The impact of microfluidics in high-throughput drug-screening applications

Drug discovery is an expensive and lengthy process. Among the different phases, drug discovery and preclinical trials play an important role as only 5–10 of all drugs that begin preclinical tests proceed to clinical trials. Indeed, current high-throughput screening technologies are very expensive, as they are unable to dispense small liquid volumes in an accurate and quick way. Moreover, despite being simple and fast, drug screening assays are usually performed under static conditions, thus failing to recapitulate tissue-specific architecture and biomechanical cues present in vivo even in the case of 3D models. On the contrary, microfluidics might offer a more rapid and cost-effective alternative. Although considered incompatible with high-throughput systems for years, technological advancements have demonstrated how this gap is rapidly reducing. In this Review, we want to further outline the role of microfluidics in high-throughput drug screening applications by looking at the multiple strategies for cell seeding, compartmentalization, continuous flow, stimuli administration (e.g., drug gradients or shear stresses), and single-cell analyses.     

Concurrent and longitudinal predictors of calculation skills in preschoolers

Early calculation abilities in preschoolers are predictive of mathematics achievement in subsequent grades (e.g., Jordan et al. 2009). Two studies were conducted to evaluate concurrent and longitudinal predictors of early calculation skills. In the first study, 102 preschoolers (57.8 % female; mean age?=?60.57?±?8.66 months) were given vocabulary, language comprehension, and verbal working memory tasks and a test battery that evaluated components of early number competence (quantity comparison, counting, number line, size seriation, semantic knowledge of digits, visual-spatial memory). The children were also asked to complete early calculation tasks, including addition and subtraction calculations. The results of this task constituted the dependent variable. The results showed that vocabulary, size seriation, and visual-spatial memory were significant concurrent predictors of early calculation competence. In the second study, 43 children completed the early number competence battery at time 1 (53.5 % female; mean age?=?59.30?±?3.46 months) and the linguistic and early calculation tasks at time 2, about 10 months later (mean age?=?69.43?±?3.31 months). The analysis of the longitudinal predictors of early calculation showed significant effects for counting and size seriation. The implications for preschool assessment and intervention are discussed.     

Children's Early Decontextualized Talk Predicts Academic Language Proficiency in Midadolescence

This study examines whether children's decontextualized talk—talk about nonpresent events, explanations, or pretend—at 30 months predicts seventh-grade academic language proficiency (age 12). Academic language (AL) refers to the language of school texts. AL proficiency has been identified as an important predictor of adolescent text comprehension. Yet research on precursors to AL proficiency is scarce. Child decontextualized talk is known to be a predictor of early discourse development, but its relation to later language outcomes remains unclear. Forty-two children and their caregivers participated in this study. The proportion of child talk that was decontextualized emerged as a significant predictor of seventh-grade AL proficiency, even after controlling for socioeconomic status, parent decontextualized talk, child total words, child vocabulary, and child syntactic comprehension.     

The Italian adaptation of courage measure

International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance - This project developed and examined the psychometric properties of an Italian version of the Courage Measure, the reduced version...     

Effects of simultaneous auditory feedback on reading accuracy during reading development

Five groups of twelve right-handed male children from the second to the sixth grade with normal reading efficiency were tested under three conditions of simultaneous amplified auditory feedback, binaurally, to the left and to the right ear, on reading aboud two separate classes of words, nouns and nonwords. Lateralized feedback was supposed to shift auditory attention towards the source of input and modify as a consequence, the functionality of the contralateral hemisphere. Right ear feedback improved reading accuracy with respect to the control (binaural) or left ear condition in the first three grades. No effect was observed in the fifth grade whereas in the sixth grade, the condition of left ear feedback improved only the reading of nouns. Changes in reading accuracy are interpreted according to an hypothesis of a decrement of the left hemisphere involvement during the course of reading development. These changes are discussed in relation to Frith's (1985) psycholinguistic model of reading acquisition.     

Activity theory: A framework for design and reporting on research projects based on ICT

We propose using activity theory as a basis for designing and reporting on research projects that focus on information and communication technology (ICT) as a means to support educational processes. Adopting the theory, we describe teaching/learning activities mediated by ICT using a three level analysis: epistemological, methodological, social assistance. The analysis has been applied to the design and reporting of projects in both mathematics education at primary school level and training in technical innovation in commercial enterprises.     

Quality of grey literature in the open access era: Privilege and responsibility

Conclusions We are living a deep change in the information transfer process involving the different actors of the editorial scene (from authors to editors, web-editors, e-publishers and readers), who occasionally play different roles at the same time (e.g., authors sometimes bypass the editor thus assuming direct responsibilities in the diffusion of documents in the Internet). Furthermore, information producers, managers or seekers often show twofold personalities like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. They would like to find all documents free on the Internet and be able to read original, reliable, and high quality information, but they are sometimes reluctant to spread their papers through online nonofficial channels as they care for the impact factor, prestige, and career advancement. It is a revolutionary period in which new and alternative forms of scholarly communication live together with more traditional ones and the future is difficult to define. Recent initiatives of open access—such as Pubmed Central, Public Library of Science, Budapest Open Access Initiative—are contributing to define new trends in the editorial market, challenging the traditional distribution channels, mainly managed by commercial editors, and placing the authors’ role and publication copyrights under severe discussion. In this landscape, GL now has new dignity and becomes closer and closer to innovative scientific publications supported by researchers in view of a generalised movement towards open access. The nuances of grey are becoming lighter and lighter. The questions are many, the answers few, but, in any case, the ethical responsibility of producing and issuing quality documents can never be disregarded.     

Energy balance of locomotion with pedal-driven watercraft

In this study, we examined the mechanics and energetics of locomotion with a paddle-wheel boat and a water bike. Power output (Wtot) was measured directly on the water bike by means of an instrumented chain-ring. The simultaneous assessment of oxygen uptake (VO2) allowed the computation of the "overall" efficiency of locomotion (etao = Wtot/VO2). Mean etao was 0.27 (s = 0.02), which was unaffected by the speed, and was assumed to be the same for the two boats as both are semi-recumbent bicycles. For the paddle-wheel boat, Wtot was then obtained from etao and measures of VO2. The power to overcome (passive) drag was calculated as Wd = D x v (where D is the force measured by means of a load cell when towing the boats at given speeds). Propelling efficiency was calculated as etap = Wd/Wtot, which was lower with the paddle-wheel boat (mean 0.35, s = 0.01) than with the water bike (mean 0.57, s = 0.01). The observed differences in etap and Wd explain why at the highest speed tested (approximately 3 m s(-1), the energy required to cover a unit distance with the water bike is similar to that required to move the paddle-wheel boat at 1.3 m s-1).