A peer-to-peer infection prevention and control programme in neglected settings: The case of home care and nursing homes in North Italy.

Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are an increasing concern and educational programmes may increase healthcare professionals' adherence to infection prevention and control (IPC) guidelines. However, despite evidence regarding the effectiveness of peer-to-peer educational programmes, to our knowledge, no studies have been conducted in non-hospital settings. A post-intervention pilot study based on peer-to-peer meetings on HAI topics in home care and nursing homes was conducted.

Patient education outcomes in surgery: a systematic review from 2004 to 2010.

Rationale And Objectives: In 2004, Johansson and colleagues, in their systematic review covering the years 1990-2003, documented education interventions and their effectiveness in the treatment of surgical patients. While they provide a review of the state of knowledge until 2003, recent trends in preoperative education and its effects on postoperative patients' outcomes have not been documented in a systematic review. The aim of this study was to describe preoperative educational interventions (including content and delivery time) and postoperative outcomes as considered in studies evaluating the effectiveness for patients undergoing major surgery published from 2004 to 2010.

Antenna and all gnathal appendages are similarly transformed by homothorax knock-down in the cricket Gryllus bimaculatus.

Our understanding of the developmental mechanisms underlying the vast diversity of arthropod appendages largely rests on the peculiar case of the dipteran Drosophila melanogaster. In this insect, homothorax (hth) and extradenticle (exd) together play a pivotal role in appendage patterning and identity. We investigated the role of the hth homologue in the cricket Gryllus bimaculatus by parental RNA interference.

Divergent and conserved roles of extradenticle in body segmentation and appendage formation, respectively, in the cricket Gryllus bimaculatus.

The cricket Gryllus bimaculatus is a typical hemimetabolous intermediate germ insect, in which the processes of segmentation and appendage formation differ from those in Drosophila, a holometabolous long germ insect. In order to compare their developmental mechanisms, we have focused on Gryllus orthologs of the Drosophila developmental regulatory genes and studied their functions. Here, we report a functional analysis of the Gryllus ortholog of extradenticle (Gb'exd) using embryonic and parental RNA interference (RNAi) techniques.

Hox gene sequences from the geophilomorph centipede Pachymerium ferrugineum (C. L. Koch, 1835) (Chilopoda: Geophilomorpha: Geophilidae): implications for the evolution of the Hox class genes of arthropods.

Here we report on a partial screen for Hox gene sequences from the geophilomorph centipede Pachymerium ferrugineum, resulting in 11 different sequences. All of these sequences could be homologized to specific Drosophila genes, yielding two representatives for the Dfd class and one each for the remaining classes. Phylogenetic analysis of these data with a broad sample of arthropod/onychophoran homologous sequences confirmed these results and provided further support for the monophyly of the Hox3/zen class.