Effective primary level science teaching in the Philippines

Early studies of educational achievement in developing countries emphasized the effects of material inputs (such as textbooks) over teaching practices and classroom organization. This paper examines how five teaching practices affected the achievements of fifth grade students in the Philippines - and what affected teachers'decisions to use effective teaching practices. With school, teacher, and classroom characteristics held constant, achievement was higher for students whose teachers used three teaching practices that show promise for applications in developing countries because they are effective, low cost, or cost effective: frequent tests or quizzes; small group instruction, including peer tutoring; and teaching through laboratory work, particularly for science. Teachers'decisions about whether to test students frequently were unrelated to their prior education of work experience, suggesting that school-level management may be more important in encouraging effective teaching than preservice education and training.Curriculum&Instruction,Educational Sciences,Primary Education,Secondary Education,Teaching and Learning

The Effect of Cinematographic Architecture on Urban Space

These ideas of cinematic architecture gate when utilized in a hierarchical network of city gates within an urban space can begin to create more complex story lines to bring order to a complex variety of experiences. It also perceptually breaks down a large urban space that is perceived as homogeneous by creating sub-defined districts through a hierarchical network of regions

Contact dermatitis due to personal protective equipment use and hygiene practices during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review of case reports

Background: Prolonged use of personal protective equipment (PPE) may lead to contact dermatitis during the coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic. This paper aims to identify the causative factors of contact dermatitis from PPE and hygiene practices.Methods: The search was conducted adhering to PRISMA 2020 guidelines. A Delphi process was employed to ensure that the aims of this study were met. PubMed and Web of Science databases were systematically searched through September 12, 2021, using search terms: Contact dermatitis, case report, covid-19. The findings were tabulated as author/year, gender, age, presentation, cause, dermatological diagnosis, testing modality, provided treatment, symptom resolution (time in days), prognosis, and follow-up.Results: The mean age of all individuals was 29.75 years, with 75% females. All cases presented with erythema, with 62.5% reporting pruritus and 37.5% reporting burning facial symptoms. Surgical masks and hand-hygiene products (37.5%) were the most commonly reported causative agent with 25% due to KN95/FFP type 2 use. Allergic contact dermatitis (50%) and irritant contact dermatitis (25%) were common diagnoses. Treatments included creams, emollients, and desloratadine, with restriction of irritant-causing factors. The prognosis was generally good among the cases, with 62.5% presenting complete resolution within a week and 12.5% showing moderate improvement at the fourth month after discontinuing use.Conclusion: This study finds pertinent links between PPE use and contact dermatitis during the COVID-19 pandemic. While many cases are bound to go underreported in literature, well-designed, large-scale studies in the future may help promote these associations in a more comprehensive manner

Oral Health Practice, Incidence of Dental Caries, and Plaque Index of Visually Impaired Students: A Basis for the Development of Oral Hygiene Braille Manual: a Basis for the Development of Oral hygiene Braille Manual

Oral health is an integral part of a person’s holistic health but it still an alarming health concernin the Philippines. This research focused on visually impaired students. Blind patients have ahigher prevalence of dental caries because they cannot envision the plaque and caries in theiroral cavity and would often struggle to obtain dental care due to their increased anxiety.This is a cross-sectional observational study that aimed to produce an oral hygiene braillemanual based on the extent of oral health practice, incidence of dental caries, and plaque indexof the visually impaired students in a local school that caters for visually impaired. Thequestionnaire form has 3 parts: (1) consent form (2) demographic questions: sight impairment,primary care giver’s income, age, gender (3) and questions concerning their oral hygienepractice. Results were correlated with the student’s caries and plaque using the following index: Decayed Missing Filled Teeth(DMFT)/Simplified Oral Hygiene Index (OHI-S) .Seventeen (17) students participated in the study, ranging from grade levels 1-10 and agesfrom 8-21 years old. Eight (8) out of seventeen (17) participants have low-vision while the restare totally blind. The participants’ monthly family income ranges from below 10,000-20,000php. All correlations were statistically non-significant. But since Oral health practices,plaque index, and caries incidence were fair there is a need for prevention to aim for good oralhealth practice hence, the creation of a manual focused on preventive dentistryThis pilot research had limitations that might have lead to the non-significant results of thestudy such as: limited sample size, Hawthorne effect and limitation of index used. Therefore,the author recommends future researchers to improve the survey questionnaires and use a moreaccurate index to a larger sample size

