Oswald Physical and Engineering Sciences First Place: An Improved in vitro Model for the Study of Endothelial Cells Using Micropatterned Surfaces

Sickle cell anemia, malaria, and cancer are a few of the deadly diseases that utilize blood vessels as a means of migration throughout the body. Adhesion of harmful cells to the endothelial lining of the circulatory system is an integral step in the metastasis of blood borne diseases. As a result of shear stress produced by blood flow through veins and arteries, the endothelium undergoes a distinct morphological change resulting in a more elongated and unidirectional morphology. It has recently been suggested that such changes in cell morphology can affect surface expression profiles, which in turn affects cell-cell binding and interaction to the endothelial wall. Currently, most researchers are using in vitro flow models or static well-plates to culture endothelial cells. However, traditional in vitro flow systems take approximately 24 hours to obtain a valid morphology, and static well plate studies result in cobblestone morphology more random in orientation than in vivo endothelial cells. In this study, we are investigating the use of micropatterned glass surfaces to statically culture human vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) in the desired elongated and unidirectional morphology and this system’s effects on surface chemistry of the HUVECs. Microscopy and flow cytometry were used to compare the morphology and surface expression of HUVECs grown on control blank slides, on micropatterned grooves, and under flow conditions. HUVECs cultured on micropatterned grooves demonstrated the desired elongated and unidirectional morphology. Morphology analysis showed that HUVECs cultured on micropatterned grooves were statistically more elongated and unidirectional than HUVECs cultured on control blank slides

Synaptic Homeostasis at the Drosophila Neuromuscular Junction: Molecular Mechanisms and Developmental Adaptation

No abstract availabl

A comparative analysis of two different analysers used for determination of the Total Organic Carbon in pharmaceutical grade water

Total Organic Carbon (TOC) is a routine test for pharmaceutical grade water. Several manufacturers supply equipment of different designs but there is a dearth of published, peer-reviewed, information evaluating the various analysers. In this study, we compared two TOC analysers, both validated to the same pharmacopoeial criteria, but with different oxidation and detection methods. The results in this paper show that there were no unexplained out-of-specification results and that both analysers operated equivalently in terms of the pharmacopoeial 500ppb pass/fail limits. However, significant differences between the TOC levels reported from paired samples were observed, two paired samples recorded a pass/fail conflict (albeit flagged with an overestimation warning), as well as differences in analyser responses between spiked samples that contained low levels of nitro- and chloro-carbon compounds

Comparative analysis of TOC and conductivity analysers as applied to pharmaceutical water analysis

Pharmaceutical grade water requires the measurement of bioburden, Total Organic Carbon and conductivity. Here we report a comparative analysis from two TOC analysers and two conductivity systems. The TOC analysers showed significantly different results

Contributors to life satisfaction in parents of an adult child with Down syndrome [Conference Abstract]

Aim: This study investigated: (1) concurrent relationships between measures of family life and parental satisfaction with life in parents of an adult with Down syndrome and (2) influence of early family functioning on current parental satisfaction. Method: Sixty-two families were interviewed using a semi-structured interview, and responded to a series of questionnaires related to family functioning when their child with Down syndrome was between 7 and 15 years. Fifteen years later parents were asked to provide data on their current situation, including mental health, and satisfaction and difficulties with respect to care-giving in relation to their adult child. Results: Over half the families provided data to the second phase of the study. Life circumstances were appreciably worse for a small group of families than had been the case 15 years previously; however, these changes were generally unrelated to their parenting role. Overall, parents reported experiencing satisfaction from their care-giving role and did not report high levels of difficulties emanating from this role. Conclusions: Most parents demonstrated good levels of personal functioning, although there was a small group for whom this was not the case. Earlier functioning did not make a strong contribution to current levels of life satisfaction

Development, maturation, and necessity of transcription factors in the mouse suprachiasmatic nucleus

The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the hypothalamus is the master mammalian circadian clock. The SCN is highly specialized as it is responsible for generating a near 24-hour rhythm, integrating external cues, and translating the rhythm throughout the body. Currently, our understanding of the developmental origin and genetic program involved in the proper specification and maturation of the SCN is limited. Herein, we provide a detailed analysis of transcription factor (TF) and developmental-gene expression in the SCN from neurogenesis to adulthood in mice (Mus musculus). TF expression within the postmitotic SCN was not static but rather showed specific temporal and spatial changes during pre- and postnatal development. In addition, we found both global and regional patterns of TF expression extending into the adult. We found the SCN is derived from a distinct region of the neuroepithelium expressing a combination of developmental genes: Six3, Six6, Fzd5, and transient Rx, allowing us to pinpoint the origin of this region within the broader developing telencephalon/diencephalon. We tested the necessity of two TFs in SCN development, RORα and Six3, which were expressed during SCN development, persisted into adulthood, and showed diurnal rhythmicity. Loss of RORα function had no effect on SCN peptide expression or localization. In marked contrast, the conditional deletion of Six3 from early neural progenitors completely eliminated the formation of the SCN. Our results provide the first description of the involvement of TFs in the specification and maturation of a neural population necessary for circadian behavior

"The impact of mediation on resolution of disagreements around special educational needs: Effectiveness and cost effectiveness"

Under England’s Children and Families Act 2014, local authorities (LAs) have a statutory responsibility to provide an independent mediation service for cases of disagreement between parents or young people and the LAs where parents or the young person are considering an appeal to the First-tier Tribunal Special Educational Needs (SEN) and DisabilityWe examined the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of mediation in resolving such disagreements without recourse to an appeal to the Tribunal. Our data comprised three national surveys, two supplementary surveys and individual interviews with LA staff and parents to explore implementation of the new mediation system and the impact on appeals and costs over 2014–16 from 109 English LAs who provided data. Our findings indicate that families who took up mediation were significantly less likely to appeal to the Tribunal, absolute risk reduction 13.58% (95% CI: 10.20%, 16.97%). The cost saving across all cases, of different complexity, was £636,462 overall, approximately £500 per case. Overall, mediation was found to be a promising method of disagreement resolution, reducing appeals and producing savings in both financial and human well-being costs. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of both the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of mediation as a means of resolution of disputes about meeting children's SEN

Using Elo Rating as a Metric for Comparative Judgement in Educational Assessment

Marking and feedback are essential features of teaching and learning, across the overwhelming majority of educational settings and contexts. However, it can take a great deal of time and effort for teachers to mark assessments, and to provide useful feedback to the students. Furthermore, it also creates a significant cognitive load on the assessors, especially in ensuring fairness and equity. Therefore, an alternative approach to marking called comparative judgement (CJ) has been proposed in the educational space. Inspired by the law of comparative judgment (LCJ). This pairwise comparison for as many pairs as possible can then be used to rank all submissions. Studies suggest that CJ is highly reliable and accurate while making it quick for the teachers. Alternative studies have questioned this claim suggesting that the process can increase bias in the results as the same submission is shown many times to an assessor for increasing reliability. Additionally, studies have also found that CJ can result in the overall marking process taking longer than a more traditional method of marking as information about many pairs must be collected. In this paper, we investigate Elo, which has been extensively used in rating players in zero-sum games such as chess. We experimented on a large-scale Twitter dataset on the topic of a recent major UK political event ("Brexit", the UK's political exit from the European Union) to ask users which tweet they found funnier between a pair selected from ten tweets. Our analysis of the data reveals that the Elo rating is statistically significantly similar to the CJ ranking with a Kendall's tau score of 0.96 and a p-value of 1.5x10^(-5). We finish with an informed discussion regarding the potential wider application of this approach to a range of educational contexts.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, one table, pre-review versio