Évaluation des résultats d’un cours pour les étudiants en médecine axé sur la congruence clinique en pleine conscience

Purpose: We questioned whether an intensive experiential core course would change medical students’ intention to practice mindful clinical congruence. Our primary hypothesis was that we would see more of a change in the intention to practice mindful clinical congruence in those who had taken versus not yet taken our course. Methods: From a class of 179 in second year we recruited 57 (32%) students who had been already divided into three groups that completed the course in successive periods. We measured mindful clinical congruence using a questionnaire developed and evaluated for validity. We also measured students’ level of stress to determine if any effects we saw were related to stress reduction. Results: Students who had just completed the course showed a greater intention to practice mindful clinical congruence than students who had not yet started the course. There was an apparent slight increase in perceived stress in those who had completed our course. Conclusions: We can change students’ intention to practice mindfully and congruently, which we believe will prevent a decline in compassion and ethical values in clerkship. The results did not appear to be explained by a decrease in stress in students who completed the course.Objectif : Nous avons cherché à savoir si un cours de base expérientiel intensif modifierait l'intention des étudiants en médecine de pratiquer la congruence clinique en pleine conscience. Notre hypothèse principale était que nous verrions un changement plus important dans l'intention de pratiquer la congruence clinique en pleine conscience chez ceux qui avaient suivi notre cours par rapport à ceux qui ne l'avaient pas encore suivi. Méthodes : Sur une classe de 179 étudiants en deuxième année, nous avons recruté 57 (32%) étudiants qui avaient déjà été divisés en trois groupes qui ont suivi le cours dans des périodes successives. Nous avons mesuré la congruence clinique en pleine conscience à l'aide d'un questionnaire dont la validité a été évaluée. Nous avons également mesuré le niveau de stress des étudiants afin de déterminer si les effets observés étaient liés à une réduction du stress. Résultats : Les étudiants qui venaient de terminer le cours ont montré une plus grande intention de pratiquer la congruence clinique en pleine conscience que les étudiants qui n'avaient pas encore commencé le cours. On a constaté une légère augmentation apparente du stress ressenti chez ceux qui avaient terminé notre cours. Conclusions : Nous pouvons modifier l'intention des étudiants de pratiquer la pleine conscience et la congruence, ce qui, selon nous, empêchera un déclin de la compassion et des valeurs éthiques au cours de l'externat. Les résultats ne semblent pas s'expliquer par une diminution du stress chez les étudiants qui ont suivi le cours

Insights into antitrypanosomal drug mode-of-action from cytology-based profiling

Chemotherapy continues to have a major impact on reducing the burden of disease caused by trypanosomatids. Unfortunately though, the mode-of-action (MoA) of antitrypanosomal drugs typically remains unclear or only partially characterised. This is the case for four of five current drugs used to treat Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT); eflornithine is a specific inhibitor of ornithine decarboxylase. Here, we used a panel of T. brucei cellular assays to probe the MoA of the current HAT drugs. The assays included DNA-staining followed by microscopy and quantitative image analysis, or flow cytometry; terminal dUTP nick end labelling to monitor mitochondrial (kinetoplast) DNA replication; antibody-based detection of sites of nuclear DNA damage; and fluorescent dye-staining of mitochondria or lysosomes. We found that melarsoprol inhibited mitosis; nifurtimox reduced mitochondrial protein abundance; pentamidine triggered progressive loss of kinetoplast DNA and disruption of mitochondrial membrane potential; and suramin inhibited cytokinesis. Thus, current antitrypanosomal drugs perturb distinct and specific cellular compartments, structures or cell cycle phases. Further exploiting the findings, we show that putative mitogen-activated protein-kinases contribute to the melarsoprol-induced mitotic defect, reminiscent of the mitotic arrest associated signalling cascade triggered by arsenicals in mammalian cells, used to treat leukaemia. Thus, cytology-based profiling can rapidly yield novel insight into antitrypanosomal drug MoA

Real-Time On-Board Airborne Demonstration of High-Speed On-Board Data Processing for Science Instruments (HOPS)

