Abordagem da história da ciência na construção de um terrário, numa perspetiva de educação para o desenvolvimento sustentável

Mestrado em Ensino de Biologia e Geologia no 3º Ciclo do Ensino Básico e no Ensino SecundárioEm Portugal, avanços têm-se feito notar no que toca à tecnologia, o que leva a que novas aptidões e competências sejam desenvolvidas pelos cidadãos de forma a adaptarem-se à Era da informação. Para tal, é necessário que os alunos saiam já bem preparados das escolas de modo a que as suas aprendizagens atendam a essas mudanças, pois o ensino também implica mudança, evolução e crescimento, não só por parte dos estudantes mas também dos professores, das escolas e de todos os órgãos associados. Desta forma, vários métodos poderão ser implementados nas salas de aulas e um deles é a abordagem à História da Ciência. O presente trabalho investigativo procurou conhecer quais as aprendizagens, comportamentos e atitudes que os alunos desenvolveram ao longo das aulas, dando a conhecer os contributos que a construção de um terrário, através da História da Ciência, pode levar à educação de cidadãos informados, numa perspetiva de Educação para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável. A abordagem foi aplicada a alunos do 8.º ano, na disciplina de Ciências Naturais, utilizando várias técnicas e instrumentos de recolha de dados, nomeadamente, a observação, a análise documental e questionário. O recurso à construção e utilização de um material didático-pedagógico e a abordagem à História da Ciência, permitiram cativar o interesse dos alunos e centraliza-los no processo de ensino e de aprendizagem, no qual o aluno tem o principal papel. Dessa forma, foi possível averiguar como se contextualizam as aprendizagens através da abordagem utilizada, recolher e descrever as perspetivas dos alunos e em desenvolver as aprendizagens, comportamentos e atitudes, numa perspetiva de Educação para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável.In Portugal, advances have been made when it comes to Technology, which leads to new skills and competences to be developed by citizens in order to adapt to the Information age. To this end, it is necessary that students need to be well prepared when they conclude their studies, so that their acquired knowledge could meet these changes, for the teaching also implies changes, evolution and growth, not only by students but also by teachers, schools and all the associated teaching groups. This way, various methods can be implemented in the classroom and one of them is the approach to the History of Science. This research work was aimed to know which learnings, behaviors and attitudes that students developed during the lessons, so that it could be possible to publish the contribution of the construction of a terrarium, based in the History of Science, leading to the education of informed citizens, in a perspective of an Education for Sustainable Development. The approach was applied to 8th grade students, in the discipline of Natural Sciences, using various techniques and data collection instruments, like observation, documental analysis and a questionnaire. Building and using didactic-pedagogic material and applying History of Science knowledge, allowed to captivate the students' interest and it helped centralizing them in the process of teaching and learning, in which the student has the main role. Thus, it was possible to find out how to contextualize the learning through the used approaches, to collect and describe the perspectives of the students and developing the learning subject, behaviors and attitudes on a perspective of Education for the Sustainable Development

Association of U2AF35, U2AF65 and U2 snRNP with constitutively and alternatively Spliced pre-mRNA

In the early stages of splicing, introns are bounded by splice sites at the 5’ and 3’ ends. Candidate 5’ splice sites are bound by U1 snRNPs (small nuclear Ribonucleoprotein). The 3’ splice sites comprise three distinct sequence elements. The branch point, the polypyrimidine tract and the 3’ splice site. These are bound by proteins, SF1 at the branch site and a heterodimer of UAF65 and U2AF35 that binds the polypyrimidine tract and 3’ splice site respectively. The U2 snRNP has been found associate loosely but in close proximity with the branch point in the early splicing complex E. The binding level of these proteins determines the usage of 3’ splice sites. At this stage, the pre-mRNA is committed to splice and splice sites are in close proximity to one another, but specific splice sites are not selected until complex A forms. It is known how candidate 5’ splice sites are selected, however, the mechanism of selection of candidate 3’ sites is still unknown. Here, using single molecule methods, it is shown that U2AF binds to pre-mRNA promiscuously until complex E has assembled; whereas U2 snRNP binds promiscuously until the formation of complex A. Complex A is formed by base pairing of a single U2 snRNP at the branch point region, this event is associated with the loss of U2AF proteins. With strong alternative sites, two copies of each factor bind, consistent with late selection. With two identical introns, the extent of splicing of the first intron U2 association controls the second intron U2 association. The defect in splicing of SMN2 exon7 is associated with poor binding of U2 snRNP rather than U2AF compared with SMN1 exon7. Moreover, some other splicing enhancer and silencer factors (such as Tra2β, RON ESE and PTB) could also affect the binding of U2AF and U2. Thus, as with U1 snRNPs, U2AF and U2 snRNP recognise candidate sites but their binding is not directly responsible for selection

