Students’ Perception on the Course Educational Research: A Case Study in One of the Private Universities in Ghana

The current study sought to identify the perception of teachers (with diploma as their highest level of education) on the teaching and learning of the Educational Research course during the Fall 2017 semester in one of the private universities in Ghana. With a survey research design, three hundred and thirteen teachers, who were enrolled in the Fall 2017 Sandwich programme, were randomly sampled to participate in the study. The findings revealed significant differences between male and female teachers in terms of how they perceived the teaching of research, relevance of research and their statistics anxiety. Also, the age independent variable indicated a significant difference on the statistics anxiety construct only whereas the other two constructs were not significant. There were significant correlations among age, years of teaching, and statistics anxiety. The implication of the study for practice is discussed. Keywords: Educational Research, Statistics, Teachers, Relevance, Years of Teachin

An Investigation On Relationship Between Epistemological Beliefs And Instructional Practice Of Preservice And Inservice Teachers

This quantitative research sought to investigate the relationship between epistemological beliefs and instructional practice of preservice and inservice teachers. Despite the vigorous emphasis and investment on the need for teachers to adopt teaching and learning practices that are more authentic, learner-centered, project-based, meaningful, and context-based, there is a growing trend where inservice teachers are trained in constructivist learning environment but end up adopting traditional learning pedagogies. Thus, teachers are constantly struggling to incorporate the tenets of constructivism into the teaching and learning process. With the use of the discipline-focused epistemological beliefs questionnaire and instructional practice scale, preservice and inservice teachers were purposively sampled to respond to the survey questions. After gathering the data and analyzing the responses, the researcher found that there was no significant difference between the epistemological beliefs of preservice and inservice teachers. There were significant differences among the four dimensions of epistemological beliefs (certainty/simplicity of knowledge, source of knowledge, justification for knowing, and attainment of truth) for both preservice and inservice teachers. Also, there was evidence to support the hypothesis that teachers did not have the same level of epistemological development across the four dimensions studied. Finally, this research indicated that there were significant positive correlational relationships between the overall epistemological beliefs and instructional practice of preservice and inservice teachers. The implications for practice are discusse

Fresh University Students and Phone Use Preferences: The Perception of a Public University in Ghana

The current study was a case study in one of the public universities in Ghana to ascertain phone acquisition and use tendencies of first year university students in their first semester of university education. A sample size of 300 was used for the study. The findings indicated that all the 300 (100%) students had phones whilst 223 (74.3%) of them had smartphones with internet functionality. It was found out that there was a significant difference between first year university students’ time spent on phones, based on age. Again, there was a significant negative correlation between first year university students’ time spent on phones based on their age. Further, the study revealed that first year university students were more likely to spend one semester (four months) on their phones in a four-year programme. The implications for practice have been discussed. Keywords: cell phones use, classroom, phone acquisition, time, first year students

EVALUAION OF ANTI-INFLAMMATORY AND ANTI PYRETIC ACTIVITY OF ETHANOLIC LEAVES EXTRACT OF Myxopyrum smilacifolium (Wall.) Blume

ABSTRACTObjective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the anti-inflammatory and antipyretic activity of ethanolic extract of Myxopyrum smilacifolium(EEMS) leaves in experimental animals.Methods: Plant material was collected from Meenadom, Kottayam district, Kerala, India, in the month of March 2014. The leaves were washed anddried under shade at room temperature. After 1-month, the leaves were powdered. The powder was weighed (50 g) and was extracted by successivesolvent extraction process using ethanol. The total yield of the ethanolic extract was 4.6%. Phytochemical screening was carried out for the detectionof the phytoconstituents by simple qualitative methods. The acute toxicity studies carried out as per OECD guidelines 423. The dosing was designedas per the acute toxicity study. The anti-inflammatory activity was performed by carrageenan and formalin induced paw edema model at two differentdoses, 200 mg/kg and 400 mg/kg. The antipyretic activity was performed by Brewer's yeast induced hyperpyrexia model at two different doses.Wistar rats weighing (150-200 g) of either sex were used for these studies.Results: The results of anti-inflammatory study revealed that the ethanolic leaves extract of M. smilacifolium inhibited the inflammation in carrageenanand formaline induced paw edema method. The ethanolic leaves extract of M. smilacifolium possesses a significant antipyretic effect in yeast inducedelevation of body temperature in experimental rats.Conclusion: EEMS leaves shows a dose dependent increase in the anti-inflammatory, antipyretic and immunomodulatory activities.Keywords: Ethanolic extract of Myxopyrum smilacifolium, Carrageenan, Formalin, Brewe's yeast

Perceived Effects of Smartphone Usage on Students’ Attitude Towards Learning in a Health Institution

The research is partly funded by College of Health, Yamfo, Ghana. Abstract Globally, the current advancement in technological gadgets has provided smartphones as a new tool for both teachers and students to support classroom and off classroom learning. This has led to the call for its integration into the educational system of health training schools in Ghana. The researchers studied health trainees’ perception on the effects smartphone usage has on their attitudes towards learning. This study was grounded on the views of constructivist theory of learning. A descriptive cross sectional study design was adopted. Among 614 health trainees studying various medical and allied health courses at the College of Health-Yamfo of Ghana, 138 students were selected using both stratified and systematic sampling methods. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the data. The outcome of the study indicated that health trainees who use smartphones in their learning activities develop positive attitude towards learning (76%). However, it was revealed that health trainees who do not use smartphones in their learning activities had negative attitude towards learning (57%). They were also not confident; did not complete assignments; depended on others during studies and did not have access to large volume of information via the internet. Finally, chatting through WhatsApp and other social media applications during lectures and small screen size were barriers to effective use of smartphone in learning activities. The study recommends development of policy that would encompass the integration of smartphone usage into teaching curriculum of health training schools in Ghana. Keywords: smartphones, student learning, social media, health training schools DOI: 10.7176/JEP/10-2-0

