Reconfigurable microfluidics combined with antibody microarrays for enhanced detection of T-cell secreted cytokines

Cytokines are small proteins secreted by leukocytes in blood in response to infections, thus offering valuable diagnostic information. Given that the same cytokines may be produced by different leukocyte subsets in blood, it is beneficial to connect production of cytokines to specific cell types. In this paper, we describe integration of antibody (Ab) microarrays into a microfluidic device to enable enhanced cytokine detection. The Ab arrays contain spots specific to cell-surface antigens as well as anti-cytokine detection spots. Infusion of blood into a microfluidic device results in the capture of specific leukocytes (CD4 T-cells) and is followed by detection of secreted cytokines on the neighboring Ab spots using sandwich immunoassay. The enhancement of cytokine signal comes from leveraging the concept of reconfigurable microfluidics. A three layer polydimethylsiloxane microfluidic device is fabricated so as to contain six microchambers (1 mm × 1 mm × 30 μm) in the ceiling of the device. Once the T-cell capture is complete, the device is reconfigured by withdrawing liquid from the channel, causing the chambers to collapse onto Ab arrays and enclose cell/anti-cytokine spots within a 30 nl volume. In a set of proof-of-concept experiments, we demonstrate that ∼90% pure CD4 T-cells can be captured inside the device and that signals for three important T-cell secreted cytokines, tissue necrosis factor-alpha, interferon-gamma, and interleukin-2, may be enhanced by 2 to 3 folds through the use of reconfigurable microfluidics.     

LEARNING ENVIRONMENT IN VIETNAMESE PHYSICS TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAMME THROUGH THE LENS OF CONSTRUCTIVISM: A CASE STUDY OF A STATE UNIVERSITY IN MEKONG DELTA REGION,VIETNAM

Constructivism was introduced to Vietnam through many ways such as workshops, books, the Internet, and so on. However, due to the lack of professional education, fundamental ideas of constructivist learning perhaps were missing or neglected through classroom activities. Furthermore, due to the influence of culture and society, Vietnamese constructivism certainly has its own agenda. This paper adapted the Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (CLES) which was originally developed by Taylor and Fraser (1991) to investigate the classroom environment in a Physics Teacher Education programme in Vietnam, as well as to illustrate Vietnamese teacher educators’ views in employing constructivist learning. Fifteen teaching periods in seven different classrooms were observed, and five teacher educators from those classes were interviewed. Participants are lecturers and bachelor students of the Physics Teacher Education programme at Can Tho University, Mekong Delta region, south of Vietnam. Results showed that all five scales of the CLES in these classrooms are at the intermediate level. All the lecturers indicated positive attitudes about constructivism and have certain methods to perform these constructivist issues in their classes, but they have problems in practical instructional strategies for some scales. Therefore, we suggest that professional development programmes on how to apply constructivist theory, based on each particular scale of the CLES, are essential. This is especially true in scientific uncertainty, critical voice, and shared control. Yet, in a country that highly appreciates Confucianism with social order, not all aspects of an ideal constructivist learning environment should be equally improved. Generally, we believe that constructivist learning will be a key answer to the problem of the generally passive learning style in Vietnam.

     

Barriers to and facilitators of female Deans’ career advancement in higher education: an exploratory study in Vietnam

Although the slow progress of female academics compared to their male colleagues and the challenges that female academic leaders have to face in taking leadership roles have been well-documented, very little is known about female academic leaders and managers’ career advancement in developing countries like Vietnam. This paper reports on an exploratory study of a research project funded by the Cambridge—Viet Nam Women Leadership Programme, which aims to advance an understanding of the status of, and identify strategies to empower, female academic managers in Vietnamese higher education. The focus of this paper is on university leaders and female Deans’ perceptions of the barriers to female academic Deanship and female Deans’ reflections on the facilitators for their career advancement. The study found that the main barriers are strong family obligations, negative gender stereotypes regarding females as leaders, and female academics’ unwillingness to take management positions. The major facilitators of female Deans’ career advancement are self-effort, strong family support, and, what is perceived to be, a favourable or ‘lucky’ selection context. The paper provides empirical evidence to support the view that family support is a crucial factor for female academic career advancement in Vietnam. Women are both an agent and an object of change in empowering female academic leadership.     

Connecting Marginal Rice Farmers to Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems in Vietnam Uplands

Abstract

In Vietnam, agricultural extension has contributed to rural development and poverty alleviation over the past two decades of agricultural decollectivization, but it was not very effective in reducing disparities within farmer communities. The study examined how better interactions of extension services with other agencies and information sources may help marginal farmers in catching up with the general improvement of living conditions in a mountainous area in northern Vietnam. It combined three complementary viewpoints on this issue: that of the agricultural extension staff, that of farmers and that of development experts with a long working experience in the mountains of Vietnam. The analysis of existing structures and functions of the extension system revealed a number of obstacles to the participation of marginal farmers in extension programmes and helped to identify relevant domains of intervention.     

