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The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of web based curriculum on high school students’ creativity. The method used in this study was semi-experimental, along with a pre-post test design with the control group. In this study, the statistical population consists of all the girl students in the first level of high school in Birjand. The sample group included 50 students (25 in the control group and 25 in the experimental group) were chosen by an accessible sampling method. Abedi creativity questionnaire was used to collect the data. The score difference of pre-post test of these groups was analyzed by t-test. The results showed that the influence of web based curriculum on the creativity of the experimental group. Considering the four creativity factors, the effect of web based curriculum on fluency, initiative, flexibility and elaboration was meaningful.

The climate has drastically changed over the past two decades. Rising temperatures and climate change may lead to increased evapotranspiration, specifically soil evaporation, causing water to evaporate and salt to accumulate in the soil, resulting in increased soil salinity. As a result, there is a need to evaluate methods for predicting and monitoring the effects of salinity on crop growth and production through rapid screening. Our study was conducted on 20 wheat genotypes, 10 sensitive and 10 tolerant, exposed to two salinity levels (90 and 120 mM NaCl) with the control under greenhouse conditions. Our results revealed significant differences in the genotypes' response to salinity. Salt stress decreased chlorophyll index in sensitive genotypes but increased chlorophyll a and carotenoids in tolerant genotypes at 90 mM. Salt stress also increased protein, proline, lipoxygenase, and reactive thiobarbituric acid levels in all wheat genotypes. The study suggests that plant photosynthetic efficiency is a reliable, non-destructive biomarker for determining the salt tolerance of wheat genotypes, while other biochemical traits are destructive and time-consuming and therefore not suitable for rapid screening., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Masarmi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The medical curriculum consists of basic pre-clinical and clinical parts. Basic sciences are required for diagnostic and clinical reasoning but students do not have a positive attitude toward basic sciences, mostly because of the lack of clinical relevancy. Basic sciences have many applications in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of a broad range of diseases but do not attract the attention of medical students. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of clinical experts' opinions on the attitude of medical students toward basic sciences, particularly immunology. The opinion of six clinical specialists in different fields was recorded in a video clip, presenting the application of basic sciences and immunology in their routine practice. The attitude of second-year medical students toward the basic science courses was evaluated by a questionnaire containing four ranking questions and one short answer. The video clip was streamed and after that, students were answering the same questions. In total, 188 students including 129 s-year students (M/F ratio: 0.92) and 59 third-year students M/F ratio: 0.90) participated in the study. For all ranking questions, the mean score was significantly increased after watching the interviews' film streaming. Before watching the video clip, only 14.9% of students considered immunology as an important course but after that, the percentage significantly increased to 58.5% ( P  < 0.001). The results of this study showed that knowing clinical specialists' opinions about basic sciences significantly improved the attitude of students toward basic science courses, in particular immunology., Competing Interests: Conflict of InterestThe authors declare no competing interests., (© The Author(s) under exclusive licence to International Association of Medical Science Educators 2023, Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.)

Bloodstream infections (BSIs) from oral organisms are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) recipients. There are no proven strategies to decrease BSIs from oral organisms. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of daily xylitol wipes in improving oral health, decreasing BSI from oral organisms, and modulating the oral microbiome in pediatric HSCT recipients. This was a single-center 1:1 randomized controlled trial in pediatric HSCT recipients age >2 years. Age-matched healthy children were enrolled to compare the oral microbiome. The oral hygiene standard of care (SOC) group continued to receive the standard oral hygiene regimen. The xylitol group received daily oral xylitol wipes (with .7 g xylitol) in addition to the SOC. The intervention started from the beginning of the transplantation chemotherapy regimen and extended to 28 days following transplantation. The primary outcome was oral health at interval time points, and secondary outcomes included BSIs from oral organisms in the first 30 days following transplantation, oral microbiome abundance, and diversity and oral pathogenic organism abundance. The study was closed early due to efficacy after an interim analysis of the first 30 HSCT recipients was performed (SOC group, n = 16; xylitol group, n = 14). The xylitol group had a significantly lower rate of gingivitis at days 7, 14, and 28 following transplantation (P = .031, .0039, and .0005, respectively); oral plaque at days 7 and 14 (P = .045 and .0023, respectively); and oral ulcers >10 mm at day 14 (P = .049) compared with the SOC group. The xylitol group had no BSI from oral organisms compared with the SOC group, which had 4 (P = .04). The xylitol group had significantly lower abundance of potential BSI pathogens, such as Staphylococcus aureus (P = .036), Klebsiella pneumoniae (P = .033), and Streptococcus spp (P = .011) at the day after transplantation compared with the SOC group. Healthy children and young adults had significantly increased oral microbiome diversity compared with all HSCT recipients (P < .001). The addition of xylitol to standard oral care significantly improves oral health, decreases BSI from oral organisms, and decreases the abundance of pathogenic oral organisms in pediatric and young adult HSCT recipients., (Copyright © 2020 American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: Exposure to diazinon can trigger acute and chronic toxicity and significantly induces DNA damage and proapoptotic effects in different human cells. Due to the significance of probiotic bacteria antitoxin effect, this study aimed to investigate the effect of Lactobacillus casei on diazinon (DZN) cytotoxicity in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) in vitro., Methods: The cytotoxicity assessments were performed by MTT (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) test, DAPI (4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole) staining and flow cytometric methodologies., Results: Cytotoxic assessments through flow cytometry/ DAPI staining demonstrated that apoptosis is the main cytotoxic mechanism of diazinon in HUVEC cells and L. casei could decrease the diazinon cytotoxic effects on toxicants., Conclusion: the screen of total bacterial secreted metabolites can be considered as a wealthy source to find the new active compounds to introduce as reducing agricultural remained pesticide cytotoxicity effects on the human food chain.

