The exam performance of medical students with dyslexia: a review of the literature

Introduction: Dyslexia is a common condition. Estimates suggest it effects approximately 10% of the worldwide population, and 1.7% of UK medical students. This review aimed to explore the existing literature concerning the exam performance of medical students with dyslexia. Methods: A Review of Medline, ERIC, PsychInfo, The Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA checklist. Papers were accepted if they concerned the exam performance of medical students with dyslexia. Results: Three papers were selected for review. These were all cross-sectional studies comparing exam results in students with dyslexia and without dyslexia – and the impacts of extra time in exams. A risk of bias assessment determined that all three were appropriate to include in this review. A meta-analysis was planned but could not be performed because the number of studies was low and heterogeneity between the studies too high. There was consensus that Multiple Choice Question exams were fair for students with dyslexia, when extra time was allowed. Essay type exams were found to be particularly challenging for students with dyslexia. Students with dyslexia were also found to be at a disadvantage in their first year. Discussion: Overall, the evidence suggests that medical students with dyslexia are slower to adapt to medical school and under-perform early in the course. However, with appropriate supports, they appear to perform on a par with their non-dyslexic peers as they progress through their course. Our review highlights the need for more research in the medical student population. Keywords: Dyslexia, Specific Learning Difficulties, Neurodiversity, Literature Review, Medical Student

Overcoming Noise in Entanglement Distribution

Noise can be considered the natural enemy of quantum information. An often implied benefit of high-dimensional entanglement is its increased resilience to noise. However, manifesting this potential in an experimentally meaningful fashion is challenging and has never been done before. In infinite dimensional spaces, discretisation is inevitable and renders the effective dimension of quantum states a tunable parameter. Owing to advances in experimental techniques and theoretical tools, we demonstrate an increased resistance to noise by identifying two pathways to exploit high-dimensional entangled states. Our study is based on two separate experiments utilising canonical spatio-temporal properties of entangled photon pairs. Following these different pathways to noise resilience, we are able to certify entanglement in the photonic orbital-angular-momentum and energy-time degrees of freedom up to noise conditions corresponding to a noise fraction of 72 % and 92 % respectively. Our work paves the way towards practical quantum communication systems that are able to surpass current noise and distance limitations, while not compromising on potential device-independence.Comment: 12 pages main text, 7 pages supplementary information, 6 figure

Mangement of Yuvana Pidaka using Mukha Lepa

Yuvana Pidaka (acne vulgaris) is one of the most common, troublesome and frustrating skin care problem for people around the world. It is caused by to Kapha, Vata and Rakta Dhatu involving Rasavaha and Raktavaha Srotas. Apart from others unhealthy life style is identified as the major reason behind the eruption of such lesions. It has adverse effect on self esteem of the subjects and decreases one’s self confidence. Present study tries to understand the therapeutic effect of Mukha Lepa - an external application of Manjishta, Chandana, Yastimadhu and Kushta over the face mixed with milk once every morning for fifteen days after Sadhyovirechana with Avipathi Churna. Study was conducted on ten subjects and assessed with the parameters like Ruja, Kandu, Daha, number and type of eruptions before and after the procedure. The response to the treatment was recorded and the therapeutic effect was evaluated by statistical tests. A considerable change in the complexion over the face of subjects was also noted. It is observed that this particular Lepa is beneficial in the treatment of Yuvana Pidaka apart from improving the complexion of the skin

