Motive-demand dynamics creating a social context for students’ learning experiences in a making and design environment

Making and design environments, often referred to as makerspaces, have aroused recent educational interest. These environments typically consist of spaces that support interest-driven engagement in hands-on creative activities with a range of digital artefacts. Although a variety of benefits from participating in making and design activities have been proposed, we currently have limited understanding of students’ learning experiences in makerspaces situated in schools. Following Hedegaards’ conceptualisations, we investigate motive-demand dynamics in students’ social activity in a school-based digital making and design environment, ‘The FUSE Studio’. We highlight our findings via vignettes selected from 65 h of video recordings of 94 students (aged between 9 and 12 years old) carrying out activities; the recordings were collected intermittently from an elective course over one semester. Our study illustrates how the students’ learning experiences were shaped through tension-laden interplay between the motives and demands of their activity situated across personal, relational and institutional contexts. The findings make visible how established ways of working and being at school interacted and came into tension with the students’ motive orientations, thereby limiting and at times transforming the social context of their learning. Our work also demonstrates how the analysis of motive-demand dynamics offers one useful conceptual tool to unpack students’ learning experiences in novel learning environments.Peer reviewe

Antibacterial Characterization of Novel Synthetic Thiazole Compounds against Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius

Staphylococcus pseudintermedius is a commensal organism of companion animals that is a significant source of opportunistic infections in dogs. With the emergence of clinical isolates of S. pseudintermedius (chiefly methicillin-resistant S. pseudintermedius (MRSP)) exhibiting increased resistance to nearly all antibiotic classes, new antimicrobials and therapeutic strategies are urgently needed. Thiazole compounds have been previously shown to possess potent antibacterial activity against multidrug-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus of human and animal concern. Given the genetic similarity between S. aureus and S. pseudintermedius, this study explores the potential use of thiazole compounds as novel antibacterial agents against methicillin-sensitive S. pseudintermedius (MSSP) and MRSP. A broth microdilution assay confirmed these compounds exhibit potent bactericidal activity (at sub-microgram/mL concentrations) against both MSSA and MRSP clinical isolates while the MTS assay confirmed three compounds (at 10 μg/mL) were not toxic to mammalian cells. A time-kill assay revealed two derivatives rapidly kill MRSP within two hours. However, this rapid bactericidal activity was not due to disruption of the bacterial cell membrane indicating an alternative mechanism of action for these compounds against MRSP. A multistep resistance selection analysis revealed compounds 4 and 5 exhibited a modest (twofold) shift in activity over ten passages. Furthermore, all six compounds (at a subinihibitory concentration) demonstrated the ability to re-sensitize MRSP to oxacillin, indicating these compounds have potential use for extending the therapeutic utility of β-lactam antibiotics against MRSP. Metabolic stability analysis with dog liver microsomes revealed compound 3 exhibited an improved physicochemical profile compared to the lead compound. In addition to this, all six thiazole compounds possessed a long post-antibiotic effect (at least 8 hours) against MRSP. Collectively the present study demonstrates these synthetic thiazole compounds possess potent antibacterial activity against both MSSP and MRSP and warrant further investigation into their use as novel antimicrobial agents

Identifying Changes in Selective Constraints: Host Shifts in Influenza

The natural reservoir of Influenza A is waterfowl. Normally, waterfowl viruses are not adapted to infect and spread in the human population. Sometimes, through reassortment or through whole host shift events, genetic material from waterfowl viruses is introduced into the human population causing worldwide pandemics. Identifying which mutations allow viruses from avian origin to spread successfully in the human population is of great importance in predicting and controlling influenza pandemics. Here we describe a novel approach to identify such mutations. We use a sitewise non-homogeneous phylogenetic model that explicitly takes into account differences in the equilibrium frequencies of amino acids in different hosts and locations. We identify 172 amino acid sites with strong support and 518 sites with moderate support of different selection constraints in human and avian viruses. The sites that we identify provide an invaluable resource to experimental virologists studying adaptation of avian flu viruses to the human host. Identification of the sequence changes necessary for host shifts would help us predict the pandemic potential of various strains. The method is of broad applicability to investigating changes in selective constraints when the timing of the changes is known

Diferenças de nichos entre duas espécies simpátricas de lagartos (Cnemidophorus abaetensis e C. ocellifer) em habitat de restinga no nordeste do Brasil

