Search

Action learning has been used in healthcare settings to bring about changes to how services are delivered, to help individuals to develop their knowledge and skills, including leadership development, and to enable the development of collective abilities and communities of practice. It is evident that there are some positive elements in the healthcare environment that support the processes of action learning -- what we might call affinities between the environment and these processes. However, those who have practised action learning in these environments also know that difficulties and disablers can arise, to derail or block the processes -- what we might, perhaps optimistically, call challenges. This paper is based on the authors' experiences as facilitators of action learning in healthcare, and also social care. Each of the authors independently identified the main affinities they had experienced and the main challenges they had encountered in their work with action learning in different organisations in health and social care. They were collected together and themes were identified. The authors then reflected on the themes and, in some cases, built on them. The purpose of the paper is to share the learning from their experiences, and to encourage others who are using action learning in these environments to consider how best to use the affinities and how best to monitor for and, where necessary, tackle the challenges.

Marine Protected Areas require comprehensive monitoring to ensure objectives are achieved; however, monitoring natural ecosystems at scale is challenged by the biodiversity it aims to measure. Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding holds promise to address this monitoring challenge. We conducted paired sampling at 54 sites for fish and invertebrate assemblages in the Northwest Atlantic using groundfish trawls and eDNA metabarcoding of benthic seawater using four genetic markers (12S rRNA, 16S rRNA, 18S rRNA , and CO1). Compared to trawling, eDNA detected similar patterns of species turnover, larger estimates of gamma diversity, and smaller estimates of alpha diversity. A total of 63.6% (42/66) of fish species captured by trawling were detected by eDNA, along with an additional 26 species. Of the 24 missed detections by eDNA, 12 were inevitable as they lacked reference sequences. Excluding taxa assigned to higher than species level and those without a species name, 23.6% (17/72) of invertebrate species captured by trawling were detected by CO1, which detected an additional 98 species. We demonstrate that eDNA is capable of detecting patterns of community assemblage and species turnover in an offshore environment, emphasizing its strong potential for a non-invasive, comprehensive, and scalable tool for biodiversity monitoring supporting marine conservation programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is an effective treatment for severe depression and induces gray matter (GM) increases in the brain. Small-scale studies suggest that ECT also leads to changes in brain functioning, but findings are inconsistent. In this study, we investigated the influence of ECT on changes in both brain structure and function and their relation to clinical improvement using multicenter neuroimaging data from the Global ECT-MRI Research Collaboration (GEMRIC). We analyzed T1-weighted structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and functional resting-state MRI data of 88 individuals (49 male) with depressive episodes before and within one week after ECT. We performed voxel-based morphometry on the structural data and calculated fractional amplitudes of low-frequency fluctuations, regional homogeneity, degree centrality, functional connectomics, and hippocampus connectivity for the functional data in both unimodal and multimodal analyses. Longitudinal effects in the ECT group were compared to repeated measures of healthy controls (n = 27). Wide-spread increases in GM volume were found in patients following ECT. In contrast, no changes in any of the functional measures were observed, and there were no significant differences in structural or functional changes between ECT responders and non-responders. Multimodal analysis revealed that volume increases in the striatum, supplementary motor area and fusiform gyrus were associated with local changes in brain function. These results confirm wide-spread increases in GM volume, but suggest that this is not accompanied by functional changes or associated with clinical response. Instead, focal changes in brain function appear related to individual differences in brain volume increases. • Electroconvulsive therapy induces brain-wide gray matter increases. • Electroconvulsive therapy does not induce a global change in brain function. • Focal changes in brain function are related to individual volume increase changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The calyptraeids Crepidula adunca and Crepidula norrisiarum , both direct developers, are abundant in the shallow waters of the northeastern Pacific. They have long been considered as two allopatric species that live on different hosts and differ in body size. In this study, we rigorously test this historical hypothesis by assessing molecular taxonomy, museum records, new morphological and host observations, and population genetic structure along the northeast Pacific coast. Results show that, contrary to previous understanding, the distributions of the two species largely overlap and that size does not effectively distinguish them, especially in the northern part of the range where the nominal " C. adunca " has been studied. Newly recognized northern occurrences of C. norrisiarum demonstrate that both species have similar, disrupted distributions that range from British Columbia through southern California. Neither species is reported to occur on the outer shores of southern Washington or Oregon, the exception being records of C. adunca at Cape Arago, Oregon. Despite this apparent geographic gap, neither species shows appreciable genetic differentiation between the northern and southern parts of its ranges. Despite body size having been used to distinguish these species, our observations do not support body size as a species-specific trait; rather, they support a new hypothesis that body size variation reflects regional differences in host use and host availability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]