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The aim of the research is to explore the views of infants and preschool aged children on computers as a concept and as an element of material culture. In other words, the research seeks to identify the ideas and concepts that the children have form on the computer and its peripheral units. At the same time there has been an effort to detecting the factors that probably affect the Greek preschool aged children’s formation of views and concepts on computers. The factors that have been checked are parents’ education level and profession, the existence or not of a computer in kindergarten class, the sex, the place of residence and children’s age. In order for the degree of infants’ conceptual change to emerge, the question “does a computer remain a computer if one of its external characteristics changes” had been investigated. The phenomenon of simile or parallelism of the computer or its parts with other objects had been observed (i.e. “the screen is like a TV” or “is a TV”, “the central unit and printer are machines” etc) especially on behalf of the preschool aged children. It seems that preschool aged children compared with infants, use in higher degree more essential characteristics in order to define computer and its parts (recognition - usage - preservation of identity). In general these findings confirm the findings of international researches which highlight the important role of parents’ educational level and profession in the acquisition of knowledge on new technologies by their children. In the majority of children there were evident difficulties in defining the concept of computer and also to realize what it is what it does. This difficulty was expected as the computer is an artificial object with complex functions which essentially are based on its internal characteristics. In parallel, children’s notions on the computer and its parts are depended on factors as their mother’s profession and educational level as well as if there is or not a PC in kindergarten. On the contrary children’s sex, the place of residence, father’s educational level and profession don’t seem to significantly influence children. Specifically, mother’s profession influences significantly children’s performance. It has been found that children whose mother is a freelancer-scientist or a public servant statistically have significantly greater numbers of right answers from the children whose mother is a farmer or a worker and from those whose mother is a privet employee, a freelancer or a merchant. Mother’s educational level seems to influence children’s views and notions even though something worth mentioning occurs: the greater number of right answers it is given by children whose mothers are secondary education graduates. This finding might be explained by the higher expectations that these mothers have from their children. Even though they, themselves don’t graduate form a higher institution, they very much want that for their children. The lowest performances have children whose mothers are elementary school graduates. It’s impressive the fact that on the question related to the computers identity change or not, no differences were found among the three groups, something that needs further investigation.

The inhibitory effect of two novel antiplatelet agents, 1,10-bis[3-(N,N-diethylcarbamoyl)piperidino]decane dihydrobromide (G-110) and 1,6-bis[3-(N,N-diethylcarbamoyl)piperidino]hexane dihydrobromide (G-112), on platelet adhesion and subsequent aggregation on collagen-coated surface was evaluated under controlled flow. Glass coverslips coated with bovine fibrillar collagen type I were exposed to heparinized human whole blood that had been preincubated with either aqueous solutions of one of the two carbamoylpiperidine congeners or corresponding amounts (1.0-4.0 microliters/ml blood) of distilled water, at a wall shear rate of 1000 s-1, in a parallel-plate perfusion chamber. Epifluorescence video microscopy with a microphotometric measurement technique was used to visualize and quantify deposition of fluorescently-labeled platelets from flowing whole blood onto the collagen-coated surface. At concentrations of 100 and 200 microM, G-110 inhibited platelet accumulation by 30 +/- 9% (+/- S.E.) and 63 +/- 3% (+/- S.E.), respectively; while G-112 reduced platelet deposition by 19 +/- 3% (+/- S.E.) and 31 +/- 2% (+/- S.E.) at concentrations of 200 and 400 microM, respectively. Digital image processing techniques were used to analyze the dynamics of thrombus growth on the collagen-coated surfaces. It was found that the compounds reduced the rate of thrombus growth by impeding both surface coverage and the number of platelets per thrombus in a concentration-dependent manner. This study, together with others on related compounds GT-12, BPAT-117 and BPAT-143, corroborates the nature of pivotal features in the molecular structure of carbamoylpiperidine and nipecotoylpiperazine derivatives which enhance desirable antithrombotic effects, e.g. intramolecular distance between two tertiary amines (ring nitrogens) and levels of hydrophobicity.

