Epistemic insight and classrooms with permeable walls

The boundaries between subject disciplines in secondary education today make it difficult for students to see their subjects in context. However, examining the secondary curriculum in England shows that there are a wealth of opportunities for making links and helping to develop students’ epistemic insight and scholarly thought. This article provides concrete examples of these opportunities and offers a view into ongoing research by the LASAR Centre at Canterbury Christ Church University (UK), which supports teachers in bridging subject boundaries through a strategy called Classrooms with Permeable Walls

A Symmetry Adapted Approach to Molecular Spectroscopy: The Anharmonic Oscillator Symmetry Model

We apply the Anharmonic Oscillator Symmetry Model to the description of vibrational excitations in ${\cal D}_{3h}$ and ${\cal T}_d$ molecules. A systematic procedure can be used to establish the relation between the algebraic and configuration space formulations, by means of which new interactions are found in the algebraic model, leading to reliable spectroscopic predictions. We illustrate the method for the case of ${\cal D}_{3h}$-triatomic molecules and the ${\cal T}_d$ Be-cluster.Comment: 12 pages, invited talk at XIX Oaxtepec Symposium on Nuclear Physics, January 199

EL PLANEAMIENTO EDUCATIVO EN LA FACULTAD DE HUMANIDADES Y CIENCIAS DE LA UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DEL LITORAL

La Facultad inició en 2010 un proceso de planeamiento educativo cuyo punto de partida fue la construcción participativa de un Plan Institucional Estratégico. Estas acciones se enmarcan en políticas desplegadas por la universidad, desde mediado de los ´90, con un sentido crítico y alternativo. El objetivo es proyectar en forma colaborativa el desarrollo de la unidad académica partiendo de sus aspectos fundantes e históricos (formación de educadores, creación de conocimientos, realización de actividades de extensión social y cultural, con trayectorias disciplinares diversas). En este proceso, se promovió la amplia participación de todos los claustros en las decisiones políticas y en la reflexión sobre los sentidos que, en articulación con el contexto, se fueron e irán configurando. La experiencia incluyó instancias presenciales con los distintos actores; el relevamiento de sus opiniones por diferentes vías, el diseño de una estrategia comunicacional para el intercambio y la difusión del proceso. Como resultado preliminar puede consignarse la aprobación del Plan por el órgano de gobierno de la facultad y el inicio de acciones de programación para la construcción colectiva del hacer institucional promoviendo la capacidad de cuestionar e interpelar la realidad y aportar desde la educación pública los esfuerzos, las ideas y la voluntad de contribuir a su transformación

Phase transitions in the Interacting Boson Fermion Model: the gamma-unstable case

The phase transition around the critical point in the evolution from spherical to deformed gamma-unstable shapes is investigated in odd nuclei within the Interacting Boson Fermion Model. We consider the particular case of an odd j=3/2 particle coupled to an even-even boson core that undergoes a transition from spherical U(5) to gamma-unstable O(6) situation. The particular choice of the j=3/2 orbital preserves in the odd case the condition of gamma-instability of the system. As a consequence, energy spectrum and electromagnetic transitions, in correspondence of the critical point, display behaviours qualitatively similar to those of the even core. The results are also in qualitative agreement with the recently proposed E(5/4) model, although few differences are present, due to the different nature of the two schemes.Comment: In press in PRC as rapid communication. 7 pages, 4 figure

Ground state of N=Z doubly closed shell nuclei in CBF theory

The ground state properties of N=Z doubly closed shell nuclei are studied within correlated basis function theory. A truncated version of the Urbana v14 realistic potential, with spin, isospin and tensor components, is adopted, together with state dependent correlations. Fermi hypernetted chain integral equation and single operator chain approximation are used to evaluate density, distribution function and ground state energy of 16O and 40Ca. The results favourably compare with the available, variational MonteCarlo estimates and provide a first substantial check of the accuracy of the cluster summation method for state dependent correlations. We achieve in finite nuclei at least the same level of accuracy in the treatment of non central interactions and correlations as in nuclear matter. This opens the way for a microscopic study of medium heavy nuclei ground state using present days realistic hamiltonians.Comment: 35 pages (LateX) + 3 figures. Phys.Rev.C, in pres

SU(2) Kinetic Mixing Terms and Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking

