Okanagan University College

The last decade has seen a sharp increase in the number of scientific publications describing physiological and pathological functions of extracellular vesicles (EVs), a collective term covering various subtypes of cell-released, membranous structures, called exosomes, microvesicles, microparticles, ectosomes, oncosomes, apoptotic bodies, and many other names. However, specific issues arise when working with these entities, whose size and amount often make them difficult to obtain as relatively pure preparations, and to characterize properly. The International Society for Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV) proposed Minimal Information for Studies of Extracellular Vesicles ("MISEV") guidelines for the field in 2014. We now update these "MISEV2014" guidelines based on evolution of the collective knowledge in the last four years. An important point to consider is that ascribing a specific function to EVs in general, or to subtypes of EVs, requires reporting of specific information beyond mere description of function in a crude, potentially contaminated, and heterogeneous preparation. For example, claims that exosomes are endowed with exquisite and specific activities remain difficult to support experimentally, given our still limited knowledge of their specific molecular machineries of biogenesis and release, as compared with other biophysically similar EVs. The MISEV2018 guidelines include tables and outlines of suggested protocols and steps to follow to document specific EV-associated functional activities. Finally, a checklist is provided with summaries of key points.

Quantum EXPRESSO is an integrated suite of open-source computer codes for quantum simulations of materials using state-of-the-art electronic-structure techniques, based on density-functional theory, density-functional perturbation theory, and many-body perturbation theory, within the plane-wave pseudopotential and projector-augmented-wave approaches. Quantum EXPRESSO owes its popularity to the wide variety of properties and processes it allows to simulate, to its performance on an increasingly broad array of hardware architectures, and to a community of researchers that rely on its capabilities as a core open-source development platform to implement their ideas. In this paper we describe recent extensions and improvements, covering new methodologies and property calculators, improved parallelization, code modularization, and extended interoperability both within the distribution and with external software.

BACKGROUND: There is a scarcity of published data on the global prevalence of obstructive sleep apnoea, a disorder associated with major neurocognitive and cardiovascular sequelae. We used publicly available data and contacted key opinion leaders to estimate the global prevalence of obstructive sleep apnoea. METHODS: We searched PubMed and Embase to identify published studies reporting the prevalence of obstructive sleep apnoea based on objective testing methods. A conversion algorithm was created for studies that did not use the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) 2012 scoring criteria to identify obstructive sleep apnoea, allowing determination of an equivalent apnoea-hypopnoea index (AHI) for publications that used different criteria. The presence of symptoms was not specifically analysed because of scarce information about symptoms in the reference studies and population data. Prevalence estimates for obstructive sleep apnoea across studies using different diagnostic criteria were standardised with a newly developed algorithm. Countries without obstructive sleep apnoea prevalence data were matched to a similar country with available prevalence data; population similarity was based on the population body-mass index, race, and geographical proximity. The primary outcome was prevalence of obstructive sleep apnoea based on AASM 2012 diagnostic criteria in individuals aged 30-69 years (as this age group generally had available data in the published studies and related to information from the UN for all countries). FINDINGS: Reliable prevalence data for obstructive sleep apnoea were available for 16 countries, from 17 studies. Using AASM 2012 diagnostic criteria and AHI threshold values of five or more events per h and 15 or more events per h, we estimated that 936 million (95% CI 903-970) adults aged 30-69 years (men and women) have mild to severe obstructive sleep apnoea and 425 million (399-450) adults aged 30-69 years have moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnoea globally. The number of affected individuals was highest in China, followed by the USA, Brazil, and India. INTERPRETATION: To our knowledge, this is the first study to report global prevalence of obstructive sleep apnoea; with almost 1 billion people affected, and with prevalence exceeding 50% in some countries, effective diagnostic and treatment strategies are needed to minimise the negative health impacts and to maximise cost-effectiveness. FUNDING: ResMed.