Organismal benefits of transcription speed control at gene boundaries

RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) transcription is crucial for gene expression. RNAPII density peaks at gene boundaries, associating these key regions for gene expression control with limited RNAPII movement. The connections between RNAPII transcription speed and gene regulation in multicellular organisms are poorly understood. Here, we directly modulate RNAPII transcription speed by point mutations in the second largest subunit of RNAPII in Arabidopsis thaliana. A RNAPII mutation predicted to decelerate transcription is inviable, while accelerating RNAPII transcription confers phenotypes resembling auto‐immunity. Nascent transcription profiling revealed that RNAPII complexes with accelerated transcription clear stalling sites at both gene ends, resulting in read‐through transcription. The accelerated transcription mutant NRPB2‐Y732F exhibits increased association with 5′ splice site (5′SS) intermediates and enhanced splicing efficiency. Our findings highlight potential advantages of RNAPII stalling through local reduction in transcription speed to optimize gene expression for the development of multicellular organisms.SynopsisRNAPII mutations that accelerate transcription cause auto‐immunity‐like phenotypes, read‐through transcription at RNAPII stalling sites and enhanced splicing in Arabidopsis, indicating that controlled transcription speed is required for optimal gene expression and plant development.A point mutation in RNAPII that increases the speed of RNAPII transcription triggers auto‐immunity‐like phenotypes.plaNET‐seq reveals reduced RNAPII stalling at gene boundaries in fast transcription mutants.Increasing the speed of transcription reduces the efficiency of transcriptional termination, resulting in read‐through transcription that blurs the spatial separation of genes.Accelerating RNAPII transcription enhances splicing efficiency in the multi‐cellular context.RNAPII mutations that accelerate transcription cause auto‐immunity‐like phenotypes, read‐through transcription at RNAPII stalling sites and enhanced splicing in Arabidopsis, indicating that controlled transcription speed is required for optimal gene expression and plant development.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154978/1/embr201949315-sup-0001-EVFigs.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154978/2/embr201949315.reviewer_comments.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154978/3/embr201949315.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154978/4/embr201949315_am.pd

Seed priming enhances early growth and improves area of soil exploration by roots

Introduction: Seed priming has been conducted for centuries with growth advantages reported for a variety of different crops. Previous work has suggested priming does not offer a yield advantage despite an increased early growth if grown under ideal conditions. However, how these advantages unfold in regards to early root development is largely unknown.Results: We observed accelerated germination speed in primed seeds regardless of applied seed enhancement technology i.e. coating or pelleting. Additionally, we found significant differences in lateral root development in primed seeds vs non-primed seeds. Furthermore, we recorded an increase in volume and surface of embryo and perisperm indicating a distinct morphological change during the germination process of primed seeds compared to non-primed seeds.Conclusions: We attribute the enhanced early plant development in primed seeds to increased root development and thus enhanced volume of the soil resource mined for nutrients. This improvement can be detected four days after emergence within the root system throughout the early plant development despite an early transition from seed reserves to soil based growth. The understanding of below ground root architecture characteristics can improve the selection of appropriate seed enhancement technologies and seedbed management practices

Think Beyond the Core : Impact of the Hydrophilic Corona on Drug Solubilization Using Polymer Micelles

Polymeric micelles are typically characterized as core-shell structures. The hydrophobic core is considered as a depot for hydrophobic molecules, and the corona-forming block acts as a stabilizing and solubilizing interface between the core and aqueous milieu. Tremendous efforts have been made to tune the hydrophobic block to increase the drug loading and stability of micelles, whereas the role of hydrophilic blocks is rarely investigated in this context, with poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) being the gold standard of hydrophilic polymers. To better understand the role of the hydrophilic corona, a small library of structurally similar A-B-A-type amphiphiles based on poly(2-oxazoline)s and poly(2-oxazine)s is investigated by varying the hydrophilic block A utilizing poly(2-methyl-2-oxazoline) (pMeOx; A) or poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) (pEtOx; A*). In terms of hydrophilicity, both polymers closely resemble PEG. The more hydrophobic block B bears either a poly(2-oxazoline) and poly(2-oxazine) backbone with C3 (propyl) and C4 (butyl) side chains. Surprisingly, major differences in loading capacities from A-B-A > A*-B-A > A*-B-A* is observed for the formulation with two poorly water-soluble compounds, curcumin and paclitaxel, highlighting the importance of the hydrophilic corona of polymer micelles used for drug formulation. The formulations are also characterized by various nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy methods, dynamic light scattering, cryogenic transmission electron microscopy, and (micro) differential scanning calorimetry. Our findings suggest that the interaction between the hydrophilic block and the guest molecule should be considered an important, but previously largely ignored, factor for the rational design of polymeric micelles.Peer reviewe

