Pre-service Teachers in Mathematics Lesson Study

This paper presents qualitative evidence to answer the questions, “What are the outcomes of engaging pre-service and in-service teachers in a collaborative lesson study experience” and “How can the outcomes of this experience inform future ways to include preservice teachers in lesson study?” The data gathered demonstrate that including pre-service teachers in lesson study can introduce them to lesson-building as a process and cross-grades teacher collaboration. It can give them opportunities to be critical thinkers in the context of mathematics education and encourages them to think as teachers. One weakness the pre-service teachers demonstrated was an incomplete understanding of the appropriate use of technology in algebra. Consideration of prior knowledge and anticipation of student responses was lacking among both pre-service and in-service teachers. Overall, the data show that pre-service teachers can contribute to the lesson study process as researchers

Um olhar dentro da formação em Matemática: funções, conteúdos e dinâmicas

Mathematics classroom coaching is used across the United States as a means for improving instruction, with the ultimate goal of improving student learning. The job assignments of coaches can vary widely across schools and districts.  Regardless of the various forms that coaching can take, there is the consistent expectation that a coach’s day-to-day work will positively influence classroom instruction. The study reported here attempts to gain a more complete picture of the job of an elementary mathematics coach based on the observation of seven coaches in five different districts for a day. We report the variety of ways we observed elementary mathematics coaches interact with teachers, and what roles and responsibilities they take on. Our analysis of these data led us to create a template for conducting observations of mathematics classroom coaching, which could be used by researchers seeking to conduct studies about coaching or by administrators seeking to document the day-to-day work of coaches.entrenamientos en el área de matemáticas se utilizan extensivamente Estados Unidos con el objetivo final de mejorar el aprendizaje de los estudiantes. Las asignaciones de trabajo de los entrenadores varían ampliamente entre escuelas y distritos. Independientemente de las diversas formas que puede tomar los programas de entrenamiento, existe la expectativa que el trabajo de los entrenadores va a influir positivamente la enseñanza en los salones de clase. Este estudio intenta obtener una imagen más completa del trabajo de los entrenadores de matemáticas utilizando observaciones de siete entrenadores en cinco distritos diferentes. Presentamos la variedad de formas que observamos entrenadores de matemáticas elementales interactuando con docentes, los roles y responsabilidades asumen. Nuestro análisis de estos datos nos llevó a crear una plantilla para la realización de observaciones de entrenamientos de matemáticas, que podría ser utilizada por investigadores o por administradores tratando de documentar el trabajo diario de los entrenadores. treinamentos na área da matemática são usados extensivamente nos Estados Unidos com o objetivo final de melhorar a aprendizagem dos alunos. Atribuições de trabalho treinadores variam muito entre as escolas e distritos. Independentemente das várias maneiras que os programas de treinamento podem ter, há uma expectativa de que o trabalho dos treinadores vai afetar positivamente o ensino em sala de aula. Este estudo tenta obter uma imagem mais completa do trabalho dos treinadores de matemática por meio de observações de sete treinadores em cinco distritos diferentes. Apresentamos a variedade de formas que os treinadores de matemática interagem com os professores, os papéis e as responsabilidades assumidas. Nossa análise desses dados levou-nos a criar um modelo para fazer observações de formação matemática, que poderia ser usado por pesquisadores e administradores que tentam documentar o cotidiano de trabalho dos treinadores.

A Look Inside Mathematics Coaching: Roles, Content, and Dynamics

Mathematics classroom coaching is used across the United States as a means for improving instruction, with the ultimate goal of improving student learning. The job assignments of coaches can vary widely across schools and districts. Regardless of the various forms that coaching can take, there is the consistent expectation that a coach\u27s day-to-day work will positively influence classroom instruction. The study reported here attempts to gain a more complete picture of the job of an elementary mathematics coach based on the observation of seven coaches in five different districts for a day. We report the variety of ways we observed elementary mathematics coaches interact with teachers, and what roles and responsibilities they take on. Our analysis of these data led us to create a template for conducting observations of mathematics classroom coaching, which could be used by researchers seeking to conduct studies about coaching or by administrators seeking to document the day-to-day work of coaches

