Harnessing landrace diversity empowers wheat breeding.

Harnessing genetic diversity in major staple crops through the development of new breeding capabilities is essential to ensure food security1. Here we examined the genetic and phenotypic diversity of the A.E. Watkins landrace collection2 of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum), a major global cereal, through whole-genome re-sequencing (827 Watkins landraces and 208 modern cultivars) and in-depth field evaluation spanning a decade. We discovered that modern cultivars are derived from just two of the seven ancestral groups of wheat and maintain very long-range haplotype integrity. The remaining five groups represent untapped genetic sources, providing access to landrace-specific alleles and haplotypes for breeding. Linkage disequilibrium (LD) based haplotypes and association genetics analyses link Watkins genomes to the thousands of high-resolution quantitative trait loci (QTL), and significant marker-trait associations identified. Using these structured germplasm, genotyping and informatics resources, we revealed many Watkins-unique beneficial haplotypes that can confer superior traits in modern wheat. Furthermore, we assessed the phenotypic effects of 44,338 Watkins-unique haplotypes, introgressed from 143 prioritised QTL in the context of modern cultivars, bridging the gap between landrace diversity and current breeding. This study establishes a framework for systematically utilising genetic diversity in crop improvement to achieve sustainable food security.

Sustained delirium reduction in an inpatient neuroscience unit.

BACKGROUND: Delirium is described as acute brain dysfunction that often fluctuates throughout the day and is highly prevalent in hospitalized adults. Delirium negatively affects patient outcomes with consequences including decreased cognitive functioning and increased mortality and healthcare costs. Furthermore, neurological patients are at increased risk for developing delirium due to their underlying diagnoses. PURPOSE: The purpose of this evidence-based practice project was to evaluate the long-term impact of nursing education and use of trained volunteers to prevent the development of delirium in an inpatient neuroscience unit. IMPLEMENTATION PLAN: This was a pre-post designed evidence-based practice project to educate and prioritize nursing care interventions for delirium prevention compared to a delirium management framework. The interventions included delirium education for nurses and nursing assistants along with the development of a specialized volunteer program to implement non-pharmacological, multi-component delirium prevention interventions. Long-term sustainment and enculturation occurred over the subsequent year. OUTCOMES: The baseline data collection period included 2520 patients. The intervention period included 4515 patients, with both groups being similar in age, race, gender, and length of stay. The total number of patients with a discharge diagnosis of delirium decreased from 29.2% to 19.8% (p < .001). Fewer patients in the intervention group were discharged to a skilled nursing facility (p < .001) and other post-acute facility (p = .008), along with more patients being discharged to home care (p < .001). LINKING EVIDENCE TO ACTION: This evidence-based practice project demonstrates long-term sustained reduction of delirium in the neuroscience population. Despite the challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, delirium prevention strategies were found to be effective in decreasing the rate at which patients develop delirium.

Bid from the Association for the Advancement of Wound Care.

The Association for the Advancement of Wound Care sets out its bid for the WUWHS 2026 Congress to be held in Chicago, Illinois, US.

A scoping review of outcomes of operational success for nurse scientists in clinical practice settings.

BACKGROUND: The nurse scientist in the clinical setting is a role that has evolved over recent decades to encompass the concomitant development of personal research programs and the facilitation of staff and advanced practice nurse research in health care settings. However, the definition, operationalization, and measures of success are extremely variable. PURPOSE: To identify the defining features and characteristics of the nurse scientist role in clinical practice settings as represented in the existing literature. METHODS: We conducted a scoping review using PubMed and CINAHL databases. We initially identified a total of 3345 references from 1976 to June 2020, 217 of which were published from 2005-2020. We used the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) framework to explore the state of the science of the role of nurse scientists in practice settings. DISCUSSION: Approximately 100 articles met the criteria for full-text analysis, and the final review consisted of 20 descriptive analytic studies addressing the nurse scientist role definition, operationalization, and outcome measures. CONCLUSION: Findings suggest that nurse scientist roles serve to promote health system success through a host of research-focused activities that conceivably contribute to improved patient care outcomes. Work is needed to support the cost of requisite resources and infrastructure and to increase acceptance of the role as part of a tenure-earning track in academic settings that also stand to benefit.

