Presence for professional development: students in the virtual world

This report describes virtual world activities for groups of students studying a course designed to support professional development especially following career breaks. The activity uses the virtual platform to augment the social aspect of belonging to a study cohort, exploiting the sense of presence and constructivist affordances of the 3-D environment

Second Life, second chance: using virtual worlds to supportwomen returning to SET

Most of the growing body of research that centres on gender in virtual worlds is focused on the performativity and embodiment of gender through experimenting with forms of the avatar (for example Hussain and Griffiths, 2008, Dumitrica and Gaden, 2009), and does not seek to explain how issues relating to physical gender may be explored within the environ- ment other than through manipulation of the avatar. Participants within our study engaged individually with their avatars to varying degrees, but generally there was minimal personalisation and the avatar was predominantly the tool that each used to engage with the environment and each other. We are hence able to privilege a wider range of questions relating to gender that can be addressed using the body of evidence gathered through forum postings, Second Life chat transcripts, survey results and planned telephone interviews: • To what extent has Second Life fulfilled the needs of returners (eg networking and social contact, supporting their shared experience of ‘being in the same boat’)? • Have their experiences of SL been more or less gendered than VLE forums? • Does the gendered choices of avatars affect performance and/or participation in the group? • How well does Second Life replicate or enhance face to face networking

The genetic and physiological basis of total energy budget in different nutritional environments

Organisms need to adapt to dynamic environments over time. An organism consumes and stores a finite amount of resources that are used for all daily tasks. In order to survive and thrive, they must allocate these finite resources to different life history traits like reproduction or somatic growth. In order to understand this process, I examined the genetic and phenotypic variation in macromolecule content, estimated heritability for these phenotypes, and studied the effects of selection on macromolecule content. In my first study, I used the genetic mapping population, the Drosophila Synthetic Population Resource (DSPR), to measure macromolecule content and mapped the genetic loci responsible for carbohydrate, lipid and protein storage on different diets in Drosophila melanogaster. I measured the effect of nutritional environment on overall fly composition. By using the energy budget assays, I showed that there is phenotypic variation in response to diet, the genotypes responsible for nutrient content storage are plastic and that there are multiple genomic loci of interest. Nutrient acquisition increased according to diet composition, with DR having the lowest amount and HS having the highest. The exception to this pattern was glycogen. On the C diet, lipid and carbohydrate amounts correlated together. Overall, protein consistently correlated with all other macromolecules between 0.2 and 0.3 correlation. In my second study, I estimated the heritability of lipid, carbohydrate, glycogen, and protein contents across three different diets using a half-sibling design experiment, using flies from a genetically diverse outbred population generated from the DSPR. I showed differing heritability for different macromolecule contents across nutritional environments. This suggesting not only does nutrient content change based on the particular environment a genotype is in, but that these phenotypes are heritable. In my final study, I tested the effects of female fruit flies undergoing selection for 30 generations. I measured protein, lipid, soluble carbohydrates, and glycogen amount in ovaries and somatic tissue across three different diets across three different selection regimes and found that selection treatments did not significantly impacted macromolecule content. However, diet did. Strikingly, for carbohydrates specifically, patterns of acquisition remained the same in both the base population and after thirty generations of selection regardless of selection regimen. Unlike previous studies, I focused on the impact of diet and measured all four energy budget components on the same individual flies. This allows a wider understanding of resource allocation in different environments. I found that there was variation in macromolecule content acquisition. It is a heritable phenotype, and that diet was more influential in macromolecule content allocation than selection treatment.Includes bibliographical reference

Euroregion Śląsk Cieszyński jako przykŁad współpracy transgranicznej ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem lat 2007-2013

The article is focused on the cooperation within the Euroregion Cieszyn Silesia. It is an interesting area for research because of the difficult history of the region, including military confrontations over territory of Cieszyn Silesia. Towns Cieszyn and Český Těšín (Czech Cieszyn) are divided by a border on the Olza River and still are a significant symbol of the region. The aim of the article is to analyse cross-border cooperation between Poland and Czech Republic in the Euroregion Cieszyn Silesia. First hypothesis of the article says that cooperation has been developing systematically since the accession of Poland and Czech Republic to the European Union and it is primarily based on the European Funds. It is also said that historical and cultural determinants have negative impact on the cooperation development. First and foremost, to verify hypotheses mentioned above, there have been used official data published by the administrators of the projects that were implemented in the Euroregion Cieszyn Silesia.W artykule głębszej analizie została poddana współpraca w ramach Euroregionu Śląsk Cieszyński. Stanowi ona ciekawy obiekt badawczy ze względu na zaszłości historyczne – spory o tereny Śląska Cieszyńskiego. Znamiennym symbolem regionu są przedzielone granicą miasta Cieszyn i Czeski Cieszyn. Celem artykułu jest analiza współpracy transgranicznej między Polską a Republiką Czeską na terenie euroregionu. Przyjęto hipotezę, że rozwija się ona systematycznie po wstąpieniu Polski i Czech do Unii Europejskiej, a także, że rozwija się obecnie przede wszystkim dzięki funduszom pozyskiwanym z Unii Europejskiej. Założono także, że  uwarunkowania historyczne oraz kulturowe mają niekorzystny wpływ na rozwój współpracy. Do zweryfikowania hipotez wykorzystane zostały przede wszystkim dane urzędowe publikowane po zakończeniu projektów realizowanych przez Euroregion Śląsk Cieszyński

