Implementation of environmental recovery training response to biological incidents in a human health degree

Agents involved in biological incidents and outbreaks of infection can spread easily, so response teams are required to quickly implement a recovery plan to decontaminate and restore the environment impacted by these incidents to minimise public risks. A group of academics at De Montfort University (DMU, UK), with support from first responders during the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak, are developing appropriate training to provide basic skills so human health science students can respond to biological incidents. Following the competences identified by the European Commission, we have created key competences for these students based on the core skills that any medical first responder to biological emergencies should have. To provide students with the key competences related to environmental planning, we have created specific training that consisted of a 2 hours practical plus theory related to emerging diseases and the international response provided to tackle the Ebola pandemic. The practical component was a research-led workshop to develop a complete protection and recovery plan to respond to an outbreak of infection by Cyclospora cayetanensis in an urban area. Students used the novel methodology developed by Public Health England [“UK Recovery Handbook for Biological Incidents” (Pottage et al., 2015)] [1] to select appropriate options or techniques to protect and recover the affected environment, according to the physiological characteristics of the biological agent/microorganism involved and the environment impacted. Critical thinking and discussion is also needed to select recovery options (R.O.), e.g. use of chlorine-based decontamination liquids as part of the R.O. “reactive liquids” will have limited efficacy as oocysts of Cyclospora are resistant to these. After successful testing of the training with postgraduate students, we introduced it in a level 6 module in the DMU degree programme BMedSci in Medical Science in 2016/17 (n=24). A small proportion of these BMedSci students reported that they did not enjoy (13.4%) or were not satisfied (20%) with the training provided, which could be attributed to the fact that the topic of the training (environmental sciences) was not of direct interest for these students who are studying a degree more related to medicine. However, despite the short duration of the training, students were able to tailor an appropriate response with the resources and information provided (physiological characteristics and a literature review on decontamination/inactivation techniques for Cyclospora was provided to overcome time constraints). Specifically, 73.3% indicated that they gained some public health prevention/preparedness knowledge against a biological incident; 80% highlighted that they learnt how to establish some public health interventions; and 60% learnt how to tailor a recovery plan. A few students (20%) had difficulties with the recovery concepts and the interpretation of the physiological characteristics, which may be attributed to limited background knowledge of microbiology and parasitology (as the BMedSci programme does not have a complete module dedicated to the study of these topics). In conclusion, the increased prevalence of biological contamination incidents necessitates development of appropriate training to include environmental decontamination strategies to protect human health. The short teaching intervention described in this paper could be used to easily address this necessity

Results on a pedagogic approach for tailoring public health interventions to minimise opportunistic infections.

We are performing curriculum modifications on the first year BSc (Hons) Biomedical Science module “Basic Microbiology” (De Montfort University, UK) to increase students’ knowledge of basic medical parasitology and infectious diseases, so these students can acquire the necessary skills to tackle their final degree module “Medical Microbiology”. Following student feedback on a novel short intervention in 2017/18 to promote awareness about human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), we have created an engaging workshop session to cover not only HIV but also the opportunistic infections that can affect HIV patients that have developed acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and how to prevent them. The objective of this work was to evaluate the effectiveness of the improved workshop developed and to collect students’ impressions to perform further modifications if needed. Briefly, students were required to develop public health measures for HIV positive patients with two different degrees of immunosuppression (i.e. with CD4+ T cells in peripheral blood above and below 200 cells/μl) to prevent exposure and infection from opportunistic pathogens such as Cryptosporidium spp., Toxoplasma gondii or Pneumocystis jirovecii from: a) sexual exposures; b) intravenous drug use; b) environment and work; c) food and water; d) foreign travel. Students, following evidence-based public health methodology, tailored their measures or interventions using the most up-to-date information reported in the literature regarding HIV chemoprophylaxis and recent guidelines published by US Department of Health and Human Services on HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention. Interventions were critically analysed with all students in the last 20 min. of the workshop, which was repeated several times due to the number of students (n=203). The objectives of this workshop were evaluated by careful analysis of a specific feedback questionnaire (n=46 out of 203) voluntarily completed by students at the end of the workshop. The questionnaire showed the following feedback: 80.4% (65.2% agreed; 15.2% strongly agreed) indicated that they learnt how to identify public health interventions; and 95.7% (56.5% agreed; 39.1% strongly agreed) indicated that they would be able to establish measures to reduce HIV transmission and prevent opportunistic infections. Additionally, 95.7% (39.1% agreed; 56.5% strongly agreed) indicated that the workshop helped them to understand the relevance of local and global interventions. Finally, 97.8% of responders considered that the content (52.2% agreed; 45.7% strongly agreed) and duration (60.9% agreed; 37% strongly agreed) of the workshop was appropriate; and 89.1% (58.7% agreed; 30.4% strongly agreed) and 73.9% (41.3% agreed; 32.6% strongly agreed) enjoyed and were satisfied with the workshop provided, respectively. In conclusion, the improved workshop developed would seem to be effective for promoting sexual and public health education to minimise opportunistic pathogen infections in relevant patients when delivered to students with a basic knowledge of microbiology and parasitology

