Empowering Korean pre-service teachers of art

This practitioner inquiry set out to help pre-service art teachers recognize and go beyond the constraints placed on them by pervasive curriculum patterns in conventional Korean teacher preparation. A series of assignments were designed to determine the nature of those constraints and pre-service teachers' strengths and to facilitate their reflective thinking during an art education course. Whereas the student responses to a preliminary questionnaire reflected limited views of art and art teaching, analysis of a sample of assignments at the end of the course indicated significant changes of beliefs and attitudes and potential for further growth; and highlighted potential curriculum content for inclusion in Korean art education.ope

Characterization of Bacterial and Fungal Soil Communities by Automated Ribosomal Intergenic Spacer Analysis Fingerprints: Biological and Methodological Variability

Automated rRNA intergenic spacer analysis (ARISA) was used to characterise bacterial (B-ARISA) and fungal (F-ARISA) communities from different soil types. The 16S-23S intergenic spacer region from the bacterial rRNA operon was amplified from total soil community DNA for B-ARISA. Similarly, the two internal transcribed spacers and the 5.8S rRNA gene (ITS1-5.8S-ITS2) from the fungal rRNA operon were amplified from total soil community DNA for F-ARISA. Universal fluorescence-labeled primers were used for the PCRs, and fragments of between 200 and 1,200 bp were resolved on denaturing polyacrylamide gels by use of an automated sequencer with laser detection. Methodological (DNA extraction and PCR amplification) and biological (inter- and intrasite) variations were evaluated by comparing the number and intensity of peaks (bands) between electrophoregrams (profiles) and by multivariate analysis. Our results showed that ARISA is a high-resolution, highly reproducible technique and is a robust method for discriminating between microbial communities. To evaluate the potential biases in community description provided by ARISA, we also examined databases on length distribution of ribosomal intergenic spacers among bacteria (L. Ranjard, E. Brothier, and S. Nazaret, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 66:5334–5339, 2000) and fungi

Skin blood flow differentially affects near-infrared spectroscopy-derived measures of muscle oxygen saturation and blood volume at rest and during dynamic leg exercise.

The impact of skin blood flow changes on near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS)-derived measures of muscle oxygen saturation (SmO2) and blood volume has not been fully established. We measured SmO2 and total hemoglobin concentration ([tHb]) responses of the right vastus lateralis during rest and dynamic knee extension exercise in ten young, healthy males. The protocol was repeated four times: twice without thigh heating for reliability, and twice with different grades of thigh heating for assessing the impact of cutaneous vasodilation on SmO2 and Δ[tHb]. The reliability of our SmO2 and [tHb] measurements was good. Thigh heating at 37 and 42°C caused marked increases in cutaneous vascular conductance (CVC) during rest and exercise (P 0.05 at all time points). In contrast, heating-induced increases in %CVCpeak were accompanied by increases in [tHb] at rest and during exercise and a decrease in Δ[tHb] during exercise (all P < 0.05). Our findings suggest that NIRS-derived measures of SmO2 and blood volume are differentially affected by skin blood flow at rest and during exercise. The findings from this study should be considered in NIRS experiments where skin blood flow can change markedly (e.g. high-intensity and/or prolonged exercise)