Professional competencies in social work concerned with alcohol use problems in Lithuania: Moving beyond 'know-how'.

There has been relatively little research on professional competencies in social work with individuals with alcohol use problems. The present study investigates the patterns of competencies and abilities that constitute different competence dimensions in this field of social work. Additionally, the study attempts to confirm the validity and assess the reliability in the use of the Perceived Social Work Competence Scale (PSWCS) for measuring professional competencies in Lithuania.

A Comparative Analysis of Milk Oligosaccharides via LC-MS: Globally Distributed Cattle Breeds and Native Northern Finncattle.

Milk oligosaccharides are complex carbohydrates composed of various monosaccharide units linked together by glycosidic bonds. They play an essential role in promoting gut health by fostering beneficial bacteria, supporting the development of the immune system, and protecting against infections and diseases. This work compared the oligosaccharide profiles in widely utilized breeds such as Holstein and Ayrshire (Nordic Red), with the native Northern Finncattle, which is considered an endangered breed.

Factors Contributing to Successful Information System Implementation and Employee Well-Being in Health Care and Social Welfare Professionals: Comparative Cross-Sectional Study.

Background: The integration of information systems in health care and social welfare organizations has brought significant changes in patient and client care. This integration is expected to offer numerous benefits, but simultaneously the implementation of health information systems and client information systems can also introduce added stress due to the increased time and effort required by professionals.

Objective: This study aimed to examine whether professional groups and the factors that contribute to successful implementation (participation in information systems development and satisfaction with software providers' development work) are associated with the well-being of health care and social welfare professionals.

Adipose gene expression profiles in Northern Finncattle, Mirandesa cattle, Yakutian cattle and commercial Holstein cattle.

The drastic change in global climate has led to in-depth studies of the geneticresources of native cattle adapted to challenging environments. Native cattle breeds may harbor unique genetic mechanisms that have enabled them adapt to their given environmental conditions. Adipose tissues are key factors in the regulation of metabolism and energy balance and are crucial for the molecular switches needed to adapt to rapid environmental and nutritional changes.

Anethole in cancer therapy: Mechanisms, synergistic potential, and clinical challenges.

Cancer remains a major global health challenge, prompting the search for effective and less toxic treatments. Anethole, a bioactive compound found in essential oils of anise and fennel, commonly used as a food preservative, has recently garnered attention for its potential anti-cancer properties. This comprehensive review aims to systematically assess the anti-cancer effects of anethole, elucidating its mechanisms of action, pharmacokinetics, bioavailability, and synergistic potential with conventional cancer therapies.

Disentangling the drivers of urban bird diversity in the non-breeding season: A general synthesis.

Current knowledge about the impacts of urbanisation on bird assemblages is based on evidence from studies partly or wholly undertaken in the breeding season. In comparison, the non-breeding season remains little studied, despite the fact that winter conditions at higher latitudes are changing more rapidly than other seasons. During the non-breeding season, cities may attract or retain bird species because they offer milder conditions or better feeding opportunities than surrounding habitats.

Urban birds' tolerance towards humans was largely unaffected by COVID-19 shutdown-induced variation in human presence.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and respective shutdowns dramatically altered human activities, potentially changing human pressures on urban-dwelling animals. Here, we use such COVID-19-induced variation in human presence to evaluate, across multiple temporal scales, how urban birds from five countries changed their tolerance towards humans, measured as escape distance. We collected 6369 escape responses for 147 species and found that human numbers in parks at a given hour, day, week or year (before and during shutdowns) had a little effect on birds' escape distances.

Core Legal Challenges for Medical 3D Printing in the EU.

3D printing has been adopted into routine use for certain medical applications, but more widespread usage has been hindered by, among other things, unclear legislation. We performed an analysis, using legal doctrinal study and legal informatics, of relevant EU legislation and case law in four issues relevant to medical 3D printing (excluding bioprinting or pharmacoprinting): pre-market approval, post-market liability, intellectual property rights, and data protection. Several gaps and uncertainties in the current legislation and interpretations were identified.

A synchronized, large-scale field experiment using Arabidopsis thaliana reveals the significance of the UV-B photoreceptor UVR8 under natural conditions.

This study determines the functional role of the plant ultraviolet-B radiation (UV-B) photoreceptor, UV RESISTANCE LOCUS 8 (UVR8) under natural conditions using a large-scale 'synchronized-genetic-perturbation-field-experiment'. Laboratory experiments have demonstrated a role for UVR8 in UV-B responses but do not reflect the complexity of outdoor conditions where 'genotype × environment' interactions can mask laboratory-observed responses. Arabidopsis thaliana knockout mutant, uvr8-7, and the corresponding Wassilewskija wild type, were sown outdoors on the same date at 21 locations across Europe, ranging from 39°N to 67°N latitude.

Inferences about the population history of from Y chromosome and mtDNA phylogenies.

Reindeer, called caribou in North America, has a circumpolar distribution and all extant populations belong to the same species (). It has survived the Holocene thanks to its immense adaptability and successful coexistence with humans in different forms of hunting and herding cultures. Here, we examine the paternal and maternal history of based on robust Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) trees representing Eurasian tundra reindeer, Finnish forest reindeer, Svalbard reindeer, Alaska tundra caribou, and woodland caribou.

Soil fungal and bacterial communities reflect differently tundra vegetation state transitions and soil physico-chemical properties.

