Assessing the value of practice-based leg ulcer education to inform recommendations for change in practice

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the value of accredited leg ulcer education in influencing changes in practice. Design/Methodology/approach – This is a before and after educational evaluation which adopted a qualitative survey approach of 12 primary care nurses attending the Nurse Led Assessment and Management of Leg Ulcers accredited CPD module at a London university. Findings – The findings revealed that 6 out of the 8 nurses who completed the final interviews were satisfied that all learning outcomes for the module had been met. All of the nurses commented they had changed at least one aspect of practice following the module with the majority stating a number of improvements had been made relating to improved knowledge, practical skills, treatment and patient concordance. Limitations – The evaluation was limited to a small cohort of primary care nurses and further longitudinal research is required to investigate the effectiveness across multiple cohorts

DEVELOPMENT, VALIDATION, AND APPLICATION OF ANALYTICAL METHODS FOR CHARACTERIZING ADSORBED PROTEIN ORIENTATION, CONFORMATION, AND BIOACTIVITY

The structure and bioactivity of adsorbed proteins are tightly interrelated and play a key role in their interaction with the surrounding environment. These factors are of critical importance in many biotechnological applications. However, because the bioactive state of an adsorbed protein is a function of the orientation, conformation, and accessibility of its bioactive site(s), the isolated determination of just one or two of these factors will typically not be sufficient to understand the structure-function relationships of the adsorbed layer. Rather a combination of methods is needed to address each of these factors in a synergistic manner to provide a complementary dataset to characterize and understand the bioactive state of adsorbed protein. In this research, I describe and demonstrate the potential of a set of complementary methods: (a) circular dichroism spectropolarimetry to determine adsorption-induced changes in protein secondary structure, (b) amino-acid labeling/mass spectrometry to assess adsorbed protein orientation and tertiary structure by monitoring adsorption-induced changes in a residue\u27s solvent accessibility, and (c) bioactivity assays to assess adsorption-induced changes in a protein\u27s bioactivity. Subsequently, the developed techniques were applied to characterize: (a) the role of protein-protein interactions (PPI) in influencing the structure and activity of a protein during its layer formation, and (b) the influence of chemical excipients on the stability and potency of an adsorbed layer of protein. While the effect of PPI on the initial adsorbed configuration and bioactivity of a protein layer varied with the type of adsorbent surface and protein composition, the effects of chemical excipients on the stability and potency of an adsorbed protein layer primarily depended on its initial adsorbed configuration. From an evaluation of the structure-function relationship within these adsorbed layers, their bioactivity was found to reduce in direct proportion to the disruption in protein structure in majority of the systems studied. Although, the presented techniques do have the limitation of being low in resolution, the techniques developed in this study do provide insights into the molecular processes influencing the structure-function relationships of adsorbed protein that were previously unknown

STRUCTURAL BIOINFORMATICS BASED METHOD FOR PREDICTING THE INITIAL ADSORBED PROTEIN ORIENTATION ON A SURFACE

In any molecular simulation of protein-surface interaction, the selection of the initial orientation with which the protein would interact with the surface must be first made and is found to be critical in the determination of the bioactive state of the adsorbed protein. While various molecular simulation methods have been developed to identify the preferred orientation, these methods are generally computationally expensive and time consuming, especially for large molecules thereby motivating the current study. The computational implementation for identifying a preferred orientation was done in MATLAB¨ and directly addresses the current research problem by assuming the protein to be rigid and mapping the number of solvent accessible residues that would interact with the surface as a function of orientation, thereby yielding a topography map that would reveal the potential minimum energy orientations for a given protein-interface interaction system. The protein orientation prediction has been performed for a wide range of proteins (11kDa-300kDa) and surfaces (hydrophobic, hydrophilic, charged, biological-membranes) with the total runtime involved usually averaging in minutes. These results were also found to be in good agreement with the experimental and simulation results reported in the literature for biological and man-made materials. Besides the intended application for the support to molecular simulations, this method also has the general application of surface design to control the bioactive state of adsorbed proteins and to selectively target and immobilize protein in a controlled orientation

Constitutional Rights in Post-9/11 America

On September 21, 2011, Meredith Aby accepted an invitation to speak on the subject of freedom of speech and association in ten years after 9/11. Her speech, which was sponsored by the Department of Communication Studies at Minnesota State University, the Kessel Peace Institute, and the Mankato Area Activist Collective, is more than a powerful defense of free speech the right to dissent. It is the personal account of an ordinary person of extraordinary conviction—an activist, a mother, a partner, a teacher, and a debate coach—for whom standing up for right to oppose one’s government is more than an abstract principle, more than a theory. For Aby and other activists targeted by the FBI, the defense of free speech, free association, and the freedom to dissent are very real. The speech was transcribed and edited by Bradford Wakefield and James P. Dimock. The original presentation was a Nadine B. Andreas Lecture, co-sponsored by the Department of Communication Studies at Minnesota State University, Mankato and the Mankato Area Activist Collective on September 21, 2011

Konsep Pengakuan Bersalah Terdakwa pada Jalur Khusus Menurut RUU Kuhap dan Perbandingannya dengan Praktek Plea Bargaining di Beberapa Negara

Konsep Jalur Khusus adalah salah satu substansi pembaruan peradilan pidana yang terkandung dalam RUU KUHAP. Konsep Jalur Khusus merupakan hasil pengadopsian ide/konsep atas praktek plea bargaining yang telah dipopulerkan dalam peradilan pidana Amerika Serikat, yang dipahami dapat mendorong peradilan pidana menjadi lebih efisien dan dapat terhindar dari menumpuknya kasus (case load) di pengadilan. Tulisan ini ingin mengupas perbandingan secara teori dan praktek antara Jalur Khusus dalam RUU KUHAP dengan praktek plea bargaining yang diterapkan beberapa Negara. The concept of "Jalur Khusus" is one of the criminal justice reform substances contained in the Draft of Indonesian Criminal Procedure Code. The concept of "Jalur Khusus" is the result of the adoption of the idea / concept of plea bargaining on practices that have been popularized in the United States criminal justice system, which may encourage criminal justice to be more efficient and can avoid stacking cases (case load) in court. This paper wants to explore comparisons between the theory and practice of "Jalur Khusus" in the Draft of Indonesian Criminal Procedure Code with the practice of plea bargaining are applied several countries. Keywords: Pengakuan Bersalah, Jalur Khusus, Plea barganingDOI: 10.15408/jch.v2i1.184