Secondary school students’ epistemic insight into the relationships between science and religion – a preliminary enquiry

A number of previous studies have shown that there is a widespread view among young people that science and religion are opposed. In this paper, we suggest that it requires a significant level of what can be termed ‘epistemic insight’ to access the idea that some people see science and religion as compatible while others do not. To explore this further, we draw on previous work to devise a methodology to discover students’ thinking about apparent contradictions between scientific and religious explanations of the origins of the universe. In our discussion of the findings, we highlight that students’ epistemic insight in this context does seem in many cases to be limited and we outline some of the issues emerging from the study that seem to boost or limit students’ progress in this area

Quantifying serum antibody in bird fanciers' hypersensitivity pneumonitis

BACKGROUND: Detecting serum antibody against inhaled antigens is an important diagnostic adjunct for hypersensitivity pneumonitis (HP). We sought to validate a quantitative fluorimetric assay testing serum from bird fanciers. METHODS: Antibody activity was assessed in bird fanciers and control subjects using various avian antigens and serological methods, and the titer was compared with symptoms of HP. RESULTS: IgG antibody against pigeon serum antigens, quantified by fluorimetry, provided a good discriminator of disease. Levels below 10 mg/L were insignificant, and increasing titers were associated with disease. The assay was unaffected by total IgG, autoantibodies and antibody to dietary hen's egg antigens. Antigens from pigeon serum seem sufficient to recognize immune sensitivity to most common pet avian species. Decreasing antibody titers confirmed antigen avoidance. CONCLUSION: Increasing antibody titer reflected the likelihood of HP, and decreasing titers confirmed antigen avoidance. Quantifying antibody was rapid and the increased sensitivity will improve the rate of false-negative reporting and obviate the need for invasive diagnostic procedures. Automated fluorimetry provides a method for the international standardization of HP serology thereby improving quality control and improving its suitability as a diagnostic adjunct

Effect of trabecular bone loss on cortical strain rate during impact in an in vitro model of avian femur

BACKGROUND: Osteoporotic hip fractures occur due to loss of cortical and trabecular bone mass and consequent degradation in whole bone strength. The direct cause of most fractures is a fall, and hence, characterizing the mechanical behavior of a whole osteopenic bone under impact is important. However, very little is known about the mechanical interactions between cortical and trabecular bone during impact, and it is specifically unclear to what extent epiphyseal trabecular bone contributes to impact resistance of whole bones. We hypothesized that trabecular bone serves as a structural support to the cortex during impact, and hence, loss of a critical mass of trabecular bone reduces internal constraining of the cortex, and, thereby, decreases the impact tolerance of the whole bone. METHODS: To test this hypothesis, we conducted cortical strain rate measurements in adult chicken's proximal femora subjected to a Charpy impact test, after removing different trabecular bone core masses to simulate different osteopenic severities. RESULTS: We found that removal of core trabecular bone decreased by ~10-fold the cortical strain rate at the side opposite to impact (p < 0.01), i.e. from 359,815 ± 1799 μm/m per second (mean ± standard error) for an intact (control) specimen down to 35,997 ± 180 μm/m per second where 67% of the total trabecular bone mass (~0.7 grams in adult chicken) were removed. After normalizing the strain rate by the initial weight of bone specimens, a sigmoid relation emerged between normalized strain rate and removed mass of trabecular bone, showing very little effect on the cortex strain rate if below 10% of the trabecular mass is removed, but most of the effect was already apparent for less than 30% trabecular bone loss. An analytical model of the experiments supported this behavior. CONCLUSION: We conclude that in our in vitro avian model, loss of over 10% of core trabecular bone substantially altered the deformation response of whole bone to impact, which supports the above hypothesis and indicates that integrity of trabecular bone is critical for resisting impact loads

LipidXplorer: A Software for Consensual Cross-Platform Lipidomics

LipidXplorer is the open source software that supports the quantitative characterization of complex lipidomes by interpreting large datasets of shotgun mass spectra. LipidXplorer processes spectra acquired on any type of tandem mass spectrometers; it identifies and quantifies molecular species of any ionizable lipid class by considering any known or assumed molecular fragmentation pathway independently of any resource of reference mass spectra. It also supports any shotgun profiling routine, from high throughput top-down screening for molecular diagnostic and biomarker discovery to the targeted absolute quantification of low abundant lipid species. Full documentation on installation and operation of LipidXplorer, including tutorial, collection of spectra interpretation scripts, FAQ and user forum are available through the wiki site at: https://wiki.mpi-cbg.de/wiki/lipidx/index.php/Main_Page

Screening and identification of seed-specific genes using digital differential display tools combined with microarray data from common wheat

