Norms clarification has been identified as an effective component of college student drinking interventions, prompting research on norms clarification as a single-component intervention known as ...Personalized Normative Feedback (PNF). Previous reviews have examined PNF in combination with other components but not as a stand-alone intervention.
To investigate the degree to which computer-delivered stand-alone personalized normative feedback interventions reduce alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harms among college students and to compare gender-neutral and gender-specific PNF.
Electronic databases were searched systematically through November 2014. Reference lists were reviewed manually and forward and backward searches were conducted.
Outcome studies that compared computer-delivered, stand-alone PNF intervention with an assessment only, attention-matched, or active treatment control and reported alcohol use and harms among college students.
Between-group effect sizes were calculated as the standardized mean difference in change scores between treatment and control groups divided by pooled standard deviation. Within-group effect sizes were calculated as the raw mean difference between baseline and follow-up divided by pooled within-groups standard deviation.
Eight studies (13 interventions) with a total of 2,050 participants were included. Compared to control participants, students who received gender-neutral (dbetween = 0.291, 95% CI 0.159, 0.423) and gender-specific PNF (dbetween = 0.284, 95% CI 0.117, 0.451) reported greater reductions in drinking from baseline to follow-up. Students who received gender-neutral PNF reported 3.027 (95% CI 2.171, 3.882) fewer drinks per week at first follow-up and gender-specific PNF reported 3.089 (95% CI 0.992, 5.186) fewer drinks. Intervention effects were small for harms (dbetween = 0.157, 95% CI 0.037, 0.278).
Computer-delivered PNF is an effective stand-alone approach for reducing college student drinking and has a small impact on alcohol-related harms. Effects are small but clinically relevant when considered from a public health perspective. Additional research is needed to examine computer-delivered, stand-alone PNF as a population-level prevention program.
Workplace coaching has experienced a dramatic rise in popularity over the past decade and is one of the fastest growing performance-enhancing interventions used by modern organizations. Yet, despite ...its popularity, workplace coaching has not been the subject of much empirical research and a true
science of coaching
has yet to be developed. The purpose of this research was to update prior meta-analyzes that investigated the impact of coaching on organizational outcomes and to provide recommendations for how the field needs to evolve. Results indicated that, consistent with prior meta-analyzes, workplace coaching is effective in achieving positive organizational outcomes. The effects of several moderators were also investigated. Finally, we discuss the results in terms of recommendations for future directions that we believe will establish and advance the
science of coaching
.
Reflections on shared cognition Cannon-Bowers, Janis A.; Salas, Eduardo
Journal of organizational behavior,
March 2001, Letnik:
22, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The purpose of this paper is to highlight several fundamental questions that remain regarding shared cognition: (1) What must be 'shared'? (2) What does 'shared' mean? (3) How should 'shared' be ...measured? and (4) What outcomes do we expect shared cognition to affect? A general and integrative description of these questions is provided. In addition, the value of shared cognition is discussed along with recommendations for future research.
Thiopeptide pyridine synthases catalyze a multistep reaction involving a unique and nonspontaneous intramolecular aza-4 + 2 cycloaddition between two dehydroalanines to forge a trisubstituted ...pyridine core. We discovered that the in vitro activity of pyridine synthases from the thiocillin and thiomuracin pathways are significantly enhanced by general base catalysis and that this broadly expands the enzymes substrate tolerance. Remarkably, TbtD is competent to perform an intermolecular cyclization in addition to its cognate intramolecular reaction, underscoring its versatility as a biocatalyst. These data provide evidence that pyridine synthases use a two-site substrate recognition model to engage and process their substrates.
Bacteria have evolved the ability to produce a wide range of structurally complex natural products historically called “secondary” metabolites. Although some of these compounds have been identified ...as bacterial communication cues, more frequently natural products are scrutinized for antibiotic activities that are relevant to human health. However, there has been little regard for how these compounds might otherwise impact the physiology of neighboring microbes present in complex communities. Bacillus cereus secretes molecules that activate expression of biofilm genes in Bacillus subtilis . Here, we use imaging mass spectrometry to identify the thiocillins, a group of thiazolyl peptide antibiotics, as biofilm matrix-inducing compounds produced by B. cereus . We found that thiocillin increased the population of matrix-producing B. subtilis cells and that this activity could be abolished by multiple structural alterations. Importantly, a mutation that eliminated thiocillin’s antibiotic activity did not affect its ability to induce biofilm gene expression in B. subtilis. We go on to show that biofilm induction appears to be a general phenomenon of multiple structurally diverse thiazolyl peptides and use this activity to confirm the presence of thiazolyl peptide gene clusters in other bacterial species. Our results indicate that the roles of secondary metabolites initially identified as antibiotics may have more complex effects—acting not only as killing agents, but also as specific modulators of microbial cellular phenotypes.
