The Acinetobacter baumannii website (Ab-web): a multidisciplinary knowledge hub, communication platform, and workspace.

Acinetobacter baumannii is a Gram-negative bacterium increasingly implicated in hospital-acquired infections and outbreaks. Effective prevention and control of such infections are commonly challenged by the frequent emergence of multidrug-resistant strains. Here we introduce Ab-web (https://www.acinetobacterbaumannii.no), the first online platform for sharing expertise on A. baumannii. Ab-web is a species-centric knowledge hub, initially with 10 articles organized into two main sections, 'Overview' and 'Topics', and three themes, 'epidemiology', 'antibiotic resistance', and 'virulence'. The 'workspace' section provides a spot for colleagues to collaborate, build, and manage joint projects. Ab-web is a community-driven initiative amenable to constructive feedback and new ideas.

The HOPE study: evaluating the impact of an online educational resource for heavy menstrual bleeding on the patient-physician dynamic.

The Heavy menstrual bleeding: Evidence-based Learning for best Practice (HELP) Group developed an educational website about heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB). The "HMB improving Outcomes with Patient counseling and Education" (HOPE) project examined the website's impact on women's knowledge, confidence, and consultations with healthcare providers (HCPs). HOPE was a quantitative online survey of gynecologists and women with HMB in Brazil. After an initial consultation, patients had unlimited access to the website and completed a survey. HCPs also completed a survey about the sconsultation. After a second consultation, HCPs and patients completed another survey. HCP surveys assessed their perception of patients' awareness, understanding, and willingness to discuss HMB. Patient surveys assessed their knowledge, experience, and confidence in discussing HMB. Forty HCPs recruited 400 women with HMB. Based on HCP perceptions at the first consultation, 18 percent of patients had "good knowledge" or "very good knowledge" of HMB, increasing to 69 percent after patients had visited the website. Before and after visiting the website, 34 percent and 69 percent of patients, respectively, regarded their HMB knowledge as "goo.d" Additionally, 17 percent of women reported their anxiety as "highest" during the first consultation; this decreased to 7 percent during the second consultation. After visiting the HELP website, patients' knowledge of HMB improved and they were less anxious.

ProteomicsML: An Online Platform for Community-Curated Data sets and Tutorials for Machine Learning in Proteomics.

Data set acquisition and curation are often the most difficult and time-consuming parts of a machine learning endeavor. This is especially true for proteomics-based liquid chromatography (LC) coupled to mass spectrometry (MS) data sets, due to the high levels of data reduction that occur between raw data and machine learning-ready data. Since predictive proteomics is an emerging field, when predicting peptide behavior in LC-MS setups, each lab often uses unique and complex data processing pipelines in order to maximize performance, at the cost of accessibility and reproducibility. For this reason we introduce ProteomicsML, an online resource for proteomics-based data sets and tutorials across most of the currently explored physicochemical peptide properties. This community-driven resource makes it simple to access data in easy-to-process formats, and contains easy-to-follow tutorials that allow new users to interact with even the most advanced algorithms in the field. ProteomicsML provides data sets that are useful for comparing state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms, as well as providing introductory material for teachers and newcomers to the field alike. The platform is freely available at https://www.proteomicsml.org/, and we welcome the entire proteomics community to contribute to the project at https://github.com/ProteomicsML/ProteomicsML.

Hue dental students' use and perception of an online dental learning platform: A pilot study.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES: Online educational materials are growing in use, and dental students worldwide can benefit from higher quality and more accessible online supplemental resources. This study was created to evaluate the learning resources non-English speaking dental students desire and to pilot My Dental Key (MDK), an English, evidence-based, online dental educational platform. METHODS: Third to sixth year dental students at the Hue University of Medicine and Pharmacy were asked to pilot MDK over a 5-week period and were invited to answer three surveys throughout the study. A preliminary survey was given to gauge the participants' (n = 209) preferences regarding the use of English-based dental educational resources. Participants (n = 58) completed a presurvey prior to accessing MDK. After the 5-week period, participants (n = 38) were given a postsurvey to evaluate the platform's effectiveness as a supplemental educational resource. RESULTS: Overall, we found that: (1) students desire credible online supplemental resources in addition to current resources provided by their school, (2) the multimodal content that MDK provides is a strength that bridges language barriers (3) participants perceived that the content on MDK would help them in class and when treating patients. CONCLUSIONS: Improving the quality of online supplemental dental resources will have the capability to progress the current educational landscape, and further resources should be created to best serve the global dental community.