The project called High-Speed On-Board Data Processing for Science Instruments (HOPS) has been funded by NASA Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) Advanced Information Systems Technology (AIST) program since April, 2012. The HOPS team recently completed two flight campaigns during the summer of 2014 on two different aircrafts with two different science instruments. The first flight campaign was in July, 2014 based at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) in Hampton, VA on the NASA's HU-25 aircraft. The science instrument that flew with HOPS was Active Sensing of CO2 Emissions over Nights, Days, and Seasons (ASCENDS) CarbonHawk Experiment Simulator (ACES) funded by NASA's Instrument Incubator Program (IIP). The second campaign was in August, 2014 based at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) in Palmdale, CA on the NASA's DC-8 aircraft. HOPS flew with the Multifunctional Fiber Laser Lidar (MFLL) instrument developed by Excelis Inc. The goal of the campaigns was to perform an end-to-end demonstration of the capabilities of the HOPS prototype system (HOPS COTS) while running the most computationally intensive part of the ASCENDS algorithm real-time on-board. The comparison of the two flight campaigns and the results of the functionality tests of the HOPS COTS are presented in this paper

Spring 1971

Damage to the GOlf Course by James L. HOlmes (page 3) Editorial (7) Turf Bulletin\u27s Photo Quiz by Frederick G. Cheney (7) Pesticide Waste Disposal by R.G. Novak and O.H. Hammer (8) 1971 Turf Conference Program (12-13) Turf Management by A.J. Powell, Jr. (14) Homeowner\u27s Guide for Spring Lawn Care (16) The Role of Shade Trees in Urban Arboriculture by Malcolm A. McKenzie (17) Locating Cause of Pressure Loss in Power Sprayers (18) How Soil pH is Affected by the Fertilizers You Use by F.E. Hutchinson (20

PEER Testbed Study on a Laboratory Building: Exercising Seismic Performance Assessment

From 2002 to 2004 (years five and six of a ten-year funding cycle), the PEER Center organized the majority of its research around six testbeds. Two buildings and two bridges, a campus, and a transportation network were selected as case studies to “exercise” the PEER performance-based earthquake engineering methodology. All projects involved interdisciplinary teams of researchers, each producing data to be used by other colleagues in their research. The testbeds demonstrated that it is possible to create the data necessary to populate the PEER performancebased framing equation, linking the hazard analysis, the structural analysis, the development of damage measures, loss analysis, and decision variables. This report describes one of the building testbeds—the UC Science Building. The project was chosen to focus attention on the consequences of losses of laboratory contents, particularly downtime. The UC Science testbed evaluated the earthquake hazard and the structural performance of a well-designed recently built reinforced concrete laboratory building using the OpenSees platform. Researchers conducted shake table tests on samples of critical laboratory contents in order to develop fragility curves used to analyze the probability of losses based on equipment failure. The UC Science testbed undertook an extreme case in performance assessment—linking performance of contents to operational failure. The research shows the interdependence of building structure, systems, and contents in performance assessment, and highlights where further research is needed. The Executive Summary provides a short description of the overall testbed research program, while the main body of the report includes summary chapters from individual researchers. More extensive research reports are cited in the reference section of each chapter

Single cell tracking of gadolinium labeled CD4(+) T cells by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

Cellular therapy is emerging as a promising alternative to conventional immunosuppression in the fields of haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation, autoimmune disease and solid organ transplantation. Determining the persistence of cell-based therapies in vivo is crucial to understanding their regulatory function and requires the combination of an extremely sensitive detection technique and a stable, long-lifetime cell labelling agent. This paper reports the first application of laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) to perform single cell detection of T cell populations relevant to cellular immunotherapy. Purified human CD4+ T cells were labelled with commercially available Gd-based MRI contrast agents, Omniscan® and Dotarem®, which enabled passive loading of up to 108 Gd atoms per cell. In mixed preparations of labelled and unlabelled cells, LA-ICP-MS was capable of enumerating labelled cells at close to the predicted ratio. More importantly, LA-ICP-MS single cell analysis demonstrated that the cells retained sufficient label to remain detectable for up to 10 days post-labelling both in vitro and in vivo in an immunodeficient mouse model

