Book review: Publishing journal articles

In this accessible and informative book, Lucinda Becker and Pam Denicolo seek to introduce the best practical strategies available to help academics maximise the chance of success in getting work published. Offering advice on topics including coping with writer’s block and handling rejection, it will certainly be a useful introduction for some and an invaluable guide for many others, finds Johannes Wheeldon

The Best Trail Algorithm for Assisted Navigation of Web Sites

We present an algorithm called the Best Trail Algorithm, which helps solve the hypertext navigation problem by automating the construction of memex-like trails through the corpus. The algorithm performs a probabilistic best-first expansion of a set of navigation trees to find relevant and compact trails. We describe the implementation of the algorithm, scoring methods for trails, filtering algorithms and a new metric called \emph{potential gain} which measures the potential of a page for future navigation opportunities.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figure

Improving preservice chemistry teachers' content knowledge through intervention activities

The effect of intervention activities on the chemistry content knowledge of 92 preservice chemistry teachers (PSCT) was examined via a pre and post true/false with confidence level test focusing on ionisation energy values and the use of a common alternative conception (AC). Data were collected from three cohorts of PSCT each engaged in a one year full-time university-based teacher education programme. Comparison of pre-and post-test responses and discrimination differences between responses for each PSCT were used to identify the use of the AC and hence the efficacy of the intervention activities. Interviews with 14 of these PSCT allowed triangulation of the data. Findings suggest that the activities allow 71% of PSCT to identify this AC as non-scientific or become more confident in doing so. Interview data indicate that this rejection of this AC is sustained for 9 of the 11 PSCT whose test data indicated improvement. These data have implications for teacher education such that 2 hour intervention sessions can offer the opportunity for PSCT to develop their subject matter knowledge. As the accurate application of electrostatic concepts to electrons has wider application to bonding, these interventions offer PSCT more accurate chemical subject knowledge resources to draw on in their teaching

Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words? Using Mind Maps to Facilitate Participant Recall in Qualitative Research

Mind maps may provide a new means to gather unsolicited data through qualitative research designs. In this paper, I explore the utility of mind maps through a project designed to uncover the experiences of Latvians involved in a legal technical assistance project. Based on a sample of 19 respondents, the depth and detail of the responses between the groups were compared. Those who first completed mind maps identified a greater number of unique concepts and provided more in depth responses about their experience in later interviews. Participants suggested that by first completing a mind map, they were better able to recall, organize, and frame their reflections of past experience. The findings of this analysis of using mind maps provide a justification for more detailed exploration about the utility of mind maps for qualitative research designs

Assessment of Physical Therapy Needs at Third Street Clinic

Health care is being provided free of charge at the Third Street Clinic in Grand Forks, North Dakota, for those people who are uninsured or who do not qualify for Medicare or Medicaid. Physical Therapy is not presently offered as a service at the Clinic. Physical Therapy is part of comprehensive health care. Therapists provide caring and expertise in the areas of neurological rehabilitation, orthopedic/musculoskeletal problems, pediatrics, and work hardening. As volunteers, therapists are involved in providing care at free clinics across the nation. The Third Street Clinic agreed to have a needs assessment performed to identify those clients who could potentially benefit from physical therapy services. The needs assessment was conducted via a chart review of the Clinic\u27s patients. Out of 120 charts that were reviewed 34 charts or 28.3% were determined to be potential physical therapy patients. Demographic data describing Third Street Clinic clientele are also presented

Inhibitory from priming of spoken word production

Three experiments were designed to examine the effect on picture naming of the prior production of a word related in phonological form. In Experiment 1, the latency to produce Dutch words in response to pictures (e.g., hoed , hat) was longer following the production of a form-related word (e.g., hond , dog) in response to a definition on a preceding trial, than when the preceding definition elicited an unrelated word (e.g., kerk , church). Experiment 2 demonstrated that the inhibitory effect disappears when one unrelated word is produced intervening prime and target productions (e.g., hond-kerk-hoed ). The size of the inhibitory effect was not significantly affected by the frequency of the prime words or the target picture names. In Experiment 3, facilitation was observed for word pairs that shared offset segments (e.g., kurk-jurk , cork-dress), whereas inhibition was observed for shared onset segments (e.g., bloed-bloem , blood-flower). However, no priming was observed for prime and target words with shared phonemes but no mismatching segments (e.g., oom-boom , uncle-tree; hex-hexs , fence-witch). These findings are consistent with a process of phoneme competition during phonological encoding

Application of Benchmark Dose Analysis to in vitro Genotoxicity Data for Compound Risk Characterisation

Genotoxic risk from exposure to pharmaceutical compounds has historically been focussed on dichotomous hazard characterisation, with little regulatory acceptance of risk assessment paradigms. The regulations focus on testing novel compounds with outdated genotoxicity test systems. Recent overwhelming support of the Benchmark Dose (BMD) methodology provides the baseline for advanced exposure risk assessments. Novel flow cytometric in vitro DNA damage response assays (MultiFlow and ToxTracker) have been developed that provide quantitative dose-response information that can be used in a high-throughput screening environment. In the following work, BMD modelling is applied to the MultiFlow and ToxTracker biomarker dose-response datasets. This work demonstrates that the MultiFlow dose-response biomarker datasets are amenable to BMD analysis for a set of clastogens and aneugens, and that the biomarker dose-responses correlate with dose-responses from the gold-standard in vitro micronucleus assay. A detailed appraisal of BMD confidence intervals (CIs) is provided for a selection of 10 clastogens requiring metabolic activation (with S9), demonstrating the criticality of using BMD uncertainty measures in comparative potency analysis. A comparative potency algorithm is developed and utilised in machine learning to distinguish four S9-dependent groupings: high and low-level potentiation, no effect, and diminution. A deep dive case study is presented for MultiFlow and ToxTracker analysis of Topoisomerase II Poisons, where BMD CI potency ranks are shown to correlate broadly with compound structural information. The Adverse Outcome Pathway (AOP) for Topoisomerase-II Poisoning is developed upon, and the Lhasa Derek Nexus alerts are mapped to the AOP. A Quantitative Structural Activity Relationship model is developed using Topoisomerase-II Poison molecular descriptors and BMD measurements from MultiFlow and ToxTracker biomarkers that correspond to Key Events relative to the Topoisomerase-II Poison AOP. This thesis provides an all-encompassing report of in vitro DNA damage response biomarker BMD analysis for compound potency ranking and read across