Isolation and enrichment of low abundant particles with insulator-based dielectrophoresis

Isolation and enrichment of low-abundant particles are essential steps in many bio-analytical and clinical applications. In this work, the capability of an insulator-based dielectrophoresis (iDEP) device for the detection and stable capture of low abundant polystyrene particles and yeast cells was evaluated. Binary and tertiary mixtures of particles and cells were tested, where the low-abundant particles had concentration ratios on the order of 1:10 000 000 compared to the other particles present in the mixture. The results demonstrated successful and stable capture and enrichment of rare particles and cells (trapping efficiencies over 99%), where particles remained trapped in a stable manner for up to 4 min. A device with four reservoirs was employed for the separation and enrichment of rare particles, where the particles of interest were first selectively concentrated and then effectively directed to a side port for future collection and analysis. The present study demonstrates that simple iDEP devices have appropriate screening capacity and can be used for handling samples containing rare particles; achieving both enrichment and isolation of low-abundant particles and cells.     

The Role of Anatomy Computer-Assisted Learning on Spatial Abilities of Medical Students

Currently, medical education context poses different challenges to anatomy, contributing to the introduction of new pedagogical approaches, such as computer-assisted learning (CAL). This approach provides insight into students' learning profiles and skills that enhance anatomy knowledge acquisition. To understand the influence of anatomy CAL on spatial abilities, a study was conducted. A total of 671 medical students attending Musculoskeletal (MA) and Cardiovascular Anatomy (CA) courses, were allocated to one of three groups (MA Group, CA Group, MA + CA Group). Students' pre-training and post-training spatial abilities were assessed through Mental Rotations Test (MRT), with scores ranging between 0-24. After CAL training sessions, students' spatial abilities performance improved (9.72 ± 4.79 vs. 17.05 ± 4.57, P < 0.001). Although male students in both MA Group and CA Group show better baseline spatial abilities, no sex differences were found after CAL training. The improvement in spatial abilities score between sessions (Delta MRT) was correlated with Musculoskeletal Anatomy training sessions in MA Group (r = 0.333, P < 0.001) and MA + CA Group (r = 0.342, P < 0.001), and with Cardiovascular Anatomy training sessions in CA Group (r = 0.461, P = 0.001) and MA + CA Group (r = 0.324, P = 0.001). Multiple linear regression models were used, considering the Delta MRT as dependent variable. An association of Delta MRT to the amount of CAL training and the baseline spatial abilities was observed. The results suggest that CAL training in anatomy has positive dose-dependent effect on spatial abilities.     

A general model of performance and quality for one-stop e-Government service offerings

This paper introduces a framework and methodology for establishing indicators and metrics in order to assess the quality and performance of one-stop e-Government service offerings. The set of quality and performance indicators and metrics proposed has been derived in an outcomes assessment approach, based on the perspectives of e-Government service providers and end-users and following a goal-question-metric line of work that departs from some key quality and performance benefits. A methodology that employs the proposed framework to set improvement targets according to alternative scenarios is presented, and a strategy is elaborated for analyzing root causes of potential quality and performance shortcomings and undertaking appropriate countermeasures. Some results of application in a real case study, in the context of an EU-funded R&D project, are also provided. Finally, recommendations are given about usefulness of the proposed approach for e-Government service providers, as well as policy and decision-makers, and directions of future work are discussed in order to enhance the conceptual coverage of this approach, while at the same time not compromising its simplicity of application and generality of purpose.     

道德规范与国书馆事业

美国图书馆协会的<职业道德规范声明>提出了以图书馆事业为中心的具体原则,其<图书馆权利法案>则明确了图书馆的责任和义务.目前,美国社会和政治环境的变化为图书馆职业带来了越来越多的忧虑和压力."9·11"后出台的<爱国者法案>明显与图书馆职业道德规范中所阐述的重要原则相冲突.因此,美国图书馆协会决心抵制<爱国者法案>对知识、信息自由开放以及行使个人隐私权的限制.     

