Towards precision medicine: from quantitative imaging to radiomics

Radiology (imaging) and imaging-guided interventions, which provide multi-parametric morphologic and functional information, are playing an increasingly significant role in precision medicine. Radiologists are trained to understand the imaging phenotypes, transcribe those observations (phenotypes) to correlate with underlying diseases and to characterize the images. However, in order to understand and characterize the molecular phenotype (to obtain genomic information) of solid heterogeneous tumours, the advanced sequencing of those tissues using biopsy is required. Thus, radiologists image the tissues from various views and angles in order to have the complete image phenotypes, thereby acquiring a huge amount of data. Deriving meaningful details from all these radiological data becomes challenging and raises the big data issues. Therefore, interest in the application of radiomics has been growing in recent years as it has the potential to provide significant interpretive and predictive information for decision support. Radiomics is a combination of conventional computer-aided diagnosis, deep learning methods, and human skills, and thus can be used for quantitative characterization of tumour phenotypes. This paper discusses the overview of radiomics workflow, the results of various radiomics-based studies conducted using various radiological images such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and positron-emission tomography (PET), the challenges we are facing, and the potential contribution of radiomics towards precision medicine.     

Spying on children during a school playground intervention using a novel method for direct observation of activities during outdoor play

Our aims were to examine the efficacy of a new observational instrument ‘System for Observing Outdoor Play’ for detecting changes in outdoor play and chart the use of recycled and repurposed materials in the school playground during the course of an intervention to increase outdoor play. Children from one Sydney primary school were observed (N = 111; 5–12 years) using an observational instrument developed as part of the Sydney Playground Project. Data on types of activities and frequencies were collected at baseline and seven times during intervention. Use of intervention materials was consistently high and associated with increases in play-related activities (40–77%), while inactive pursuits decreased (52–31%), on average. The observational instrument proved efficacious in tracking changes in play. Modification of the school playground environment by introducing loose parts changed children’s play-related behaviour; the variety of activities increased, including construction and creative play. Physical inactivity decreased. Recycled materials can increase children’s creative, social and physical play.     

Multimodal Representations in Senior Biology Assessments: A Case Study of NSW Australia

This paper investigates the use of multimodal representations to assess biological understanding in the final senior secondary school public examination in New South Wales, Australia. The investigation emanates from a larger Australian study concerned with the impact of disciplinary and technological innovations on science pedagogy, particularly in molecular genetics where much knowledge is represented in modalities other than, or in conjunction with, language and traditional print-based texts and visuals. The availability of digital technologies and their affordances for the learning and teaching of senior high school Biology now makes it realistic for examiners to include multimodal representations in assessment tasks. A qualitative analysis of final-year Biology examination papers from 2001 to 2013 identified and classified the multimodal representations included in this written external examination. Findings indicate that despite the ready availability of multimodal, multimedia representations in classroom learning and curriculum materials, and evidence of students’ engagement with ICT, the high-stakes examinations make little use of such resources. A consequence of this mismatch between curriculum outcomes and assessment tools is that students may be disadvantaged because their in-depth knowledge and understanding of biological concepts is not effectively demonstrated through traditional pen-and-paper tests. A move towards a range of alternative assessment formats is one way to ensure that assessment aligns with multimodal learning in the classroom.     

论唐弢对文章学的贡献——以《文章修养》为例

唐弢是现代文学史家,也是现代文章学家。统观唐氏的文章学著述,可以发现其贡献主要有三:一,构建了较为科学的文章学体系;二,较为全面地揭示与剖析了关于文章本体的原理与问题;三,较为系统地阐述了文章写作理论。由此可见其文章学家的真面目。     

Comprehension monitoring in students with reading difficulties

Two studies are reported in this paper. In the first study, 32 fifth and sixth grade poor readers and 32 average third graders matched with the poor readers on reading age were randomly assigned to either a general or a specific instruction condition. In both treatments subjects were shown how to monitor text for internal inconsistency. In addition, the specific instruction condition provided explicit instruction in how to use a cross-referencing technique to evaluate the internal consistency of a given text. Results indicated significant Subject-group x Instruction Condition interaction on all three dependent measures: detection and identification of inconsistency and comprehension competence. Whereas the poor readers were found to be inferior to the RA-matched controls in the general instruction condition, in the specific instruction condition the poor readers’ performance was superior to that of the RA-matched controls. It was suggested that the significant discrepancy in performance between the poor readers and the younger RA-matched controls in the specific instruction condition may be related to differences in maturity and experience. The validity of this interpretation was examined in the second study by including a third group of average fifth graders matched with the poor readers on chronological age. Further, a second evaluative standard, namely, violation of prior knowledge, was also included. Data from the second study in general confirmed the findings of the first study.     

Understanding prosody and morphology in school-age children’s reading

Reading and Writing - We examined the unique contributions of prosodic awareness and morphological awareness to school-aged children’s word reading and reading comprehension. A total of 110...     

A blended learning curriculum for training peer researchers to conduct community-based participatory research

Peer researchers (PRs) are research team members who share traits (e.g. gender, age, sexual orientation, diagnosis, income, housing situation, etc.) with study participants. Participatory methods and some fields (e.g. HIV/AIDS) expect PRs to be equitably involved in a project. Moreover, in Canada, there is a current impetus to include ‘the patient’ in health research. PRs often join a project without any formal research training, yet they are frequently tasked with suggesting appropriate language, recruiting participants, conducting interviews, administering surveys, analyzing data, and presenting findings. While there is literature on PR hiring, ethical considerations of PR engagement, and PR experiences, the methods of training PRs remain underreported. A blended learning curriculum (i.e. combination of webinars, didactic in-person presentation, filmed simulation, etc.), informed by the principles of action learning and the concept of reciprocity, has shown preliminary effectiveness in training PRs across two studies. This paper will present the curriculum, alongside exploratory evaluation results (n?=?7), with details on how the curriculum changed from one study to the next and how reciprocity between academic and peer researchers led to stronger collaborations.