Exploring ICT integration as a tool to engage young people at a Flexible Learning Centre

The Edmund Rice Education Australia (EREA) Flexible Learning Centres aim to provide a supportive learning environment for young people who find themselves outside of the mainstream secondary schooling system. Drawing on 21st Century learning principles, the Centres aim to deliver a personalised learning experience with an emphasis on flexibility and individual choice. Provision of a comprehensive curriculum enables young people to make positive future life choices and successfully transition into employment and further training. The aim of this research project has been to work with teaching staff at a Flexible Learning Centre in North Queensland, Australia, to explore the value of integrating ICT in the form of Web 2.0 technologies to enhance young people’s engagement with the subject of science. The findings of this case study suggest that ICT integration is effective in revitalising science education interest for disengaged young people. This may have wider implications in relation to general concerns of declining student interest and participation in science in the secondary years of schooling

Recruiting and engaging new mothers in nutrition research studies: lessons from the Australian NOURISH randomised controlled trial

Background: Despite important implications for the budgets, statistical power and generalisability of research findings, detailed reports of recruitment and retention in randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are rare. The NOURISH RCT evaluated a community-based intervention for first-time mothers that promoted protective infant feeding practices as a primary prevention strategy for childhood obesity. The aim of this paper is to provide a detailed description and evaluation of the recruitment and retention strategies used. Methods: A two stage recruitment process designed to provide a consecutive sampling framework was used. First time mothers delivering healthy term infants were initially approached in postnatal wards of the major maternity services in two Australian cities for consent to later contact (Stage 1). When infants were about four months old mothers were re-contacted by mail for enrolment (Stage 2), baseline measurements (Time 1) and subsequent random allocation to the intervention or control condition. Outcomes were assessed at infant ages 14 months (Time 2) and 24 months (Time 3). Results: At Stage 1, 86% of eligible mothers were approached and of these women, 76% consented to later contact. At Stage 2, 3% had become ineligible and 76% could be recontacted. Of the latter, 44% consented to full enrolment and were allocated. This represented 21% of mothers screened as eligible at Stage 1. Retention at Time 3 was 78%. Mothers who did not consent or discontinued the study were younger and less likely to have a university education. Conclusions: The consent and retention rates of our sample of first time mothers are comparable with or better than other similar studies. The recruitment strategy used allowed for detailed information from non-consenters to be collected; thus selection bias could be estimated. Recommendations for future studies include being able to contact participants via mobile phone (particular text messaging), offering home visits to reduce participant burden and considering the use of financial incentives to support participant retention

Designing, conducting, and reporting reproducible animal experiments

In biomedicine and many other fields, there are growing concerns around the reproducibility of research findings, with many researchers being unable to replicate their own or others' results. This raises important questions as to the validity and usefulness of much published research. In this review, we aim to engage researchers in the issue of research reproducibility and equip them with the necessary tools to increase the reproducibility of their research. We first highlight the causes and potential impact of non-reproducible research and emphasise the benefits of working reproducibly for the researcher and broader research community. We address specific targets for improvement and steps that individual researchers can take to increase the reproducibility of their work. We next provide recommendations for improving the design and conduct of experiments, focusing on in vivo animal experiments. We describe common sources of poor internal validity of experiments and offer practical guidance for limiting these potential sources of bias at different experimental stages, as well as discussing other important considerations during experimental design. We provide a list of key resources available to researchers to improve experimental design, conduct, and reporting. We then discuss the importance of open research practices such as study preregistration and the use of preprints and describe recommendations around data management and sharing. Our review emphasises the importance of reproducible work and aims to empower every individual researcher to contribute to the reproducibility of research in their field.</p

