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The historic sandbox computer game Skool Daze, released by Microsphere for ZX Spectrumin 1984, is analyzed in the context of its importance for the game development industry,with conceptual parallels extended into the domains of natural science and arts.The ability to accomplish the game only by displaying rebelliousness in an inherentlycruel academic system is connected with a similar principle applying to innovation in scienceand art. Both science and art are exercises in imagination that require mischievousplayfulness, a point that is intrinsic to Skool Daze. The article also makes the case forthis game as a potential source of inspiration for the creation of conceptual art or sciencewhen viewed in a historical context. A sense of nostalgia about the early days of computergames pervades the paper, which ends on a confessional but high-spirited note.

AbstractMedical devices are manmade objects existing at the interface between numerous disciplines. They range from as simple as medical gloves to as complex as artificial limbs. This versatility of medical devices and their inherent interdisciplinary nature means that academic courses on them are attended by cohorts of students from varieties of academic backgrounds, who bring with them similarly broad spectra of interests. To satisfy the learning expectations of each and every student in such diverse classes is a daunting task for the instructor. After many years of teaching medical devices at undergraduate and graduate levels at three different universities in the states of Illinois and California, I have come up with an instructional method that solves this challenge by engaging students in the co-creation of the curriculum via selection of their own medical devices of interest and presentation to the class for collective analysis. The threefold presentations are designed so that they reflect an ascent along the hierarchy of a learning taxonomy extending from foundational concepts to critical assessment of knowledge to creative displays of it. In such a way, the students are acquainted with the ability of critical and creative thinking at the expense of rote memorization or inculcation and are prepared to enter the field of medical devices as innovation-centered individuals. The specifics of this new method of instruction are reported here, with the hope that they will be useful to fellow instructors in any interdisciplinary course that benefits from a balance between the rigorous coverage of the instructional material pertaining to engineering and medicine and the flexible selection of topics that comply with students’ individual interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydroxyapatite (HAp) has been the main protagonist in the quest for an ideal biomaterial for regenerative medicine over the last half a century. To control its properties, this material has commonly been doped with chemical elements other than its natural stoichiometric constituents: Ca, O, P, and H. Here, we report on the first analysis of the biological response to germanium-doped hydroxyapatite (Ge-HAp). Cytotoxicity, osteogenic differentiation induction, and colony formation potential were measured on dental pulp stem cells, while the antimicrobial effect was assessed against Gram-negative Escherichia coli , Gram-positive methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and Candida albicans. All analyses were run in comparison to Ge-free HAp. Cell viability was inversely dependent on the nanoparticle concentration and incubation time. Adding Ge to HAp reduced cell viability relative to HAp after 24–72 h incubation periods, but the effect was reversed after longer incubations, when the viability of cells treated with low doses of Ge-HAp exceeded that of HAp-treated cells and became comparable with control culture. Both HAp and Ge-HAp induced mineral formation in the cell culture, but the effect was more pronounced for Ge-HAp. Likewise, relative to both control cells and cells exposed to HAp, Ge-HAp upregulated the expression of all three osteogenic markers analyzed, namely, alkaline phosphatase, RUNX2, and osteocalcin, exerting the key influence on osteogenesis in its early, differentiation stage. The colony formation capacity of stem cells, however, was impaired by HAp and even more so by Ge-HAp. The antimicrobial effect was dependent on the microorganisms tested. Thus, whereas the antimicrobial activity was absent against E. coli , it was evident against MRSA and C. albicans. While the antibacterial activity against MRSA was weakened by the addition of Ge to HAp, the antimycotic activity against C. albicans was intensified with the addition of Ge. These findings demonstrate a significant potential of Ge-doped HAp nanoparticles in regenerative medicine due to their pronounced biocompatibility, osteoinductivity, and antimicrobial activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recipe for making Turkish coffee in some parts of former Yugoslavia calls for the dilution of the turbid liquid with lukewarm water just before the boiling point is reached. The enigmatic gastronomic purpose of this step notwithstanding, here it is being used as an inspiration for deriving a simple stabilization step for protocols for the synthesis of fine particle colloids. The dilution step inspired by coffee-making was performed in a protocol for the synthesis of hydroxyapatite nanoparticles by their precipitation from supersaturated alkaline aqueous solutions. The implementation of this step in the post-precipitation stage, concurrently with boiling, evidently improved the stability of the nanoparticle colloids. The stabilization effect was limited to the suspensions where the parent solution was equilibrated with the fresh precipitate and was not reproduced in colloids comprising HAp nanoparticles redispersed in deionized water. The dilution step produced a mild and counterintuitive increase in crystallinity, suggesting complex recrystallization mechanisms driven by mutually antagonistic dissolution caused by the dilution and reprecipitation caused by the heating to be responsible for the observed increase in stability. Incongruent dissolution favoring a less entropic surface order and reduced charge screening entailing the expansion of the Debye lengths were suggested as complementary mechanisms explaining the improvements in stability caused by adding this simple and economical, yet very efficacious touch to the synthesis. It is concluded that unconventional protocols in spheres other than the scientific and heritages routinely discarded as disreputable could be sources of insight relevant to a plethora of distant domains and disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Instructional methods incorporating metacognitive or open-ended elements have been gaining popularity, but synergies between the two have rarely been explored. Created with the aspiration to boost students’ knowledge of the knowledge creation process, a conceptually new and structurally open-ended instructional model is proposed here. For that purpose, the squares on Heer’s version of the Bloom taxonomy pyramid were turned into steps on which the class climbed from its base to the top. Each step stepped on opened the content initially hidden from view, but corresponding to cognitive and knowledge dimensions intersecting at it, thus turning the content coverage into an open-ended adventure. Both the students in undergraduate and graduate programs in bioengineering and the faculty peers were in favor of the open-ended model of instruction and, based on distributed online surveys, they preferred it over traditional lecturing. In agreement with the adventurous character of the instructional method, frequent detours and diversions from the straight path of the subject were demonstrated as vehicles for the creative thought. As the students ascended along the learning taxonomy pyramid, the content became less foundational and more in need of discussion, analysis and weighing of pros and cons. At the same time, the students would get increasingly connected with the ideas of broader epistemological and ontological relevance. The intellectual pinnacle of the class was achieved at the peak of the pyramid, where the metacognitive and the creative intersected. There, the students were acquainted with the penultimate learning objective, which is the necessity for a professional to question the premises of one’s profession through one’s professional output, alongside providing practical results therewith.

