Publications by authors named "S Kate Castle"

Article Synopsis
  • Plants connect above-ground and below-ground microbial communities, influencing each other through root interactions and foliar endophytes.
  • Research shows that diverse plant communities enrich soil nutrients, but this benefit can diminish with the use of foliar fungicides, which disrupt fungal communities.
  • The study indicates that soil nutrient differences lead to varying microbial phenotypes based on plant richness, where polycultures exhibit unique resistance and resource use behaviors compared to monocultures, necessitating more research on soil resource diversity.
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As tumor-associated macrophages (TAM) exercise a plethora of protumor and immune evasive functions, novel strategies targeting TAMs to inhibit tumor progression have emerged within the current arena of cancer immunotherapy. Activation of the mannose receptor 1 (CD206) is a recent approach that recognizes immunosuppressive CD206high M2-like TAMs as a drug target. Ligation of CD206 both induces reprogramming of CD206high TAMs toward a proinflammatory phenotype and selectively triggers apoptosis in these cells.

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High-quality early care and education (ECE) programs are associated with positive outcomes, especially for children from low-income families. During the initial COVID-19 pandemic lockdown many of these families faced an abrupt halt to ECE. Here, we examined how toddlers from economically disadvantaged backgrounds enrolled in high-quality ECE programs in the United States during the 2020 pandemic (n = 48) fared on cognitive and socioemotional outcomes compared to a 2019 pre-pandemic cohort (n = 94) and a pandemic 2021 cohort (n = 132).

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When the COVID-19 pandemic forced school closures in the U.S. in March 2020, children's learning moved home and online, making school participation a challenge for many families, particularly those with low incomes.

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Self-regulatory skills are increasingly recognized as critical early education goals, but few efforts have been made to identify all the features of the classroom that actually promote such skills. This study experiments with a new observational measure capturing three dimensions of the classroom environment hypothesized to influence self-regulation: classroom management, emotionally supportive interactions, and direct promotion of self-regulatory skills. These classroom dimensions were tested as predictors of change over the kindergarten year in both self-regulatory and academic skills in a sample of racially/ethnically-diverse low-income children in Tulsa, OK.

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