A formação docente e o tecnicismo pedagógico: um desafio para a educação contemporânea

The discussion about teacher education generates convergences and divergences between technical and innovative pedagogy. In this sense, the theme challenges educators, especially those working in higher education, to reassess educational practice, because learning based on conservative paradigms domesticates and immobilizes the subjects involved in the teaching-learning process, limiting their intellectual rebellion. Based on this premise, this article addresses teacher education and knowledge fragmentation, a heritage of conservative education paradigms based on traditional, scholastic, and technical approaches. This article provides a reflection on the pedagogical practice in higher education in teacher education and seeks to provoke a discussion about the reflective teacher. In addition, the article addresses Newtonian-Cartesian thinking, technicism and the insertion of technologies in education, in order to problematize the convergences and divergences between the technicist and innovative paradigms.La discusión sobre la formación docente plantea convergencias y divergencias entre la pedagogía tecnicista y la innovadora. En este sentido, el tema desafía a los educadores, especialmente a aquellos que trabajan en la enseñanza de educación superior, a reevaluar la práctica educativa, porque el aprendizaje basado en paradigmas conservadores, domestica e inmoviliza a los sujetos involucrados en el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje, limitando su rebelión intelectual. Basado en esta premisa, este documento aborda la formación del profesorado y la fragmentación del conocimiento, una herencia de paradigmas conservadores de la educación, basados en los enfoques tradicionales, escolanovistas y tecnicistas. Este artículo proporciona una reflexión sobre la práctica pedagógica en la educación superior en la formación del profesorado, y busca provocar una discusión sobre el profesor reflexivo. Además, el documento aborda el pensamiento newtoniano-cartesiano, el tecnicismo y la inserción de tecnologías en la educación, para problematizar las convergencias y divergencias entre los paradigmas tecnicistas e innovadores.A discussão sobre a formação docente suscita convergências e divergências entre correntes pedagógicas tecnicista e inovadora. Nesse sentido, a temática desafia educadores, especialmente aqueles que atuam na docência do Ensino Superior, a reavaliar a prática docente, pois a aprendizagem pautada em paradigmas conservadores domestifica e imobiliza os sujeitos envolvidos no processo ensino-aprendizagem, tolhendo-lhes sua rebeldia intelectual. Com base nessa premissa, este trabalho aborda a formação docente e a fragmentação do conhecimento, uma herança advinda dos paradigmas conservadores da educação, a partir das abordagens tradicional, escolanovista e tecnicista. Este trabalho oportuniza uma reflexão sobre a prática pedagógica no Ensino Superior na formação docente, e busca provocar uma discussão sobre o professor reflexivo. Além disso, o trabalho aborda o pensamento newtoniano-cartesiano, o tecnicismo, e inserção das tecnologias na educação, no intuito de problematizar as convergências e as divergências entre os paradigmas tecnicista e inovador

A prospective, randomised, controlled clinical study on the assessment of tolerability and of clinical efficacy of Merional (hMG-IBSA) administered subcutaneously versus Merional administered intramuscularly in women undergoing multifollicular ovarian stimulation in an ART programme (IVF)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Multifollicular ovarian stimulation (MOS) is widely used in IVF and the compliance to treatment is deeply influenced by the tolerability of the medication(s) used and by the ease of self-administration. This prospective, controlled, randomised, parallel group open label, multicenter, phase III, equivalence study has been aimed to compare the clinical effectiveness (in terms of oocytes obtained) and tolerability of subcutaneous (s.c.) self-administered versus classical intramuscular (i.m.) injections of Merional, a new highly-purified hMG preparation.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 168 normogonadotropic women undergoing IVF were enrolled. Among them, 160 achieved pituitary suppression with a GnRH-agonist long protocol and were randomised to MOS treatment with Merional s.c. or i.m. They started MOS with a standard hMG dose between 150–300 IU, depending upon patient's age, and underwent a standard IVF procedure.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>No statistically significant difference in the mean number of collected oocytes (primary endpoint) was observed between the two study subgroups (7.46, SD 4.24 vs. 7.86, SD 4.28 in the s.c. and i.m. subgroups, respectively). As concerns the secondary outcomes, both the pregnancy and the clinical pregnancy rates were comparable between subgroups. The incidence of adverse events was similar in the two groups (2.4% vs. 3.7%, respectively). Pain at injection site was reported only the i.m. group (13.9% of patients).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Merional may be used by s.c. injections in IVF with an effectiveness in terms of retrieved oocytes that is equivalent to the one obtained with i.m administration and with a better local tolerability. With the limitations due to the sample size af this study, s.c. and i.m. administration routes seem to have the same overall safety.</p

