Biochemistry Instructors’ Views toward Developing and Assessing Visual Literacy in Their Courses

Biochemistry instructors are inundated with various representations from which to choose to depict biochemical phenomena. Because of the immense amount of visual know-how needed to be an expert biochemist in the 21st century, there have been calls for instructors to develop biochemistry students’ visual literacy. However, visual literacy has multiple aspects, and determining which area to develop can be quite daunting. Therefore, the goals of this study were to determine what visual literacy skills biochemistry instructors deem to be most important and how instructors develop and assess visual literacy skills in their biochemistry courses. In order to address these goals, a needs assessment was administered to a national sample of biochemistry faculty at four-year colleges and universities. Based on the results of the survey, a cluster analysis was conducted to group instructors into categories based on how they intended to develop visual literacy in their courses. A misalignment was found between the visual literacy skills that were most important and how instructors developed visual literacy. In addition, the majority of instructors assumed these skills on assessments rather than explicitly testing them. Implications focus on the need for better measures to assess visual literacy skills directly

Association of the Genomic Profile of Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma with Tumor Characteristics and Clinical Outcomes in an International Multicenter Study

Purpose: The prognostic importance of RET and RAS mutations and their relationship to clinicopathologic parameters and outcomes in medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) need to be clarified. Experimental Design: A multicenter retrospective cohort study was performed utilizing data from 290 patients with MTC. The molecular profile was determined and associations were examined with clinicopathologic data and outcomes. Results: RET germ line mutations were detected in 40 patients (16.3%). Somatic RET and RAS mutations occurred in 135 (46.9%) and 57 (19.8%) patients, respectively. RETM918T was the most common somatic RET mutation (n = 75). RET somatic mutations were associated with male sex, larger tumor size, advanced American Joint Committee Cancer (AJCC) stage, vascular invasion, and high International Medullary Thyroid Carcinoma Grading System (IMTCGS) grade. When compared with other RET somatic mutations, RETM918T was associated with younger age, AJCC (eighth edition) IV, vascular invasion, extrathyroidal extension, and positive margins. RET somatic or germ line mutations were significantly associated with reduced distant metastasis-free survival on univariate analysis, but there were no significant independent associations on multivariable analysis, after adjusting for tumor grade and stage. There were no significant differences in outcomes between RET somatic and RET germ line mutations, or between RETM918T and other RET mutations. Other recurrent molecular alterations included TP53 (4.2%), ARID2 (2.9%), SETD2 (2.9%), KMT2A (2.9%), and KMT2C (2.9%). Among them, TP53 mutations were associated with decreased overall survival (OS) and disease-specific survival (DSS), independently of tumor grade and AJCC stage. Conclusions: RET somatic mutations were associated with high-grade, aggressive primary tumor characteristics, and decreased distant metastatic-free survival but this relationship was not significant after accounting for tumor grade and disease stage. RETM918T was associated with aggressive primary tumors but was not independently associated with clinical outcomes. TP53 mutation may represent an adverse molecular event associated with decreased OS and DSS in MTC, but its prognostic value needs to be confirmed in future studies

Instruments to measure patient experience of healthcare quality in hospitals: a systematic review

Improving and sustaining the quality of hospital care is an international challenge. Patient experience data can be used to target improvement and research. However, the use of patient experience data has been hindered by confusion over multiple instruments (questionnaires) with unknown psychometric testing and utility.MethodsWe conducted a systematic review and utility critique of questionnaires to measure patient experience of healthcare quality in hospitals. Databases (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System (MEDLINE), Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), Psychological Information (PsychINFO) and Web of Knowledge until end of November 2013) and grey literature were scrutinised. Inclusion criteria were applied to all records with a 10 % sample independently checked. Critique included (1) application of COSMIN checklists to assess the quality of each psychometric study, (2) critique of psychometric results of each study using Terwee et al. criteria and (3) development and critique of additional aspects of utility for each instrument. Two independent reviewers completed each critique. Synthesis included combining findings in a utility matrix.We obtained 1157 records. Of these, 26 papers measuring patient experience of hospital quality of care were identified examining 11 international instruments. We found evidence of extensive theoretical/development work. The quality of methods and results was variable but mostly of a high standard. Additional aspects of utility found that (1) cost efficiency was mostly poor, due to the resource necessary to obtain reliable samples; (2) acceptability of most instruments was good and (3) educational impact was variable, with evidence on the ease of use, for approximately half of the questionnaires.ConclusionsSelecting the right patient experience instrument depends on a balanced consideration of aspects of utility, aided by the matrix. Data required for high stakes purposes requires a high degree of reliability and validity, while those used for quality improvement may tolerate lower levels of reliability in favour of other aspects of utility (educational impact, cost and acceptability)

Genetic parameters for white blood cells, haemoglobin and growth in weaner pigs for genetic improvement of disease resilience

This study aimed to estimate genetic parameters for white blood cells and haemoglobin levels in weaner pigs and estimate their genetic correlations with multiple growth traits. Five weight measurements were collected on 2,025 Large White pigs. A proportion of these pigs (813 pigs) also had total and differential white blood cells and haemoglobin recorded at an average age of 36.4 days. Haematological variables included total white blood cells (WBC), and counts of lymphocytes (LLYM), neutrophils, monocytes, eosinophils (LEOS), basophils and haemoglobin (HbL). In addition, haemoglobin was recorded on farm with the HemoCue Hb 201+ analyser (HbF). Genetic parameters were estimated using an animal model and fitting common litter effect as an additional random effect for most traits. Heritabilities for total and differential blood cells varied from 0.11 ± 0.09 for LLYM to 0.46 ± 0.10 for LEOS. Both haemoglobin measures were heritable with estimates of 0.15 ± 0.08 for HbF and 0.30 ± 0.14 for HbL. Growth traits were moderately heritable including growth from weaning to five weeks of age which covered only a short time period of ten days. These heritability estimates demonstrated that white blood cells, haemoglobin and growth recorded in weaner pigs may be used to describe disease resilience. Genetic correlations between white blood cells or haemoglobin and growth traits were variable and a better understanding of factors affecting genetic correlations between white blood cells or haemoglobin and growth is needed

Towards healthy, productive genotypes

Consequences of selection for high productivity Selection for high productivity has been the long term focus of pig breeding programs worldwide, however, Rauw et al. (1998) highlighted that selection for productivity alone has unfavourable consequences for a number of metabolic, reproduction and health traits across species. More recently, Prunier et al. (2010) reviewed relationships between high physiological demands and the health and welfare in pigs, concluding that highly productive pigs have increased difficulties in coping with environmental challenges and are more susceptible to stress and disease through increased behavioural, physiological and immunological problems. As a consequence, it is becoming more important to implement breeding programs that optimise productivity across a variety of environments without any compromises in animal health and welfare of pigs. This approach relies on a balance between the resources available to pigs given environmental constraints and the requirements of the genotype for performance. In addition, heightened immunity levels and increased disease resistance can significantly reduce the undesired impact of environmental constraints on performance, health and welfare of pigs