A web-based tool for teaching pharmacy practice competency

Aims to implement and assess the effectiveness of the Strathclyde Computerized Randomized Interactive Prescription Tutor (SCRIPT) in teaching a competency-based undergraduate pharmacy course. Data on students' access to SCRIPT, collected by quantitative electronic data capture, were analyzed to determine student usage patterns and correlations between usage and grades in class assessments. Data on students' perceptions were collected by electronic questionnaire and semistructured interviews. Teaching staff members also were interviewed. Two hundred forty-three students accessed SCRIPT a median of 23 times each. Students accessed SCRIPT predominantly at times outside normal teaching hours and tended to access the tool more often in the 48 hours preceding class assessments. Feedback from students indicated overall satisfaction with the tool to compliment the timetabled teaching sessions but highlighted that more specific feedback on the examples was required. All staff comments were positive. Students and teaching staff members valued SCRIPT as a tool to compliment teaching of the competency-based pharmacy practice classes in the MPharm degree

Virtual patients design and its effect on clinical reasoning and student experience : a protocol for a randomised factorial multi-centre study

Background Virtual Patients (VPs) are web-based representations of realistic clinical cases. They are proposed as being an optimal method for teaching clinical reasoning skills. International standards exist which define precisely what constitutes a VP. There are multiple design possibilities for VPs, however there is little formal evidence to support individual design features. The purpose of this trial is to explore the effect of two different potentially important design features on clinical reasoning skills and the student experience. These are the branching case pathways (present or absent) and structured clinical reasoning feedback (present or absent). Methods/Design This is a multi-centre randomised 2x2 factorial design study evaluating two independent variables of VP design, branching (present or absent), and structured clinical reasoning feedback (present or absent).The study will be carried out in medical student volunteers in one year group from three university medical schools in the United Kingdom, Warwick, Keele and Birmingham. There are four core musculoskeletal topics. Each case can be designed in four different ways, equating to 16 VPs required for the research. Students will be randomised to four groups, completing the four VP topics in the same order, but with each group exposed to a different VP design sequentially. All students will be exposed to the four designs. Primary outcomes are performance for each case design in a standardized fifteen item clinical reasoning assessment, integrated into each VP, which is identical for each topic. Additionally a 15-item self-reported evaluation is completed for each VP, based on a widely used EViP tool. Student patterns of use of the VPs will be recorded. In one centre, formative clinical and examination performance will be recorded, along with a self reported pre and post-intervention reasoning score, the DTI. Our power calculations indicate a sample size of 112 is required for both primary outcomes

Common Genetic Variant Association with Altered HLA Expression, Synergy with Pyrethroid Exposure, and Risk for Parkinson's Disease: An Observational and Case-Control Study.

Background/objectivesThe common non-coding single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs3129882 in HLA-DRA is associated with risk for idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD). The location of the SNP in the major histocompatibility complex class II (MHC-II) locus implicates regulation of antigen presentation as a potential mechanism by which immune responses link genetic susceptibility to environmental factors in conferring lifetime risk for PD.MethodsFor immunophenotyping, blood cells from 81 subjects were analyzed by qRT-PCR and flow cytometry. A case-control study was performed on a separate cohort of 962 subjects to determine association of pesticide exposure and the SNP with risk of PD.ResultsHomozygosity for G at this SNP was associated with heightened baseline expression and inducibility of MHC class II molecules in B cells and monocytes from peripheral blood of healthy controls and PD patients. In addition, exposure to a commonly used class of insecticide, pyrethroids, synergized with the risk conferred by this SNP (OR = 2.48, p = 0.007), thereby identifying a novel gene-environment interaction that promotes risk for PD via alterations in immune responses.ConclusionsIn sum, these novel findings suggest that the MHC-II locus may increase susceptibility to PD through presentation of pathogenic, immunodominant antigens and/or a shift toward a more pro-inflammatory CD4+ T cell response in response to specific environmental exposures, such as pyrethroid exposure through genetic or epigenetic mechanisms that modulate MHC-II gene expression

On the Potential of the Excluded Volume and Auto-Correlation as Neuromorphometric Descriptors

This work investigates at what degree two neuromorphometric measurements, namely the autocorrelation and the excluded volume of a neuronal cell can influence the characterization and classification of such a type of cells. While the autocorrelation function presents good potential for quantifying the dendrite-dendrite connectivity of cells in mosaic tilings, the excluded volume, i.e. the amount of the surround space which is geometrically not accessible to an axon or dendrite, provides a complementary characterization of the cell connectivity. The potential of such approaches is illustrated with respect to real neuronal cells.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure

A mucosa-mimetic material for the mucoadhesion testing of thermogelling semi-solids

Mucosa-mimetic materials are synthetic substrates which aim to replace animal tissue in mucoadhesion experiments. One potential mucosa-mimetic material is a hydrogel comprised of N-acryloyl-d-glucosamine and 2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate, which has been investigated as a surrogate for animal mucosae in the mucoadhesion testing of tablets and solution formulations. This study aims to investigate the efficacy of this mucosa-mimetic material in the testing of thermogelling semi-solid formulations, which transition from solution to gel upon warming. Two methods for assessing mucoadhesion have been used; tensile testing and a flow-through system, which allow for investigation under dramatically different conditions. It was found that the mucosa-mimetic material was a good surrogate for buccal mucosa using both testing methods. This material may be used to replace animal tissue in these experiments, potentially reducing the number of laboratory animals used in studies of this type

The connection between galaxy environment and the luminosity function slopes of star-forming regions

We present the first study of GALEX far ultra-violet (FUV) luminosity functions of individual star-forming regions within a sample of 258 nearby galaxies spanning a large range in total stellar mass and star formation properties. We identify ~65,000 star-forming regions (i.e., FUV sources), measure each galaxy's luminosity function, and characterize the relationships between the luminosity function slope (alpha) and several global galaxy properties. A final sample of 82 galaxies with reliable luminosity functions are used to define these relationships and represent the largest sample of galaxies with the largest range of galaxy properties used to study the connection between luminosity function properties and galaxy environment. We find that alpha correlates with global star formation properties, where galaxies with higher star formation rates and star formation rate densities (Sigma_SFR) tend to have flatter luminosity function slopes. In addition, we find that neither stochastic sampling of the luminosity function in galaxies with low-number statistics nor the effects of blending due to distance can fully account for these trends. We hypothesize that the flatter slopes in high Sigma_SFR galaxies is due to higher gas densities and higher star formation efficiencies which result in proportionally greater numbers of bright star-forming regions. Finally, we create a composite luminosity function composed of star-forming regions from many galaxies and find a break in the luminosity function at brighter luminosities. However, we find that this break is an artifact of varying detection limits for galaxies at different distances.Science and Technology Facilities CouncilThis is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Oxford University Press via http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stw169

Assessing mucoadhesion in polymer gels : The effect of method type and instrument variables

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).The process of mucoadhesion has been widely studied using a wide variety of methods, which are influenced by instrumental variables and experiment design, making the comparison between the results of different studies difficult. The aim of this work was to standardize the conditions of the detachment test and the rheological methods of mucoadhesion assessment for semisolids, and introduce a texture profile analysis (TPA) method. A factorial design was developed to suggest standard conditions for performing the detachment force method. To evaluate the method, binary polymeric systems were prepared containing poloxamer 407 and Carbopol 971P®, Carbopol 974P®, or Noveon® Polycarbophil. The mucoadhesion of systems was evaluated, and the reproducibility of these measurements investigated. This detachment force method was demonstrated to be reproduceable, and gave different adhesion when mucin disk or ex vivo oral mucosa was used. The factorial design demonstrated that all evaluated parameters had an effect on measurements of mucoadhesive force, but the same was not observed for the work of adhesion. It was suggested that the work of adhesion is a more appropriate metric for evaluating mucoadhesion. Oscillatory rheology was more capable of investigating adhesive interactions than flow rheology. TPA method was demonstrated to be reproducible and can evaluate the adhesiveness interaction parameter. This investigation demonstrates the need for standardized methods to evaluate mucoadhesion and makes suggestions for a standard study design.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

A model of the reflection distribution in the vacuum ultra violet region

A reflection model with three components, a specular spike, a specular lobe and a diffuse lobe is discussed. This model was successfully applied to describe reflection of xenon scintillation light (175 nm) by PTFE and other fluoropolymers and can be used for Monte Carlo simulation and analysis of scintillation detectors. The measured data favors a Trowbridge-Reitz distribution function of ellipsoidal micro-surfaces. The intensity of the coherent reflection increases with increasing angle of incidence, as expected, since the surface appears smoother at grazing angles. The total reflectance obtained for PTFE is about 70% for VUV light at normal incidence in vacuum and estimated to be up to 100% in contact with liquid xenon