A machine learning algorithm for early detection of heel deep tissue injuries based on a daily history of sub-epidermal moisture measurements.

Sub-epidermal moisture is an established biophysical marker of pressure ulcer formation based on biocapacitance changes in affected soft tissues, which has been shown to facilitate early detection of these injuries. Artificial intelligence shows great promise in wound prevention and care, including in automated analyses of quantitative measures of tissue health such as sub-epidermal moisture readings acquired over time for effective, patient-specific, and anatomical-site-specific pressure ulcer prophylaxis. Here, we developed a novel machine learning algorithm for early detection of heel deep tissue injuries, which was trained using a database comprising six consecutive daily sub-epidermal moisture measurements recorded from 173 patients in acute and post-acute care settings. This algorithm was able to achieve strong predictive power in forecasting heel deep tissue injury events the next day, with sensitivity and specificity of 77% and 80%, respectively, revealing the clinical potential of artificial intelligence-powered technology for hospital-acquired pressure ulcer prevention. The current work forms the scientific basis for clinical implementation of machine learning algorithms that provide effective, early, and anatomy-specific preventive interventions to minimise the occurrence of hospital-acquired pressure ulcers based on routine tissue health status measurements.

Rust expression browser: an open source database for simultaneous analysis of host and pathogen gene expression profiles with expVIP.

BACKGROUND: Transcriptomics is being increasingly applied to generate new insight into the interactions between plants and their pathogens. For the wheat yellow (stripe) rust pathogen (Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici, Pst) RNA-based sequencing (RNA-Seq) has proved particularly valuable, overcoming the barriers associated with its obligate biotrophic nature. This includes the application of RNA-Seq approaches to study Pst and wheat gene expression dynamics over time and the Pst population composition through the use of a novel RNA-Seq based surveillance approach called "field pathogenomics". As a dual RNA-Seq approach, the field pathogenomics technique also provides gene expression data from the host, giving new insight into host responses. However, this has created a wealth of data for interrogation. RESULTS: Here, we used the field pathogenomics approach to generate 538 new RNA-Seq datasets from Pst-infected field wheat samples, doubling the amount of transcriptomics data available for this important pathosystem. We then analysed these datasets alongside 66 RNA-Seq datasets from four Pst infection time-courses and 420 Pst-infected plant field and laboratory samples that were publicly available. A database of gene expression values for Pst and wheat was generated for each of these 1024 RNA-Seq datasets and incorporated into the development of the rust expression browser ( http://www.rust-expression.com ). This enables for the first time simultaneous 'point-and-click' access to gene expression profiles for Pst and its wheat host and represents the largest database of processed RNA-Seq datasets available for any of the three Puccinia wheat rust pathogens. We also demonstrated the utility of the browser through investigation of expression of putative Pst virulence genes over time and examined the host plants response to Pst infection. CONCLUSIONS: The rust expression browser offers immense value to the wider community, facilitating data sharing and transparency and the underlying database can be continually expanded as more datasets become publicly available.

A blinded clinical study using a subepidermal moisture biocapacitance measurement device for early detection of pressure injuries.

This study aimed to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of subepidermal moisture (SEM), a biomarker employed for early detection of pressure injuries (PI), compared to the "Gold Standard" of clinical skin and tissue assessment (STA), and to characterize the timing of SEM changes relative to the diagnosis of a PI. This blinded, longitudinal, prospective clinical study enrolled 189 patients (n = 182 in intent-to-treat [ITT]) at acute and post-acute sites (9 USA, 3 UK). Data were collected from patients' heels and sacrums using a biocapacitance measurement device beginning at admission and continuing for a minimum of 6 days to: (a) the patient developing a PI, (b) discharge from care, or (c) a maximum of 21 days. Standard of care clinical interventions prevailed, uninterrupted. Principal investigators oversaw the study at each site. Blinded Generalists gathered SEM data, and blinded Specialists diagnosed the presence or absence of PIs. Of the ITT population, 26.4% developed a PI during the study; 66.7% classified as Stage 1 injuries, 23% deep tissue injuries, the remaining being Stage 2 or Unstageable. Sensitivity was 87.5% (95% CI: 74.8%-95.3%) and specificity was 32.9% (95% CI: 28.3%-37.8%). Area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) was 0.6713 (95% CI 0.5969-0.7457, P < .001). SEM changes were observed 4.7 (± 2.4 days) earlier than diagnosis of a PI via STA alone. Latency between the SEM biomarker and later onset of a PI, in combination with standard of care interventions administered to at-risk patients, may have confounded specificity. Aggregate SEM sensitivity and specificity and 67.13% AUC exceeded that of clinical judgment alone. While acknowledging specificity limitations, these data suggest that SEM biocapacitance measures can complement STAs, facilitate earlier identification of the risk of specific anatomies developing PIs, and inform earlier anatomy-specific intervention decisions than STAs alone. Future work should include cost-consequence analyses of SEM informed interventions.

