This scoping literature review aims to identify how virtual visitation (VV) is currently being used in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), with a specific focus on the experiences and ...perceptions of parents and neonatal nurses, as well as research gaps.
Guided by the Joanna Briggs Institute method for conducting a scoping literature review, the PubMed, CINAHL, and Web of Science databases were utilized to identify articles answering the research questions. Gray literature was also identified through ProQuest, and the home websites of the two largest commercial virtual visitation vendors were explored for additional relevant information.
Following a comprehensive search, 12 articles were identified for inclusion in this scoping literature review. Overall, parents report positive experiences with VV, welcoming this technology in connecting to their infant. The experiences and perceptions of NICU nurses regarding the addition of VV to their practice environment are generally negative. With a paucity of research exploring the questions guiding this scoping review, research gaps are evident.
Virtual visitation in the NICU aids in connecting parents to their hospitalized infants. However, published literature reveals significant differences in the experiences and perceptions of parents and neonatal nurses for the use of VV in the NICU. Further research is warranted to understand the impact of VV in this specialized environment fully.
The admission of an infant to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) presents specialized barriers to the maternal-infant bonding (MIB) process. Virtual visitation (VV) provides a mother with the ...opportunity to have continual access to her hospitalized infant via a one-way live Web camera. While increasingly used in the NICU, VV remains a novel concept. The objective of this study was to introduce a conceptual model that incorporates the use of VV into the NICU MIB process. Adapted from the Model of Mother-Infant Bonding After Antenatal HIV Diagnosis, a newly developed model of MIB using VV as a bonding enhancement tool is offered. A Model of NICU Maternal-Infant Bonding Incorporating Virtual Visitation presents the NICU bonding process in a chronological manner, with 5 primary propositions and an explanation of their related themes. Virtual visitation is introduced into the bonding process and is shown to act as a moderated variable. A Model of NICU Maternal-Infant Bonding Incorporating Virtual Visitation introduces VV as a tool to enhance the MIB process that occurs in the NICU. The model provides the basis for the development of a research program to examine the multiple potential effects of VV in the NICU.
“What is the structure of thought?” is as central a question as any in cognitive science. A classic answer to this question has appealed to a Language of Thought (LoT). We point to emerging research ...from disparate branches of the field that supports the LoT hypothesis, but also uncovers diversity in LoTs across cognitive systems, stages of development, and species. Our letter formulates open research questions for cognitive science concerning the varieties of rules and representations that underwrite various LoT‐based systems and how these variations can help researchers taxonomize cognitive systems.
Major ecological realignments are already occurring in response to climate change. To be successful, conservation strategies now need to account for geographical patterns in traits sensitive to ...climate change, as well as climate threats to species-level diversity. As part of an effort to provide such information, we conducted a climate vulnerability assessment that included all anadromous Pacific salmon and steelhead (Oncorhynchus spp.) population units listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. Using an expert-based scoring system, we ranked 20 attributes for the 28 listed units and 5 additional units. Attributes captured biological sensitivity, or the strength of linkages between each listing unit and the present climate; climate exposure, or the magnitude of projected change in local environmental conditions; and adaptive capacity, or the ability to modify phenotypes to cope with new climatic conditions. Each listing unit was then assigned one of four vulnerability categories. Units ranked most vulnerable overall were Chinook (O. tshawytscha) in the California Central Valley, coho (O. kisutch) in California and southern Oregon, sockeye (O. nerka) in the Snake River Basin, and spring-run Chinook in the interior Columbia and Willamette River Basins. We identified units with similar vulnerability profiles using a hierarchical cluster analysis. Life history characteristics, especially freshwater and estuary residence times, interplayed with gradations in exposure from south to north and from coastal to interior regions to generate landscape-level patterns within each species. Nearly all listing units faced high exposures to projected increases in stream temperature, sea surface temperature, and ocean acidification, but other aspects of exposure peaked in particular regions. Anthropogenic factors, especially migration barriers, habitat degradation, and hatchery influence, have reduced the adaptive capacity of most steelhead and salmon populations. Enhancing adaptive capacity is essential to mitigate for the increasing threat of climate change. Collectively, these results provide a framework to support recovery planning that considers climate impacts on the majority of West Coast anadromous salmonids.
While the roles of rpoS(Bb) and RpoS-dependent genes have been studied extensively within the mammal, the contribution of the RpoS regulon to the tick-phase of the Borrelia burgdorferi enzootic cycle ...has not been examined. Herein, we demonstrate that RpoS-dependent gene expression is prerequisite for the transmission of spirochetes by feeding nymphs. RpoS-deficient organisms are confined to the midgut lumen where they transform into an unusual morphotype (round bodies) during the later stages of the blood meal. We show that round body formation is rapidly reversible, and in vitro appears to be attributable, in part, to reduced levels of Coenzyme A disulfide reductase, which among other functions, provides NAD+ for glycolysis. Our data suggest that spirochetes default to an RpoS-independent program for round body formation upon sensing that the energetics for transmission are unfavorable.
CYP2C9 encodes a cytochrome P450 enzyme responsible for metabolizing up to 15% of small molecule drugs, and CYP2C9 variants can alter the safety and efficacy of these therapeutics. In particular, the ...anti-coagulant warfarin is prescribed to over 15 million people annually and polymorphisms in CYP2C9 can affect individual drug response and lead to an increased risk of hemorrhage. We developed click-seq, a pooled yeast-based activity assay, to test thousands of variants. Using click-seq, we measured the activity of 6,142 missense variants in yeast. We also measured the steady-state cellular abundance of 6,370 missense variants in a human cell line by using variant abundance by massively parallel sequencing (VAMP-seq). These data revealed that almost two-thirds of CYP2C9 variants showed decreased activity and that protein abundance accounted for half of the variation in CYP2C9 function. We also measured activity scores for 319 previously unannotated human variants, many of which may have clinical relevance.
