Kopstukken uit de examenwereld. Wim van der Linden, itembanking centraal

Molkenboer, H., & Joosten-ten Brinke, D. (2010). Kopstukken uit de examenwereld. Wim van der Linden, itembanking centraal. Examens, Tijdschrift voor de toetspraktijk, 2, 25-28.Interview met prof. dr. W. van der Linde

O uso das novas tecnologias nas aulas de Geografia para a melhoria do ensino e aprendizagem em escolas de ensino básico

Este trabalho tem como objetivo apresentar a importância do uso das novas tecnologias como instrumento para a melhoria do ensino e aprendizagem em Geografia. A atividade foi realizada em duas escolas do ensino básico na cidade de Fortaleza no ano 2014, onde se desenvolveram práticas com o uso de recursos tecnológicos, tais como a plataforma Moodle, criação e reprodução de slides, além de vídeos, havendo uma maior socialização e produção de conhecimentos e uma nova forma de conduzir as aulas de Geografia. Podemos perceber a importância e os desafios quanto ao uso das novas tecnologias

Developmental Fluoxetine Exposure Normalizes the Long-Term Effects of Maternal Stress on Post-Operative Pain in Sprague-Dawley Rat Offspring

Early life events can significantly alter the development of the nociceptive circuit. In fact, clinical work has shown that maternal adversity, in the form of depression, and concomitant selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) treatment influence nociception in infants. The combined effects of maternal adversity and SSRI exposure on offspring nociception may be due to their effects on the developing hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) system. Therefore, the present study investigated long-term effects of maternal adversity and/or SSRI medication use on nociception of adult Sprague-Dawley rat offspring, taking into account involvement of the HPA system. Dams were subject to stress during gestation and were treated with fluoxetine (2×/5 mg/kg/day) prior to parturition and throughout lactation. Four groups of adult male offspring were used: 1. Control+Vehicle, 2. Control+Fluoxetine, 3. Prenatal Stress+Vehicle, 4. Prenatal Stress+Fluoxetine. Results show that post-operative pain, measured as hypersensitivity to mechanical stimuli after hind paw incision, was decreased in adult offspring subject to prenatal stress alone and increased in offspring developmentally exposed to fluoxetine alone. Moreover, post-operative pain was normalized in prenatally stressed offspring exposed to fluoxetine. This was paralleled by a decrease in corticosteroid binding globulin (CBG) levels in prenatally stressed offspring and a normalization of serum CBG levels in prenatally stressed offspring developmentally exposed to fluoxetine. Thus, developmental fluoxetine exposure normalizes the long-term effects of maternal adversity on post-operative pain in offspring and these effects may be due, in part, to the involvement of the HPA system

High Log-Scale Expansion of Functional Human Natural Killer Cells from Umbilical Cord Blood CD34-Positive Cells for Adoptive Cancer Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy based on natural killer (NK) cell infusions is a potential adjuvant treatment for many cancers. Such therapeutic application in humans requires large numbers of functional NK cells that have been selected and expanded using clinical grade protocols. We established an extremely efficient cytokine-based culture system for ex vivo expansion of NK cells from hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells from umbilical cord blood (UCB). Systematic refinement of this two-step system using a novel clinical grade medium resulted in a therapeutically applicable cell culture protocol. CD56+CD3− NK cell products could be routinely generated from freshly selected CD34+ UCB cells with a mean expansion of >15,000 fold and a nearly 100% purity. Moreover, our protocol has the capacity to produce more than 3-log NK cell expansion from frozen CD34+ UCB cells. These ex vivo-generated cell products contain NK cell subsets differentially expressing NKG2A and killer immunoglobulin-like receptors. Furthermore, UCB-derived CD56+ NK cells generated by our protocol uniformly express high levels of activating NKG2D and natural cytotoxicity receptors. Functional analysis showed that these ex vivo-generated NK cells efficiently target myeloid leukemia and melanoma tumor cell lines, and mediate cytolysis of primary leukemia cells at low NK-target ratios. Our culture system exemplifies a major breakthrough in producing pure NK cell products from limited numbers of CD34+ cells for cancer immunotherapy

Defining Early Human NK Cell Developmental Stages in Primary and Secondary Lymphoid Tissues

A better understanding of human NK cell development in vivo is crucial to exploit NK cells for immunotherapy. Here, we identified seven distinctive NK cell developmental stages in bone marrow of single donors using 10-color flow cytometry and found that NK cell development is accompanied by early expression of stimulatory co-receptor CD244 in vivo. Further analysis of cord blood (CB), peripheral blood (PB), inguinal lymph node (inLN), liver lymph node (liLN) and spleen (SPL) samples showed diverse distributions of the NK cell developmental stages. In addition, distinctive expression profiles of early development marker CD33 and C-type lectin receptor NKG2A between the tissues, suggest that differential NK cell differentiation may take place at different anatomical locations. Differential expression of NKG2A and stimulatory receptors (e.g. NCR, NKG2D) within the different subsets of committed NK cells demonstrated the heterogeneity of the CD56brightCD16+/− and CD56dimCD16+ subsets within the different compartments and suggests that microenvironment may play a role in differential in situ development of the NK cell receptor repertoire of committed NK cells. Overall, differential in situ NK cell development and trafficking towards multiple tissues may give rise to a broad spectrum of mature NK cell subsets found within the human body

Immunochip SNP array identifies novel genetic variants conferring susceptibility to candidaemia

Candidaemia is the fourth most common cause of bloodstream infection, with a high mortality rate of up to 40%. Identification of host genetic factors that confer susceptibility to candidaemia may aid in designing adjunctive immunotherapeutic strategies. Here we hypothesize that variation in immune genes may predispose to candidaemia. We analyse 118,989 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) across 186 loci known to be associated with immune-mediated diseases in the largest candidaemia cohort to date of 217 patients of European ancestry and a group of 11,920 controls. We validate the significant associations by comparison with a disease-matched control group. We observe significant association between candidaemia and SNPs in the CD58 (P = 1.97 x 10(-11); odds ratio (OR) = 4.68), LCE4A-C1orf68 (P = 1.98 x 10(-10); OR = 4.25) and TAGAP (P = 1.84 x 10(-8); OR = 2.96) loci. Individuals carrying two or more risk alleles have an increased risk for candidaemia of 19.4-fold compared with individuals carrying no risk allele. We identify three novel genetic risk factors for candidaemia, which we subsequently validate for their role in antifungal host defence

Numerical study of coherent tunneling in a double-barrier structure

\u3cp\u3eWe present a transparent and simple theory describing coherent transport of charge carriers through a double-barrier resonant tunnelling structure, including charge build-up in a self-consistent way. Numerical analysis of this model gives I-V characteristics showing negative differential resistance (ndr) and an intrinsic bistability in the ndr region of the curve. We show that it is the charge storage within the quantum well from which the intrinsic bistability results.\u3c/p\u3

Selfconsistent study of coherent tunneling through a double barrier structure

\u3cp\u3eWe present a model of the double barrier resonant-tunneling diode (DBRTD), in which the tunneling is described in a 1D transfer matrix approach, based on full wave coherence, and in which the electronic potential is determined selfconsistently from the 3D charge distribution in the structure. Within this simple model, we are able to describe the diode's intrinsic bistability. Results are presented in the form of I-V-characteristics for GaAs-AlGaAs structures. Our approach is evaluated with respect to existing models.\u3c/p\u3