The Life History of Ron Meier, OTR/L

Objective: The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the life history of Ron Meier and his experiences as an occupational therapist. More specifically, researchers explored his roles as a supervisor, manager, and director in the mental health setting in the states of North Dakota and Minnesota. Method: A semi-structured interview via phone was conducted. Ron was assigned to the researchers from a list developed by the Project Directors through purposive sampling. Results: the major themes that were prevalent throughout Ron\u27s career included: the many close relationships he formed, the programs he established and administered, the positions he held in the mental health setting, the challenges he overcame within the time he was practicing in, and his experience adapting to the changes to the profession throughout his career. The findings indicate that Ron was an influential leader who created many programs, among other notable accomplishments, within the mental health setting that expanded this area of practice within the state of North Dakota and Minnesota. Conclusion: Ron Meyer was an innovative, proactive, knowledgeable, and proficient leader throughout his career. He was influential in establishing programs but not the different needs of residents of North Dakota (ND) and was active in numerous professional organizations advocating for the role of occupational therapy (OT) in multiple healthcare settings. Ron serves as a great example for future occupational therapists who aspire to work with diverse areas of practice to his determination to create a name for the profession in the mental health setting.https://commons.und.edu/ot-oral-histories-posters/1022/thumbnail.jp

Using Leisure as a Therapeutic Activity to Enhance Health, Well-Being, and Quality of Life among Long Term Care Residents

Purpose The purpose of this scholarly project is to address health, well-being, and quality of life with the use of leisure activities as modalities with residents in long term care (LTC) facilities. Methodology The results of a thorough literature review supported the need for a program to address leisure participation in residents in LTC facilities. An abundance of literature supporting participation in leisure to enhance health, well-being, and quality of life emerged from the literature review, revealing an obvious gap between literature and practice. The information gathered in the literature review helped guide the development of a program manual to be used by LTC facility staff. The products were designed using concepts from the environment-health-occupational-well-being (E-HOW) theoretical model (Pizzi & Richards, 2017), as well as from the adult learning theory of andragogy (Bastable & Dart, 2011). E-HOW aims to address the health, environment, and occupational participation of an individual to enhance quality of life and well-being (Pizzi & Richards, 2017); whereas, andragogy focuses on how to best relay information to an adult learner (Bastable & Dart, 2011). Aspects from these two theories were used to increase the usability and effectiveness of the program and in-service manuals for LTC facility staff. Results The literature review and the theoretical models resulted in the development of two products. The first product is a program manual that gives LTC facility staff detailed information on how to implement a leisure-based program into the facility with collaboration between the occupational therapist, activity and restorative aide personnel, and the resident. The second product is an educational in-service aimed at educating staff on the correct ways to utilize the program manual. Conclusions It is anticipated that both the program manual and the in-service manual will be effective solutions to the barriers LTC residents currently face that result in occupational deprivation. Both manuals will serve as a resource to occupational therapists and activity and restorative aide personnel to both guide the development of health promoting functional maintenance programs (FMP) and to ensure that the leisure interests of each resident are addressed

Evolution of Occupational Therapy Practice: The Life History of Ron Meier

Objective: The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the life history of Ron Meier and his experiences as an occupational therapist. More specifically, researchers explored his roles as a supervisor, manager, and director in the mental health setting in the states of North Dakota and Minnesota. Method: A semi-structured interview via phone was conducted. Ron was assigned to the researchers from a list developed by the Project Directors through purposive sampling. Results: the major themes that were prevalent throughout Ron\u27s career included: the many close relationships he formed, the programs he established and administered, the positions he held in the mental health setting, the challenges he overcame within the time he was practicing in, and his experience adapting to the changes to the profession throughout his career. The findings indicate that Ron was an influential leader who created many programs, among other notable accomplishments, within the mental health setting that expanded this area of practice within the state of North Dakota and Minnesota. Conclusion: Ron Meyer was an innovative, proactive, knowledgeable, and proficient leader throughout his career. He was influential in establishing programs but not the different needs of residents of North Dakota (ND) and was active in numerous professional organizations advocating for the role of occupational therapy (OT) in multiple healthcare settings. Ron serves as a great example for future occupational therapists who aspire to work with diverse areas of practice to his determination to create a name for the profession in the mental health setting

