Factors affecting undergraduate students’ information sharing behaviour when dealing with COVID-19 misinformation: theory of reasoned action

Sharing misinformation has become a widespread phenomenon. Social media networks have significantly contributed to spreading and sharing misinformation, especially during crises and pandemics. However, little is known about why people share misinformation. The study aims to identify the factors affecting undergraduate students’ information sharing behaviour when dealing with unverified information. The study also seeks to discover any statistically significant differences (α=0.05) in students’ behaviour of sharing information related to COVID-19 without verification attributed to demographic variables, self-efficiency, attitude towards verifying information, individual’s beliefs, and subjective norms. The study adopted the theory of reasoned action. A quantitative research approach was adopted via the use of questionnaires. An e-mail was sent to all undergraduate students enrolled at Sultan Qaboos University during 2020-2021, yielding 407 valid answers from various colleges. The reliability of the survey is 0.916 as a whole, 0.741 for the individual’s self-efficacy scale, 0.312 for the attitude towards verifying information scale, 0.809 for the individual’s beliefs scale, 0.916 for the subjective norms scale, and 0.846 for the behaviour of using and sharing information related to COVID-19 without verification scale. The effect of self-efficacy, Attitude Towards Verifying Information, beliefs, and Subjective norms on the behaviour of sharing information related to COVID-19 without verification were tested. Quantitative data retrieved from the questionnaire were analysed using SPSS 24. Several analysis tests such as frequencies, T-test, and multiple regression tests were conducted.Results. The findings support that there’s a significant effect of demographic variables, self-efficacy, attitude towards verifying information, individual’s beliefs, and subjective norms on students’ behaviour of sharing information related to COVID-19 without verification. This research showed that many factors affect information sharing behaviour. The research concluded that the students’ information behaviour could be enhanced by focusing on information literacy skills.Peer Reviewe

Cryobiopsy versus forceps biopsy in endobronchial lesions, diagnostic yield and safety

Introduction: This study aimed to evaluate the safety and diagnostic yield of CB in comparison to forceps biopsy in endobronchial lesions. Material and methods: Patients with suspected endobronchial lesions were enrolled. Two forceps biopsies and one cryobiopsy were done in the same patient with randomized sequence. The largest diameter of the samples was measured in mm by electronic caliper. Diagnostic yield of each technique and postbronchoscopy bleeding were evaluated. Results: Samples obtained by CB was significantly larger than that of the forceps biopsy (5.9 ± 2.3 vs 2.5 ± 0.8), (p = 0.001). Diagnostic yield of CB was significantly higher than forceps biopsy 74.5% versus 51.1% (p = 0.001). Mild and moderate bleeding grades were reported in both techniques with no significant difference (p = 0.063) (p = 0.5) respectively. Severe bleeding was not recorded in both techniques. Conclusions: CB represents a safe and effective tool to obtain a larger tissue samples of a good quality with higher diagnostic yield in comparison to standard forceps samples. On the other hand, bleeding occurred more frequently after CB than forceps biopsy. However, without severe adverse effects

Autophagy enhances memory erasure through synaptic destabilization

There is substantial interest in memory reconsolidation as a target for the treatment of anxiety disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. However, its applicability is restricted by reconsolidation-resistant boundary conditions that constrain the initial memory destabilization. In this study, we investigated whether the induction of synaptic protein degradation through autophagy modulation, a major protein degradation pathway, can enhance memory destabilization upon retrieval and whether it can be used to overcome these conditions. Here, using male mice in an auditory fear reconsolidation model, we showed that autophagy contributes to memory destabilization and its induction can be used to enhance erasure of a reconsolidation-resistant auditory fear memory that depended on AMPAR endocytosis. Using male mice in a contextual fear reconsolidation model, autophagy induction in the amygdala or in the hippocampus enhanced fear or contextual memory destabilization, respectively. The latter correlated with AMPAR degradation in the spines of the contextual memory-ensemble cells. Using male rats in an in vivo LTP reconsolidation model, autophagy induction enhanced synaptic destabilization in an NMDAR-dependent manner. These data indicate that induction of synaptic protein degradation can enhance both synaptic and memory destabilization upon reactivation and that autophagy inducers have the potential to be used as a therapeutic tool in the treatment of anxiety disorders

Echopulmonography versus computed tomographic chest predictors for differentiation between benign and malignant peripheral pulmonary and pleural lesions

AbstractBackgroundDiagnostic value of echopulmonography (EPG) in chest diseases is expanding as a guide to discriminate between benign and malignant parenchymal lesions as regards tissue characterization plus pleural lesions’ diagnostic specification.ObjectivesTo determine echopulmonography predictors of malignancy in patients with peripheral pulmonary and solid pleural lesions.Patients and methodsA prospective clinical study was conducted on 122 patients who presented with peripheral pulmonary and pleural lesions by chest X-ray. They underwent echopulmonography and CT chest evaluation. Patients were divided into two groups: Group (1), 63 patients diagnosed by CT chest and CT guided biopsy followed by EPG. Group (2), 59 patients diagnosed by EPG and ultrasound (US) guided biopsy followed by CT chest. Tissue biopsy was taken either through CT guided biopsy or ultrasound guided biopsy for pathological examination.ResultsEPG had a success rate of 75.9% in diagnosing malignancy and 17.2% in diagnosing nonmalignant lesions. Success rate of EPG based diagnosis in all studied cases was 45%. Using EPG criteria; rounded and oval morphology was statistically significantly higher in malignant than nonmalignant subgroups (53.4% versus 32.8%) in contrast to irregular morphology with ramifications that prevailed in the nonmalignant subgroup (67.2% versus 46.5%). Irregular pleural contour and heterogeneous hypoechogenicity were predominant in the nonmalignant subgroup (67.1% and 28.1%, respectively). Echoinvasion, destruction of normal tissue architecture and blood vessels displacement were more common in malignant than nonmalignant subgroups.ConclusionEchopulmonography has a worthy role in differentiating benign from malignant peripheral pulmonary and pleural lesions. US guided biopsy is performed with a low risk of complications

Synapse-specific representation of the identity of overlapping memory engrams

Memories are integrated into interconnected networks; nevertheless, each memory has its own identity. How the brain defines specific memory identity out of intermingled memories stored in a shared cell ensemble has remained elusive. We found that after complete retrograde amnesia of auditory fear conditioning in mice, optogenetic stimulation of the auditory inputs to the lateral amygdala failed to induce memory recall, implying that the memory engram no longer existed in that circuit. Complete amnesia of a given fear memory did not affect another linked fear memory encoded in the shared ensemble. Optogenetic potentiation or depotentiation of the plasticity at synapses specific to one memory affected the recall of only that memory. Thus, the sharing of engram cells underlies the linkage between memories, whereas synapse-specific plasticity guarantees the identity and storage of individual memories