Lancastermathiassen2592
used for specimen extraction in oncological minimally invasive colorectal surgery, and the choice of the site may probably modulate the incidence of incisional hernia.The present protocol aims to design a systematic review which will identify original studies comparing two extraction sites during minimally invasive colorectal surgery in terms of incidence of incisional hernia.Network meta-analysis will be performed to determine the incidence of IH per extraction site.
Somatosensory function is critical for successful aging. Prior studies have shown declines in somatosensory function with age; however, this may be affected by testing site, modality, and biobehavioral factors. While somatosensory function declines are associated with peripheral nervous system degradation, little is known regarding correlates with the central nervous system and brain structure in particular. The objectives of this study were to examine age-related declines in somatosensory function using innocuous and noxious stimuli, across 2 anatomical testing sites, with considerations for affect and cognitive function, and associations between somatosensory function and brain structure in older adults.
A cross-sectional analysis included 84 "younger" (
= 22, age range 19-24 years) and "older" (
= 62, age range 60-94 years) healthy adults who participated in the Neuromodulatory Examination of Pain and Mobility Across the Lifespan study. Participants were assessed on measures of somatosensory functitions in sensory responses to innocuous and noxious stimuli compared to younger adults and, furthermore, these alterations are uniquely affected by anatomical site. These findings suggest a nonuniform decline in somatosensation in older adults, which may represent peripheral and central nervous system alterations part of aging processes.
Our findings indicate healthy older adults display alterations in sensory responses to innocuous and noxious stimuli compared to younger adults and, furthermore, these alterations are uniquely affected by anatomical site. These findings suggest a nonuniform decline in somatosensation in older adults, which may represent peripheral and central nervous system alterations part of aging processes.
We developed a new group practice using strength- and meaning-based narrative therapy (NT) for older Chinese living in Hong Kong (HK), to enhance their life wisdom. This paper reports on the intervention and its short- and longer-term effectiveness.
A randomized waitlist-controlled trial was conducted. A total of 157 older adults were randomly recruited, of whom 75 were randomly assigned to the intervention group which received four 2-hr biweekly NT sessions using the "Tree of Life" metaphor. The others were placed on a waitlist. Perceived wisdom was assessed using the Brief Self-Assessed Wisdom Scale. Assessment occurred at baseline (T
), end of treatment (T
), and 4 (T
) and 8 months later (T
). Overtime effects of NT on wisdom scores were assessed using latent growth curve models with time-invariant covariates for impact.
The intervention (NT) group showed significant, sustainable overtime within-group improvement in perceived wisdom. Furthermore, when compared to the control group, the NT group showed significant immediate improvements in perceived wisdom [
(2.726,
= .041)], which were maintained at all follow-up points. This effect remained after controlling for age, gender, and educational level (
(11) = 17.306,
= .098, root mean square error of approximation = 0.079, comparative fit index = 0.960). No adverse reaction was recorded.
NT underpinned by a ToL methodology offers a new theory to understand, promote, and appreciate perceived wisdom in older Chinese living in HK. It contributes to psychotherapy and professional social work practice for older Chinese.
NT underpinned by a ToL methodology offers a new theory to understand, promote, and appreciate perceived wisdom in older Chinese living in HK. It contributes to psychotherapy and professional social work practice for older Chinese.Social information is widely used in the animal kingdom and can be highly adaptive. In social insects, foragers can use social information to find food, avoid danger, or choose a new nest site. Copying others allows individuals to obtain information without having to sample the environment. When foragers communicate information they will often only advertise high-quality food sources, thereby filtering out less adaptive information. Stingless bees, a large pantropical group of highly eusocial bees, face intense inter- and intra-specific competition for limited resources, yet display disparate foraging strategies. Within the same environment there are species that communicate the location of food resources to nest-mates and species that do not. Our current understanding of why some species communicate foraging sites while others do not is limited. Studying freely foraging colonies of several co-existing stingless bee species in Brazil, we investigated if recruitment to specific food locations is linked to 1) the sugar content of forage, 2) the duration of foraging trips, and 3) the variation in activity of a colony from 1 day to another and the variation in activity in a species over a day. We found that, contrary to our expectations, species with recruitment communication did not return with higher quality forage than species that do not recruit nestmates. Furthermore, foragers from recruiting species did not have shorter foraging trip durations than those from weakly recruiting species. Given the intense inter- and intraspecific competition for resources in these environments, it may be that recruiting species favor food resources that can be monopolized by the colony rather than food sources that offer high-quality rewards.Ants show collective and individual behavioral flexibility in their response to immediate context, choosing for example between different foraging