Search

Background and objectives: As microbes are developing resistance to antibiotics, natural, botanical drugs or traditional herbal medicine are presently being studied with an eye of great curiosity and hope. Hence, complementary and alternative treatments for uncomplicated pelvic inflammatory disease (uPID) are explored for their efficacy. Therefore, this study determined the therapeutic efficacy and safety of Sesamum indicum Linn seeds with Rosa damascena Mill Oil in uPID with standard control. Additionally, we analyzed the data with machine learning. Materials and methods: We included 60 participants in a double-blind, doubledummy, randomized standard-controlled study. Participants in the Sesame and Rose oil group (SR group) (n = 30) received 14 days course of black sesame powder (5 gm) mixed with rose oil (10 mL) per vaginum at bedtime once daily plus placebo capsules orally. The standard group (SC), received doxycycline 100 mg twice and metronidazole 400 mg thrice orally plus placebo per vaginum for the same duration. The primary outcome was a clinical cure at post-intervention for visual analogue scale (VAS) for lower abdominal pain (LAP), and McCormack pain scale (McPS) for abdominal-pelvic tenderness. The secondary outcome included white blood cells (WBC) cells in the vaginal wet mount test, safety profile, and health-related quality of life assessed by SF-12. In addition, we used AdaBoost (AB), Naïve Bayes (NB), and Decision Tree (DT) classifiers in this study to analyze the experimental data. Results: The clinical cure for LAP and McPS in the SR vs SC group was 82.85% vs 81.48% and 83.85% vs 81.60% on Day 15 respectively. On Day 15, pus cells less than 10 in the SR vs SC group were 86.6% vs 76.6% respectively. No adverse effects were reported in both groups. The improvement in total SF-12 score on Day 30 for the SR vs SC group was 82.79% vs 80.04% respectively. In addition, our Naive Bayes classifier based on the leave-one-out model achieved the maximum accuracy (68.30%) for the classification of both groups of uPID. Conclusion: We concluded that the SR group is cost-effective, safer, and efficacious for curing uPID. Proposed alternative treatment (test drug) could be a substitute of standard drug used for Female genital tract infections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on a study in which the authors served as literacy teachers-researchers across 4 months with a group of six youths at a school on the Caribbean island of Sint Maarten. We present a case of one student-participant, asking, how did the youth respond to an "Inquiry into Literate Lives" unit and an independent reading unit that were guided by a sociocultural approach to literacy instruction? Qualitative data include interviews, classroom observations, and documents and artifacts. Theories of literacy as practice, postcolonialism/decolonization, and globalization guide analysis. Findings include that the youth: (1) engaged in the "Literate Lives" unit in ways that enabled her to author her identity to herself and others in the classroom community as a highly multiliterate person across local and global contexts; (2) used the instructional units to generate an identity shift to herself, her peers, and teachers as a "serious person," which included being seen as a serious student; and (3) began her own process of decolonization by exercising choice, agency, and resistance pertaining to the literacy instruction we implemented. We conclude by conceptualizing how decolonizing literacy pedagogies may strengthen student agency and identity, thus advancing the goals of sociocultural approaches to literacy instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the importance of text introductions in promoting critical thinking in literacy education. Topics include the use of diverse texts to foster Historically Responsive Literacy, the role of teachers as curriculum innovators, and the significance of guiding students toward critical perspectives during text interactions.

