Attentional coordination in demonstrator-observer dyads facilitates learning and predicts performance in a novel manual task

Observational learning is a form of social learning in which a demonstrator performs a target task in the company of an observer, who may as a consequence learn something about it. In this study, we approach social learning in terms of the dynamics of coordination rather than the more common perspective of transmission of information. We hypothesised that observers must continuously adjust their visual attention relative to the demonstrator's time-evolving behaviour to benefit from it. We eye-tracked observers repeatedly watching videos showing a demonstrator solving one of three manipulative puzzles before attempting at the task. The presence of the demonstrator's face and the availability of his verbal instruction in the videos were manipulated. We then used recurrence quantification analysis to measure the dynamics of coordination between the overt attention of the observers and the demonstrator's manipulative actions. Bayesian hierarchical logistic regression was applied to examine (1) whether the observers' performance was predicted by such indexes of coordination, (2) how performance changed as they accumulated experience, and (3) if the availability of speech and intentional gaze of the demonstrator mediated it. Results showed that learners better able to coordinate their eye movements with the manipulative actions of the demonstrator had an increasingly higher probability of success in solving the task. The availability of speech was beneficial to learning, whereas the presence of the demonstrator's face was not. We argue that focusing on the dynamics of coordination between individuals may greatly improve understanding of the cognitive processes underlying social learning

Summative assessment of clinical practice of student nurses : a review of the literature

Objectives: To describe assessment of nursing student’s clinical practice concerned nursing education. Design: Systematic review and synthesis of qualitative and quantitative studies. Data sources: The data were collected with the support of an information specialist from scientific databases Cinahl, PubMed, Medic, ISI Web of Science, Cochrane library and Eric published in January 2000 – May 2014. All of the included studies citations were also performed. Methods: 725 articles concerned with nurse student clinical practice assessment were identified. After inclusion and exclusion criteria were met 23 articles for selected for critical review. Two independent reviewers selected the studies according to the inclusion criteria. These articles were analyzed using content analysis. Results: Findings suggest that the assessment process of nursing students’ clinical practice lacks consistency, it is open to the subjective bias of the assessor and the quality of assessment varies greatly. Nursing students clinical assessment was divided into 3 themes: acts (things to do) before final assessment, the actual final assessment situation and the acts after the final assessment situation. Mentors and students need orientation to the assessment process and to the paperwork by teachers. Terminology on evaluation forms is sometimes so difficult to grasp, that the mentors did not understand what they mean. There is no consensus about written assignments’ ability to describe the students’ skills. Mentors have timing problems to ensure relevant assessment of student nurses. At the final interview students normally self assess their performance, the mentor assesses by interview and by written assignments whether the student has achieved the criteria and role of the teacher is to support the mentor and the student in appropriate assessment. The variety of patient treatment environments in which nursing students do their clinical practice periods is challenging also for the assessment of nursing students’ expertise. Mentors alone want that clinical practice is a positive experience and it might lead to higher grades than what nurse student competency earns. It is very rare that students fail their clinical practice, if the student does not achieve the clinical competencies they are allowed to have extra time in clinical areas until they will be assessed as competent. Conclusions: This systematic review provides a description of challenges in nursing students’ assessment in clinical settings. Further research needs to be carried out to have more knowledge of final assessment in the end of the clinical practice. Through further research it will be possible to have better methods for high quality assessment processes and feedback to nurse students. Quality in assessment provides better nurses and therefore better patient safety

Utilização da modelagem computacional para avaliar a influência das planícies de maré na hidrodinâmica de regiões estuarinas

