Communication skills for medical/dental students at the University of Pretoria: lessons learnt from a two-year study using a forum theatre method

Background: This study describes the lessons learnt from using a novel method for teaching communication skills to second-year medical/dental students.Methods: Medical and drama teachers designed this action research project to serve the educational interests of secondyear medical/dental and drama students. The drama students enacted problematic doctor-patient scenarios for their forum theatre course. The interactive enactment was done for groups of 60-70 medical/dental students. The latter interrupted the actors to suggest improved communication skills. The drama students then re-enacted the scenarios, incorporating the improvements. The medical/dental students\' knowledge of communication skills was assessed before the enactment, three weeks later, and again four months after that. Their semi-structured feedback was analysed thematically. In the next year, the feedback was used to improve the methodology for the new second-year students. Results: In both years, the medical/dental students\' knowledge showed a statistically significant improvement after the enactment, and this was sustained for four months. In year 1, the feedback revolved around language problems and disrespectful attitudes. In year 2, visual cue cards of the communication skills were displayed during the act, and the drama students emphasised these rather than attitudinal problems. However, feedback showed that caricaturing the doctors\' attitudes still detracted attention from the desired focus on communication skills. Conclusions: Although the forum theatre method can transfer knowledge of communication skills, the focus of the acting should be on the demonstration of inappropriate communication skills rather than inappropriate attitudes. One limitation of this study is that assessment was limited to knowledge and did not progress to skills. South African Family Practice Vol. 47(6) 2005: 60-6

Properties of Hadrons in the Nuclear Medium

This review is devoted to the discussion of hadron properties in the nuclear medium and its relation to the partial restoration of chiral symmetry. Special attention is given to disentangle in-medium effects due to conventional many-body interactions from those due to the change of the chiral condensate. In particular, we shall discuss medium effects on the Goldstone bosons (pion, kaon and eta), the vector mesons (rho, omega, phi), and the nucleon. Also, for each proposed in-medium effect the experimental consequence and results will be reviewed.Comment: 43 pages, 8 figures, uses epsf-style file. To appear in Ann. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. Vol 4

Topical Diclofenac Solution for Osteoarthritis of the Knee: An Updated Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.

This study was performed to assess the efficacy and safety of a topical diclofenac solution in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and Scopus databases were searched for randomized controlled trials until June 2020. The WOMAC pain, stiffness, physical function subscales, pain on walking, and the occurrence of adverse events were pooled to comprehensively analyse the efficacy and safety of topical diclofenac solution. All statistical analyses were conducted using Review Manager 5.3 software. Five RCTs were included, which provided high-quality evidence. In comparison to the vehicle control, the mean differences for WOMAC pain, stiffness, and physical function subscales, as well as pain on walking, were all statistically significant in favor of topical diclofenac solution. The safety of topical diclofenac solution was similar to the vehicle control, apart from adverse events involving application-site skin reactions. Topical diclofenac solution is effective and safe for use in patients with knee OA, but may cause minor skin reactions

Baryon-Baryon Interactions

After a short survey of some topics of interest in the study of baryon-baryon scattering, the recent Nijmegen energy dependent partial wave analysis (PWA) of the nucleon-nucleon data is reviewed. In this PWA the energy range for both pp and np is now 0 < Tlab < 350 MeV and a chi^2_{d.o.f.}=1.08 was reached. The implications for the pion-nucleon coupling constants are discussed. Comments are made with respect to recent discussions around this coupling constant in the literature. In the second part, we briefly sketch the picture of the baryon in several, more or less QCD-based, quark-models that have been rather prominent in the literature. Inspired by these pictures we constructed a new soft-core model for the nucleon-nucleon interaction and present the first results of this model in a chi^2 -fit to the new multi-energy Nijmegen PWA. With this new model we succeeded in narrowing the gap between theory and experiment at low energies. For the energies Tlab = 25-320 MeV we reached a record low chi^2_{p.d.p.} = 1.16. We finish the paper with some conclusions and an outlook describing the extension of the new model to baryon-baryon scattering.Comment: 12 pages LaTeX and one postscript figure included. Invited talk presented at the XIVth European Conference of Few-Body Problems in Physics, Amsterdam, August 23-28, 199

Extracellular Vesicles from Mesenchymal Stromal Cells for the Treatment of Inflammation-Related Conditions

Over the past two decades, mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) have demonstrated great potential in the treatment of inflammation-related conditions. Numerous early stage clinical trials have suggested that this treatment strategy has potential to lead to significant improvements in clinical outcomes. While promising, there remain substantial regulatory hurdles, safety concerns, and logistical issues that need to be addressed before cell-based treatments can have widespread clinical impact. These drawbacks, along with research aimed at elucidating the mechanisms by which MSCs exert their therapeutic effects, have inspired the development of extracellular vesicles (EVs) as anti-inflammatory therapeutic agents. The use of MSC-derived EVs for treating inflammation-related conditions has shown therapeutic potential in both in vitro and small animal studies. This review will explore the current research landscape pertaining to the use of MSC-derived EVs as anti-inflammatory and pro-regenerative agents in a range of inflammation-related conditions: osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, Alzheimer's disease, cardiovascular disease, and preeclampsia. Along with this, the mechanisms by which MSC-derived EVs exert their beneficial effects on the damaged or degenerative tissues will be reviewed, giving insight into their therapeutic potential. Challenges and future perspectives on the use of MSC-derived EVs for the treatment of inflammation-related conditions will be discussed