Functional nanomaterials have held a steady position at the frontier of materials science and engineering in the 21st century. “Molecular Designing of Nanoparticles with Controlled Morphological and Physicochemical Characteristics and Functional Materials Based on Them” was the title of the research project funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia and performed between 2011 and 2019 in the interdisciplinary area of nanoscience and nanotechnologies. Research activities within this program were divided into five interrelated topics: 1) from molecules to nanoparticles; 2) advanced ceramics with improved functional properties; 3) electrode materials for lithium–ion batteries; 4) nano-calcium phosphate in preventive and regenerative medicine; 5) biodegradable microand nano-particles for the controlled delivery of medicaments. This report gives an insight into this bibliographically most impactful Serbian national project on nanotechnologies executed within the aforementioned nine-year cycle, 2011–2019, focusing here only on the results achieved in the past three years. The project provided an outstanding and internationally recognized contribution to synthesis, characterization and functional design of a number of materials systems, including pure and lanthanide–doped hydroxyapatite, zinc oxides, sodium cobaltates, lithium iron pyrophosphates, lithium iron silicates and a number of polymeric systems.

Bioglass presents a standard biomaterial for regeneration of hard tissues in orthopedics and dentistry. The notable osteo-inductive properties of bioglass are largely due to the release of calcium ions from it. However, this release is not easily controllable and can often be excessive, especially during the initial interaction of the biomaterial with the surrounding tissues. Consequently, this excessive release can deplete the calcium content of the bioglass, ultimately reducing its overall bioactivity. In this study, we have tested if applying biopolymer chitosan coatings of different thicknesses would be able to mitigate and regulate the calcium ion release from monodisperse bioglass nanoparticles. Calcium release was assessed for four different chitosan coating thicknesses at different time points over the period of 28 days using a fluorescence quencher. Expectedly, chitosan-coated particles released less calcium as the concentration of chitosan in the coating solution increased, presumably due to the increased thickness of the chitosan coating around the bioglass particles. The mechanism of release remained constant for each coating thickness, corresponding to anomalous, non-Fickian diffusion, but the degree of anomalousness increased with the deposition of chitosan. Zeta potential testing showed an expected increase in the positive double layer charge following the deposition of the chitosan coating due to the surface exposure of the amine groups of chitosan. Less intuitively, the zeta potential became less positive as thickness of the chitosan coating increased, attesting to the lower density of the surface charges within thicker coatings than within the thinner ones. Overall, the findings of this study demonstrate that chitosan coating efficiently prevents the early release of calcium from bioglass. This coating procedure also allows for the tuning of the calcium release kinetics by controlling the chitosan concentration in the parent solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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