An integrated virtual pathology education platform developed using Microsoft Power Apps and Microsoft Teams.

The transition towards digital pathology and an extensive selection of video conferencing platforms have helped provide continuity to education even during the COVID-19 pandemic. Innovative approaches for pathology education, will likely persist beyond the pandemic, as they have powerful didactic potential. While there is a wide selection of software for use as educational tools, an environment to access all resources with ease is clearly lacking. In this technical note, we highlight our customized educational applications built using a low-code approach. Our applications, developed with Microsoft Power Apps, serve both educational and examination purposes and are launched using Microsoft Teams. Building applications using a low-code approach has made our applications very specific to our use and enabled daily distanced education. Combined with existing features on Teams, such as file sharing, meeting scheduling, and messaging, the applications serve as a unique and customizable pathology educational platform.

The influence of parents' perception on online education and training brand recognition.

At present, the academic education of Chinese students is basically public education, but the quality training is mainly handed over to the market for training. Therefore, China's online education and training institutions have gradually developed under this demand. With the improvement of people's living standards, families have higher and higher requirements for children's education, expecting that children can be well improved in physical, mental and psychological aspects, and hoping that they will have their own advantages in the future competition. Therefore, this paper studies the influence of parents' perception on the brand recognition of online education and training. Through the analysis of dance online training institutions, the research shows that among the three categories, teachers' Graduation schools account for the highest proportion, with an average proportion of 47.07%, followed by teachers' grade certificates, with a proportion of 32.29%, and teachers' competition scores of 25.57%. Therefore, in the process of operation, online dance training institutions should meet the needs of parents to understand the professional level of teachers. Improve the service system of training institutions, improve the parent brand recognition and the number of customers of training institutions, further improve online education and training institutions, and provide them with improvement suggestions and measures for reference.

Perspective of Teachers and Students towards the Education Process during COVID-19 in Romanian Universities.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created important changes in all areas, highlighting many vulnerabilities, but also opportunities based on the use of technology. This paper aims to provide an overview of the online educational process from two perspectives-that of students and that of professors from Romanian universities. Data were collected from 844 students from Romanian universities disregarding the area of study. To achieve the main goal of this paper, both qualitative (in-depth interviews) and quantitative methods (surveys) were used, the data being processed using the SPSS Statistical software. The results of this paper highlight the discrepancy between the perspectives of the two parties directly involved in the university educational process. The study shows that the pandemic forced both stakeholders to work harder than before, which negatively affected the way the educational process unfolded, the pleasure of the teaching/learning process, the level of enthusiasm, and sometimes even the academic results. The final conclusions of this paper also highlight the need to make financial investments for the acquisition of licenses to create virtual animations or simulations, as well as for training teachers in their use. Research also indicates that to maintain students' attention in class, especially online, teachers should use new teaching strategies, such as the use of debates and brainstorming sessions.

PPG EduKit: An Adjustable Photoplethysmography Evaluation System for Educational Activities.

The grown interest in healthcare applications has made biomedical engineering one of the fastest growing disciplines in recent years. Photoplethysmography (PPG) has gained popularity in recent years due to its versatility for noninvasive monitoring of vital signs such as heart rate, respiratory rate, blood oxygen saturation and blood pressure. In this work, an adjustable PPG-based educational device called PPG EduKit, which aims to facilitate the learning of the PPG technology for a wide range of engineering and medical disciplines is proposed. Through the use of this educational platform, the PPG signal can be understood, modified and implemented along with the extraction of its relevant physiological information from a didactic, intuitive and practical way. The PPG Edukit is evaluated for the extraction of physiological parameters such as heart rate and blood oxygen level, demonstrating how its features contribute to engineering and medical students to assimilate technical concepts in electrical circuits, biomedical instrumentation, and human physiology.