Antioxidant protection from HIV-1 gp120-induced neuroglial toxicity

BACKGROUND: The pathogenesis of HIV-1 glycoprotein 120 (gp120) associated neuroglial toxicity remains unresolved, but oxidative injury has been widely implicated as a contributing factor. In previous studies, exposure of primary human central nervous system tissue cultures to gp120 led to a simplification of neuronal dendritic elements as well as astrocytic hypertrophy and hyperplasia; neuropathological features of HIV-1-associated dementia. Gp120 and proinflammatory cytokines upregulate inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), an important source of nitric oxide (NO) and nitrosative stress. Because ascorbate scavenges reactive nitrogen and oxygen species, we studied the effect of ascorbate supplementation on iNOS expression as well as the neuronal and glial structural changes associated with gp120 exposure. METHODS: Human CNS cultures were derived from 16–18 week gestation post-mortem fetal brain. Cultures were incubated with 400 μM ascorbate-2-O-phosphate (Asc-p) or vehicle for 18 hours then exposed to 1 nM gp120 for 24 hours. The expression of iNOS and neuronal (MAP2) and astrocytic (GFAP) structural proteins was examined by immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence using confocal scanning laser microscopy (CSLM). RESULTS: Following gp120 exposure iNOS was markedly upregulated from undetectable levels at baseline. Double label CSLM studies revealed astrocytes to be the prime source of iNOS with rare neurons expressing iNOS. This upregulation was attenuated by the preincubation with Asc-p, which raised the intracellular concentration of ascorbate. Astrocytic hypertrophy and neuronal injury caused by gp120 were also prevented by preincubation with ascorbate. CONCLUSIONS: Ascorbate supplementation prevents the deleterious upregulation of iNOS and associated neuronal and astrocytic protein expression and structural changes caused by gp120 in human brain cell cultures

Finite and infinite quotients of discrete and indiscrete groups

These notes are devoted to lattices in products of trees and related topics. They provide an introduction to the construction, by M. Burger and S. Mozes, of examples of such lattices that are simple as abstract groups. Two features of that construction are emphasized: the relevance of non-discrete locally compact groups, and the two-step strategy in the proof of simplicity, addressing separately, and with completely different methods, the existence of finite and infinite quotients. A brief history of the quest for finitely generated and finitely presented infinite simple groups is also sketched. A comparison with Margulis' proof of Kneser's simplicity conjecture is discussed, and the relevance of the Classification of the Finite Simple Groups is pointed out. A final chapter is devoted to finite and infinite quotients of hyperbolic groups and their relation to the asymptotic properties of the finite simple groups. Numerous open problems are discussed along the way.Comment: Revised according to referee's report; definition of BMW-groups updated; more examples added in Section 4; new Proposition 5.1

Predatory publications in evidence syntheses

Objectives: The number of predatory journals is increasing in the scholarly communication realm. These journals use questionable business practices, minimal or no peer review, or limited editorial oversight and, thus, publish articles below a minimally accepted standard of quality. These publications have the potential to alter the results of knowledge syntheses. The objective of this study was to determine the degree to which articles published by a major predatory publisher in the health and biomedical sciences are cited in systematic reviews. Methods: The authors downloaded citations of articles published by a known predatory publisher. Using forward reference searching in Google Scholar, we examined whether these publications were cited in systematic reviews. Results: The selected predatory publisher published 459 journals in the health and biomedical sciences. Sixty-two of these journal titles had published a total of 120 articles that were cited by at least 1 systematic review, with a total of 157 systematic reviews citing an article from 1 of these predatory journals. Discussion: Systematic review authors should be vigilant for predatory journals that can appear to be legitimate. To reduce the risk of including articles from predatory journals in knowledge syntheses, systematic reviewers should use a checklist to ensure a measure of quality control for included papers and be aware that Google Scholar and PubMed do not provide the same level of quality control as other bibliographic databases

Psychedelics Promote Structural and Functional Neural Plasticity.

