Endocrine physiology in a patient-centered learning curriculum

The medical curriculum at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences has recently been redesigned into a problem-based/traditional hybrid model that utilizes an integrated organ systems-based approach to teach basic and clinical sciences. The number of lecture hours in general has been greatly reduced, and, in particular, lecture hours in physiology have been reduced by 65%. Students learn basic science in small groups led by a faculty facilitator, and students are responsible for a great deal of their own teaching and learning. The curriculum is centered around patient cases and is called patient-centered learning (PCL). The curriculum includes traditional lectures and laboratories supporting faculty-generated learning objectives. Endocrine physiology is taught in year one, utilizing four weeks of patient cases that emphasize normal structure and function of endocrine systems. Endocrine physiology is revisited in year two, which is primarily focused on pathobiology. The PCL curriculum, with emphasis on the endocrine component, is described in detail along with key portions of an endocrine case.     

The buttressing coalition of the PNGIMR: an example of international collaborative research

Good partnerships are based on mutual benefit. This also applies to international partnerships in medical research. The Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research (PNGIMR) has had many successful research collaborations, from which an interactive coalition has been built that is committed to supporting the PNGIMR without jeopardizing its integrity. This coalition also involves policy-makers from the Department of Health, teachers at the Medical School of Papua New Guinea and the Medical Research Advisory Committee of PNG. The PNGIMR's Buttressing Coalition supports research and training, but also assists the process of transferring research results into policy. The concept of "buttressing" is explored and the activities of the Buttressing Coalition are briefly described here. The idea of the Buttressing Coalition is a response from the international medical research community to globalization, and could be applied elsewhere, following the model developed in PNG.     

Linking engineering and medicine: fostering collaboration skills in interdisciplinary teams

Biomedical engineering embodies the spirit of combining disciplines. The engineer's pragmatic approach to--and appetite for--solving problems is matched by a bounty of technical challenges generated in medical domains. From nanoscale diagnostics to the redesign of systems of health-care delivery, engineers have been connecting advances in basic and applied science with applications that have helped to improve medical care and outcomes. Increasingly, however, integrating these areas of knowledge and application is less individualistic and more of a team sport. Success increasingly relies on a direct focus on practicing and developing collaboration skills in interdisciplinary teams. Such an approach does not fit easily into individual-focused, discipline-based programs. Biomedical engineering has done its fair share of silo busting, but new approaches are needed to inspire interdisciplinary teams to form around challenges in particular areas. Health care offers a wide variety of complex challenges across an array of delivery settings that can call for new interdisciplinary approaches. This was recognized by the deans of the University of Southern California's (USC's) Medical and Engineering Schools when they began the planning process, leading to the creation of the Health, Technology, and Engineering (HTE@USC or HTE for short) program. “Health care and technology are changing rapidly, and future physicians and engineers need intellectual tools to stay ahead of this change,” says Carmen A. Puliafito, dean of the Keck School of Medicine. His goal is to train national leaders in the quest for devices and processes to improve health care.     

1950—2014年广西横县疟疾疫情流行病学分析及Markov模型预测

目的分析横县1950—2014年疟疾疫情监测数据,探讨该时期疟疾流行特点,为今后防控疟疾提供科学依据。方法收集横县1950—2014年疟疾疫情报告数据,应用Excel2007、SPSS18.0和Matlab2016a统计软件分析疟疾疫情的流行特征。用Markov模型对横县2012—2014年疟疾发病率进行预测,并验证预测效果。结果横县1950—2014年共报告疟疾发病数65 259例,年均发病率为119.74/10万。发病率趋势可分为4个阶段,各阶段年均发病率差异有统计学意义(χ2=365 257.034、P<0.05)。其中,1953年疟疾为发病率最高(4 490.14/10万),1996—2014年疟疾发病率则保持在0.77/10万以下,疟疾发病率总体呈下降趋势。2002—2014年无本地疟疾发生,但输入性疟疾病例占比逐步增大(1984—2014年间输入性疟疾病例占疟疾病例总数的93.75%)。同时,Markov模型预测模型用于发病率预测效果良好。结论广西横县经过60多年疟疾防治,原发性疟疾流行已经得到有效控制。但近年出现的输入性疟疾不可忽视,可能造成疟疾死灰复燃,应该把输入性疟疾的流行病学特征作为研究的重点工作。     

An update on hormone replacement therapy: health and medicine for women: a multidisciplinary, evidence-based review of mid-life health concerns

The Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at the Yale School of Medicine hosted a daylong continuing medical education (CME) symposium titled "Health and Medicine for Women: A Multidisciplinary, Evidence-Based Review of Mid-Life Health Concerns" in September 2010. A number of speakers discussed current research on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and re-evaluated the results of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), a landmark, randomized, placebo-controlled trial that still sparks debate almost a decade after its conclusion. This article summarizes this discussion and highlights directions for future study.     

衰老与血管钙化

血管钙化是指体内钙磷在血管壁的异常沉积,是一个主动的、高度可调节的、类似于骨形成的生物学过程。血管钙化是引起心血管疾病发病率、病死率升高的重要原因,也是危害中老年人身体健康的广泛存在的病理现象。近年研究表明,衰老与血管钙化存在密切关系,衰老可以通过诱导血管平滑肌细胞成骨样转化、内皮细胞释放囊泡、细胞外基质重塑、DNA损伤、炎症反应、磷代谢失衡以及抗衰老因子如Klotho和Sirtuin 1的表达减少而促进血管钙化。     

疫苗犹豫及其影响因素研究进展

疫苗犹豫是指在疫苗服务可及的情况下对接种疫苗产生延迟或拒绝的态度。疫苗犹豫(vaccine hesitancy)会影响人群疫苗的接种水平,导致疫苗可预防疾病发病率的上升,威胁人群的健康。国内关于疫苗犹豫的研究有限,而疫苗犹豫具有背景特异性,因此目前迫切需要对疫苗犹豫进行研究。现从疫苗犹豫的定义、测量、影响因素和干预措施等方面作一概述。     

Building a Global Health Program at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health

This is a report of our experience over the past year in developing our program in global health at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. Key steps have included an analysis of our needs and strengths, recruitment of interested faculty from existing departments, strategic meetings of faculty, formation of a vision for a Center for Global Health, design of an introductory cross-disciplinary course taught by faculty from departments in Public Health and other programs at the University of Pittsburgh, and recruitment of a recognized leader in global health to direct the program. Although we have had some successes, the process is still at an early stage. Because of this, our case may be instructive to other schools beginning similar programs.     

Globalization, Water, and Health: Resource Management in Times of Scarcity

Globalization, Water, and Health: Resource Management in Times of Scarcity. Linda Whiteford and Scott Whiteford, eds. Santa Fe: School of American Research Advanced Seminar Series, 2005. 322 pp.     

School of the Dialogue of Cultures

The comments compare the School of the Dialogue of Cultures and the Developmental Instruction approach and explore the historical context, epistemological framework, approaches to meaning making, and cultural tools of the School of the Dialogue of Cultures. The author poses theoretical and methodological questions regarding the approach.     

Representations of the human circulatory system

There is no agreement about the robustness of intuitive representations of the circulatory system and their susceptibility to change by instruction. In this paper, we analyse to what extent students with varying degrees of biology instruction and different ages (High School Health Science and Social Science students and first and final year University Psychology students) have been able to change their intuitive beliefs into scientific representations of the workings of the human circulatory system. We analysed two aspects of the representation of the circulatory system: models of the circulatory system (the relationship between the heart and lungs in the blood pathway) and the circulatory system pattern (the blood pathway between organs). In relation to the models of the circulatory system, we found differences among the different groups of students according to the amount of biological instruction they had. The majority of participants (High School Social Science students and both University Psychology student groups) had an incomplete model, which did not include the lungs while the High School Health Science students group had a scientific representation. As for the circulatory system pattern, we did not find differences among groups. However, we cannot conclude that the representations of the two aspects of the circulatory system (model and pattern) are independent. The data in this study show that compulsory human physiology instruction did not enhance the acquisition of a scientific representation of the human circulatory system.     

The effect of newer tubercle bacillus digestion and decontamination procedures on fungi causing pulmonary diseases

The paper concerns the effect of the newer tubercle bacillus digestion and decontamination procedures on the principal pulmonary mycotic disease agents in sputum The digestion-decontamination procedures used were: 1) N-acetyl-L-cysteine - sodium hydroxide, 2) dithiothreitol - sodium hydroxide, and 3) trisodium phosphate - Zephiran.A portion of a Dissertation submitted by the senior author to the University of North Carolina in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Public Health in the School of Public Health. Training was provided by the Laboratory Director's Program which is supported by Training Grant 5 T1 GM 567 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health, United States Public Health Service. The laboratory research was performed at the Laboratory Division, Center for Disease Control, under the supervision of the junior author.     