How reflexivity enhances organizational innovativeness: the mediation role of team support for innovation and individual commitment

Reflexivity is a learning process that, through questioning and critically monitoring objectives and methods in use, promotes a change of habits and routines and, in so doing, fosters organizational performance and innovativeness. This paper looks at the contribution of team reflexivity to enhancing openness to innovation, and the mediating role of individual and team involvement. Specifically we tested whether affective commitment (Study 1, n=156) and a team climate of support for innovation (Study 2, n=152) facilitate reflexivity processes in promoting organizational openness to innovation. Overall, results confirmed that reflexivity enhances innovativeness, and this relationship is mediated by a high degree of involvement that increases the motivation of teammates and their engagement in innovation processes.     

Gamers versus zombies? Visual mediation of the citizen/non-citizen encounter in Europe’s ‘refugee crisis’

ABSTRACT

This article identifies the visual representation of Europe’s “refugee crisis” in the media as a key dimension of the communicative architecture of the crisis and its aftermath. Effectively, it argues, the powerful, even iconic, imagery that the media produced and shared during the 2015 “crisis” affirmed ideological frames of incompatible difference, perpetually dividing European citizens and refugees. The article focuses on some of the fundamental elements of the 2015 crisis’s visual grammar to demonstrate how they have (re-)produced popular fears of strangeness and the need for containment and control of foreign bodies. This visual grammar, we argue, imitated and procreated recognizable representations of popular culture to exaggerate newcomers’ strangeness and incompatible difference from the national subject. On the one hand, many news media simulated zombies’ threatening strangeness in images of refugee massification; on the other, many news media images reaffirmed the decisive power of the national subject over refugees’ fate, not unlike the video game player who unilaterally controls a game and takes action when confronted by zombies. This grammar, we argue, symbolically predetermines encounters between citizens and refugees, by emphasizing their incompatible difference and newcomers’ strangeness.     

Militant Distribution: Votes for Women and the public sphere

The late nineteenth century American mass circulation press developed a style of ‘new journalism’ that gave rise to celebrity journalism. It is widely accepted that this new approach to reporting replaced news values with entertainment as a consequence of the need to cater to the tastes of a mass readership and this is seen to explain the incredible innovations that occurred in the press in the US at the time (Ponce de Leon; Roggenkamp; Tebbel; Turner; Schudson Discovering the News). This article questions this version of American press history by arguing that those papers also had to appeal to the politics of poor immigrants and the working class and that the conventions associated with celebrity overlapped and often coincided with a ‘radical’ populist campaigning style of reporting that was as important (and at times, more important) to building and sustaining mass readerships.     

Explanations in STEM Areas: an Analysis of Representations Through Language in Teacher Education

Constructing explanations of scientific concepts is one of the most frequent strategies used in the science classroom and is a high-leverage teaching practice. This study analysed the explanations provided by student teachers in STEM areas from a socio-materiality perspective focused on verbal and nonverbal language and representations. The study was conducted in a hybrid research format by scholars and a preservice teacher. First, the study compared the representational elements used by 86 student teachers to construct explanations about various concepts in a roleplay setting. Next, a positioning analysis was done by a preservice teacher, to a selection of five of these explanations focused on the concept of “force”. The positioning analysis highlighted the embedded voices in the construction of explanations, with a focus on the intersection between science and language. The results showed that the student teachers created explanations as static artefacts, mainly using examples, graphs and images to clarify the concepts. The voices of learners and scientists were mostly absent from the explanations, which led to the presentation of explanations in STEM areas as finished and unquestionable artefacts, with references neither to nature nor to the history of science. We reflect on the meanings attributed to learning to be a practitioner in the context of interconnecting science and language through explanations, as a process of meaning (re)production within the classroom. Implications for teacher education are discussed in order to enhance student teachers’ awareness about constructing knowledge by enacting explanations in the science classroom.

     

EditorialKeeping information centre stage amid changing scenery

With conference season upon us, consideration is given to the importance of subject‐specific and library association conferences. The biennial Health Libraries Group (HLG) conference meets both these criteria and takes place in Greater Manchester in July. The conference provides an opportunity for peer‐to‐peer learning, identifying new trends and professional rejuvenation. An open invitation is given to attend the Health Information and Libraries Journal‘Writing for Publication’ workshop at the HLG conference. An overview of three bursaries available from the Health Libraries Group and Library and Information Research, both groups of the UK Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) is provided. The bursaries offer opportunities to cover the costs of registration and travel expenses to national and international conference.