A Three-Dimensional Print Model of the Pterygopalatine Fossa Significantly Enhances the Learning Experience     

Jordan A. Tanner  Beeran Jethwa  Jeff Jackson  Maria Bartanuszova  Thomas S. King  Arunabh Bhattacharya  Ramaswamy Sharma 《Anatomical sciences education》2020,13(5):568-580

The pterygopalatine fossa (PPF) is a bilateral space deep within the skull that serves as a major neurovascular junction. However, its small volume and poor accessibility make it a difficult space to comprehend using two-dimensional illustrations and cadaveric dissections. A three-dimensional (3D) printed model of the PPF was developed as a visual and kinesthetic learning tool for completely visualizing the fossa, its boundaries, its communicating channels, and its neurovascular structures. The model was evaluated by analyzing student performance on pre- and post-quizzes and a student satisfaction survey based on the five-point Likert scale. The first cohort comprised of 88 students who had never before studied the PPF. The second cohort consisted of 30 students who were previously taught the PPF. Each cohort was randomly divided into a control group who were provided with a half skull and an intervention group that were provided with the 3D printed model. The intervention group performed significantly better on the post-quiz as compared to the control group in cohort I (P = 0.001); while not significant, it also improved learning in cohort II students (P = 0.124). Satisfaction surveys indicated that the intervention group found the 3D printed model to be significantly more useful (P < 0.05) as compared to the half skull used by the control group. Importantly, the effect sizes for cohorts I and II (0.504 and 0.581, respectively) validated the statistical results. Together, this study highlights the importance of 3D printed models as teaching tools in anatomy education.  相似文献   

Antihyperglycemic,antihyperlipidemic and antioxidative potential of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Prosopis cineraria</Emphasis> bark     

Nidhi Sharma  Veena Garg  Arpita Paul 《Indian journal of clinical biochemistry : IJCB》2010,25(2):193-200

Alloxan administration in male Swiss albino mice, induced diabetes by increasing blood glucose concentration and reducing hepatic glycogen content as compared to normal control group. Besides, serum lipid profile parameters such as total-cholesterol, triglyceride, low-density lipoprotein and very low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol were also elevated, whereas, the level of high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol was reduced significantly (P<0.05) in diabetic mice. Treatment of diabetic animals with crude ethanolic extract of bark of Prosopis cineraria (P. cineraria) for 45 days, significantly lowered blood glucose level, elevated hepatic glycogen content and maintained body weight and lipid-profile parameters towards near normal range. Declined activity of antioxidant enzymes and concentration of non-enzymatic antioxidants were also normalized by drug treatment, thereby reducing the oxidative damage in the tissues of diabetic animals and hence indicating the anti-diabetic and antioxidant efficacy of the extract.  相似文献   

Utility of serum LDH isoforms in the assessment of mycobacterium tuberculosis induced pathology in TB patients of Sahariya tribe     

P. R. Sharma  S. Jain  R. N. K. Bamezai  P. K. Tiwari 《Indian journal of clinical biochemistry : IJCB》2010,25(1):57-63

The present study was carried out in the Sahariya tribe of Central India, which reportedly have high prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis. Total serum LDH and its tissue specific isoforms were estimated in TB patients and matched healthy controls to test the utility of LDH as diagnostic marker for tuberculosis. About 210 sputum positive cases and 328 age and sex matched sputum negative controls were recruited. The spectrophotometeric and densitometric analysis of each LDH isoform was carried out in both cases and controls. The mean values of serum LDH were estimated and compared for each class by t-test. The statistical comparisons were made between sputum negative controls and sputum positive cases by Mann-Whitney’s U test. The spectrophotometric estimation of serum LDH revealed significant (P=0.0016) increase in its level in cases (290 IU/L) as compared to controls (248 IU/L). The densitometric analysis of individual LDH isoforms in cases and controls demonstrated significant elevation in LDH1 (P>0.05), LDH2 (P>0.05) and LDH3 (P<0.005) in sputum positive cases in comparison to sputum negative controls. Our study revealed a positive correlation between serum LDH level and the presence of mycobacteria and their load, suggesting utility of LDH as an important diagnostic marker of tuberculosis induced stress, at least in tribal areas lacking access to modern clinical tests.  相似文献   

Numerical Investigation and Optimization of a Flat Plate Solar Collector Operating with Cu/CuO/Al2O3 –Water Nanofluids     

Youssef Belkassmi  Kamal Gueraoui  Lahoucine El maimouni  Najem Hassanain  Omar Tata 《天津大学学报(英文版)》2021,(1):64-76

Nanofluids are a potential alternative to significantly improving the performance of heat transfer applications. In this work, a numerical analysis to examine t...  相似文献