Do media play a role in promoting vocational education and training? The case of MasterChef

It is often suggested that vocational education and training (VET) could be key to cut youth unemployment. VET programmes may provide young people with specific professional qualifications that enable them to successfully compete in the labour market. However, despite the great emphasis placed by governments and other institutions on these programmes, VET appears to be far from reaching its full potential in many countries. One barrier preventing students from pursuing this type of education is the stigma associated with VET. This paper looks at the role of media in changing the negative social perceptions of VET. Specifically, it examines whether in Italy the growing popularity of the cooking television reality show MasterChef has led to an increase in the number of students willing to study for a vocational qualification in hospitality and catering. The empirical results show that an increase in the number of MasterChef’s viewers is associated with a higher proportion of students willing to attend hospitality and catering schools. This finding suggests that popular television cooking series like MasterChef may be a vehicle through which the image and the attractiveness of VET can be improved

UMA. Potrero de mulas. San Sebastián del Oeste, Jalisco

Las Unidades de Manejo para la Conservación de la Vida Silvestre (UMAs). El presente proyecto reside en el apoyo a la UMA “Potrero de Mulas”, ubicada en el municipio San Sebastián del Oeste del Estado de Jalisco. El objetivo principal de la visita realizada consistió en conocer las condiciones actuales en las que se encontraba la UMA, su funcionamiento, cómo se está manteniendo económicamente y cuáles son sus problemáticas. La UMA anteriormente contaba con recursos económicos que el Gobierno Federal les otorgaba como subsidios que se destinaban para el mantenimiento de la UMA así como para el desarrollo de las actividades ecoturísticas; sin embargo, después de unos años, el Gobierno Federal optó por eliminar este tipo de apoyo, por consiguiente, se retiró el apoyo económica hacia las UMAs. En consecuencia, otro de los objetivos del proyecto es que a partir de la visita de campo a la UMA, y conociendo sus problemáticas, sería enfocar el análisis respecto a la viabilidad de volver a solicitar al gobierno el apoyo económico para este tipo de proyectos.ITESO, A.C

Scaling slowly rotating asteroids with stellar occultations

Context. As evidenced by recent survey results, the majority of asteroids are slow rotators (spin periods longer than 12 h), but lack spin and shape models because of selection bias. This bias is skewing our overall understanding of the spins, shapes, and sizes of asteroids, as well as of their other properties. Also, diameter determinations for large (>60 km) and medium-sized asteroids (between 30 and 60 km) often vary by over 30% for multiple reasons. Aims. Our long-term project is focused on a few tens of slow rotators with periods of up to 60 h. We aim to obtain their full light curves and reconstruct their spins and shapes. We also precisely scale the models, typically with an accuracy of a few percent. Methods. We used wide sets of dense light curves for spin and shape reconstructions via light-curve inversion. Precisely scaling them with thermal data was not possible here because of poor infrared datasets: large bodies tend to saturate in WISE mission detectors. Therefore, we recently also launched a special campaign among stellar occultation observers, both in order to scale these models and to verify the shape solutions, often allowing us to break the mirror pole ambiguity. Results. The presented scheme resulted in shape models for 16 slow rotators, most of them for the first time. Fitting them to chords from stellar occultation timings resolved previous inconsistencies in size determinations. For around half of the targets, this fitting also allowed us to identify a clearly preferred pole solution from the pair of two mirror pole solutions, thus removing the ambiguity inherent to light-curve inversion. We also address the influence of the uncertainty of the shape models on the derived diameters. Conclusions. Overall, our project has already provided reliable models for around 50 slow rotators. Such well-determined and scaled asteroid shapes will, for example, constitute a solid basis for precise density determinations when coupled with mass information. Spin and shape models in general continue to fill the gaps caused by various biases

The role of oxidative stress in the in vitro induction of micronuclei by pesticides in mouse lung fibroblasts

The involvement of the antioxidant enzymes catalase and glutathione peroxidase (both at 0.1 mg/ml) in defence against the genotoxicity of phosphamidon (80 μg/ml) and dieldrin (25 μM) was investigated in order to demonstrate that the two pesticides damage DNA through the generation of reactive oxygen species and therefore of oxidative stress. The pesticide genotoxicity was determined by the cytokinesis-block micronucleus test performed on primary mouse lung fibroblast cultures. Also, 3-aminotriazole (40 mM) and mercaptosuccinate (0.5 mM), inhibitors of catalase and glutathione peroxidase, respectively, were added to the cultures. Data indicate that catalase causes a decrease only in the damage induced by phosphamidon, while glutathione peroxidase protects against damage induced by both phosphamidon and dieldrin. Simultaneous treatment with antioxidant inhibitors and pesticides results in a decrease in micronucleus frequency and cell number, due to apoptotic death. Our results indicate that clastogenic DNA damage produced by the two pesticides is modulated by antioxidant enzymes and their inhibitors and thus could be due to oxidative stress induction

Diventare insegnanti in Europa. Una comparazione tra quattro Paesi. Una sintesi

Il reclutamento degli insegnanti sembra una fase cruciale per la successiva efficacia dei sistemi di istruzione: infatti, la letteratura converge sul fatto che, tra vari i fattori a livello scuola, gli insegnanti sono quello chiave nell’influenzare l’apprendimento degli studenti. Al contempo, restano oscuri gli elementi che caratterizzano la cosiddetta “teacher quality”, per quanto sembri che la qualità del reclutamento dei futuri insegnanti sia la leva centrale in questo processo. Occuparsi di reclutamento degli insegnanti significa, quindi, analizzare un processo decisivo per il futuro della scuola. Il materiale sul quale è basata questa analisi comparativa è composto da tre casi nazionali (Finlandia, Regno Unito, Germania) appositamente predisposti per questo lavoro. Alla luce dei tre casi nazionali, infine, vengono analizzati gli attuali meccanismi di reclutamento dei docenti in Italia