SMARTER Teamwork: System for Management, Assessment, Research, Training, Education, and Remediation for Teamwork

The rapid adoption of Team-Maker and the Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness (CATME), tools for team formation and peer evaluation, make it possible to extend their success to have a significant impact on the development of team skills in higher education. The web-based systems are used by over 700 faculty at over 200 institutions internationally. This paper and its accompanying poster will describe strategies for broadening the scope of those tools into a complete system for the management of teamwork in undergraduate education. The System for the Management, Assessment, Research, Training, Education, and Remediation of Teamwork (SMARTER Teamwork) has three specific goals: 1) to equip students to work in teams by providing them with training and feedback, 2) to equip faculty to manage student teams by providing them with information and tools to facilitate best practices, and 3) to equip researchers to understand teams by broadening the system’s capabilities to collect additional types of data so that a wider range of research questions can be studied through a secure researcher interface. The three goals of the project support each other in hierarchical fashion: research informs faculty practice, faculty determine the students’ experience, which, if well managed based on research findings, equips students to work in teams. Our strategies for achieving these goals are based on a well-accepted training model that has five elements: information, demonstration, practice, feedback, and remediation. Different outcomes are expected for each group of people. For the students, both individual outcomes, such as student learning, and team outcomes, such as the development of shared mental models, are expected. For the faculty, individual outcomes such as faculty learning and faculty satisfaction are expected. The outcomes for researchers will be community outcomes, that is, benefits for stakeholders outside the research team, such as generating new knowledge for teaming theory and disseminating best practices. Measuring these outcomes is the basis for the project’s evaluation plan

SMARTER Teamwork: System for Management, Assessment, Research, Training, Education, and Remediation for Teamwork

SMARTER Teamwork: System for Management, Assessment, Research, Training, Education, and Remediation for TeamworkThe rapid adoption of Team-Maker and the Comprehensive Assessment of Team MemberEffectiveness (CATME) tools for team formation and peer evaluation make it possible to extendtheir success to have a significant impact on the development of team skills in higher education.The web-based systems have been used by more than 110,000 students of more than 2400faculty at more than 500 institutions internationally—the figure below shows the growth of theuser base. 2400 The system has had 113,373 unique student users. 2200 Fitted curves are third order. 2000 1800 Faculty and staff 1600 1400 1200 Number of 1000 users 800 Institutions 600 400 Aug Oct. 2005 2012 200 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Years since software was releasedThis paper and its accompanying poster will describe strategies for broadening the scope of thosetools into a complete system for the management of teamwork in undergraduate education. TheSystem for the Management, Assessment, Research, Training, Education, and Remediation ofTeamwork (SMARTER Teamwork) has three specific goals: 1) to equip students to work inteams by providing them with training and feedback, 2) to equip faculty to manage student teamsby providing them with information and tools to facilitate best practices, and 3) to equipresearchers to understand teams by broadening the system’s capabilities to collect additionaltypes of data so that a wider range of research questions can be studied through a secureresearcher interface. The three goals of the project support each other in hierarchical fashion:research informs faculty practice, faculty determine the students’ experience, which, if wellmanaged based on research findings, equips students to work in teams. Our strategies forachieving these goals are based on a well-accepted training model that has five elements:information, demonstration, practice, feedback, and remediation.The paper that will be submitted and the poster presented at the conference will focus on newfeatures of the system, the development of training materials, and the deployment of a partnerwebsite that shares information about the SMARTER tools for teamwork and provides basicinformation about teamwork and team management

Genome-wide meta-analysis implicates mediators of hair follicle development and morphogenesis in risk for severe acne

Acne vulgaris is a highly heritable common, chronic inflammatory disease of the skin for which five genetic risk loci have so far been identified. Here, we perform a genome-wide association study of 3823 cases and 16,144 controls followed by meta-analysis with summary statistics from a previous study, with a total sample size of 26,722. We identify 20 independent association signals at 15 risk loci, 12 of which have not been previously implicated in the disease. Likely causal variants disrupt the coding region of WNT10A and a P63 transcription factor binding site in SEMA4B. Risk alleles at the 1q25 locus are associated with increased expression of LAMC2, in which biallelic loss-of-function mutations cause the blistering skin disease epidermolysis bullosa. These findings indicate that variation affecting the structure and maintenance of the skin, in particular the pilosebaceous unit, is a critical aspect of the genetic predisposition to severe acne

ABSTRACTS OF PRESENTATIONS

Second International Conference on African Digital Libraries and Archives, abstracts of presentation

Vaccination Targeting a Surface Sialidase of P. acnes: Implication for New Treatment of Acne Vulgaris

BACKGROUND: Acne vulgaris afflicts more than fifty million people in the United State and the severity of this disorder is associated with the immune response to Propionibacterium acnes (P. acnes). Systemic therapies for acne target P. acnes using antibiotics, or target the follicle with retinoids such as isotretinoin. The latter systemic treatment is highly effective but also carries a risk of side effects including immune imbalance, hyperlipidemia, and teratogenicity. Despite substantial research into potential new therapies for this common disease, vaccines against acne vulgaris are not yet available. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Here we create an acne vaccine targeting a cell wall-anchored sialidase of P. acnes. The importance of sialidase to disease pathogenesis is shown by treatment of a human sebocyte cell line with recombinant sialidase that increased susceptibility to P. acnes cytotoxicity and adhesion. Mice immunized with sialidase elicit a detectable antibody; the anti-sialidase serum effectively neutralized the cytotoxicity of P. acnes in vitro and P. acnes-induced interleukin-8 (IL-8) production in human sebocytes. Furthermore, the sialidase-immunized mice provided protective immunity against P. acnes in vivo as this treatment blocked an increase in ear thickness and release of pro-inflammatory macrophage inflammatory protein (MIP-2) cytokine. CONCLUSIONS: Results indicated that acne vaccines open novel therapeutic avenues for acne vulgaris and other P. acnes-associated diseases