Establishing Validity of a Comprehensive Hand Surgical Training and Educational Platform (STEP).

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to develop and perform the initial validation for the Surgical Training and Educational Platform (STEP), a cost-effective psychomotor training and assessment instrument designed to teach and evaluate fundamental skills considered critical to competency in hand surgery. METHODS: An American Society for Surgery of the Hand (ASSH) taskforce of 13 board-certified hand surgeons developed 8 skills considered fundamental to competency in hand surgery including: (1) lag screw fixation of an oblique fracture, (2) depth of plunge during bicortical drilling, (3) central axis scaphoid fixation, (4) phalangeal fracture pinning, (5) flexor tendon repair, (6) microsurgical suturing, (7) full-thickness skin graft harvest, and (8) wrist arthroscopy. The tasks were developed from commercially available, nonclinical supplies at low cost. The startup cost for the entire system was less than $600 USD, with a cost-per-trainee-assessment of approximately $25 USD. After the tasks were finalized, 2 examiners traveled to 8 sites around the country to evaluate 93 surgeons, including 57 board-certified hand surgeons and 36 first-year orthopedic and plastic surgical residents. Scoring criteria for each task were based on a combination of time and clinically relevant quality metrics. RESULTS: Board-certified hand surgeons significantly outperformed surgical trainees on all 8 tasks, demonstrating that the STEP appropriately differentiates the skill level of expert and novice hand surgeons. CONCLUSIONS: The STEP is an effective simulator that encompasses a wide range of fundamental psychomotor skills considered critical to competency in hand surgery. Although the STEP tasks are a valuable surgical training tool, further work is required to evaluate and refine the scoring system prior to using it as a critical evaluation of performance. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: The STEP simulator is a valuable, validated instrument for resident and fellow education and evaluation in hand surgery outside of the operating room.

Improving Scientific Writing Skills and Publishing Capacity by Developing University-Based Editing System and Writing Programs.

Scholarly article writing and publishing in international peer-reviewed journals can become an overwhelming task for many medical, nursing, and healthcare professionals in a university setting, especially in countries whose native language is not English. To help improve their scientific writing skills and publishing capacity, a university-based editing system and writing programs can be developed as educational platforms. These are delivered by a team of specialist editors composed of tenured faculty members who have a strong medical background and extensive experience in teaching courses on medical research, editing, writing, and publishing. For the editing system, the specialist editors provide comprehensive editing, personalized consultation, full editorial support after peer review, guidance with online submissions/resubmissions, and detailed editorial review at different stages of the manuscript writing. In addition, the specialist editors can develop writing programs such as medical writing and editing internships, academic courses in medical writing or research study designs and reporting standards, special interactive lectures and sessions on predatory publishing, seminars on updated editorial guidance of global editorial associations, academic visits on medical writing and editing, medical writing mentoring program, networking programs in scholarly communication, and publication resources in medical writing and scholarly publishing. These editing system and writing programs can serve as integrated platforms for improving scientific writing skills and publishing capacity by providing continuing education in medical writing, editing, publishing, and publication ethics.

Improving Scientific Writing Skills and Publishing Capacity by Developing University-Based Editing System and Writing Programs

Scholarly article writing and publishing in international peer-reviewed journals can become an overwhelming task for many medical, nursing, and healthcare professionals in a university setting, especially in countries whose native language is not English. To help improve their scientific writing skills and publishing capacity, a university-based editing system and writing programs can be developed as educational platforms. These are delivered by a team of specialist editors composed of tenured faculty members who have a strong medical background and extensive experience in teaching courses on medical research, editing, writing, and publishing. For the editing system, the specialist editors provide comprehensive editing, personalized consultation, full editorial support after peer review, guidance with online submissions/resubmissions, and detailed editorial review at different stages of the manuscript writing. In addition, the specialist editors can develop writing programs such as medical writing and editing internships, academic courses in medical writing or research study designs and reporting standards, special interactive lectures and sessions on predatory publishing, seminars on updated editorial guidance of global editorial associations, academic visits on medical writing and editing, medical writing mentoring program, networking programs in scholarly communication, and publication resources in medical writing and scholarly publishing. These editing system and writing programs can serve as integrated platforms for improving scientific writing skills and publishing capacity by providing continuing education in medical writing, editing, publishing, and publication ethics.