Diversity and Employees’ Challenges in the Workplace: The Case in Selected Resorts in Calamba City, Laguna, Philippines

With present issues pertaining to discrimination and underrepresentation, the growing demand towards equality and equity in society as reflected in legislative bills being filed, street demonstrations, and organized programs, and the number of studies that confirms higher productiveness of diverse workplaces, employers are expected to evaluate prospective employees\u27 socio-demographic profiles aside from knowledge, skills, and personality. This has led to this study that aims to develop a conclusion if the workplace in the tourism industry, resort establishments in Calamba City, Laguna, embraces diversity, as well as to know the challenges that employees experience in working with colleagues who have different demographic profiles, if any. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with employees working in the front of the house of two selected resorts, while data were analyzed using a quantitative and qualitative research design, whereas frequency and percentage were computed, and thematic analysis was performed. Results showed that firms still have their recruitment preferences or biases; one firm prefers hiring older staff while the other prefers younger ones. The LGBT community, on the other hand, has been found to be underrepresented. Moreover, the assessed establishments also favor people with less experience and less formal education, particularly for entry-level positions. Data presented also showed challenges faced by employees working with their colleagues, particularly with the opposite gender, those with lower and higher educational attainment, with different religion, and those younger and older. Findings provide low organizational diversity, therefore, serve as an indication of the need for programs that would promote inclusiveness in society. This study explored a problem in the field of social science that seems to have been ignored or least prioritized in the Philippines over the years. This study is a few of the available literature that provides a picture of poor diversity in society, particularly in workplaces that leads to operational dilemmas

Interpreting the Relationship Among Itch, Sleep, and Work Productivity in Patients with Moderate‑to‑Severe Atopic Dermatitis: A Post Hoc Analysis of JADE MONO‑2

Background Abrocitinib, an oral, once-daily Janus kinase 1-selective inhibitor, improved itch severity, sleep, and work productivity versus placebo in patients with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis. Objective The aim of this study was to investigate relationships among itch, sleep, and work productivity in the phase III JADE MONO-2 clinical trial. Methods A repeated-measures longitudinal model was used to examine relationships between itch (using the Peak Pruritus Numerical Rating Scale [PP-NRS] or Nighttime Itch Scale [NTIS]) and sleep disturbance/loss (using the Patient-Oriented Eczema Measure sleep item and SCORing AD Sleep Loss Visual Analog Scale) and, separately, between itch and work productivity (using the Work Productivity and Activity Impairment-Atopic Dermatitis Version 2.0 questionnaire). Mediation modelling was used to investigate the effect of treatment (abrocitinib vs placebo) on work impairment via improvements in itch and sleep. Results The relationships between itch/sleep and itch/work productivity were approximately linear. PP-NRS scores of 0, 4–6, and 10 were associated with 0 days, 3–4 days, and 7 days per week of disturbed sleep, respectively. PP-NRS or NTIS scores of 0–1, 4–5, and 10 were associated with 0–10%, 20–30%, and >50% overall work impairment, respectively. Seventy-five percent of the effect of abrocitinib on reducing work impairment was indirectly mediated by improvement in itch, followed by sleep. Conclusion These results quantitatively demonstrate that reducing itch severity is associated with improvements in sleep and work productivity. Empirical evidence for the mechanism of action of abrocitinib showed that itch severity is improved, which reduces sleep loss/sleep disruption and, in turn, improves work productivity. Clinical Trial Registration NCT0357587

