The effectiveness of e-Learning on biosecurity practice to slow the spread of invasive alien species

Online e-Learning is increasingly being used to provide environmental training. Prevention measures including biosecurity are essential to reducing the introduction and spread of invasive alien species (IAS) and are central to international and national IAS policy. This paper is the first to evaluate the effectiveness of e-Learning as a tool to increase awareness, risk perception and biosecurity behaviour in relation to IAS among individuals conducting work activities or research (fieldwork) in the field. We surveyed participants (a mixture of students and professionals) before, and 6 months after undertaking an e-Learning course on IAS and biosecurity practices. Awareness of IAS and self-reported biosecurity behaviour increased after e-Learning among students and professionals. Students had a lower awareness of IAS than professionals before training (20% of students vs 60% of professionals), but after training students showed a greater increase in awareness which led to similar levels of awareness post-training (81%). Prior to training, risk perception was also lower amongst students than professionals (33% of students and 59% of professionals were aware of the risk that their activities posed to the accidental spread of IAS). There was no change in risk perception amongst professionals after training, however training led to a doubling of risk perception in students. E-Learning also led to an increase in reported biosecurity behaviour and cleaning practices and there were higher levels of biosecurity cleaning amongst professionals. The higher awareness and better biosecurity amongst professionals is likely to reflect their familiarity with the issues of IAS and day-to-day activities in the field. Our results suggest that e-Learning is an effective tool to raise awareness and encourage behaviour change among field workers and researchers in an attempt to reduce the risk of accidental introduction and spread of IAS

Azimuthal Anisotropy of Photon and Charged Particle Emission in Pb+Pb Collisions at 158 A GeV/c

The azimuthal distributions of photons and charged particles with respect to the event plane are investigated as a function of centrality in Pb + Pb collisions at 158 A GeV/c in the WA98 experiment at the CERN SPS. The anisotropy of the azimuthal distributions is characterized using a Fourier analysis. For both the photon and charged particle distributions the first two Fourier coefficients are observed to decrease with increasing centrality. The observed anisotropies of the photon distributions compare well with the expectations from the charged particle measurements for all centralities.Comment: 8 pages and 6 figures. The manuscript has undergone a major revision. The unwanted correlations were enhanced in the random subdivision method used in the earlier version. The present version uses the more established method of division into subevents separated in rapidity to minimise short range correlations. The observed results for charged particles are in agreement with results from the other experiments. The observed anisotropy in photons is explained using flow results of pions and the correlations arising due to the decay of the neutral pion

Parental knowledge of paediatric vaccination

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

Fibrillary glomerulonephritis with small fibrils in a patient with the antiphospholipid antibody syndrome successfully treated with immunosuppressive therapy

10.1186/1471-2369-8-7BMC Nephrology8

Multiplicity Distributions and Charged-neutral Fluctuations

Results from the multiplicity distributions of inclusive photons and charged particles, scaling of particle multiplicities, event-by-event multiplicity fluctuations, and charged-neutral fluctuations in 158$\cdot A$ GeV Pb+Pb collisions are presented and discussed. A scaling of charged particle multiplicity as $N_{part}^{1.07\pm 0.05}$ and photons as $N_{part}^{1.12\pm 0.03}$ have been observed, indicating violation of naive wounded nucleon model. The analysis of localized charged-neutral fluctuation indicates a model-independent demonstration of non-statistical fluctuations in both charged particles and photons in limited azimuthal regions. However, no correlated charged-neutral fluctuations are observed.Comment: Talk given at the International Symposium on Nuclear Physics (ISNP-2000), Mumbai, India, 18-22 Dec 2000, Proceedings to be published in Pramana, Journal of Physic

A Schistosome cAMP-Dependent Protein Kinase Catalytic Subunit Is Essential for Parasite Viability

Eukaryotes, protozoan, and helminth parasites make extensive use of protein kinases to control cellular functions, suggesting that protein kinases may represent novel targets for the development of anti-parasitic drugs. Because of their central role in intracellular signaling pathways, cyclic nucleotide–dependent kinases such as cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) represent promising new targets for the treatment of parasitic infections and neoplastic disorders. However, the role of these kinases in schistosome biology has not been characterized and the genes encoding schistosome PKAs have not been identified. Here we provide biochemical evidence for the presence of a PKA signaling pathway in adult Schistosoma mansoni and show that PKA activity is required for parasite viability in vitro. We also provide the first full description of a gene that encodes a PKA catalytic subunit in S. mansoni, named SmPKA-C. Finally we demonstrate, through RNA interference, that SmPKA-C contributes to the PKA activity we detected biochemically and that inhibition of SmPKA-C expression in adult schistosomes results in parasite death. Together our data show that SmPKA-C is a critically important gene product and may represent an attractive therapeutic target for the treatment and control of schistosomiasis