MARPLE, a point-of-care, strain-level disease diagnostics and surveillance tool for complex fungal pathogens.

BACKGROUND: Effective disease management depends on timely and accurate diagnosis to guide control measures. The capacity to distinguish between individuals in a pathogen population with specific properties such as fungicide resistance, toxin production and virulence profiles is often essential to inform disease management approaches. The genomics revolution has led to technologies that can rapidly produce high-resolution genotypic information to define individual variants of a pathogen species. However, their application to complex fungal pathogens has remained limited due to the frequent inability to culture these pathogens in the absence of their host and their large genome sizes. RESULTS: Here, we describe the development of Mobile And Real-time PLant disEase (MARPLE) diagnostics, a portable, genomics-based, point-of-care approach specifically tailored to identify individual strains of complex fungal plant pathogens. We used targeted sequencing to overcome limitations associated with the size of fungal genomes and their often obligately biotrophic nature. Focusing on the wheat yellow rust pathogen, Puccinia striiformis f.sp. tritici (Pst), we demonstrate that our approach can be used to rapidly define individual strains, assign strains to distinct genetic lineages that have been shown to correlate tightly with their virulence profiles and monitor genes of importance. CONCLUSIONS: MARPLE diagnostics enables rapid identification of individual pathogen strains and has the potential to monitor those with specific properties such as fungicide resistance directly from field-collected infected plant tissue in situ. Generating results within 48 h of field sampling, this new strategy has far-reaching implications for tracking plant health threats.

Pressure ulcer summit 2018: An interdisciplinary approach to improve our understanding of the risk of pressure-induced tissue damage.

Pressure ulcers (PrUs) affect approximately 2.5 million patients and account for 60,000 deaths annually. They are associated with an additional annual cost of $43,000 per related hospital stay and a total cost to the US health care system as high as $25 billion. Despite the implementation of national and international PrU prevention guidelines and toolkits, rates of facility-acquired PrU s and PrUs in people with spinal cord injury are still high. A new paradigm is needed that distinguishes between prevention and treatment research methods and includes not only the causative factors of pressure and tissue deformation but also patient-specific anatomical differences and the concomitant biological cellular processes, including reperfusion injury, toxic metabolites, ischemia, cell distortion, impaired lymphatic drainage, and impaired interstitial fluid flow that compound existing tissue damage. The purpose of this article is to summarize the highlights from the first annual Pressure Ulcer Summit held February 9-10, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia (sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Wound Care in partnership with multiple professional organizations). This international, interdisciplinary summit brought together key stakeholders in wound care and PrU prevention and management to highlight advances in pathophysiology of pressure-induced tissue damage; explore challenges in current terminologies, documentation, and data collection; describe innovations in clinical care; and identify research opportunities to advance the science of PrU prevention and management.

Perspectives on Patient and Family Engagement With Reduction in Harm: The Forgotten Voice.

BACKGROUND: Despite continued efforts to improve safety in hospitals, hospital-acquired harm persists. Strategies have been identified to establish patient-centered care and improve patient engagement with care. However, the relationship of patient and family engagement to reduction of harm is not well understood, with limited findings available in current literature. PURPOSE: This qualitative study explored the perceptions and attitudes of patients and family members and several clinical disciplines toward patient engagement in reducing preventable harm in hospitalized patients. METHODS: We conducted 8 focus groups at 2 nonprofit hospitals with several constituencies: patients/families, registered nurses, physician hospitalists, and pharmacists/physical therapists. RESULTS: Thematic analysis of transcripts revealed multiple themes from different perspectives, including: family presence increases safety, the hospital environment is intimidating, and communication is essential, but I am not being heard. CONCLUSIONS: The rich data suggest a significant opportunity for reducing risk and harm by more actively engaging patients and families in the effort. Increasing patient acuity and complexity of care furthers the need for partnering with patients and families more intentionally for increased safety.