Assessment of risk of insect-resistant transgenic crops to nontarget arthropods

An international initiative is developing a scientifically rigorous approach to evaluate the potential risks to nontarget arthropods (NTAs) posed by insect-resistant, genetically modified (IRGM) crops. It adapts the tiered approach to risk assessment that is used internationally within regulatory toxicology and environmental sciences. The approach focuses on the formulation and testing of clearly stated risk hypotheses, making maximum use of available data and using formal decision guidelines to progress between testing stages (or tiers). It is intended to provide guidance to regulatory agencies that are currently developing their own NTA risk assessment guidelines for IRGM crops and to help harmonize regulatory requirements between different countries and different regions of the world

Early Detection and Monitoring of Cancer with the Anti-Malignin Antibody Test "

ABSTRACT: The serum anti-malignin antibody (AMA) test determines the antibody to malignin. a IO,OOO-Da peptide present in patients with a wide variety of cancers.l~ A total of 3315 double-blind tests demonstrated that AMA is a general transformation antibody, elevated in active no.nterminal cancer, regardless of the site or tissue type, with sensitivity and specificity of95% on the flTst determination and >99% on repeat determinations. - 9 Data have not however been published yet that indicate whether, in daily clinical practice, the AMA test provides accurate prospective and predictive information. Fony-two physicians from II states, who ordered the AMA test, performed blind, report here on their results on 208 determinations in the first consecutive 181 patients and controls. Used in monitoring treatment in 56 patients, the test predicted or agreed 94.1 % overall with the clinical status. Used in early detection in 125 patients and controls, of which 118 now have confirmed diagnoses. AMA was elevated in 21, all of whom were proven to have cancer; AMA was normal in 97, none of whom had cancer. Transient elevated AMA occurred in 3%, followed by normal values. Seven patients with still uncertain diagnosis who have had elevated AMA on repeated tests for I year or longer include six who are symptomatic, and three whose families have a high frequency of cancer. The conditions of these 7 may include undetected cancer because of the 118 with now certain diagnosis the AMA test predicted all correctly. From our experience, the AMA test should be used together with other routine procedures whenever signs and symptoms suggest cancer to facilitate early detection

Genome Sequences of Streptomyces Phages Amela and Verse

This article describes Amela and Verse, two Streptomyces phages isolated by enrichment on Streptomyces venezuelae (ATCC 10712) from two different soil samples

The effects of vaccination and immunity on bacterial infection dynamics in vivo.

Salmonella enterica infections are a significant global health issue, and development of vaccines against these bacteria requires an improved understanding of how vaccination affects the growth and spread of the bacteria within the host. We have combined in vivo tracking of molecularly tagged bacterial subpopulations with mathematical modelling to gain a novel insight into how different classes of vaccines and branches of the immune response protect against secondary Salmonella enterica infections of the mouse. We have found that a live Salmonella vaccine significantly reduced bacteraemia during a secondary challenge and restrained inter-organ spread of the bacteria in the systemic organs. Further, fitting mechanistic models to the data indicated that live vaccine immunisation enhanced both the bacterial killing in the very early stages of the infection and bacteriostatic control over the first day post-challenge. T-cell immunity induced by this vaccine is not necessary for the enhanced bacteriostasis but is required for subsequent bactericidal clearance of Salmonella in the blood and tissues. Conversely, a non-living vaccine while able to enhance initial blood clearance and killing of virulent secondary challenge bacteria, was unable to alter the subsequent bacterial growth rate in the systemic organs, did not prevent the resurgence of extensive bacteraemia and failed to control the spread of the bacteria in the body.This work was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [grant number BB/I002189/1].This is the published manuscript. It was originally published by PLOS One here: http://www.plospathogens.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1004359

The impact of surgical delay on resectability of colorectal cancer: An international prospective cohort study

AIM: The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to explore the impact of surgical delays on cancer resectability. This study aimed to compare resectability for colorectal cancer patients undergoing delayed versus non-delayed surgery. METHODS: This was an international prospective cohort study of consecutive colorectal cancer patients with a decision for curative surgery (January-April 2020). Surgical delay was defined as an operation taking place more than 4 weeks after treatment decision, in a patient who did not receive neoadjuvant therapy. A subgroup analysis explored the effects of delay in elective patients only. The impact of longer delays was explored in a sensitivity analysis. The primary outcome was complete resection, defined as curative resection with an R0 margin. RESULTS: Overall, 5453 patients from 304 hospitals in 47 countries were included, of whom 6.6% (358/5453) did not receive their planned operation. Of the 4304 operated patients without neoadjuvant therapy, 40.5% (1744/4304) were delayed beyond 4 weeks. Delayed patients were more likely to be older, men, more comorbid, have higher body mass index and have rectal cancer and early stage disease. Delayed patients had higher unadjusted rates of complete resection (93.7% vs. 91.9%, P = 0.032) and lower rates of emergency surgery (4.5% vs. 22.5%, P < 0.001). After adjustment, delay was not associated with a lower rate of complete resection (OR 1.18, 95% CI 0.90-1.55, P = 0.224), which was consistent in elective patients only (OR 0.94, 95% CI 0.69-1.27, P = 0.672). Longer delays were not associated with poorer outcomes. CONCLUSION: One in 15 colorectal cancer patients did not receive their planned operation during the first wave of COVID-19. Surgical delay did not appear to compromise resectability, raising the hypothesis that any reduction in long-term survival attributable to delays is likely to be due to micro-metastatic disease