Risky business: Gig workers and the navigation of ideal worker expectations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Managers and customers often expect individuals to be "ideal workers" devoted entirely to work, and this devotion is typically displayed through being available to work at any time, on any day (Reid, 2015). During the COVID-19 pandemic, many individuals in lower-paid, customer-facing jobs were expected to not only be available but also to take on physical risk. However, the ideal worker literature has paid relatively little attention to how risk relates to ideal worker expectations, reflecting in part the extant literature's focus on professionals who face relatively little physical and financial uncertainty.

COVID-19 and raising the value of care.

In this opinion piece, we argue the current pandemic is shining a light on caregiving as critical work that is under-valued and under-paid. We call upon national lawmakers to raise the value of care work. Doing so would also make progress in solving another national crisis: closing the gender wage gap.

Be Well: results of a nutrition, exercise, and weight management intervention among at-risk older adults.

The objective of this article is to test the effectiveness of a multifaceted exercise and nutritional education intervention for chronically ill, community-dwelling older adults. A pre/post cohort design was implemented with measures of physical activity, fitness, depression, and anthropometry collected via 4-month in-person interview and telephone follow-up. The study was conducted at two community-based senior centers in the Los Angeles area and participants (n=62) were older adults aged 60 or older, with multiple chronic conditions, with one or more emergency department visits or hospital admissions in the previous 6 months, and at nutritionally moderate to high risk.

Genomic characterization of the Yersinia genus.

Background: New DNA sequencing technologies have enabled detailed comparative genomic analyses of entire genera of bacterial pathogens. Prior to this study, three species of the enterobacterial genus Yersinia that cause invasive human diseases (Yersinia pestis, Yersinia pseudotuberculosis, and Yersinia enterocolitica) had been sequenced. However, there were no genomic data on the Yersinia species with more limited virulence potential, frequently found in soil and water environments.

Errorless versus errorful training of spelling in individuals with acquired dysgraphia.

We examined effects of error production in training of spelling in four individuals with stroke-induced dysgraphia. In a single participant crossover design, we provided errorless and errorful spelling training in counterbalanced phases. Improvements in spelling to dictation (large effect sizes) were evident for trained words in all participants following both errorful and errorless training phases, with some advantage of errorful over errorless for three of four participants.

Bacillus anthracis anthrolysin O and three phospholipases C are functionally redundant in a murine model of inhalation anthrax.

Although traditionally considered to be an extracellular pathogen, Bacillus anthracis has a brief intracellular step to initiate anthrax. At the onset of infection, B. anthracis must withstand the bactericidal activities of the macrophage.

Bacillus anthracis phospholipases C facilitate macrophage-associated growth and contribute to virulence in a murine model of inhalation anthrax.

Several models of anthrax pathogenesis suggest that early in the infectious process Bacillus anthracis endospores germinate and outgrow into vegetative bacilli within phagocytes before being released into the blood. Here, we define the respective contributions of three phospholipases C (PLCs) to the pathogenesis of B. anthracis.

Shuffling bacterial metabolomes.

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) has a far more significant role than gene duplication in bacterial evolution. This has recently been illustrated by work demonstrating the importance of HGT in the emergence of bacterial metabolic networks, with horizontally acquired genes being placed in peripheral pathways at the outer branches of the networks.

Formation and composition of the Bacillus anthracis endospore.

The endospores of Bacillus anthracis are the infectious particles of anthrax. Spores are dormant bacterial morphotypes able to withstand harsh environments for decades, which contributes to their ability to be formulated and dispersed as a biological weapon. We monitored gene expression in B.

Widespread horizontal transfer of mitochondrial genes in flowering plants.

Horizontal gene transfer--the exchange of genes across mating barriers--is recognized as a major force in bacterial evolution. However, in eukaryotes it is prevalent only in certain phagotrophic protists and limited largely to the ancient acquisition of bacterial genes. Although the human genome was initially reported to contain over 100 genes acquired during vertebrate evolution from bacteria, this claim was immediately and repeatedly rebutted.

