Defining dental operative skills curricula: an ADEE consensus paper

This paper reports on the recent activity of the pan‐European consensus of the ADEE Special Interest Group for Pre‐Clinical Operative Skills. Following the previous recommendations from the group, and in order to support teachers and to harmonise the delivery of skills training across Europe, a more formal curriculum relating to pre‐clinical operative skills needs to be created. This paper reports European consensus surrounding the categorisation (level of importance, and difficulty) of basic operative dental clinical skills within the undergraduate curriculum and provides recommendations relating to session structure and timing of curricular elements for basic operative dental clinical skills teaching

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

An Investigation into the Nature of the Oxide Layer Formed on Kovar (Fe-29Ni-17Co) Wires Following Oxidation in Air at 700 °C and 800 °C

This work provides new insight and evidence that challenges and extends the accepted view of the oxidation of Kovar (ASTM-15). Specimens of 2 mm diameter Kovar wire were oxidised in air at 700 °C or 800 °C for 10 minutes. The resulting oxide layers were analysed by X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, scanning transmission electron microscopy and Raman spectroscopy. Oxide layers of approximately 2 μm and 4 μm thick were formed at 700 °C and 800 °C, respectively. These were found to contain iron, cobalt and traces of nickel. The combination of analysis techniques revealed that the oxide contains Fe2O3 in addition to (Fe,Co,Ni)3O4, a spinel oxide, in contrast to the combinations of Fe3O4, Fe2O3 and FeO that are typically reported. The oxide layer was found to be complex, consisting of multiple layers with different compositions which is overlooked in the existing literature

Protein dose requirements to maximise skeletal muscle protein synthesis after repeated bouts of resistance exercise in young trained women

Studies examining the effect of protein (PRO) feeding on post resistance exercise (RE) muscle protein synthesis (MPS) have primarily been performed in men, and little evidence is available regarding the quantity of PRO required to maximally stimulate MPS in trained women following repeated bouts of RE. We therefore quantified acute (4 h and 8 h) and extended (24 h) effects of two bouts of resistance exercise, alongside protein-feeding, in women, and the PRO requirement to maximize MPS. Twenty-four RE trained women (26.6 ± 0.7 years, mean ± SEM) performed two bouts of whole-body RE (3 × 8 repetitions/maneuver at 75% 1-repetition maximum) 4 h apart, with post-exercise ingestion of 15 g, 30 g, or 60 g whey PRO (n = 8/group). Saliva, venous blood, and a vastus lateralis muscle biopsy were taken at 0 h, 4 h, 8 h, and 24 h post-exercise. Plasma leucine and branched chain amino acids were quantified using gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC–MS) after ingestion of D2O. Fifteen grams PRO did not alter plasma leucine concentration or myofibrillar synthetic rate (MyoFSR). Thirty and sixty grams PRO increased plasma leucine concentration above baseline (105.5 ± 5.3 μM; 120.2 ± 7.4 μM, respectively) at 4 h (151.5 ± 8.2 μM, p < 0.01; 224.8 ± 16.0 μM, p < 0.001, respectively) and 8 h (176.0 ± 7.3 μM, p < 0.001; 281.7 ± 21.6 μM, p < 0.001, respectively). Ingestion of 30 g PRO increased MyoFSR above baseline (0.068 ± 0.005%/h) from 0 to 4 h (0.140 ± 0.021%/h, p < 0.05), 0 to 8 h (0.121 ± 0.012%/h, p < 0.001), and 0 to 24 h (0.099 ± 0.011%/h, p < 0.01). Ingestion of 60 g PRO increased MyoFSR above baseline (0.063 ± 0.003%/h) from 0 to 4 h (0.109 ± 0.011%/h, p < 0.01), 0 to 8 h (0.093 ± 0.008%/h, p < 0.01), and 0 to 24 h (0.086 ± 0.006%/h, p < 0.01). Post-exercise ingestion of 30 g or 60 g PRO, but not 15 g, acutely increased MyoFSR following two consecutive bouts of RE and extended the anabolic window over 24 h. There was no difference between the 30 g and 60 g responses

Microgravity validation of a novel system for RNA isolation and multiplex quantitative real time PCR analysis of gene expression on the International Space Station

