Developing social competence for preschoolers is an important area for early intervention, especially for young children with emotional and behavioral issues. This single case meta‐analysis focused ...on examining the literature base for social skills interventions for preschoolers. A systematic search of the literature yielded 33 single‐case studies on social skills interventions for preschoolers. Results from the aggregated single case studies using a baseline corrected Tau‐U indicated a moderate to large effect (Baseline Corrected Tau = 0.66). Moderator analysis results showed gender and intervention format were statistically significant moderators for the intervention effect. Limitations and directions for future research were discussed within the context of social‐behavioral research and early intervention in preschool settings.
Practitioner Points
Preschool teachers can be effective social skills intervention implementers with adequate trainings.
Social skills interventions delivered in large group are possibly more effective than those delivered in small group or individually in improving preschoolers' social skills.
Generally speaking, social skills interventions are more effective for preschool girls than boys.
Research suggests that 10%–20% of preschoolers have emotional and behavioral problems that would place them at‐risk for development of emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). Preschool children who ...exhibit early onset of antisocial and externalizing problem behaviors require early social‐behavioral interventions focused on social skills. A scoping review was conducted that identified 33 single‐case research design studies on social skills interventions for preschoolers. Quality indicatiors were used to examine the design quality of the studies included. A total of 19 studies met quality standards with reservation or met standards without reservations. 43 participants in 11 studies conducted by 10 research teams showed evidence to support social skills interventions as effective interventions. The majority of the evaluated studies (97%) reported IOA. These findings contribute to the growing literature base underscoring social skills interventions in early childhood settings.
Practitioner Points
Social skills interventions were effective for preschoolers at risk for emotional behavioral disorders in 11 included single case research studies.
A total of 19 single case research studies had robust research designs according to What Works Clearinghouse standards.
Teachers were effective implementers in 12 included single case research studies.
The type VII protein secretion system (T7SS) of
Staphylococcus aureus
is encoded at the
ess
locus. T7 substrate recognition and protein transport are mediated by EssC, a membrane-bound multidomain ...ATPase. Four EssC sequence variants have been identified across
S. aureus
strains, each accompanied by a specific suite of substrate proteins. The
ess
genes are upregulated during persistent infection, and the secretion system contributes to virulence in disease models. It also plays a key role in intraspecies competition, secreting nuclease and membrane-depolarizing toxins that inhibit the growth of strains lacking neutralizing immunity proteins. A genomic survey indicates that the T7SS is widely conserved across staphylococci and is encoded in clusters that contain diverse arrays of toxin and immunity genes. The presence of genomic islands encoding multiple immunity proteins in species such as
Staphylococcus warneri
that lack the T7SS points to a major role for the secretion system in bacterial antagonism.
Salmonella enterica is an opportunistic pathogen that produces a NiFe-hydrogenase under aerobic conditions. In the present study, genetic engineering approaches were used to facilitate isolation of ...this enzyme, termed Hyd-5. The crystal structure was determined to a resolution of 3.2 Å and the hydro-genase was observed to comprise associated large and small subunits. The structure indicated that His229 from the large subunit was close to the proximal 4Fe-3S cluster in the small subunit. In addition, His229 was observed to lie close to a buried glutamic acid (Glu73), which is conserved in oxygen-tolerant hydrogenases. His229 and Glu73 of the Hyd-5 large subunit were found to be important in both hydrogen oxidation activity and the oxygen-tolerance mechanism. Substitution of His229 or Glu73 with alanine led to a loss in the ability of Hyd-5 to oxidize hydrogen in air. Furthermore, the H229A variant was found to have lost the overpotential requirement for activity that is always observed with oxygen-tolerant NiFe-hydrogenases. It is possible that His229 has a role in stabilizing the super-oxidized form of the proximal cluster in the presence of oxygen, and it is proposed that Glu73could play a supporting role in fine-tuning the chemistry of His229 to enable this function.
