Virtual Reality in Higher Education

Virtual reality (VR) is an interactive experience which immerses the user in a digital environment through a sense of presence. In the context of providing an active learning experience, virtual reality has the potential to improve learning outcomes for biomedical science students as it allows the visualisation of and interaction with digital representations of dynamic objects and complex concepts. Studies in bioscience and medical education have shown mixed results pertaining to the benefits of VR as a learning tool. This review aims to consolidate how VR succeeded or failed in improving learning outcomes, and assesses the issue of VR scalability for the ever-growing cohorts in tertiary bioscience courses

Gender Artifacts in Visual Datasets

Gender biases are known to exist within large-scale visual datasets and can be reflected or even amplified in downstream models. Many prior works have proposed methods for mitigating gender biases, often by attempting to remove gender expression information from images. To understand the feasibility and practicality of these approaches, we investigate what $\textit{gender artifacts}$ exist within large-scale visual datasets. We define a $\textit{gender artifact}$ as a visual cue that is correlated with gender, focusing specifically on those cues that are learnable by a modern image classifier and have an interpretable human corollary. Through our analyses, we find that gender artifacts are ubiquitous in the COCO and OpenImages datasets, occurring everywhere from low-level information (e.g., the mean value of the color channels) to the higher-level composition of the image (e.g., pose and location of people). Given the prevalence of gender artifacts, we claim that attempts to remove gender artifacts from such datasets are largely infeasible. Instead, the responsibility lies with researchers and practitioners to be aware that the distribution of images within datasets is highly gendered and hence develop methods which are robust to these distributional shifts across groups.Comment: ICCV 202

Perceptions of an assessment literacy module to improve academic judgement – a pilot study

Expectation differences between assessors and students regarding assignment marking often results in student dissatisfaction accompanied by student complaints, indicating that despite following assignment task briefs and marking criteria, students’ desired grades were not achieved. The Assessment Literacy Module (ALM) is an online grading tool designed to promote student development of evaluative judgement. The ALM allows evaluation of sample assignments – with students being the assessor – guided by assignment marking standards that convey how assessment criteria relate to the assignment outcome; a process that often highlights discrepancies in student academic judgement. Our pilot study surveyed staff (N = 13) and students (N = 105) to gauge perceptions of the impact of the ALM on the student learning experience. Students from eight subjects in Bioscience, Science and Biomedicine, across all three undergraduate levels, indicated that they now have a better understanding of their assessment criteria (85.7%), that they found the ALM helpful in preparing their assignments (87.6%), and that they are more confident with their assessment quality (78.1%). Staff indicated that they perceived students were able to use the feedback comments on the sample assignments to better understand assignment rubrics (69.2%), and that students who used the ALM had better comprehension of assessment expectations (84.6%)

Uptake, accumulation and metabolization of the antidepressant fluoxetine by Mytilus galloprovincialis

Fluoxetine, a selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant, is among the most prescribed pharmaceutical active substances worldwide. This study aimed to assess its accumulation and metabolization in the mussel Mytillus galloprovincialis, considered an excellent sentinel species for traditional and emerging pollutants. Mussels were collected from Ria Formosa Lagoon, Portugal, and exposed to a nominal concentration of fluoxetine (75 ng L-1) for 15 days. Approximately 1 g of whole mussel soft tissues was extracted with acetonitrile:formic acid, loaded into an Oasis MCX cartridge, and fluoxetine analysed by liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MSn). After 3 days of exposure, fluoxetine was accumulated in 70% of the samples, with a mean of 2.53 ng g(-1) dry weight (d.w.) and norfluoxetine was only detected in one sample (10%), at 3.06 ng g(-1) d.w. After 7 days of exposure, the accumulation of fluoxetine and norfluoxetine increased up to 80 and 50% respectively, and their mean accumulated levels in mussel tissues were up to 4.43 and 2.85 ng g(-1) d.w., respectively. By the end of the exposure period (15 days), both compounds were detected in 100% of the samples (mean of 9.31 and 11.65 ng g(-1) d.w., respectively). Statistical analysis revealed significant accumulation differences between the 3rd and 15th day of exposure for fluoxetine, and between the 3rd and 7th against the 15th day of exposure for norfluoxetine. These results suggest that the fluoxetine accumulated in mussel tissues is likely to be metabolised into norfluoxetine with the increase of the time of exposure, giving evidence that at these realistic environmental concentrations, toxic effects of fluoxetine in mussel tissues may occur. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Stimulating peripheral afferents to evoke cardiorespiratory reflex responses in the in situ arterially perfused preparation