The evolutionary landscape and expression pattern of plant lincRNAs

Long intergenic non-coding RNAs (lincRNAs) are important regulators of cellular processes, including development and stress response. Many lincRNAs have been bioinformatically identified in plants, but their evolutionary dynamics and expression characteristics are still elusive. Here, we systematically identified thousands of lincRNAs in 26 plant species, including 6 non-flowering plants, investigated the conservation of the identified lincRNAs in different levels of plant lineages based on sequence and/or synteny homology and explored characteristics of the conserved lincRNAs during plant evolution and their co-expression relationship with protein-coding genes (PCGs). In addition to confirmation of the features well documented in literature for lincRNAs, such as species-specific, fewer exons, tissue-specific expression patterns and less abundantly expressed, we revealed that histone modification signals and/or binding sites of transcription factors were enriched in the conserved lincRNAs, implying their biological functionalities, as demonstrated by identifying conserved lincRNAs related to flower development in both the Brassicaceae and grass families and ancient lincRNAs potentially functioning in meristem development of non-flowering plants. Compared to PCGs, lincRNAs are more likely to be associated with transposable elements (TEs), but with different characteristics in different evolutionary lineages, for instance, the types of TEs and the variable level of association in lincRNAs with different conservativeness. Together, these results provide a comprehensive view on the evolutionary landscape of plant lincRNAs and shed new insights on the conservation and functionality of plant lincRNAs.</p

MOESM1 of Using DIVAN to assess disease/trait-associated single nucleotide variants in genome-wide scale

Additional file 1. The detailed protocol for using DIVAN in three cases: retrieve D-scores of known variants by genomic regions; retrieve average D-scores for arbitrary genomic regions; retrieve D-scores for multiple diseases/traits in batch

Descriptive statistics of variables.

Poverty is not only an economic problem but also a social problem, and there are certain limitations of objective poverty based on the population’s income. It does not reflect the residents’ true feelings regarding education opportunities, pension and medical security, and participation in decision-making. Researchers have studied it intensively in different objective dimensions of Chinese poverty, and little attention has been paid to subjective poverty. This study analyzes how public services supply, livelihood capital, and livelihood strategies affect subjective perceptions of poverty. The results show that public services supply, livelihood capital, and livelihood strategies significantly correlate with subjective poverty. Physical capital and social capital have the greatest effects on the occurrence of subjective poverty. The probability of subjective poverty decreases by 0.149 and 0.107 for each unit change in physical and social capital, respectively. What’s more, public services supply, physical capital, financial capital, and human capital affect the subjective poverty of urban and rural residents at different significance levels. It means that the formation of subjective poverty results from the superposition of multiple factors.</div

Provincial spatial distribution of subjective poverty in 2019.

Provincial spatial distribution of subjective poverty in 2019.</p

Alpha test.

Poverty is not only an economic problem but also a social problem, and there are certain limitations of objective poverty based on the population’s income. It does not reflect the residents’ true feelings regarding education opportunities, pension and medical security, and participation in decision-making. Researchers have studied it intensively in different objective dimensions of Chinese poverty, and little attention has been paid to subjective poverty. This study analyzes how public services supply, livelihood capital, and livelihood strategies affect subjective perceptions of poverty. The results show that public services supply, livelihood capital, and livelihood strategies significantly correlate with subjective poverty. Physical capital and social capital have the greatest effects on the occurrence of subjective poverty. The probability of subjective poverty decreases by 0.149 and 0.107 for each unit change in physical and social capital, respectively. What’s more, public services supply, physical capital, financial capital, and human capital affect the subjective poverty of urban and rural residents at different significance levels. It means that the formation of subjective poverty results from the superposition of multiple factors.</div

Provincial spatial distribution of human capital in 2019.

Provincial spatial distribution of human capital in 2019.</p

Provincial spatial distribution of physical capital in 2019.

Provincial spatial distribution of physical capital in 2019.</p

Provincial spatial distribution of social capital in 2019.

Provincial spatial distribution of social capital in 2019.</p