Significance Thiazolyl peptides are known antibiotics produced by diverse bacterial taxa. It has been believed that antibiotics are deployed by bacteria as weapons, providing them with an evolutionary advantage over other microbes. We show here that these weapons can also act as chemical tools that elicit biofilm production in the model bacterium Bacillus subtilis . Importantly, the biofilm-inducing (and therefore signaling) properties of these compounds are independent of their killing activity. We go on to use this biofilm-inducing activity to identify and confirm the presence of thiazolyl peptide gene clusters in other bacteria. These results indicate that thiazolyl peptides, and potentially other antibiotics, have the ability to alter bacterial behavior in ways important both to the environment and to human health.
The power of ribosomes has increasingly been harnessed for the synthesis and selection of molecular libraries. Technologies, such as phage display, yeast display, and mRNA display, effectively couple ...genotype to phenotype for the molecular evolution of high affinity epitopes for many therapeutic targets. Genetic code expansion is central to the success of these technologies, allowing researchers to surpass the intrinsic capabilities of the ribosome and access new, genetically encoded materials for these selections. Here, we review techniques for the chemical expansion of genetically encoded libraries, their abilities and limits, and opportunities for further development. Importantly, we also discuss methods and metrics used to assess the efficiency of modification and library diversity with these new techniques.
Thiocillins from Bacillus cereus ATCC 14579 are members of the well-known thiazolyl peptide class of natural product antibiotics, the biosynthesis of which has recently been shown to proceed via ...post-translational modification of ribosomally encoded precursor peptides. It has long been hypothesized that the final step of thiazolyl peptide biosynthesis involves a formal 4 + 2 cycloaddition between two dehydroalanines, a unique transformation that had eluded enzymatic characterization. Here we demonstrate that TclM, a single enzyme from the thiocillin biosynthetic pathway, catalyzes this transformation. To facilitate characterization of this new class of enzyme, we have developed a combined chemical and biological route to the complex peptide substrate, relying on chemical synthesis of a modified C-terminal fragment and coupling to a 38-residue leader peptide by means of native chemical ligation (NCL). This strategy, combined with active enzyme, provides a new chemoenzymatic route to this promising class of antibiotics.
Visible light catalysis allows the efficient construction of single electron transfer (SET) redox cycles that result in minimal formation of byproducts and proceed under exogenous control of a ...removable light source. The O-glycosylation of thioglycosides via visible light photoredox chemistry is reported. Mechanistic studies show that the reaction is fully light responsive and support a mechanism involving decomposition of an oxidatively generated sulfur radical cation and propagation via reduction of the thiol side product.
PaaA is a RiPP enzyme that catalyzes the transformation of two glutamic acid residues within a substrate peptide into the bicyclic core of Pantocin A. Here, for the first time, we use mRNA display ...techniques to understand RiPP enzyme–substrate interactions to illuminate PaaA substrate recognition. Additionally, our data revealed insights into the enzymatic timing of glutamic acid modification. The technique developed is quite sensitive and a significant advancement over current RiPP studies and opens the door to enzyme modified mRNA display libraries for natural product-like inhibitor pans.
Purpose
To evaluate the independent effect of frailty, as measured by the Risk Analysis Index-Administrative (RAI-A) for postoperative complications and discharge outcomes following brain tumor ...resection (BTR) in a large multi-center analysis.
Methods
Patients undergoing BTR were queried from the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSIQP) for the years 2015 to 2019. Multivariable logistic regression was performed to evaluate the independent associations between frailty tools (age, 5-factor modified frailty score mFI-5, and RAI-A) on postoperative complications and discharge outcomes.
Results
We identified 30,951 patients who underwent craniotomy for BTR; the median age of our study sample was 59 (IQR 47–68) years old and 47.8% of patients were male. Overall, increasing RAI-A score, in an overall stepwise fashion, was associated with increasing risk of adverse outcomes including in-hospital mortality, non-routine discharge, major complications, Clavien-Dindo Grade IV complication, and extended length of stay. Multivariable regression analysis (adjusting for age, sex, BMI, non-elective surgery status, race, and ethnicity) demonstrated that RAI-A was an independent predictor for worse BTR outcomes. The RAI-A tiers 41–45 (1.2% cohort) and > 45 (0.3% cohort) were ~ 4 (Odds Ratio OR: 4.3, 95% CI: 2.1–8.9) and ~ 9 (OR: 9.5, 95% CI: 3.9–22.9) times more likely to have in-hospital mortality compared to RAI-A 0–20 (34% cohort).
Conclusions and Relevance
Increasing preoperative frailty as measured by the RAI-A score is independently associated with increased risk of complications and adverse discharge outcomes after BTR. The RAI-A may help providers present better preoperative risk assessment for patients and families weighing the risks and benefits of potential BTR.