Effets du nombre de visites dans un programme éducatif muséal

Dans le cadre de recherches portant sur l'utilisation par l'école du musée à des fins pédagogiques, les auteurs voulaient vérifier les effets d'un programme éducatif comprenant deux visites au musée par rapport au même programme ne comportant qu'une seule visite, chez des élèves de 9-11 ans. L'étude a révélé que les deux groupes (expérimental et de contrôle) ont développé des attitudes positives envers le musée et ont progressé au plan cognitif. Aucun progrès n'a été observé sur le plan des attitudes envers les sciences humaines. Cependant, il n'existe aucune différence significative entre les deux groupes tant au plan cognitif qu'affectif. Bref, ce serait la nature du programme et non la fréquence des visites au musée qui expliquerait le progrès réalisé par les élèves.This study deals with research into the use of museums for pedagogical objectives. The authors examine the effects of an educational program students aged 9 to 11 years which includes two museum visits as compared to that with only one visit. The results demonstrate that both experimental and control groups developped positive attitudes towards the museum and progressed on a measure of learning. No progress was noted regarding attitudes towards the social sciences. Since there were no significant differences between these groups on cognitive and affective measures it appears that the progress noted is due to the nature of the program implemented and not the frequency of museum visits.En el contexto de estudios sobre la utilización que hace la escuela del museo con fines pedagógicos para alumnos de 9-11 afios, los autores trataron de verifîcar los efectos de un programa educativo que comprendîa dos visitas al museo en lugar de una sola. El estudio reveló que los dos grupos (experimental y control) desarrollaron actitudes positivas hacia el museo y progresaron en el piano cognitivo. No se observé ningûn progreso a nivel de las actitudes hacia las ciencias humanas. Sin embargo, no existe ninguna diferencia significativa entre los dos grupos tanto a nivel cognitivo que afectivo. En brève, el progreso realizado por los alumnos se explica por el tipo de programa y no por la frecuencia de las visitas al museo.Im Rahmen von Untersuchungen ùber die Anwendung von Museums besuchen pâdagogischer Ausrichtung durch die Schule, wollten die Autoren die Wirkung eines Unterrichtsplanes prufen, der zwei Museumsbesuche umfasste, gegenùber dem gleichen Plan mit nur einem solchen Besuch, und zwar bei Schûlern im Alter von 9 bis 11 Jahren. Die Studie hat ergeben, dass die beiden Gruppen (Experimentier - und Kontrollgruppe) eine positive Einstellung gegenùber dem Museum entwickelt haben, und auf dem Gebiet der Kenntnisse Fortschritte gemacht haben. In der Einstellung zu Bildungsfàchern wurde kein Fortschritt beobachtet. Es besteht keinerlei bemerkenswerter Unterschied zwischen den beiden Gruppen, weder auf kognitivem noch auf affektivem Gebiet. Kurz: der Fortschritt der Schùler erklàrt sich aus der Art des Programmes und nicht aus der Zahl der Museumsbesuche

Un groupe de soutien à l’intention des femmes victimes de violence conjugale

Pour les femmes victimes de violence conjugale, le départ du foyer et le séjour dans une maison d'hébergement ne représentent que la première étape d'un long processus de changement qui est souvent ponctué de crises. Un groupe de soutien a été mis sur pied pour aider ces femmes à établir de nouveaux modes de relations qui les rendraient aptes à traverser avec succès cette période difficile de leur vie. En s'inspirant des principes d'affinité, de présence et de consolidation élaborés par Lifton (1976), les auteures de cet article soulignent la valeur de la réciprocité dans la relation thérapeutique et proposent des éléments de réflexion sur les points saillants d'une intervention auprès des femmes victimes de violence conjugale ayant fait un séjour dans un centre d'hébergement.For battered women, leaving the home and spending time in a shelter is only the first step of a long process of change that usually involves periodic crises. A support group has been set up to help these women establish new ways to relate with the outside world, ways that are meant to assist them in successfully going through this difficult phase of their lives. Based on Lifton's principles of affinity, presence and consolidation (1976), the authors highlight the value of reciprocity in the therapeutical relationship. In addition, the authors discuss issues relating to the main points affecting interventions with battered women who have spent time in a shelter