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Wheat is one of the most important cereal crops for human beings, with seeds being the tissue of highly economic value. Various morphogenetic and metabolic processes are exclusively associated with seed maturation. The goal of this study was to screen and identify genes specifically expressed in the developing seed of wheat with an integrative utilization of digital differential display (DDD) and available online microarray databases.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 201 unigenes were identified as the results of DDD screening and microarray database searching. The expressions of 6 of these were shown to be seed-specific by qRT-PCR analysis. Further GO enrichment analysis indicated that seed-specific genes were mainly associated with defense response, response to stress, multi-organism process, pathogenesis, extracellular region, nutrient reservoir activity, enzyme inhibitor activity, antioxidant activity and oxidoreductase activity. A comparison of this set of genes with the rice (<it>Oryza sativa</it>) genome was also performed and approximately three-fifths of them have rice counterparts. Between the counterparts, around 63% showed similar expression patterns according to the microarray data.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>In conclusion, the DDD screening combined with microarray data analysis is an effective strategy for the identification of seed-specific expressed genes in wheat. These seed-specific genes screened during this study will provide valuable information for further studies about the functions of these genes in wheat.</p

A systematic review of attitudes, anxiety, acceptance, and trust towards social robots

As social robots become more common, there is a need to understand how people perceive and interact with such technology. This systematic review seeks to estimate people’s attitudes toward, trust in, anxiety associated with, and acceptance of social robots; as well as factors that are associated with these beliefs. Ninety-seven studies were identified with a combined sample of over 13,000 participants and a standardized score was computed for each in order to represent the valence (positive, negative, or neutral) and magnitude (on a scale from 1 to − 1) of people’s beliefs about robots. Potential moderating factors such as the robots’ domain of application and design, the type of exposure to the robot, and the characteristics of potential users were also investigated. The findings suggest that people generally have positive attitudes towards social robots and are willing to interact with them. This finding may challenge some of the existing doubt surrounding the adoption of robotics in social domains of application but more research is needed to fully understand the factors that influence attitudes

Expression of RNA interference triggers from an oncolytic herpes simplex virus results in specific silencing in tumour cells in vitro and tumours in vivo

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Delivery of small interfering RNA (siRNA) to tumours remains a major obstacle for the development of RNA interference (RNAi)-based therapeutics. Following the promising pre-clinical and clinical results with the oncolytic herpes simplex virus (HSV) OncoVEX^GM-CSF, we aimed to express RNAi triggers from oncolytic HSV, which although has the potential to improve treatment by silencing tumour-related genes, was not considered possible due to the highly oncolytic properties of HSV.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>To evaluate RNAi-mediated silencing from an oncolytic HSV backbone, we developed novel replicating HSV vectors expressing short-hairpin RNA (shRNA) or artificial microRNA (miRNA) against the reporter genes green fluorescent protein (eGFP) and β-galactosidase (lacZ). These vectors were tested in non-tumour cell lines <it>in vitro </it>and tumour cells that are moderately susceptible to HSV infection both <it>in vitro </it>and in mice xenografts <it>in vivo</it>. Silencing was assessed at the protein level by fluorescent microscopy, x-gal staining, enzyme activity assay, and western blotting.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our results demonstrate that it is possible to express shRNA and artificial miRNA from an oncolytic HSV backbone, which had not been previously investigated. Furthermore, oncolytic HSV-mediated delivery of RNAi triggers resulted in effective and specific silencing of targeted genes in tumour cells <it>in vitro </it>and tumours <it>in vivo</it>, with the viruses expressing artificial miRNA being comprehensibly more effective.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This preliminary data provide the first demonstration of oncolytic HSV-mediated expression of shRNA or artificial miRNA and silencing of targeted genes in tumour cells <it>in vitro </it>and <it>in vivo</it>. The vectors developed in this study are being adapted to silence tumour-related genes in an ongoing study that aims to improve the effectiveness of oncolytic HSV treatment in tumours that are moderately susceptible to HSV infection and thus, potentially improve response rates seen in human clinical trials.</p

SignS: a parallelized, open-source, freely available, web-based tool for gene selection and molecular signatures for survival and censored data

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Censored data are increasingly common in many microarray studies that attempt to relate gene expression to patient survival. Several new methods have been proposed in the last two years. Most of these methods, however, are not available to biomedical researchers, leading to many re-implementations from scratch of ad-hoc, and suboptimal, approaches with survival data.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We have developed SignS (Signatures for Survival data), an open-source, freely-available, web-based tool and R package for gene selection, building molecular signatures, and prediction with survival data. SignS implements four methods which, according to existing reviews, perform well and, by being of a very different nature, offer complementary approaches. We use parallel computing via MPI, leading to large decreases in user waiting time. Cross-validation is used to asses predictive performance and stability of solutions, the latter an issue of increasing concern given that there are often several solutions with similar predictive performance. Biological interpretation of results is enhanced because genes and signatures in models can be sent to other freely-available on-line tools for examination of PubMed references, GO terms, and KEGG and Reactome pathways of selected genes.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>SignS is the first web-based tool for survival analysis of expression data, and one of the very few with biomedical researchers as target users. SignS is also one of the few bioinformatics web-based applications to extensively use parallelization, including fault tolerance and crash recovery. Because of its combination of methods implemented, usage of parallel computing, code availability, and links to additional data bases, SignS is a unique tool, and will be of immediate relevance to biomedical researchers, biostatisticians and bioinformaticians.</p

A nomenclature for restriction enzymes, DNA methyltransferases, homing endonucleases and their genes

A nomenclature is described for restriction endonucleases, DNA methyltransferases, homing endonucleases and related genes and gene products. It provides explicit categories for the many different Type II enzymes now identified and provides a system for naming the putative genes found by sequence analysis of microbial genome