The impact of circadian rhythms on medical imaging and radiotherapy regimes for the paediatric patient

Daily rhythmic changes are found in cellular events in cell cycle, DNA repair, apoptosis and angiogenesis in both normal and tumour tissue, as well as in enzymatic activity and drug metabolism. In this paper, we hypothesize that circadian rhythms need to be considered in radiation protection and optimization in personalized medicine, especially for paediatric care. The sensitivity of the eye lens to ionizing radiation makes the case for limiting damage to the lens epithelium by planning medical radio-imaging procedures for the afternoon, rather than the morning. Equally, the tumour and normal tissue response to radiotherapy is also subject to diurnal variation enabling optimization of time of treatment

Influence of citric acid and water on thermoplastic wheat flour/poly(lactic acid) blends. I: Thermal, mechanical and morphological properties

Wheat flour was plasticized with glycerol and compounded with poly(lactic acid) in a one-step twin-screw extrusion process in the presence of citric acid with or without extra water. The influence of these additives on process parameters and thermal, mechanical and morphological properties of injected samples from the prepared blends, was then studied. Citric acid acted as a compatibilizer by promoting depolymerization of both starch and PLA. For an extrusion without extra water, the amount of citric acid (2 parts for 75 parts of flour, 25 parts of PLA and 15 parts of glycerol) has to be limited to avoid mechanical properties degradation. Water, added during the extrusion, improved the whole process, minimizing PLA depolymerization, favoring starch plasticization by citric acid and thus improving phases repartition

Researching and Designing for the Orchestration of Learning in the CSCL Classroom

Designing tools for teachers to orchestrate computer supported collaborative learning activities in their classrooms requires that attention be paid to the range of roles and activities a teacher must take throughout the process. Drawing on the Implementing Collaborative Learning in the Classroom framework proposed by Kaendler, Wiedmann, Rummel and Spada (2014), the contributors to this symposium will speak to the way their designs address the various parts of this framework, allowing us to draw conclusions about what has been successful for different parts of this process, and identifying future directions for development and research

Sustainable Development for Rural Areas: A Survey on the Agritourism Rural Networks

The topic of sustainable growth is becoming central in the debate over the rural development policies. Rural communities can completely fulfil the new challenges in the area of sustainability only with the implementation of innovative forms of collaborations among their business networks. In this work, we consider a particular form of business collaboration arising within rural communities, namely Agritourism Rural Network (ARN). In an ARN, a farm, providing agritourism activities, represents a touchpoint between a network of business and organizations in a rural area and tourists interested in enjoying the local territory. With the aim to deeper the extend of the agritourism phenomenon in a rural region and the potential of the related ARNs in being means of sustainable development, we report main results of an empirical survey carried out in 2016 on a sample of 105 agritourism farms all belonging to the same region (Calabria, Italy). Results confirm our intuitions about the importance at farm level of setting agritourism activities and their impact for the ARN related to the farm and for the sustainable development of a local community as a whole