Are pre-service Primary School teachers prepared to teach science by inquiry?

[EN] Inquiry-based science education (IBSE) focuses on the development of science process skills. This teaching methodology has been shown to be especially effective during Primary School as it allows children to explore and confront their own ideas about Nature. Also, a methodology based on process skills is coherent with the main purpose of this educational stage where children need to learn to do things. In order to implement a methodology based on science process skills Primary teachers need to know to use science process skills, and how to teach them. In this paper we address if Spanish pre-service teachers are able to implement IBSE. We focus on pre-service Primary School teachers and compare our results with in-service teachers and a random sample of non-teachers. We explore their level of knowledge about science process skills and if pre-service teachers know how to develop an inquiry-based learning sequence. An overview of the situation of science education and teaching of scientific skills among the degrees on Primary Education in Spain is also presented. Our results show that pre-service teachers have a lack of knowledge on science process skills and fail when they attempting to build a learning sequence based on inquiry.Montero-Pau, J.; Tierno, SP.; Tuzon, P. (2017). Are pre-service Primary School teachers prepared to teach science by inquiry?. En Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Higher Education Advances. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1294-1301. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAD17.2017.55861294130

Influence of perineural invasion in predicting overall survival and disease-free survival in patients With locally advanced gastric cancer

Background The aim of the present study was to evaluate the prognostic significance of perineural invasion (PNI) in locally advanced gastric cancer patients who underwent D2 gastrectomy and adjuvant chemotherapy. Methods The records of a series of 103 patients undergoing D2 gastrectomy with curative intent combined with adjuvant chemotherapy from January 2004 to December 2014 were retrospectively reviewed. Results PNI was positive in 47 (45.6%) specimens. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year overall survival rates were 81%, 55%, and 42%, respectively. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) rates were 76%, 57%, and 49%, respectively. A multivariate analysis showed that age number of positive lymph nodes, T stage, and PNI were independently associated with overall survival. Regarding DFS, the multivariate analysis showed that only PNI was independently associated with DFS. Conclusions PNI and T stage and positive lymph nodes are independent markers of poor prognosis in patients with gastric cancer. PNI should be incorporated in the postoperative staging system for planning follow-up after surgery and in our opinion to propose more aggressive postoperative therapies in PNI-positive patients

Colloidal transport on magnetic garnet filmsw

This article reports several recent discoveries related to the controlled transport of paramagnetic colloidal particles above magnetic garnet films. The garnet films are thin uniaxial ferromagnetic films in which ferromagnetic domains can be organized into symmetric patterns consisting of stripes or bubbles and generate strong local magnetic field gradients. Application of an external homogeneous magnetic field on a larger scale compared to the spatial periodicity of the magnetic pattern in the film modulates the potential generated at its surface and induces the controlled motion of colloidal particles placed above the film. Several novel dynamical regimes are observed and reported, from localized trajectories to direct particle transport, depending on the geometry of the underlying magnetic pattern and on the parameters, which control the external driving field, such as frequency, strength and direction. Moreover, we show that this strategy allows separation and sorting of bi-disperse particle systems based on the particle size as well as the transport of chemical or biological cargoes attached to the colloidal carriers. Controlled transport of micro-sized cargoes (chemical or biological) by colloidal particle carriers in a microfluidic environment can bring significant contributions in several fields from targeted drug delivery to the realization of precise fluid-based micro-scale devices

Dynamics of a deformable self-propelled particle under external forcing

We investigate dynamics of a self-propelled deformable particle under external field in two dimensions based on the model equations for the center of mass and a tensor variable characterizing deformations. We consider two kinds of external force. One is a gravitational-like force which enters additively in the time-evolution equation for the center of mass. The other is an electric-like force supposing that a dipole moment is induced in the particle. This force is added to the equation for the deformation tensor. It is shown that a rich variety of dynamics appears by changing the strength of the forces and the migration velocity of self-propelled particle