Wallace Laboratories

We observed a family of Atlantic Puffins Fratercula arctica in a burrow on Seal Island National Wildlife Refuge in the Gulf of Maine, USA, during the 2017-2020 and 2022 breeding seasons. The burrow was equipped with a high-resolution web camera, which allowed 24-hour daily observations. We investigated the impacts of elevated sea surface temperature (SST) and marine heatwaves (MHWs), which are linked to low food availability, on chick provisioning and burrow attendance. In 2017, 2019, 2020, and 2022, the female was the primary provisioner, providing twice as many feedings as the male, and the male was the primary burrow guardian, spending twice as much time at the burrow as the female. Using generalized linear models to estimate relationships between SST, feeding rates, and burrow attendance, we found that higher SST was associated with lower feeding rates and burrow attendance. These impacts were amplified in 2018 amid a prolonged MHW. The puffins struggled to find food consistently, leading to lower provisioning rates, smaller bill-loads of mostly low-quality prey, and a visibly under-nourished chick. This prompted the male to trade his burrow-guarding role for additional chick provisioning, and the chick fledged after 69 days, 28 days longer than is typical. This study is the first to demonstrate that Atlantic Puffins can modify their usual parenting roles in response to prey availability, deferring migration and extending chick-rearing by as many as four weeks. We also observed modification in chick behavior amid a high-intensity MHW in 2022, during which the chick was frequently provisioned with American Butterfish Peprilus triacanthus, a deep-bodied fish that is not easily swallowed. The chick consistently consumed butterfish piecemeal, pulling off and swallowing small pieces, until the remaining portion was small enough to be swallowed. This was an effective strategy and a behavior that has not previously been reported.

Aphasia therapy should address communication in everyday contexts. One type of social interaction that occurs frequently in the daily lives of spouses is joint decision-making. Currently, no known study has investigated how spouses collaboratively make decisions when one of the spouses has aphasia and the other one does not. The purpose of this study was to analyze the communicative interactions of married couples affected by aphasia while they engaged in joint decision-making conversations. Fourteen married couples, in which one spouse had aphasia and the other one did not, completed two joint decision-making tasks. The tasks required the participants to formulate mutually approved lists of items deemed essential for their survival in two hypothetical “survival-type” scenarios. When completing the tasks, the participants’ communicative interactions were audio-video recorded. Next, the participants’ conversations were transcribed, and their “moves” were coded for speech functions, as described in the systemic functional linguistics literature. Participants with aphasia produced fewer overall moves than the spouses without aphasia in their joint decision-making conversations. The participants with aphasia also produced fewer continuing moves than their spouses without aphasia. A slight difference between the participants with and without aphasia was identified in the percentages of opening versus sustaining moves produced. All participants were generally supportive of the comments, ideas, and suggestions posed by their spouses during their collaborative interactions. This study identified similarities and discrepancies in the pattern of speech functions used by the participants with and without aphasia. Suggestions for tailoring interventions and guiding future research are included.

BackgroundHow physical activity (PA) and sitting time may change after first myocardial infarction (MI) and the association with mortality in postmenopausal women is unknown.Methods and ResultsParticipants included postmenopausal women in the Women's Health Initiative‐Observational Study, aged 50 to 79 years who experienced a clinical MI during the study. This analysis included 856 women who had adequate data on PA exposure and 533 women for sitting time exposures. Sitting time was self‐reported at baseline, year 3, and year 6. Self‐reported PA was reported at baseline through year 8. Change in PA and sitting time were calculated as the difference between the cumulative average immediately following MI and the cumulative average immediately preceding MI. The 4 categories of change were: maintained low, decreased, increased, and maintained high. The cut points were ≥7.5 metabolic equivalent of task hours/week versus <7.5 metabolic equivalent of task hours/week for PA and ≥8 h/day versus <8 h/day for sitting time. Cox proportional hazard models estimated hazard ratios and 95% CIs for all‐cause, coronary heart disease, and cardiovascular disease mortality. Compared with women who maintained low PA (referent), the risk of all‐cause mortality was: 0.54 (0.34–0.86) for increased PA and 0.52 (0.36–0.73) for maintained high PA. Women who had pre‐MI levels of sitting time <8 h/day, every 1 h/day increase in sitting time was associated with a 9% increased risk (hazard ratio=1.09, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.19) of all‐cause mortality.ConclusionsMeeting the recommended PA guidelines pre‐ and post‐MI may have a protective role against mortality in postmenopausal women.

A cross-sectional study. The aim of this study was to identify the differences in oxygen consumption in children with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) and age-matched control subjects using traditional methods and chest kinematics. AIS is a disorder affecting 2 to 3% of children between the ages of 10 and 16 and accounts for up to 85% of all scoliosis cases. The spinal deformities and subsequent rib conformational changes associated with AIS can have a significant deleterious effect on the oxygen consumption for children with mild to severe scoliosis. Previous studies found that the oxygen consumption in children with AIS was significantly more than that of peers and during walking require more energy than typically developing children. Thirty children (four male, 26 female), 11.7 to 18.7 years of age, were enrolled: 15 adolescent children diagnosed with mild to moderate AIS (mean cobb angle 36.2 degrees) and 15 matched adolescents. Oxygen consumption during steady-state treadmill walking was measured using a traditional methods and simultaneous kinematic analysis of the chest wall. There were no significant differences in the volume of oxygen consumed in any of the phases of treadmill walking (resting, exercise, and recovery) or in breath per minute ventilation and tidal volume between control subjects and children with scoliosis (P > 0.05). Significant differences were found between assessment methods, with the kinematic analysis overestimating the average tidal volume while walking (P < 0.05). Children with mild to moderate AIS and typically developing children do not demonstrate oxygen consumption differences when walking at a steady state on a treadmill. However, kinematic analysis of the chest wall tends to overestimate the tidal volume when walking. An offset equation is required for some variables when using kinematic data to assess oxygen consumption in children who would otherwise not comply with traditional oxygen consumption testing. 3.