Pathways to resilience: how drawings reveal pre-service teachers’ core narratives underpinning their future teacher-selves

For this study of teacher-identity, which is part of a larger research project on teacher resilience, preservice teachers were invited to draw “the kind of teacher you hope to become”. In this, our study recognises drawing as a semiotic system of meaning-making and communication. The drawings were examined in terms of the “stories” they told. Using an emergent design approach to the data, drawings were synthesised into categories that were distilled into theme clusters. A hermeneutic reading revealed the core identity narrative underpinning each teacher-identity story. This story was told in sociocultural terms, or constructed around functioning at work or couched in terms of personal validation and achievement. These core identity narratives signal what “matters” to preservice teachers’ sense of their teacher-selves. Since there is an observed correlation between teacher-identity and resilience, knowing what matters is a helpful basis for building resilience.     

Racial hierarchy and masculine space: Participatory in/equity in computational physics classrooms

ABSTRACT

Background and Context

Computing is being integrated into a range of STEM disciplines. Still, computing remains inaccessible to many minoritized groups, especially girls and certain people of color. In this mixed methods study, we investigated racial and gendered patterns of equity and inequity in high school physics classrooms incorporating computational modeling, with an emphasis on group work.     

Student plagiarism in higher education in Vietnam: an empirical study

This paper assesses and compares the prevalence of plagiarism across different student and assignment characteristics at a university in Vietnam, using the similarity index reported by the text-matching software Turnitin as a proxy measure of plagiarism on a sample of 681 student papers. The findings present a level of match higher than reported in earlier studies at universities outside of Vietnam, with an average similarity index of 29.06%. Controlling for the gender and major of the students, the extent of plagiarism is implied to be negatively correlated with the students’ academic performances and with the likelihood of being caught, and positively correlated with the length of the assignments. Thus, this study, relying on actual text-matching data rather than self-reported surveys, provides the first empirical test of two theoretical plagiarism models proposed in the literature. The explanatory factors confirmed by this study illustrate the potential benefits of the use of software tools to detect plagiarism and can help refine academic integrity policy formulations for universities.     

The influence of framing on transfer: initial evidence from a tutoring experiment

This paper investigates the idea that the framing of learning and transfer contexts can influence students’ propensity to transfer what they have learned. We predicted that transfer would be promoted by framing contexts in an expansive manner in which students are positioned as having the opportunity to contribute to larger conversations that extend across time, places, people, and topics. A one-on-one tutoring experiment was conducted to test this hypothesis by manipulating framing as either expansive or its opposite (bounded) within a complex instructional learning ecology. We investigated the degree to which high school biology students transferred knowledge from a learning session about the cardiovascular system to a transfer-of-learning session about the respiratory system depending on framing condition. Consistent with the framing hypothesis, students in the expansive condition were generally more likely to transfer facts, a conceptual principle, and a learning strategy from one system to another.     

Students＇ Difficulties With Multiple Representations in Introductory Mechanics

Research in physics education indicates that the use of multiple representations in teaching and learning helps students become better problem-solvers. We report on a study to investigate students＇ difficulties in solving mechanics problems presented in multiple representations. We conducted teaching/learning interviews with 20 students in a first-semester calculus-based physics course which covered introductory classical mechanics. Each student was interviewed four times during the semester, each time after they had completed an exam in the course. During these interviews, students were asked to solve a problem they had seen in the exam, followed by problems that differed in the type of representation from the exam problems. Students were provided verbal hints to solve the new problems. We discuss the common difficulties students encountered when attempting to solve problems in different representations and some common themes in students＇ performance.     

iPads in higher education—Hype and hope

This paper systematically reviews current research on using iPads in the higher education sector. Since the release of iPads by Apple in 2010, this new technology has been quickly adopted everywhere, especially by the younger generation and professionals. We were motivated to find out how iPads have been adopted for use in the higher education sector. We searched for and collected all the peer‐reviewed publications in conference proceedings and scholarly journals in EBSCOhost, Scopus, Informit A+ Education, ProQuest Academic Research Library and Google Scholar, and conducted a content analysis of the full‐text papers collected. The results show that the reported studies are at an early exploratory stage from both the student and staff perspectives. From the student perspective, the iPad was found to enhance the learning experience but not necessarily lead to better learning outcomes. From the staff perspective, the iPad was found to offer benefits associated with electronic information dissemination, academic administration and professional development support. A finding common to both perspectives is that while the iPad has the potential to offer benefits to the academics and students who were found to be eager adopters of this technology, it is not clear how best to align and integrate it within the academic programmes and workflows, and how best to manage it as a resource within a university's organisational setting.