Comparing Simulations to Improve Physics Students' Education

Deepening the authentic inquiry process framework, we analysed and compared some simulations used in physics teaching/learning activities and covering different topics in secondary schools' curricula. The analysis focused on cognitive processes activated by exploring the simulation and using the proposed material for teachers/learners. While evaluating the inquiry tasks in the simulations analysed, we recognised some features that could become a starting point for identifying simulation patterns targeting learning outcomes and scientific abilities. But more interestingly, we tried to focus on which could improve physics students' education in an epistemologically authentic inquiry process. With the performed analysis and the collected data, we chose some simulations that better fulfilled the inquiry goal. Then, we tried to develop teaching/learning materials based on the ISLE (Investigative Science Learning Environment) approach. We adopted this framework because it is an example of epistemologically authentic inquiry. Lastly, we shared the results of our analysis and the developed materials with a community of in-service physics teachers to collect their feedback and reflections on this use of simulations

Towards an Early Physics approach for secondary students

Some traditional approaches to teaching Physics at the secondary level of instruction have disclosed their limits, especially in distance learning. A consequence of such limits seems to be a somewhat diffused lack of students' scientific abilities, mainly caused by their learning difficulties. To overcome the shortcomings of tradition, we stimulated some teachers to get involved in a new teaching approach to develop their awareness of these limits and difficulties and exploit their PCK (Pedagogical Content Knowledge). This approach explores and intercepts the main learning features and needs in the first years of Physics studies. For that reason and the analogy in Math Education, we named it Early Physics

Open bibliographic data and the Italian National Scientific Qualification: measuring coverage of academic fields

The importance of open bibliographic repositories is widely accepted by the scientific community. For evaluation processes, however, there is still some skepticism: even if large repositories of open access articles and free publication indexes exist and are continuously growing, assessment procedures still rely on proprietary databases, mainly due to the richness of the data available in these proprietary databases and the services provided by the companies they are offered by. This paper investigates the status of open bibliographic data of three of the most used open resources, namely Microsoft Academic Graph, Crossref and OpenAIRE, evaluating their potentialities as substitutes of proprietary databases for academic evaluation processes. We focused on the Italian National Scientific Qualification (NSQ), the Italian process for University Professor qualification, which uses data from commercial indexes, and investigated similarities and differences between research areas, disciplines and application roles. The main conclusion is that open datasets are ready to be used for some disciplines, among which mathematics, natural sciences, economics and statistics, even if there is still room for improvement; but there is still a large gap to fill in others - like history, philosophy, pedagogy and psychology - and a stronger effort is required from researchers and institutions

Do open citations inform the qualitative peer-review evaluation in research assessments? An analysis of the Italian National Scientific Qualification

In the past, several works have investigated ways for combining quantitative and qualitative methods in research assessment exercises. Indeed, the Italian National Scientific Qualification (NSQ), i.e. the national assessment exercise which aims at deciding whether a scholar can apply to professorial academic positions as Associate Professor and Full Professor, adopts a quantitative and qualitative evaluation process: it makes use of bibliometrics followed by a peer-review process of candidates' CVs. The NSQ divides academic disciplines into two categories, i.e. citation-based disciplines (CDs) and non-citation-based disciplines (NDs), a division that affects the metrics used for assessing the candidates of that discipline in the first part of the process, which is based on bibliometrics. In this work, we aim at exploring whether citation-based metrics, calculated only considering open bibliographic and citation data, can support the human peer-review of NDs and yield insights on how it is conducted. To understand if and what citation-based (and, possibly, other) metrics provide relevant information, we created a series of machine learning models to replicate the decisions of the NSQ committees. As one of the main outcomes of our study, we noticed that the strength of the citational relationship between the candidate and the commission in charge of assessing his/her CV seems to play a role in the peer-review phase of the NSQ of NDs

Corticobasal syndrome: neuroimaging and neurophysiological advances

Corticobasal degeneration (CBD) is a neurodegenerative condition characterized by 4R-tau protein deposition in several brain regions that clinically manifests itself as a heterogeneous atypical parkinsonism typically expressing in the adulthood. The prototypical clinical phenotype of CBD is corticobasal syndrome (CBS). Important insights into the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying motor and higher cortical symptoms in CBS have been gained by using advanced neuroimaging and neurophysiological techniques. Structural and functional neuroimaging studies often showed asymmetric cortical and subcortical abnormalities, mainly involving perirolandic and parietal regions and basal ganglia structures. Neurophysiological investigations including electroencephalography and somatosensory evoked potentials provided useful information on the origin of myoclonus and on cortical sensory loss. Transcranial magnetic stimulation demonstrated heterogeneous and asymmetric changes in the excitability and plasticity of primary motor cortex and abnormal hemispheric connectivity. Neuroimaging and neurophysiological abnormalities in multiple brain areas reflect the asymmetric neurodegeneration, leading to the asymmetric motor and higher cortical symptoms in CBS. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Implementing the Use of Energy Bar Charts in the Framework of an Early Physics approach

Introductory college courses use the Multiple Representations (MR) method for teaching/learning energy processes. It helps students understand concepts which are challenging to learn, like energy, and to solve related problems. Although this method is well-recognised in the context of Physics Education and researchers, it is less known by high school teachers because of its limited use in Physics textbooks. We report a recent experience where we accompanied teachers in their Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) revision and in the building of an innovative way of teaching using conceptual fragmentation. The assessment confirmed the teaching efficiency of using Multiple Representations tools such as Energy Bar Charts

Language-enhanced RNR-Map: Querying Renderable Neural Radiance Field maps with natural language

We present Le-RNR-Map, a Language-enhanced Renderable Neural Radiance map for Visual Navigation with natural language query prompts. The recently proposed RNR-Map employs a grid structure comprising latent codes positioned at each pixel. These latent codes, which are derived from image observation, enable: i) image rendering given a camera pose, since they are converted to Neural Radiance Field; ii) image navigation and localization with astonishing accuracy. On top of this, we enhance RNR-Map with CLIP-based embedding latent codes, allowing natural language search without additional label data. We evaluate the effectiveness of this map in single and multi-object searches. We also investigate its compatibility with a Large Language Model as an "affordance query resolver". Code and videos are available at https://intelligolabs.github.io/Le-RNR-Map/Comment: Accepted at ICCVW23 VLA

EXPLORING FORCE CONCEPT THROUGH A LEARNING PROJECT USING DESMOS

Teachers have been asked to integrate new technologies with didactic education as it happened during COVID-19 times; this has been a real opportunity to review disciplinary and methodological approaches and to enhance features that usually traditional teaching does not use. The learning and the epistemological constructions are promoted also by the use of targeted software that may support the conceptual difficulties in Physics Education through high level of students\u2019 interaction. Our work proved to be quite successful in achieving this support in learning: during the first lockdown period, we proposed a learning unit on the concept of force according to the Newtonian Dynamics using the Desmos software to students in the secondary school. The technological integration is crucial to complete the educational project and it could also be promoted in a non-emergency teaching setting. Mai come ai tempi del COVID-19 \ue8 stato chiesto agli insegnanti di integrare le nuove tecnologie con l\u2019azione didattica; una vera e propria occasione per rivedere gli approcci disciplinari e metodologici e valorizzare aspetti che talvolta la didattica tradizionale non riesce opportunamente a focalizzare. Quando infatti le difficolt\ue0 concettuali sono rilevanti, come nel caso della didattica della fisica, anche l\u2019utilizzo di software opportuni e fortemente interattivi favorisce l\u2019apprendimento e la costruzione epistemologica dello studente. Nella sperimentazione effettuata ci si \ue8 proposti di raggiungere questo intento: il concetto di forza nella Dinamica Newtoniana \ue8 stato proposto in un percorso didattico progettato e strutturato attraverso il software per la didattica Desmos a studenti della classe seconda della scuola secondaria di primo grado durante il primo periodo di lockdown. L\u2019integrazione tecnologica \ue8 stata fondamentale per la riuscita del percorso e per una sua possibile promozione anche nella didattica non emergenziale

Stem-Skilled Parents and Autism Spectrum Disorder in Offspring: A Case-Control Study

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopment disorder characterised by a range of deficits in two specific domains: social communication and social interaction and repetitive patterns of behaviour. Several studies have explored the link between ASD and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or other mathematics-grounded disciplines), but results are still uncertain. Objective of the study was to estimate the potential role of systemising abilities in parents as a risk factor for ASD in the offspring, using the achievement of a degree in STEM disciplines as a proxy characteristic of the exposure. There were 1,316 participants overall. There were 658 incident consecutive cases of definite ASD, diagnosed in a Reference Centre for ASD in Italy, from 2001 to 2020. The main exposure variable was parental education level. The risk of ASD in the offspring associated with the main exposure variable and the exposure covariates (e.g. use of neurotropic drugs during the first trimester of the mother’s pregnancy, perinatal outcomes of participants and/or preterm birth) was studied by using conditional logistic regression analysis. In addition, we carried out a mediation analysis to investigate whether and the extent to which covariates significantly associated with ASD risk mediate the relationship between parental education level and ASD in offspring. A STEM degree in parents was significantly associated with risk of ASD in offspring (OR 1.43, 95% CI 1.03-2.54). Familiarity was weakly associated with the risk of ASD (OR 1.33, 95% CI 1.00-1.66) and is the stronger mediator (PME 28%). Sensitivity analysis did not show deviations related to gender or ASD level. Our study moves in the direction of confirming the risk of occurrence of ASD in the offspring of parents with elevated systemising abilities