JURNAL AGROTEKNOLOGI
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Young people, mental health, and civil conflict: Preliminary findings from Ethiopia's Tigray region
No full textWe examine the association between mental health and violent conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region. Two longitudinal phone-surveys (08/2020–10/2020; 11/2020–01/2021) interviewed 122 young people in Tigray. We use t-tests for the difference in means outcomes between calls to investigate how their mental health evolved before and after the outbreak of conflict (11/2020). Post-outbreak rates of anxiety (34%) were three times higher than 2–3 months before. Similarly, rates of depression increased significantly from 16% to 25%. Males experienced greater increases in anxiety, females in depression. Mental health issues have likely worsened further during the ongoing conflict, making mental health support urgently needed
Listening to young lives at work in Peru: fifth call
No full textThis brief report provides headline findings from the fifth call in Young Lives at Work's COVID-19 Phone Survey in Peru.
The young people in our study were contacted by phone between October and December 2021 to find out if and how the pandemic is continuing to affect their education, employment, household income, access to food, health and well-being. The report also draws data from a brief 'getting in touch' Call 4, conducted in August 2021 which explored vaccine access and uptake
Non-contact physiological monitoring of post-operative patients in the Intensive Care Unit
No full textProlonged non-contact camera-based monitoring in critically ill patients presents unique challenges, but may facilitate safe recovery. A study was designed to evaluate the feasibility of introducing a non-contact video camera monitoring system into an acute clinical setting. We assessed the accuracy and robustness of the video camera-derived estimates of the vital signs against the electronically-recorded reference values in both day and night environments. We demonstrated non-contact monitoring of heart rate and respiratory rate for extended periods of time in 15 post-operative patients. Across day and night, heart rate was estimated for up to 53.2% (103.0 h) of the total valid camera data with a mean absolute error (MAE) of 2.5 beats/min in comparison to two reference sensors. We obtained respiratory rate estimates for 63.1% (119.8 h) of the total valid camera data with a MAE of 2.4 breaths/min against the reference value computed from the chest impedance pneumogram. Non-contact estimates detected relevant changes in the vital-sign values between routine clinical observations. Pivotal respiratory events in a post-operative patient could be identified from the analysis of video-derived respiratory information. Continuous vital-sign monitoring supported by non-contact video camera estimates could be used to track early signs of physiological deterioration during post-operative care
Amber suppression technology for mapping site-specific viral-host protein interactions in mammalian cells
No full textProbing the molecular interactions of viral-host protein complexes to understand pathogenicity is essential in modern virology to help the development of antiviral therapies. Common binding assays, such as co-immunoprecipitation or pull-downs, are helpful in investigating intricate viral-host proteins interactions. However, such assays may miss low-affinity and favour non-specific interactions. We have recently incorporated photoreactive amino acids at defined residues of a viral protein in vivo, by introducing amber stop codons (TAG) and using a suppressor tRNA. This is followed by UV-crosslinking, to identify interacting host proteins in live mammalian cells. The affinity-purified photo-crosslinked viral-host protein complexes are further characterized by mass spectrometry following extremely stringent washes. This combinatorial site-specific incorporation of a photoreactive amino acid and affinity purification-mass spectrometry strategy allows the definition of viral-host protein contacts at single residue resolution and greatly reduces non-specific interactors, to facilitate characterization of viral-host protein interactions
Affrication as the cause of /s/-retraction: Evidence from Manchester English
No full textRetraction of /s/ to a more [ʃ]-like sound is a well-known sound change attested across many varieties of English for /stɹ/ words, e.g. street and strong. Despite recent sociophonetic interest in the variable, there remains disagreement over whether it represents a case of long-distance assimilation to /ɹ/ in these clusters or a two-step process involving local assimilation to an affricate derived from the sequence /tɹ/. In this paper, we investigate Manchester English and apply similar quantitative analysis to two contexts that are comparatively under-researched, but which allow us to tease apart the presence of an affricate and a rhotic: /stj/ as in student, which exhibits similar affrication of the /tj/ cluster in many varieties of British English, and /stʃ/ as in mischief. In an acoustic analysis conducted on a demographically-stratified corpus of over 115 sociolinguistic interviews, we track these three environments of /s/-retraction in apparent time and find that they change in parallel and behave in tandem with respect to the other factors conditioning variation in /s/-retraction. Based on these results, we argue that the triggering mechanisms of retraction are best modelled with direct reference to /t/-affrication and with /ɹ/ playing only an indirect, and not unique, role. Analysis of the whole sibilant space also reveals apparent-time change in the magnitude of the /s/–/ʃ/ contrast itself, highlighting the importance of contextualising this change with respect to the realisation of English sibilants more generally as these may be undergoing independent change
Impact of increasing the relative availability of meat-free options on food selection: two natural field experiments and an online randomised trial
No full textBackground
Increasing the availability of lower energy-density foods is a promising intervention to encourage healthier food purchasing but few studies have examined the effect of increasing availability of meat-free meals to promote more sustainable purchasing. We report three studies, all examining the impact of altering the availability of meat-free meals on meal selection.
