No abstract

This study explores how students' learning styles influence their learning while solving complex problems when a case-based e-learning environment is implemented in a conventional lecture-oriented classroom. Seventy students from an anaesthesiology class at a dental school participated in this study over a 3-week period. Five learning-outcome tests and two course-satisfaction surveys were implemented during the case-based instruction using a blended approach (online and face-to-face). The results of one-way ANOVAs with repeated measures revealed that the four learning styles (active-reflective, sensing-intuitive, visual-verbal, sequential-global) did not influence students' learning experience and learning outcomes during the implementation of case-based e-learning. However, the pattern of the students' performance graph and further analysis with a liberal approach implied that the activereflective learning style may influence learning outcomes slightly at an earlier time during the case-based learning implementation; however, as time passed, this learning style no longer influenced their learning at all. Thus, learning styles may not be considered important or may be considered only during the early stages of instructional implementation in order to facilitate the students' transition to the new case-based learning environment. It is more efficient to encourage students to adapt to different learning environments than to design adaptive systems in order to embrace diverse learning styles.

Background:The most commonly impacted tooth is the third molar. An impacted third molar can ultimately cause acute pain, infection, tumors, cysts, caries, periodontal disease, and loss of adjacent teeth. Local anesthesia is employed for removing the third molar. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of 2% lidocaine with 1:80,000 or 1:200,000 epinephrine for surgical extraction of bilateral impacted mandibular third molars.Methods:Sixty-five healthy participants underwent surgical extraction of bilateral impacted mandibular third molars in 2 separate visits while under local anesthesia with 2% lidocaine with different epinephrine concentration (1:80,000 or 1:200,000) in a double-blind, randomized, crossover trial. Visual analog scale pain scores obtained immediately after surgical extraction were primarily evaluated for the 2 groups receiving different epinephrine concentrations. Visual analog scale pain scores were obtained 2, 4, and 6 hours after administering an anesthetic. Onset and duration of analgesia, onset of pain, intraoperative bleeding, operator's and participant's overall satisfaction, drug dosage, and hemodynamic parameters were evaluated for the 2 groups.Results:There were no statistically significant differences between the 2 groups in any measurements except hemodynamic factors (P >.05). Changes in systolic blood pressure and heart rate following anesthetic administration were significantly greater in the group receiving 1:80,000 epinephrine than in that receiving 1:200,000 epinephrine (P ≤.01).Conclusion:The difference in epinephrine concentration between 1:80,000 and 1:200,000 in 2% lidocaine liquid does not affect the medical efficacy of the anesthetic. Furthermore, 2% lidocaine with 1:200,000 epinephrine has better safety with regard to hemodynamic parameters than 2% lidocaine with 1:80,000 epinephrine. Therefore, we suggest using 2% lidocaine with 1:200,000 epinephrine rather than 2% lidocaine with 1:80,000 epinephrine for surgical extraction of impacted mandibular third molars in hemodynamically unstable patients.

These results indicate that ginseng saponins, especially PT fraction, have substantial inhibitory effects on the recombinant 5HT(3A) receptor, suggesting that some of the specific types of ginsenoside might have an antagonistic action against 5HT(3A) receptor related to nausea and vomiting.

Staurosporine, a non-specific protein kinase inhibitor, has been shown to induce neurite outgrowth in PC12 cells, but the mechanism by which staurosporine induces neurite outgrowth is still obscure. In the present study, we investigated whether the activation of Rac1 was responsible for the neurite outgrowth triggered by staurosporine. Staurosporine caused rapid neurite outgrowth independent of the ERK signaling pathways. In contrast, neurite outgrowth in response to staurosporine was accompanied by activation of Rac1, and the Rac1 inhibitor NSC23766 attenuated the staurosporine-induced neurite outgrowth in a concentration-dependent manner. In addition, suppression of Rac1 activity by expression of the dominant negative mutant Rac1N17 also blocked the staurosporine-induced morphological differentiation of PC12 cells. Staurosporine caused an activation of NADPH oxidase and increased the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which was prevented by NSC23766 and diphenyleneiodonium (DPI), an NADPH oxidase inhibitor. Staurosporine-induced neurite outgrowth was attenuated by pretreatment with DPI and exogenous addition of sublethal concentration of H2O2 accelerated neurite outgrowth triggered by staurosporine. These results indicate that activation of Rac1, which leads to ROS generation, is required for neurite outgrowth induced by staurosporine in PC12 cells.