Developing an Intervention to Reduce Harm in Hospitalized Patients: Patients and Families in Research.

BACKGROUND: Patient safety-focused research may be strengthened by the inclusion of patients and family members in research design; yet, published methodologies for doing so are scarce. PURPOSE: This study engaged patients and families in research design of an intervention to increase patient/family engagement, with reduction of harm in hospitalized patients. METHODS: The study design team convened a Patient Safety Advisory Panel to explore potential testable interventions to increase patient/family engagement with safety. They explored the preferred intervention, Speak Up-My Advocate for Patient Safety (MAPS), through multistakeholder focus groups. RESULTS: Participants emphasized the importance of including patient/family when designing interventions. Regarding the Speak Up-MAPS intervention, perceptions from stakeholders were mixed, including the value and potential complexity, role confusion, and cost of the proposed advocate role. CONCLUSION: Intentional inclusion of the patient/family in research is important and practical. Both strengths and challenges of the proposed intervention were identified, indicating the need for further study.

A change in temperature modulates defence to yellow (stripe) rust in wheat line UC1041 independently of resistance gene Yr36.

BACKGROUND: Rust diseases are of major importance in wheat production worldwide. With the constant evolution of new rust strains and their adaptation to higher temperatures, consistent and durable disease resistance is a key challenge. Environmental conditions affect resistance gene performance, but the basis for this is poorly understood. RESULTS: Here we show that a change in day temperature affects wheat resistance to Puccinia striiformis f. sp tritici (Pst), the causal agent of yellow (or stripe) rust. Using adult plants of near-isogenic lines UC1041 +/- Yr36, there was no significant difference between Pst percentage uredia coverage in plants grown at day temperatures of 18°C or 25°C in adult UC1041 + Yr36 plants. However, when plants were transferred to the lower day temperature at the time of Pst inoculation, infection increased up to two fold. Interestingly, this response was independent of Yr36, which has previously been reported as a temperature-responsive resistance gene as Pst development in adult UC1041 -Yr36 plants was similarly affected by the plants experiencing a temperature reduction. In addition, UC1041 -Yr36 plants grown at the lower temperature then transferred to the higher temperature were effectively resistant and a temperature change in either direction was shown to affect Pst development up to 8 days prior to inoculation. Results for seedlings were similar, but more variable compared to adult plants. Enhanced resistance to Pst was observed in seedlings of UC1041 and the cultivar Shamrock when transferred to the higher temperature. Resistance was not affected in seedlings of cultivar Solstice by a temperature change in either direction. CONCLUSIONS: Yr36 is effective at 18°C, refining the lower range of temperature at which resistance against Pst is conferred compared to previous studies. Results reveal previously uncharacterised defence temperature sensitivity in the UC1041 background which is caused by a change in temperature and independently of Yr36. This novel phenotype is present in some cultivars but absent in others, suggesting that Pst defence may be more stable in some cultivars than others when plants are exposed to varying temperatures.

Yr36 confers partial resistance at temperatures below 18°C to U.K. isolates of Puccinia striiformis.

Wheat yellow (stripe) rust, caused by the obligate biotrophic fungus Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici, is a continual threat to wheat fields worldwide. New isolates with increased virulence have recently emerged driving breeding efforts to incorporate disease resistance genes which confer potentially more durable, albeit partial, resistance. Yr36 is one such locus which was recently cloned (WKS1) and described as a high-temperature adult-plant gene being effective only at temperatures above 25°C. We examined the potential use of Yr36 at temperatures below 25°C. Field experiments in the United Kingdom across 2 years show that lines carrying Yr36 provide slow rusting resistance to the yellow rust pathogen. Juvenile and adult Yr36 isogenic lines showed partial resistance at temperatures below 18°C under control environment conditions in tetraploid and hexaploid genetic backgrounds, but not at seedling stage, when inoculated with U.K. P. striiformis isolates. This partial resistance phenotype was similar to that observed previously at temperatures ≥25°C. Transgenic complementation tests and ethyl methanesulfonate mutants showed that the low-temperature partial resistance was due to the WKS1 gene. This study indicates that Yr36 has the potential to be an effective source of partial resistance in temperate wheat growing regions.