Background: African Americans (AA) bear an excess burden of CVD compared to Whites. This burden persists when socioeconomic status (SES) and other known CVD risk factors are considered. One limitation to studies of Black-White disparities in CVD is that population subgroups with lower SES may be over-represented among AA compared to Whites. We aimed to quantify CVD burden in the Jackson Heart Study (JHS), an exclusively AA cohort with a balanced representation of SES. Methods: Baseline distributions of SES indicators in 5,301 JHS participants were compared to the US 2000 Census data. Baseline prevalence of myocardial infarction (MI), stroke and hypertension were compared to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data collected during a comparable time period as the JHS baseline exam (2000-2004) (population reference including all races). Indirect standardization methods based on population age and sex specific prevalence were used to calculate the expected prevalence of MI, stroke and hypertension in the JHS. Standardized prevalence ratios (SPR) was calculated by dividing the observed by the expected prevalence. An SPR greater than 1 indicates excess burden. Results: Compared to national data, JHS participants were more likely to have some college education (61% vs. 52%) or a bachelor’s degree (32% vs. 24%), were more likely to hold management or professional occupations (36% vs. 34%), but had somewhat lower income, which could be in part due to a higher proportion (64%) of women in the JHS cohort. The observed baseline prevalence of MI, stroke and hypertension in JHS was 5.5%, 4.4% and 60.1%. The SPR for MI, stroke and hypertension were 1.05 (95% CI 0.88, 1.25), 1.39 (95% CI 1.12, 1.69) and 1.51 (1.42, 1.60) for men. The corresponding values for women were 1.61 (95% CI 1.37, 1.89), 1.33 (95% CI 1.12, 1.57) and 1.43 (95% CI 1.37, 1.50). Further analyses evaluating CVD risk factors (smoking, weight, physical activity, serum cholesterol, blood pressure and diabetes) found excess burden in overweight/obesity, physical inactivity, elevated blood pressure (≥140/90 mmHg), and diabetes among JHS participants compared to the population reference. Conclusions: We found an excess burden for stroke and hypertension in men, and an excess burden for MI, stroke and hypertension in women in the JHS. We also found an excess burden for CVD risk factors in the JHS cohort. Despite comparable SES between JHS and US population, we found an excess burden of CVD and CVD risk factors in this AA cohort.

Ultrafine particles are observed when metal surfaces, such as heating elements in electric appliances, or even empty cooking pans, are heated. The source of the particles has not been identified. We present evidence that particles >10nm are not emitted directly from the heating elements or the metal surfaces. Using repeated heating of an electric burner, several types of cooking pans, and a steam iron, the increase in the number of particles (>10nm) can be reduced to 0. After the devices are exposed to indoor air for several hours or days, subsequent heating results in renewed particle production, suggesting that organic matter has sorbed on their surfaces. Also, after a pan has been heated to the point that no increase in particles is observed, washing with detergent results in copious production of particles the next time the pan is heated. These observations suggest that detergent residue and organics sorbed from indoor air are the sources of the particles. We hypothesize that organic compounds are thermally desorbed from the hot surface as gaseous molecules; as they diffuse from the hot air near the pan into cooler air, selected compounds exceed their saturation concentration and nucleation occurs.

Primary care is recognized worldwide as a key component for improving health outcomes in the population. At the same time, healthcare systems are rapidly changing with increasing expectations from technological advances. Genomics is a major driver in changing how medicine is being practiced; however, the importance for primary care has been under-appreciated. Strategically implementing genomics in a way that accounts for the unique characteristics of the primary care context is essential. In this perspective, we present important areas that we believe are critical in consideration of both the future of genomic medicine and primary healthcare delivery.

Objectives: The effect of carotid revascularization on cognitive function is controversial. The goal of this study was to assess the degree of cognitive improvement following carotid revascularization in patients with baseline cognitive impairment. Methods: Patients with carotid stenosis &gt;60% were enrolled prospectively from 3 sites from 2005 to 2010. Patients underwent either carotid endarterectomy or carotid artery stenting. Neuropsychological testing was administered pre-operatively, 1 month, 6 months, and 1 year post-operatively. Cognitive assessments included Trails A (attention), Trails B (executive functioning), and Hopkins Verbal Learning Test (HVLT-R) (new learning/memory). A baseline cognitive impairment was defined as a score ≤ 10 th percentile of age-adjusted normative data. Results: Of 61 eligible patients, 49 (80%) completed testing at 6-months and/or 1-year post-operatively. Mean age was 73.1 years, 56% were male, and 30% were symptomatic. Pre-operative Trails A impairment was observed in 16% of patients, Trails B in 27%, and a component of HVLT-R in 41%. Following revascularization, patients with a baseline cognitive impairment demonstrated an average improvement of 28.6% and 22.8% in Trails A and B, compared to 4.3% (p=0.04) and 9.2% (p=0.06) in patients with normal baseline cognitive function ( Figure 1 ). Similarly, impaired patients exhibited average improvements of 36.5% in HVLT-Total Recall, 38.5% in Delayed Recall, and 36.7% in Retention, compared to 11.0% (p=0.004), 6.1% (p=0.004), and 0.97% (p=0.002), respectively, in patients with normal cognitive function ( Figure 1 ). Conclusion: Baseline cognitive impairment in attention, executive functioning, and new learning/memory appear to be significant variables in predicting which patients experience the greatest cognitive benefits following carotid revascularization.