This study investigated the curriculum development practices of two critical elementary educators who used their daily read-aloud time to challenge the dominant narrative that the United States is equitable and just. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review of literacy education scholarship examines the ways that children's literature is used as a resource within literacy methods courses in the preparation of preservice teachers (PTs) as transformative intellectuals. The research indicates that the use of children's literature in literacy methods courses has served two distinct purposes: (a) to engage PTs in learning literacy instructional practices and (b) to engage PTs in building sociocultural knowledge and learning transformative (e.g., culturally relevant) pedagogies. This review is framed by Giroux's call for educators to disrupt technocratic approaches to instruction. The findings emphasize the importance of using children's literature with PTs to broaden PTs' understandings of their future student's lives, so they might engage in transformative pedagogies as future K-12 literacy educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the call for teachers to address the demographic imperative has existed for decades, recently, there has been an uptake of frameworks of multicultural education, culturally responsive pedagogies, critical literacy, and others into literacy teacher preparation. In this study, we examine connections that pre-service teachers make as a result of experiences focused on sociocultural knowledge and literacy and barriers they face in building these connections. Areas of connection include examining one's past; recognizing students' lives and resources in literacy teaching; considering race, racism, and students' racial identity; drawing on multilingualism as a strength of students for literacy learning; and engaging actively and inquiring into literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many teacher education programs provide teachers with opportunities to read, write, and discuss critical pedagogy, with the hope that such work will allow them to develop more equitable and just teaching practices. Yet, there often remains a gap between the theoretical discussions of teaching and learning in teacher education classrooms and the pedagogical practice in those teachers' K-12 classrooms. In this study, we examine how one teacher, Gabriela, used narratives to make connections between her third-grade classroom and the critical concepts she was exploring in a teacher education course. Embedded within an ethnographic case study of an inservice teacher education program, we used a discourse analytic approach to examine both the sociocultural knowledge and the identities Gabriela constructed through narrative as she engaged with issues of language, race, and power within the course. We consider some of the affordances of narrative in this space, including how it allowed Gabriela to integrate her understandings of multiple course topics, to position herself in multiple ways as a teacher, and to disrupt her existing understandings of race and racism in the classroom. This analysis suggests that critically oriented teacher education programs might more intentionally make space for narrative to connect critical theory and pedagogical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wealth of structural data on theurapeutic targets in complex with monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and advances in molecular modeling algorithms present exciting opportunities in the field of novel biologic design. Interleukin 23 (IL23), a well-known drug target for autoimmune diseases, in complex with mAb 7G10 offers prospect to design potent lead antibodies by traversing the complete epitope-paratope interface. Herein, key interactions aiding antibody-based neutralization in IL23-7G10 complex are resolute through PyMOL, LigPlot+, Antibody i-Patch, DiscoTope and FoldX. Six amino acids Ser31, Val33, Asn55, Lys59 in heavy chain and His34, Ser93 in light chain are subjected to in silico mutagenesis with residues Met, Trp, Ile, Leu and Arg. A set of 431 mutant macromolecules are outlined. Binding affinities of these molecules with IL23 are estimated through protein-protein docking by employing ZDOCK, ClusPro and RosettaDock. Subsequently, the macromolecules revealed comparable result with 7G10 are cross validated through binding free-energy calculations by applying Molecular Mechanics/Poisson Boltzman Surface Area method in CHARMM. Thirty nine designed theoretical antibodies showed improved outcome in all evaluations; from these, top 10 molecules showed at least nine unit better binding affinity compared to the known mAb. These molecules have the potential to act as lead antibodies. Subsequent molecular dynamics simulations too favored prospective of best ranked molecule to have therapeutic implications in autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Abbreviations: IL23: interleukin 23; IL17: interleukin17; Ab: antibody; Ag: antigen; mAbs: monoclonal antibodies; STAT3: signal transducer and activator of transcription 3; STAT4: signal transducer and activator of transcription 4; PDB: protein databank; MM/PBSA: molecular mechanics Poisson-Boltzmann surface area; Ag-Ab: antigen- antibody complex; SPC/E: extended simple point charge; SD: steepest descents; PME: particle mesh ewald; dG: binding free energies; Fv: variable fragment [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the role of reflection in teacher preparation, specifically within a mentoring relationship between cooperating and preservice teacher. We report findings from a case analysis of this pair who engaged in problem-posing dialogue within pre- and post-conferences around practice over one year of their work together in an elementary-level classroom. The context is an innovative programme in which cooperating teachers pursue their Master’s degree while undergraduates (preservice teachers) complete their elementary education degrees. Our analysis of talk about teaching during six coaching cycles as well as supporting documents illustrates how Jane’s mentoring supported reflective practices and disrupted a notion of a field experience as simply a place to ‘practice’ pedagogical knowledge with corrective feedback. Additionally, we explore the tensions in this approach to mentoring. This case study has implications for teacher educators who seek to bolster teacher preparation through the support of mentoring relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The prevalence of cardiomyopathy from metabolic stress has increased dramatically; however, its molecular mechanisms remain elusive. Here, we show that extracellular signal-regulated protein kinase 5 (Erk5) is lost in the hearts of obese/diabetic animal models and that cardiac-specific deletion of Erk5 in mice (Erk5-CKO) leads to dampened cardiac contractility and mitochondrial abnormalities with repressed fuel oxidation and oxidative damage upon high fat diet (HFD). Erk5 regulation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ co-activator-1α (Pgc-1α) is critical for cardiac mitochondrial functions. More specifically, we show that Gp91phox activation of calpain-1 degrades Erk5 in free fatty acid (FFA)-stressed cardiomyocytes, whereas the prevention of Erk5 loss by blocking Gp91phox or calpain-1 rescues mitochondrial functions. Similarly, adeno-associated virus 9 (AAV9)-mediated restoration of Erk5 expression in Erk5-CKO hearts prevents cardiomyopathy. These findings suggest that maintaining Erk5 integrity has therapeutic potential for treating metabolic stress-induced cardiomyopathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]