Novel methods of teaching psychiatry to medical and postgraduate students.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Global burden of mental illness remains at an all-time high and provision of timely good quality care is a challenge globally. Current methods of medical and post-graduate education in psychiatry worldwide have been inadequate in treating those with mental illness. Enormous gaps exist in provision of high-quality teaching, particularly in poorer countries with many having no access to ongoing teaching and training. RECENT FINDINGS: Technology and changes to curriculum design have transformed student experiences and highlighted the value of online learning. There are many models to consider from and we describe the development process for these, which also highlight why some can be superior to classroom-based learning. New innovations have significantly enhanced engagement and reach thereby bringing students across the globe into an interconnected community and putting them in touch with world experts. Although some of these options may be expensive, many can be made affordable and accessible. SUMMARY: It is possible to use innovations in online education to ensure high-quality teaching is available globally. A high touch model may be suitable when resources permit, and otherwise low touch scalable models provide options for increasing reach. Together, these models provide optimism for improving standards of global psychiatric training.

Mercury 4.0: from visualization to analysis, design and prediction.

The program Mercury, developed at the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre, was originally designed primarily as a crystal structure visualization tool. Over the years the fields and scientific communities of chemical crystallography and crystal engineering have developed to require more advanced structural analysis software. Mercury has evolved alongside these scientific communities and is now a powerful analysis, design and prediction platform which goes a lot further than simple structure visualization.

Simultaneous Antiferromagnetic Order and Spin-Glass-like Behavior in MnAsO(4).

A low-temperature time-of-flight neutron powder diffraction study of a simple new solid, MnAsO(4), in a sample also containing 20% Mn(2)As(2)O(7) has been performed. MnAsO(4) orders magnetically at 14.5(5) K, and the unusual antiferromagnetic structure below this temperature has been determined. Only half of the Mn(3+) spins are ordered, and the remaining "idle" spins show some spin-glass behavior evidenced by susceptibility measurements. The ordered moment is reduced to a value of 2.6 &mgr;(B) by frustration. It is not possible to determine which of the two crystallographically inequivalent Mn sublattices is magnetically ordered and which is idle. The antiferromagnetic structure of the minority phase Mn(2)As(2)O(7) which orders at 10.5(5) K has also been determined.