Secondary students' values and perceptions of science-related careers: responses to vignette-based scenarios.

There has been concern about the attractiveness of science-based careers to many adolescent learners, and it has been suggested that school science may not always recognise or engage personal values that are important to young people in making life choices. The present study discusses interview comments made by upper secondary level students in England when 15 young people were asked to give their personal responses to brief vignettes describing scientific careers. Using an interview-about-scenarios approach, the students were asked about whether they would feel comfortable working in the scientific careers represented. The career areas were purposefully selected because they might be considered to potentially raise issues in relation to personal values or commitments that some students might hold. A range of student perceptions relating to the mooted careers were elicited (positive, negative and indifferent), but all of the participants raised issues that impacted on the acceptability or attractiveness of at least one of the mooted scientific careers, in terms of aspects of their own personal beliefs and values systems. It is recommended that teachers and career advisors should be aware of the range of value-related considerations that influence student views of science-related careers and should consider exploring aspects of science-based careers that link to values commonly shared by young people. This exploratory study also offers indications for directions for further research exploring how learners' value systems impact upon their perceptions of science and scientific work.We acknowledge the support of the John Templeton Foundation under grant number: 15389

Inner Ear Disease and Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo: A Critical Review of Incidence, Clinical Characteristics, and Management

Background. This study is a review of the incidence, clinical characteristics, and management of secondary BPPV. The different subtypes of secondary BPPV are compared to each other, as well as idiopathic BPPV. Furthermore, the study highlights the coexistence of BPPV with other inner ear pathologies. Methods. A comprehensive search for articles including in the abstract information on incidence, clinical characteristics, and management of secondary BPPV was conducted within the PubMed library. Results. Different referral patterns, different diagnostic criteria used for inner ear diseases, and different patient populations have led to greatly variable incidence results. The differences regarding clinical characteristics and treatment outcomes may support the hypothesis that idiopathic BPPV and the various subtypes of secondary BPPV do not share the exact same pathophysiological mechanisms. Conclusions. Secondary BPPV is often under-diagnosed, because dizziness may be atypical and attributed to the primary inner ear pathology. Reversely, a limited number of BPPV patients may not be subjected to a full examination and characterized as idiopathic, while other inner ear diseases are underdiagnosed. A higher suspicion index for the coexistence of BPPV with other inner ear pathologies, may lead to a more integrated diagnosis and consequently to a more efficient treatment of these patients

Secondary school teachers' perspectives on teaching about topics that bridge science and religion

The question of where to locate teaching about the relationships between science and religion has produced a long-running debate. Currently, Science and Religious Education (RE) are statutory subjects in England and are taught in secondary schools by different teachers. This paper reports on an interview study in which 16 teachers gave their perceptions of their roles and responsibilities when teaching topics that bridge science and religion and the extent to which they collaborated with teachers in the other subject area. We found that in this sample, teachers reported very little collaboration between the curriculum areas. Although the science curriculum makes no mention of religion, all the science teachers said that their approaches to such topics were affected by their recognition that some pupils hold religious beliefs. All the RE teachers reported struggling to ensure students know of a range of views about how science and religion relate. The paper concludes with a discussion about implications for curriculum design and teacher training

Evaluation of clinical dental variables to build classifiers to predict celiac disease.

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of salivary variables to build statistical models for predicting celiac disease in symptomatic children. Materials and Methods: the study group consisted of 52 children with celiac disease diagnosed by bowel biopsy, grade III or IV (4 to 12 years old, both sexes) and 23 healthy children as a control group. A logistic regression model was applied to evaluate an individual’s belonging to one group or another. The performance of the model was evaluated by the value of area under the ROC curve. The salivary variables included in the model were the concentration of total proteins, calcium, Ca / P molar ratio, buffer capacity and salivary flow. Results: The total proteins (p = 0.0016) and Ca / P molar ratio (p = 0.0237) variables were significantly associated with the celiac condition. The value of the area under the ROC curve, estimated from the probabilities of the logistic model, showed that salivary component values allow the celiac condition of patients to be predicted with 85% accuracy (p <0.0001). Conclusion: Logistic discriminant analysis built with salivary variables shows that these are good for predicting this eating pathology with 85% accuracy.publishedVersio

Bounded decision-making, teachers’ reflection, and organisational learning: how research can inform teachers and teaching

Despite numerous efforts to align educational practice more closely with findings from educational research, there is little clarity about how educational practitioners can, in principle, use research. We propose a conceptualisation based on how research can contribute to practitioners’ thinking: specifically, our framework proposes that research can inform bounded decision‐making, teachers’ reflection and organisational learning. Practitioners can also use research without being aware that they are doing so. We argue that this conceptualisation of research use has potential to inform researchers and practitioner