Os ambientes costeiros vêm sofrendo um considerável processo de degradação ambiental, gerado pela crescente pressão sobre os recursos naturais marinhos. Uma importante ferramenta utilizada para apoio à tomada de decisões no gerenciamento ambiental de um corpo hídrico é a modelagem computacional das condições hidrodinâmicas do escoamento e da qualidade da água. Um dos fenômenos físicos mais importantes para a hidrodinâmica dos estuários é a maré, que ao se propagar do oceano para regiões estuarinas, sofre distorções que podem ser representadas pelo crescimento não-linear de constituintes harmônicos compostos dos principais constituintes da maré astronômica. As assimetrias nas marés causam diferenças na duração da enchente e da vazante da maré vertical, originando sistemas nos quais as correntes enchentes (ou vazantes) podem dominar sobre a vazante (ou enchentes). Essas características podem ser representadas pelos parâmetros a/h (amplitude da maré/profundidade do canal) e Vs/Vc (volume do armazenamento entre marés/volume do canal no nível médio do mar). Dessa forma, realizou-se neste estudo simulações computacionais, com auxílio do mecanismo de alagamento e secamento em meio poroso do SisBaHiA®, em estuários idealizados com o objetivo de avaliar a influência das planícies de maré na dominância das correntes. Os testes mostraram que estuários sem presença de planícies, nos quais os fenômenos de fricção com o leito sobressaem, tendem a ser dominados pela enchente. Já os estuários com presença de planícies de maré tendem a ser dominado pela vazante. Pôde-se observar, também, que as assimetrias das marés são intensificadas quando as planícies de maré aumentam e quando a maré penetra em direção a cabeça do estuário

Control Software for the SST-1M Small-Size Telescope prototype for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

The SST-1M is a 4-m Davies--Cotton atmospheric Cherenkov telescope optimized to provide gamma-ray sensitivity above a few TeV. The SST-1M is proposed as part of the Small-Size Telescope array for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), the first prototype has already been deployed. The SST-1M control software of all subsystems (active mirror control, drive system, safety system, photo-detection plane, DigiCam, CCD cameras) and the whole telescope itself (master controller) uses the standard software design proposed for all CTA telescopes based on the ALMA Common Software (ACS) developed to control the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA). Each subsystem is represented by a separate ACS component, which handles the communication to and the operation of the subsystem. Interfacing with the actual hardware is performed via the OPC UA communication protocol, supported either natively by dedicated industrial standard servers (PLCs) or separate service applications developed to wrap lower level protocols (e.g. CAN bus, camera slow control) into OPC UA. Early operations of the telescope without the camera were already carried out. The camera is fully assembled and is capable to perform data acquisition using artificial light source.Comment: In Proceedings of the 35th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2017), Busan, Korea. All CTA contributions at arXiv:1709.0348

SENSE: A comparison of photon detection efficiency and optical crosstalk of various SiPM devices

This paper describes a comparison of photon detection efficiency and optical crosstalk measurements performed by three partners: Geneva University, Catania Observatory and Nagoya University. The measurements were compared for three different SiPM devices with different active areas: from 9 $mm^2$ up to 93.6 $mm^2$ produced by Hamamatsu. The objective of this work is to establish the measurements and analysis procedures for calculating the main SiPM parameters and their precision. This work was done in the scope of SENSE project which aims to build roadmap for the last developments in field of sensors for low light level detection

Performance of a small size telescope (SST-1M) camera for gamma-ray astronomy with the Cherenkov Telescope Array

The foreseen implementations of the Small Size Telescopes (SST) in CTA will provide unique insights into the highest energy gamma rays offering fundamental means to discover and under- stand the sources populating the Galaxy and our local neighborhood. Aiming at such a goal, the SST-1M is one of the three different implementations that are being prototyped and tested for CTA. SST-1M is a Davies-Cotton single mirror telescope equipped with a unique camera technology based on SiPMs with demonstrated advantages over classical photomultipliers in terms of duty-cycle. In this contribution, we describe the telescope components, the camera, and the trigger and readout system. The results of the commissioning of the camera using a dedicated test setup are then presented. The performances of the camera first prototype in terms of expected trigger rates and trigger efficiencies for different night-sky background conditions are presented, and the camera response is compared to end-to-end simulations.Comment: All CTA contributions at arXiv:1709.0348

Development of a strategy for calibrating the novel SiPM camera of the SST-1M telescope proposed for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