Moving into the wide clinical spectrum of consciousness disorders: Pearls, perils and pitfalls

The last few years have been characterized by a growing interest of the medical and scientific world for the field of consciousness and its related disorders. Medically speaking, conscious- ness can be defined as the state of awareness of self and environment and the alertness to external stimulation, besides responsiveness to inner need. Transient loss of consciousness can be due to alterations in cerebral blood flow leading to fainting or syncope, migraine, metabolic dysfunctions, unexpected intracranial pressure increases, epileptic seizures, and sleep disorders. Chronic disorders of consciousness are a tragic success of high-technology treatment, in an attempt to maintain or reestablish brain function, which is to be considered as the main goal of therapeutics. Management of vegetative or a minimally conscious state individuals involves charily getting the right diagnosis with an evidence-based prognosis, also taking into account the medical, ethical, and legal key factors of the ideal treatment. This paper is aimed at exploring the wide spectrum of consciousness disorders and their clinical differential diagnosis, with particular regards to those with a negative impact on patient and their caregiver quality of life, including epilepsy, sleep disorders, and vegetative/minimally conscious state

Essential Physiological Differences Characterize Short- and Long-Lived Strains of Drosophila melanogaster

Aging is a multifactorial process which affects all animals. Aging as a result of damage accumulation is the most accepted explanation but the proximal causes remain to be elucidated. There is also evidence indicating that aging has an important genetic component. Animal species age at different rates and specific signaling pathways, such as insulin/insulin-like growth factor, can regulate life span of individuals within a species by reprogramming cells in response to environmental changes. Here, we use an unbiased approach to identify novel factors that regulate life span in Drosophila melanogaster. We compare the transcriptome and metabolome of two wild-type strains used widely in aging research: short-lived Dahomey and long-lived Oregon R flies. We found that Dahomey flies carry several traits associated with short-lived individuals and species such as increased lipoxidative stress, decreased mitochondrial gene expression, and increased Target of Rapamycin signaling. Dahomey flies also have upregulated octopamine signaling known to stimulate foraging behavior. Accordingly, we present evidence that increased foraging behavior, under laboratory conditions where nutrients are in excess increases damage generation and accelerates aging. In summary, we have identified several new pathways, which influence longevity highlighting the contribution and importance of the genetic component of aging.This work was supported by the European Research Council (260632 - ComplexI&Aging to A.S.); the Academy of Finland (252048 to A.S); the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council ( BB/M023311/1 to A.S.); the Centre for International Mobility (CIMO) (TM-12- 8391 and TM-13-8919 to N.G.); the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Institute of Health Carlos III (PI14/00328 to R.P. and PI17/01286 to P.N.); the Autonomous Government of Catalonia (2017SGR696 and SLT002/16/00250 to R.P.); the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (grant number 0117U006426 to O.L.); FEDER funds from the European Union (“A way to build Europe” to R.P.); and the Doctoral Programme in Medicine and Life Sciences of University of Tampere (to T.R). R.S is a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow funded by Wellcome (204715/Z/16/Z

A study of the olfactory tract with 3D rendering, f-MRI and CSD fiber tractography in healty and PD subjects