Strong disturbances may induce ecosystem transitions into new alternative states that sustain through plant-soil interactions, such as the transition of dwarf shrub-dominated into graminoid-dominated vegetation by herbivory in tundra. Little evidence exists on soil microbial communities in alternative states, and along the slow process of ecosystem return into the predisturbance state. We analysed vegetation, soil microbial communities and activities as well as soil physico-chemical properties in historical reindeer enclosures in northernmost Finland in the following plot types: control heaths in the surrounding tundra; graminoid-dominated; 'shifting'; and recovered dwarf shrub-dominated vegetation inside enclosures.

Strategies for integrating scientific evidence in water policy and law in the face of uncertainty.

Understanding how human actions and environmental change affect water resources is crucial for addressing complex water management issues. The scientific tools that can produce the necessary information are ecological indicators, referring to measurable properties of the ecosystem state; environmental monitoring, the data collection process that is required to evaluate the progress towards reaching water management goals; mathematical models, linking human disturbances with the ecosystem state to predict environmental impacts; and scenarios, assisting in long-term management and policy implementation. Paradoxically, despite the rapid generation of data, evolving scientific understanding, and recent advancements in systems modeling, there is a striking imbalance between knowledge production and knowledge utilization in decision-making.

Environmental drivers of increased ecosystem respiration in a warming tundra.

Arctic and alpine tundra ecosystems are large reservoirs of organic carbon. Climate warming may stimulate ecosystem respiration and release carbon into the atmosphere. The magnitude and persistency of this stimulation and the environmental mechanisms that drive its variation remain uncertain.

Climate change, cultural continuity and ecological grief: Insights from the Sámi Homeland.

Arctic regions are warming significantly faster than other parts of the globe, leading to changes in snow, ice and weather conditions, ecosystems and local cultures. These changes have brought worry and concern and triggered feelings of loss among Arctic Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Recently, research has started to address emotional and social dimensions of climate change, framed through the concept of ecological grief.

Towards digitally mediated social work - the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on encountering clients in social work.

In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the globe. The viral outbreak was followed by rapid changes in people's everyday and working lives. Because of the wide-scale societal restrictions that took place to prevent the pandemic, social work was forced to take a digital leap.

The role of hydraulic conductivity in the Pine Island Glacier's subglacial water distribution.

Global climate warming leads to ever-increasing glacier mass loss. Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica is one of the largest contributors to global sea level rise (SLR). One of the biggest uncertainties in the assessment of glacier contribution to SLR at present are subglacial hydrology processes which are less well known than other ice dynamical processes.

Bacterial and fungal communities in sub-Arctic tundra heaths are shaped by contrasting snow accumulation and nutrient availability.

Climate change is affecting winter snow conditions significantly in northern ecosystems but the effects of the changing conditions for soil microbial communities are not well-understood. We utilized naturally occurring differences in snow accumulation to understand how the wintertime subnivean conditions shape bacterial and fungal communities in dwarf shrub-dominated sub-Arctic Fennoscandian tundra sampled in mid-winter, early, and late growing season. Phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) and quantitative PCR analyses indicated that fungal abundance was higher in windswept tundra heaths with low snow accumulation and lower nutrient availability.

The Arctic Plant Aboveground Biomass Synthesis Dataset.

Plant biomass is a fundamental ecosystem attribute that is sensitive to rapid climatic changes occurring in the Arctic. Nevertheless, measuring plant biomass in the Arctic is logistically challenging and resource intensive. Lack of accessible field data hinders efforts to understand the amount, composition, distribution, and changes in plant biomass in these northern ecosystems.

N-fertilization and disturbance exert long-lasting complex legacies on subarctic ecosystems.

Subarctic ecosystems are subjected to increasing nitrogen (N) enrichment and disturbances that induce particularly strong effects on plant communities when occurring in combination. There is little experimental evidence on the longevity of these effects. We applied N-fertilization (40 kg urea-N ha year for 4 years) and disturbance (removal of vegetation and organic soil layer on one occasion) in two plant communities in a subarctic forest-tundra ecotone in northern Finland.

Exploring Lithuanian social workers' attitudes towards individuals with alcohol usage problems.

Social workers are at the front line of helping individuals experiencing alcohol usage, due to their professional duties, ideology and values that underpin it. In Lithuania, where social work still continues to develop in both practice and education, it is crucial to supplement with relevant information to strengthen social work's response to issues with alcohol usage. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore social workers' attitudes towards individuals with alcohol usage problems.

Dense city centers support less evolutionary unique bird communities than sparser urban areas.

Urbanization alters avian communities, generally lowering the number of species and contemporaneously increasing their functional relatedness, leading to biotic homogenization. Urbanization can also negatively affect the phylogenetic diversity of species assemblages, potentially decreasing their evolutionary distinctiveness. We compare species assemblages in a gradient of building density in seventeen European cities to test whether the evolutionary distinctiveness of communities is shaped by the degree of urbanization.

Sand-Related Factors Influencing Nest Burrowing Potential of the Sand Martins.

Vertical embankments and mounds serve as suitable habitats for burrowing birds, such as the Sand Martin (). Sand Martins have decreased in many countries during the last two decades, possibly because of the decline in suitable nest sites. Therefore, it is important to understand the factors affecting nest burrowing and nest hole characteristics for the Sand Martin.

Acting as a Mental Health Expert by Experience and Its Impact on Social Identity.

This study was conducted to examine the construction of social identity among mental health experts by experience working in Finnish municipal mental healthcare services. The construction of social identity is approached as an ongoing lifelong process that is significantly affected by lived experiences with mental health problems and recovery from them. The research data consist of focus group discussions, and the analysis is based on a thematic design that is initially material-driven.