Methods
Study 1 (a natural experiment in one university cafeteria) examined the impact of altering the ratio of meat-free meals (one meat-free and two meat, to two meat-free and one meat) on weekly sales of meals containing meat. Study 2 (a natural experiment in 18 worksite cafeterias) examined the impact on meat-free meal sales of a menu change designed to increase the availability of meat-free meals. Study 3 (an online study of 2205 UK-representative adults) compared meal selections when participants were randomised to ranges comprised of (a) one meat-free, three meat options; (b) two meat-free, two meat; or (c) three meat-free, one meat.
Results
Study 1 suggested a significant decrease in the proportion of sales of meat options when the availability of meat-free options increased (− 19.9 percentage points; 95%CIs:-25.2,-14.6), with no evidence of changes to meat-based meal sales in other university cafeterias during the same period. Findings from Study 2 were mixed: multilevel regressions found no evidence of an increase in meat-free meals following the menu change (2.3 percentage points; 95%CIs: − 1.3,5.9), while interrupted time-series analyses suggested sales did increase (2.3; 95%CIs: 0.4,4.2), but implementation of the planned change was limited. In Study 3 reducing meat-free options from 50 to 25% reduced participants’ selection of meat-free options (odds ratio 0.35; 95%CIs: 0.26,0.46), while increasing meat-free options from 50 to 75% increased meat-free selections (odds ratio 2.43; 95%CIs: 1.94,3.04). There was no evidence effects were moderated by gender, socioeconomic status or usual meat consumption.
Conclusion
Increasing the availability of meat-free options is effective at reducing meat selection and purchasing for different ratios of meat to meat-free options. The magnitude of the effect is uncertain, but with no evidence of differences in response by demographic groups when directly tested.
Trial registration
Study 3: Open Science Framework; https://osf.io/ze9c6; 6/8/2020
Discordant genome assemblies drastically alter the interpretation of single-cell RNA sequencing data which can be mitigated by a novel integration method
No full textAdvances in sequencing and assembly technology have led to the creation of genome assemblies for a wide variety of non-model organisms. The rapid production and proliferation of updated, novel assembly versions can create vexing problems for researchers when multiple-genome assembly versions are available at once, requiring researchers to work with more than one reference genome. Multiple-genome assemblies are especially problematic for researchers studying the genetic makeup of individual cells, as single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) requires sequenced reads to be mapped and aligned to a single reference genome. Using the Astyanax mexicanus, this study highlights how the interpretation of a single-cell dataset from the same sample changes when aligned to its two different available genome assemblies. We found that the number of cells and expressed genes detected were drastically different when aligning to the different assemblies. When the genome assemblies were used in isolation with their respective annotations, cell-type identification was confounded, as some classic cell-type markers were assembly-specific, whilst other genes showed differential patterns of expression between the two assemblies. To overcome the problems posed by multiple-genome assemblies, we propose that researchers align to each available assembly and then integrate the resultant datasets to produce a final dataset in which all genome alignments can be used simultaneously. We found that this approach increased the accuracy of cell-type identification and maximised the amount of data that could be extracted from our single-cell sample by capturing all possible cells and transcripts. As scRNAseq becomes more widely available, it is imperative that the single-cell community is aware of how genome assembly alignment can alter single-cell data and their interpretation, especially when reviewing studies on non-model organisms
Network traits predict ecological strategies in fungi
No full textColonization of terrestrial environments by filamentous fungi relies on their ability to form networks that can forage for and connect resource patches. Despite the importance of these networks, ecologists rarely consider network features as functional traits because their measurement and interpretation are conceptually and methodologically difficult. To address these challenges, we have developed a pipeline to translate images of fungal mycelia, from both micro- and macro-scales, to weighted network graphs that capture ecologically relevant fungal behaviour. We focus on four properties that we hypothesize determine how fungi forage for resources, specifically: connectivity; relative construction cost; transport efficiency; and robustness against attack by fungivores. Constrained ordination and Pareto front analysis of these traits revealed that foraging strategies can be distinguished predominantly along a gradient of connectivity for micro- and macro-scale mycelial networks that is reminiscent of the qualitative ‘phalanx’ and ‘guerilla’ descriptors previously proposed in the literature. At one extreme are species with many inter-connections that increase the paths for multidirectional transport and robustness to damage, but with a high construction cost; at the other extreme are species with an opposite phenotype. Thus, we propose this approach represents a significant advance in quantifying ecological strategies for fungi using network information