Predicting biochemical acclimation of leaf photosynthesis in soybean under in-field canopy warming using hyperspectral reflectance

Traditional gas exchange measurements are cumbersome, which makes it difficult to capture variation in biochemical parameters, namely the maximum rate of carboxylation measured at a reference temperature (Vcmax25) and the maximum electron transport at a reference temperature (Jmax25), in response to growth temperature over time from days to weeks. Hyperspectral reflectance provides reliable measures of Vcmax25 and Jmax25; however, the capability of this method to capture biochemical acclimations of the two parameters to high growth temperature over time has not been demonstrated. In this study, Vcmax25 and Jmax25 were measured over multiple growth stages during two growing seasons for field-grown soybeans using both gas exchange techniques and leaf spectral reflectance under ambient and four elevated canopy temperature treatments (ambient+1.5, +3, +4.5, and +6°C). Spectral vegetation indices and machine learning methods were used to build predictive models for Vcmax25 and Jmax25, based on the leaf reflectance. Results showed that these models yielded an R2 of 0.57–0.65 and 0.48–0.58 for Vcmax25 and Jmax25, respectively. Hyperspectral reflectance captured biochemical acclimation of leaf photosynthesis to high temperature in the field, improving spatial and temporal resolution in the ability to assess the impact of future warming on crop productivity

Metabolic switches and adaptations deduced from the proteomes of Streptomyces coelicolor wild type and phoP mutant grown in batch culture

[EN] Bacteria in the genus Streptomyces are soil-dwelling oligotrophs and important producers of secondary metabolites. Previously, we showed that global messenger RNA expression was subject to a series of metabolic and regulatory switches during the lifetime of a fermentor batch culture of Streptomyces coelicolor M145. Here we analyze the proteome from eight time points from the same fermentor culture and, because phosphate availability is an important regulator of secondary metabolite production, compare this to the proteome of a similar time course from an S. coelicolor mutant, INB201 (ΔphoP), defective in the control of phosphate utilization. The proteomes provide a detailed view of enzymes involved in central carbon and nitrogen metabolism. Trends in protein expression over the time courses were deduced from a protein abundance index, which also revealed the importance of stress pathway proteins in both cultures. As expected, the ΔphoP mutant was deficient in expression of PhoP-dependent genes, and several putatively compensatory metabolic and regulatory pathways for phosphate scavenging were detected. Notably there is a succession of switches that coordinately induce the production of enzymes for five different secondary metabolite biosynthesis pathways over the course of the batch culturesSIThis work was funded by Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Grant BB/F003439/1, ERA-NET SysMO Project GEN2006-27745-E/SYS Grant P-UK-01-11-3i, and Research Council of Norway Project 181840/I30. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked “advertisement” in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact

Correction to “Bespoke 3D-Printed Polydrug Implants Created via Microstructural Control of Oligomers”

The chemical structure of the drug trandolapril has been corrected in Figure 4c. The conclusions of the work have not been affected by this correction. (Figure present)

Bespoke 3D-Printed Polydrug Implants Created via Microstructural Control of Oligomers

Controlling the microstructure of materials by means of phase separation is a versatile tool for optimizing material properties. Phase separation has been exploited to fabricate intricate microstructures in many fields including cell biology, tissue engineering, optics, and electronics. The aim of this study was to use phase separation to tailor the spatial location of drugs and thereby generate release profiles of drug payload over periods ranging from 1 week to months by exploiting different mechanisms: polymer degradation, polymer diluent dissolution, and control of microstructure. To achieve this, we used drop-on-demand inkjet three-dimensional (3D) printing. We predicted the microstructure resulting from phase separation using high-throughput screening combined with a model based on the Flory-Huggins interaction parameter and were able to show that drug release from 3D-printed objects can be predicted from observations based on single drops of mixtures. We demonstrated for the first time that inkjet 3D printing yields controllable phase separation using picoliter droplets of blended photoreactive oligomers/monomers. This new understanding gives us hierarchical compositional control, from droplet to device, allowing release to be "dialled up"without manipulation of device geometry. We exemplify this approach by fabricating a biodegradable, long-term, multiactive drug delivery subdermal implant ("polyimplant") for combination therapy and personalized treatment of coronary heart disease. This is an important advance for implants that need to be delivered by cannula, where the shape is highly constrained and thus the usual geometrical freedoms associated with 3D printing cannot be easily exploited, which brings a hitherto unseen level of understanding to emergent material properties of 3D printing

