Highly selective biomechanical separation of cancer cells from leukocytes using microfluidic ratchets and hydrodynamic concentrator

The separation of cells based on their biomechanical properties, such as size and deformability, is important in applications such as the identification of circulating tumor cells, where morphological differences can be used to distinguish target cancer cells from contaminant leukocytes. Existing filtration-based separation processes are limited in their selectivity and their ability to extract the separated cells because of clogging in the filter microstructures. We present a cell separation device consisting of a hydrodynamic concentrator and a microfluidic ratchet mechanism operating in tandem. The hydrodynamic concentrator removes the majority of the fluid and a fraction of leukocytes based on size, while the microfluidic ratchet mechanism separates cancer cells from leukocytes based on a combination of size and deformability. The irreversible ratcheting process enables highly selective separation and robust extraction of separated cells. Using cancer cells spiked into leukocyte suspensions, the complete system demonstrated a yield of 97%, while enriching the concentration of target cancer cells 3000 fold relative to the concentration of leukocytes.     

Crafting multicultural science education with preservice teachers through service-learning

Many science educators, in the US and elsewhere, suppport the idea that all students should have fair and equal opportunities to become scientifically literate through authentic, real problem-based science education. However, this challenge requires teachers to find ways to help all students feel comfortable with, and connected to, science. Despite the general consensus around the ideal of science for all, science teacher education programmes have had little or no impact on preservice teachers' philosophies of teaching and learning, especially as it relates to serving underserved populations in science. In this paper, I explore community service-learning as one way of addressing the multicultural dimension of preservice education with the following three questions: In what ways does involving pre-service science teachers in community service-learning influence their views on multicultural science education, in theory and practice? What qualities of community service-learning make multicultural science education a realistic objective? How might service-learning be used to push our collective understanding of what an inclusive and liberatory multicultural science teaching practice could be? I explore these questions and propose further areas of research by using a case study involving service-learning from my own teaching-research with preservice students.     

Beginning teachers becoming professionals through action research

This article describes the conduct of and acquired understandings from a study designed to promote the professional growth of a group of beginning primary school teachers through participatory action research. The beginning teachers collaborated with university academic staff during the design and conduct of the study. A key component of the study was the formation of action research cells of participating teachers with each group focusing on particular aspects of teaching, for example, assessment, catering for gifted and talented students, and inclusivity in the classroom teaching programme. The overall findings from the study, from the view of the university researchers, are presented and reflected upon in this article. The implications of using action research for the professional growth of beginning teachers are also discussed.     

Becoming an Insider: Teaching Science in Urban Settings

The discourse of urban science education is often framed by discussions of achievement gaps and limited resources. Although these realities are part of the urban education landscape, they focus on deficits—what urban youth and their teachers and schools lack. We argue that it is more productive to frame urban science education as a function of place. Place, in the urban classroom, accounts not only for the physical spaces of the community but also for the historical and sociocultural dimensions that play out as people interact with and in place. We argue that becoming an insider within the multidimensions of place is critical to science teaching environments that value and sanction their students' unofficial and often non-dominant ways of knowing.     

Why We Watch Them Sing and Dance: The Uses and Gratifications of Talent-Based Reality Television

This study explores how talent-based reality shows with different thematic content influence gratifications obtained (GO) by viewers. Participants completed surveys regarding their reasons for watching reality programs, in general, and their reasons for watching specific talent-based reality shows (American Idol, Dancing With the Stars, and America's Got Talent). Results identified 2 gratifications not previously observed in other gratifications research (TV personalities and schadenfreude), and that correlations exist between the content of talent-based programs and GO.     

Business Models in Digital Book Publishing: Some Insights from Australia

This interpretive study of change in Australian book publishing, included a survey of book publishers and the conduct of 14 case studies in five categories of publisher: general trade, academic, professional, specialist and university. This paper reports in detail on the experience on one general trade publisher as it sought to face the challenges of globalization and of organizational and technological change. The major finding was that digitization is indeed, impacting on business models for book publishing, with current models comprising something of a hybrid between the traditional and the innovative. Reflecting the presence in Australia of similar trends and issues that are affecting book publishing around the world, the findings are of relevance both to book publishers and to researchers. The work is original in that relatively little recent academic research has been conducted into book publishing in Australia, particularly as regards the implications of digitization for business models.     

Re‐imagining doctoral education: Professional Doctorates and beyond

Portents of the demise of the Professional Doctorate have emerged in some recent policy and institutional circles in Australia, raising questions about the meaning and relevance of the Professional Doctorate in an era of ‘league tables’ and research assessment in Australia. This article argues that such portents, based largely on narrow market‐driven arguments, are premature, reactive and unhelpful, in that they foreclose on a set of critical questions concerning the future purpose, scope and practice of doctoral education. The article argues that the simple re‐assertion of the PhD as the default award represents a restoration of the logics and imperatives of disciplinarity and of older notions of so‐called ‘real’ research. Further, questions of the changing economies of knowledge and practice within, between and beyond the reach of the university, are subordinated and disavowed. The article presents a re‐reading of the emergence of Professional Doctorates, from the perspective of a decade‐and‐a‐half of development and change. It suggests the need to revisit that history critically in the light of the current developments in doctoral education, in knowledge production and in developing different relations around knowledge between universities and different social and professional domains. Such revisitings can bring out emerging issues for doctoral education at a time when anxieties may inhibit taking up opportunities for innovation and linking with new kinds of knowledge production that go beyond Euro‐centric and university‐centric traditions.