The non-abelian generalization of the Holdom model --{\it i.e.} a theory with two gauge fields coupled to the kinetic mixing term $g {tr}(F_{\mu \nu} (A) F_{\mu \nu} (B))$-- is considered. Contrarily to the abelian case, the group structure $G\times G$ is explicitly broken to $G$. For SU(2) this fact implies that the residual gauge symmetry as well as the Lorentz symmetry is spontaneusly broken. We show that this mechanism provides of masses for the involved particles. Also, the model presents instanton solutions with a redefined coupling constant.Comment: 9pp. typos and clarifications are adde

UOLO - automatic object detection and segmentation in biomedical images

We propose UOLO, a novel framework for the simultaneous detection and segmentation of structures of interest in medical images. UOLO consists of an object segmentation module which intermediate abstract representations are processed and used as input for object detection. The resulting system is optimized simultaneously for detecting a class of objects and segmenting an optionally different class of structures. UOLO is trained on a set of bounding boxes enclosing the objects to detect, as well as pixel-wise segmentation information, when available. A new loss function is devised, taking into account whether a reference segmentation is accessible for each training image, in order to suitably backpropagate the error. We validate UOLO on the task of simultaneous optic disc (OD) detection, fovea detection, and OD segmentation from retinal images, achieving state-of-the-art performance on public datasets.Comment: Publised on DLMIA 2018. Licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0

A little garbage in, lots of garbage out: Assessing the impact of careless responding in personality survey data

[EN]In self-report surveys, it is common that some individuals do not pay enough attention and effort to give valid responses. Our aim was to investigate the extent to which careless and insufficient effort responding contributes to the biasing of data.We performed analyses of dimensionality, internal structure, and data reliability of four personality scales (extroversion, conscientiousness, stability, and dispositional optimism) in two independent samples. In order to identify careless/insufficient effort (C/IE) respondents, we used a factor mixture model (FMM) designed to detect inconsistencies of response to items with different semantic polarity. The FMM identified between 4.4% and 10% of C/IE cases, depending on the scale and the sample examined. In the complete samples, all the theoretical models obtained an unacceptable fit, forcing the rejection of the starting hypothesis and making additional wording factors necessary. In the clean samples, all the theoretical models fitted satisfactorily, and the wording factors practically disappeared. Trait estimates in the clean samples were between 4.5% and 11.8% more accurate than in the complete samples. These results show that a limited amount of C/IE data can lead to a drastic deterioration in the fit of the theoretical model, produce large amounts of spurious variance, raise serious doubts about the dimensionality and internal structure of the data, and reduce the reliability with which the trait scores of all surveyed are estimated. Identifying and filtering C/IE responses is necessary to ensure the validity of research result

Herança da resistência de variedades comerciais brasileiras de soja à podridão radicular de fitóftora.

O objetivo do estudo foi avaliar a herança da resistência à podridão radicular de fitóftora, causada por causada por Phytophthora sojae (Kaufm. & Gerd.), presentes em variedades comerciais resistentes BRS 260, BRS 262, BRS 246RR e BRSMG 752S. Até hoje 14 genes, denominados Rps, foram descritos por conferirem resistência à PRF, os quais tem sido amplamente utilizados nos programas de melhoramento para proteção das cultivares de soja. O material experimental foi desenvolvido a partir do cruzamento das quatro cultivares entre si, totalizando seis cruzamentos. A população F2, os parentais utilizados nos cruzamentos e a cultivar suscetível BRS 268, foram inoculados com o patógeno utilizando a metodologia de Keeling (1982), adaptada por Yorinori (1996). O teste do qui-quadrado (?2) foi aplicado para aceitar ou rejeitar os padrões de segregação encontrados de plantas mortas e não-mortas esperadas para a população F2 segundo padrões mendelianos. O cruzamento BRS 260 x BRS 246RR não resultou em nenhum indivíduo morto, com isso conclui-se que os mesmos contém um gene de resistência no mesmo loco conferindo resistência a P. sojae. Nos cruzamentos BRSMG 752S x BRS 260 e BRS 246RR x BRSMG 752S foram observados padrões de segregação semelhantes, correspondentes à segregação de dois genes dominantes independentes. As três combinações de cruzamentos envolvendo a cultivar BRS 262 indicam a presença de três genes segregando independentemente nesses cruzamentos. Pode-se concluir que apenas nesse grupo de quatro cultivares resistentes já existem quatro locos de resistência à P. sojae disponíveis para serem explorados em programas de melhoramento de soja