‘We set up a small world’: preschool teachers’ involvement in children’s imaginative play

Grounded in Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory, this paper examines how often teachers are involved in children’s imaginative play and discusses their beliefs about their role in supporting children’s imaginative play. To investigate this problem, video (65 hours of digital observations) and interview data (two hours and 30 minutes) of 60 children with 7 teachers from two preschools in Australia were analysed. Using Vygotsky’s [1966. “Play and Its Role in the Mental Development of the Child.” Voprosy Psikhologii 12 (6): 62–76] cultural-historical concept of play, and Kravtsov and Kravtsova’s [2010. “Play in the L.S. Vygotsky’s Nonclassical Psychology.” Journal of Russian and East European Psychology 48 (4): 25–41] conception of ‘subject positioning’ (being inside and outside of the play), it was found that despite the general importance of play, teachers’ involvement in developing children’s imaginative play appears to be minimal. The interviews showed that teachers’ beliefs about their role in children’s imaginative play are directly related to the distance of their physical proximity and understanding of the play narrative being enacted. This paper argues that focusing on teachers’ involvement in children’s play is an important but under-researched dimension of play-based pedagogies in early childhood education.     

Weldon’s search for a direct proof of natural selection and the tortuous path to the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis

W F R Weldon first clearly formulated the principles of natural selection in terms of what would have to be observed in natural populations in order to conclude that natural selection was, indeed, acting in the manner proposed by Darwin. The approach he took was the statistical method developed by Galton, although he was closer to Darwin’s conception of selection acting on small individual variations than Galton was. Weldon, together with Karl Pearson, who supplied the statistical innovations needed to infer the action of selection from populational data on trait distributions, laid the foundations of biometry and provided the first clear evidence of both stabilizing and directional selection in natural populations.     

Drop Everything and Write (DEAW): an innovative program to improve literacy skills

It is believed that language is an innate ability and, therefore, spoken language is acquired naturally and informally. In contrast, written language is thought to be an invention and, therefore, has to be learned through formal instruction. An alternate view, however, is that spoken language and written language are two forms of manifestations of the same inner language and that under certain circumstances, they both are acquired the same way. Nevertheless, in reality, the motor mechanisms for speech mature earlier than the ones needed for reading and writing, and, therefore, spoken language gains precedence and is acquired earlier than the written language. Based on this rationale, it is hypothesized that if the option to communicate through oral language is restricted, and children are made to communicate only through written language, we can expect written language skill to emerge with greater force. This hypothesis was put to test by conducting a pilot study in which children’s option to communicate with each other in the classroom was limited to written language for brief periods. One group of fourth graders were allowed to communicate with each other for half an hour a day, 4 days a week, for a period of one semester only through written language. No talking was allowed during this period. A comparison group of children were not restricted in this way. We labeled this project “Drop Everything and Write” (DEAW). Both the groups were administered pre- and post-tests of reading and spelling. After one semester of this program, children in the DEAW program achieved significantly higher scores on tests of vocabulary, reading comprehension, and spelling than the comparison group. The DEAW group also improved greatly in written language use. The results are interpreted to support the hypothesis.     

Chemical composition of biliary calculi from Kanpur region

Gallstones from 24 female patients were subjected to quantitative chemical analysis. Two main categories of stones were identified: (1) Ten cholesterol stones with 93.38% cholesterol and only 0.17% bilirubin. (2) Mixed stones with cholesterol below 65%. They were sub-divided in two groups: (a) Six stones having 0.5% bilirubin and (b) Eight stones having 0.5% bilirubin. The calcium of cholesterol and mixed stones was comparable while phosphorus contents in cholesterol stones were low by over 30% in mixed stones.     

EGFR Mutation Analysis in Non-small Cell Lung Carcinoma Patients: A Liquid Biopsy Approach

In the era of the targeted therapy identification of EGFR mutation detection in lung cancer is extremely helpful to predict the treatment efficacy of EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). Unfortunately, the inadequacy and quality of the biopsy samples are the major obstacles in molecular testing of EGFR mutation in lung cancer. To address this issue, the present study intended to use liquid biopsy as the non-invasive method for EGFR mutation detection. A total of 31 patients with an advanced stage of lung cancer were enrolled in the study from which cell-free DNA (cfDNA) and FFPE tissue DNA was extracted. Extracted DNA samples were analyzed for further EGFR exon specific mutation analysis by ARMS-PCR. Data were analyzed statistically using SPSS software. In cfDNA samples, the prevalence of wild type EGFR was 48% while the prevalence of TKI resistant and TKI sensitive mutations were 3%. Conversely, in tissue DNA samples, the prevalence of wild type, TKI sensitive and TKI resistant mutations were 48%, 19%, and 3%, respectively. The overall concordance of EGFR mutation between cfDNA and tissue DNA was 83%. McNemar’s test revealed that there was no significant difference between EGFR expression of cfDNA and tissue DNA samples. Additionally, the significant-high incidence of TKI resistant mutations was observed in tobacco habituates, indicating the role of carcinogens present in the tobacco in developing resistant mutations. In conclusion, our data suggest that evaluation of EGFR mutation from cfDNA samples is practicable as a non-invasive tool in patients with advanced-stage of lung cancer.