Developing teaching with an explicit focus on scientific thinking

This article describes an attempt to integrate teaching about an aspect of science ‘content’ with an aspect of the nature of science (NOS), through the development of a practical research-informed teaching module for use in key stage 3 (ages 11–14). The module concerned electrical circuits, and the NOS aspect focused on the role of models and analogies in scientific work. The module offers one example of a general approach that may be adopted in developing curricular schemes of work that build synergy between teaching about NOS and specific science topics. This article reports the outcomes of an evaluation of teachers using the module for the first time, and reflects on the limitations of randomised field trials for determining the efficacy of pedagogic innovations.The work reported here was made possible by ESRC Grant Number: RES-179-25-0003

A research-informed dialogic-teaching approach to early secondary school mathematics and science: the pedagogical design and field trial of the epiSTEMe intervention

The $\textit{Effecting Principled Improvement in STEM Education [epiSTEMe]}$ project undertook pedagogical research aimed at improving pupil engagement and learning in early secondary school physical science and mathematics. Using principles identified as effective in the research literature and drawing on a range of existing pedagogical resources, the project designed and trialled a classroom intervention, with associated professional development, in a form intended to be suited to implementation at scale. The most distinctive feature of the $\textit{epiSTEMe}$ pedagogical approach is its inclusion of a component of dialogic teaching. Aimed at the first year of secondary education in English schools (covering ages 11–12), the $\textit{epiSTEMe}$ intervention consists of a short introductory module designed to prepare classes for this dialogic teaching component, and topic modules which employ the $\textit{epiSTEMe}$ pedagogical approach to cover two curricular topics in each of science and mathematics. A field trial was conducted over the 2010/2011 school year in 25 volunteer schools, randomly assigned to intervention and control groups. Within the intervention group, observation of lessons indicated that the level of dialogic teaching was higher for one of the topic modules than others. Evaluation focused on the effectiveness of the topic modules, each trialled in more than 10 classes containing a total of over 300 pupils, and compared with a group of similar composition. Overall, at this first implementation, learning gains under the $\textit{epiSTEMe}$ intervention were no greater, although for individual topic modules the effects ranged from small negative to small positive. No difference was found between intervention and control groups either in the opinion of pupils about their classroom experience or in changes in their attitude towards subjects.Thanks are due to the Economic and Social Research Council which provided funding for the epiSTEMe project (RES-179-25-0003), to the teachers who generously volunteered to review, pilot and trial versions of the modules, to Christine Howe for her contribution to design and analysis, and to Andy Tolmie and Anna Vignoles for statistical advice.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Taylor & Francis via https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2015.112964

The natural hallucinogen 5-MeO-DMT, component of Ayahuasca, disrupts cortical function in rats: reversal by antipsychotic drugs

5-Methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT) is a natural hallucinogen component of Ayahuasca, an Amazonian beverage traditionally used for ritual, religious and healing purposes that is being increasingly used for recreational purposes in US and Europe. 5MeO-DMT is of potential interest for schizophrenia research owing to its hallucinogenic properties. Two other psychotomimetic agents, phencyclidine and 2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodo-phenylisopropylamine (DOI), markedly disrupt neuronal activity and reduce the power of low frequency cortical oscillations (<4 Hz, LFCO) in rodent medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Here we examined the effect of 5-MeO-DMT on cortical function and its potential reversal by antipsychotic drugs. Moreover, regional brain activity was assessed by blood-oxygen level dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). 5-MeO-DMT disrupted mPFC activity, increasing and decreasing the discharge of 51 and 35% of the recorded pyramidal neurons, and reducing (−31%) the power of LFCO. The latter effect depended on 5-HT1A and 5-HT2A receptor activation and was reversed by haloperidol, clozapine, risperidone, and the mGlu2/3 agonist LY379268. Likewise, 5-MeO-DMT decreased BOLD responses in visual cortex (V1) and mPFC. The disruption of cortical activity induced by 5-MeO-DMT resembles that produced by phencyclidine and DOI. This, together with the reversal by antipsychotic drugs, suggests that the observed cortical alterations are related to the psychotomimetic action of 5-MeO-DMT. Overall, the present model may help to understand the neurobiological basis of hallucinations and to identify new targets in antipsychotic drug development

Intra-abdominal infections: the blood serum interleukin-10 in perioperative period

Objective. To assess the blood serum IL-10 concentration in patients with intra-abdominal infections. Materials and methods. Clinical specimens were obtained from 56 patients, suffering intra-abdominal infections of various origin: 24 patients - with postoperative abscesses, 12 - with primary intra-abdominal abscesses, and 20 - with diffuse or local peritoneal collection at the day before surgical intervention, on 2nd-3rd day and on 5th-7th day after it. Results. There was no trustworthy difference established between the blood serum IL-10 concentrations in patients with different origin of intra-abdominal infections in perioperative period. The significant difference was established, while comparing concentrations of IL-10 in the blood serum in patients with intra-abdominal infections before and on the days 2-3 and 5-7 postoperatively, and in healthy persons. Conclusion. Concentration of the blood serum IL-10 ≥ 6.78 pg/mL in patients with different origin of intra-abdominal infections has significant prognostic significance: sensitivity (92.86%) and specificity (80.65%). Further studies, targeting a specific causative agent of nosocomial infection and the cytokine response, are needed