Minactivin expression in human monocyte and macrophage populations

Adherent monolayer cultures of human blood monocytes, peritoneal macrophages, bone marrow macrophages, and colonic mucosa macrophages were examined for their ability to produce and secrete minactivin, a specific inactivator of urokinase-type plasminogen activator. All except colonic mucosa macrophages produced and secreted appreciable amounts of minactivin, but only blood monocytes were stimulated by muramyl dipeptide (adjuvant peptide) to increase production. The minactivin from each of these populations could be shown to preferentially inhibit urokinase-type plasminogen activator and not trypsin, plasmin, or 'tissue'-type plasminogen activator (HPA66). A plasminogen-activating enzyme present in monocyte cultures appeared unaffected by the presence of minactivin and could be shown to be regulated independently by dexamethasone

Near-Peer Teaching in Radiology Symposia: A Success Story in Residents as Teachers

INTRODUCTION Peer learning and near-peer teaching have been described in many specialties, less so in Radiology. We present near-peer teaching whereby residents present a series of didactic sessions at the course outset in the form of “symposia” and perform a scholarly activity in the form of teaching. We aim to demonstrate how near-peer teaching in symposia front-loaded within an introductory radiology course can improve medical student satisfaction. METHOD A total of 169 students were enrolled over a period of 3 years, 55 before (2017-2018) and 114 (2018-2020) after the introduction of the symposium. Anonymous course evaluations were collected from all students. In addition, 240 fourth-year medical students who also attended symposium lectures received satisfaction surveys in 2019 and 2020. RESULTS All (169/169, 100%) students taking the course evaluated it. Overall evaluation scores rose from 8.3/10 to 9.0/10 post-symposia. Among student satisfaction surveys, 89/240 (37%) specifically commented on symposia; 91% (80/89) of those found symposia very or extremely informative. 29/71 (41%) of all residents were able to participate in the symposia, 20/29 in multiple years throughout residency, allowing them to fulfill the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education interpersonal and communication skills core competencies and meet scholarly activity requirements. CONCLUSION Near-peer teaching in the form of resident-taught interactive didactics grouped in symposia can have a positive outcome on medical student satisfaction

Models of spatiotemporal variation in rabbit abundance reveal management hot spots for an invasive species

First published: 25 January 2020The European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) is a notorious economic and environmental pest species in its invasive range. To better understand the population and range dynamics of this species, 41 years of abundance data have been collected from 116 unique sites across a broad range of climatic and environmental conditions in Australia. We analyzed this time series of abundance data to determine whether inter‐annual variation in climatic conditions can be used to map historic, contemporary, and potential future fluctuations in rabbit abundance from regional to continental scales. We constructed a hierarchical Bayesian regression model of relative abundance that corrected for observation error and seasonal biases. The corrected abundances were regressed against environmental and disease variables in order to project high spatiotemporal resolution, continent‐wide rabbit abundances. We show that rabbit abundance in Australia is highly variable in space and time, being driven primarily by inter‐annual variation in temperature and precipitation in concert with the prevalence of a non‐pathogenic virus. Moreover, we show that inter‐annual variation in local spatial abundances can be mapped effectively at a continental scale using highly resolved spatiotemporal predictors, allowing “hotspots” of persistently high rabbit abundance to be identified. Importantly, cross‐validated model performance was fair to excellent within and across distinct climate zones. Long‐term monitoring data for invasive species can be used to map fine‐scale spatiotemporal fluctuations in abundance patterns when accurately accounting for inherent sampling biases. Our analysis provides ecologists and pest managers with a clearer understanding of the determinants of rabbit abundance in Australia, offering an important new approach for predicting spatial abundance patterns of invasive species at the near‐term temporal scales that are directly relevant to resource management.Stuart C Brown, Konstans Wells, Emilie Roy-Dufresne, Susan Campbell, Brian Cooke, Tarnya Cox, Damien A. Fordha

MANTRA: Improving Knowledge of Maternal Health, Neonatal Health, and Geohazards in Women in Rural Nepal Using a Mobile Serious Game

Serious games, conveying educational knowledge rather than merely entertainment, are a rapidly expanding research domain for cutting-edge educational technology. Digital interventions like serious games are great opportunities to overcome challenges in low-and-middle-income countries that limit access to health information, such as social barriers like low-literacy and gender. MANTRA: Increasing maternal and child health resilience before, during and after disasters using mobile technology in Nepal takes on these challenges with a novel digital health intervention; a serious mobile game aimed at vulnerable low-literacy female audiences in rural Nepal. The serious game teaches 28 learning objectives of danger signs in geohazards, maternal, and neonatal health to improve knowledge and self-assessment of common conditions and risks to inform healthcare-seeking behavior. Evaluations consisted of recruiting 35 end users to participate in a pre-test assessment, playing the game, post-test assessment, and focus groups to elicit qualitative feedback. Assessments analyzed knowledge gain in two ways; by learning objective with McNemar tests for each learning objective, and by participant scores with paired t-tests of overall scores and by module. Results of assessments of knowledge gain by learning objective (McNemar tests) indicate participants had sufficient prior knowledge to correctly interpret and respond to 26% of pictograms (coded AA), which is a desirable result although without the possibility of improvement through the intervention. The geohazard module had greatest impact as 16% of responses showed knowledge gain (coded BA). The two most successful learning objectives showing statistically significant positive change were evidence of rockfalls and small cracks in the ground (p = < 0.05). Assessment of knowledge gain by participant scores (paired t-tests) showed the 35 participants averaged a 7.7 point improvement (p < 0.001) in the assessment (28 learning objectives). Average change in knowledge of subdivided module scores (each module normalized to 100 points for comparison) was greatest in the geohazard module (9.5 points, p < 0.001), then maternal health (7.4 points, p = 0.0067), and neonatal health (6.0 points, p = 0.013). This evaluation demonstrated that carefully designed digital health interventions with pictograms co-authored by experts and users can teach complex health and geohazard situations. Significant knowledge gain was demonstrated for several learning objectives while those with non-significant or negative change will be re-designed to effectively convey information

