Microfluidic sample preparation for respiratory virus detection: A review

Techniques used to prepare clinical samples have been perfected for use in diagnostic testing in a variety of clinical situations, e.g., to extract, concentrate, and purify respiratory virus particles. These techniques offer a high level of purity and concentration of target samples but require significant equipment and highly trained personnel to conduct, which is difficult to achieve in resource-limited environments where rapid testing and diagnostics are crucial for proper handling of respiratory viruses. Microfluidics has popularly been utilized toward rapid virus detection in resource-limited environments, where most devices focused on detection rather than sample preparation. Initial microfluidic prototypes have been hindered by their reliance on several off-chip preprocessing steps and external laboratory equipment. Recently, sample preparation methods have also been incorporated into microfluidics to conduct the virus detection in an all-in-one, automated manner. Extraction, concentration, and purification of viruses have been demonstrated in smaller volumes of samples and reagents, with no need for specialized training or complex machinery. Recent devices show the ability to function independently and efficiently to provide rapid, automated sample preparation as well as the detection of viral samples with high efficiency. In this review, methods of microfluidic sample preparation for the isolation and purification of viral samples are discussed, limitations of current systems are summarized, and potential advances are identified.     

Using memes and memetic processes to explain social and conceptual influences on student understanding about complex socio‐scientific issues

This study investigated seventh grade learners' decision making about genetic engineering concepts and applications. A social network analyses supported by technology tracked changes in student understanding with a focus on social and conceptual influences. Results indicated that several social and conceptual mechanisms potentially affected how and why ideas were taken up in the learning system of the classroom. Mechanisms included copying or memetic processes such as “do as the smart students do” and friendship selection. Study outcomes are compared with the broader literature on memes and memetic processes to reveal general evolutionary ideas such as the development of prestige, identity versus problem‐solving strategies, extended phenotypes, and memeplexes. Educational implications for this research are also addressed. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 45: 900–921, 2008     

Policy efforts to increase women faculty in Korea: reactions and changes at universities

Since 2001, the issue of the low ratio of women faculty in universities has been prominent in Korea because of its negative impact on female students and gender equality at the university level that has affected human resource development and utilization at the national level. To address this issue, the Korean government developed and executed an education policy, the Policy on Women Faculty Increase (PWFI) from 2004 to 2006. This paper investigated reactions to the PWFI and changes made as a result of the policy in the conservative Korean higher education context. We found that although the PWFI has particularly contributed to increasing the representativeness of women faculty in areas in which women faculty used to be rare, overall the PWFI has not made significant improvements in most participating universities due to the lack of internal motives and drivers and effective systems to support the policy. Recommendations for improvements in the policy are offered.     

Biological Motion Displays Elicit Social Behavior in 12-Month-Olds

To test the hypothesis that biological motion perception is developmentally integrated with important social cognitive abilities, 12-month-olds ( N  =   36) were shown a display of a human point-light figure turning to observe a target. Infants spontaneously and reliably followed the figure's "gaze" despite the absence of familiar and socially informative features such as a face or eyes. This suggests that biological motion displays are sufficient to convey rich psychological information such as attentional orientation and is the first evidence to show that biological motion perception and social cognitive abilities are functionally integrated early in the course of typical development. The question of whether common neural substrates for biological motion perception and analysis of gaze direction underlies the functional integration seen behaviorally is discussed.     

Why Do We Indulge? Exploring Motivations for Binge Watching

This study explored an expanded definition and motivations for binge-watching behavior. In addition to the number of episodes, the amount of time, frequency, and engagement in binge-watched programs were considered for the binge-watching definition. Study findings revealed that over half of the respondents of this study were light binge viewers. In addition, among a total of seven motivations identified in literature, only the entertainment motivation is a significant predictor of binge watching for those with a low level of binge watching, while both passing time and entertainment were found to be significant predictors for those with a high level of binge watching.     

The development of search filters for adverse effects of surgical interventions in medline and Embase

Background

Search filter development for adverse effects has tended to focus on retrieving studies of drug interventions. However, a different approach is required for surgical interventions.

Objective

To develop and validate search filters for medline and Embase for the adverse effects of surgical interventions.

Methods

Systematic reviews of surgical interventions where the primary focus was to evaluate adverse effect(s) were sought. The included studies within these reviews were divided randomly into a development set, evaluation set and validation set. Using word frequency analysis we constructed a sensitivity maximising search strategy and this was tested in the evaluation and validation set.

Results

Three hundred and fifty eight papers were included from 19 surgical intervention reviews. Three hundred and fifty two papers were available on medline and 348 were available on Embase. Generic adverse effects search strategies in medline and Embase could achieve approximately 90% relative recall. Recall could be further improved with the addition of specific adverse effects terms to the search strategies.

Conclusion

We have derived and validated a novel search filter that has reasonable performance for identifying adverse effects of surgical interventions in medline and Embase. However, we appreciate the limitations of our methods, and recommend further research on larger sample sizes and prospective systematic reviews.     

Technological opportunity discovery for technological convergence based on the prediction of technology knowledge flow in a citation network

As technological convergence has recently become a mainstream innovation trend, technological opportunities need to be explored in heterogeneous technology fields. Most of the previous convergence studies have taken a retrospective view in measuring the degree of convergence and monitoring the converging trends. This paper proposes a quantitative future-oriented approach to technological opportunity discovery for convergence using patent information. In a future-oriented approach, technological opportunities for convergence are suggested by predicting potential technological knowledge flows (TKFs) between heterogeneous fields. The potential TKFs are predicted by a link prediction method in a directed network, which is suggested in this paper to represent the direction of the predicted TKFs by adapting the concept of bibliographic coupling and edge-betweenness centrality. Converging technological opportunities are proposed as incremental and radical technological opportunities by extracting the potential increased knowledge flow links and emerging knowledge flow links. Moreover, the direction and themes of the predicted potential TKFs are provided as technological opportunities for convergence. As an illustration of the proposed method, the technological opportunities between biotechnology (BT) and information technology (IT) are explored. Firms and researchers can use the proposed method to seek out new technological opportunities from various technologies so that R&D policymakers can plan new R&D projects on technological convergence.     

The cementation of coarse dust to indoor surfaces

Dust accumulation is an important management and conservation problem in historic houses. Laboratory and field observations show that high relative humidity enhances the cementation of particles to underlying surfaces. The hygroscopic nature of particles or the fibres to which they adhere influences this cementation process. The cements, which can form in a matter of hours at high humidity, appear to be microcrystalline calcites. Reducing the impact of this process on heritage objects requires preventing dust deposits, especially in periods of high humidity.     

Are model PISA pupils happy at school? Quality of school life of adolescents in Finland and Korea

This paper explores the quality of school life (QSL) of two ‘model pupils’ in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests, Finland and Korea, and investigates students’ views on the central aspects of QSL (general satisfaction, peer relations and teacher–student relations) using PISA 2012 data. It also seeks to interpret how specific institutional and sociocultural aspects are linked to QSL. The analyses show that Finnish and Korean adolescents’ views on QSL are less positive compared with the OECD average; Finnish adolescents’ views on QSL are more positive than those of Korean adolescents regarding general satisfaction and peer relations but are not clearly related to teacher–student relations. Since Finnish and Korean adolescents’ views on QSL partly differ from those of their Nordic and East Asian counterparts, the distinct Nordic or East Asian image of QSL could not be revealed in the study. This article proposes that QSL demands more attention in the era of ‘rankings and benchmarked educational models’, with consideration to the universality and uniqueness of institutional, sociocultural and historical factors of one’s own and others’ schooling.