Application of variable-number tandem-repeat typing to discriminate Ralstonia solanacearum strains associated with English watercourses and disease outbreaks.

Variable-number tandem-repeat (VNTR) analysis was used for high-resolution discrimination among Ralstonia solanacearum phylotype IIB sequevar 1 (PIIB-1) isolates and further evaluated for use in source tracing. Five tandem-repeat-containing loci (comprising six tandem repeats) discriminated 17 different VNTR profiles among 75 isolates from potato, geranium, bittersweet (Solanum dulcamara), tomato, and the environment. R. solanacearum isolates from crops at three unrelated outbreak sites where river water had been used for irrigation had distinct VNTR profiles that were shared with PIIB-1 isolates from infected bittersweet growing upriver of each site. The VNTR profiling results supported the implication that the source of R. solanacearum at each outbreak was contaminated river water. Analysis of 51 isolates from bittersweet growing in river water at different locations provided a means to evaluate the technique for studying the epidemiology of the pathogen in the environment. Ten different VNTR profiles were identified among bittersweet PIIB-1 isolates from the River Thames. Repeated findings of contiguous river stretches that produced isolates that shared single VNTR profiles supported the hypothesis that the pathogen had disseminated from infected bittersweet plants located upriver. VNTR profiles shared between bittersweet isolates from two widely separated Thames tributaries (River Ray and River Colne) suggested they were independently contaminated with the same clonal type. Some bittersweet isolates had VNTR profiles that were shared with potato isolates collected outside the United Kingdom. It was concluded that VNTR profiling could contribute to further understanding of R. solanacearum epidemiology and assist in control of future disease outbreaks.

NGO perspectives on the challenges and opportunities for real-world evaluation: a qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: The move towards robust monitoring and evaluation (M&E) has been increasing in global health, motivated by both an accountability agenda and to increase learning from M&E activities. Many international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) receive funding from one or more large institutional donors. OBJECTIVE: To understand NGOs' perspective on their own role in terms of accountability to both donors and the populations they serve. METHODS: We conducted a series of in-depth interviews with M&E staff in 11 NGOs with projects related to maternal and child health to better understand how M&E is being implemented in these organizations. We then examined the data based on a priori identified themes. RESULTS: We found that despite flexibility from some donors, rigid reporting structures remain a barrier for NGOs to fully communicate the impact of their projects. While NGOs do utilize M&E findings, their use is limited by low staff capacity. The primary audience for the results remains the donor agency, and the primary motivation for M&E remains donor reporting. Reporting remains a burdensome affair, with ongoing limitations around streamlining results for donors. To reduce the burden of reporting for individual projects, the participants in our study suggested placing greater emphasis on process evaluations rather than impact evaluations. Participants also suggested increased data sharing between organizations working in the same regions and making better use of secondary data sources; in both cases to reduce the need for primary data collection. CONCLUSION: We carried out this work to advance the conversation on how NGOs currently manage their M&E - a conversation which should involve NGOs, donors, local health system actors, and the communities with whom they work. More flexibility from donors, increased use of technology, and more transparency on if and how data is being used would help NGOs with their M&E process.

A large bioassay identifies Stb resistance genes that provide broad resistance against Septoria tritici blotch disease in the UK.