Ecofeminism in the 21st Century

This paper considers the influence of ecofeminism on policy concerning gender (in)equality and the environment during the past 20 years. It reviews the broad contours of the ecofeminist debate before focusing on the social construction interpretation of women's relationship with the environment. It will argue that there have been substantial policy shifts in Europe and the UK in both the environmental and equalities fields, and that this is in part a result of lobbying at a range of scales by groups informed by ecofeminist debates. Nevertheless, the paper cautions that these shifts are largely incremental and operate within existing structures, which inevitably limit their capacity to create change. As policy addresses some of the concerns highlighted by ecofeminism, academic discourse and grass roots activity have been moving on to address other issues, and the paper concludes with a brief consideration of contemporary trajectories of ecofeminism and campaigning on issues that link women's, feminist and environment concerns

Environmental conditioning in the control of macrophage thrombospondin-1 production

Thrombospondin-1 (TSP-1) is a multifunctional protein which is secreted into the extracellular matrix during inflammation, where it modulates numerous components of the immune infiltrate. Macrophages are a source of TSP-1, which they produce in response to TLR4 mediated signals. Their production of TSP-1 is regulated by environmental signals that establish a threshold for the level of protein secretion that can be induced by LPS stimulation. Th1 and Th2 cytokines raise this threshold which leads to less TSP-1 production, while signals that promote the generation of regulatory macrophages lower it. TSP-1 plays no direct role in the regulation of its own secretion. In vivo in uveitis, in the presence of TLR-4 ligands, TSP-1 is initially produced by recruited macrophages but this decreases in the presence of inflammatory cytokines. The adaptive immune system therefore plays a dominant role in regulating TSP-1 production in the target organ during acute inflammation

Relationship between early development of spelling and reading

The research reported in this thesis examined the relationship between beginning spelling and reading. More specifically, it focussed on the relationship between the development of early reading and spelling in a context where the approach to early reading instruction includes systematic phonological awareness and decoding instruction. A critical assumption made by proponents of developmental early literacy models is that transfer of skills and knowledge from reading to spelling will occur spontaneously and without formal instruction (Frith, 1980). By contrast instruction-centred approaches make the assumption that there are critical pre-requisite skills that can and should be taught explicitly (Carnine, Silbert & Kameenui, 1997). The difference between these approaches is highlighted in the treatment of invented spelling, a popular activity in Western Australian junior primary classes. A series of studies was undertaken to examine the effect on invented and standard spelling performance of teaching Year 1 children phonological awareness and the strategy of sounding out words. Data were gathered from a range of settings using different research tools. The relationship between phonological awareness and beginning reading and spelling performance was explored initially through a single case study. A post-hoc study was then undertaken with a cohort of students who had received systematic decoding instruction to examine whether proficiency in the decoding of nonwords was related to spelling performance. This permitted an analysis of common sub-skills of decoding and encoding. In the main study the effect on different aspects of reading and spelling performance of using Let\u27s Decode, an approach that includes explicit phonological awareness and systematic decoding instruction, was investigated. In addition, an analysis was made of whether students who received explicit instruction in skills known to contribute to beginning reading and spelling produced superior invented spelling samples. A qualitative analysis was made of the. pre and post invented spelling tests of two pairs of students from the control and intervention groups matched on invented spelling and phonological awareness skills at the beginning of the year, and re tested at the end of Year 1. The final research question involved a single-subject research design to examine the effect of explicit instruction in isolating phonemes in words and prompts to \u27listen for sounds\u27 prior to, and during, the process of spelling words. The single case study revealed a child who was regarded as a competent speller and reader but who could only read words in a familiar context and who had developed a strategy for spelling words based on copying an adult model. This was interpreted as evidence supporting the need for phonological awareness instruction as a pre-requisite for spelling. The post-hoc analysis of a class of students who had received systematic decoding instruction showed that no student classified as a \u27good decoder\u27 could also be classified as a \u27poor speller\u27. This result was considered evidence of a strong link between the phonological knowledge that is required to decode and the role of alphabetic knowledge in spelling. The main study revealed phonological awareness and systematic decoding instruction was associated with superior invented and conventional spelling and reading performance on all reading and spelling measures. Of particular importance was the finding that students who commenced the study with very weak phonological awareness and who subsequently received systematic phonological and decoding instruction showed greater gains in invented spelling than matched students in the control condition. The single subject design showed the effectiveness of phonological awareness individualised instruction on invented spelling for weak students from both intervention and control conditions. It was concluded that the ability to invent spelling is improved when students receive explicit instruction in phonological awareness and systematic decoding but that some students, namely those with persistent weakness in phonological awareness, also require explicit prompts to apply their alphabetic knowledge to spelling words. The implications for instruction of these findings are discussed