LEARN: A multi-centre, cross-sectional evaluation of Urology teaching in UK medical schools

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the status of UK undergraduate urology teaching against the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS) Undergraduate Syllabus for Urology. Secondary objectives included evaluating the type and quantity of teaching provided, the reported performance rate of General Medical Council (GMC)-mandated urological procedures, and the proportion of undergraduates considering urology as a career. MATERIALS AND METHODS: LEARN was a national multicentre cross-sectional study. Year 2 to Year 5 medical students and FY1 doctors were invited to complete a survey between 3rd October and 20th December 2020, retrospectively assessing the urology teaching received to date. Results are reported according to the Checklist for Reporting Results of Internet E-Surveys (CHERRIES). RESULTS: 7,063/8,346 (84.6%) responses from all 39 UK medical schools were included; 1,127/7,063 (16.0%) were from Foundation Year (FY) 1 doctors, who reported that the most frequently taught topics in undergraduate training were on urinary tract infection (96.5%), acute kidney injury (95.9%) and haematuria (94.4%). The most infrequently taught topics were male urinary incontinence (59.4%), male infertility (52.4%) and erectile dysfunction (43.8%). Male and female catheterisation on patients as undergraduates was performed by 92.1% and 73.0% of FY1 doctors respectively, and 16.9% had considered a career in urology. Theory based teaching was mainly prevalent in the early years of medical school, with clinical skills teaching, and clinical placements in the later years of medical school. 20.1% of FY1 doctors reported no undergraduate clinical attachment in urology. CONCLUSION: LEARN is the largest ever evaluation of undergraduate urology teaching. In the UK, teaching seemed satisfactory as evaluated by the BAUS undergraduate syllabus. However, many students report having no clinical attachments in Urology and some newly qualified doctors report never having inserted a catheter, which is a GMC mandated requirement. We recommend a greater emphasis on undergraduate clinical exposure to urology and stricter adherence to GMC mandated procedures

Protecting against stereotype threat: examining multiple social identities as a buffering tool

Research on stereotype threat has begun to shift its focus from establishing the phenomenon to identifying mechanisms that buffer against its negative psychological and behavioural consequences. Social identity theory suggests that social identities can function as beneficial resources in the face of stressful events (Tajfel, 1974). However, there has been limited experimental research conducted into the protective role of social identities against stereotype threat. Consequently, the aim of this thesis was to examine multiple social identities that are unrelated to the domain of threat as a buffer against stereotype threat. One hundred and four first-year and paid female participants were randomly allocated to five conditions varying in the type and amount of social identities made salient, and asked to complete a mathematics test. It was hypothesised that participants in a classical stereotype threat condition where only gender was made salient would perform worse on the test in comparison to all other conditions. More importantly, it was predicted that regardless of whether the alternative social identities offered were stereotype relevant or not, the identities would buffer against stereotype threat and more additional identities would each provide enhancements in buffering. These hypotheses were all supported which suggests that having more social identities are beneficial in protecting against stereotype threat, even when they are unrelated to the domain of threat. Limitations of the study, future directions, and the theoretical and practical implications are discussed

Role of the Leisure Attributes of Shared Bicycles in Promoting Leisure Benefits and Quality of Life

Given that the use of shared economic resources has increased for leisure, the main goal of the present study is to investigate the influence of the leisure attributes of the sharing economy on leisure benefits and quality of life. For this, the related sub-factors were derived for the verification of the sharing economy’s leisure attributes. Next, the sub-components of the concept were integrated and analyzed using a second confirmatory factor analysis. The results of a study using the structural equation model demonstrated that the sharing economy’s leisure attributes statistically affect the four levels of leisure benefits (i.e., social, physical, personal, and psychological benefits). We also identified two (social and psychological benefits) out of four leisure benefits that ultimately affect quality of life. This study is meaningful in that it elucidates the relationships between the sharing economy’s leisure attributes, leisure benefits, and quality of life