Introduction: Septoria tritici blotch (STB) is one of the most damaging fungal diseases of wheat in Europe, largely due to the paucity of effective resistance genes against it in breeding materials. Currently dominant protection methods against this disease, e.g. fungicides and the disease resistance genes already deployed, are losing their effectiveness. Therefore, it is vital that other available disease resistance sources are identified, understood and deployed in a manner that maximises their effectiveness and durability. Methods: In this study, we assessed wheat genotypes containing nineteen known major STB resistance genes (Stb1 through to Stb19) or combinations thereof against a broad panel of 93 UK Zymoseptoria tritici isolates. Seedlings were inoculated using a cotton swab and monitored for four weeks. Four infection-related phenotypic traits were visually assessed. These were the days post infection to the development of first symptoms and pycnidia, percentage coverage of the infected leaf area with chlorosis/necrosis and percentage coverage of the infected leaf area with pycnidia. Results: The different Stb genes were found to vary greatly in the levels of protection they provided, with pycnidia coverage at four weeks differing significantly from susceptible controls for every tested genotype. Stb10, Stb11, Stb12, Stb16q, Stb17, and Stb19 were identified as contributing broad spectrum disease resistance, and synthetic hexaploid wheat lines were identified as particularly promising sources of broadly effective STB resistances. Discussion: No single Z. tritici isolate was found to be virulent against all tested resistance genes. Wheat genotypes carrying multiple Stb genes were found to provide higher levels of resistance than expected given their historical levels of use. Furthermore, it was noted that disease resistance controlled by different Stb genes was associated with different levels of chlorosis, with high levels of early chlorosis in some genotypes correlated with high resistance to fungal pycnidia development, potentially suggesting the presence of multiple resistance mechanisms.The knowledge obtained here will aid UK breeders in prioritising Stb genes for future breeding programmes, in which optimal combinations of resistance genes could be pyramided. In addition, this study identified the most interesting Stb genes for cloning and detailed functional analysis.

Production of nascent ribosome precursors within the nucleolar microenvironment of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

35S rRNA transcripts include a 5'-external transcribed spacer followed by rRNAs of the small and large ribosomal subunits. Their processing yields massive precursors that include dozens of assembly factor proteins. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, nucleolar assembly factors form 2 coaxial layers/volumes around ribosomal DNA. Most of these factors are cyclically recruited from a latent state to an operative state, and are extensively conserved. The layers match, at least approximately, known subcompartments found in higher eukaryotic cells. ∼80% of assembly factors are essential. The number of copies of these assembly factors is comparable to the number of nascent transcripts. Moreover, they exhibit "isoelectric balance," with RNA-binding candidate "nucleator" assembly factors being notably basic. The physical properties of pre-small subunit and pre-large subunit assembly factors are similar, as are their 19 motif signatures detected by hierarchical clustering, unlike motif signatures of the 5'-external transcribed spacer rRNP. Additionally, many assembly factors lack shared motifs. Taken together with the progression of rRNP composition during subunit maturation, and the realization that the ribosomal DNA cable is initially bathed in a subunit-nonspecific assembly factor reservoir/microenvironment, we propose a "3-step subdomain assembly model": Step (1): predominantly basic assembly factors sequentially nucleate sites along nascent rRNA; Step (2): the resulting rRNPs recruit numerous less basic assembly factors along with notably basic ribosomal proteins; Step (3): rRNPs in nearby subdomains consolidate. Cleavages of rRNA then promote release of rRNPs to the nucleoplasm, likely facilitated by the persistence of assembly factors that were already associated with nucleolar precursors.

Clinical profile of the SEM Scanner - Modernizing pressure injury care pathways using Sub-Epidermal Moisture (SEM) scanning.

INTRODUCTION: Pressure injuries (PIs) are a global health concern. Current PI care standards, including skin tissue assessments (STA) and health care professional (HCP) clinical judgment, diagnose visibly manifested PIs on the skin's surface, i.e. after the damage has already occurred. However, objective assessment of early-stage, non-visible, pressure-induced tissue damage is clinically impossible within the current standard of care. The SEM Scanner is the first device authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that addresses this unmet clinical need. AREAS COVERED: This review describes the novel sub-epidermal moisture (SEM) scanning technology of the device and summarizes the clinical safety and efficacy data that support the use of the scanner in routine PI care practice. EXPERT OPINION: The clinical strategy for developing the SEM Scanner is noteworthy. SEM technology using anatomy-specific data enables HCPs to provide early PI prevention interventions before visible signs of tissue damage develop while the damage is still reversible. When adopted into routine practice, the device identifies an increased risk of developing PIs 5 days (median) earlier than STA. FDA clearance was based on bench studies and data from three foundational trials that demonstrate the diagnostic accuracy of the device algorithm significantly exceeding clinical judgment (p < 0.001).