A Game-Based Learning Activity to Promote Conceptual Understanding of Chordates’ Phylogeny and Self-Efficacy to Learn Evolutionary Biology

<p style="text-align: justify;">Understanding phylogenetic trees representing evolutionary relationships of living organisms is essential in school biology. Traditional instructions based on lectures and textbooks with pictorial presentations have been proven ineffective to promote students’ understanding of the concept. This study, therefore, developed a game-based learning activity called the VERT card game to enhance students’ learning of the phylogenetic taxonomy of chordates. The VERT card game was designed to lay the foundation for different characteristics of chordate classes, as well as to allow students to construct and interpret their evolutionary relationships based on the phylogenetic tree. The effectiveness of the VERT card game was verified by a pre-test and post-test design with 109 middle school students in Thailand. The statistical result revealed that students’ mean scores increased significantly in the post-test, compared to the pre-test, indicating their improved understanding. In addition, after participating in the learning activity, the student participants were found to increase their self-efficacy to learn evolutionary biology statistically. Also, it showed positive views towards the usefulness of the developed card game as a large number of them expressed that they would like to use it for their lesson reviews and wished to have this form of learning activity in other topics in biology.</p>

NEWS-2 score assessment of inpatient referral during the COVID 19 epidemic

Aim. To manage patients with suspected coronavirus disease (COVID-19) when they arrive at the hospital emergency department (ED), a clinical severity score is required to quickly identify patients requiring immediate hospital admission and close monitoring. The aim of this study was to evaluate, within the context of the pandemic, the performance of National Early Warning Score 2 (NEWS-2) to anticipate the admission of patients with suspected COVID-19 to a specialised emergency care unit. Methods. This retrospective study was conducted on patients presenting at the COVID-19 entrance of the ED of the Vert-Galant private hospital (Paris, France) during the first national pandemic peak from March 20 to April 20, 2020. All patients completed a questionnaire and clinical data and vital signs were recorded. Statistical analysis and modelling were used to estimate the ability of different scores (NEWS-2, qSOFA, CRB-65) to predict hospital emergency admission and/or early COVID-19 diagnosis. Results. NEWS-2, with a cut off value of 5, predicted hospital admission with 82% sensitivity, 98% specificity and an area under the curve (AUC) of 96%. NEWS-2 was superior to qSOFA and CRB-65 scores for predicting hospital admission of COVID-19 patients. Multilinear or logistic regression analysis of clinical data did not improve this result. Conclusion. NEWS-2 is an excellent score to predict hospital admission of COVID-19 patients.

Using the VERT wearable device to monitor jumping loads in elite volleyball athletes

Sport is becoming increasingly competitive and athletes are being exposed to greater physical demands, leaving them prone to injuries. Monitoring athletes with the use of wearable technology could provide a way to potentially manage training and competition loads and reduce injuries. One such technology is the VERT inertial measurement unit, a commercially available discrete wearable device containing a 3-axis accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope and 3-axis magnetometer. Some of the main measurement outputs include jump count, jump height and landing impacts. While several studies have examined the accuracy of the VERT’s measures of jump height and jump count, landing impact force has not yet been investigated. The objective of this research study was to explore the validity of the VERT landing impact values. We hypothesized that the absolute peak VERT acceleration values during a jump-land cycle would fall within 10% of the peak acceleration values derived simultaneously from a research-grade accelerometer (Shimmer). Fourteen elite university-level volleyball players each performed 10 jumps while wearing both devices simultaneously. The results showed that VERT peak accelerations were variable (limits of agreement of -84.13% and 52.37%) and had a propensity to be lower (mean bias of -15.88%) when compared to the Shimmer. In conclusion, the validity of the VERT device’s landing impact values are generally poor, when compared to the Shimmer.

Morphometric Analysis of The Mandibular Incisive Canal in Different Facial Patterns

The study evaluated the morphometry of the mandibular incisive canal correlating with the different patterns of facial growth. The sample consisted of 90 cone beam computed tomography scans, divided into 3 groups: brachyfacial (n=30), mesofacial (n=30) and dolicofacial (n=30). For the determination of these groups, the acquisitions were arranged in the Dolphin 3D software to perform the Ricketts 3D cephalometric tracing and the VERT index. Next, the images were worked on the Ondemand3d software to perform the morphometric analysis of the incisive canal. For data analysis, the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann Whitney test were performed to test the interference of facial patterns, sex and age in the Mandibular Incisive Canal Extension. In the intragroup analysis of the MICE, the Friedman test was used, considering a 95% confidence interval and a significance level of 5%. The sample consisted of 54.4% of males and 45.6% of females. Sex and age had no effect on morphology and incisive canal extension. When the relationship between facial patterns and MICE was observed, brachyfacials (11.09 mm) presented a larger extent (p<0.001) than dolicofacial (4.10 mm) and mesofacial (5.55 mm). When the morphology of the MIC was analyzed, most individuals presented the linear horizontal format, and there was no direction between the groups. Thus, we can conclude that the facial pattern influences the MICE and sex, age and morphology were not influenced by the facial pattern.