Implementing Non-violent Resistance,a Method to Cope with Aggression in Child and Adolescent Residential Care: Exploration of Staff Members Experiences

Staff members in residential care for youth are frequently confronted with aggressive behaviour, which has adverse effects on their stress levels and work satisfaction. This paper describes a qualitative evaluation to find out how staff members benefit from Non-violent Resistance (NVR), a method to create an aggression mitigating residential climate. Staff members were positive about NVR and reported feeling more relaxed. Most valued aspects of this method were the focus on being a team, delayed response and giving up the illusion of control. However, training and the intention to use NVR isn't enough, high quality implementation and maintenance are crucial.     

Experimental reproduction of an Enterococcus cecorum infection in Pekin ducks

Enterococcus cecorum (EC) was thus far only known as a pathogen for broilers and broiler breeders. Recently there was evidence of EC field outbreaks in Pekin duck flocks in Germany. In this study we experimentally reproduced an EC infection in Pekin ducks. At 12 days post hatch, groups of Pekin ducks were infected orally, via the thoracic air sac or intravenously with 1.5 × 10⁹ colony-forming units (CFU) of EC per bird or via the air sac with 8.5 × 10⁵ or 8.5 × 10⁷ CFU per bird. Ducks of the intravenously infected group showed 100% mortality after 2 days post infection. The air sac inoculated high-dose group exhibited a mortality rate of 67%. Birds that were infected with 8.5 × 10⁵ and 8.5 × 10⁷ CFU showed 6.7% mortality after 7 days post infection. Dead birds displayed pneumonia, airsacculitis, pericarditis and splenitis and EC was re-isolated from these organs. Surviving birds of all groups apart from the orally infected ducks demonstrated clinical signs such as huddling, reduced mobility and diarrhoea. Furthermore, they showed gross pathological lesions including airsacculitis and splenitis and lower bodyweights than the control group at necropsy on days 7, 14 and 21 post infection. The present study clearly confirms that EC is pathogenic for Pekin ducks after experimental infection via the intravenous route or the respiratory tract. EC therefore has to be considered as an emerging avian pathogen not only in broilers but also in Pekin ducks.     

A subconvulsive dose of kainate selectively compromises astrocytic metabolism in the mouse brain in vivo

Despite the well-established use of kainate as a model for seizure activity and temporal lobe epilepsy, most studies have been performed at doses giving rise to general limbic seizures and have mainly focused on neuronal function. Little is known about the effect of lower doses of kainate on cerebral metabolism and particularly that associated with astrocytes. We investigated astrocytic and neuronal metabolism in the cerebral cortex of adult mice after treatment with saline (controls), a subconvulsive or a mildly convulsive dose of kainate. A combination of [1,2-¹³C]acetate and [1-¹³C]glucose was injected and subsequent nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of cortical extracts was employed to distinctively map astrocytic and neuronal metabolism. The subconvulsive dose of kainate led to an instantaneous increase in the cortical lactate content, a subsequent reduction in the amount of [4,5-¹³C]glutamine and an increase in the calculated astrocytic TCA cycle activity. In contrast, the convulsive dose led to decrements in the cortical content and ¹³C labeling of glutamate, glutamine, GABA, and aspartate. Evidence is provided that astrocytic metabolism is affected by a subconvulsive dose of kainate, whereas a higher dose is required to affect neuronal metabolism. The cerebral glycogen content was dose-dependently reduced by kainate supporting a role for glycogen during seizure activity.