Examining Factors, Supports, and Transitional Resources among Students Attending Agency Schools in Southwestern Ontario

Mental health challenges continue to rise amongst children, proving the need for successful school based mental health services. Agency schools can combine treatment and education in order to try and meet the diverse needs of students in-risk that are unable to succeed in community school settings. In conducting this study, I present and interpret the perspective of teachers for policy makers, administrators, and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the structure and dynamics of day treatment programs and transitions, so that agency schools can continue to develop to meet the needs of students. In this qualitative case study, I investigated the lived experiences of teachers working in agency schools in a region in Southwestern Ontario. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, and the data was analyzed through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Five themes emerged from an analysis of the data: 1) Teaching the Whole Child; 2) Communication; 3) Collaboration and Team Dynamics; 4) The Present Role of Parent(s) and/or Guardians; and 5) Successful and Adaptive Transition. The themes present a general conception of how teachers identify their role in agency schools while providing evidence of the success of day treatment programs and student transitions

Contemplative Practices in Higher Education: Examining Faculty Perspectives

Anxiety, depression, and feeling overwhelmed are consistently reported among college students. Contemplative pedagogy is a teaching approach that incorporates yoga, meditation, and other spiritual and physical activities into an academic curriculum. It is an emerging prescription in the field of higher education to alleviate some of the emotional struggles students face, providing an alternative solution to more clinical interactions. Contemplative faculty are higher education professors who regularly implement contemplative approaches in their teaching as a response to students’ needs. Through an analysis of faculty narratives, this study explores the experiences of contemplative educators in 4-year universities in the United States. This study found that higher education faculty perceive contemplative pedagogy as an integral part of their academic identity and value teaching life skills over subject matter. Professors in this study utilized contemplative pedagogy in response to their students’ emotional needs and frequently had to cope with their academic peers’ unsupportive attitudes toward their teaching and scholarship

Avian influenza virus as an oncolytic therapy for pancreatic cancer

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide and the development of new treatment strategies for patients suffering from PDA is of crucial importance. Virotherapy uses natural or engineered oncolytic viruses (OVs) to selectively kill tumour cells. Although various OVs are being investigated as agents for pancreatic cancer treatment, due to the genetic heterogeneity of PDA cells and their consequent mixed permissiveness to viruses, virotherapy should not rely on a short list of possible candidates. As such, preliminary data from our group demonstrating the potent pro-apoptotic effect of the low pathogenicity avian influenza virus (LPAIV) H7N3 A/turkey/Italy/2962/03 in PDA cells, previously established to be resistant to other OVs, suggested that this virus might be effective against specific sub-classes of pancreatic cancer. Therefore, in the present studies, the avian isolate was selected for further development. Preferential replication of the H7N3 virus in IFN-deficient cells, a trait of the majority of PDA cell lines, was improved by the truncation of the viral NS1 protein (NS1-77), which compromised the virus’ ability to counteract the IFN-mediated antiviral response and, as bystander effect, enhanced the killing of uninfected cancer cells by stimulating IFN expression from healthy cells. Introduction of L75H mutation within the mitochondrial targeting sequence (MTS) of the viral protein PB1-F2 increased virus replication in permissive IFN deficient cells and also lessened PB1-F2’s ability to counter the IFN response induced by overexpression of mitochondrial antiviral signalling protein (MAVS), further enhancing selectivity for PDA cells. Substitution of the genes expressing avian surface antigens haemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) with those of the well characterized human H1N1 A/Puerto Rico/8/1934 virus eliminated the potential risk of reassortment of the H7N3 virus with circulating human influenza strains that might result in a new pandemic virus, nonetheless, preserving the oncolytic properties of the parental isolate. Finally, to promote anti-tumour immunity, the newly generated PR8 H1/N1-2962 NS1-77 virus was “armed” to express the human granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) gene during infection. Taken together our data demonstrate the possibility to select an IAV from the avian reservoir on the basis of its strain-specific oncolytic skills in PDA cells and, through engineering, improve its selectivity, safety and tumour debulking activity.Open Acces

Compliance and medication problems in chronic conditions

Objectives: The project aimed to determine the level of medication compliance in patients having a chronic condition and to determine the types and frequency of medication-related problems identified by a pharmacist working in a community pharmacy. Method: The study population was identified from the database of patients receiving free medicinals under the ‘Pharmacy of your Choice’ scheme from a particular community pharmacy. Patients included in the study were older than 60 years of age and taking more than 3 drugs. A Compliance Questionnaire was distributed to these patients. The pharmacist classified medication problems and used a specifically developed data collection tool in order to collate all the relevant patient information. Key findings: Of the 75 patients included in the study, 33 (44%) said they never missed a dose whilst the remaining 42 (56%) were non-compliant. Out of the 205 medication-related problems identified, the most common medication-related problems observed were non-compliance (56%) and the occurence of adverse drug reactions (55%). Conclusion: Compliance is a significant medication-related problem encountered by community pharmacists amongst elderly patients receiving multiple drug therapy for their chronic conditions.peer-reviewe

Diagnostic Performance of PET Imaging Using Different Radiopharmaceuticals in Prostate Cancer According to Published Meta-Analyses.

A significant number of meta-analyses reporting data on the diagnostic performance of positron emission tomography (PET) in prostate cancer (PCa) is currently available in the literature. In particular, different PET radiopharmaceuticals were used for this purpose. The aim of this review is to summarize information retrieved by published meta-analyses on this topic. The first step included a systematic search of the literature (last search date: June 2020), screening two databases (PubMed/MEDLINE and Cochrane Library). This combination of key words was used: (A) "PET" OR "positron emission tomography" AND (B) "prostate" OR "prostatic" AND (C) meta-analysis. Only meta-analyses on Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography (PET/CT) or Positron Emission Tomography/Magnetic Resonance (PET/MR) in PCa were selected. We have summarized the diagnostic performance of PET imaging in PCa, taking into account 39 meta-analyses published in the literature. Evidence-based data showed the good diagnostic performance of PET/CT with several radiopharmaceuticals, including prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeted agents, radiolabeled choline, fluciclovine, and fluoride in restaging and staging settings. Less evidence-based data were available for PET/MR with different radiotracers. More prospective multicentric studies and cost-effectiveness analyses are warranted