It is noticed lack of vocational guidance tools for students with intellectual disabilities (ID), certified as to their reliability and validity. The purpose of the present study was to examine the psychometric characteristics of the “Reading - Free Vocational Interest Inventory” (R-FVII) of Becker (1981) , which is one of the best non - verbal assessment tool of vocational preferences. The participants were 35 students with mild ID at the Training Schools for Persons with Special Needs in Western Macedonia and their teachers (N=34). Based on the data obtained, it was found that the tool has satisfactory levels of reliability and validity.

A lack of educational intervention programmes is noticed in the sexual education of all children and teenagers, regardless of whether they have intellectual disabilities (ID), or not. The purpose of the present study was to create an educational intervention programme in the sexual education of a pre-adolescent with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS). The participant was a 13-year-old pre- adolescent boy who has been diagnosed with PW syndrome. Based on the data obtained, it was found that the educational intervention was very effective and that it could be applied to other teenagers with this specific cognitive profile.

We know surprisingly little about how the perception of visual illusions develops on children with intellectual disabilities (ID). The aim of the present study was to determine the specificity of the visual perception deficit to different groups of children with ID. We compared 23 children with Down syndrome (DS) and 42 mental age-matched children with non-specific ID on two classes of illusory perception, one involving visual illusions of perceptual constancy, and the other ambiguous figures. The results clearly showed that children with DS performed more poorly than the children with non-specific ID only on the ambiguous figures tasks. The findings are discussed in terms of the specificity of the etiology-related cognitive profiles of ID groups.

Mitochondria-derived oxygen-free radical(s) are important mediators of oxidative cellular injury. It is widely hypothesized that excess NO enhances O 2 •− generated by mitochondria under certain pathological conditions. In the mitochondrial electron transport chain, succinate–cytochrome c reductase (SCR) catalyzes the electron transfer reaction from succinate to cytochrome c . To gain the insights into the molecular mechanism of how NO overproduction may mediate the oxygen-free radical generation by SCR, we employed isolated SCR, cardiac myoblast H9c2, and endothelial cells to study the interaction of NO with SCR in vitro and ex vivo. Under the conditions of enzyme turnover in the presence of NO donor (DEANO), SCR gained pro-oxidant function for generating hydroxyl radical as detected by EPR spin trapping using DEPMPO. The EPR signal associated with DEPMPO/ • OH adduct was nearly completely abolished in the presence of catalase or an iron chelator and partially inhibited by SOD, suggesting the involvement of the iron–H 2 O 2 -dependent Fenton reaction or O 2 •− -dependent Haber–Weiss mechanism. Direct EPR measurement of SCR at 77 K indicated the formation of a nonheme iron–NO complex, implying that electron leakage to molecular oxygen was enhanced at the FAD cofactor, and that excess NO predisposed SCR to produce • OH. In H9c2 cells, SCR-dependent oxygen-free radical generation was stimulated by NO released from DEANO or produced by the cells following exposure to hypoxia/reoxygenation. With shear exposure that led to overproduction of NO by the endothelium, SCR-mediated oxygen-free radical production was also detected in cultured vascular endothelial cells.

Employability skills are necessary for youth with Intellectual Disabilities (IDs) to successfully navigate their transition from educational settings to autonomous adult life. Most importantly, research evidence has shown that individuals with IDs appear to perform adequately on job tasks, yet they frequently face inadequacies in the social aspects of work life. Although much of the existing employability research has focused on social skills training related to employability for individuals with other disabilities, people with IDs are underrepresented in the literature. Thus, this review aimed to provide insight into the existing social skills interventions that promote employability in transition-age youth with IDs. Results indicated that although there is a limited number of studies regarding intervention programs on improving social skills related to employment for individuals with IDs, the majority of them positively impacted target behaviors, thus highlighting the need for further empirical research.