Molecular characterization of vasotocin hormone receptors in the sea lamprey to address invasive species ecology and evolution: An Integrated Biosciences approach (2015-10-16)

The sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) is a jawless (agnathan) vertebrate at an evolutionary nexus between invertebrates and jawed (gnathostome) vertebrates. Lampreys are known to possess the arginine vasotocin (AVT) hormone utilized by all non-mammalian vertebrates. I postulated that the lamprey would possess AVT receptor orthologs of the arginine vasopressin (AVP)/oxytocin (OXT) family of G protein-coupled receptors found in mammals. Sequencing of five putative lamprey AVT receptor genes, molecular phylogeny and synteny (analysis of adjacent genes) support the recently proposed hypothesis that one round (1R) of whole-genome duplication (WGD) took place in the vertebrate lineage prior to divergence of the jawless vertebrates approximately 550 million years ago.Department of Biolog

Building an adverse outcome pathway network for COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic generated large amounts of data on the disease pathogenesis leading to a need for organizing the vast knowledge in a succinct manner. Between April 2020 and February 2023, the CIAO consortium exploited the Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) framework to comprehensively gather and systematically organize published scientific literature on COVID-19 pathology. The project considered 24 pathways relevant for COVID-19 by identifying essential key events (KEs) leading to 19 adverse outcomes observed in patients. While an individual AOP defines causally linked perturbed KEs towards an outcome, building an AOP network visually reflect the interrelatedness of the various pathways and outcomes. In this study, 17 of those COVID-19 AOPs were selected based on quality criteria to computationally derive an AOP network. This primary network highlighted the need to consider tissue specificity and helped to identify missing or redundant elements which were then manually implemented in the final network. Such a network enabled visualization of the complex interactions of the KEs leading to the various outcomes of the multifaceted COVID-19 and confirmed the central role of the inflammatory response in the disease. In addition, this study disclosed the importance of terminology harmonization and of tissue/organ specificity for network building. Furthermore the unequal completeness and quality of information contained in the AOPs highlighted the need for tighter implementation of the FAIR principles to improve AOP findability, accessibility, interoperability and re-usability. Finally, the study underlined that describing KEs specific to SARS-CoV-2 replication and discriminating physiological from pathological inflammation is necessary but requires adaptations to the framework. Hence, based on the challenges encountered, we proposed recommendations relevant for ongoing and future AOP-aligned consortia aiming to build computationally biologically meaningful AOP networks in the context of, but not limited to, viral diseases.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Building an Adverse Outcome Pathway network for COVID-19

Data availability statement: The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary Material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding authors.Supplementary material: The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsysb.2024.1384481/full#supplementary-material .The COVID-19 pandemic generated large amounts of data on the disease pathogenesis leading to a need for organizing the vast knowledge in a succinct manner. Between April 2020 and February 2023, the CIAO consortium exploited the Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) framework to comprehensively gather and systematically organize published scientific literature on COVID-19 pathology. The project considered 24 pathways relevant for COVID-19 by identifying essential key events (KEs) leading to 19 adverse outcomes observed in patients. While an individual AOP defines causally linked perturbed KEs towards an outcome, building an AOP network visually reflect the interrelatedness of the various pathways and outcomes. In this study, 17 of those COVID-19 AOPs were selected based on quality criteria to computationally derive an AOP network. This primary network highlighted the need to consider tissue specificity and helped to identify missing or redundant elements which were then manually implemented in the final network. Such a network enabled visualization of the complex interactions of the KEs leading to the various outcomes of the multifaceted COVID-19 and confirmed the central role of the inflammatory response in the disease. In addition, this study disclosed the importance of terminology harmonization and of tissue/organ specificity for network building. Furthermore the unequal completeness and quality of information contained in the AOPs highlighted the need for tighter implementation of the FAIR principles to improve AOP findability, accessibility, interoperability and re-usability. Finally, the study underlined that describing KEs specific to SARS-CoV-2 replication and discriminating physiological from pathological inflammation is necessary but requires adaptations to the framework. Hence, based on the challenges encountered, we proposed recommendations relevant for ongoing and future AOP-aligned consortia aiming to build computationally biologically meaningful AOP networks in the context of, but not limited to, viral diseases.This work was supported by funding from the JRC Exploratory project CIAO (Modelling the Pathogenesis of COVID-19 using the Adverse Outcome Pathway Framework, https://www.ciao-covid.net/). DJ would like to acknowledge funding from the US National Science Foundation (EF-2133763). PN also acknowledges funding from The Swedish Fund for Research without Animals (grants F2021-0005 and F2022-0003). SH acknowledges funding received from Health Canada’s Genomics Research and Development Initiative. ST acknowledges funding received from Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) Grant Number JP21mk0101216, JP22mk0101216, JP23mk0101216, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI Grant Number 21K12133

