Profiles of Volatile Biomarkers Detect Tuberculosis from Skin

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease that threatens >10 million people annually. Despite advances in TB diagnostics, patients continue to receive an insufficient diagnosis as TB symptoms are not specific. Many existing biodiagnostic tests are slow, have low clinical performance, and can be unsuitable for resource-limited settings. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a rapid, sputum-free, and cost-effective triage test for real-time detection of TB is urgently needed. This article reports on a new diagnostic pathway enabling a noninvasive, fast, and highly accurate way of detecting TB. The approach relies on TB-specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are detected and quantified from the skin headspace. A specifically designed nanomaterial-based sensors array translates these findings into a point-of-care diagnosis by discriminating between active pulmonary TB patients and controls with sensitivity above 90%. This fulfills the WHO's triage test requirements and poses the potential to become a TB triage test

Environmental Attitudes

It has been aimed to compare the environmental attitudes of teachers and teacher candidates and to present the importance of environmental education in teacher training. The sample of the research includes 605 final year students attending undergraduate programs of pre-school education and child development education in the universities of Konya. Ankara, Afyon, and Denizli provinces during 2008-2009 academic year and 300 pre-school teachers attending National Education Ministry In-service Training Programs conducted in Yalova, Aksaray and Rize provinces during 2008-2009 academic year. "Environmental Attitude Scale" has been used as the data collection tool. According to t-test and MANOVA results, it has been determined that teacher candidates got higher scores than pre-school teachers in terms of the total results of environmental attitude scale, and particularly the sub-factors "Importance of Field Trips in Environmental Education': and "Environmental Conservation Activities". Also, it has been stated that the difference between the scores of teachers and teacher candidates taken from the sub-factors "Requirement of Education for Environmental Problems" and "Environmental Pollution and Conservation" is not significant. In the light of the findings, researchers and practitioners have been provided with suggestions

The use of interactive CD-ROM in early childhood education: Teachers' thoughts and practices

The purpose of the research is to determine the opinions of the early childhood teachers working in Denizli about the use of interactive CD-ROMs in the education programs. The research has been conducted with the qualitative research methods. In the research, semi-structured interview has been used as a way of gathering data, which is one of the interview ways. The research has been conducted with five early childhood teachers teaching different age groups of children. According to the findings gathered in the research, it has been found that the teachers use the interactive CD-ROMs in the classrooms very rarely because of the lack of the computer equipments in the classrooms. Moreover, it has been also found that they aim at children's psychomotor and cognitive development with the use of the interactive CD-ROMs. Among the other findings in the research, it has been found that the teachers recommend the virtual and audio elements of the interactive CD-ROMs to be prepared more elaborately and carefully. Furthermore, It has been found striking that the recommendations of the preparation of interactive CD-ROMs on the topics supporting the development of sociality and the abstract topics that the adults have difficulty in understanding. At the end of the research, considering the findings gathered, the suggestions have been made for the educationists and the teachers. © 2010 Published by Elsevier Ltd

Comparison of Teachers and Teacher Candidates in terms of Their Environmental Attitudes

It has been aimed to compare the environmental attitudes of teachers and teacher candidates and to present the importance of environmental education in teacher training. The sample of the research includes 605 final year students attending undergraduate programs of pre-school education and child development education in the universities of Konya. Ankara, Afyon, and Denizli provinces during 2008-2009 academic year and 300 pre-school teachers attending National Education Ministry In-service Training Programs conducted in Yalova, Aksaray and Rize provinces during 2008-2009 academic year. "Environmental Attitude Scale" has been used as the data collection tool. According to t-test and MANOVA results, it has been determined that teacher candidates got higher scores than pre-school teachers in terms of the total results of environmental attitude scale, and particularly the sub-factors "Importance of Field Trips in Environmental Education': and "Environmental Conservation Activities". Also, it has been stated that the difference between the scores of teachers and teacher candidates taken from the sub-factors "Requirement of Education for Environmental Problems" and "Environmental Pollution and Conservation" is not significant. In the light of the findings, researchers and practitioners have been provided with suggestions

Detecting inflammation with 131I-labeled ornidazole

PubMed ID: 10972145The aim of this study was to demonstrate the accumulation of 131I-labeled ornidazole (131I-ORN) in experimental abscesses. 131I-ORN was prepared by electrophilic radioiodination of ORN, using radioiodide in the presence of Iodogen®. An in vivo inflammation model was prepared by intramuscular injection of turpentine into the thigh of rabbits. Four days later 131I-ORN was intravenously administered to rabbits. Serial scintigrams were performed at different periods, using a Sophy DX Gamma Camera. 131I-ORN was visualized at 10 min after injection. 131I-ORN was also administered intraperitoneally to rats with turpentine-induced inflammation, for quantitative biodistribution studies. Counts of selected tissues were taken by a NaI(Tl) scintillation detector (gamma counter) after rats were decapitated. The target-to-non-target muscle ratios were 2.5, 2.6, 2.9 and 1.9 at 1, 3, 5 and 24 h, respectively. Copyright (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd