“After Lunch We Offer Quiet Time and Meditation” : Early Learning Environments in Australia and Finland Through the Lenses of Educators

Modern societies organize ECEC services from their own cultural, social and political contexts, which is also reflected in the steering documents of the country and further in the work of teachers (Garvis, et al., 2018). In many of the countries children’s access to preschool has broadened and the benefits of high quality ECEC have been recognized. In Australia and Finland, concepts of play based learning, child initiated play or free play have been highlighted as founding pillars of the early learning environments. In this paper we take a closer look at ECEC environments in Australia and Finland through the lenses of 26 educators. They described in an online questionnaire children’s daily activities as well as they indicated the amount of free play related to these activities.Peer reviewe

Mechanisms of action of systemic antibiotics used in periodontal treatment and mechanisms of bacterial resistance to these drugs

Antibiotics are important adjuncts in the treatment of infectious diseases, including periodontitis. The most severe criticisms to the indiscriminate use of these drugs are their side effects and, especially, the development of bacterial resistance. The knowledge of the biological mechanisms involved with the antibiotic usage would help the medical and dental communities to overcome these two problems. Therefore, the aim of this manuscript was to review the mechanisms of action of the antibiotics most commonly used in the periodontal treatment (i.e. penicillin, tetracycline, macrolide and metronidazole) and the main mechanisms of bacterial resistance to these drugs. Antimicrobial resistance can be classified into three groups: intrinsic, mutational and acquired. Penicillin, tetracycline and erythromycin are broad-spectrum drugs, effective against gram-positive and gram-negative microorganisms. Bacterial resistance to penicillin may occur due to diminished permeability of the bacterial cell to the antibiotic; alteration of the penicillin-binding proteins, or production of β-lactamases. However, a very small proportion of the subgingival microbiota is resistant to penicillins. Bacteria become resistant to tetracyclines or macrolides by limiting their access to the cell, by altering the ribosome in order to prevent effective binding of the drug, or by producing tetracycline/macrolide-inactivating enzymes. Periodontal pathogens may become resistant to these drugs. Finally, metronidazole can be considered a prodrug in the sense that it requires metabolic activation by strict anaerobe microorganisms. Acquired resistance to this drug has rarely been reported. Due to these low rates of resistance and to its high activity against the gram-negative anaerobic bacterial species, metronidazole is a promising drug for treating periodontal infections

General discussion

SCOPUS: no.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe