A simple and inexpensive enteric-coated capsule for delivery of acid-labile macromolecules to the small intestine

Understanding the ecology of the gastrointestinal tract and the impact of the contents on the host mucosa is emerging as an important area for defining both wellness and susceptibility to disease. Targeted delivery of drugs to treat specific small intestinal disorders such as small bowel bacterial overgrowth and targeting molecules to interrogate or to deliver vaccines to the remote regions of the small intestine has proven difficult. There is an unmet need for methodologies to release probes/drugs to remote regions of the gastrointestinal tract in furthering our understanding of gut health and pathogenesis. In order to address this concern, we need to know how the regional delivery of a surrogate labeled test compound is handled and in turn, if delivered locally as a liquid or powder, the dynamics of its subsequent handling and metabolism. In the studies we report on in this paper, we chose ¹³C sodium acetate (¹³C-acetate), which is a stable isotope probe that once absorbed in the small intestine can be readily measured non-invasively by collection and analysis of ¹³CO₂ in the breath. This would provide information of gastric emptying rates and an indication of the site of release and absorptive capacity. In a series of in vitro and in vivo pig experiments, we assessed the enteric-protective properties of a commercially available polymer EUDRAGIT®L100-55 on gelatin capsules and also on DRcaps®. Test results demonstrated that DRcaps®coated with EUDRAGIT®L100-55 possessed enhanced enteric-protective properties, particularly in vivo. These studies add to the body of knowledge regarding gastric emptying in pigs and also begin the process of gathering specifications for the design of a simple and cost-effective enteric-coated capsule for delivery of acid-labile macromolecules to the small intestine.     

Colonizing species: a probe into evolution via the organism

By concentrating upon the ecobehavioural components of the phenotype, colonizing species provide a probe into evolution via the organism. Genetic studies of colonists are being developed to reconcile contrasting approaches based upon the gene and the organism as units of natural selection, and to advance understanding of evolutionary transitions.     

Maternal Depressive Symptoms During the Pre- and Postnatal Periods and Infant Attention to Emotional Faces

We examined how infants’ attentional disengagement from happy, fearful, neutral, and phase-scrambled faces at 8 months, as assessed by eye tracking, is associated with trajectories of maternal depressive symptoms from early pregnancy to 6 months postpartum (decreasing n = 48, increasing n = 34, and consistently low symptom levels n = 280). The sample (mother–infant dyads belonging to a larger FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study) was collected between 5/2013–6/2016. The overall disengagement probability from faces to distractors was not related to maternal depressive symptoms, but fear bias was heightened in infants whose mothers reported decreasing or increasing depressive symptoms. Exacerbated attention to fearful faces in infants of mothers with depressive symptoms may be independent of the timing of the symptoms in the pre- and postnatal stages.     

Intelligent Job Aids For Professionals: Lessons Learned From Medicine

With the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, computer science, and information management seen today, it is becoming increasingly feasible to improve the performance of professional white collar workers with intelligent job aids (i.e., expert systems). Already, performance technologists are advocating and predicting their wide spread adoption. Nevertheless, while such high tech performance interventions are relatively new to business, they have existed in medical research labs and clinics for nearly 20 years. Because of the almost ideal match between medical decision making and the emergent capabilities of knowledge engineering, artificial intelligence researchers made medicine one of their major testing grounds. In this article, I summarize the use of intelligent job aids in medicine as a source of insights for anticipating how they can and should be used by professionals in other areas. These insights include three generalizations which form the conclusion of the paper: (a) intelligent job aids must address a real need, (b) they must be compatible with professionals' larger “performance systems,” and (c) the adoption of intelligent job aids will depend as much on future trends as on the professionals' needs or performance systems.     

Serving,learning and mentoring through the Big Brothers Big Sisters Program

This study describes the collaborative partnership between a Big Brothers Big Sisters organization, an elementary school and the College of Education at a public university. The partnership utilized a mentoring system consisting of elementary students, college students, elementary teachers and university faculty. Benefits of the various stakeholders are discussed.     

The lost history of American veterinary medicine: the need for preservation

Objective:

The objective of this study was to survey holdings of ephemeral veterinary literature.