<div><p>The International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory is dedicated to studying the effects of space on life and physical systems, and to developing new science and technologies for space exploration. A key aspect of achieving these goals is to operate the ISS National Lab more like an Earth-based laboratory, conducting complex end-to-end experimentation, not limited to simple microgravity exposure. Towards that end NASA developed a novel suite of molecular biology laboratory tools, reagents, and methods, named WetLab-2, uniquely designed to operate in microgravity, and to process biological samples for real-time gene expression analysis on-orbit. This includes a novel fluidic RNA Sample Preparation Module and fluid transfer devices, all-in-one lyophilized PCR assays, centrifuge, and a real-time PCR thermal cycler. Here we describe the results from the WetLab-2 validation experiments conducted in microgravity during ISS increment 47/SPX-8. Specifically, quantitative PCR was performed on a concentration series of DNA calibration standards, and Reverse Transcriptase-quantitative PCR was conducted on RNA extracted and purified on-orbit from frozen <i>Escherichia coli</i> and mouse liver tissue. Cycle threshold (Ct) values and PCR efficiencies obtained on-orbit from DNA standards were similar to Earth (1 g) controls. Also, on-orbit multiplex analysis of gene expression from bacterial cells and mammalian tissue RNA samples was successfully conducted in about 3 h, with data transmitted within 2 h of experiment completion. Thermal cycling in microgravity resulted in the trapping of gas bubbles inside septa cap assay tubes, causing small but measurable increases in Ct curve noise and variability. Bubble formation was successfully suppressed in a rapid follow-up on-orbit experiment using standard caps to pressurize PCR tubes and reduce gas release during heating cycles. The WetLab-2 facility now provides a novel operational on-orbit research capability for molecular biology and demonstrates the feasibility of more complex wet bench experiments in the ISS National Lab environment.</p></div

Networked spaces

The 34 articles published in this volume form the proceedings of the 9th Red Sea conference held at Lyon in July 2019, whose core topic was the “spatiality of networks in the Red Sea”, including the western Indian Ocean. In the networked space that the Erythra Thalassa never ceased to be, stable factors such as landscape, climate, and wind patterns have been constantly entangled with more dynamic elements, such as human activity. The contributors to this volume explored how the former were integrated into the countless networks formed by humans in the region, and how these were impacted by spatial constraints over the long course of history. This volume offers a wide range of stimulating contributions. The first articles are devoted to medieval and modern European sources on the Red Sea and its exploration, and to the networks of knowledge dissemination about the region. They are followed by papers relating to the main nodes, the ports and islands of the Red Sea. Several articles are then focusing on the agency of hinterland populations in the networks, and the relationships between the regions bordering the Red Sea and central powers that governed them, often from distant lands. Production and consumption networks are the subject of the next articles, to assess the extent and nature of exchanges and to shed light on the archaeology of circulations. The logistics of exploration, exploitation and trade in the regions bordering the Red Sea are then examined. The last series of papers focuses on regions where archaeological work started only recently: Somaliland, Tigray, and the Horn of Africa. Thanks to all the participants, whether they have exploited new data or re‑examined long-known material, the 9th edition of the “Red Sea Project” gave rise to vibrant debates, showing that the Erythra Thalassa remains an endless source of knowledge.Les 34 articles publiés dans ce volume forment les actes de la 9e édition de la « Red Sea conference » qui s’est tenue à Lyon en juillet 2019. Son thème central était la « spatialité des réseaux en mer Rouge », mais aussi dans l’océan Indien occidental. Dans l’espace connecté que l’Erythra Thalassa n’a jamais cessé d’être, des éléments stables, tels que le paysage, le climat ou le régime des vents, ont été constamment enchevêtrés avec des éléments plus dynamiques, comme l’activité humaine. Les contributeurs de ce volume ont exploré la manière dont les premiers ont été intégrés au sein des innombrables réseaux formés par les hommes dans la région, et dont ceux-ci ont été affectés par les contraintes spatiales au cours de l’histoire. Ce volume offre un riche éventail de contributions. Les premières sont consacrées aux sources européennes médiévales et modernes relatives à la mer Rouge et à son exploration, ainsi qu’aux phénomènes de diffusion des connaissances sur la région. Elles sont suivies d’études sur les nœuds principaux que sont les ports et les îles de la mer Rouge. Plusieurs contributions sont ensuite dédiées à l’agency des populations de l’arrière-pays dans les réseaux, de même qu’aux relations entre les régions bordant la mer Rouge et les pouvoirs centraux qui les ont régis, souvent depuis des contrées éloignées. Les réseaux de production et de consommation font l’objet des textes suivants. Ils évaluent l’ampleur et la nature des échanges et mettent en lumière l’archéologie des circulations. La logistique de l’exploration, de l’exploitation et du commerce dans les zones bordant la mer Rouge est ensuite examinée. La dernière série d’articles porte sur des régions où les travaux archéologiques ont commencé très récemment : Somaliland, Tigré et Corne de l’Afrique. Grâce à tous les participants, qu’ils aient exploité de nouvelles données ou réexaminé des documents connus de longue date, la 9e édition du « Red Sea Project » a donné lieu à des débats animés, témoignant que l’Erythra Thalassa demeure une source d’information inépuisable