Urticaria and angioedema

Urticaria (hives) is a common disorder that often presents with angioedema (swelling that occurs beneath the skin). It is generally classified as acute, chronic or physical. Second-generation, non-sedating H1-receptor antihistamines represent the mainstay of therapy for both acute and chronic urticaria. Angioedema can occur in the absence of urticaria, with angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor-induced angioedema and idiopathic angioedema being the more common causes. Rarer causes are hereditary angioedema (HAE) or acquired angioedema (AAE). Although the angioedema associated with these disorders is often self-limited, laryngeal involvement can lead to fatal asphyxiation in some cases. The management of HAE and AAE involves both prophylactic strategies to prevent attacks of angioedema (i.e., trigger avoidance, attenuated androgens, tranexamic acid, and plasma-derived C1 inhibitor replacement therapy) as well as pharmacological interventions for the treatment of acute attacks (i.e., C1 inhibitor replacement therapy, ecallantide and icatibant). In this article, the authors review the causes, diagnosis and management of urticaria (with or without angioedema) as well as the work-up and management of isolated angioedema, which vary considerably from that of angioedema that occurs in the presence of urticaria

Variants of C-C Motif Chemokine 22 (CCL22) Are Associated with Susceptibility to Atopic Dermatitis: Case-Control Studies

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a common inflammatory skin disease caused by multiple genetic and environmental factors. AD is characterized by the local infiltration of T helper type 2 (Th2) cells. Recent clinical studies have shown important roles of the Th2 chemokines, CCL22 and CCL17 in the pathogenesis of AD. To investigate whether polymorphisms of the CCL22 gene affect the susceptibility to AD, we conducted association studies and functional studies of the related variants. We first resequenced the CCL22 gene and found a total of 39 SNPs. We selected seven tag SNPs in the CCL22 gene, and conducted association studies using two independent Japanese populations (1st population, 916 cases and 1,032 controls; 2nd population 1,034 cases and 1,004 controls). After the association results were combined by inverse variance method, we observed a significant association at rs4359426 (meta-analysis, combined P = 9.6×10−6; OR, 0.74; 95% CI, 0.65–0.85). Functional analysis revealed that the risk allele of rs4359426 contributed to higher expression levels of CCL22 mRNA. We further examined the allelic differences in the binding of nuclear proteins by electrophoretic mobility shift assay. The signal intensity of the DNA-protein complex derived from the G allele of rs223821, which was in absolute LD with rs4359426, was higher than that from the A allele. Although further functional analyses are needed, it is likely that related variants play a role in susceptibility to AD in a gain-of-function manner. Our findings provide a new insight into the etiology and pathogenesis of AD

Differential Effects of Peptidoglycan Recognition Proteins on Experimental Atopic and Contact Dermatitis Mediated by Treg and Th17 Cells

Skin protects the body from the environment and is an important component of the innate and adaptive immune systems. Atopic dermatitis and contact dermatitis are among the most frequent inflammatory skin diseases and are both determined by multigenic predisposition, environmental factors, and aberrant immune response. Peptidoglycan Recognition Proteins (Pglyrps) are expressed in the skin and we report here that they modulate sensitivity to experimentally-induced atopic dermatitis and contact dermatitis. Pglyrp3−/− and Pglyrp4−/− mice (but not Pglyrp2−/− mice) develop more severe oxazolone-induced atopic dermatitis than wild type (WT) mice. The common mechanism underlying this increased sensitivity of Pglyrp3−/− and Pglyrp4−/− mice to atopic dermatitis is reduced recruitment of Treg cells to the skin and enhanced production and activation Th17 cells in Pglyrp3−/− and Pglyrp4−/− mice, which results in more severe inflammation and keratinocyte proliferation. This mechanism is supported by decreased inflammation in Pglyrp3−/− mice following in vivo induction of Treg cells by vitamin D or after neutralization of IL-17. By contrast, Pglyrp1−/− mice develop less severe oxazolone-induced atopic dermatitis and also oxazolone-induced contact dermatitis than WT mice. Thus, Pglyrp3 and Pglyrp4 limit over-activation of Th17 cells by promoting accumulation of Treg cells at the site of chronic inflammation, which protects the skin from exaggerated inflammatory response to cell activators and allergens, whereas Pglyrp1 has an opposite pro-inflammatory effect in the skin