Data Embedding Scheme for Efficient Program Behavior Modeling With Neural Networks

As modern programs grow in size and complexity, the importance of program behavior modeling is emerging in various areas. Because of the large amount of data generated by a target program and the difficulty of runtime analysis, previous works in these areas employ deep learning. However, they did not sufficiently consider the input of a target program, since, in our view, program behavior is a history of computational steps consisting of a function and its input arguments. A naive, intuitive way to embed the value of $x$ as it is in a vector representation creates a tremendously large vector size. Instead, we found that all the values inducing the same runtime behavior can be represented as one identical characteristic value (CV). In this paper, we show that not only can a characteristic value sequence replace the argument input, but it is also efficient to use it as an input vector for a neural network. This efficiency comes from modeling the whole program with multiple LSTM-RNN models and reducing the input space of the neural network. To demonstrate the effectiveness of this replacement, we performed experiments on the problem of program behavior anomaly detection. Our results show that our model achieves better detection performance compared to previous models and similar detection performance even with smaller model sizes. We also provide a visualization of the embedded vectors extracted from the embedding layer in the neural network model to prove that the CV sequence well represents the arguments.N

A Longitudinal Study on Attenuated Structural Covariance in Patients With Somatic Symptom Disorder

ObjectiveThis study was performed to investigate altered regional gray matter volume (rGMV) and structural covariance related to somatic symptom disorder (SSD) and longitudinal changes after treatment. Additionally, this study examined the relationships of structural alteration with its phenotypic subtypes. MethodsForty-three unmedicated patients with SSD and thirty normal controls completed psychological questionnaires and neurocognitive tests, as well as brain magnetic resonance imaging. Voxel-based morphometry and structural covariances were compared between groups and between subgroups within the SSD group. After 6 months of treatment, SSD patients were followed up for assessments. ResultsPatients with SSD exhibited attenuated structural covariances in the pallidal-cerebellar circuit (FDR < 0.05-0.1), as well as regions in the default mode and sensorimotor network (FDR < 0.2), compared to normal controls. The cerebellar rGMVs were negatively correlated with the severity of somatic symptoms. In subgroup analyses, patients with somatic pain showed denser structural covariances between the bilateral superior temporal pole and left angular gyrus, the left middle temporal pole and left angular gyrus, and the left amygdala and right inferior orbitofrontal gyrus, while patients with headache and dizziness had greater structural covariance between the right inferior temporal gyrus and right cerebellum (FDR < 0.1-0.2). After 6 months of treatment, patients showed improved symptoms, however there was no significant structural alteration. ConclusionThe findings suggest that attenuated structural covariance may link to dysfunctional brain network and vulnerability to SSD; they also suggested that specific brain regions and networks may contribute to different subtypes of SSD.N

The Use of Chicken Igy in a Double Antibody Sandwich Elisa for the Quantification of Melittin in Bee Venom and Bee Venom Melittin Content in Cosmetics

Two enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) - based detection systems: indirect competitive ELISA and biotinylated double antibody sandwich ELISA (DAS-ELISA) were developed to determine the melittin concentration in honeybee (Apis mellifera) venom and the melittin concentration in cosmetics which contain bee venom. The indirect competitive ELISA employed chicken anti-melittin IgY. The biotinylated DAS-ELISA employed anti-melittin monoclonal antibody (MAb) and biotinylated anti-melittin IgY. To produce anti-melittin IgY; Sigma melittin was emulsified with Freund‘s incomplete adjuvant and immunised to Leghorn laying chickens intramuscularly at four different sites (50 μg/mL, 0.25 mL per site) of the breast muscles. After 5 to 8 weeks of the immunisation, anti-melittin IgY was extracted and analysed by ELISA. The anti-melittin IgY antibody produced was highly specific to melittin and did not cross-react with other bee venom proteins, as examined by ELISA and a western-blot assay. Indirect competitive ELISA demonstrated a higher range of melittin detection (2.5 to 80 μg/mL). Double antibody sandwich ELISA using MAb as the capture antibody and biotinylated polyclonal IgY as the detection antibody, provided a lower range of detection (2.5 - 40 ng/mL), which has a 1000 times higher sensitivity than that of indirect competitive ELISA. Therefore, indirect competitive ELISA is a useful tool to measure the concentration of melittin in bee venom as a raw material. Biotinylated DAS-ELISA, on the other hand, is more suitable for nanoscale quantification of melittin in commercial products