Essai d’applicabilité du modèle d’enseignement de Bruner en milieu muséal

En éducation scolaire, il n’existe pas une théorie générale capable d’orienter toute situation d’apprentissage et d’éclairer la complexité de l’acte d’enseigner. Le praticien peut cependant recourir à différents modèles d’enseignement. La pédagogie muséale gagnerait à se doter de tels modèles. Afin de déterminer, parmi les modèles d’enseignement conçus pour l’école, ceux qui peuvent s’appli- quer en milieu muséal, nous avons développé une démarche d’analyse basée sur cinq principes pédagogiques d’une visite au musée identifiés par le Groupe de recherche sur l’éducation et les musées. Cette démarche, nous l’avons appliquée au modèle d’enseignement de Bruner sur le développement de concepts et nous avons vérifié dans quelle mesure il peut s’adapter en milieu muséal. No theory of schooling can as yet offer a complete and practicable account of the teaching act, although a number of models provide approximate guidance for practitioners. Museum education would gain by application of some such models. In order to choose from models developed for the school, we developed a screen based on five pedagogical principles identified by the Museum Education Research Group. We here apply our screen to Bruner’s conceptual development model in order to see how well that model suits museum education.

Case 11 : Going Beyond the Virus: Understanding the Drivers of the Ebola Virus Outbreak

The protagonist, Jason Fitzgerald, faces challenges performing contact tracing during an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This represents a small fraction of the many difficulties in responding to the 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak. Despite the best efforts of national and international organizations, the outbreak isn’t close to being contained. In fact, the virus threatens to spread to neighbouring countries, triggering the World Health Organization to declare the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) on July 17, 2019. The Ebola outbreak is a dangerous, complex, and ongoing public health concern with serious national and international implications. The case illustrates important factors involved in outbreak response. As such, this case discusses the stakeholders involved in international health governance and the role of global health security in the political and international discourse on infectious disease control. The case illustrates the challenges of outbreak responses and sheds light on the role of regional sociocultural factors in fuelling the ongoing Ebola outbreak

Effets d’un programme éducatif muséal comprenant des activités de prolongement en classe

Depuis 1980, le Groupe de recherche sur l’éducation et les musées (GREM) a conduit, en collaboration avec plusieurs écoles et quelques musées, des travaux ayant pour objet l’élaboration d’un modèle didactique d’utilisation des musées à des fins éducatives. Après avoir mené plusieurs expérimentations, un premier modèle inspiré de théories propres au curriculum des sciences humaines a été construit. Il comporte une visite au musée précédée et suivie d’activités se déroulant en salle de classe. La présente étude a pour objet l’étude des effets, au double plan cognitif et affectif, d’activités de prolongement considérées comme faisant partie intégrante d’une démarche globale d’apprentissage. Un plan de recherche de type quasi-expérimental a été utilisé. Since 1980, the Research Group on Education and Museums has collaborated with schools and museums to construct a pedagogical model for education in museums. Its researches led the Group to adopt a model drawn from the social studies curriculum. The model calls for museum visits preceded and followed by classroom activities. The present quasi-experimental study considers the affective and cognitive effects of follow-up activities that form an integral part of an overall teaching plan.