Effective Rheology of Bubbles Moving in a Capillary Tube

We calculate the average volumetric flux versus pressure drop of bubbles moving in a single capillary tube with varying diameter, finding a square-root relation from mapping the flow equations onto that of a driven overdamped pendulum. The calculation is based on a derivation of the equation of motion of a bubble train from considering the capillary forces and the entropy production associated with the viscous flow. We also calculate the configurational probability of the positions of the bubbles.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Debating the Desirability of New Biomedical Technologies: Lessons from the Introduction of Breast Cancer Screening in the Netherlands

Health technology assessment (HTA) was developed in the 1970s and 1980s to facilitate decision making on the desirability of new biomedical technologies. Since then, many of the standard tools and methods of HTA have been criticized for their implicit normativity. At the same time research into the character of technology in practice has motivated philosophers, sociologists and anthropologists to criticize the traditional view of technology as a neutral instrument designed to perform a specific function. Such research suggests that the tools and methods of more traditional forms of HTA are often inspired by an ‘instrumentalist’ conception of technology that does not fit the way technology actually works. This paper explores this hypothesis for a specific case: the assessments and deliberations leading to the introduction of breast cancer screening in the Netherlands. After reconstructing this history of HTA ‘in the making’ the stepwise model of HTA that emerged during the process is discussed. This model was rooted indeed in an instrumentalist conception of technology. However, a more detailed reconstruction of several episodes from this history reveals how the actors already experienced the inadequacy of some of the instrumentalist presuppositions. The historical case thus shows how an instrumentalist conception of technology may result in implicit normative effects. The paper concludes that an instrumentalist view of technology is not a good starting point for HTA and briefly suggests how the fit between HTA methods and the actual character of technology in practice might be improved

T1 mapping in cardiac MRI

Quantitative myocardial and blood T1 have recently achieved clinical utility in numerous pathologies, as they provide non-invasive tissue characterization with the potential to replace invasive biopsy. Native T1 time (no contrast agent), changes with myocardial extracellular water (edema, focal or diffuse fibrosis), fat, iron, and amyloid protein content. After contrast, the extracellular volume fraction (ECV) estimates the size of the extracellular space and identifies interstitial disease. Spatially resolved quantification of these biomarkers (so-called T1 mapping and ECV mapping) are steadily becoming diagnostic and prognostically useful tests for several heart muscle diseases, influencing clinical decision-making with a pending second consensus statement due mid-2017. This review outlines the physics involved in estimating T1 times and summarizes the disease-specific clinical and research impacts of T1 and ECV to date. We conclude by highlighting some of the remaining challenges such as their community-wide delivery, quality control, and standardization for clinical practice

ReSETting PP2A tumour suppressor activity in blast crisis and imatinib-resistant chronic myelogenous leukaemia

The deregulated kinase activity of p210-BCR/ABL oncoproteins, hallmark of chronic myelogenous leukaemia (CML), induces and sustains the leukaemic phenotype, and contributes to disease progression. Imatinib mesylate, a BCR/ABL kinase inhibitor, is effective in most of chronic phase CML patients. However, a significant percentage of CML patients develop resistance to imatinib and/or still progresses to blast crisis, a disease stage that is often refractory to imatinib therapy. Furthermore, there is compelling evidence indicating that the CML leukaemia stem cell is also resistant to imatinib. Thus, there is still a need for new drugs that, if combined with imatinib, will decrease the rate of relapse, fully overcome imatinib resistance and prevent blastic transformation of CML. We recently reported that the activity of the tumour suppressor protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) is markedly inhibited in blast crisis CML patient cells and that molecular or pharmacologic re-activation of PP2A phosphatase led to growth suppression, enhanced apoptosis, impaired clonogenic potential and decreased in vivo leukaemogenesis of imatinib-sensitive and -resistant (T315I included) CML-BC patient cells and/or BCR/ABL+ myeloid progenitor cell lines. Thus, the combination of PP2A phosphatase-activating and BCR/ABL kinase-inhibiting drugs may represent a powerful therapeutic strategy for blast crisis CML patients