define maximum atmospheric deposition levels apparently preventative of ecosystem harm. We present first nitrogen CLs for northwestern North America’s maritime forests. Using ...multiple linear regression, we related epiphytic-macrolichen community composition to: 1) wet deposition from the National Atmospheric Deposition Program, 2) wet, dry, and total N deposition from the Communities Multi-Scale Air Quality model, and 3) ambient particulate N from Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE). Sensitive species declines of 20–40% were associated with CLs of 1–4 and 3–9
kg
N
ha
−1
y
−1 in wet and total deposition. CLs increased with precipitation across the landscape, presumably from dilution or leaching of depositional N. Tight linear correlation between lichen and IMPROVE data suggests a simple screening tool for CL exceedance in US Class I areas. The total N model replicated several US and European lichen CLs and may therefore be helpful in estimating other temperate-forest lichen CLs.
Lichen-based critical loads for N deposition in western Oregon and Washington forests ranged from 3 to 9
kg
ha
−1
y
−1, increasing with mean annual precipitation.
•We develop lichen bioindicators of N pollution in dry forests of the Pacific Northwest.•Lichen communities are positively related to monitored ambient N concentrations.•Lichen N concentrations are ...positively related to monitored ambient N concentrations.•Lichen communities are naturally more eutrophic in climates with more moisture stress.•Lichen communities indicate climate regimes independently of air quality.
Biomonitoring can provide cost-effective and practical information about the distribution of nitrogen (N) deposition, particularly in regions with complex topography and sparse instrumented monitoring sites. Because of their unique biology, lichens are very sensitive bioindicators of air quality. Lichens lack a cuticle to control absorption or leaching of nutrients and they dynamically concentrate nutrients roughly in proportion to the abundance in the atmosphere. As N deposition increases, nitrogen-loving eutrophic lichens become dominant over oligotrophic lichens that thrive in nutrient-poor habitats. We capitalize on these characteristics to develop two lichen-based indicators of air-borne and depositional N for interior forested mountain ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest and calibrate them with N concentration measured in PM2.5 at 12 IMPROVE air quality monitoring sites in the study area. The two lichen indices and peak frequencies of individual species exhibited continuous relationships with inorganic N pollution throughout the range of N in ambient PM2.5, suggesting that the designation of a critical level or critical load is somewhat arbitrary because at any level above background, some species are likely to experience adverse impacts. The concentration of N in PM2.5 near the city of Spokane, Washington was the lowest measured at an instrumented monitoring site near known N pollution sources. This level, 0.37μg/m3/year, served as a critical level, corresponding to a concentration of 1.02% N in the lichen Letharia vulpina, which is similar to the upper end of background lichen N concentrations measured elsewhere in the western United States. Based on this level, we estimate critical loads to be 1.54 and 2.51kg/ha/year of through-fall dissolved inorganic N deposition for lichen communities and lichen N concentration, respectively. We map estimated fine-particulate (PM2.5) N in ambient air based on lichen community and lichen N concentration indices to identify hotspots in the region. We also develop and map an independent lichen community-based bioclimatic index, which is strongly related to gradients in moisture availability and temperature variability. Lichen communities in the driest climates were more eutrophic than those in wetter climates at the same levels of N air pollution.
Clinical studies have proven antiviral effectiveness of treatment with a Designed Ankyrin Repeat Protein (DARPin) specific against the spike protein of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus ...type 2 (SARS-CoV-2). More information on transport mechanisms and efficiency to the site of action is desirable. Transepithelial migration through air-liquid interface (ALI) cultures of reconstituted human bronchial epithelia (HBE) was assessed by Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assays and Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy for different DARPin designs in comparison to a monoclonal antibody. Antiviral efficacy against authentic SARS-CoV-2, applied apically on HBE, was investigated based on viral titers and genome equivalents, after administration of therapeutic candidates on the basal side. Transepithelial translocation of all DARPin candidates and the monoclonal antibody was efficient and dose dependent. Small DARPins and the antibody migrated more efficiently than larger molecules, indicating different transport mechanisms involved. Microscopic analyses support this, demonstrating passive paracellular transport of smaller DARPins and transcellular migration of the larger molecules. All therapeutic candidates applied to the basal side of HBE conferred effective protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection. In summary, we have shown that DARPins specific against SARS-CoV-2 translocate across intact airway epithelia and confer effective protection against infection and viral replication.
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