Adaptability and Procedural Content Generation for Educational Escape Rooms

We present a literature review that aims to understand the role of the Educational Escape Room (EER) in improving the teaching, learning, and assessment processes through an EER design framework. The main subject is to identify the recent interventions in this field in the last five years. Our study focuses on understanding how it is possible to create an EER available to all students, namely visually challenged users. As a result of the implementation of new learning strategies that promote autonomous learning, a concern arose in adapting educational activities to each student's individual needs. To study the adaptability of each EER, we found the EER design framework essential to increase the student experience by promoting the consolidation of knowledge through narrative and level design. The results of our study show evidence of progress in students' performance while playing an EER, revealing that students' learning can be effective. Research on Procedural Content Generation (PCG) highlighted how important it is to implement adaptability in future studies of EERs. However, we found some limitations regarding the process of evaluating learning through the EERs, showing how important it is to study and implement learning analytics in future studies in this field

Sex-biased parental care and sexual size dimorphism in a provisioning arthropod

The diverse selection pressures driving the evolution of sexual size dimorphism (SSD) have long been debated. While the balance between fecundity selection and sexual selection has received much attention, explanations based on sex-specific ecology have proven harder to test. In ectotherms, females are typically larger than males, and this is frequently thought to be because size constrains female fecundity more than it constrains male mating success. However, SSD could additionally reflect maternal care strategies. Under this hypothesis, females are relatively larger where reproduction requires greater maximum maternal effort – for example where mothers transport heavy provisions to nests. To test this hypothesis we focussed on digger wasps (Hymenoptera: Ammophilini), a relatively homogeneous group in which only females provision offspring. In some species, a single large prey item, up to 10 times the mother’s weight, must be carried to each burrow on foot; other species provide many small prey, each flown individually to the nest. We found more pronounced female-biased SSD in species where females carry single, heavy prey. More generally, SSD was negatively correlated with numbers of prey provided per offspring. Females provisioning multiple small items had longer wings and thoraxes, probably because smaller prey are carried in flight. Despite much theorising, few empirical studies have tested how sex-biased parental care can affect SSD. Our study reveals that such costs can be associated with the evolution of dimorphism, and this should be investigated in other clades where parental care costs differ between sexes and species

Karyotype and genome size of Iberochondrostoma almacai (Teleostei, Cyprinidae) and comparison with the sister-species I.lusitanicum

This study aimed to define the karyotype of the recently described Iberian endemic Iberochondrostoma almacai, to revisit the previously documented chromosome polymorphisms of its sister species I.lusitanicum using C-, Ag-/CMA3 and RE-banding, and to compare the two species genome sizes. A 2n = 50 karyotype (with the exception of a triploid I.lusitanicum specimen) and a corresponding haploid chromosome formula of 7M:15SM:3A (FN = 94) were found. Multiple NORs were observed in both species (in two submetacentric chromosome pairs, one of them clearly homologous) and a higher intra and interpopulational variability was evidenced in I.lusitanicum. Flow cytometry measurements of nuclear DNA content showed some significant differences in genome size both between and within species: the genome of I. almacai was smaller than that of I.lusitanicum (mean values 2.61 and 2.93 pg, respectively), which presented a clear interpopulational variability (mean values ranging from 2.72 to 3.00 pg). These data allowed the distinction of both taxa and confirmed the existence of two well differentiated groups within I. lusitanicum: one that includes the populations from the right bank of the Tejo and Samarra drainages, and another that reunites the southern populations. The peculiar differences between the two species, presently listed as “Critically Endangered”, reinforced the importance of this study for future conservation plans

Decreased CD90 expression in human mesenchymal stem cells by applying mechanical stimulation

BACKGROUND: Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) are multipotent cells which can differentiate along osteogenic, chondrogenic, and adipogenic lineages. The present study was designed to investigate the influence of mechanical force as a specific physiological stress on the differentiation of (MSC) to osteoblast-like cells. METHODS: Human MSC were cultured in osteoinductive medium with or without cyclic uniaxial mechanical stimulation (2000 μstrain, 200 cycles per day, 1 Hz). Cultured cells were analysed for expression of collagen type I, osteocalcin, osteonectin, and CD90. To evaluate the biomineral formation the content of bound calcium in the cultures was determined. RESULTS: After 14 days in culture immunfluorescence staining revealed enhancement of collagen type I and osteonectin expression in response to mechanical stimulation. In contrast, mechanically stimulated cultures stained negative for CD90. In stimulated and unstimulated cultures an increase in the calcium content over time was observed. After 21 days in culture the calcium content in mechanical stimulated cultures was significantly higher compared to unstimulated control cultures. CONCLUSION: These results demonstrate the influence of mechanical force on the differentiation of human MSC into osteoblast-like cells in vitro. While significant enhancement of the biomineral formation by mechanical stimulation is not detected before 21 days, effects on the extracellular matrix became already obvious after 14 days. The decrease of CD90 expression in mechanically stimulated cultures compared to unstimulated control cultures suggests that CD90 is only transiently expressed expression during the differentiation of MSC to osteoblast-like cells in culture