COVID-19 through Adverse Outcome Pathways: Building networks to better understand the disease - 3rd CIAO AOP Design Workshop

ALTEX - Alternatives to Animal ExperimentationCopyright © 2022 the author(s). On April 28-29, 2021, 50 scientists from different fields of expertise met for the 3rd online CIAO workshop. The CIAO project “Modelling the Pathogenesis of COVID-19 using the Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) framework” aims at building a holistic assembly of the available scientific knowledge on COVID-19 using the AOP framework. An individual AOP depicts the disease progression from the initial contact with the SARS-CoV-2 virus through biological key events (KE) toward an adverse outcome such as respiratory distress, anosmia or multiorgan failure. Assembling the individual AOPs into a network highlights shared KEs as central biological nodes involved in multiple outcomes observed in COVID-19 patients. During the workshop, the KEs and AOPs established so far by the CIAO members were presented and posi­tioned on a timeline of the disease course. Modulating factors influencing the progression and severity of the disease were also addressed as well as factors beyond purely biological phenomena. CIAO relies on an interdisciplinary crowd­sourcing effort, therefore, approaches to expand the CIAO network by widening the crowd and reaching stakeholders were also discussed. To conclude the workshop, it was decided that the AOPs/KEs will be further consolidated, inte­grating virus variants and long COVID when relevant, while an outreach campaign will be launched to broaden the CIAO scientific crowd.The CIAO project is steered by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission (EC-JRC), the Humane Society International (HSI), and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). For Jorid Birkelund Sørli, the research is supported by FIKA, Focused Research Effort on Chemicals in the Working Environment from the Danish Government. For Daniel Jacobson, this work was supported by the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC for the US Department of Energy (LOIS:10074) and the National Institutes of Health 3RF1AG053303-01S2

Response of Corn (<i>Zea mays</i>), Soybean (<i>Glycine max</i>), and Several Weed Species to Dark-Applied Photodynamic Herbicide Modulators

The photodynamic herbicidal performance of δ-aminolevulinic acid in combination with four chlorophyll biosynthesis modulators was evaluated under greenhouse conditions, using corn, soybean, and ten weed species. Treatments resulted in accumulation of various amounts of protoporphyrin IX and of monovinyl and divinyl Mg-protoporphyrin IX and protochlorophyllide. Accumulation of these tetrapyrroles was accompanied by various degrees of photodynamic injury, depending on treatment, plant species, and somewhat the modulator. The lower photodynamic susceptibility of dark monovinyl/light monovinyl and dark divinyl/light divinyl plants toward the accumulation of monovinyl and divinyl protochlotophyllide, respectively, was attributed to their greater abilities to metabolize these protochlorophyllides in the light. On the other hand, the higher photodynamic susceptibility of the dark monovinyl/light divinyl weed species toward the accumulation of monovinyl protochlorophyllide was attributed to their lower ability to metabolize the accumulated monovinyl protochlorophyllide in the light.</jats:p