Differences among sympatric lizard species usually result from differences in the use of three resources: space, time and food or some combination of these three. However, differences in resource utilization among sympatric species may simply reflect their specific ecological needs rather than competitive pressures. In this study, we analyzed the temporal, spatial and food niche of two congeneric teiids (Cnemidophorus abaetensis and C. ocellifer) living sympatrically in the "restinga" habitat of Abaeté in the Salvador Municipality, Bahia State, Brazil to assess the degree of niche differentiation among them. The whiptail species overlapped considerably in an hourly activity (Ojk = 0.93), in microhabitat use (Ojk = 0.97) and in the prey items consumed (Ojk = 0.89). Differences in amount of vegetation in the microhabitats used by both lizard species may have contributed to differences in the activity period and in the distribution of the main prey eaten by these lizards which may, in turn, facilitate their coexistence in Abaeté. Although sympatric C. ocellifer and C. abaetensis in Abaeté differed only slightly in their use of microhabitats, period of activity and diet, the most important niche dimension segregating the two species seemed to be the food niche._____________________________________________________________________________________ RESUMO: As diferenças entre espécies simpátricas geralmente podem ser atribuídas às variações na utilização de três dimensões primárias de recurso: o período de atividade, o microhabitat e o alimento ou a alguma combinação das três. No entanto, tais diferenças na utilização de recursos entre espécies simpátricas têm sido sugeridas mais como um reflexo de suas necessidades ecológicas específicas do que resultado de pressão competitiva. Neste estudo, avaliou-se o nicho temporal, o espacial e o alimentar de dois teídeos cogenéricos (Cnemidophorus abaetensis e C. ocellifer) vivendo em simpatria na restinga de Abaeté em Salvador, Bahia. As duas espécies de lagartos sobrepõem-se consideravelmente no período de atividade (Ojk = 0,93), no uso dos microhabitats (Ojk = 0,97) e nos tipos de presas consumidas (Ojk = 0,89). As diferenças na quantidade de vegetação nos microhabitats utilizadas pelas duas espécies podem ter contribuído para as diferenças no período de atividade e na distribuição dos principais tipos de presas consumidas por estas duas espécies de lagartos, o que pode ter favorecido a coexistência entre elas na restinga do Abaeté. No entanto, as diferenças na dieta são as mais significativas para a segregação

Cooperation between Apoptotic and Viable Metacyclics Enhances the Pathogenesis of Leishmaniasis

Mimicking mammalian apoptotic cells by exposing phosphatidylserine (PS) is a strategy used by virus and parasitic protozoa to escape host protective inflammatory responses. With Leishmania amazonensis (La), apoptotic mimicry is a prerogative of the intramacrophagic amastigote form of the parasite and is modulated by the host. Now we show that differently from what happens with amastigotes, promastigotes exposing PS are non-viable, non-infective cells, undergoing apoptotic death. As part of the normal metacyclogenic process occurring in axenic cultures and in the gut of sand fly vectors, a sub-population of metacyclic promastigotes exposes PS. Apoptotic death of the purified PS-positive (PSPOS) sub-population was confirmed by TUNEL staining and DNA laddering. Transmission electron microscopy revealed morphological alterations in PSPOS metacyclics such as DNA condensation, cytoplasm degradation and mitochondrion and kinetoplast destruction, both in in vitro cultures and in sand fly guts. TUNELPOS promastigotes were detected only in the anterior midgut to foregut boundary of infected sand flies. Interestingly, caspase inhibitors modulated parasite death and PS exposure, when added to parasite cultures in a specific time window. Efficient in vitro macrophage infections and in vivo lesions only occur when PSPOS and PS-negative (PSNEG) parasites were simultaneously added to the cell culture or inoculated in the mammalian host. The viable PSNEG promastigote was the infective form, as shown by following the fate of fluorescently labeled parasites, while the PSPOS apoptotic sub-population inhibited host macrophage inflammatory response. PS exposure and macrophage inhibition by a subpopulation of promastigotes is a different mechanism than the one previously described with amastigotes, where the entire population exposes PS. Both mechanisms co-exist and play a role in the transmission and development of the disease in case of infection by La. Since both processes confer selective advantages to the infective microorganism they justify the occurrence of apoptotic features in a unicellular pathogen