Air quality and respiratory functioning in children with pulmonary disorders.

This study was conducted to examine the relation between daily ambient air conditions, contaminants (eg, aeroallergens such as mold spores and pollen), and respiratory health indices of children with respiratory disorders (eg, asthma) residing in metropolitan Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Daily measures of peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR), respiratory symptoms, and other indices of health were monitored as subjects went about their normal daily activities. The results of this study suggest that high summer temperatures had the greatest impact on children's health status and activity level, with humidity and mold counts also contributing significantly to a decline in respiratory health indices.

The relation between stress and disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis.

This study investigated the relation between stress and current disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). During a routine clinic appointment, subjects were given ratings of global disease status by their physicians and completed self-report measures of major stress and minor stress. In addition, each subject's erythrocyte sedimentation rate was taken.

Use of absorbed antisera for demonstration of antigenic variation among strains of Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1.

Antigenic typing of strains of Legionella pneumophila serogroup 1 (Lp1) has been shown to be useful in epidemiological studies of outbreaks of legionellosis. Selective absorption of rabbit antibodies produced against five strains of Lp1 resulted in the recognition of 17 somatic types among the 176 strains tested. A comparison was made of our results and those obtained by McKinney et al.

Recognition of a second serogroup of Legionella longbeachae.

A strain of Legionella longbeachae (Tucker 1) that was isolated from the postmortem lung tissue of a pneumonia patient was serologically distinct from four other strains of L. longbeachae. The recognition of a second serogroup of L.

Current Status of Immunofluorescent Methodology for Salmonellae .

The fluorescent antibody (FA) method for detecting salmonellae in food and feed samples is now an official method of the Association of Official Analytical Chemists. The need for a rapid screening method for detecting these pathogenic microorganisms in suspect products led to development of the FA method. A brief history of the development of the FA test, its evaluation by various investigators and its use by food laboratories are described in this report.

Preservation of nasopharyngeal smears for fluorescent antibody detection of Bordetella pertussis.

Smears from throat and nasal washings seeded with Bordetella pertussis were either treated with aprotinin (a protease inhibitor) or fixed with 1 or 10% Formalin. These smears were stored at 23, 4, and -70 degrees C. Smears were removed and stained with a fluorescent antibody conjugate for B.

Flagella on Legionnaires' disease bacteria: ultastructural observations.

Scanning and transmission electron microscopic studies were done on five strains of flagellated Legionella pneumophila cultured for 1 to 3 days on charcoal yeast extract agar or yeast extract broth. Ultrastructurally, each strain consisted of pleomorphic, flagellated bacilli, many of which showed the typical pinching type of division as seen with other gram-negative bacteria. Most of the flagellated organisms, regardless of the strain, had a single, relatively straight or undulant polar flagellum, about 25 nm in diameter.

Pathogenesis of acute Legionnaires' disease pneumonia.

Immunofluorescent study of the lungs in cases of fatal suspected acute Legionnaires' disease enabled confirmation of the presence of Legionella pneumophila. In addition, probable pathogenetic mechanisms that had not been as clearly visualized by light microscopy became apparent: the retrograde involvement of the larger bronchioles and proximal airways, invasion of the interstitium, extension to pleura, and lymphatic and hematogenous spread. Organisms were demonstrated to occur in the liver and spleen of one patient.

Fatal pneumonia caused by Legionella pneumophila, serogroup 3: demonstration of the bacilli in extrathoracic organs.

An immunosuppressed patient with malignant lymphoma died of acute pneumonia caused by Legionella pneumophila. Bacilli of serogroup 3 were detected in areas of pnemonia, in a mediastinal lymph node, and in the liver and spleen by direct immunofluorescence done on tissue obtained at autopsy. That the extrathoracic fluorescent material represented intact bacteria rather than antigenic fragments or antigen-antibody complexes was confirmed by finding intracellular bacilli in the liver by electron microscopy.