It’s part of my life: engaging university and community to enhance science and mathematics education - final report, March 2017

This project is designed to improve mathematics and science teaching in Australian schools by engaging pre-service teachers with the mathematics and science that underpins everyday life in Australian regional communities. The project draws together the strengths of university mathematicians, scientists, and specialist educators to enhance the higher education mathematics and science education curriculum framework by grounding it in the practical contexts that are an integral part of our daily lives. In so doing, 'It's part of my life' addresses two critical issues in mathematics and science education: lack of teacher confidence, and lack of student interest. Along with a flexible and adaptive, scalable model for embedding real-world contexts and related teaching strategies into curriculum, project outcomes include an open educational resource of evaluated and documented real-life scenarios for inclusion in curriculum across all educational levels, tools for evaluating new scenarios, and increased networking amongst university researchers, specialist educators and members of the wider community

Estrogen and progesterone receptor levels in nonneoplastic breast epithelium of breast cancer cases versus benign breast biopsy controls

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Previous studies and biological mechanisms of carcinogenesis suggest that the steroid receptor content of benign breast epithelium may be related to breast cancer risk. The objective in this study was to compare the levels of estrogen receptor-α (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) in nonneoplastic breast epithelium between breast cancer cases and biopsy controls.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Between 1995 and 1997 at two sites (Women's College Hospital in Toronto and Kingston General Hospital), 667 women who were scheduled for diagnostic excisional breast biopsies completed a questionnaire providing personal information and agreed to allow analysis of routinely resected tissue. Histological slides with nonneoplastic epithelium were available for 101 cancer cases and 200 biopsy controls in Toronto and for 105 cancer cases and 119 controls in Kingston. Nonneoplastic epithelium was examined with immunohistochemical assays to determine the percent of epithelial cells staining for ER and PR. Unconditional logistic regression was used to calculate odds ratios (OR) stratified by study site.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The ER content of nonneoplastic tissue was higher in cases than biopsy controls in unadjusted analyses; after adjustment for age, however, a weak association remained in only one of the study sites. After adjustment for age, the PR content of nonneoplastic tissue was slightly lower in breast cancer cases than controls in one study site. Furthermore, this inverse association was confined to women with PR negative breast cancer in comparison to the controls. No interaction between ER and PR content of nonneoplastic tissue was observed in relation to the odds of having breast cancer.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results of this study are consistent with only a slight indication of increased ER levels in nonneoplastic tissue in breast cancer cases relative to controls. This study contributes to the understanding of breast cancer by examining both ER and PR in nonneoplastic tissue. Limitations remain, however, such as the necessity of using as controls women with benign breast changes, difficulties in selecting the appropriate tissue for analysis, and tissue sampling concurrent to diagnosis.</p

Biodiversidad de Bacillus thuringiensis patotipos II y IV y Bacillus sphaericus aislados de suelos agrícolas peruanos

Se aislaron 18 cepas nativas de Bacillus thuringiensis y 3 cepas de Bacillus sphaericus con potencial mosquitocida, de 175 muestras de aguas estancadas y suelos agrícolas de diferentes partes del país. Las observaciones microscópicas de colonias características, mostraron la presencia de cristales parasporales típicos de B thuringiensis. Los bioensayos realizados mostraron a las cepas BT-UNMSM-112 y BT-UNMSM-118 como las de mayor capacidad entomocida frente a los primeros estadios de Anopheles pseudopunctipennis y B. sphaericus - Bs-UNMSM 107 mostró la mayor efectividad frente a Culex spp. Se determinó los niveles de susceptibilidad, en el laboratorio, de esta especie a Bacillus thuringiensis var. Israelensis y Bacillus sphaericus, encontrándose una CL50 de 0.215 y 0.360 ìg /mL y CL90 0.236 y 0.428 &nbsp;ìg/ mL para B. thuringiensis BT-UNMSM 112 y BT-UNMSM 118 respectivamente y una CL50 de 0.87 ìg/mL y una CL90 de 0.95 ìg/mL para B. sphaericus Bs-UNMSM 107 frente a An. pseudopunctipennis. Para Culex spp se encontró 90 una CL50 de 0.562 y 0.920 ìg /mLy CL90 2.52 y 3.20 ìg/ mL para B. thuringiensis BT-UNMSM 112 y BT-UNMSM 118 respectivamente y una CL50 de 0.34 ìg/mL y una CL90 de 0.44 ìg/mL con B. sphaericus Bs-UNMSM-107