IoT sensors in sea water environment: Ahoy! Experiences from a short summer trial

IoT sensors for measuring various sea water parameters, are explored here, aiming towards an educational context, in order to lead to a deeper understanding of the use of aquatic environments as natural resources, and towards the adoption of environmentally friendly behaviors. Sea-water sensing via IoT has not been extensively explored, due to practical difficulties in deployment, and the same applies to devising appropriate scenaria for understanding aquatic parameters in STEM education. A short hands-on IoT sensing trial, that has been conducted in various location of the Aegean sea, is reported in this paper. This research set out to gain insight into real data sets on which to base observations for devising realistic educational scenaria pertaining aquatic parameters. The results of this experiment are meant to guide research further, by shedding light into the IoT sensing issues that are involved in an educational scientific context. The goal is conducting broader research in the area of IoT water sensing towards its further utilization in STEM education

Bridging the gap between school and out-of-school science: A Making pedagogical approach

Making provides a beneficial learning environment that requires skills and knowledge from the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to design and construct a product or an artefact. In this paper the maker approach reflects on the pedagogical potential of learning through the design and deployment of an automated system that monitors and records environmental parameters in lakes and rivers. IoT technologies are used to connect schools with natural ecosystems, providing the opportunity to students to be actively involved in designing and developing technology artefacts to experiment with, and further, in the formulation of research questions, and in the processing and interpretation of research results and measurements. The study contributes to the research literature on bridging the gap between the school and out-of-school science

Class II Phosphoinositide 3-Kinases Contribute to Endothelial Cells Morphogenesis

PMCID: PMC3539993This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Exploring stakeholders’ ecosystem services perceptions across Massachusetts Bays using deliberative valuation

Deliberative methods to assess ecosystem services values formalize community members’ and stakeholders’ involvement in decision-making related to natural resources management. This paper presents the methodological design and the application of a deliberative multicriteria evaluation (DMCE) method that combines the advantages of deliberation with structured decision-making to assess community-based values of four coastal ecosystem services (valued by indicators such as Total Nitrogen, Blue Carbon, Scallop Landings, Fish Abundance) and explore the spatial variability of group values along the Massachusetts coastline. We implemented four virtual deliberative workshops consisting of stakeholders from four Massachusetts Bays (MassBays) estuarine categorizations to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data came from individual survey results and group preferences, while qualitative data were derived through the analysis of video recordings and transcripts of deliberations. Compared to previous studies, we combined quantitative and qualitative data by using applied thematic and co-occurrence analysis to identify themes of discussion during the deliberative process. Our results show that coastal stakeholders place a particular emphasis on access to clean water and services that directly support human wellbeing and provide direct economic benefits. Differences in the quantitative and qualitative results of these deliberative tasks between groups provide insight into the need for localized policymaking instead of solely regional or statewide management. Environmental managers and policymakers will utilize these insights to address local values and priorities as they work towards implementing habitat restoration efforts

SF3B1 hotspot mutations confer sensitivity to PARP inhibition by eliciting a defective replication stress response.

SF3B1 hotspot mutations are associated with a poor prognosis in several tumor types and lead to global disruption of canonical splicing. Through synthetic lethal drug screens, we identify that SF3B1 mutant (SF3B1MUT) cells are selectively sensitive to poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitors (PARPi), independent of hotspot mutation and tumor site. SF3B1MUT cells display a defective response to PARPi-induced replication stress that occurs via downregulation of the cyclin-dependent kinase 2 interacting protein (CINP), leading to increased replication fork origin firing and loss of phosphorylated CHK1 (pCHK1; S317) induction. This results in subsequent failure to resolve DNA replication intermediates and G2/M cell cycle arrest. These defects are rescued through CINP overexpression, or further targeted by a combination of ataxia-telangiectasia mutated and PARP inhibition. In vivo, PARPi produce profound antitumor effects in multiple SF3B1MUT cancer models and eliminate distant metastases. These data provide the rationale for testing the clinical efficacy of PARPi in a biomarker-driven, homologous recombination proficient, patient population

GPR55 signalling promotes proliferation of pancreatic cancer cells and tumour growth in mice, and its inhibition increases effects of gemcitabine

Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund and Avner Pancreatic Cancer Foundation (grants to MF)

Evaluating a design-based learning approach using IoT technologies for STEM education

This paper presents an evaluation methodology suitable for a design- based learning approach with the Internet of Things technologies for teaching STEM courses. It also aims to evaluate the learning outcomes that such teaching interventions bring to students. The particular ed- ucational approach to be evaluated is an ongoing research topic, focus- ing on IoT sensor data used in school education, for understanding and raising awareness for aquatic ecosystems. This study aims to assess the impact of incorporating this proposal for IoT based teaching interven- tions in the subjects of Physics, Informatics and Electronics into the regular curriculum of Greek secondary education, as well as to add to the field literature

End-user configuration of ambient intelligence environments: Feasability from an user perspective

We report research into concepts and technology for enabling end-users to configure Ambient Intelligent environments. In this paper we focus on the feasibility and acceptability of this endeavor from an end-user perspective. We describe a conceptual model and an experimental enabling technology that illustrates the viability of these concepts and a multi-faceted evaluation of these concepts from an end-user perspective. Our work suggests the need for a flexible approach in letting users choose how much should be observable of system structure and function or of the processes of system learning and adaptation. Directions for future research in this field are described in the form of some provisional principles for shaping the interaction with end-user configurable Ambient Intelligence environments