Ecofeminist Criticism and Climate Catastrophe. Narratives of Crisis in "nareszcie możemy się zjadać" by Monika Lubińska

The aim of this study was to introduce and discuss ecofeminist literary criticism and its philosophical background rooted in works of ecofeminist researchers such as Val Plumwood and Ariel Salleh. As intersectional theory, ecofeminism provides a profound analysis of the conceptual connection between women and nature. Ecological feminism is also concerned with relations between various forms of discrimination — racism, sexism, heterosexism and speciesism. Ecofeminist criticism is believed to be a method of reading that provides an interdisciplinary study of the relationship between subject, literature and environment. It examines issues such as carnality and sexuality which are also viewed as significant motifs in contemporary Polish poetry, e.g. in the works of Monika Lubińska. Research that combines literaturę studies and ecological themes seem to be particularly important in the second decade of 21st century — a time increasingly associated with climate crisis. The ecofeminist approach was used to analyze nareszcie możemy się zjadać, a debut book of poetry written by Polish author Monika Lubińska. The existence of garbage, activism issues and femininity were among the topics examined. Special attention was paid to Lubińska’s juxtapositions of sensuality and technology and to her writing method which involves the use of recycled phrases from Internet search engines, Wikipedia and her smartphone’s dictionary. The study revealed that the ecological sensibility of Monika Lubińska is deeply intertwined with her feminist awareness

Strategi Pendidikan Karakter: Membentuk Etika dan Nilai pada Generasi Muda

Pembentukan karakter pada generasi muda dalam konteks masyarakat modern menantang, dengan berbagai faktor seperti pengaruh keluarga, pendidikan formal, teman sebaya, media, dan globalisasi yang saling berinteraksi. Keluarga memainkan peran utama sebagai fondasi nilai-nilai karakter, sementara pendidikan formal dan interaksi sosial di sekolah dan teman sebaya memberikan kontribusi signifikan. Di tengah pesatnya perkembangan teknologi, strategi pendidikan karakter perlu beradaptasi untuk tetap relevan. Keterlibatan orang tua, peran guru sebagai model, dan literasi media menjadi faktor kunci dalam membentuk karakter. Dengan kolaborasi antara keluarga, sekolah, dan masyarakat, serta pemanfaatan teknologi sebagai alat pendidikan yang efektif, generasi muda dapat dibimbing menuju pembentukan karakter yang kuat dan nilai-nilai positif

The roles of growth regulation and appendage patterning genes in the morphogenesis of treehopper pronota.

Treehoppers of the insect family Membracidae have evolved enlarged and elaborate pronotal structures, which is hypothesized to involve co-opted expression of genes that are shared with the wings. Here, we investigate the similarity between the pronotum and wings in relation to growth. Our study reveals that the ontogenetic allometry of the pronotum is similar to that of wings in Membracidae, but not the outgroup. Using transcriptomics, we identify genes related to translation and protein synthesis, which are mutually upregulated. These genes are implicated in the eIF2, eIF4/p70S6K and mTOR pathways, and have known roles in regulating cell growth and proliferation. We find that species-specific differential growth patterning of the pronotum begins as early as the third instar, which suggests that expression of appendage patterning genes occurs long before the metamorphic molt. We propose that a network related to growth and size determination is the more likely mechanism shared with wings. However, regulators upstream of the shared genes in pronotum and wings need to be elucidated to substantiate whether co-option has occurred. Finally, we believe it will be helpful to distinguish the mechanisms leading to pronotal size from those regulating pronotal shape as we make sense of this spectacular evolutionary innovation.UCR::Vicerrectoría de Docencia::Ciencias Básicas::Facultad de Ciencias::Escuela de Biologí