In this study we report an optimized single-shot diffusion-weighted echo planar imaging sequence that can visualize the olfactory tracts with CSD fiber tracking, 3D volume rendering and f-MRI. The olfactory tracts are localized in the olfactory grooves of the ethmoidal bone, running posteriorly through the olfactory sulci connecting to the inferior surfaces of the frontal lobes. Distally the tracts are enlarged into the olfactory bulbs and proximally they split into medial, intermediate and lateral striae and from here the axon projecting to the olfactory cortex, divided into five main areas: the anterior olfactory nucleus, which connects the two olfactory bulbs through a portion of the anterior commissure; the piriform cortex; parts of the amigdala, the olfactory tubercle and entorinal cortex; not all of these connections through the thalamus. Moreover, olfactory information is transmitted from the amygdala to the hypothalamus and from the entorinal area to the hippocampus.The olfactory tracts are difficult to depict with MRI diffusion-weighted imaging due to the high sensitivity to susceptibility artifacts at the base of the skull (Duprez and Rombaux, 2010). Ten subjects were examined; in five healthy subjects the olfactory tracts could be fiber tracked with the diffusion-weighted sequence, while in five anosmic PD patients, altered olfactory tracts were visualized. Furthermore, olfactory stimuli were applied during fMRI scanning to show the area BOLD activation to advance our understanding of olfactory dysfunction in PD patients compared to control. Olfactory function was established using the “Sniffin’ Sticks” test battery.This study of the olfactory tracts promise to visualize the anatomic organization and to facilitate the identification of different hyposmic and anosmic entities caused by neurodegenerative disorders or post-traumatic and congenital disfunctions

Topo-pathological re-wiring in brain structural connectomes of de novo Parkinson’s Disease patients

Although several studies in the last decades have challenged our understanding of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) pathophysiology, an important gap at a network and system level still remains to be filled in order to understand the fundamental changes in high-order motor and non-motor circuits underlying PD symptoms. The wide spectrum of both motor and non-motor symptoms suggests that Parkinson’s Disease may reflect extended alterations of the global brain network, thus justifying the onset of this heterogeneous symptomatology. Such hypothesis would be suitable with the idea of an “associationist” brain, which goes beyond the classic cortical “localizationist” theory. According to the former, the brain might consist of several, segregated and parallel distributed networks around critical and participating cortical epicenters. To the best of our knowledge, only few studies attempted to improve our understanding on structural MRI networks in PD. With the aim of detecting altered topological rewiring of brain networks in early stage de novo PD patients, we reconstructed tractography-based brain structural connectomes [1] in a pilot population of 10 PD patients and 13 controls. Topological features of structural connectomes were computed and compared between the healthy controls group and the group with PD at different level of cut-off. Significant group differences were showed at certain cut-off in the structural connectivity from the measurement of the Local Community Paradigm-correlation (LCPcorr), Characteristic Path Length, Betweenness Centrality and Edge Betweenness Centrality. Increased value of LCPcorr in the pathological group reflects a topological (and not spatial) network local community re-organization of structural interactions between common neighbors nodes [2]. As a result, the PD group has an increased correlation between the number of common neighbors and the number of their internal-interactions across all the structural local communities in the networks. On the other hand, decreased values in Characteristic Path Length, Betweenness Centrality and Edge Betweenness Centrality suggest also a global topological network re-wiring. Taken together these findings strongly indicate altered topological rewiring in de novo PD brain connectome and could shed new light on the pathophysiology of the disease and in the definition of network-based markers for a more quantitative and precise diagnosis

An Internet- and Kinect-Based Multiple Sclerosis Fitness Intervention Training With Pilates Exercises: Development and Usability Study

