Perspectives and limitations of gene expression profiling in rheumatology: new molecular strategies

The deciphering of the sequence of the human genome has raised the expectation of unravelling the specific role of each gene in physiology and pathology. High-throughput technologies for gene expression profiling provide the first practical basis for applying this information. In rheumatology, with its many diseases of unknown pathogenesis and puzzling inflammatory aspects, these advances appear to promise a significant advance towards the identification of leading mechanisms of pathology. Expression patterns reflect the complexity of the molecular processes and are expected to provide the molecular basis for specific diagnosis, therapeutic stratification, long-term monitoring and prognostic evaluation. Identification of the molecular networks will help in the discovery of appropriate drug targets, and permit focusing on the most effective and least toxic compounds. Current limitations in screening technologies, experimental strategies and bioinformatic interpretation will shortly be overcome by the rapid development in this field. However, gene expression profiling, by its nature, will not provide biochemical information on functional activities of proteins and might only in part reflect underlying genetic dysfunction. Genomic and proteomic technologies will therefore be complementary in their scientific and clinical application

Mapping Children's Discussions of Evidence in Science to Assess Collaboration and Argumentation

The research reported in this paper concerns the development of children's skills of interpreting and evaluating evidence in science. Previous studies have shown that school teaching often places limited emphasis on the development of these skills, which are necessary for children to engage in scientific debate and decision-making. The research, undertaken in the UK, involved four collaborative decision-making activities to stimulate group discussion, each was carried out with five groups of four children (10-11 years old). The research shows how the children evaluated evidence for possible choices and judged whether their evidence was sufficient to support a particular conclusion or the rejection of alternative conclusions. A mapping technique was developed to analyse the discussions and identify different "levels" of argumentation. The authors conclude that suitable collaborative activities that focus on the discussion of evidence can be developed to exercise children's ability to argue effectively in making decisions

Designing effective virtual reality environments for pain management in burn-injured patients

Burn patients engage in repetitive painful therapeutic treatments, such as wound debridement, dressing changes, and other medical processes high in procedural pain. Pharmacological analgesics have been used for managing pain, but with ineffective results and negative side efects. Studies on pain management for burn patients suggested that Virtual Reality can treat procedural pain. This paper describes the process of designing, testing, and deploying a Virtual Reality system into a hospital setting. Firstly, a workshop was conducted to identify the most suitable types of Virtual Reality contents for the needs of burn-injured patients. Then, an experimental study, with 15 healthy adults, explored the analgesic impact of the Virtual Reality contents. The pain was induced through a cold pressor. Finally, we deployed the Virtual Reality system into the hospital to examine its efciency on burn-injured inpatients. This study presents factors for the efective design and deployment of Virtual Reality for burn-injured patients residing in a hospital. Those factors refer to the use of cartoonish features and a choice of content based on each patient’s interests to increase the positive emotions and the use of interactive features, portable equipment to reduce pain and increase the feasibility of the technology in clinical settings. Finally, our results indicated that the extension of the VR use after the therapeutic session could support more efective pain treatment. Trial registration number Protocol ID: AA843

Supplement 24, Part 6, Parasite-Subject Catalogue, Treatment

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Supplement 22, Part 5, Parasite-Subject Catalogue, Parasites: Arthropoda And Miscellaneous Phyla

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Supplement 21, Part 4, Parasite-Subject Catalogue, Parasites: Nematoda and Acanthocephala

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Supplement 21, Part 2, Parasite-Subject Catalogue, Parasites: Protozoa

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Supplement 24, Part 1, Authors: A To Z

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Supplement 21, Part 7, Parasite-Subject Catalogue, Hosts

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Supplement 21, Part 5, Parasite-Subject Catalogue, Parasites: Arthropoda And Miscellaneous Phyla

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