A Blended Learning Course Design in Clinical Pharmacology for Post-graduate Dental Students

Postgraduate courses in clinical pharmacology are important for dentists to be updated on drug therapy and information related to their clinical practice, as well as knowledge of relevant adverse effects and interactions. A traditional approach with classroom delivery as the only method to teaching and learning has shortcomings regarding flexibility, individual learning preferences, and problem based learning (PBL) activities compared to online environments. This study examines a five week postgraduate course in clinical pharmacology with 15 hours of lectures and online learning activities, i.e. blended course design. Six postgraduate dental students participated and at the end of the course they were interviewed. Our findings emphasize that a blended learning course design can be successfully used in postgraduate dental education. Key matters for discussion were time flexibility and location convenience, change in teacher’s role, rein-forced learning strategies towards professional needs, scarcity in online communication, and proposed future utilization of e-learning components.publishedVersio

Unconventional Josephson Junctions with Topological Kondo Insulator Weak Links

Proximity-induced superconductivity in three-dimensional (3D) topological insulators forms a new quantum phase of matter and accommodates exotic quasiparticles such as Majorana bound states. One of the biggest drawbacks of the commonly studied 3D topological insulators is the presence of conducting bulk that obscures both surface states and low energy bound states. Introducing superconductivity in topological Kondo insulators such as SmB6, however, is promising due to their true insulating bulk at low temperatures. In this work, we develop an unconventional Josephson junction by coupling superconducting Nb leads to the surface states of a SmB6 crystal. We observe a robust critical current at low temperatures that responds to the application of an out-of-plane magnetic field with significant deviations from usual Fraunhofer patterns. The appearance of Shaphiro steps under microwave radiation gives further evidence of a Josephson effect. Moreover, we explore the effects of Kondo breakdown in our devices, such as ferromagnetism at the surface and anomalous temperature dependence of supercurrent. Particularly, the magnetic diffraction patterns show an anomalous hysteresis with the field sweep direction suggesting the coexistence of magnetism with superconductivity at the SmB6 surface. The experimental work will advance the current understanding of topologically nontrivial superconductors and emergent states associated with such unconventional superconducting phases

Polygenic height prediction for the Han Chinese in Taiwan

Human height prediction based on genetic factors alone shows positive correlation, but predictors developed for one population perform less well when applied to population of different ancestries. In this study, we evaluated the utility of incorporating non-genetic factors in height predictors for the Han Chinese population in Taiwan. We analyzed data from 78,719 Taiwan Biobank (TWB) participants and 40,641 Taiwan Precision Medicine Initiative (TPMI) participants using genome-wide association study and multivariable linear regression least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) methods to incorporate genetic and non-genetic factors for height prediction. Our findings establish that combining birth year (as a surrogate for nutritional status), age at measurement (to account for age-associated effects on height), and genetic profile data improves the accuracy of height prediction. This method enhances the correlation between predicted and actual height and significantly reduces the discrepancies between predicted and actual height in both males and females

The NGC 3109 Satellite System: The First Systematic Resolved Search for Dwarf Galaxies Around an SMC-mass Host

We report the results of the deepest search to date for dwarf galaxies around NGC 3109, a barred spiral galaxy with a mass similar to that of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), using a semiautomated search method. Using the Dark Energy Camera, we survey a region covering a projected distance of ∼70 kpc of NGC 3109 (D = 1.3 Mpc, Rvir ∼ 90 kpc, M ∼ 108M*) as part of the MADCASH and DELVE-DEEP programs. We introduce a newly developed semiresolved search method, used alongside a resolved search, to identify crowded dwarf galaxies around NGC 3109. Using both approaches, we successfully recover the known satellites Antlia and Antlia B. We identified a promising candidate, which was later confirmed to be a background dwarf through deep follow-up observations. Our detection limits are well defined, with the sample ∼80% complete down to MV ∼ −8.0, and include detections of dwarf galaxies as faint as MV ∼ −6.0. This is the first comprehensive study of a satellite system through resolved stars around an SMC mass host. Our results show that NGC 3109 has more bright (MV ∼ −9.0) satellites than the mean predictions from cold dark matter models, but well within the host-to-host scatter. A larger sample of LMC/SMC-mass hosts is needed to test whether or not the observations are consistent with current model expectations