The Architectural Design Rules of Solar Systems based on the New Perspective

On the basis of the Lunar Laser Ranging Data released by NASA on the Silver Jubilee Celebration of Man Landing on Moon on 21st July 1969-1994, theoretical formulation of Earth-Moon tidal interaction was carried out and Planetary Satellite Dynamics was established. It was found that this mathematical analysis could as well be applied to Star and Planets system and since every star could potentially contain an extra-solar system, hence we have a large ensemble of exoplanets to test our new perspective on the birth and evolution of solar systems. Till date 403 exoplanets have been discovered in 390 extra-solar systems. I have taken 12 single planet systems, 4 Brown Dwarf - Star systems and 2 Brown Dwarf pairs. Following architectural design rules are corroborated through this study of exoplanets. All planets are born at inner Clarke Orbit what we refer to as inner geo-synchronous orbit in case of Earth-Moon System. By any perturbative force such as cosmic particles or radiation pressure, the planet gets tipped long of aG1 or short of aG1. Here aG1 is inner Clarke Orbit. The exoplanet can either be launched on death spiral as CLOSE HOT JUPITERS or can be launched on an expanding spiral path as the planets in our Solar System are. It was also found that if the exo-planet are significant fraction of the host star then those exo-planets rapidly migrate from aG1 to aG2 and have very short Time Constant of Evolution as Brown Dwarfs have. This vindicates our basic premise that planets are always born at inner Clarke Orbit. This study vindicates the design rules which had been postulated at 35th COSPAR Scientific Assembly in 2004 at Paris, France, under the title ,New Perspective on the Birth & Evolution of Solar Systems.Comment: This paper has been reported to Earth,Moon and Planets Journal as MOON-S-09-0007

MOSBIE: A tool for comparison and analysis of rule-based biochemical models

Background: Mechanistic models that describe the dynamical behaviors of biochemical systems are common in computational systems biology, especially in the realm of cellular signaling. The development of families of such models, either by a single research group or by different groups working within the same area, presents significant challenges that range from identifying structural similarities and differences between models to understanding how these differences affect system dynamics.Results: We present the development and features of an interactive model exploration system, MOSBIE, which provides utilities for identifying similarities and differences between models within a family. Models are clustered using a custom similarity metric, and a visual interface is provided that allows a researcher to interactively compare the structures of pairs of models as well as view simulation results.Conclusions: We illustrate the usefulness of MOSBIE via two case studies in the cell signaling domain. We also present feedback provided by domain experts and discuss the benefits, as well as the limitations, of the approach

Antagonism of miR-328 Increases the Antimicrobial Function of Macrophages and Neutrophils and Rapid Clearance of Non-typeable Haemophilus Influenzae (NTHi) from Infected Lung

© 2015 Tay et al. Pathogenic bacterial infections of the lung are life threatening and underpin chronic lung diseases. Current treatments are often ineffective potentially due to increasing antibiotic resistance and impairment of innate immunity by disease processes and steroid therapy. Manipulation miRNA directly regulating anti-microbial machinery of the innate immune system may boost host defence responses. Here we demonstrate that miR-328 is a key element of the host response to pulmonary infection with non-typeable haemophilus influenzae and pharmacological inhibition in mouse and human macrophages augments phagocytosis, the production of reactive oxygen species, and microbicidal activity. Moreover, inhibition of miR-328 in respiratory models of infection, steroid-induced immunosuppression, and smoke-induced emphysema enhances bacterial clearance. Thus, miRNA pathways can be targeted in the lung to enhance host defence against a clinically relevant microbial infection and offer a potential new anti-microbial approach for the treatment of respiratory diseases

Correction: Antagonism of miR-328 Increases the Antimicrobial Function of Macrophages and Neutrophils and Rapid Clearance of Non-typeable Haemophilus Influenzae (NTHi) from Infected Lung

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1004549.]

A comparison of transgenic rodent mutation and in vivo comet assay responses for 91 chemicals.

A database of 91 chemicals with published data from both transgenic rodent mutation (TGR) and rodent comet assays has been compiled. The objective was to compare the sensitivity of the two assays for detecting genotoxicity. Critical aspects of study design and results were tabulated for each dataset. There were fewer datasets from rats than mice, particularly for the TGR assay, and therefore, results from both species were combined for further analysis. TGR and comet responses were compared in liver and bone marrow (the most commonly studied tissues), and in stomach and colon evaluated either separately or in combination with other GI tract segments. Overall positive, negative, or equivocal test results were assessed for each chemical across the tissues examined in the TGR and comet assays using two approaches: 1) overall calls based on weight of evidence (WoE) and expert judgement, and 2) curation of the data based on a priori acceptability criteria prior to deriving final tissue specific calls. Since the database contains a high prevalence of positive results, overall agreement between the assays was determined using statistics adjusted for prevalence (using AC1 and PABAK). These coefficients showed fair or moderate to good agreement for liver and the GI tract (predominantly stomach and colon data) using WoE, reduced agreement for stomach and colon evaluated separately using data curation, and poor or no agreement for bone marrow using both the WoE and data curation approaches. Confidence in these results is higher for liver than for the other tissues, for which there were less data. Our analysis finds that comet and TGR generally identify the same compounds (mainly potent mutagens) as genotoxic in liver, stomach and colon, but not in bone marrow. However, the current database content precluded drawing assay concordance conclusions for weak mutagens and non-DNA reactive chemicals