Capturing the Design Thinking of Young Children Interacting with a Parent

Children have often been labeled as “natural engineers” whose curiosity about the world around them evokes comparisons to skills used by professional engineers and taught to undergraduate engineering students. Building towers out of blocks, taking things apart and figuring how things work are a part of childhood and have been considered to be precursors to engineering thinking.However there has been considerable debate around what engineering looks like for young children. Can young children engage in design and if so, what does that look like? How can we differentiate “design” (especially “modeling” or “create”) activity from normal everyday play?Several design models have taken into account the developmental stages of young children, but they often are based on assumptions and have minimal evidence.In the GRADIENT (Gender Research on Adult-child Discussions within Informal ENgineering environmenTs) study, a collaboration between researchers at a museum and university, we looked at how parents with young girls engage in two different engineering activities in informal settings. The first setting is a Preschool Play dates program for children 3-5 years old, where the parent-daughter dyads were asked to build a tower first out of familiar materials (foam blocks)and then out of unfamiliar materials (dado squares). The second setting is a pneumatic ball run that is part of an engineering exhibit at the museum and was focused on children 6-11 years old.In each setting, 30 dyads were video recorded, and the verbal and non-verbal segments were open and axially coded for engineering talk and action.We found that children engage in the engineering design process in ways that are similar to other models of the engineering design, that include problem scoping, idea generation, modeling,testing, evaluation and revision. We also found that children engage in both predictive and reflective behavior, and often add context to the problem. However, we want to acknowledge that the way children engage in engineering thinking is different from the way that adults do(especially with idea generation and revision) and we will discuss this further in the paper. This work lays a foundation for future research, as understanding how children engage in the design process can help us understand how children learn engineering design skills, and how people develop engineering design skills across pre-college, undergraduate, and professional practice.The work also has implications for the development of learning experiences in both school and out-of-school settings

Jamming during the discharge of granular matter from a silo

In this work we present an experimental study of the jamming that stops the free flow of grains from a silo discharging by gravity. When the outlet size is not much bigger than the beads, granular material jams the outlet of the container due to the formation of an arch. Statistical data from the number of grains fallen between consecutive jams are presented. The information that they provide can help to understand the jamming phenomenon. As the ratio between the size of the orifice and the size of the beads is increased, the probability that an arch blocks the outlet decreases. We show here that there is a power law divergence of the mean avalanche size for a finite critical radius. Beyond this critical radius no jamming can occur and the flow is never stopped. The dependence of the arch formation on the shape and the material of the grains has been explored. It has been found that the material properties of the grains do not affect the arch formation probability. On the contrary, the shape of the grains deeply influences it. A simple model to interpret the results is also discussed.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Engineering Together: Context in Dyadic Talk During an Engineering Task (K-12 Fundamental)

Exploring how children develop early interest and understanding in engineering canprovide useful information for the ongoing efforts to increase the access of women inengineering careers. Drawing on occupational choice theories, girls and women havetended to place a high value on helping others in their work, but do not often realize thatcareers in engineering can lead to these types of endeavors. Adding layers of socialcontext that highlight the connections between engineering endeavors and improving thelives of others may create a more engaging experience for girls and women, andpotentially lead to increased development of girls’ engineering interest and understanding.Additionally, informal learning environments are positioned to become a pivotal role in inspiring today’s youth to pursue careers in STEM. These contexts have already been shown to be important avenues in which children can develop lifelong interest and understanding of broad range of STEM topics. Moreover, informal learning environments often allow for parents and children to work together to foster interest and engagement within STEM.Parent-child dyads who were visiting a metropolitan science museum as part of it\u27s program for preschool-aged children were asked to participate in a study that explores parent-child engineering conversations through a conversation analysis methodology. Dyads consisting of a parent with their daughter (aged 3-5 years) were video-recorded while engaged in two different engineering tasks: building a tower out of familiar materials and constructing a second tower out of unfamiliar materials. In the preliminary phase, participants (n = 25) were asked to build a tower with a specified goal, whereas participants in the follow-up phase (n = 25) were given the same directions though infused with a social context (i.e. building for someone, for a specified purpose).This paper will examine the differences in the use of context between fathers and mothers within the preliminary and follow-up phases, including the frequency and type of context used towards the design of the towers. Four case studies were evaluated to highlight key findings such as the addition of context to the preliminary phase and the involvement of social context in the follow-up. It was found that in the preliminary phase that both parents and the children added context to the task – a finding that resonates with the research that girls are more interested in socially relevant activities. When given a more detailed background, children integrated the given context within design decisions and explanations even going so far as to expand on the original information.By examining the dyad’s interaction, we hope to identify recommendations we can make to other parents on how to foster engineering interest in their children, as well as contribute ideas for activities for K-5 classrooms to reach a wider range of children

