Teaching Medical Students About Kawasaki Disease: The Development and Evaluation of a Digital Educational Resource.

Introduction: The use of digital educational resources has gained widespread popularity across all disciplines in medical education; pediatrics being no exception. In this paper, we report how instructional design and multimedia principles were used to develop and evaluate an e-learning resource on Kawasaki Disease, which was primarily created as a revision aid for undergraduate medical students. Methods: The design and development of the resource was based upon the Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation (ADDIE) instructional model. A "People, Activities, Contexts and Technologies" (PACT) analysis was initially undertaken to identify learners' needs, and the 12 Principles of Multimedia Design informed the development of the resource. The evaluation strategy was informed by the Usability Evaluation Method for e-Learning Applications and focused on the instructional design parameters of navigation, visual design and intrinsic motivation to learn. Results and Conclusion: Feedback from the seven medical students who completed and evaluated the resource showed high levels of satisfaction. Students perceived it to be beneficial to their learning and indicated a preference for an interactive digital resource over traditional modes of learning, such as textbooks. However, as this was a small-scale evaluation, suggestions for further evaluation and how this may inform ongoing development of the resource are considered in this paper.

Immune and metabolic markers for identifying and investigating severe Coronavirus disease and Sepsis in children and young people (pSeP/COVID ChYP study): protocol for a prospective cohort study.

INTRODUCTION: Early recognition and appropriate management of paediatric sepsis are known to improve outcomes. A previous system's biology investigation of the systemic immune response in neonates to sepsis identified immune and metabolic markers that showed high accuracy for detecting bacterial infection. Further gene expression markers have also been reported previously in the paediatric age group for discriminating sepsis from control cases. More recently, specific gene signatures were identified to discriminate between COVID-19 and its associated inflammatory sequelae. Through the current prospective cohort study, we aim to evaluate immune and metabolic blood markers which discriminate between sepses (including COVID-19) from other acute illnesses in critically unwell children and young persons, up to 18 years of age. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: We describe a prospective cohort study for comparing the immune and metabolic whole-blood markers in patients with sepsis, COVID-19 and other illnesses. Clinical phenotyping and blood culture test results will provide a reference standard to evaluate the performance of blood markers from the research sample analysis. Serial sampling of whole blood (50 µL each) will be collected from children admitted to intensive care and with an acute illness to follow time dependent changes in biomarkers. An integrated lipidomics and RNASeq transcriptomics analyses will be conducted to evaluate immune-metabolic networks that discriminate sepsis and COVID-19 from other acute illnesses. This study received approval for deferred consent. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The study has received research ethics committee approval from the Yorkshire and Humber Leeds West Research Ethics Committee 2 (reference 20/YH/0214; IRAS reference 250612). Submission of study results for publication will involve making available all anonymised primary and processed data on public repository sites. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT04904523.

Growth of calcium phosphate on poling treated ferroelectric BaTiO3 ceramics.

Barium titanate (BaTiO3; BTO) is ferroelectric and piezoelectric after poling treatment. In this study, the bioactivity of BTO was investigated after a poling treatment by examining the formation of crystal growth on specimen surfaces in vitro. Negatively charged BTO surfaces showed calcium phosphate (Ca-P) crystal growth, while deposition of sodium chloride was observed on the positively charged BTO surfaces. After 30 days immersion in Eagle's MEM, the thickness of Ca-P crystal on negatively charged BTO surfaces increased to 0.8-0.9 microm. These data indicate that incorporating selectively polarized BTO on implant surfaces is a promising means for improving the bioactivity of implant materials.