Purpose
To evaluate course directors’ feedback on the assessment methods used during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic and identify effective approaches for future assessments in ...dental education.
Methods
Course directors at the US dental schools were surveyed for changes in assessments implemented during the early stages of the pandemic (March–July 2020) using the Qualtrics platform. The survey questions addressed assessment methods utilized in didactic, preclinical, and clinical arenas pre‐COVID‐19 (before March 2020) and during the early phase of the pandemic (between March and July 2020) and identified any sustained changes in assessments post‐COVID‐19. Of the 295 responses for the type of courses directed, 48%, 22%, and 30% responses were for didactic, pre‐clinical, and clinical assessments, respectively. Chi‐square tests and 95% confidence intervals were used to assess quantitative differences.
Results
Computer‐based un‐proctored and remote– proctored assessments increased whereas paper‐based in‐person proctored assessments decreased during an early pandemic. For pre‐clinical and clinical courses, objective‐structured clinical exams and case‐based assessments increased whereas, for didactic courses, the number of presentations, short‐answer, and multiple‐choice questions‐based assessments increased. Specimen‐based assessments and patient‐based encounters decreased significantly in didactic and clinical courses, respectively. Manikin‐based exams increased in clinical but not in pre‐clinical courses. Survey respondents disagreed that alternative assessments helped students learn better, resulted in better course evaluations, or were an equivalent replacement for pre‐COVID‐19 assessments. Interestingly, 49% of respondents indicated a likelihood of continuing alternative assessments whereas 36% were unlikely and 15% were neutral.
Conclusions
A combination of effective pre‐pandemic and innovative alternative assessments developed during the pandemic may be the new normal in the dental education curriculum.
Background
Survival analysis is a cornerstone of medical research, enabling the assessment of clinical outcomes for disease progression and treatment efficiency. Despite its central importance, no ...commonly used spreadsheet software can handle survival analysis and there is no web server available for its computation.
Objective
Here, we introduce a web-based tool capable of performing univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazards survival analysis using data generated by genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, or metabolomic studies.
Methods
We implemented different methods to establish cut-off values for the trichotomization or dichotomization of continuous data. The false discovery rate is computed to correct for multiple hypothesis testing. A multivariate analysis option enables comparing omics data with clinical variables.
Results
We established a registration-free web-based survival analysis tool capable of performing univariate and multivariate survival analysis using any custom-generated data.
Conclusions
This tool fills a gap and will be an invaluable contribution to basic medical and clinical research.
Inflammation, a common feature of many diseases, is an essential immune response that enables survival and maintains tissue homeostasis. However, in some conditions, the inflammatory process becomes ...detrimental, contributing to the pathogenesis of a disease. Targeting inflammation by using nanomedicines (i.e. nanoparticles loaded with a therapeutic active principle), either through the recognition of molecules overexpressed onto the surface of activated macrophages or endothelial cells, or through enhanced vasculature permeability, or even through biomimicry, offers a promising solution for the treatment of inflammatory diseases. After providing a brief insight on the pathophysiology of inflammation and current therapeutic strategies, the review will discuss, at a pre-clinical stage, the main innovative nanomedicine approaches that have been proposed in the past five years for the resolution of inflammatory disorders, finally focusing on those currently in clinical trials.
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•Inflammation is an essential immune response that enables survival and maintains tissue homeostasis.•Sometimes the inflammatory process becomes detrimental, contributing to a disease development.•Conventional pharmacological treatments may result in off-target side effects and toxicity.•Innovative nanomedicines show significant therapeutic improvements in pre-clinical models.•Clinical translation remains limited due to the complexity of both inflammatory diseases and nanomedicines development.
While there has been a guideline for laboratory/genetic diagnosis of Huntington Disease (HD) since 1998, no such statement exists for the diagnosis of clinical HD. Informally, the most frequently ...used criteria for diagnosis of clinical HD is 'Motor 4' within the Unified Huntington Disease Rating Scale '99 (motor), made when the rater is highly confident that 'motor abnormalities observed are unequivocal signs of HD'. Recent studies involving pre-manifest individuals illustrated the shortcomings of this motor-only diagnostic approach. For instance, PREDICT-HD found cognitive changes decades before the expected date of motor diagnosis. Using a number of case studies, we highlight some of the subtleties involved in diagnosing clinical HD, in the absence of unequivocal motor signs for HD. New, broader, criteria for the diagnosis of clinical HD would be helpful in many ways. However its formulation will need to flexible rather than prescriptive, and will require extensive consultation with clinicians and families with HD.
The purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy of lumbosacral angle using MRI and an in clinometer, and to examine predictive regression of these two methods. Seventy adolescent boys ...experienced MR imaging of the lumbar region and lumbosacral alignment measurement using an inclinometer. Sacral slope was calculated as the angle between the top of the sacrum and the horizontal line. The lumbosacral angle was defined as the angle between the lumbosacral joint and the horizontal axis. Statistical analysis was performed using linear regression analysis to determine whether sacral slope can be predicted by the lumbosacral angle, and Bland Altman method was used to evaluate the agreement between the two measurement methods. The fixed error cal culated as the difference between the sacral slope by MRI and the lumbosacral angle by inclinometer was 10.06±3.29̊(95%CI: 9.27-10.84), with small proportional and random errors. The regression equation was y=0.85x＋13.49. Although the results of this study indicated that the inclinometer underestimated the lumbosacral angle, if fixed error is taken into account, the measurement by inclinometer may be useful in predicting the lumbosacral angle in adolescent athletes.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente developed the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) scale to identify negative experiences in childhood. The goal of this study is to ...systematically review outcomes associated with the ACEs in the CDC-Kaiser ACE scale to understand the diversity of outcomes associated with this scale.
The authors conducted a search of English language articles published through September 30, 2016 using OVID Medline®; Ovid Medline® Daily; Epub Ahead of Print, In-Process & Other Non-indexed citations; ERIC®; HAPI®; and SCOPUS®. Articles were selected by trained reviewers based on a priori inclusion criteria including: research, healthy sample, used the CDC-Kaiser ACE scale, and assessed some health outcome. Two reviewers used an abstraction form to independently collect data from each study. Unadjusted and adjusted odds ratio associated with ACE scale scores were aggregated and compared.
From 3167 unique titles, we identified 96 articles that assessed health outcomes associated with the ACEs in the CDC-Kaiser ACE scale. There were more studies focusing on psychosocial/behavioral outcomes than medical outcomes. The majority of the included studies were retrospective, observational, and relied on the same data set. Psychosocial/behavioral outcomes had higher odds ratio than medical outcomes with increasing ACE scale scores.
Exposure to multiple ACEs is associated with a wide variety of outcomes. This data suggests a benefit of screening for ACEs using this scale and highlights the need to find interventions to ameliorate their effects.
Introduction
The terminology for female and male pelvic floor muscle (PFM) assessment has expanded considerably since the first PFM function and dysfunction standardization of terminology document in ...2005. New terms have entered assessment reports, and new investigations to measure PFM function and dysfunction have been developed. An update of this terminology was required to comprehensively document the terms and their definitions, and to describe the assessment method and interpretation of the finding, to standardize assessment procedures and aid diagnostic decision making.
Methods
This report combines the input of members of the Standardisation Committee of the International Continence Society (ICS) Working Group 16, with contributions from recognized experts in the field and external referees. A logical, sequential, clinically directed assessment framework was created against which the assessment process was mapped. Within categories and subclassifications, each term was assigned a numeric coding. A transparent process of 12 rounds of full working group and external review was undertaken to exhaustively examine each definition, plus additional extensive internal development, with decision making by collective opinion (consensus).
Results
A Terminology Report for the symptoms, signs, investigations, and diagnoses associated with PFM function and dysfunction, encompassing 185 separate definitions/descriptors, has been developed. It is clinically based with the most common assessment processes defined. Clarity and user‐friendliness have been key aims to make it interpretable by clinicians and researchers of different disciplines.
Conclusion
A consensus‐based Terminology Report for assessment of PFM function and dysfunction has been produced to aid clinical practice and be a stimulus for research.
Objectives
Experimental research suggests that legal defendants described as psychopathic are generally, although not uniformly, judged more negatively and punitively. Understanding the correlates of ...perceived psychopathy, regardless of exposure to mental health evidence, is an important step towards clarifying divergent findings.
Method
We conducted a quantitative synthesis of ten juror simulation studies (combined N = 2,980) examining the meta‐analytic association between perceived defendant psychopathy and various psychologically important and legally relevant outcomes.
Results
Perceiving someone as being more psychopathic was associated with viewing that defendant as more dangerous (r
W = 0.31) and evil (
r
W = 0.44). Moreover, perceptions of defendant psychopathy predicted greater support for more adverse consequences in terms of capital sentencing (
r
W = 0.22) and sentence length (
r
W = 0.27), although not perceived treatment amenability (
r
W = 0.09).
Conclusions
These findings highlight the importance of including ratings of perceived psychopathy in experimental designs to identify the circumstances under which psychopathy evidence might prejudicially impact case outcomes.
The notion that digital-screen engagement decreases adolescent well-being has become a recurring feature in public, political, and scientific conversation. The current level of psychological ...evidence, however, is far removed from the certainty voiced by many commentators. There is little clear-cut evidence that screen time decreases adolescent well-being, and most psychological results are based on single-country, exploratory studies that rely on inaccurate but popular self-report measures of digital-screen engagement. In this study, which encompassed three nationally representative large-scale data sets from Ireland, the United States, and the United Kingdom (N = 17,247 after data exclusions) and included time-use-diary measures of digital-screen engagement, we used both exploratory and confirmatory study designs to introduce methodological and analytical improvements to a growing psychological research area. We found little evidence for substantial negative associations between digital-screen engagement—measured throughout the day or particularly before bedtime—and adolescent well-being.
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