Accurate quantification of selenoproteins in human plasma/serum by isotope dilution ICP-MS : focus on selenoprotein P

Acknowledgements The research leading to these results was funded by the EMRP Joint Research Project “Metrology for metalloproteins” (HLT-05 2012). The EMRP is jointly funded by the EMRP participating countries within EURAMET and the European Union.Peer reviewedPostprin

E-learning for self-management support: Introducing blended learning for graduate students - A cohort study 13 Education 1303 Specialist Studies in Education 11 Medical and Health Sciences 1117 Public Health and Health Services

Background: E-learning allows delivery of education in many diverse settings and researchers have demonstrated it can be as effective as learning conducted in traditional face-to-face settings. However, there are particular practices and skills needed in the area of providing patient self-management support (SMS), that may not be achievable online. The aim of this study was to compare three approaches in the training of university students regarding the preparation of a Chronic Condition Self-Management Care Plan: 1) traditional face-to-face delivery of SMS training, 2) an e-learning approach and 3) a blended approach (combining e-learning and face-to-face teaching). Methods: Graduate entry physiotherapy students and medical students at Flinders University were recruited. Depending on the cohort, students were either exposed to traditional face-to-face training, e-learning or a blended model. Outcomes were compared between the three groups. We measured adherence to care plan processes in the preparation of an assessment piece using the Flinders Program Chronic Care Self Management tools. A total of 183 care plans were included (102 traditional, 52 blended, 29 e-learning,). All students submitted the Flinders Program Chronic Care Plan for university assessment and these were later assessed for quality by researchers. The submission was also assigned a consumer engagement score and a global competence score as these are integral to successful delivery of SMS and represent the patient perspective. Results: The blended group performed significantly better than the traditional group in quality use of the Flinders Program tools: Problem and Goals (P < 0.0001). They also performed significantly better in the total care plan score (P < 0.0001) and engagement score (P < 0.0001). There was no significant difference between the groups for the Partners in Health tool. Conclusions: In this pilot study, the blended learning model was a more effective method for teaching self-management skills than the traditional group, as assessed in the development of a chronic condition self-management care plan. We anticipate that future research with identical groups of students would yield similar results but in the meantime, academics can have confidence that blended learning is at least as effective as traditional learning methods

Thyroid-Hormone-Induced Browning of White Adipose Tissue Does Not Contribute to Thermogenesis and Glucose Consumption.

Regulation of body temperature critically depends on thyroid hormone (TH). Recent studies revealed that TH induces browning of white adipose tissue, possibly contributing to the observed hyperthermia in hyperthyroid patients and potentially providing metabolic benefits. Here, we show that browning by TH requires TH-receptor β and occurs independently of the sympathetic nervous system. The beige fat, however, lacks sufficient adrenergic stimulation and is not metabolically activated despite high levels of uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1). Studies at different environmental temperatures reveal that TH instead causes hyperthermia by actions in skeletal muscle combined with a central body temperature set-point elevation. Consequently, the metabolic and thermogenic effects of systemic hyperthyroidism were maintained in UCP1 knockout mice, demonstrating that neither beige nor brown fat contributes to the TH-induced hyperthermia and elevated glucose consumption, and underlining that the mere presence of UCP1 is insufficient to draw conclusions on the therapeutic potential of browning agents

Human-based approaches to pharmacology and cardiology: an interdisciplinary and intersectorial workshop.