Effect of food on the pharmacokinetic characteristics of a single oral dose of LCB01-0371, a novel oxazolidinone antibiotic

Jung Sunwoo,1 Yu Kyong Kim,1 Yewon Choi,1 Kyung-Sang Yu,1 Heesook Nam,2 Young Lag Cho,2 Seonghae Yoon,3 Jae-Yong Chung3 1Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Seoul National University College of Medicine and Hospital, Seoul, 2LegoChem Biosciences, Inc., Daejeon, 3Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Seoul National University College of Medicine and Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Republic of Korea Background: LCB01-0371 is a novel oxazolidinone antibiotic that blocks protein production by binding to bacterial 23S ribosomes. This antibiotic is active against Gram-positive bacteria. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of food on the pharmacokinetics (PKs) of LCB01-0371 and evaluate its safety profile.Subjects and methods: A randomized, open-label, two-way crossover study was performed in 18 healthy Korean male subjects. All subjects received a single oral 800 mg dose of LCB01-0371 in each period under fed or fasting condition with a 7-day washout in between. The fed condition was defined as consumption of a meal of 800–1,000 kcal containing ~50% of fat content. Serial blood samples were collected over 24 h after dosing, and the PK parameters were calculated by noncompartment analysis. All available data of the subjects who received LCB01-0371 at least once were included in the safety data summaries.Results: In the fed condition, both the maximum plasma concentration (Cmax) and the total systemic exposure (area under the plasma concentration–time curve from time zero to the last observed time point [AUClast]) decreased by ~33% and 10%, respectively. The time to reach Cmax was delayed by ~1.25 h in the fed condition, whereas the mean elimination half-life remained similar in both conditions. In the fed/fasting condition, the geometric mean ratios and 90% CI of the Cmax and AUClast were 0.666 (0.470–0.945) and 0.897 (0.761–1.057), respectively. There were no drug-related adverse events (AEs) or serious AEs.Conclusion: Although the Tmax after a single oral 800 mg dose of LCB01-0371 was slightly delayed under the fed condition compared to the fasting condition, the total systemic exposure was similar under both conditions. Therefore, LCB01-0371 could be administered regardless of food intake. Keywords: antibiotic resistance, gram-positive bacteria, clinical tria

Novel Yellow Azo Pyridone Derivatives with Different Halide Atoms for Image-Sensor Color Filters

Novel yellow azo pyridone dye derivatives were synthesized for use in image-sensor color filters. The synthesized compounds have a basic chemical structure composed of azo, hydroxy, amide, and nitrile groups as well as different halide groups. New materials were evaluated on the basis of their optical, thermal, and surface properties under conditions mimicking those of a commercial device fabrication process. A comparison of their related performance revealed that, among the four prepared compounds, 5-((4,6-dichlorocyclohexa-2,4-dien-1-yl)diazenyl)-6-hydroxy-1,4-dimethyl-2-oxo-1,2-dihydropyridine-3-carbonitrile (Cl-PAMOPC) exhibited the best performance as an image-sensor color filter material, including a solubility greater than 0.1 wt% in propylene glycol monomethyl ether acetate solvent, a high decomposition temperature of 263 °C, and stable color difference values of 4.93 and 3.88 after a thermal treatment and a solvent-resistance test, respectively. The results suggest that Cl-PAMOPC can be used as a green dye additive in an image-sensor colorant