Novel Educational Information Management Platform Improves the Surgical Skill Evaluation Process of Surgical Residents.

OBJECTIVE: We sought to increase compliance and timeliness of surgery resident operative evaluation, by providing faculty and residents with a Platform-linking evaluation to analytics and machine-learning-facilitated case logging. DESIGN: We built a HIPAA-compliant web-based Platform for comprehensive management of resident education information, including resident operative performance evaluations. To assess evaluation timeliness, we compared the lag time for Platform-based evaluations to that of end-of-rotation evaluations. We also assessed evaluation compliance, based on a time threshold of 5 days for Platform evaluations and 2 weeks for end-of-rotation evaluations. SETTING: University of Massachusetts, Baystate Medical Center, General Surgery Residency. PARTICIPANTS: Twenty three attendings and 43 residents for the Platform cohort; 15 services and 45 residents for the end-of-rotation cohort. RESULTS: Three hundred and fifty-eight Platform evaluations were completed by 23 attendings for 43 residents for March through October 2017. Six hundred and ten end-of-rotation evaluations by 15 attendings for 45 residents were used for comparison (September 2015 through June 2017). Of Platform evaluations, 41.3% were completed within 24 hours of the operation (16.5% in 6 hours, 33.3% in 12 hours, and 62.2% in 48 hours), with 24.3% of evaluations completed within 3 hours after e-mail reminders. In the first 6 weeks (March 1 through April 12) 4.5 ± 3.7 evaluations were completed per week compared to 18.8 ± 5.8 in the last (September 18 through October 31). Evaluation lag times improved with the use of the Platform, both for median lag of 35 days earlier (1 ± 1.5 days Platform, 36 ± 28.2 days traditional, p < 0.0001) and a mean lag of 41 days earlier (3.0 ± 4.7 days Platform, 44.0 ± 32.6 days traditional, p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: Our comprehensive Platform facilitated faculty compliance with evaluation requirements and timeliness of availability of performance information (often in near real time) for both residents and residency leadership. The added value of the Platform's integration of evaluations with resident and attending case logging may account for the rapidly increasing number of operative skill evaluations over the short time span since implementation.

Evaluación de una plataforma educativa en la Universidad de Concepción, Chile / Assessment of an educational platform at the University of Concepción, Chile

Introducción: se creó una plataforma educativa en una asignatura preclínica de la Carrera de Odontología de la Universidad de Concepción para innovar en los métodos de enseñanza aprendizaje y favorecer un traspaso más fluido de destrezas prácticas a los estudiantes. Objetivo: evaluar cómo perciben los estudiantes la aplicación de innovación en tecnologías de información y comunicación. Métodos: se implementó una aplicación Web mediante una plataforma tipo Moodle, la cual proporciona un ambiente de aprendizaje semipresencial con material de fácil lectura, reforzado con archivos de audio, imagen, animación y video. Resultados: los estudiantes interactúan en foros, tutorías y chats, generándose un entorno de aprendizaje colaborativo y obteniendo como resultado, una plataforma que trasciende a un mero repositorio de material escrito o información teórica. Conclusiones: la implementación de la plataforma favorece el aprendizaje significativo del estudiante al verse implicado en él directamente, integrando conocimientos, con capacidad de trabajo autónomo optimizando el tiempo(AU)

Introduction: An educational platform was created in a preclinical subject of the dental surgery major of the University of Concepción, in order to innovate the teaching methods and to promote a more fluid transfer of practical skills to the students. Objective: To assess how students perceive the application of innovation in information and communication technologies. Methods: A Web application was implemented using a Moodle-like platform, which provides a blended learning environment with easy-to-read material, strengthened with audio, image, animated and video files. Results: The students interact in forums, tutorials and chats, generating a collaborative learning environment and obtaining, as a result, a platform that transcends a mere repository of written material or theoretical information. Conclusions: The implementation of the platform favors the student significant learning as he or she is directly involved in the process, integrating knowledge, with autonomous work capacity, and optimizing time(AU)