The summarizes much of particle physics and cosmology. Using data from previous editions, plus 2,717 new measurements from 869 papers, we list, evaluate, and average measured properties of gauge bosons and the recently discovered Higgs boson, leptons, quarks, mesons, and baryons. We summarize searches for hypothetical particles such as supersymmetric particles, heavy bosons, axions, dark photons, etc. Particle properties and search limits are listed in Summary Tables. We give numerous tables, figures, formulae, and reviews of topics such as Higgs Boson Physics, Supersymmetry, Grand Unified Theories, Neutrino Mixing, Dark Energy, Dark Matter, Cosmology, Particle Detectors, Colliders, Probability and Statistics. Most of the 120 reviews are updated, including many that are heavily revised. The is divided into two volumes. Volume 1 includes the Summary Tables and 97 review articles. Volume 2 consists of the Particle Listings and contains also 23 reviews that address specific aspects of the data presented in the Listings. The complete (both volumes) is published online on the website of the Particle Data Group () and in a journal. Volume 1 is available in print as the . A with the Summary Tables and essential tables, figures, and equations from selected review articles is available in print, as a web version optimized for use on phones, and as an Android app. The 2024 edition of the Review of Particle Physics should be cited as: S. Navas et al. (Particle Data Group), Phys. Rev. D 110, 030001 (2024) © 2024 2024

Plant biostimulants are diverse substances and microorganisms used to enhance plant growth. The global market for biostimulants is projected to increase 12 % per year and reach over $2,200 million by 2018. Despite the growing use of biostimulants in agriculture, many in the scientific community consider biostimulants to be lacking peer-reviewed scientific evaluation. This article describes the emerging definitions of biostimulants and reviews the literature on five categories of biostimulants: i. microbial inoculants, ii. humic acids, iii. fulvic acids, iv. protein hydrolysates and amino acids, and v. seaweed extracts. The large number of publications cited for each category of biostimulants demonstrates that there is growing scientific evidence supporting the use of biostimulants as agricultural inputs on diverse plant species. The cited literature also reveals some commonalities in plant responses to different biostimulants, such as increased root growth, enhanced nutrient uptake, and stress tolerance.

Summary Plant–soil feedbacks is becoming an important concept for explaining vegetation dynamics, the invasiveness of introduced exotic species in new habitats and how terrestrial ecosystems respond to global land use and climate change. Using a new conceptual model, we show how critical alterations in plant–soil feedback interactions can change the assemblage of plant communities. We highlight recent advances, define terms and identify future challenges in this area of research and discuss how variations in strengths and directions of plant–soil feedbacks can explain succession, invasion, response to climate warming and diversity‐productivity relationships. While there has been a rapid increase in understanding the biological, chemical and physical mechanisms and their interdependencies underlying plant–soil feedback interactions, further progress is to be expected from applying new experimental techniques and technologies, linking empirical studies to modelling and field‐based studies that can include plant–soil feedback interactions on longer time scales that also include long‐term processes such as litter decomposition and mineralization. Significant progress has also been made in analysing consequences of plant–soil feedbacks for biodiversity‐functioning relationships, plant fitness and selection. To further integrate plant–soil feedbacks into ecological theory, it will be important to determine where and how observed patterns may be generalized, and how they may influence evolution. Synthesis . Gaining a greater understanding of plant–soil feedbacks and underlying mechanisms is improving our ability to predict consequences of these interactions for plant community composition and productivity under a variety of conditions. Future research will enable better prediction and mitigation of the consequences of human‐induced global changes, improve efforts of restoration and conservation and promote sustainable provision of ecosystem services in a rapidly changing world.

Plants and their associated fungi reward partners that offer the best resources to sustain mutualism in complex systems.