Lipoteichoic acid (LTA) is an important cell wall component of Gram-positive bacteria and a promising target for the development of vaccines and antimicrobial compounds against Staphylococcus aureus ...Here we demonstrate that mutations in the conditionally essential ltaS (LTA synthase) gene arise spontaneously in an S. aureus mutant lacking the ClpX chaperone. A wide variety of ltaS mutations were selected, and among these, a substantial portion resulted in premature stop codons and other changes predicted to abolish LtaS synthesis. Consistent with this assumption, the clpX ltaS double mutants did not produce LTA, and genetic analyses confirmed that LTA becomes nonessential in the absence of the ClpX chaperone. In fact, inactivation of ltaS alleviated the severe growth defect conferred by the clpX deletion. Microscopic analyses showed that the absence of ClpX partly alleviates the septum placement defects of an LTA-depleted strain, while other phenotypes typical of LTA-negative S. aureus mutants, including increased cell size and decreased autolytic activity, are retained. In conclusion, our results indicate that LTA has an essential role in septum placement that can be bypassed by inactivating the ClpX chaperone.
Lipoteichoic acid is an essential component of the Staphylococcus aureus cell envelope and an attractive target for the development of vaccines and antimicrobials directed against antibiotic-resistant Gram-positive bacteria such as methicillin-resistant S. aureus and vancomycin-resistant enterococci. In this study, we showed that the lipoteichoic acid polymer is essential for growth of S. aureus only as long as the ClpX chaperone is present in the cell. Our results indicate that lipoteichoic acid and ClpX play opposite roles in a pathway that controls two key cell division processes in S. aureus, namely, septum formation and autolytic activity. The discovery of a novel functional connection in the genetic network that controls cell division in S. aureus may expand the repertoire of possible strategies to identify compounds or compound combinations that kill antibiotic-resistant S. aureus.
Urban growth has had unprecedented consequences on environmental sustainability and anthropogenic activity. The eroding coastlines throughout the world are subject to the massive expansion of urban ...areas and the accountability of sustainable hinterland landscapes. The Golden Horseshoe is Canada’s fastest growing region extending from the Niagara Peninsula and one of the most active economic regions in North America. This paper adopts a combined assessment of land use change and transitions in the coastal stretches of the Greater Golden Horseshoe. Comprising the urban expansion of the region between 1990 and 2011, an integrated assessment was carried out to: (i) detect changes in coastal lines along Lake Ontario; (ii) derive land use changes along the coast through spatial accounting matrices; and (iii) integrate climate change data for a combined assessment of future erosion loci. Visible erosion was found between the decade of 1990 and 2000, while certain areas have shown coastal recession in the southern region. The maximum recession was found to be 30 m, with an increasing urban sprawl of 19.8% between 1990 and 2000. A combined temperature increase of 2 °C over the coming decades brings the increase in urban heat islands leading to the importance of combined land policies to mitigate the common problem of erosion in vulnerable urban stretches and liveability concerning spatial resilience of growing urban regions in North America.
Early social–behavioral intervention that emphasizes social skill training is critical to addressing emotional and behavioral problems in early childhood. In this meta-analysis review, we examined ...all the social skills intervention studies for preschoolers with, or at risk of, emotional and behavioral problems using group designs. This review included 25 studies that met the inclusion criteria. The robust variance estimation method was used to calculate the overall effect size of all the included studies, as this method can count for the pre-existing difference between the experiment and control groups. The included studies yielded an overall effect of 0.54 from the 151 effect sizes that were obtained for the 3484 preschool participants. Curriculum, integration, and treatment fidelity were identified as significant moderators of effects.
