Project description:The International Conference on Bioinformatics (InCoB), the annual conference of the Asia-Pacific Bioinformatics Network (APBioNet), is hosted in one of countries of the Asia-Pacific region. The 2010 conference was awarded to Japan and has attracted more than one hundred high-quality research paper submissions. Thorough peer reviewing resulted in 47 (43.5%) accepted papers out of 108 submissions. Submissions from Japan, R.O. Korea, P.R. China, Australia, Singapore and U.S.A totaled 43.8% and contributed to 57.4% of accepted papers. Manuscripts originating from Taiwan and India added up to 42.8% of submissions and 28.3% of acceptances. The fifteen articles published in this BMC Bioinformatics supplement cover disease informatics, structural bioinformatics and drug design, biological databases and software tools, signaling pathways, gene regulatory and biochemical networks, evolution and sequence analysis.
Project description:The 16th International Conference on Human Retrovirology: HTLV and Related Retroviruses was held in Montreal, Québec from June 26th to June 30th, 2013 and was therefore hosted by a Canadian city for the first time. The major topic of the meeting was human T-lymphotropic viruses (HTLVs) and was covered through distinct oral and poster presentation sessions: clinical research, animal models, immunology, molecular and cellular biology, human endogenous and emerging exogenous retroviruses and virology. In this review, highlights of the meeting are provided by different experts for each of these research areas.
Project description:The present online supplement highlights the poster abstracts selected for presentation at the 5th Annual Canadian Respiratory Conference (CRC) held in Vancouver, British Columbia, in April 2012. The CRC is a partnership initiative of the Canadian Thoracic Society, Canadian Respiratory Health Professionals, The Lung Association and the Canadian COPD Alliance and has become the premiere national educational and scientific meeting for the respiratory community in Canada. I would like to acknowledge the leadership and expertise of the Scientific Committee, our conference speakers and abstract presenters, all of whom contributed to the delivery of an excellent program. The next Canadian Respiratory Conference will be held in Québec City, Quebec, April 11 to 13, 2012 (www.lung.ca/crc). We look forward to seeing you there!
Project description:Rationale: Learning styles (LS) of medical residents change over time from the more passive Assimilator toward more active preferences like Accommodator or Converger. We have shown pharmacy residents to be predominantly Assimilators at the start of their residency program. Whether learning styles of pharmacy residents change after they enter practice has never been studied. Objective: To describe the evolution of learning styles of pharmacy residents as they transition from residency into practice. Study Design and Methods: Prospective observational survey and semi-structured interviews. A complete provincial cohort of former pharmacy residents (n=28) who had their LS characterized during their residency and were now 1 year post-residency were invited to repeat the Pharmacists’ Inventory of Learning Styles (PILS). Interviews were administered to consenting participants to gain additional insights. Results: 27 residents (96%) completed the PILS survey and 16 (59%) completed the interview. 13 (48%) changed their dominant LS and 20 (74%) changed their secondary LS. Six (22%) participants did not change either LS. The overall proportion of dominant Assimilators (59%) and Convergers (26%) remained similar to baseline (52% and 26%, respectively), meaning participants had adopted and abandoned different learning styles in similar numbers. Change in LS was associated with receiving preceptor training (p<0.05). Of the 12 preceptors interviewed, 58% stated that they had adjusted their teaching practices based on knowledge of their LS. Conclusions: Change in dominant and/or secondary learning style is common after 1 year in practice compared to during pharmacy practice residency. There is no overall direction to the shifts, however, with residents transitioning in and out of more active learning styles with similar frequency. Overall after a year in practice, the cohort of former residents we studied remained mostly Assimilators, who prefer passive learning approaches. These results contrast with medical students, who adopt more active preferences like Accommodator.
Project description:During 2014-2015, an outbreak of Ebola virus disease (EVD) swept across parts of West Africa. The China Mobile Laboratory Testing Team was dispatched to support response efforts; during September 28-November 11, 2014, they conducted PCR testing on samples from 1,635 suspected EVD patients. Of those patients, 50.4% were positive, of whom 84.6% lived within a 3-km zone along main roads connecting rural towns and densely populated cities. The median time from symptom onset to testing was 5 days. At testing, 75.7% of the confirmed patients had fever, and 94.1% reported at least 1 gastrointestinal symptom; all symptoms, except rash and hemorrhage, were more frequent in confirmed than nonconfirmed patients. Virus loads were significantly higher in EVD patients with fever, diarrhea, fatigue, or headache. The case-fatality rate was lower among patients 15-44 years of age and with virus loads of <100,000 RNA copies/mL. These findings are key for optimizing EVD control and treatment measures.