Exercise training is a clinically proven, cost-effective, primary intervention that delays and in many cases prevents the health burdens associated with many chronic diseases. However, the precise type and dose of exercise needed to accrue health benefits is a contentious issue with no clear consensus recommendations for the prevention of inactivity-related disorders and chronic diseases. A growing body of evidence demonstrates that high-intensity interval training (HIT) can serve as an effective alternate to traditional endurance-based training, inducing similar or even superior physiological adaptations in healthy individuals and diseased populations, at least when compared on a matched-work basis. While less well studied, low-volume HIT can also stimulate physiological remodelling comparable to moderate-intensity continuous training despite a substantially lower time commitment and reduced total exercise volume. Such findings are important given that 'lack of time' remains the most commonly cited barrier to regular exercise participation. Here we review some of the mechanisms responsible for improved skeletal muscle metabolic control and changes in cardiovascular function in response to low-volume HIT. We also consider the limited evidence regarding the potential application of HIT to people with, or at risk for, cardiometabolic disorders including type 2 diabetes. Finally, we provide insight on the utility of low-volume HIT for improving performance in athletes and highlight suggestions for future research.

Drought is a stochastic natural hazard that is instigated by intense and persistent shortage of precipitation. Following an initial meteorological phenomenon, subsequent impacts are realized on agriculture and hydrology. Among the natural hazards, droughts possess certain unique features; in addition to delayed effects, droughts vary by multiple dynamic dimensions including severity and duration, which in addition to causing a pervasive and subjective network of impacts makes them difficult to characterize. In order manage drought, drought characterization is essential enabling both retrospective analyses (e.g., severity versus impacts analysis) and prospective planning (e.g., risk assessment). The adaptation of a simplified method by drought indices has facilitated drought characterization for various users and entities. More than 100 drought indices have so far been proposed, some of which are operationally used to characterize drought using gridded maps at regional and national levels. These indices correspond to different types of drought, including meteorological, agricultural, and hydrological drought. By quantifying severity levels and declaring drought's start and end, drought indices currently aid in a variety of operations including drought early warning and monitoring and contingency planning. Given their variety and ongoing development, it is crucial to provide a comprehensive overview of available drought indices that highlights their difference and examines the trend in their development. This paper reviews 74 operational and proposed drought indices and describes research directions.

Animal movement is fundamental for ecosystem functioning and species survival, yet the effects of the anthropogenic footprint on animal movements have not been estimated across species. Using a unique GPS-tracking database of 803 individuals across 57 species, we found that movements of mammals in areas with a comparatively high human footprint were on average one-half to one-third the extent of their movements in areas with a low human footprint. We attribute this reduction to behavioral changes of individual animals and to the exclusion of species with long-range movements from areas with higher human impact. Global loss of vagility alters a key ecological trait of animals that affects not only population persistence but also ecosystem processes such as predator-prey interactions, nutrient cycling, and disease transmission.

Knowledge transfer and exchange (KTE) is as an interactive process involving the interchange of knowledge between research users and researcher producers. Despite many strategies for KTE, it is not clear which ones should be used in which contexts. This article is a review and synthesis of the KTE literature on health care policy. The review examined and summarized KTE's current evidence base for KTE. It found that about 20 percent of the studies reported on a real‐world application of a KTE strategy, and fewer had been formally evaluated. At this time there is an inadequate evidence base for doing “evidence‐based” KTE for health policy decision making. Either KTE must be reconceptualized, or strategies must be evaluated more rigorously to produce a richer evidence base for future activity.

Abstract Background This guideline addresses the diagnosis of hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP). It represents a collaborative effort among the American Thoracic Society, Japanese Respiratory Society, and Asociación Latinoamericana del Tórax. Methods Systematic reviews were performed for six questions. The evidence was discussed, and then recommendations were formulated by a multidisciplinary committee of experts in the field of interstitial lung disease and HP using the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation) approach. Results The guideline committee defined HP, and clinical, radiographic, and pathological features were described. HP was classified into nonfibrotic and fibrotic phenotypes. There was limited evidence that was directly applicable to all questions. The need for a thorough history and a validated questionnaire to identify potential exposures was agreed on. Serum IgG testing against potential antigens associated with HP was suggested to identify potential exposures. For patients with nonfibrotic HP, a recommendation was made in favor of obtaining bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid for lymphocyte cellular analysis, and suggestions for transbronchial lung biopsy and surgical lung biopsy were also made. For patients with fibrotic HP, suggestions were made in favor of obtaining BAL for lymphocyte cellular analysis, transbronchial lung cryobiopsy, and surgical lung biopsy. Diagnostic criteria were established, and a diagnostic algorithm was created by expert consensus. Knowledge gaps were identified as future research directions. Conclusions The guideline committee developed a systematic approach to the diagnosis of HP. The approach should be reevaluated as new evidence accumulates.