Atrophy of neurons in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a key role in the pathophysiology of depression and related disorders. The ability to promote both&nbsp;structural and functional plasticity in the PFC has been hypothesized to underlie the fast-acting antidepressant properties of the dissociative anesthetic ketamine. Here, we report that, like ketamine, serotonergic psychedelics are capable of robustly increasing neuritogenesis and/or spinogenesis both in&nbsp;vitro and in&nbsp;vivo. These changes in neuronal structure are accompanied by increased synapse number and function, as measured by fluorescence microscopy and electrophysiology. The structural changes induced by psychedelics appear to result from stimulation of the TrkB, mTOR, and 5-HT2A signaling pathways and could possibly explain the clinical effectiveness of these compounds. Our results underscore the therapeutic potential of psychedelics and, importantly, identify several lead scaffolds for medicinal chemistry efforts focused on developing plasticity-promoting compounds as safe, effective, and fast-acting treatments for depression and related disorders

Mesenteric artery disease in the elderly

AbstractPurposeThe purpose of this study was to estimate the population-based prevalence of mesenteric artery stenosis (MAS) and occlusion among independent elderly Americans.MethodAs part of an ancillary investigation to the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS), participants in the Forsyth County, NC cohort had visceral duplex sonography of the celiac arteries and superior mesenteric arteries (SMAs). Critical MAS was defined by celiac peak systolic velocity ≥2.0 m/s and/or SMA peak systolic velocity ≥2.7 m/s. Occlusion of either vessel was defined by lack of a Doppler-shifted signal within the imaged artery. Demographic data, blood pressures, and blood lipid levels were collected as part of the baseline CHS examination. Participants' weights were measured at baseline and before the duplex exam. Univariate tests of association were performed with two-way contingency tables, Student t tests, and Fisher exact tests. Multivariate associations were examined with logistic regression analysis.ResultsA total of 553 CHS participants had visceral duplex sonography technically adequate to define the presence or absence of MAS. The study group had a mean age of 77.2 ± 4.9 years and comprised 63% women and 37% men. Participant race was 76% white and 23% African-American. Ninety-seven participants (17.5%) had MAS. There was no significant difference in age, race, gender, body mass index, blood pressure, cholesterol, or low-density lipoproteins for participants with or without MAS. Forward stepwise variable selection found renal artery stenosis (P = .008; odds ratio [OR], 2.85; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.31, 6.21) and high-density lipoprotein >40 (P = .02; OR, 3.03; 95% CI, 1.17, 7.81) significantly associated with MAS in a multivariate logistic regression model. Eighty-three of the 97 participants with MAS (15.0% of the cohort) had isolated celiac stenosis. Seven participants (1.3% of the cohort) had combined celiac and SMA stenosis. Five participants (0.9% of the cohort) had isolated SMA stenosis. Two participants (0.4% of the cohort) had celiac occlusion. Considering all participants with MAS, there was no association with weight change. However, SMA stenosis and celiac occlusion demonstrated an independent association with annualized weight loss (P = .028; OR, 1.54; 95% CI, 1.05, 2.26) and with renal artery stenosis (P =.001; OR, 9.48; 95% CI, 2.62, 34.47).ConclusionThis investigation provides the first population-based estimate of the prevalence of MAS among independent elderly Americans. MAS existed in 17.5% of the study cohort. The majority had isolated celiac disease. SMA stenosis and celiac artery occlusion demonstrated a significant and independent association with weight loss and concurrent renal artery disease

Madurella mycetomatis, the main causative agent of eumycetoma, is highly susceptible to olorofim

OBJECTIVES: Eumycetoma is currently treated with a combination of itraconazole therapy and surgery, with limited success. Recently, olorofim, the lead candidate of the orotomides, a novel class of antifungal agents, entered a Phase II trial for the treatment of invasive fungal infections. Here we determined the activity of olorofim against Madurella mycetomatis, the main causative agent of eumycetoma. METHODS: Activity of olorofim against M. mycetomatis was determined by in silico comparison of the target gene, dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH), and in vitro susceptibility testing. We also investigated the in vitro interaction between olorofim and itraconazole against M. mycetomatis. RESULTS: M. mycetomatis and Aspergillus fumigatus share six out of seven predicted binding residues in their DHODH DNA sequence, predicting susceptibility to olorofim. Olorofim demonstrated excellent potency against M. mycetomatis in vivo with MICs ranging from 0.004 to 0.125 mg/L and an MIC90 of 0.063 mg/L. Olorofim MICs were mostly one dilution step lower than the itraconazole M