Structure-function relationships in the feto-placental circulation from in silico interpretation of micro-CT vascular structures

A well-functioning placenta is critical for healthy fetal development, as the placenta brings fetal blood in close contact with nutrient rich maternal blood, enabling exchange of nutrients and waste between mother and fetus. The feto-placental circulation forms a complex branching structure, providing blood to fetal capillaries, which must receive sufficient blood flow to ensure effective exchange, but at a low enough pressure to prevent damage to placental circulatory structures. The branching structure of the feto-placental circulation is known to be altered in complications such as fetal growth restriction, and the presence of regions of vascular dysfunction (such as hypovascularity or thrombosis) are proposed to elevate risk of placental pathology. Here we present a methodology to combine micro-computed tomography and computational model-based analysis of the branching structure of the feto-placental circulation in ex vivo placentae from normal term pregnancies. We analyse how vascular structure relates to function in this key organ of pregnancy; demonstrating that there is a 'resilience' to placental vascular structure-function relationships. We find that placentae with variable chorionic vascular structures, both with and without a Hyrtl's anastomosis between the umbilical arteries, and those with multiple regions of poorly vascularised tissue are able to function with a normal vascular resistance. Our models also predict that by progressively introducing local heterogeneity in placental vascular structure, large increases in feto-placental vascular resistances are induced. This suggests that localised heterogeneities in placental structure could potentially provide an indicator of increased risk of placental dysfunction

Effect of N2, Ne and Ar seeding on Alcator C-Mod H-mode confinement

The mitigation of divertor heat fluxes is an active topic of investigation on existing tokamaks. One approach uses radiation, both inside and outside the last closed flux surface (LCFS), to convert plasma thermal energy, usually directed towards dedicated plasma facing components, to soft X-ray and ultraviolet radiation, spread over a much larger surface area. Recent enhanced D-α H-mode experiments on Alcator C-Mod varied the ICRF input power and radiative power losses via impurity seeding to demonstrate that normalized energy confinement depends strongly on the difference between input power and the radiated power inside the LCFS. These investigations also show that when seeded with either Ne or N2, a factor of two and higher reduction in outer divertor heat flux is achieved while maintaining H[subscript 98,y2] ∼ 1.0. Conversely, when seeding with Ar, confinement is limited to H[subscript 98,y2] ∼ 0.8 for a similar level of exhaust power.United States. Dept. of Energy (DOE Contract Number DEFC0299ER54512

Collaborative Gaze Channelling for Improved Cooperation During Robotic Assisted Surgery

The use of multiple robots for performing complex tasks is becoming a common practice for many robot applications. When different operators are involved, effective cooperation with anticipated manoeuvres is important for seamless, synergistic control of all the end-effectors. In this paper, the concept of Collaborative Gaze Channelling (CGC) is presented for improved control of surgical robots for a shared task. Through eye tracking, the fixations of each operator are monitored and presented in a shared surgical workspace. CGC permits remote or physically separated collaborators to share their intention by visualising the eye gaze of their counterparts, and thus recovers, to a certain extent, the information of mutual intent that we rely upon in a vis-à-vis working setting. In this study, the efficiency of surgical manipulation with and without CGC for controlling a pair of bimanual surgical robots is evaluated by analysing the level of coordination of two independent operators. Fitts' law is used to compare the quality of movement with or without CGC. A total of 40 subjects have been recruited for this study and the results show that the proposed CGC framework exhibits significant improvement (p<0.05) on all the motion indices used for quality assessment. This study demonstrates that visual guidance is an implicit yet effective way of communication during collaborative tasks for robotic surgery. Detailed experimental validation results demonstrate the potential clinical value of the proposed CGC framework. © 2012 Biomedical Engineering Society.link_to_subscribed_fulltex