Both biomedical research and clinical practice rely on complex datasets for the physiological and genetic characterization of human hearts in health and disease. Given the complexity and variety of approaches and recordings, there is now growing recognition of the need to embed computational methods in cardiovascular medicine and science for analysis, integration and prediction. This paper describes a Workshop on Computational Cardiovascular Science that created an international, interdisciplinary and inter-sectorial forum to define the next steps for a human-based approach to disease supported by computational methodologies. The main ideas highlighted were (i) a shift towards human-based methodologies, spurred by advances in new in silico, in vivo, in vitro, and ex vivo techniques and the increasing acknowledgement of the limitations of animal models. (ii) Computational approaches complement, expand, bridge, and integrate in vitro, in vivo, and ex vivo experimental and clinical data and methods, and as such they are an integral part of human-based methodologies in pharmacology and medicine. (iii) The effective implementation of multi- and interdisciplinary approaches, teams, and training combining and integrating computational methods with experimental and clinical approaches across academia, industry, and healthcare settings is a priority. (iv) The human-based cross-disciplinary approach requires experts in specific methodologies and domains, who also have the capacity to communicate and collaborate across disciplines and cross-sector environments. (v) This new translational domain for human-based cardiology and pharmacology requires new partnerships supported financially and institutionally across sectors. Institutional, organizational, and social barriers must be identified, understood and overcome in each specific setting

Specialization Does Not Predict Individual Efficiency in an Ant

The ecological success of social insects is often attributed to an increase in efficiency achieved through division of labor between workers in a colony. Much research has therefore focused on the mechanism by which a division of labor is implemented, i.e., on how tasks are allocated to workers. However, the important assumption that specialists are indeed more efficient at their work than generalist individuals—the “Jack-of-all-trades is master of none” hypothesis—has rarely been tested. Here, I quantify worker efficiency, measured as work completed per time, in four different tasks in the ant Temnothorax albipennis: honey and protein foraging, collection of nest-building material, and brood transports in a colony emigration. I show that individual efficiency is not predicted by how specialized workers were on the respective task. Worker efficiency is also not consistently predicted by that worker's overall activity or delay to begin the task. Even when only the worker's rank relative to nestmates in the same colony was used, specialization did not predict efficiency in three out of the four tasks, and more specialized workers actually performed worse than others in the fourth task (collection of sand grains). I also show that the above relationships, as well as median individual efficiency, do not change with colony size. My results demonstrate that in an ant species without morphologically differentiated worker castes, workers may nevertheless differ in their ability to perform different tasks. Surprisingly, this variation is not utilized by the colony—worker allocation to tasks is unrelated to their ability to perform them. What, then, are the adaptive benefits of behavioral specialization, and why do workers choose tasks without regard for whether they can perform them well? We are still far from an understanding of the adaptive benefits of division of labor in social insects

Does Landscape Fragmentation Influence Sex Ratio of Dioecious Plants? A Case Study of Pistacia chinensis in the Thousand-Island Lake Region of China

The Thousand-Island Lake region in Zhejiang Province, China is a highly fragmented landscape with a clear point-in-time of fragmentation as a result of flooding to form the reservoir. Islands in the artificial lake were surveyed to examine how population sex ratio of a dioecious plant specie Pistacia chinensis B. was affected by landscape fragmentation. A natural population on the mainland near the lake was also surveyed for comparison. Population size, sex ratio and diameter at breast height (DBH) of individuals were measured over 2 years. More than 1,500 individuals, distributed in 31 populations, were studied. Soil nitrogen in the different populations was measured to identify the relationship between sex ratio and micro-environmental conditions. In accordance with the results of many other reports on biased sex ratio in relation to environmental gradient, we found that poor soil nitrogen areas fostered male-biased populations. In addition, the degree of sex ratio bias increased with decreasing population size and population connectivity. The biased sex ratios were only found in younger individuals (less than 50 years old) in small populations, while a stable 1∶1 sex ratio was found in the large population on the mainland. We concluded that the effects of landscape fragmentation on the dioecious population sex ratio were mainly achieved in relation to changing soil nitrogen conditions in patches and pollen limitation within and among populations. Large populations could maintain a more suitable environment in terms of nutrient conditions and pollen flow, subsequently maintaining a stable sex ratio in dioecious plant populations. Both micro-environmental factors and spatial structure should be considered in fragmented landscape for the conservation of dioecious plant species