The c2d Spitzer Legacy project obtained images and photometry with both IRAC and MIPS instruments for five large, nearby molecular clouds. Three of the clouds were also mapped in dust continuum ...emission at 1.1 mm, and optical spectroscopy has been obtained for some clouds. This paper combines information drawn from studies of individual clouds into a combined and updated statistical analysis of star-formation rates and efficiencies, numbers and lifetimes for spectral energy distribution (SED) classes, and clustering properties. Current star-formation efficiencies range from 3% to 6%; if star formation continues at current rates for 10 Myr, efficiencies could reach 15-30%. Star-formation rates and rates per unit area vary from cloud to cloud; taken together, the five clouds are producing about 260 M of stars per Myr. The star-formation surface density is more than an order of magnitude larger than would be predicted from the Kennicutt relation used in extragalactic studies, reflecting the fact that those relations apply to larger scales, where more diffuse matter is included in the gas surface density. Measured against the dense gas probed by the maps of dust continuum emission, the efficiencies are much higher, with stellar masses similar to masses of dense gas, and the current stock of dense cores would be exhausted in 1.8 Myr on average. Nonetheless, star formation is still slow compared to that expected in a free-fall time, even in the dense cores. The derived lifetime for the Class I phase is 0.54 Myr, considerably longer than some estimates. Similarly, the lifetime for the Class 0 SED class, 0.16 Myr, with the notable exception of the Ophiuchus cloud, is longer than early estimates. If photometry is corrected for estimated extinction before calculating class indicators, the lifetimes drop to 0.44 Myr for Class I and to 0.10 for Class 0. These lifetimes assume a continuous flow through the Class II phase and should be considered median lifetimes or half-lives. Star formation is highly concentrated to regions of high extinction, and the youngest objects are very strongly associated with dense cores. The great majority (90%) of young stars lie within loose clusters with at least 35 members and a stellar density of 1 M pc-3. Accretion at the sound speed from an isothermal sphere over the lifetime derived for the Class I phase could build a star of about 0.25 M , given an efficiency of 0.3. Building larger mass stars by using higher mass accretion rates could be problematic, as our data confirm and aggravate the 'luminosity problem' for protostars. At a given T bol, the values for L bol are mostly less than predicted by standard infall models and scatter over several orders of magnitude. These results strongly suggest that accretion is time variable, with prolonged periods of very low accretion. Based on a very simple model and this sample of sources, half the mass of a star would be accreted during only 7% of the Class I lifetime, as represented by the eight most luminous objects.
Dysfunctional bioenergetics has emerged as a key feature in many chronic pathologies such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. This has led to the mitochondrial paradigm in which it has been ...proposed that mtDNA sequence variation contributes to disease susceptibility. In the present study we show a novel animal model of mtDNA polymorphisms, the MNX (mitochondrial-nuclear exchange) mouse, in which the mtDNA from the C3H/HeN mouse has been inserted on to the C57/BL6 nuclear background and vice versa to test this concept. Our data show a major contribution of the C57/BL6 mtDNA to the susceptibility to the pathological stress of cardiac volume overload which is independent of the nuclear background. Mitochondria harbouring the C57/BL6J mtDNA generate more ROS (reactive oxygen species) and have a higher mitochondrial membrane potential relative to those with C3H/HeN mtDNA, independent of nuclear background. We propose this is the primary mechanism associated with increased bioenergetic dysfunction in response to volume overload. In summary, these studies support the 'mitochondrial paradigm' for the development of disease susceptibility, and show that the mtDNA modulates cellular bioenergetics, mitochondrial ROS generation and susceptibility to cardiac stress.
Telomeres of eukaryotic chromosomes contain many tandem repeats of a G-rich
sequence (for example, TTAGGG in vertebrates). In most normal
human cells, telomeres shorten with each cell division, and ...it is proposed
that this limits the number of times these cells can replicate.
Telomeres may be maintained in germline cells, and in many immortalized cells
and cancers, by the telomerase holoenzyme (first discovered
in the ciliate Tetrahymena), which uses an RNA subunit
as template for synthesis of telomeric DNA by the reverse transcriptase catalytic
subunit. Some immortalized human cell lines and some tumours
maintain their telomeres in the absence of any detectable telomerase activity
by a mechanism referred to as alternative lengthening of telomeres
(ALT). Here we show that DNA sequences are copied from telomere to telomere
in an immortalized human ALT cell line, indicating that ALT occurs by means
of homologous recombination and copy switching.
The Lyme disease spirochete Borrelia burgdorferi exists in nature in an enzootic cycle that involves the arthropod vector Ixodes scapularis and mammalian reservoirs. To disseminate within and between ...these hosts, spirochetes must migrate through complex, polymeric environments such as the basement membrane of the tick midgut and the dermis of the mammal. To date, most research on the motility of B. burgdorferi has been done in media that do not resemble the tissue milieus that B. burgdorferi encounter in vivo. Here we show that the motility of Borrelia in gelatin matrices in vitro resembles the pathogen's movements in the chronically infected mouse dermis imaged by intravital microscopy. More specifically, B. burgdorferi motility in mouse dermis and gelatin is heterogeneous, with the bacteria transitioning between at least three different motility states that depend on transient adhesions to the matrix. We also show that B. burgdorferi is able to penetrate matrices with pore sizes much smaller than the diameter of the bacterium. We find a complex relationship between the swimming behavior of B. burgdorferi and the rheological properties of the gelatin, which cannot be accounted for by recent theoretical predictions for microorganism swimming in gels. Our results also emphasize the importance of considering borrelial adhesion as a dynamic rather than a static process.
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