CTA will comprise a sub-array of up to 70 small size telescopes (SSTs) at the southern array. The SST-1M project, a 4 m-diameter Davies Cotton telescope with 9 degrees FoV and a 1296 pixels SiPM camera, is designed to meet the requirements of the next generation ground based gamma-ray observatory CTA in the energy range above 3 TeV. Silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) cameras of gamma-ray telescopes can achieve good performance even during high night sky background conditions. Defining a fully automated calibration strategy of SiPM cameras is of great importance for large scale production validation and online calibration. The SST-1M sub-consortium developed a software compatible with CTA pipeline software (CTApipe). The calibration of the SST-1M camera is based on the Camera Test Setup (CTS), a set of LED boards mounted in front of the camera. The CTS LEDs are operated in pulsed or continuous mode to emulate signal and night sky background respectively. Continuous and pulsed light data analysis allows us to extract single pixel calibration parameters to be used during CTA operation.Comment: All CTA contributions at arXiv:1709.0348

Xeno-free cultured mesenchymal stromal cells release extracellular vesicles with a "therapeutic" miRNA cargo ameliorating cartilage inflammation in vitro

Rationale: Mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs)-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) emerged as an innovative strategy for the treatment of chronic disorders such as osteoarthritis (OA). Biological activity of EVs is generally driven by their cargo, which might be influenced by microenvironment. Therefore, pre-conditioning strategies, including modifications in culture conditions or oxygen tension could directly impact on MSCs paracrine activity. In this study we selected an appropriate preconditioning system to induce cells to perform the most suitable therapeutic response by EV-encapsulated bioactive factors. Methods: A xeno-free supplement (XFS) was used for isolation and expansion of MSCs and compared to conventional fetal bovine serum (FBS) culture. Bone Marrow-derived MSCs (BMSCs) were pre-conditioned under normoxia (20% O2) or under hypoxia (1% O2) and EVs production was evaluated. Anti-OA activity was evaluated by using an in vitro inflammatory model. miRNA content was also explored, to select putative miRNA that could be involved in a biological function. Results: Modulation of IL-6, IL-8, COX-2 and PGE2 was evaluated on hACs simultaneously treated with IL-1a and BMSC-derived EVs. FBS-sEVs exerted a blunt inhibitory effect, while a strong anti-inflammatory outcome was achieved by XFS-sEVs. Interestingly, in both cases hypoxia pre-conditioning allowed to increase EVs effectiveness. Analysis of miRNA content showed the upregulation in XFS-hBMSC-derived EVs of miRNA known to have a chondroprotective role, such as let-7b-5p, miR-17, miR-145, miR-21-5p, miR-214-3p, miR-30b-5p, miR-30c-5p. Activated pathways and target genes were investigated in silico and upregulated miRNAs functionally validated in target cells. MiR-145 and miR-214 were found to protect chondrocytes from IL-1a-induced inflammation and to reduce production of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Conclusions: XFS medium was found to be suitable for isolation and expansion of MSCs, secreting EVs with a therapeutic cargo. The application of cells cultured exclusively in XFS overcomes issues of safety associated with serum-containing media and makes ready-to-use clinical therapies more accessible

DNA Damage Response Protein CHK2 Regulates Metabolism in Liver Cancer

Defective mitosis with chromosome missegregation can have a dramatic effect on genome integrity by causing DNA damage, activation of the DNA damage response (DDR), and chromosomal instability. Although this is an energy-dependent process, mechanisms linking DDR to cellular metabolism are unknown. Here we show that checkpoint kinase 2 (CHK2), a central effector of DDR, regulates cellular energy production by affecting glycolysis and mitochondrial functions. Patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) had increased CHK2 mRNA in blood, which was associated with elevated tricarboxylic acid cycle (TCA) metabolites. CHK2 controlled expression of succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) and intervened with mitochondrial functions. DNA damage and CHK2 promoted SDH activity marked by increased succinate oxidation through the TCA cycle; this was confirmed in a transgenic model of HCC with elevated DNA damage. Mitochondrial analysis identified CHK2-controlled expression of SDH as key in sustaining reactive oxygen species production. Cells with DNA damage and elevated CHK2 relied significantly on glycolysis for ATP production due to dysfunctional mitochondria, which was abolished by CHK2 knockdown. This represents a vulnerability created by the DNA damage response that could be exploited for development of new therapies