strategies. In Pachycondyla striata, workers can forage solitarily or recruit and guide nestmates to larger food sources through tandem running. Although considered more ancestral and less efficient than pheromone trail-laying, this strategy is common especially in species with small colony size. What is not known is how the decision to recruit or follow varies according to the immediate context. That is, how fine adjustments in information transfer affect immediate foraging decisions at the colony level. Here, we studied individually marked workers and evaluated their foraging decisions when food items varied in nature (protein versus carbohydrate), size, and distance from the nest at different temperatures and humidity levels. Our results show that tandem run leaders and potential followers adjust their behavior according to a combination of external factors. While 84.2% of trips were solitary, most ants (81%) performed at least 1 tandem run. However, tandem runs were more frequent for nearby resources and at higher relative humidity. Interestingly, when food items were located far away, tandem runs were more successful when heading to protein sources (75%) compared with carbohydrate sources (42%). Our results suggest that the social information transfer between leaders and followers conveys more information than previously thought, and also relies on their experience and motivation.Insect cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) serve as communication signals and protect against desiccation. They form complex blends of up to 150 different compounds. Due to differences in molecular packing, CHC classes differ in melting point. Communication is especially important in social insects like ants, which use CHCs to communicate within the colony and to recognize nestmates. Nestmate recognition models often assume a homogenous colony odor, where CHCs are collected, mixed, and redistributed in the postpharyngeal gland (PPG). Via diffusion, recognition cues should evenly spread over the body surface. Hence, CHC composition should be similar across body parts and in the PPG. To test this, we compared CHC composition among whole-body extracts, PPG, legs, thorax, and gaster, across 17 ant species from 3 genera. Quantitative CHC composition differed between body parts, with consistent patterns across species and CHC classes. Early-melting CHC classes were most abundant in the PPG. In contrast, whole body, gaster, thorax, and legs had increasing proportions of CHC classes with higher melting points. Intraindividual CHC variation was highest for rather solid, late-melting CHC classes, suggesting that CHCs differ in their diffusion rates across the body surface. Our results show that body parts strongly differ in CHC composition, either being rich in rather solid, late-melting, or rather liquid, early-melting CHCs. This implies that recognition cues are not homogenously present across the insect body. However, the unequal diffusion of different CHCs represents a biophysical mechanism that enables caste differences despite continuous CHC exchange among colony members.In social insects, it has been suggested that reproduction and the production of particular fertility-linked cuticular hydrocarbons (CHC) may be under shared juvenile hormone (JH) control, and this could have been key in predisposing such cues to later evolve into full-fledged queen pheromone signals. However, to date, only few studies have experimentally tested this "hormonal pleiotropy" hypothesis. Cyclopamine Here, we formally test this hypothesis using data from four species of Polistine wasps, Polistes dominula, Polistes satan, Mischocyttarus metathoracicus, and Mischocyttarus cassununga, and experimental treatments with JH using the JH analogue methoprene and the anti-JH precocene. In line with reproduction being under JH control, our results show that across these four species, precocene significantly decreased ovary development when compared with both the acetone solvent-only control and the methoprene treatment. Consistent with the hormonal pleiotropy hypothesis, these effects on reproduction were further matched by subtle shifts in the CHC profiles, with univariate analyses showing that in P. dominula and P. satan the abundance of particular linear alkanes and mono-methylated alkanes were affected by ovary development and our hormonal treatments. The results indicate that in primitively eusocial wasps, and particularly in Polistes, reproduction and the production of some CHC cues are under joint JH control. We suggest that pleiotropic links between reproduction and the production of such hydrocarbon cues have been key enablers for the origin of true fertility and queen signals in more derived, advanced eusocial insects.As the second largest and most diverse group in the superfamily Aphidoidea, the phylogeny of drepanosiphine aphids sensu lato (s.l.) is critical for discussing the evolution of aphids. However, the taxa composition and phylogenetic relationships of drepanosiphine aphids s.l. have not been fully elucidated to date. In this study, based on total-evidence analyses combining 4 molecular genes (3 mitochondrial, COI, tRNA-Leu/COII, and CytB; 1 nuclear, EF-1ɑ) and 64 morphological and biological characteristics, the phylogeny of this group was reconstructed for the first time at the subfamily level using different datasets, parsimonies and model-based methods. All of our phylogenetic inferences clearly indicated that the drepanosiphine aphids s.l. was not a monophyletic group and seemed to support the division of the drepanosiphine aphids s.l. into different groups classified at the subfamily level. Calaphidinae was also not a monophyletic group, and Saltusaphidinae was nested within this subfamily. Drepanosiphinae was not clustered with Chaitophorinae, which was inconsistent with the previous hypothesis of a close relationship between them, illustrating that their phylogeny remains controversial.