Methods:

WorldCat OCLC catalog, the Library of Congress online catalog, the US National Agricultural Library online catalog, and the Dictionary Catalog of the National Agricultural Library, 1862–1965, were used to determine current library holdings of materials published by veterinary schools that are no longer in existence and veterinary associations that are defunct, veterinary supply catalogs, veterinary house organs, patent medicine publications, and veterinary advertisements. Individual library catalogs were also consulted. In addition, the practice of removing advertisements from bound volumes was examined.

Results:

There are many gaps in the cataloged library holdings of primary source materials relating to the history of the education of veterinarians in the United States.

Conclusions:

A proactive action plan needs to be designed and activated to locate, catalog, and preserve this primary source material of veterinary medicine for posterity.

Highlights

• Veterinary libraries have failed to catalog or retain important primary veterinary source materials.
• Several types of veterinary gray literature, with individual pieces scattered across multiple kinds of libraries, are at high risk for loss from the historical record.

Implications

• Academic, veterinary, medical, and special librarians should be involved in efforts to preserve their institutional, local, and state materials; to identify and locate hidden collections of materials, both in uncataloged collections and in the hands of private collectors; and to mentor new librarians about their role in preserving the history of medicine.
• The results of this survey of primary source materials documenting US veterinary medical education suggest the need for a parallel study of medical education and other health professions education.
• The time is now, not only to digitize important scarce veterinary materials for both preservation and improved access, but also to archive present day institutional output (paper and electronic).

     

Classroom-based science research at the introductory level: changes in career choices and attitude

Our study, focused on classroom-based research at the introductory level and using the Phage Genomics course as the model, shows evidence that first-year students doing research learn the process of science as well as how scientists practice science. A preliminary but notable outcome of our work, which is based on a small sample, is the change in student interest in considering different career choices such as graduate education and science in general. This is particularly notable, as previous research has described research internships as clarifying or confirming rather than changing undergraduates' decisions to pursue graduate education. We hypothesize that our results differ from previous studies of the impact of engaging in research because the students in our study are still in the early stages of their undergraduate careers. Our work builds upon the classroom-based research movement and should be viewed as encouraging to the Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education movement advocated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Science Foundation, and other undergraduate education stakeholders.     

The “Most Thrilling Invention Since the Radio Itself!”: The Evolution of the Radio Remote Control in the 1920s and 1930s

This article examines the early history of the media remote control, focusing on the technical development of radio remotes in the 1920s and 1930s. Using a co-evolutionary model of technical change, it considers the technical and social conditions that served as the foundation for the first radio remotes. Drawing on patent records, it then examines the development, firstly, of wired radio remotes and, secondly, of wireless radio remotes, offering evidence of a direct patent-based link between the latter and the earliest successful wireless television remote of the 1950s.     

Intergenerational transmission of educational disadvantage: Education progression of children of care leavers compared to a general population sample

There is persistent evidence showing that care leavers tend to have lower educational outcomes compared to their peers. There is, however, less knowledge of whether this educational disadvantage transfers to the second generation. This study adopts a developmental contextual life-course approach to examine: (a) the extent of educational inequality of children of care leavers from school entry to public examinations at age 16; (b) the relative role of different psychosocial family resources as predictors of educational attainment; and (c) the role of early school readiness assessments as predictors of later educational attainment. Drawing on data collected from families living in England at the first sweep of the nationally representative UK Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) (n = 11,514), the findings suggest intergenerational transmission of educational disadvantage among children of care leavers (n = 287), which is manifest in a direct assessment of school readiness (age 3), at the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) (age 5) and in General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) attainment (age 16). However, once inequalities in family socio-economic background or area deprivation and housing are controlled for, children of care leavers perform comparably in their educational progression to those whose mothers had no experience of being in care (n = 11,227). Moreover, the findings highlight the significance of early school readiness assessments in predicting later educational attainment for the whole sample. Findings are discussed regarding their implications for policy, in particular the need to address educational inequality for children in care, area allocation and housing that is offered to care leavers, and the general importance of early interventions.