Every Child a Talker: Guidance for consultants and early language lead practitioners (Third instalment: Autumn 2009)

"Every Child a Talker (ECAT) is designed to help practitioners and parents create a developmentally appropriate, supportive and stimulating environment in which children can enjoy experimenting with and learning language... Every Early Language Consultant (ELC) and Early Language Lead Practitioner (ELLP) will have followed a different route on their journey towards ‘Every Child a Talker’... Within all these diverse journeys, however, there are some common elements. This third instalment of the Every Child a Talker (ECAT) file looks at the commonalities of the journeys through a series of case studies." - page

Encapsulation of catechin and epicatechin on BSA NPS improved their stability and antioxidant potential

Nanoencapsulation of antioxidant molecules on protein nanoparticles (NPs) could be an advanced approach for providing stable, better food nutraceuticals and anticancer drugs. The bioavailability and stability of catechin (CAT) and epicatechin (ECAT) were very poor. In the present study, the CAT and ECAT were loaded on bovine serum albumin (BSA) NPs following desolvation method. The transmission electron microscope (TEM) and atomic force microscope (AFM) recorded size of CAT-BSA NPs and ECAT-BSA NPs were 45 ± 5 nm and 48 ± 5 nm respectively. The encapsulation efficiency of CAT and ECAT on BSA NPs was found to be 60.5 and 54.5 % respectively. CAT-BSA NPs and ECAT-BSA NPs show slow and sustained in vitro release. The CAT-BSA NPs and ECAT-BSA NPs were stable in solution at various temperatures 37°C, 47°C and 57°C. DPPH assay revealed that CAT and ECAT maintained their functional activity even after encapsulation on BSA NPs. Furthermore, the efficacy of CAT-BSA NPs and ECAT-BSA NPs determined against A549 cell lines was found to be improved. CAT and ECAT aptly encapsulated in BSA NPs, showed satisfactory sustained release, maintained antioxidant potential and found improved efficacy. This has thus suggested their more effective use in food and nutraceuticals as well as in medical field

Eye-gaze contingent attention training (ECAT) : examining the causal role of attention regulation in reappraisal and rumination

This study used a novel eye-gaze contingent attention training (ECAT) to test the prediction that attention regulation is involved in reappraisal and rumination. Sixty-six undergraduates were randomly assigned to either the control or the active training condition of the ECAT. Active ECAT comprised training in allocating attention toward positive words to efficiently create positive interpretations while receiving gaze-contingent feedback. Participants in the control condition freely generated interpretations without receiving gaze-contingent feedback. Active ECAT resulted in: 1) more sustained attention on positive information, in turn predicting greater reappraisal success to down-regulate negative emotions, and 2) larger reductions in state rumination after viewing negative scenes. Our results highlight the importance of considering attention mechanisms in understanding (and treating impaired) emotion regulation processes. These findings provide an important step towards the use of personalized attention training to build resources of resilience

The relationship between redox enzyme activity and electrochemical potential—cellular and mechanistic implications from protein film electrochemistry

In protein film electrochemistry a redox protein of interest is studied as an electroactive film adsorbed on an electrode surface. For redox enzymes this configuration allows quantification of the relationship between catalytic activity and electrochemical potential. Considered as a function of enzyme environment, i.e., pH, substrate concentration etc., the activity–potential relationship provides a fingerprint of activity unique to a given enzyme. Here we consider the nature of the activity–potential relationship in terms of both its cellular impact and its origin in the structure and catalytic mechanism of the enzyme. We propose that the activity–potential relationship of a redox enzyme is tuned to facilitate cellular function and highlight opportunities to test this hypothesis through computational, structural, biochemical and cellular studies