High efficiency vortex trapping of circulating tumor cells

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are important biomarkers for monitoring tumor dynamics and efficacy of cancer therapy. Several technologies have been demonstrated to isolate CTCs with high efficiency but achieve a low purity from a large background of blood cells. We have previously shown the ability to enrich CTCs with high purity from large volumes of blood through selective capture in microvortices using the Vortex Chip. The device consists of a narrow channel followed by a series of expansion regions called reservoirs. Fast flow in the narrow entry channel gives rise to inertial forces, which direct larger cells into trapping vortices in the reservoirs where they remain circulating in orbits. By studying the entry and stability of particles following entry into reservoirs, we discover that channel cross sectional area plays an important role in controlling the size of trapped particles, not just the orbital trajectories. Using these design modifications, we demonstrate a new device that is able to capture a wider size range of CTCs from clinical samples, uncovering further heterogeneity. This simple biophysical method opens doors for a range of downstream interventions, including genetic analysis, cell culture, and ultimately personalized cancer therapy.     

Teenagers’ web questions compared with a sexuality curriculum: an exploration

Background: Teenagers need information about their changing bodies. Many young people do not receive adequate or accurate puberty/sexuality education from their parents or school, so many teenagers are going online to have their sexuality questions answered.

Purpose: This research examines teenagers’ web questions on sexuality, and an example of the puberty and sexuality education content that some may learn in school. It looks for evidence of heteronormative conceptualisations of gender and sexuality, using a theoretical framework based on the Four Discourses of Sexuality Education.

Sample: This includes the web questions (n = 200) of an evenly gendered sample of 13–15‐year-old students (n = 180) from four English-speaking nations, namely UK, USA, Canada and Australia, selected from a reputable puberty/sexuality education site, and, for comparison, an example of an age-representative public school Health and Physical Education (HPE) puberty/sexuality education curriculum.

Method: A gendered and narrative-thematic Content Analysis was undertaken, using the Four Discourses theoretical framework, on the students’ sexuality web questions, and also on the school HPE curriculum.

Results: The discourse of Victimisation was evident in nearly half of all students’ web questions, and over a third of the HPE curriculum. The discourse of Individual Morality was present in a quarter of both students’ questions and the curriculum, while the discourse of Desire was evidenced in a fifth of students’ questions and almost a third of curriculum content. Somewhat surprisingly, the discourse of Violence was present in 9% of exclusively female students’ web questions, and in 12% of the curriculum.

Conclusion: It is recommended that the sampled HPE curriculum, and similar curricula in these sampled students’ countries, need explicitly to address gender differences in students’ metacognition and conceptualisations of puberty and sexuality. This may enable students to embrace their entitlement to sexual subjectivity, in education and across the lifespan, thus helping to ensure students’ healthy, positive and purposeful life outcomes.     

College Students’ Psychological Needs and Intrinsic Motivation to Learn: An Examination of Self-Determination Theory

Over the last several decades, instructional communication scholars have studied and measured student motivation as an important learning outcome. Unfortunately, this research has lacked theoretical guidance and has treated student motivation as a construct that varies only in quantity, ignoring existing theory that suggests student motivation is best understood as a construct that differs in quality (i.e., intrinsic motivation). To create two new measures that incorporate theoretical explanations of student motivation, three studies (N = 1,067) were undertaken using self-determination theory (SDT) to operationalize students’ intrinsic motivation as a product of basic psychological need satisfaction. In the first two studies, the Student Psychological Needs Scale and the Intrinsic Motivation to Learn Scale were developed and validated. In the third study, parallel mediation analyses supported SDT’s prediction that the fulfillment of students’ psychological needs (i.e., autonomy, competence, relatedness) would mediate the relationship between personalized education practices and intrinsic motivation to learn.     

Dynamic visual support for story comprehension and mental model building by young,at-risk children

Multimedia technology allows precise coordination of linguistic and visual information and may provide teachers with tools for enhancing literacy foundations in children–especially those who might otherwise be at-risk for school failure. This research explores the hypothesis that a multimedia environment with dynamic visual support facilitates language comprehension when children listen to short stories. Kindergarten children heard stories in three conditions: Helpful video, in which dynamic, silent video accompanied the beginning of stories; No video, in which children only heard the stories; and Minimal video, in which static images of characters and places accompanied the beginning of stories. In all conditions, the ending of the story was presented without visual support. Overall, the pattern of results suggests that dynamic visual support can provide a framework for understanding and remembering linguistic information.This research was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Development, grant P01 HD15051-12. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of that organization.     

Misconceptions of culture and perversions of multiculturalism

Current practices of multicultural education are based on some unsound conceptions of the nature of culture. Especially unsound is the notion of cultural relativism which claims that it is inappropriate for a given culture to be judged by the standards of other cultures. But all cultures can and should be judged by the standard of how well they allow their members to adapt to the circumstances in which they exist. These circumstances include nature and, increasingly, other cultures. The core error is the belief that cultures are integrated systems, which is based on an organic metaphor which discourages piece-meal criticism and leads to a romantic embrace of the totality of a culture. Rather than fostering an identity with, and celebration of, dysfunctional cultures, multiculturalism should encourage maximum interaction of all elements of a society and the forging of an emergent pluralism.     

Children and Youth with Intellectual Disabilities: Targets for Sexual Abuse

A disproportionate number of children and youth with an intellectual disability are victims of sexual abuse. This paper examines the characteristics and behaviours which may exacerbate the vulnerability of persons with an intellectual disability toward abusive relationships. Recognition is given to the important roles educators can play in die identification, referral, intervention, and prevention of sexual abuse.     

The Public's Bounded Understanding of Science

This introduction to the special issue Understanding the Public Understanding of Science: Psychological Approaches discusses some of the challenges people face in understanding science. We focus on people's inevitably bounded understanding of science topics; research must address how people make decisions in science domains such as health and medicine without having the deep and extensive understanding that is characteristic of domain experts. The articles reflect two broad streams of research on the public understanding of science—the learning orientation that seeks to improve understanding through better instruction and the communications orientation that focuses on attitudes about science and trust in scientists. Challenges to understanding science include determining the relevance of information, the tentativeness of scientific truth, distinguishing between scientific and nonscientific issues, and determining what is true and what is false. Studying the public understanding of science can potentially contribute to psychological theories of thinking and reasoning in modern societies.