National surveys of self-reported substance use and other problem behavior frequently produce different prevalence estimates for substance use and other problem behaviors. There is research ...indicating different aspects of survey methodology may artificially inflate or deflate prevalence rates, and while some research has been done on specific influences, taken separately, little has been done to estimate the cumulative impact of these methodological variations, taken together, on survey estimates. The present study compares methodologies of three studies, Monitoring the Future (MTF), National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), and National Youth Survey Family Study (NYSFS), on how differences in methodology may influence estimated rates of problem behavior, and the extent to which knowledge of the differences, taken in combination, allow prediction of differences in those rates. Differences in survey methodology are predictive of differences in prevalence. Implications for the use of the surveys are considered.
Nucleotide signaling networks are key to facilitate alterations in gene expression, protein function, and enzyme activity in response to diverse stimuli. Cyclic di-adenosine monophosphate (c-di-AMP) ...is an important secondary messenger molecule produced by the human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus and is involved in regulating a number of physiological processes including potassium transport. S. aureus must ensure tight control over its cellular levels as both high levels of the dinucleotide and its absence result in a number of detrimental phenotypes. Here we show that in addition to the membrane-bound Asp-His-His and Asp-His-His-associated (DHH/DHHA1) domain-containing phosphodiesterase (PDE) GdpP, S. aureus produces a second cytoplasmic DHH/DHHA1 PDE Pde2. Although capable of hydrolyzing c-di-AMP, Pde2 preferentially converts linear 5′-phosphadenylyl-adenosine (pApA) to AMP. Using a pde2 mutant strain, pApA was detected for the first time in S. aureus, leading us to speculate that this dinucleotide may have a regulatory role under certain conditions. Moreover, pApA is involved in a feedback inhibition loop that limits GdpP-dependent c-di-AMP hydrolysis. Another protein linked to the regulation of c-di-AMP levels in bacteria is the predicted regulator protein YbbR. Here, it is shown that a ybbR mutant S. aureus strain has increased acid sensitivity that can be bypassed by the acquisition of mutations in a number of genes, including the gene coding for the diadenylate cyclase DacA. We further show that c-di-AMP levels are slightly elevated in the ybbR suppressor strains tested as compared with the wild-type strain. With this, we not only identified a new role for YbbR in acid stress resistance in S. aureus but also provide further insight into how c-di-AMP levels impact acid tolerance in this organism.
Nucleotide-signaling pathways are found in all kingdoms of life and are utilized to coordinate a rapid response to external stimuli. The stringent response alarmones guanosine tetra- (ppGpp) and ...pentaphosphate (pppGpp) control a global response allowing cells to adapt to starvation conditions such as amino acid depletion. One more recently discovered signaling nucleotide is the secondary messenger cyclic diadenosine monophosphate (c-di-AMP). Here, we demonstrate that this signaling nucleotide is essential for the growth of Staphylococcus aureus, and its increased production during late growth phases indicates that c-di-AMP controls processes that are important for the survival of cells in stationary phase. By examining the transcriptional profile of cells with high levels of c-di-AMP, we reveal a significant overlap with a stringent response transcription signature. Examination of the intracellular nucleotide levels under stress conditions provides further evidence that high levels of c-di-AMP lead to an activation of the stringent response through a RelA/SpoT homologue (RSH) enzyme-dependent increase in the (p)ppGpp levels. This activation is shown to be indirect as c-di-AMP does not interact directly with the RSH protein. Our data extend this interconnection further by showing that the S. aureus c-di-AMP phosphodiesterase enzyme GdpP is inhibited in a dose-dependent manner by ppGpp, which itself is not a substrate for this enzyme. Altogether, these findings add a new layer of complexity to our understanding of nucleotide signaling in bacteria as they highlight intricate interconnections between different nucleotide-signaling networks.
Nucleotide-signaling pathways are complex systems that allow bacteria to rapidly respond to stress.
Cyclic diadenosine monophosphate is essential for the growth of S. aureus, and its signaling network is intricately interconnected with the stringent response.
Cross-talk between different nucleotide-signaling networks is more common than previously anticipated.
Bacteria have evolved intricate signaling networks to survive.
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