Airborne laser scanning (ALS) is a remote sensing technology known for its applicability in natural resources management. By quantifying the three-dimensional structure of vegetation and underlying terrain using laser technology, ALS has been used extensively for enhancing geospatial knowledge in the fields of forestry and ecology. Structural descriptions of vegetation provide a means of estimating a range of ecologically pertinent attributes, such as height, volume, and above-ground biomass. The efficient processing of large, often technically complex datasets requires dedicated algorithms and software. The continued promise of ALS as a tool for improving ecological understanding is often dependent on user-created tools, methods, and approaches. Due to the proliferation of ALS among academic, governmental, and private-sector communities, paired with requirements to address a growing demand for open and accessible data, the ALS community is recognising the importance of free and open-source software (FOSS) and the importance of user-defined workflows. Herein, we describe the philosophy behind the development of the lidR package. Implemented in the R environment with a C/C++ backend, lidR is free, open-source and cross-platform software created to enable simple and creative processing workflows for forestry and ecology communities using ALS data. We review current algorithms used by the research community, and in doing so raise awareness of current successes and challenges associated with parameterisation and common implementation approaches. Through a detailed description of the package, we address the key considerations and the design philosophy that enables users to implement user-defined tools. We also discuss algorithm choices that make the package representative of the ‘state-of-the-art’ and we highlight some internal limitations through examples of processing time discrepancies. We conclude that the development of applications like lidR are of fundamental importance for developing transparent, flexible and open ALS tools to ensure not only reproducible workflows, but also to offer researchers the creative space required for the progress and development of the discipline.

We present QIIME 2, an open-source microbiome data science platform accessible to users spanning the microbiome research ecosystem, from scientists and engineers to clinicians and policy makers. QIIME 2 provides new features that will drive the next generation of microbiome research. These include interactive spatial and temporal analysis and visualization tools, support for metabolomics and shotgun metagenomics analysis, and automated data provenance tracking to ensure reproducible, transparent microbiome data science.

Significance China has launched six key ecological restoration projects since the late 1970s, but the contribution of these projects to terrestrial C sequestration remains unknown. In this study we examined the ecosystem C sink in the project area (∼16% of the country’s land area) and evaluated the project-induced C sequestration. The total annual C sink in the project area between 2001 and 2010 was estimated to be 132 Tg C per y, over half of which (74 Tg C per y, 56%) was caused by the implementation of the six projects. This finding indicates that the implementation of the ecological restoration projects in China has significantly increased ecosystem C sequestration across the country.

When members of a stigmatized group find themselves in a situation where negative stereotypes provide a possible framework for interpreting their behavior, the risk of being judged in light of those stereotypes can elicit a disruptive state that undermines performance and aspirations in that domain. This situational predicament, termed stereotype threat, continues to be an intensely debated and researched topic in educational, social, and organizational psychology. In this review, we explore the various sources of stereotype threat, the mechanisms underlying stereotype-threat effects (both mediators and moderators), and the consequences of this situational predicament, as well as the means through which society and stigmatized individuals can overcome the insidious effects of stereotype threat. Ultimately, we hope this review alleviates some of the confusion surrounding stereotype threat while also sparking further research and debate.

