The impact and cost-effectiveness of student counselling in the context of higher education: A literature review

The need for and relevance of student counselling has been well argued for in past research, and has been duly recognised at governmental level in South Africa. However, this recognition necessarily calls for accountability from student counselling centres. In this regard, it becomes increasingly important to evaluate student counselling services in terms of their cost-effectiveness and the impact their services have. In this article, different methods for determining cost-effectiveness are outlined and the most applicable method in different cases indicated. Subsequently, research on cost-effectiveness and the impact of student counselling services are reviewed. Research findings on the impact and cost-effectiveness of policies, organisational structure, collaboration between different institutional service centres and counsellor characteristics are reviewed. In particular, it was found that collaboration between student-directed services within the broader University context contribute to cost-effectiveness and impact. It is concluded that more empirical research is needed to justify the claims of relevance of student counselling services. Suggestions are made as to how impact and cost-effectiveness can be studied at institutional level. Furthermore, it is suggested that research findings on counsellor characteristics should be integrated in the impact and costeffectiveness studies of student counselling services. South African Journal of Higher Education Vol. 20 (2) 2006: 261-27

STAT3 Represses Nitric Oxide Synthesis in Human Macrophages upon Mycobacterium tuberculosis Infection

Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a successful intracellular pathogen. Numerous host innate immune responses signaling pathways are induced upon mycobacterium invasion, however their impact on M. tuberculosis replication is not fully understood. Here we reinvestigate the role of STAT3 specifically inside human macrophages shortly after M. tuberculosis uptake. We first show that STAT3 activation is mediated by IL-10 and occurs in M. tuberculosis infected cells as well as in bystander non-colonized cells. STAT3 activation results in the inhibition of IL-6, TNF-α, IFN-γ and MIP-1β. We further demonstrate that STAT3 represses iNOS expression and NO synthesis. Accordingly, the inhibition of STAT3 is detrimental for M. tuberculosis intracellular replication. Our study thus points out STAT3 as a key host factor for M. tuberculosis intracellular establishment in the early stages of macrophage infection

A Systems Model of Phosphorylation for Inflammatory Signaling Events

Phosphorylation is a fundamental biochemical reaction that modulates protein activity in cells. While a single phosphorylation event is relatively easy to understand, multisite phosphorylation requires systems approaches for deeper elucidation of the underlying molecular mechanisms. In this paper we develop a mechanistic model for single- and multi-site phosphorylation. The proposed model is compared with previously reported studies. We compare the predictions of our model with experiments published in the literature in the context of inflammatory signaling events in order to provide a mechanistic description of the multisite phosphorylation-mediated regulation of Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3 (STAT3) and Interferon Regulatory Factor 5 (IRF-5) proteins. The presented model makes crucial predictions for transcription factor phosphorylation events in the immune system. The model proposes potential mechanisms for T cell phenotype switching and production of cytokines. This study also provides a generic framework for the better understanding of a large number of multisite phosphorylation-regulated biochemical circuits

Computer-Aided Drug Discovery from Marine Compounds: Identification of the Three-Dimensional Structural Features Responsible for Antimalarial Activity

An integrated computational approach, based on molecular dynamics/mechanics, semi-empirical, and DFT calculations as well as dynamic docking studies, has been employed to gain insight into the mechanism of action of new antimalarial agents characterized by the scaffold of the marine compounds plakortin and aplidinone. The results of this approach show that these molecules, after interaction with Fe(II), likely coming from the heme molecule, give rise to the formation of radical species, that should represent the toxic intermediates responsible for subsequent reactions leading to plasmodium death. The three-dimensional structural requirements necessary for the activity of these new classes of antimalarial agents have been identified and discussed throughout the chapter

Learning jQuery 3: build interesting, interactive sites using jQuery by automating common tasks and simplifying the complicated ones

Uptake studies on CuO NP, CuO MP and CuCl2 in HeLa S3 cells. (PPTX 71 kb