Objectives: To test the difference in symptoms of (1) depression, (2) health anxiety, and (3) catastrophic thinking between 1 and 6 weeks after injury to the radius., Patients and Methods: In total, 69 adult patients with a minimally displaced radial head or distal radius fracture were prospectively enrolled. After diagnosis, we recorded demographic variables, 11-point ordinal numerical pain score, and agreement with "no pain, no gain"; Disabilities of the Arms, Shoulder, and Hand (DASH) questionnaire; Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale; the Whiteley Index; and the Pain Catastrophizing Scale. In total, 55 patients (80%) returned after 1 month to reevaluate pain, Disabilities of the Arms, Shoulder, and Hand, Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression, Whiteley Index, and Pain Catastrophizing Scale scores., Results: Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scores decreased by an average of 5 ± 9 points (p < 0.001), and Pain Catastrophizing Scale scores decreased by 2 ± 6 points (p = 0.0041). In multivariable analysis, decrease in Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression was associated with not having an additional pain condition, more days elapsed between injury and final evaluation, and stronger agreement with "no pain, no gain" (adjusted R(2) = 0.26, p = 0.0006). An increase in Whiteley scores was associated with fewer years of education (R = -0.34, p = 0.012). Changes in Pain Catastrophizing Scale scores were associated with marital status (single -1.7 ± 4.3 vs married -4.6 ± 6.0 vs separated 0.55 ± 6.2, p = 0.040)., Conclusions: Symptoms of depression and catastrophic thinking, but not health anxiety, improved during recovery after injury. If psychologic measures are used as a screening tool to predict outcome after treatment, one should account for a patient's disease phase., Level of Evidence: Prognostic level I., (Copyright © 2015 The Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Fusarium head blight, predominantly caused by Fusarium graminearum (Schwabe) in North America, is a destructive disease that poses a serious threat to wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) production around the world. cDNA microarrays consisting of wheat ESTs derived from a wheat - F. graminearum interaction suppressive subtractive hybridization library were used to investigate QTL-specific differential gene expression between the resistant Chinese cultivar Sumai-3 and two susceptible near isogenic lines (NILs) following inoculation with F. graminearum. Stringent conditions were employed to reduce the false discovery rate. A total of 25 wheat unigenes were found to express differentially in response to F. graminearum infection. Genes encoding pathogenesis-related (PR) proteins such as beta-1,3-glucanase (PR-2), wheatwins (PR-4), and thaumatin-like proteins (PR-5) showed a significant upregulation in genotypes having the Sumai-3 3BS region. For these three genes, the gene activity was significantly less in the genotype (NIL-3) lacking the Sumai-3 3BS segment. Significant upregulation of phenylalanine ammonia-lyase was detected only in the resistant Sumai-3, indicating the importance of both the 2AL and 3BS regions in the activation of effective defense responses to infection by F. graminearum. Differences in gene expression between the resistant Sumai-3 and the susceptible NILs were found to be mainly quantitative in nature.

A wheat cDNA microarray consisting of 5739 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) was used to investigate the transcriptome patterns of the glume, lemma, palea, anther, ovary and rachis dissected from infected wheat spikes after inoculation with the fungus Fusarium graminearum, the causal agent of fusarium head blight (FHB) disease. Stringent conditions were employed to reduce the false discovery rate. The significance analysis of microarrays (SAM) was used to identify transcripts that showed a differential response between fungal-challenged vs. control plants. To verify the microarray data, Northern blot analysis was carried out on randomly selected up-regulated clones. We observed 185 (3.2%) up-regulated and 16 (0.28%) down-regulated ESTs in the six organs constituting the wheat spike. Many up-regulated ESTs (46.67%) showed no homology with sequences of known functions, whereas others showed homology with genes involved in defence and stress responses, the oxidative burst of H(2)O(2), regulatory functions, protein synthesis and the phenylpropanoid pathway. The monitoring of genes in specific organs avoided the averaging of expression values over multiple organs that occurs when using data from the whole spike. Our data allowed us to uncover new up-regulated genes expressed in specific organs. The study revealed that each organ had a defined and distinctive transcriptome pattern in response to F. graminearum infection.