Interdisciplinarietat a l'educació científica

La comunicació es proposa analitzar les relacions entre les diferents disciplines científiques presents al currículum d'educació secundària obligatòria. Intenta acostar-se a un model d'interdisciplinarietat, amb els aspectes comuns. Se centra en el desenvolupament d'una competència científica com és la resolució de problemes. S'estudien els diferents contextos reals en què es poden presentar les situacions problemàtiques pròpies de les diverses disciplines científiques. Les recreacions matemàtiques constitueixen una estratègia didàctica que afavoreix la interdisciplinarietat i transmet una forta motivació. Com a resultat, la competència assolida els permetrà prendre decisions conscients i raonades en el futur

Interdisciplinarietat a l’educació científica

La comunicació es proposa analitzar les relacions entre les diferents disciplines científiques presents al currículum d’educació secundària obligatòria. Intenta acostar-se a un model d’interdisciplinarietat, amb els aspectes comuns. Se centra en el desenvolupament d’una competència científica com és la resolució de problemes. S’estudien els diferents contextos reals en què es poden presentar les situacions problemàtiques pròpies de les diverses disciplines científiques. Les recreacions matemàtiques constitueixen una estratègia didàctica que afavoreix la interdisciplinarietat i transmet una forta motivació. Com a resultat, la competència assolida els permetrà prendre decisions conscients i raonades en el futur

An experimental analysis of team production in networks

Experimental and empirical evidence highlights the role of networks on social outcomes. In this paper we test the properties of exogenously fixed networks in team production. Subjects make the same decisions in a team-work environment under four different organizational networks: The line, the circle, the star, and the complete network. In all the networks, links make information available to neighbors. This design allows us to analyze decisions across networks and a variety of subjects’ types in a standard linear team production game. Contribution levels differ significantly across networks and the star is the most efficient incomplete one. Moreover, our results suggest that subjects act as conditional cooperators with respect to the information received from the network.public goods, networks, experiments

Prototyping of petalets for the Phase-II Upgrade of the silicon strip tracking detector of the ATLAS Experiment

In the high luminosity era of the Large Hadron Collider, the HL-LHC, the instantaneous luminosity is expected to reach unprecedented values, resulting in about 200 proton-proton interactions in a typical bunch crossing. To cope with the resultant increase in occupancy, bandwidth and radiation damage, the ATLAS Inner Detector will be replaced by an all-silicon system, the Inner Tracker (ITk). The ITk consists of a silicon pixel and a strip detector and exploits the concept of modularity. Prototyping and testing of various strip detector components has been carried out. This paper presents the developments and results obtained with reduced-size structures equivalent to those foreseen to be used in the forward region of the silicon strip detector. Referred to as petalets, these structures are built around a composite sandwich with embedded cooling pipes and electrical tapes for routing the signals and power. Detector modules built using electronic flex boards and silicon strip sensors are glued on both the front and back side surfaces of the carbon structure. Details are given on the assembly, testing and evaluation of several petalets. Measurement results of both mechanical and electrical quantities are shown. Moreover, an outlook is given for improved prototyping plans for large structures.Comment: 22 pages for submission for Journal of Instrumentatio

Lafora disease E3-ubiquitin ligase malin is related to TRIM32 at both the phylogenetic and functional level

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Malin is an E3-ubiquitin ligase that is mutated in Lafora disease, a fatal form of progressive myoclonus epilepsy. In order to perform its function, malin forms a functional complex with laforin, a glucan phosphatase that facilitates targeting of malin to its corresponding substrates. While laforin phylogeny has been studied, there are no data on the evolutionary lineage of malin.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>After an extensive search for malin orthologs, we found that malin is present in all vertebrate species and a cephalochordate, in contrast with the broader species distribution previously reported for laforin. These data suggest that in addition to forming a functional complex, laforin and perhaps malin may also have independent functions. In addition, we found that malin shares significant identity with the E3-ubiquitin ligase TRIM32, which belongs to the tripartite-motif containing family of proteins. We present experimental evidence that both malin and TRIM32 share some substrates for ubiquitination, although they produce ubiquitin chains with different topologies. However, TRIM32-specific substrates were not reciprocally ubiquitinated by the laforin-malin complex.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We found that malin and laforin are not conserved in the same genomes. In addition, we found that malin shares significant identity with the E3-ubiquitin ligase TRIM32. The latter result suggests a common origin for malin and TRIM32 and provides insights into possible functional relationships between both proteins.</p

Social policies, separation, and second birth spacing in Western Europe

OBJECTIVEThis paper studies postseparation fertility behavior. The aim is to investigate whether, and if so how, separation affects second birth spacing in Western European countries.METHODSThis analysis makes use of rich survey data from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, as well as from Finnish register data. We thus cover the behavior of a large proportion of the population of Western Europe. We also use descriptive measures, such as Kaplan. Meier survival functions and cumulative incidence curves. In the multivariate analysis, we employ event history modeling to show how education relates to postseparation fertility behavior.RESULTSThere are large differences in postseparation fertility behavior across European countries. For Spain and Italy, we find that only a negligibly small proportion of the population have a second child after separating from the other parent of the firstborn child. The countries with the highest proportion of second children with a new partner are the United Kingdom, Germany, and Finland. In all countries, separation after first birth leads to a sharp increase in the birth interval between first and second births.CONTRIBUTIONOur study is a contribution to the demographic literature that aims at understanding birth spacing patterns in Western Europe. Furthermore, we draw attention to the role of postseparation policies in explaining country differences in fertility behavior in contemporary societies

Novel mutation in the NHLRC1 gene in a Malian family with a severe phenotype of Lafora disease

We studied a Malian family with parental consanguinity and two of eight siblings affected with late-childhood-onset progressive myoclonus epilepsy and cognitive decline, consistent with the diagnosis of Lafora disease. Genetic analysis showed a novel homozygous single-nucleotide variant in the NHLRC1 gene, c.560A>C, producing the missense change H187P. The changed amino acid is highly conserved, and the mutation impairs malin's ability to degrade laforin in vitro. Pathological evaluation showed manifestations of Lafora disease in the entire brain, with particularly severe involvement of the pallidum, thalamus, and cerebellum. Our findings document Lafora disease with severe manifestations in the West African population