The Impact of demographic factors on pre-service teachers’ perception of Educational Research: Findings from a private university

The current study sought to identify the effects of democratic factors on the perception of pre-service teachers (with diploma as their highest level of education) on the teaching and learning of the Educational Research course during the fall 2017 semester in one of the private universities in Ghana. With a survey research design, three hundred and twenty (320) pre-service teachers, who were enrolled in the fall 2017 sandwich programme, were randomly sampled to participate in the study. The findings revealed significant differences between male and female pre-service teachers perception of the teaching of research, relevance of research and their statistics anxiety. Also, the age independent variable indicated a significant difference on the statistics anxiety construct only whereas the other two constructs were not significant. There were significant correlations among age, years of teaching, and statistics anxiety. The implication of the study for practice is discussed

Targeting NETs using dual-active DNase1 variants

Background: Neutrophil Extracellular Traps (NETs) are key mediators of immunothrombotic mechanisms and defective clearance of NETs from the circulation underlies an array of thrombotic, inflammatory, infectious, and autoimmune diseases. Efficient NET degradation depends on the combined activity of two distinct DNases, DNase1 and DNase1-like 3 (DNase1L3) that preferentially digest double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) and chromatin, respectively. Methods: Here, we engineered a dual-active DNase with combined DNase1 and DNase1L3 activities and characterized the enzyme for its NET degrading potential in vitro. Furthermore, we produced a mouse model with transgenic expression of the dual-active DNase and analyzed body fluids of these animals for DNase1 and DNase 1L3 activities. We systematically substituted 20 amino acid stretches in DNase1 that were not conserved among DNase1 and DNase1L3 with homologous DNase1L3 sequences. Results: We found that the ability of DNase1L3 to degrade chromatin is embedded into three discrete areas of the enzyme's core body, not the C-terminal domain as suggested by the state-of-the-art. Further, combined transfer of the aforementioned areas of DNase1L3 to DNase1 generated a dual-active DNase1 enzyme with additional chromatin degrading activity. The dual-active DNase1 mutant was superior to native DNase1 and DNase1L3 in degrading dsDNA and chromatin, respectively. Transgenic expression of the dual-active DNase1 mutant in hepatocytes of mice lacking endogenous DNases revealed that the engineered enzyme was stable in the circulation, released into serum and filtered to the bile but not into the urine. Conclusion: Therefore, the dual-active DNase1 mutant is a promising tool for neutralization of DNA and NETs with potential therapeutic applications for interference with thromboinflammatory disease states

Hemoadsorption in ‘liver indication’: analysis of 109 patients’ data from the CytoSorb international registry

Background: Our aim is to report the results of the ‘liver indication’ subset of patients in the CytoSorb International Registry. Methods: Structured data were recorded. Treatment characteristics and changes from T1 (start of hemoadsorption) to T2 (termination) were evaluated with a special focus on bilirubin, C-reactive protein, procalcitonin, interleukin-6, platelet levels, SOFA scores, mortality, and subjective assessment by the attending physicians. Results: Until January 2021, from the total 1434 patients, 109 (age: 49.2 ± 17.1 years, 57.8% males) received treatment for hyperbilirubinemia. APACHE II-predicted mortality was 49.6 ± 26.8%. In the study, 91% of patients were alive at the termination of hemoadsorption and improvement was observed by the physicians in 75 cases. Overall, 65 (59.6%) patients died in the hospital, and 60 (55.0%) died in the ICU. Patients received a median of two treatments for a median of 43 h (interquartile range: 24–72 h) in total. Serum bilirubin levels reduced significantly to −4.6 (95% CI: −6.329 to −2.8) mg/dL. Thrombocytopenia was reported in four patients as an adverse event. Conclusions: We report the largest case series on hemoadsorption for ‘liver indication’ from the CytoSorb International Registry. The finding of significant bilirubin removal observed in our study could have substantial impact in designing and executing further studies on the effects of hemoadsorption in liver dysfunction, which are certainly warranted

Second-line anti-tuberculosis drug resistance testing in Ghana identifies the first extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis case

Background: Drug resistance surveillance is crucial for tuberculosis (TB) control. Therefore, our goal was to determine the prevalence of second-line anti-TB drug resistance among diverse primary drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) isolates in Ghana. Materials and methods: One hundred and seventeen MTBC isolates with varying first-line drug resistance were analyzed. Additional resistance to second-line anti-TB drugs (streptomycin [STR], amikacin [AMK] and moxifloxacin [MOX]) was profiled using the Etest and GenoType MTBDRsl version 2.0. Genes associated with resistance to AMK and MOX (gyrA, gyrB, eis, rrs, tap, whiB7 and tlyA) were then analyzed for mutation. Results: Thirty-seven (31.9%) isolates had minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values ≥2 µg/mL against STR while 12 (10.3%) isolates had MIC values ≥1 µg/mL for AMK. Only one multidrug-resistant (MDR) isolate (Isolate ID: TB/Nm 919) had an MIC value of ≥0.125 µg/mL for MOX (MIC = 3 µg/mL). This isolate also had the highest MIC value for AMK (MIC = 16 µg/mL) and was confirmed as resistant to AMK and MOX by the line probe assay GenoType MTBDRsl version 2.0. Mutations associated with the resistance were: gyrA (G88C) and rrs (A514C and A1401G). Conclusion: Our findings suggest the need to include routine second-line anti-TB drug susceptibility testing of MDR/rifampicin-resistant isolates in our diagnostic algorithm