Twisted mass QCD and the ΔI=1/2\Delta I=1/2 rule

We show that the application of twisted mass QCD (tmQCD) with four (Wilson) quark flavours to the computation of lattice weak matrix elements relevant to $\Delta I=1/2$ transitions has important advantages: the renormalisation of $K \to \pi$ matrix elements does not require the subtraction of other dimension six operators, the divergence arising from the subtraction of lower dimensional operators is softened by one power of the lattice spacing and quenched simulations do not suffer from exceptional configurations at small pion mass. This last feature is also retained in the tmQCD computation of $K \to \pi\pi$ matrix elements, which, as far as renormalisation and power subtractions are concerned, has properties analogous to the standard Wilson case.Comment: Lattice2002(matrixel). Eq.(11) correcte

Virtual libraries of tissue and clinical samples: potential role of a 3-D microscope.

Our international innovative teaching group from different European Universities (De Montfort University, DMU, UK; and the Spanish University of Alcalá, University Miguel Hernández and University of San Pablo CEU), in conjunction with practicing biomedical scientists in the National Health Service (UK) and biomedical researchers, are developing two complete e-learning packages for teaching and learning medical parasitology, named DMU e-Parasitology (accessible at: http://parasitology.dmu.ac.uk), and biology and chemistry, named DMU e-Biology (accessible at: http://parasitology.dmu.ac.uk/ebiology/index.htm), respectively. Both packages will include a virtual microscope with a complete library of digitised tissue images, clinical slides and cell culture slides/mini-videos for enhancing the teaching and learning of a myriad of techniques applicable to health science undergraduate and postgraduate students. Thus, these packages include detecting human parasites, by becoming familiar with their infective structures and/or organs (e.g. eggs, cysts) and/or explore pathogenic tissues stained with traditional (e.g. haematoxylin & eosin) or more modern (e.g. immunohistochemistry) techniques. The Virtual Microscope (VM) module in the DMU e-Parasitology package is almost completed (accessible at: http://parasitology.dmu.ac.uk/learn/microscope.htm) and contains a section for the three major groups of human-pathogenic parasites (Peña-Fernández et al., 2018) [1]. Digitised slides are provided with the functionality of a microscope by using the gadget Zoomify®, and we consider that they can enhance learning, as previous studies reported in the literature have reported similar sensitivity and specificity rates for identification of parasites for both digitised and real slides. The DMU e-Biology’s VM, currently in development, will provide healthy and pathological tissue samples from a range of mammalian tissues and organs. This communication will provide a description of both virtual libraries and the process of developing them. In conjunction, we will use a three-dimensional (3D) super-resolution microscopy, 3D Cell Explorer (Nanolive, Lausanne, Switzerland), to incorporate potential 3D microscopic photographs/short videos of cells to provide students with information about the spatial arrangement and morphologies of cells that are essential for life

N=1 Supersymmetric Yang-Mills on the lattice at strong coupling

We study N=1 supersymmetric SU(N) Yang-Mills theory on the lattice at strong coupling. Our method is based on the hopping parameter expansion in terms of random walks, resummed for any value of the Wilson parameter r in the small hopping parameter region. Results are given for the mesonic (2-gluino) and fermionic (3-gluino) propagators and spectrum.Comment: Latex file. 43 pages. Minor additional comments, references added, typos corrected. Accepted for publication in Int. J. Mod. Phys.

The shape of the Δ\Delta baryon in a covariant spectator quark model

Using a covariant spectator quark model that describes the recent lattice QCD data for the $\Delta$ electromagnetic form factors and all available experimental data on $\gamma N \to \Delta$ transitions, we analyze the charge and magnetic dipole distributions of the $\Delta$ baryon and discuss its shape. We conclude that the quadrupole moment of the $\Delta$ is a good indicator of the deformation and that the $\Delta^+$ charge distribution has an oblate shape. We also calculate transverse moments and find that they do not lead to unambiguous conclusions about the underlying shape.Comment: Extended introduction, references added, other small modifications. To appear in Phys. Rev. D. 14 pages, 8 figure