Using Puppets to Elicit Talk During Interviews on Engineering with Young Children

Interviewing can be tricky at best, but with a younger audience (\u3c 5 years) there are some additional barriers that inhibit the interview process such as shyness, short attention span,lack of vocabulary, and level of parental guidance (Clark, 1999). When in an interview, a child may try to ‘second guess’ what the researcher wants them to say, especially if they believe that the interviewer may already know the answer (Gallop, 2000). Additionally young children tend to give monosyllabic answers to open ended questions (Tizard &Hughes, 1984), and might require more prompting than adults.One aide that has been recently investigated is the use of puppets to elicit children’s talk for research (Epstein et al., 2008). Puppets have been shown to: • Decrease children’s fears of the interview process • Lower anxiety levels • Help assess children’s knowledge • Help children to adjust to environment • Provide effective communication and teaching tools. Most research focuses on puppets within clinical contexts, but recently the use has been extended towards other applications such as qualitative interviews (Epstein et al., 2008),mathematical lessons (Cauley, 1988), promoting science engagement (Naylor et al,2007), and teaching phonics (Johnston & Watson, ???). However, there has not been any documented use of this research approach within engineering education.There are three common interview techniques involving puppets in practice: the Alien Puppet Interview (API) (Krott and Nicoladis, 2005), the Puppet Interview (PI) (Cassidy,1988; Verschueren, Buyuk and Marcoen, 2001) and the Berkeley Puppet Interview (BPI) (Measelle et al., 1998; Ablow et al., 1999). Each technique has a different strategy depending on how the child interacts with the puppet.As part of a larger project, children ages 3-5 were interviewed about an engineering task that they had just completed with their parents during a museum event. The interview was a hybrid mix of the Alien Puppet Interview and the Puppet Interview, depending on the way in which the child interviewee chose to interact with the puppet. Thirty interviews were analyzed for children’s interaction, quality of answers, and behavior toward the puppet.In the paper, we will provide more details about the specific interview approach used for our study (as well as insights into how children responded to this interview approach) in addition to a larger discussion of the three interview techniques in order to provide a research methodology resource for other pre-college engineering education researchers to use

Numerical simulation of extreme weather phenomena using highresolution mesoscale meteorological models

The results of the numerical prediction of dangerous weather phenomena (strong wind and fog) for the conditions of the city of Tomsk and the Tomsk district are considered. The numerical prediction is carried out with a resolution of 1 km using the WRF and TSUNM3 mesoscale meteorological models. The results of the calculations are compared with the observations obtained for selected dates in 2020 using the meteorological instruments of Research Equipment Sharing Center called “Atmosphere” of the Institute of Atmospheric Optics named after Zuev SB RAS and the airfield service of the Tomsk Airport

Матриксные металлопротеиназы и белки теплового шока на внеклеточных везикулах у больных колоректальным раком: связь с метаболическим статусом

Introduction. In most patients with colorectal cancer (CRC), the tumor develops against the background of metabolically healthy obesity or metabolic syndrome (more than 60 % of patients), the key pathogenetic moment of which is developing hyperinsulinemia. Metabolic changes are also characteristic of patients with colon polyps (CP), which are currently considered as the most significant precancerous diseases. It has been shown that fractions of small extracellular vesicles (EVs) of adipocyte origin are specifically enriched in extracellular matrix proteins, including matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), chaperones, and some metabolic enzymes involved in the synthesis of lipids and carbohydrates. This was the reason for choosing exosomal markers in our study. Comparison of protein expression on CD9- and FABP-4 positive vesicles will be useful to explain some clinical issues, such as the effectiveness of thermoradiotherapy or radiotherapy in obese CRC patients; for a more substantiated search for vesicular prognostic markers in obese cancer patients. However, taking into account the lack of data in the literature on the level of MMPs and HSPs expression in the composition of the total pool of EVs and in the composition of FABP4-positive EVs in patients with PTC and CRC patients, the aim of the work was formulated.Aim. Study of the level of MMPs and heat shock proteins (HSPs) on CD9- and FABP4-positive EVs in patients with CP and CRC in relation to metabolic status.Materials and methods. The study included 12 patients with CRC (T2-4N0-2M0; mean age 59.6 ± 1.6 years) who were treated at the Department of Abdominal Oncology of the Cancer Research Institute of the Tomsk National Research Medical Center from 2019 to 2021. The comparison group included 10 patients with CP. The level of proteins on the surface of CD9- and FABP4-positive EVs was studied using flow cytometry.Results. MMP9-positive EVs were detected more often in CRC patients than in CP patients, however, MMP9+MMP2+TIMP-positive EVs were significantly more frequently detected in CP patients. Among the studied heat shock proteins, HSP60 was most often expressed on the surface of EVs, and HSP60-positive EVs were detected on the surface of CD9-positive exosomes in patients with PTC much more often than in CRC. In patients with CRC, compared with patients with СP, among FABP4-positive EVs, the proportion of triple-positive EVs and EVs with the MMP9+MMP2-TIMP1+ phenotype significantly increases, which in general may indicate overexpression of MMP9 and TIMP1 by adipocytes or marcrophages of adipose tissue in patients with CRC. Correlation analysis revealed multiple correlations of individual phenotypes of CD9-positive EVs in patients with CRC with body mass index and serum high density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, while the phenotypes of FABP4-positive EVs were associated mainly with triglyceride levels.Conclusions. The phenotypes of CD9-positive and FABP4-positive circulating EVs are promising as predictors for clarifying cancer risk in patients with colon polyps, as well as in terms of explaining the effectiveness of the treatment of CRC patients with obesity or metabolic syndrome.Введение. У большинства больных колоректальным раком (КРР) опухоль возникает на фоне метаболически здорового ожирения, или метаболического синдрома (более чем в 60 % случаев), ключевым патогенетическим моментом которого является развивающаяся гиперинсулинемия. метаболические изменения также характерны для больных с полипами толстой кишки (ПТК), которые в настоящее время рассматриваются как наиболее значимые предраковые заболевания. показано, что фракции малых внеклеточных везикул (ВВ) адипоцитарного происхождения специфически обогащены белками внеклеточного матрикса, включая матриксные металлопротеиназы (MMPs), шаперонами, а также некоторыми метаболическими ферментами, участвующими в синтезе липидов и углеводов. это послужило причиной выбора экзосомальных маркеров в нашем исследовании. Сравнение экспрессии протеинов на CD9-и FABP4-позитивных ВВ будет полезно для объяснения некоторых клинических моментов, например эффективности терморадиотерапии или радиотерапии у больных КРР с ожирением, а также для более обоснованного поиска везикулярных прогностических маркеров у онкологических пациентов с ожирением. цель исследования была сформулирована с учетом отсутствия в литературе данных об уровне экспрессии MMPs и белков теплового шока (HSPs) в составе тотального пула ВВ и в FABP4-позитивных ВВ у пациентов с ПТК и КРР.Цель исследования - изучение уровня MMPs и HSPs на CD9- и FABP4-позитивных ВВ у пациентов с ПТК и КРР во взаимосвязи с метаболическим статусом.Материалы и методы. В исследование были включены 12 больных КРР (T2-4N0-2M0; средний возраст 59,6 ± 1,6 года), проходивших лечение в отделении абдоминальной онкологии Научно-исследовательского института онкологии Томского национального исследовательского медицинского центра Российской академии наук с 2019 по 2021 г. В группу сравнения вошли 10 пациентов с ПТК. Уровень белков на поверхности CD9- и FABP4-позитивных ВВ был изучен с помощью проточной цитометрии.Результаты. ММР9-позитивные ВВ чаще выявлялись у больных КРР по сравнению с пациентами с ПТК, однако ММР9+ММР2+Т1МР-позитивные ВВ достоверно чаще обнаруживались у последних. Из изученных белков теплового шока на поверхности ВВ наиболее часто экспрессировался HSP60, причем HSP60-позитивные ВВ выявлялись на поверхности CD9-позитивных экзосом при ПТК гораздо чаще, чем при КРР. У больных КРР по сравнению с пациентами с ПТК среди FABP4-позитивных ВВ наблюдалось существенное увеличение доли трипл-позитивных ВВ и ВВ с фенотипом MMP9+MMP2-TIMP1+, что в целом может свидетельствовать о гиперэкспрессии MMP9 и TIMP1 адипоцитами или маркрофагами жировой ткани у больных КРР. Корреляционный анализ выявил множественные связи отдельных фенотипов CD9-позитивных ВВ у больных КРР с индексом массы тела и уровнем холестерина липопротеинов высокой плотности в сыворотке крови, в то время как фенотипы FABP4-позитивных ВВ были ассоциированы в основном с уровнем триглицеридов.Заключение. Фенотипы CD9-позитивных и FABP4-позитивных циркулирующих ВВ перспективны в качестве предикторов для уточнения онкологического риска у больных с полипами толстой кишки, а также в плане объяснения эффективности лечения больных КРР с ожирением или метаболическим синдромом