Characterization and Serum Protein Profile of Rheumatoid Arthritis Subjects of Western Region of Mumbai

Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) a degenerative, inflammatory autoimmune disorder if undiagnosed can lead to mortality and morbidity. The diagnosis of RA is based on the scoring criteria of the 2010 ACR/EULAR classification for serological and acute-phase reactant measurements. Post-translational modifications of proteins are one of the reasons for RA. So far Synovial fluid-based proteomic studies have been done for protein characterization and studies on serum or urine samples to assess RA association proteins were minimal. Thus, the current study aimed to compare the serum samples of healthy and affected subjects using Orbitrap LC-MS and gene Ontology, Reactome & KEGG pathways to develop a profile. A study of 500 symptomatic patients was screened and found 46.6 % positivity of which 85 % were women & 15 % were men. A comparison of proteins between normal and affected individuals showed 27 differentially expressed proteins (DEP). A detailed study of protein functions and pathways using gene ontology was conducted. The studies indicated the 7 down-regulated proteins (Apolipoprotein B (112), Complement C3(89), CDNA FLJ75416 (30), Apolipoprotein A-I (24), Apolipoprotein A-IV (22), Complement C5(21), Prothrombin (14), and Heparin cofactor 2) may have good impact to initiate the Rheumatism associated Arthritis. Further studies on these proteins may help in their use for diagnostic purposes

A metacognitive activity to enhance student understanding of complexity of a threshold concept in biology

Background, Aims and Methods Threshold concepts are transformative, but also likely to be troublesome, for undergraduate students. Metacognitive activities that expose students to the structural complexity of a threshold concept and are organized in terms of the Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO) taxonomy have been shown to improve student learning outcomes in a third year engineering course (Meyer et al., 2015). The current study aimed to emphasise to a large cohort of first year biology students the structural complexity of the concept of ‘cell membrane transfer’ and improve their understanding of the concept. The metacognitive activity was divided into several parts. In the first stage, students were asked to answer an open-ended question related to how transfer of substances occurs across the cell membrane. Following this, the students were asked to mark their own answer on a scale of 1-10 and provide justification of their marking by selecting one of statements 1-5, which were ascending in complexity based on the SOLO taxonomy. Subsequently, students were provided with 9 model answers to the question, which varied in structural complexity, and were asked to mark the answers out of 10. This was followed by an instructor explaining their marking of the 9 answers and justification of the marks. Lastly, students were asked to revisit their own answer and re-mark their answer out of 10 and provide justification. After the class, the instructor marked each student response, providing a score and justification, which could be compared to students’ pre- and post-scores and justification. Results and Discussion In our study, it was evident that students find it difficult to identify the variation in complexity of a threshold concept. More than 50% of students were unable to match the instructor score for each model answer, with the exception of only the least complex, and hence lowest scored, answer. The self-assigned student post-score of their own answers was marginally greater than the instructor’s score (

Upper And Lower Pharyngeal Airways In Subjects With Skeletal Class-I ,Class-II & Class-III Malocclusions And Different Growth Patterns – A Cephalometric Study

Aims and Objectives To compare the upper and lower pharyngeal airways in subjects with skeletal Class I, Class II and Class III malocclusions and to evaluate the co relation between different growth patterns and pharyngeal airways. Materials and Methods: The pre-treatment lateral cephalograms , taken in natural head posture, of adult male and female subjects having skeletal Class I, Class II and Class III  malocclusions were selected from the existing records of patients in the Department of Orthodontics, The Oxford Dental College, Hospital and Research Centre, Bangalore. The samples were collected and divided into 3 groups, comprising of 30 in each group. Group 1 consisted of patients with Class I malocclusion, further subdivided into Class I with vertical growth pattern and Class I with normal growth pattern. Likewise, group 2 consisted of patients with Class II malocclusion and group 3 consisted of patients with Class III malocclusion. After establishing the skeletal relation and the pattern of growth, the upper and lower pharyngeal airways were assessed using the Mc Namara’s airway analysis. Results and conclusion: The results showed that the upper and lower pharyngeal airways between a normal and vertical growth pattern among the Class I, Class II and Class III malocclusions were statistically significant. There was no statistically significant difference between the upper and lower pharyngeal airway space when a Class I, Class II or Class III malocclusion type was compared independently, among both the patterns of growth. The results between the Class I versus the Class III group and the Class II versus Class III group also produced statistically significant variations in the pharyngeal airway spaces. However, the comparison between the Class I and Class II groups did not produce any significant differences.   &nbsp

SOLO-based task to improve self-evaluation and capacity to integrate concepts in first-year physiology students

An accurate self-assessment of student work can enhance student learning and subsequently improve academic performance. Instructors can facilitate this process by providing "standards" that students can utilize as feedback when self-evaluating their understanding. Traditional forms of feedback, such as marked assessment tasks, are limited in their ability to serve as standards, as they do not adequately capture variations corresponding to different levels of understanding. To develop a complex understanding in physiology, students have to integrate concepts pertaining to different subcomponents of body systems. The present study attempted to ascertain if exposing students to variations in complexity would refine their ability to self-evaluate their understanding and capacity to integrate concepts. Students were tasked to answer an essay-length, open-ended physiology question to expose their current understanding of the topic. The change in students' self-marking of their answer before and after being exposed to the variations in conceptual understanding of the topic were used to determine whether improvements in self-evaluation accuracy occurred. These variations were presented as instructor-generated answers to the open-ended question, framed using the structure of the observed learning outcome (SOLO) taxonomy. Student scores in the integrative questions of the end-of-semester exam were used as a measure of student ability to integrate concepts. Findings indicated that this intervention led to improvements in student self-evaluation and exam performance, and the positive outcomes were replicated across multiple iterations of the activity

Student understanding of the critical features of an hypothesis: variation across epistemic and heuristic dimensions

The higher education sector is now focussed on the task of creating graduates who are able to deal with the novel, complex, unstructured problems they will encounter in the 21st century workforce (Brew, 2010). Within science, the central role of hypothetico-deductive reasoning in ‘thinking like a scientist’ is well established (Dunbar and Fugelsang, 2005), and in bioscience education, understanding ‘testable hypotheses’ has become a threshold concept (Taylor and Meyer, 2010) and a key driver of curriculum transformation (Elliot et al., 2010). From a large database of responses provided by undergraduate biology students to the question “What is a hypothesis?” Taylor et al. (2011) developed a forty seven item psychometric instrument capturing variation in student understanding of this threshold concept. A version of this instrument has now been trialled with eight hundred undergraduate science students enrolled in a first year, second semester biology course. Exploratory factor analysis of their responses has revealed five factors which vary along dimensions of epistemic maturity and understanding of disciplinary heuristics. These factors are interpreted as representing the initial 'critical features' of the threshold concept as it 'comes into view'. Specifically, students were found to conceptualise hypotheses most simplistically as based on facts, or hold more advanced conceptions about the predictive utility of hypotheses (indicating an awareness of hypothetico-predictive reasoning) and to hypotheses as testable statements (indicating an awareness of hypothetico-deductive reasoning) used in the development of new scientific knowledge. Further, student conceptions varied on the role of observations, experiments and controlling variables in judging the validity of hypotheses. This snapshot characterises the conceptions about hypothesis held by early stage undergraduate science students, providing insights into the ways students are beginning to understand the heuristics used to judge the evidence that builds scientific knowledge in their discipline, as they embark on the journey toward thinking like a scientist