Herein, we review mechanisms regulating cerebral blood flow (CBF), with specific focus on humans. We revisit important concepts from the older literature and describe the interaction of various mechanisms of cerebrovascular control. We amalgamate this broad scope of information into a brief review, rather than detailing any one mechanism or area of research. The relationship between regulatory mechanisms is emphasized, but the following three broad categories of control are explicated: (1) the effect of blood gases and neuronal metabolism on CBF; (2) buffering of CBF with changes in blood pressure, termed cerebral autoregulation; and (3) the role of the autonomic nervous system in CBF regulation. With respect to these control mechanisms, we provide evidence against several canonized paradigms of CBF control. Specifically, we corroborate the following four key theses: (1) that cerebral autoregulation does not maintain constant perfusion through a mean arterial pressure range of 60-150 mmHg; (2) that there is important stimulatory synergism and regulatory interdependence of arterial blood gases and blood pressure on CBF regulation; (3) that cerebral autoregulation and cerebrovascular sensitivity to changes in arterial blood gases are not modulated solely at the pial arterioles; and (4) that neurogenic control of the cerebral vasculature is an important player in autoregulatory function and, crucially, acts to buffer surges in perfusion pressure. Finally, we summarize the state of our knowledge with respect to these areas, outline important gaps in the literature and suggest avenues for future research.

Low-volume high-intensity interval training (HIT) is emerging as a time-efficient exercise strategy for improving health and fitness. This form of exercise has not been tested in type 2 diabetes and thus we examined the effects of low-volume HIT on glucose regulation and skeletal muscle metabolic capacity in patients with type 2 diabetes. Eight patients with type 2 diabetes (63 ± 8 yr, body mass index 32 ± 6 kg/m(2), Hb(A1C) 6.9 ± 0.7%) volunteered to participate in this study. Participants performed six sessions of HIT (10 × 60-s cycling bouts eliciting ∼90% maximal heart rate, interspersed with 60 s rest) over 2 wk. Before training and from ∼48 to 72 h after the last training bout, glucose regulation was assessed using 24-h continuous glucose monitoring under standardized dietary conditions. Markers of skeletal muscle metabolic capacity were measured in biopsy samples (vastus lateralis) before and after (72 h) training. Average 24-h blood glucose concentration was reduced after training (7.6 ± 1.0 vs. 6.6 ± 0.7 mmol/l) as was the sum of the 3-h postprandial areas under the glucose curve for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (both P < 0.05). Training increased muscle mitochondrial capacity as evidenced by higher citrate synthase maximal activity (∼20%) and protein content of Complex II 70 kDa subunit (∼37%), Complex III Core 2 protein (∼51%), and Complex IV subunit IV (∼68%, all P < 0.05). Mitofusin 2 (∼71%) and GLUT4 (∼369%) protein content were also higher after training (both P < 0.05). Our findings indicate that low-volume HIT can rapidly improve glucose control and induce adaptations in skeletal muscle that are linked to improved metabolic health in patients with type 2 diabetes.

Habitat destruction has driven many once-contiguous animal populations into remnant patches of varying size and isolation. The underlying framework for the conservation of fragmented populations is founded on the principles of island biogeography, wherein the probability of species occurrence in habitat patches varies as a function of patch size and isolation. Despite decades of research, the general importance of patch area and isolation as predictors of species occupancy in fragmented terrestrial systems remains unknown because of a lack of quantitative synthesis. Here, we compile occupancy data from 1,015 bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian, and invertebrate population networks on 6 continents and show that patch area and isolation are surprisingly poor predictors of occupancy for most species. We examine factors such as improper scaling and biases in species representation as explanations and find that the type of land cover separating patches most strongly affects the sensitivity of species to patch area and isolation. Our results indicate that patch area and isolation are indeed important factors affecting the occupancy of many species, but properties of the intervening matrix should not be ignored. Improving matrix quality may lead to higher conservation returns than manipulating the size and configuration of remnant patches for many of the species that persist in the aftermath of habitat destruction.

This research demonstrates that people at risk of devaluation based on group membership are attuned to cues that signal social identity contingencies--judgments, stereotypes, opportunities, restrictions, and treatments that are tied to one's social identity in a given setting. In 3 experiments, African American professionals were attuned to minority representation and diversity philosophy cues when they were presented as a part of workplace settings. Low minority representation cues coupled with colorblindness (as opposed to valuing diversity) led African American professionals to perceive threatening identity contingencies and to distrust the setting (Experiment 1). The authors then verified that the mechanism mediating the effect of setting cues on trust was identity contingent evaluations (Experiments 2 & 3). The power of social identity contingencies as they relate to underrepresented groups in mainstream institutions is discussed.