Effect of Algorithm-Based Therapy vs Usual Care on Clinical Success and Serious Adverse Events in Patients with Staphylococcal Bacteremia: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Importance: The appropriate duration of antibiotics for staphylococcal bacteremia is unknown. Objective: To test whether an algorithm that defines treatment duration for staphylococcal bacteremia vs standard of care provides noninferior efficacy without increasing severe adverse events. Design, Setting, and Participants: A randomized trial involving adults with staphylococcal bacteremia was conducted at 16 academic medical centers in the United States (n = 15) and Spain (n = 1) from April 2011 to March 2017. Patients were followed up for 42 days beyond end of therapy for those with Staphylococcus aureus and 28 days for those with coagulase-negative staphylococcal bacteremia. Eligible patients were 18 years or older and had 1 or more blood cultures positive for S aureus or coagulase-negative staphylococci. Patients were excluded if they had known or suspected complicated infection at the time of randomization. Interventions: Patients were randomized to algorithm-based therapy (n = 255) or usual practice (n = 254). Diagnostic evaluation, antibiotic selection, and duration of therapy were predefined for the algorithm group, whereas clinicians caring for patients in the usual practice group had unrestricted choice of antibiotics, duration, and other aspects of clinical care. Main Outcomes and Measures: Coprimary outcomes were (1) clinical success, as determined by a blinded adjudication committee and tested for noninferiority within a 15% margin; and (2) serious adverse event rates in the intention-to-treat population, tested for superiority. The prespecified secondary outcome measure, tested for superiority, was antibiotic days among per-protocol patients with simple or uncomplicated bacteremia. Results: Among the 509 patients randomized (mean age, 56.6 [SD, 16.8] years; 226 [44.4%] women), 480 (94.3%) completed the trial. Clinical success was documented in 209 of 255 patients assigned to algorithm-based therapy and 207 of 254 randomized to usual practice (82.0% vs 81.5%; difference, 0.5% [1-sided 97.5% CI, -6.2% to ∞]). Serious adverse events were reported in 32.5% of algorithm-based therapy patients and 28.3% of usual practice patients (difference, 4.2% [95% CI, -3.8% to 12.2%]). Among per-protocol patients with simple or uncomplicated bacteremia, mean duration of therapy was 4.4 days for algorithm-based therapy vs 6.2 days for usual practice (difference, -1.8 days [95% CI, -3.1 to -0.6]). Conclusions and Relevance: Among patients with staphylococcal bacteremia, the use of an algorithm to guide testing and treatment compared with usual care resulted in a noninferior rate of clinical success. Rates of serious adverse events were not significantly different, but interpretation is limited by wide confidence intervals. Further research is needed to assess the utility of the algorithm. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01191840

Hundreds of variants clustered in genomic loci and biological pathways affect human height

Most common human traits and diseases have a polygenic pattern of inheritance: DNA sequence variants at many genetic loci influence the phenotype. Genome-wide association (GWA) studies have identified more than 600 variants associated with human traits, but these typically explain small fractions of phenotypic variation, raising questions about the use of further studies. Here, using 183,727 individuals, we show that hundreds of genetic variants, in at least 180 loci, influence adult height, a highly heritable and classic polygenic trait. The large number of loci reveals patterns with important implications for genetic studies of common human diseases and traits. First, the 180 loci are not random, but instead are enriched for genes that are connected in biological pathways (P = 0.016) and that underlie skeletal growth defects (P < 0.001). Second, the likely causal gene is often located near the most strongly associated variant: in 13 of 21 loci containing a known skeletal growth gene, that gene was closest to the associated variant. Third, at least 19 loci have multiple independently associated variants, suggesting that allelic heterogeneity is a frequent feature of polygenic traits, that comprehensive explorations of already-discovered loci should discover additional variants and that an appreciable fraction of associated loci may have been identified. Fourth, associated variants are enriched for likely functional effects on genes, being over-represented among variants that alter amino-acid structure of proteins and expression levels of nearby genes. Our data explain approximately 10% of the phenotypic variation in height, and we estimate that unidentified common variants of similar effect sizes would increase this figure to approximately 16% of phenotypic variation (approximately 20% of heritable variation). Although additional approaches are needed to dissect the genetic architecture of polygenic human traits fully, our findings indicate that GWA studies can identify large numbers of loci that implicate biologically relevant genes and pathways.

Reductions in circulating levels of IL-16, IL-7 and VEGF-A in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome

Recently, differences in the levels of various chemokines and cytokines were reported in patients with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) as compared with controls. Moreover, the analyte profile differed between chronic ME/CFS patients of long duration versus patients with disease of less than 3 years. In the current study, we measured the plasma levels of 34 cytokines, chemokines and growth factors in 100 chronic ME/CFS patients of long duration and in 79 gender and age-matched controls. We observed highly significant reductions in the concentration of circulating interleukin (IL)-16, IL-7, and Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A (VEGF-A) in ME/CFS patients. All three biomarkers were significantly correlated in a multivariate cluster analysis. In addition, we identified significant reductions in the concentrations of fractalkine (CX3CL1) and monokine-induced-by-IFN-γ (MIG; CXCL9) along with increases in the concentrations of eotaxin 2 (CCL24) in ME/CFS patients. Our data recapitulates previous data from another USA ME/CFS cohort in which circulating levels of IL-7 were reduced. Also, a reduced level of VEGF-A was reported previously in sera of patients with Gulf War Illness as well as in cerebral spinal fluid samples from a different cohort of USA ME/CFS patients. To our knowledge, we are the first to test for levels of IL-16 in ME/CFS patients. In combination with previous data, our work suggests that the clustered reduction of IL-7, IL-16 and VEGF-A may have physiological relevance to ME/CFS disease. This profile is ME/CFS-specific since measurement of the same analytes present in chronic infectious and autoimmune liver diseases, where persistent fatigue is also a major symptom, failed to demonstrate the same changes. Further studies of other ME/CFS and overlapping disease cohorts are warranted in future

Increasing fire and the decline of fire adapted black spruce in the boreal forest

Intensifying wildfire activity and climate change can drive rapid forest compositional shifts. In boreal North America, black spruce shapes forest flammability and depends on fire for regeneration. This relationship has helped black spruce maintain its dominance through much of the Holocene. However, with climate change and more frequent and severe fires, shifts away from black spruce dominance to broadleaf or pine species are emerging, with implications for ecosystem functions including carbon sequestration, water and energy fluxes, and wildlife habitat. Here, we predict that such reductions in black spruce after fire may already be widespread given current trends in climate and fire. To test this, we synthesize data from 1,538 field sites across boreal North America to evaluate compositional changes in tree species following 58 recent fires (1989 to 2014). While black spruce was resilient following most fires (62%), loss of resilience was common, and spruce regeneration failed completely in 18% of 1,140 black spruce sites. In contrast, postfire regeneration never failed in forests dominated by jack pine, which also possesses an aerial seed bank, or broad-leaved trees. More complete combustion of the soil organic layer, which often occurs in better-drained landscape positions and in dryer duff, promoted compositional changes throughout boreal North America. Forests in western North America, however, were more vulnerable to change due to greater long-term climate moisture deficits. While we find considerable remaining resilience in black spruce forests, predicted increases in climate moisture deficits and fire activity will erode this resilience, pushing the system toward a tipping point that has not been crossed in several thousand years

Aboveground biomass density models for NASA's Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) lidar mission

NASA's Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) is collecting spaceborne full waveform lidar data with a primary science goal of producing accurate estimates of forest aboveground biomass density (AGBD). This paper presents the development of the models used to create GEDI's footprint-level (similar to 25 m) AGBD (GEDI04_A) product, including a description of the datasets used and the procedure for final model selection. The data used to fit our models are from a compilation of globally distributed spatially and temporally coincident field and airborne lidar datasets, whereby we simulated GEDI-like waveforms from airborne lidar to build a calibration database. We used this database to expand the geographic extent of past waveform lidar studies, and divided the globe into four broad strata by Plant Functional Type (PFT) and six geographic regions. GEDI's waveform-to-biomass models take the form of parametric Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) models with simulated Relative Height (RH) metrics as predictor variables. From an exhaustive set of candidate models, we selected the best input predictor variables, and data transformations for each geographic stratum in the GEDI domain to produce a set of comprehensive predictive footprint-level models. We found that model selection frequently favored combinations of RH metrics at the 98th, 90th, 50th, and 10th height above ground-level percentiles (RH98, RH90, RH50, and RH10, respectively), but that inclusion of lower RH metrics (e.g. RH10) did not markedly improve model performance. Second, forced inclusion of RH98 in all models was important and did not degrade model performance, and the best performing models were parsimonious, typically having only 1-3 predictors. Third, stratification by geographic domain (PFT, geographic region) improved model performance in comparison to global models without stratification. Fourth, for the vast majority of strata, the best performing models were fit using square root transformation of field AGBD and/or height metrics. There was considerable variability in model performance across geographic strata, and areas with sparse training data and/or high AGBD values had the poorest performance. These models are used to produce global predictions of AGBD, but will be improved in the future as more and better training data become available