background: balance impairments are common in people with multiple sclerosis (MS), with reduced ability to maintain position and delayed responses to postural adjustments. Pilates is a popular alternative method for balance training that may reduce the rapid worsening of symptoms and the increased risk of secondary conditions (eg, depression) that are frequently associated with physical inactivity.objective: In this paper, we aimed to describe the design, development, and usability testing of MS Fitness Intervention Training (MS-FIT), a Kinect-based tool implementing Pilates exercises customized for MS. methods: MS-FIT has been developed using a user-centered design approach (design, prototype, user feedback, and analysis) to gain the target user's perspective. a team composed of 1 physical therapist, 2 game programmers, and 1 game designer developed the first version of MS-FIT that integrated the knowledge and experience of the team with MS literature findings related to pilates exercises and balance interventions based on exergames. MS-FIT, developed by using the Unity 3D (Unity Technologies) game engine software with kinect Sensor V2 for Windows, implements exercises for breathing, posture, and balance. Feedback from an Italian panel of experts in MS rehabilitation (neurologists, physiatrists, physical therapists, 1 statistician, and 1 bioengineer) and people with MS was collected to customize the tool for use in MS. The context of MS-FIT is traveling around the world to visit some of the most important cities to learn the aspects of their culture through pictures and stories. At each stay of the travel, the avatar of a Pilates teacher shows the user the exercises to be performed. Overall, 9 people with MS (n=4, 44% women; mean age 42.89, SD 11.97 years; mean disease duration 10.19, SD 9.18 years; Expanded Disability Status Scale score 3.17, SD 0.75) were involved in 3 outpatient user test sessions of 30 minutes; MS-FIT's usability was assessed through an ad hoc questionnaire (maximum value=5; higher the score, higher the usability) evaluating easiness to use, playability, enjoyment, satisfaction, and acceptance.Results: A user-centered design approach was used to develop an accessible and challenging tool for balance training. all people with MS (9/9, 100%) completed the user test sessions and answered the ad hoc questionnaire. the average score on each item ranged from 3.78 (SD 0.67) to 4.33 (SD 1.00), which indicated a high usability level. The feedback and suggestions provided by 64% (9/14) of people with MS and 36% (5/14) of therapists involved in the user test were implemented to refine the first prototype to release MS-FIT 2.0. Conclusions: The participants reported that MS-FIT was a usable tool. It is a promising system for enhancing the motivation and engagement of people with MS in performing exercise with the aim of improving their physical status

gene expression profiling in breast cancer a clinical perspective

Gene expression profiling tests are used in an attempt to determine the right treatment for the right person with early-stage breast cancer that may have spread to nearby lymph nodes but not to distant parts of the body. These new diagnostic approaches are designed to spare people who do not need additional treatment (adjuvant therapy) the side effects of unnecessary treatment, and allow people who may benefit from adjuvant therapy to receive it. In the present review we discuss in detail the major diagnostic tests available such as MammaPrint dx, Oncotype dx, PAM50, Mammostrat, IHC4, MapQuant DX, Theros-Breast Cancer Gene Expression Ratio Assay, and their potential clinical applications

Overexpression of CYB5R3 and NQO1, Two NAD\u3csup\u3e+\u3c/sup\u3e-Producing Enzymes, Mimics Aspects of Caloric Restriction

Calorie restriction (CR) is one of the most robust means to improve health and survival in model organisms. CR imposes a metabolic program that leads to increased stress resistance and delayed onset of chronic diseases, including cancer. In rodents, CR induces the upregulation of two NADH‐dehydrogenases, namely NAD(P)H:quinone oxidoreductase 1 (Nqo1) and cytochrome b5 reductase 3 (Cyb5r3), which provide electrons for energy metabolism. It has been proposed that this upregulation may be responsible for some of the beneficial effects of CR, and defects in their activity are linked to aging and several age‐associated diseases. However, it is unclear whether changes in metabolic homeostasis solely through upregulation of these NADH‐dehydrogenases have a positive impact on health and survival. We generated a mouse that overexpresses both metabolic enzymes leading to phenotypes that resemble aspects of CR including a modest increase in lifespan, greater physical performance, a decrease in chronic inflammation, and, importantly, protection against carcinogenesis, one of the main hallmarks of CR. Furthermore, these animals showed an enhancement of metabolic flexibility and a significant upregulation of the NAD+/sirtuin pathway. The results highlight the importance of these NAD+ producers for the promotion of health and extended lifespan

Demographic, tumor and clinical features of clinical trials versus clinical practice patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer: results of a prospective study

Several randomized clinical trials (RCTs) have demonstrated the efficacy of trastuzumab-based adjuvant therapy in HER2-positive breast cancer (BC). However, RCT patients may not invariably be representative of patients routinely seen in clinical practice (CP). To address this issue, we compared the clinical and tumor features of RCT and CP patients with HER2-positive BC