Evaluación de una plataforma educativa en la Universidad de Concepción, Chile / Assessment of an educational platform at the University of Concepción, Chile

Introducción: se creó una plataforma educativa en una asignatura preclínica de la Carrera de Odontología de la Universidad de Concepción para innovar en los métodos de enseñanza aprendizaje y favorecer un traspaso más fluido de destrezas prácticas a los estudiantes. Objetivo: evaluar cómo perciben los estudiantes la aplicación de innovación en tecnologías de información y comunicación. Métodos: se implementó una aplicación Web mediante una plataforma tipo Moodle, la cual proporciona un ambiente de aprendizaje semipresencial con material de fácil lectura, reforzado con archivos de audio, imagen, animación y video. Resultados: los estudiantes interactúan en foros, tutorías y chats, generándose un entorno de aprendizaje colaborativo y obteniendo como resultado, una plataforma que trasciende a un mero repositorio de material escrito o información teórica. Conclusiones: la implementación de la plataforma favorece el aprendizaje significativo del estudiante al verse implicado en él directamente, integrando conocimientos, con capacidad de trabajo autónomo optimizando el tiempo(AU)

Introduction: An educational platform was created in a preclinical subject of the dental surgery major of the University of Concepción, in order to innovate the teaching methods and to promote a more fluid transfer of practical skills to the students. Objective: To assess how students perceive the application of innovation in information and communication technologies. Methods: A Web application was implemented using a Moodle-like platform, which provides a blended learning environment with easy-to-read material, strengthened with audio, image, animated and video files. Results: The students interact in forums, tutorials and chats, generating a collaborative learning environment and obtaining, as a result, a platform that transcends a mere repository of written material or theoretical information. Conclusions: The implementation of the platform favors the student significant learning as he or she is directly involved in the process, integrating knowledge, with autonomous work capacity, and optimizing time(AU)

TVB-EduPack-An Interactive Learning and Scripting Platform for The Virtual Brain.

The Virtual Brain (TVB; thevirtualbrain.org) is a neuroinformatics platform for full brain network simulation based on individual anatomical connectivity data. The framework addresses clinical and neuroscientific questions by simulating multi-scale neural dynamics that range from local population activity to large-scale brain function and related macroscopic signals like electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging. TVB is equipped with a graphical and a command-line interface to create models that capture the characteristic biological variability to predict the brain activity of individual subjects. To enable researchers from various backgrounds a quick start into TVB and brain network modeling in general, we developed an educational module: TVB-EduPack. EduPack offers two educational functionalities that seamlessly integrate into TVB's graphical user interface (GUI): (i) interactive tutorials introduce GUI elements, guide through the basic mechanics of software usage and develop complex use-case scenarios; animations, videos and textual descriptions transport essential principles of computational neuroscience and brain modeling; (ii) an automatic script generator records model parameters and produces input files for TVB's Python programming interface; thereby, simulation configurations can be exported as scripts that allow flexible customization of the modeling process and self-defined batch- and post-processing applications while benefitting from the full power of the Python language and its toolboxes. This article covers the implementation of TVB-EduPack and its integration into TVB architecture. Like TVB, EduPack is an open source community project that lives from the participation and contribution of its users. TVB-EduPack can be obtained as part of TVB from thevirtualbrain.org.

Utility of Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 glutaredoxin A as a platform to study high-resolution mutagenesis of proteins.

Glutaredoxin from the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 is a small protein, containing only 88 amino acids, that participates in a large number of redox reactions, serving both as an electron donor for enzyme-catalyzed reductions and as a regulator of diverse metabolic pathways. The crystal structures of glutaredoxins from several species have been solved, including the glutaredoxin A isoform from the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. We have utilized the small size of Synechocystis glutaredoxin A and its propensity to form protein crystals that diffract to high resolution to explore a long-standing question in biochemistry; i.e., what are the effects of mutations on protein structure and function? Taking advantage of these properties, we have initiated a long-term educational project that would examine the structural and biochemical changes in glutaredoxin as a function of single-point mutational replacements. Here, we report some of the mutational effects that we have observed to date.