The in situ arterially perfused rodent preparation is an innovation that has allowed for significant progress in the study of cardiorespiratory reflex circuitry. This preparation provides a number of advantages over other preparations. The retention of peripheral cardiorespiratory afferents enables the study of reflex circuitry that is not possible in in vitro slice preparations. In addition, the in situ arterially perfused preparation provides unsurpassed mechanical stability of the brainstem compared with the in vivo preparation. This stability allows for better cellular recordings for prolonged periods. Here, the basic technique for the in situ arterially perfused preparation including recording of a number of cardiovascular and respiratory parameters is described. In addition, some of the common techniques for stimulating peripheral afferent nerves that produce different cardiovascular and respiratory reflex responses are discussed.18 page(s

Postnatal changes in the cardiorespiratory response and ability to autoresuscitate from hypoxic and hypothermic exposure in mammals

Most mammals are born immature and a great deal of maturational changes must occur early in the early postnatal life to prepare for life as an adult. In addition to the obvious changes such as physical and musculoskeletal growth, a myriad of physiological changes including the cardiorespiratory responses to hypoxia and hypothermia must also occur. The most intriguing developmental effect is perhaps the change in the ability to autoresuscitate, or spontaneous recovery from cardiorespiratory arrest induced by extreme hypoxia or hypothermia. For decades the ability of young animals to autoresuscitate from cardiorespiratory arrest induced by hypoxic or hypothermic exposure has been documented. In some mammalian species, including rats and humans, this ability is lost over development while others retain this ability. This review will examine the changes that occur in the cardiorespiratory response to hypoxia and hypothermia and the change to the ability to autoresuscitate from cardiorespiratory arrest over early postnatal development. Furthermore, the review will explore some of the potential neuroanatomical, neurochemical and neurophysiological changes during early postnatal development that might contribute to the altered reflex response to hypoxia and hypothermia and the ability to autoresuscitate.10 page(s

Neurokinin-1 receptor activation in the Botzinger complex evokes bradypnea and is involved in mediating the Hering-Breuer reflex

The role of substance P (SP) and its receptor, the neurokinin-1 (NK1R), in the generation of respiratory rhythm has received considerable attention, particularly at the Pre-Bötzinger Complex of the ventral respiratory group (VRG). However, the functional role of SP and NK1R in other VRG regions has not been explored in detail. We review the current literature and describe recent data demonstrating that selective activation of NK1R in the Bötzinger Complex (BötC) of the VRG evoked bradypnea by lengthening expiratory period. In addition, endogenous activation of NK1R in the BötC participates in the expiratory lengthening effect of the Hering-Breuer reflex. These data suggest that NK1R expressing neurons in different subregions of the VRG have functionally diverse roles and provide new insight on the modulatory role of SP on respiratory reflexes.5 page(s

Neurokinin-1 receptors modulate the excitability of expiratory neurons in the ventral respiratory group

We studied the role of neurokinin-1 receptors (NK1-R) on the excitability of expiratory (E) neurons (tonic discharge, E(TONIC); augmenting, E(AUG); decrementing, E(DEC)) throughout the ventral respiratory group, including B�tzinger Complex (B�tC) using extracellular single-unit recording combined with pressurized picoejection in decerebrate, arterially perfused juvenile rats. Responses evoked by picoejection of the NK1-R agonist, [Sar9-Met(O2)11]-substance P (SSP) were determined before and after the selective NK1-R antagonist, CP99,994. SSP excited 20 of 35 expiratory neurons by increasing the number of action potentials per burst (+33.7 +/- 6.5% of control), burst duration (+20.6 +/- 7.9% of control), and peak firing frequency (+16.2 +/- 4.8% of control; means +/- SE). Pretreatment with CP99,994 completely blocked SSP-evoked excitation in a subset of neurons tested, supporting the notion that SSP excitation was mediated through NK1-R activation. Because we had previously shown that E(AUG) neurons were crucial to locomotor-respiratory coupling (LRC), we reasoned that blockade of NK1-R would alter LRC by preventing somatic-evoked excitation of E(AUG) neurons. Blockade of NK1-Rs by CP99,994 in the B�tC severely disrupted LRC and prevented somatic-evoked excitation of E(AUG) neurons. These findings demonstrate that LRC is dependent on endogenous SP release acting via NK1-Rs on E(AUG) neurons of the B�tC. Taken together with our earlier finding that inspiratory off-switching by the Hering-Breuer Reflex requires endogenous activation of NK1-Rs through activation of NK1-Rs on E(DEC) neurons, we suggest that endogenous release of substance P in the B�tC provides a reflex pathway-dependent mechanism to selectively modulate respiratory rhythm.15 page(s

Riluzole disrupts autoresuscitation from hypothermic respiratory arrest in neonatal hamsters but not rats

9 page(s