The perceived needs of teacher educators as they strive to implement curriculum change

The focus of this study was to explore teacher educators’ experiences as they prepared preservice teachers to implement a new physical education curriculum, and to identify their professional needs to support this work. Individual interviews were conducted with 14 teacher educators who taught in a physical education teacher education (PETE) programme. Data were analysed in the spirit of grounded theory [Mordal-Moen & Green, 2014. Neither shaking nor stirring: A case study of reflexivity in Norwegian physical education teacher education. Sport, Education and Society, 19(4), 415–434]. Time to engage with curriculum, space to come together, leadership to manage the process, and opportunities to meet together in a professional capacity were identified as important for implementation of curriculum change in the PETE programme

Diode laser to treat small oral vascular malformations: A prospective case series study

The current work examined a consecutive series of patients presenting vascular malformations (VMs) and venous lakes (VLs) of the lip and oral mucosa who were treated with transmucosal diode laser applications and assessed over a 1 year period. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS: Fifty-nine patients (31 males and 28 females) presenting low-flow VMs or VLs of the oral cavity were treated transmucosally using a diode laser (with an 830 nm operating wavelength and 1.6 W output power) with a 320 µm diameter flexible fiber. All the lesions were assessed 7 days, 30 days, and 1 year after the laser treatment, and the lesion reduction percentage was scored on a one to five scale. The patients were also asked to assess their pain perception daily during the 7 days following the treatment using a visual analog scale (VAS). RESULTS: There were no procedure-related intra- or post-operative complications; only modest pain intensity was reported. Thirty days after the treatment, lesion reduction was described as excellent or good in 52 cases; it was fair or poor in 7. Six patients (F:M ratio 2:4) required a second diode laser application. At the 1 year follow-up, volume reduction was complete in 48 out of 59 patients; there were five recurrences (F:M ratio 3:2). No relevant gender-related differences were noted. CONCLUSION: The use of diode laser application to treat small oral VMs and VLs was associated to shorter operating times and fewer postoperative complications with respect to the scapel surgery approach. More than one session may nevertheless be required if the anomaly is larger than 10 mm

PAR-4 – a novel marker of luminal A breast cancer – is down-regulated by the steroid receptor co-activator SRC-1

Introduction: Prostate apoptosis response-4 (PAR-4, PAW-R, PKC apoptosis WT1 regulator) is a gene coding for a tumour suppressor protein involved in the selective apoptosis of cancer cells. Although well described in renal cell carcinomas and prostate cancer, little is known about its role and regulation in breast cancer. Methods: Western blotting techniques looked at the association between PAR-4 expression and breast cancer sub-type, and at the effects of steroid receptor co-activator-1 (SRC-1) on PAR-4 expression. Functional assays (3D cell culture and adhesion independent growth) investigated the role of PAR-4 in breast cancer cells and immunohistochemistry looked at the clinical correlations of PAR-4 positivity in our patient cohort. Results: The results show that PAR-4 is down-regulated by SRC-1 in endocrine-resistant cell lines and they validate its use as a marker of good disease-free survival, both in vitro and in vivo. In addition, the functional assays provide evidence that PAR-4 may play a role in maintaining a well-differentiated phenotype in breast cancer cell lines. Conclusion: The results suggest that PAR-4 expression is a marker of good disease-free survival, or conversely, that the loss of PAR-4 expression would signal tumour progression to a more aggressive phenotype. The identification of such markers is important in the development of more personalised forms of treatments.</p