The dynamic architecture of the metabolic switch in Streptomyces coelicolor

[EN] Background: During the lifetime of a fermenter culture, the soil bacterium S. coelicolor undergoes a major metabolic switch from exponential growth to antibiotic production. We have studied gene expression patterns during this switch, using a specifically designed Affymetrix genechip and a high-resolution time-series of fermenter-grown samples.Results: Surprisingly, we find that the metabolic switch actually consists of multiple finely orchestrated switching events. Strongly coherent clusters of genes show drastic changes in gene expression already many hours before the classically defined transition phase where the switch from primary to secondary metabolism was expected. The main switch in gene expression takes only 2 hours, and changes in antibiotic biosynthesis genes are delayed relative to the metabolic rearrangements. Furthermore, global variation in morphogenesis genes indicates an involvement of cell differentiation pathways in the decision phase leading up to the commitment to antibiotic biosynthesis.Conclusions: Our study provides the first detailed insights into the complex sequence of early regulatory events during and preceding the major metabolic switch in S. coelicolor, which will form the starting point for future attempts at engineering antibiotic production in a biotechnological settingSIWe are very grateful to Mervyn Bibb for his generous support with the Affymetrix custom microarray design. We acknowledge the excellent technical help of K. Klein, S. Poths, M. Walter, A. Øverby and E. Hansen. This project was supported by grants of the ERA-NET SySMO Project [GEN2006-27745-E/SYS]: (P-UK-01-11-3i) and the Research Council of Norway [project no. 181840/I30

Initiation of T cell signaling by CD45 segregation at 'close contacts'.

It has been proposed that the local segregation of kinases and the tyrosine phosphatase CD45 underpins T cell antigen receptor (TCR) triggering, but how such segregation occurs and whether it can initiate signaling is unclear. Using structural and biophysical analysis, we show that the extracellular region of CD45 is rigid and extends beyond the distance spanned by TCR-ligand complexes, implying that sites of TCR-ligand engagement would sterically exclude CD45. We also show that the formation of 'close contacts', new structures characterized by spontaneous CD45 and kinase segregation at the submicron-scale, initiates signaling even when TCR ligands are absent. Our work reveals the structural basis for, and the potent signaling effects of, local CD45 and kinase segregation. TCR ligands have the potential to heighten signaling simply by holding receptors in close contacts.The authors thank R.A. Cornall, M.L. Dustin and P.A. van der Merwe for comments on the manuscript and S. Ikemizu for useful discussions about the structure. We also thank W. Lu and T. Walter for technical support with protein expression and crystallization, the staff at Diamond Light Source beamlines I02, I03 and I04-1 (proposal mx10627) and European Synchrotron Radiation Facility beamlines ID23EH1 and ID23EH2 for assistance at the synchrotrons, G. Sutton for assistance with MALS experiments, and M. Fritzsche for advice on the calcium analysis. This work was funded by the Wellcome Trust (098274/Z/12/Z to S.J.D.; 090532/Z/09/Z to R.J.C.G.; 090708/Z/09/Z to D.K.), the UK Medical Research Council (G0700232 to A.R.A.), the Royal Society (UF120277 to S.F.L.) and Cancer Research UK (C20724/A14414 to C.S.; C375/A10976 to E.Y.J.). The Oxford Division of Structural Biology is part of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, Wellcome Trust Core Award Grant Number 090532/Z/09/Z. We acknowledge financial support from Instruct, an ESFRI Landmark Project. The OPIC electron microscopy facility was funded by a Wellcome Trust JIF award (060208/Z/00/Z).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Publishing Group via https://doi.org/10.1038/ni.339