Education in prosthetic and orthotic training: Looking back 50 years and moving forward.

There is a long history of prosthetic and orthotic services helping to mitigate the impact of physical impairment by restoring function, and enabling and equipping the user. The training of health professionals who design, fit, and maintain prosthetic and orthotic devices has evolved over the centuries, reflecting an increase in knowledge, technology, understanding, and social attitudes in each era. Improvements in pedagogical thinking and biomechanical understanding, as well as the advent of new integrated technologies, have driven the profession over the past 50 years to modernize, evolve training and service delivery models in line with new attitudes toward clients, and search for new ways to improve users' quality of life.

Proteogenomic analyses indicate bacterial methylotrophy and archaeal heterotrophy are prevalent below the grass root zone.

Annually, half of all plant-derived carbon is added to soil where it is microbially respired to CO. However, understanding of the microbiology of this process is limited because most culture-independent methods cannot link metabolic processes to the organisms present, and this link to causative agents is necessary to predict the results of perturbations on the system. We collected soil samples at two sub-root depths (10-20 cm and 30-40 cm) before and after a rainfall-driven nutrient perturbation event in a Northern California grassland that experiences a Mediterranean climate.

Prosthetists' perceptions and use of outcome measures in clinical practice: Long-term effects of focused continuing education.

Background: Continuing education is intended to facilitate clinicians' skills and knowledge in areas of practice, such as administration and interpretation of outcome measures.

Objective: To evaluate the long-term effect of continuing education on prosthetists' confidence in administering outcome measures and their perceptions of outcomes measurement in clinical practice.

Design: Pretest-posttest survey methods.

Use of and confidence in administering outcome measures among clinical prosthetists: Results from a national survey and mixed-methods training program.

Background: Outcome measures can be used in prosthetic practices to evaluate interventions, inform decision making, monitor progress, document outcomes, and justify services. Strategies to enhance prosthetists' ability to use outcome measures are needed to facilitate their adoption in routine practice.

Objective: To assess prosthetists' use of outcome measures and evaluate the effects of training on their confidence in administering performance-based measures.

Heterotrophic archaea contribute to carbon cycling in low-pH, suboxic biofilm communities.

Archaea are widely distributed and yet are most often not the most abundant members of microbial communities. Here, we document a transition from Bacteria- to Archaea-dominated communities in microbial biofilms sampled from the Richmond Mine acid mine drainage (AMD) system (∼pH 1.0, ∼38°C) and in laboratory-cultivated biofilms.

Selection of an above or below-ankle orthosis for individuals with neuropathic partial foot amputation: a pilot study.

Background: Little evidence exists for the orthotic management for individuals diagnosed with diabetic neuropathy and partial foot amputation.

Objective: This pilot study examined differences in balance and pressure distribution while individuals wore foot orthoses inside shoes (BA) and this same orthosis combined with an above-ankle (AABA) orthosis.

Study Design: Within-group repeated measures crossover design.