Connecting the dots in pharmacy education: The FIP International Pharmaceutical Federation Global Competency Framework for Educators and Trainers in Pharmacy (FIP-GCFE)

The FIP (International Pharmaceutical Federation) Global Competency Framework for Educators and Trainers in Pharmacy (FIP-GCFE) is an ongoing project of the Academic Pharmacy Section of FIP in cooperation and collaboration with Sections, Special Interest Groups and Working Groups across the Federation. It was developed by a group of experts in pharmaceutical education to enable and promote the continuing professional development of pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists who plan to advance their competence as educators and trainers in pharmacy and the pharmaceutical sciences, whether in a formal or informal context, and at all levels of education and professional development. The FIP-GCFE will be an essential resource for multiple stakeholders including individual educators, faculties of pharmacy, and accreditation agencies. This article presents the introductory text of the GCFE first version, connecting previously launched concepts and tools and explaining the integration with all other FIP workforce support frameworks, to provide a holistic approach to global workforce development

Erratum: Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017

Interpretation: By quantifying levels and trends in exposures to risk factors and the resulting disease burden, this assessment offers insight into where past policy and programme efforts might have been successful and highlights current priorities for public health action. Decreases in behavioural, environmental, and occupational risks have largely offset the effects of population growth and ageing, in relation to trends in absolute burden. Conversely, the combination of increasing metabolic risks and population ageing will probably continue to drive the increasing trends in non-communicable diseases at the global level, which presents both a public health challenge and opportunity. We see considerable spatiotemporal heterogeneity in levels of risk exposure and risk-attributable burden. Although levels of development underlie some of this heterogeneity, O/E ratios show risks for which countries are overperforming or underperforming relative to their level of development. As such, these ratios provide a benchmarking tool to help to focus local decision making. Our findings reinforce the importance of both risk exposure monitoring and epidemiological research to assess causal connections between risks and health outcomes, and they highlight the usefulness of the GBD study in synthesising data to draw comprehensive and robust conclusions that help to inform good policy and strategic health planning

Seroprevalence of Taenia solium infections in Croatian patients presenting with epilepsy

Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders, while neurocysticercosis caused by Taenia solium infection of the central nervous system currently represents the leading cause of secondary epilepsy in Central and South America, East and South Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. As a result of increased migration from these endemic regions, neurocysticercosis and subsequent epilepsy are becoming a growing public health problem in developed countries as well. In order to determine the prevalence of T. solium infection in patients with epilepsy in Croatia, a retrospective serological study was conducted. A total of 770 serum samples were tested for the presence of T. solium IgG antibodies using a commercial qualitative enzyme immunoassay. The Western blot technique was used as a confirmatory test for the diagnosis. The overall seroprevalence rate of T. solium infection in patients with clinically proven epilepsy was 1.5%. Although the results have shown that infection with this tapeworm is rare in Croatia, this study hopes to increase awareness about the importance of preventive measures and benefits of accurate and timely diagnosis. Intervention measures for infection control are crucial, namely sanitation improvement, control of domestic pig-breeding, detailed meat inspection, detection and treatment of tapeworm carriers, hand washing and health education

A Small Wind Turbine Output Model for Spatially Constrained Remote Island Micro-Grids

Modelling operation of the power supply system for remote island communities is essential for its operation, as well as a survival of a modern society settled in challenging conditions. Micro-grid emerges as a proper solution for a sustainable development of a spatially constrained remote island community, while at the same time reflecting the power requirements of similar maritime subjects, such as large vessels and fleets. Here we present research results in predictive modelling the output of a small wind turbine, as a component of a remote island micro-grid. Based on a month-long experimental data and the machine learning-based predictive model development approach, three candidate models of a small wind turbine output were developed, and assessed on their performance based on an independent set of experimental data. The Random Forest Model out performed competitors (Decision Tree Model and Artificial Neural Network Model), emerging as a candidate methodology for the all-year predictive model development, as a later component of the over-all remote island micro-grid model

Long-term conservation vs high sequence divergence: the case of an extraordinarily old satellite DNA in bivalve mollusks

The ubiquity of satellite DNA (satDNA) sequences has raised much controversy over the abundance of divergent monomer variants and the long-time nucleotide sequence stability observed for many satDNA families. In this work, we describe the satDNA BIV160, characterized in nine species of the three main bivalve clades (Protobranchia, Pteriomorphia and Heteroconchia). BIV160 monomers are similar in repeat size and nucleotide sequence to satDNAs described earlier in oysters and in the clam Donax trunculus. The broad distribution of BIV160 satDNA indicates that similar variants existed in the ancestral bivalve species that lived about 540 million years ago; this makes BIV160 the most ancient satDNA described so far. In the species examined, monomer variants are distributed in quite a complex pattern. This pattern includes (i) species characterized by a specific group of variants, (ii) species that share distinct group(s) of variants and (iii) species with both specific and shared types. The evolutionary scenario suggested by these data reconciles sequence uniformity in homogenization-maintained satDNA arrays with the genomic richness of divergent monomer variants formed by diversification of the same ancestral satDNA sequence. Diversified repeats can continue to evolve in a non-concerted manner and behave as independent amplification-contraction units in the framework of a \u2018library of satDNA variants\u2019 representing a permanent source of monomers that can be amplified into novel homogeneous satDNA arrays. On the whole, diversification of satDNA monomers and copy number fluctuations provide a highly dynamic genomic environment able to form and displace satDNA sequence variants rapidly in evolution