How to Be a Super Model: Using Role Modeling to Become an Exemplary Educator

Over the past several years, published studies have described the qualities and skills of exemplary medical educators. Despite its inclusion in these lists, role modeling is a skill that is not often developed as a skill for use as an educational method. The purpose of this workshop is to assist participants in better understanding the characteristics of effective role modeling and create a paradigm for how to consciously incorporate role modeling into the daily education of students, residents, and colleagues in varied domains, including teaching, professionalism, communication, and patient care. In this workshop, participants are introduced to the concept of role modeling as a metacognitive process where successful educators make their thought processes and reasons for behaviors accessible to learners. Through an interactive icebreaker, participants discuss role modeling behaviors that they have encountered, and reflect on their own professional development, describing the impact of positive and negative role modeled behaviors observed through their training. Participants are then provided a succinct review of the literature on role modeling as an educational method in order to provide a framework for participants’ active experimentation in breakout sessions. During these small group sessions, participants explore the different contexts in which they currently may role model teaching, professionalism, communication, and clinical behaviors. Finally, participants collaborate to develop practical strategies for utilizing role modeling in the daily practice of education using the framework provided, and then share their strategies with the larger group. This workshop has been selected for presentation to national audiences at the Pediatric Academic Society (PAS) Meeting in 2013, The Committee on Medical Student Education in Pediatrics (COMSEP) Meeting in 2012, and the American Academy of Pediatrics Pediatric Hospital Medicine Conference (PHM) in both 2012 and 2013. In addition, this workshop has been adapted by the authors for presentation at their local institutions for Grand Rounds, a faculty development retreat, a workshop for faculty and senior medical student preceptors of a Principles of Clinical Medicine course for first and second year medical students, and for pediatric residents learning leadership and teaching skills during a Global Child Health elective. We have also adapted the small group exercise to discuss other topics, such as professionalism, breaking bad news, and working with the angry/upset family

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

Dietary Iron Content Mediates Hookworm Pathogenesis In Vivo

Hookworm infection is associated with growth delay and iron deficiency anemia in developing countries. A series of experiments were designed in order to test the hypothesis that host dietary iron restriction mediates susceptibility to hookworm infection using the hamster model of Ancylostoma ceylanicum. Animals were maintained on diets containing either 10 ppm iron (iron restricted) or 200 ppm iron (standard/high iron), followed by infection with A. ceylanicum third-stage larvae. Infected animals fed the standard diet exhibited statistically significant growth delay and reduced blood hemoglobin levels compared to uninfected controls on day 20 postinfection. In contrast, no statistically significant differences in weight or hemoglobin concentration were observed between infected and uninfected animals fed the iron-restricted diet. Moreover, iron-restricted animals were observed to have reduced intestinal worm burdens on day 10 and day 20 postinfection compared to those of animals maintained on the standard/high-iron diet. In a subsequent study, animals equilibrated on diets containing a range of iron levels (10 ppm, 40 ppm, 100 ppm, or 200 ppm) were infected with A. ceylanicum and followed for evidence of hookworm disease. Infected animals from the intermediate-dietary iron (40- and 100-ppm) groups exhibited greater weight loss and anemia than those in the low (10-ppm)- or high (200-ppm)-iron diet groups. Mortality was also significantly higher in the intermediate-dietary-iron groups. These data suggest that severe dietary iron restriction impairs hookworm development in vivo but that moderate iron restriction enhances host susceptibility to severe disease

Distinct conformations of Ly49 natural killer cell receptors mediate MHC class I recognition in trans and cis.

Certain cell-surface receptors engage ligands expressed on juxtaposed cells and ligands on the same cell. The structural basis for trans versus cis binding is not known. Here, we showed that Ly49 natural killer (NK) cell receptors bound two MHC class I (MHC-I) molecules in trans when the two ligand-binding domains were backfolded onto the long stalk region. In contrast, dissociation of the ligand-binding domains from the stalk and their reorientation relative to the NK cell membrane allowed monovalent binding of MHC-I in cis. The distinct conformations (backfolded and extended) define the structural basis for cis-trans binding by Ly49 receptors and explain the divergent functional consequences of cis versus trans interactions. Further analyses identified specific stalk segments that were not required for MHC-I binding in trans but were essential for inhibitory receptor function. These data identify multiple distinct roles of stalk regions for receptor function

Blood metabolite markers of cognitive performance and brain function in aging

We recently showed that Alzheimer's disease patients have lower plasma concentrations of the phosphatidylcholines (PC16:0/20:5; PC16:0/22:6; and PC18:0/22:6) relative to healthy controls. We now extend these findings by examining associations between plasma concentrations of these PCs with cognition and brain function (measured by regional resting state cerebral blood flow; rCBF) in non-demented older individuals. Within the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging neuroimaging substudy, participants underwent cognitive assessments and brain (15)O-water positron emission tomography. Plasma phosphatidylcholines concentrations (PC16:0/20:5, PC16:0/22:6, and PC18:0/22:6), cognition (California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT), Trail Making Test A&B, the Mini-Mental State Examination, Benton Visual Retention, Card Rotation, and Fluencies—Category and Letter), and rCBF were assessed. Lower plasma phosphatidylcholine concentrations were associated with lower baseline memory performance (CVLT long delay recall task—PC16:0/20:5: (−2.17)–1.39(−0.60) p = 0.001 (β with 95% confidence interval subscripts)) and lower rCBF in several brain regions including those associated with memory performance and higher order cognitive processes. Our findings suggest that lower plasma concentrations of PC16:0/20:5, PC16:0/22:6, and PC18:0/22:6 are associated with poorer memory performance as well as widespread decreases in brain function during aging. Dysregulation of peripheral phosphatidylcholine metabolism may therefore be a common feature of both Alzheimer's disease and age-associated differences in cognition