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Context-based education, in which students deal with biological concepts in a meaningful way, is showing promise in promoting the development of students' conceptual coherence. However, literature gives little guidance about how this kind of education should be designed. Therefore, our study aims at designing and evaluating the practicability of a context-based biology lesson sequence. Four design principles for conceptual coherence were defined: build upon familiar concepts; focus on core concepts; stimulate establishing connections between concepts; and reflect on these connections. These design principles have been elaborated into a lesson sequence about concepts related to cellular metabolism and the relevant connections between the concepts have been visualised in a reference concept map. The activities of teacher and students that were expected to contribute in establishing these connections were described in a research scenario. The lesson sequence was conducted in a 10th-grade class of 21 students, aged 15-16, in senior general secondary education. Data were collected from video-recordings in the classroom. The observed activities of the teacher and students were compared with the intended activities. The findings show that a research scenario is a powerful tool to systematically evaluate the design and to provide information for improving it.

Background: Asthma is one of the most common chronic diseases in childhood. Regular follow-up of physiological parameters in the home setting, in relation to asthma symptoms, can provide complementary quantitative insights into the dynamics of the asthma status. Despite considerable interest in asthma home-monitoring in children, there is a paucity of scientific evidence, especially on multi-parameter monitoring approaches. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate whether asthma control can be accurately assessed in the home situation by combining parameters from respiratory physiology sensors., Methods: Sixty asthmatic and thirty non-asthmatic children were enrolled in the observational WEARCON-study. Asthma control was assessed according to GINA guidelines by the paediatrician. All children were also evaluated during a 2-week home-monitoring period with wearable devices; a physical activity tracker, a handheld spirometer, smart inhalers, and an ambulatory electrocardiography device to monitor heart and respiratory rate. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to determine which diagnostic measures were associated with asthma control., Results: 24 of the 27 uncontrolled asthmatic children and 29 of the 32 controlled asthmatic children could be accurately identified with this model. The final model showed that a larger variation in pre-exercise lung function (OR = 1.34 95%-CI 1.07-1.68), an earlier wake-up-time (OR = 1.05 95%-CI 1.01-1.10), more reliever use (OR = 1.11 95%-CI 1.03-1.19) and a longer respiratory rate recovery time (OR = 1.12 95%-CI 1.05-1.20) were significant contributors to the probability of having uncontrolled asthma., Conclusions: Home-monitoring of physiological parameters correlates with paediatrician assessed asthma control. The constructed multivariate model identifies 88.9% of all uncontrolled asthmatic children, indicating a high potential for monitoring of asthma control. This may allow healthcare professionals to assess asthma control at home., Trial Registration: Netherlands Trail Register, NL6087 . Registered 14 February 2017.

Various different methods have been developed to replace, reduce or refine the use of animals in batch quality control tests of veterinary vaccines. The development, validation and implementation of those alternatives which lead to a significant reduction in the numbers or the suffering of the animals used must receive priority. Validation is one of the hurdles to the implementation of alternative methods into relevant legislation, so it deserves special attention. For proper validation studies, co-operation between various organisations of both government and industry is necessary. International and national organisations such as ECVAM, FRAME, SIATT, ZEBET and the recently established Netherlands Centre Alternatives to Animal Use (NCA) could contribute significantly to the development, validation and implementation of alternative methods by simulating and co-ordinating research projects, by providing information through databases, and by co-ordinating validation studies.