Entangling single atoms over 33 km telecom fibre

Quantum networks promise to provide the infrastructure for many disruptive applications, such as efcient long-distance quantum communication and distributed quantum computing1,2 . Central to these networks is the ability to distribute entanglement between distant nodes using photonic channels. Initially developed for quantum teleportation3,4 and loophole-free tests of Bell’s inequality5,6 , recently, entanglement distribution has also been achieved over telecom fbres and analysed retrospectively7,8 . Yet, to fully use entanglement over long-distance quantum network links it is mandatory to know it is available at the nodes before the entangled state decays. Here we demonstrate heralded entanglement between two independently trapped single rubidium atoms generated over fbre links with a length up to 33 km. For this, we generate atom–photon entanglement in two nodes located in buildings 400 m line-of-sight apart and to overcome high-attenuation losses in the fbres convert the photons to telecom wavelength using polarization-preserving quantum frequency conversion9 . The long fbres guide the photons to a Bell-state measurement setup in which a successful photonic projection measurement heralds the entanglement of the atoms10. Our results show the feasibility of entanglement distribution over telecom fbre links useful, for example, for device-independent quantum key distribution11–13 and quantum repeater protocols. The presented work represents an important step towards the realization of large-scale quantum network links

Liposomal binuclear Ir(III)–Cu(II) coordination compounds with phosphino-fluoroquinolone conjugates for human prostate carcinoma treatment

[Image: see text] Novel heteronuclear Ir(III)–Cu(II) coordination compounds ([Ir(η(5)-Cp*)Cl(2)Pcfx-Cu(phen)](NO(3))·1.75(CH(3)OH)·0.75(H(2)O) (1), [Ir(η(5)-Cp*)Cl(2)Pnfx-Cu(phen)](NO(3))·1.75(CH(3)OH)·0.75(H(2)O) (2), [Ir(η(5)-Cp*)Cl(2)Plfx-Cu(phen)](NO(3))·1.3(H(2)O)·1.95(CH(3)OH) (3), [Ir(η(5)-Cp*)Cl(2)Psfx-Cu(phen)] (4)) bearing phosphines derived from fluoroquinolones, namely, sparfloxacin (Hsfx), ciprofloxacin (Hcfx), lomefloxacin (Hlfx), and norfloxacin (Hnfx), have been synthesized and studied as possible anticancer chemotherapeutics. All compounds have been characterized by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS), a number of spectroscopic methods (i.e., IR, fluorescence, and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR)), cyclic voltammetry, variable-temperature magnetic susceptibility measurements, and X-ray diffractometry. The coordination geometry of Ir(III) in all complexes adopts a characteristic piano-stool geometry with the η(5)-coordinated and three additional sites occupied by two chloride and phosphine ligands, while Cu(II) ions in complexes 1 and 2 form a distorted square-pyramidal coordination geometry, and in complex 3, the coordination geometry around Cu(II) ions is a distorted octahedron. Interestingly, the crystal structure of [Ir(η(5)-Cp*)Cl(2)Plfx-Cu(phen)] features the one-dimensional (1D) metal–organic polymer. Liposomes loaded with redox-active and fluorescent [Ir(η(5)-Cp*)Cl(2)Pcfx-Cu(phen)] (1L) have been prepared to increase water solubility and minimize serious systemic side effects. It has been proven, by confocal microscopy and an inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) analysis, that the liposomal form of compound 1 can be effectively accumulated inside human lung adenocarcinoma and human prostate carcinoma cells with selective localization in nuclei. A cytometric analysis showed dominance of apoptosis over the other cell death types. Furthermore, the investigated nanoformulations induced changes in the cell cycle, leading to S phase arrest in a dose-dependent manner. Importantly, in vitro anticancer action on three-dimensional (3D) multicellular tumor spheroids has been demonstrated