沙尘暴对北京市空气细菌多样性特征的影响

亚洲沙尘暴携带着各类污染物质,严重影响下风向地区大气过程及生态系统和相关人群的健康。然而,沙尘天气对中国华北地区空气细菌群落及多样性特征影响的研究较少。以北京市为例,系统研究了沙尘暴对城市空气细菌多样性特征的影响。2015年4月,通过定点采样连续收集了一次沙尘暴及其前后4天的空气颗粒物样本,DNA提取、PCR扩增后进行16S rRNA基因高通量测序。共获得169122条高质量序列,生物信息学分析表明,北京市空气细菌物种多样性较高,沙尘暴不能引起细菌OTU数目的增加,但沙尘暴天气下细菌群落Pielou、Shannon和Simpson指数显著增加。菌群分类分析发现,北京市空气细菌由35个细菌门构成,其中变形菌门(Proteobacteria)、放线菌门(Actinobacteria)、厚壁菌门(Firmicutes)和拟杆菌门(Bacteroidetes)相对丰度最高,分别占总序列的32.76%、28.09%、25.46%和6.32%;芽单胞菌门(Gemmatimonadetes)和酸杆菌门(Acidobacteria)次之,分别占序列总数的2.11%和1.81%,其他细菌门的相对丰度均低于1%。沙尘暴天气下,变形菌门(Proteobacteria)、拟杆菌门(Bacteroidetes)、芽单胞菌门(Gemmatimonadetes)和酸杆菌门(Acidobacteria)显著升高(P<0.05),分别由31.67%、5.74%、1.82%、1.51%升高至41.46%、10.98%、4.48%和4.26%;而放线菌门(Actinobacteria)、厚壁菌门(Firmicutes)显著降低(P <0.05),分别由28.84%、27.10%降低至22.13%和12.35%。冷杆菌属(Psychrobacter),纤维单胞菌属(Cellulomonas),不动杆菌属(Acinetobacter),假单胞菌属(Pseudomonas)和梭菌属(Clostridium)可能含有人类条件病原菌,其在沙尘暴天气中相对丰度下降,但绝对丰度会大幅增加。沙尘暴能降低人体免疫力,因此致病菌潜在健康风险可能显著增强。通过聚类分析和主成分分析发现,沙尘暴日与非沙尘暴日空气细菌群落差异较大,而沙尘暴前后群落结构差异较小。沙尘暴前后空气细菌群落α-多样性和β多样性均无显著差异,推测沙尘暴只能暂时影响空气细菌群落特征,不能显著改变其群落结构。本研究通过分析了沙尘暴侵袭下北京市空气细菌群落多样性特征及动态,为制定中国北方城市沙尘暴灾害预警措施和建立气传疾病的防控机制提供数据支持。     

Use of Systems Biology Approaches to Analysis of Genome-Wide Association Studies of Myocardial Infarction and Blood Cholesterol in the Nurses' Health Study and Health Professionals’ Follow-Up Study

With the advance of genome-wide association studies and newly identified SNP (single-nucleotide polymorphism) associations with complex disease, important discoveries have emerged focusing not only on individual genes but on disease-associated pathways and gene sets. The authors used prospective myocardial infarction case-control studies nested in the Nurses’ Health and Health Professionals Follow-Up Studies to investigate genetic variants associated with myocardial infarction or LDL, HDL, triglycerides, adiponectin and apolipoprotein B (apoB). Using these case-control studies to illustrate an integrative systems biology approach, the authors applied SNP set enrichment analysis to identify gene sets where expression SNPs representing genes from these sets show enrichment in their association with endpoints of interest. The authors also explored an aggregate score approach. While power limited one’s ability to detect significance for association of individual loci with myocardial infarction, the authors found significance for loci associated with LDL, HDL, apoB and triglycerides, replicating previous observations. Applying SNP set enrichment analysis and risk score methods, the authors also found significance for three gene sets and for aggregate scores associated with myocardial infarction as well as for loci-related to cardiovascular risk factors, supporting the use of these methods in practice.     

Peak drug levels in linear pharmacokinetic systems—II. Conditions for a paradoxical injection rate effect with rectangular input

The preceding paper (Thorn, 1981) has shown that in a linear pharmacokinetic system with a multimodal impulse response the peak drug level may sometimes be smaller with slower rates of injection. This paper presents two theorems on this paradoxical injection rate effect where the injection is a constant infusion of finite duration. The first theorem establishes a graphical method for determining whether a given impulse response will give a paradoxical injection rate effect; and the second establishes that the maximum paradoxical increase in peak drug level is by a factor of two. It is further shown that in order to approach this maximum paradoxical increase the impulse response must contain two isolated, sharp, narrow pulses of approximately equal area. Some examples of bimodal arterial dye-dilution curves from the literature are discussed as impulse responses; and there is also a discussion of the behavior of drug level maxima and minima at different injection rates. This work was supported in part by U.S. Public Health Service Research Grant GM 21269 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and in part by Biomedical Research Support Grant S07 RR 05932 from the National Institutes of Health. A portion of this work was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Mathematical Biology at the Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, August 1976.     

Recent Trends in the Management of Life-Threatening Ventricular Arrhythmias

An edited summary of an Interdepartmental Conference arranged by the Department of Medicine, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles. William M. Pardridge, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, is Director of Conferences.This study was supported in part by grants from the Public Health Service; the National Institutes of Health (HL-23970, 1978-1981); the Medical Research Service of the Veterans Administration, and the American Heart Association, the Greater Los Angeles Affiliate.     

Optical recording of activity in the hamster gustatory cortex elicited by electrical stimulation of the tongue

Having been informed by the Dean of the School of Dental Medicineat the University of Connecticut Health Center that some ofthe data reported in the above article has been found to befabricated, the Editors of Chemical Senses hereby retract thispaper and discourage citations of it.     

白藜芦醇的生物活性及作用机制

白藜芦醇(RSV)是一种广泛存在的非黄酮类多酚化合物,具有抗氧化、抗炎、抗菌、抗病毒以及调节细胞代谢等多种生物学功能,目前在人体健康领域和动物生产中具有广泛的应用。本文简要综述了RSV的来源及理化性质、生物利用率、生物活性及其作用机制,为RSV的深入研究和进一步开发应用提供参考依据。