Comparative adventitious root development in pre-etiolated and flooded Arabidopsis hypocotyls exposed to different auxins

Adventitious roots (ARs) emerge from stems, leaves or hypocotyls, being strategic for clonal propagation. ARs may develop spontaneously, upon environmental stress or hormonal treatment. Auxins strongly influence AR development (ARD), depending on concentration and kind. However, the role of different types of auxin is rarely compared at the molecular level. Rooting triggered by light exposure and flooding was examined in intact etiolated Arabidopsis thaliana hypocotyls treated with distinct auxin types. Morphological aspects, rooting-related gene expression profiles, and IAA immunolocalization were recorded. NAA and 2,4-D effects were highly dose-dependent; at higher concentrations NAA inhibited root growth and 2,4-D promoted callus formation. NAA yielded the highest number of roots, but inhibited elongation. IAA increased the number of roots with less interference in elongation, yielding the best overall rooting response. IAA was localized close to the tissues of root origin. Auxin stimulated ARD was marked by increased expression of PIN1 and GH3.3. NAA treatment induced expression of CYCB1, GH3.6 and ARF8. These NAA-specific responses may be associated with the development of numerous shorter roots. In contrast, expression of the auxin action inhibitor IAA28 was induced by IAA. Increased PIN1 expression indicated the relevance of auxin efflux transport for focusing in target cells, whereas GH3.3 suggested tight control of auxin homeostasis. IAA28 increased expression during IAA-induced ARD differs from what was previously reported for lateral root development, pointing to yet another possible difference in the molecular programs of these two developmental processes.Plant science

Perspectiva de futuro, patrones de aprendizaje y rendimiento académico en estudiantes universitarios mexicanos

The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship between future perspective, the adoption of different learning patterns, and academic performance of university students. Participants were 175 students, average age 20, who responded to the Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) and the Inventory of Learning Styles (ILS). Results show that learning patterns play a mediating role between future perspectives and academic performance. We suggest the promotion of more equitable teaching contexts that affect the adoption of learning patterns aimed at understanding of meanings.Este estudio tuvo como propósito analizar la relación entre la perspectiva de futuro, la dominancia de distintos patrones de aprendizaje y el rendimiento académico en estudiantes universitarios. Participaron 175 estudiantes, con edad media de 20 años, que respondieron al Inventario de Perspectiva Temporal (ZTPI) y al Inventario de Estilos de Aprendizaje (ILS). Los resultados muestran que existe un papel mediador de los patrones de aprendizaje entre la perspectiva de futuro y el rendimiento académico. Se sugiere generar contextos de enseñanza que incidan en la adopción del patrón de aprendizaje dirigido a la comprensión de significados

Academic level of parents, number of siblings, birth order and achievement in mathematics

La incidencia de diferentes factores contextuales en el desempeño académico de los estudiantes es un tópico de creciente investigación entre los expertos en este ámbito, ante el bajo rendimiento en muchos contextos académicos, principalmente en el área de matemáticas. Existe un gran consenso entre los investigadores sobre la importancia que guardan las variables relacionadas con el contexto familiar en el proceso educativo de los alumnos. Investigaciones recientes reportan que el rendimiento académico guarda relación con diferentes variables familiares, entre las que destacan el tamaño de la familia, el orden de nacimiento de los hijos y la preparación académica de los padres. Sin embargo, hasta el momento dichos aspectos no han sido indagados de manera interrelacionada en la formación universitaria en matemáticas. Dado ello, el objetivo de investigación que nos hemos planteado corresponde a analizar, en el marco de un programa de matemáticas básicas para ingenieros, la relación que guardan el nivel de estudios de los padres, el número de hermanos y el orden de nacimiento con el rendimiento académico de los estudiantes. En el contexto mexicano, participaron 593 estudiantes, entre 18 y 21 años de edad, de familias con un solo hijo y con varios hijos. Los resultados mostraron que los varones con menos hermanos y cuyo padre tiene mayor nivel de estudios tienden a tener mejores calificaciones, que aquellos con un mayor número de hermanos. Las mujeres primogénitas tienen un mayor rendimiento que aquellas nacidas después. Podemos concluir que existe un patrón específico por sexo entre las características familiares y el rendimiento académico; los varones con pocos hermanos o ninguno están más orientados hacia el estudio y hacia los estándares académicos paternos, mientras que las mujeres primogénitas tienden a desarrollar una mayor implicación académica, lo cual contribuye a un mejor rendimiento en ambos casos.The incidence of various contextual factors on the academic performance of students is a growing topic of research among experts in this area, given the poor performance in many academic settings, primarily in the area of mathematics. There is a broad consensus among researchers on the importance of variables related to family background in students’ educational process. Recent research reports that academic achievement is related to different family variables among which are the size of the family, the place of birth of the children and parents academic preparation. However, until now these aspects have not been investigated in an interrelated manner in university, specifically in mathematics. Given this, the research objective we have set corresponds to analyse, within the framework of a program of basic mathematics for engineers, the relationship between the educational level of parents, the number of siblings and birth order to students’ academic performance. In the Mexican context, participants were 593 students, between 18 and 21 years-old, belonging to families with one child or several children. Results showed that men with fewer siblings whose father has a higher level of education tend to have better grades than those with a greater number of siblings. First-born women have a higher academic performance than those born later. We can conclude that there is a specific pattern by sex between family characteristics and academic performance; men with few or no siblings are more oriented towards their study and parental academic standards, while first-born women tend to develop a greater academic involvement, which contributes to better performance in both cases

Academic level of parents, number of siblings, birth order and achievement in mathematics

La incidencia de diferentes factores contextuales en el desempeño académico de los estudiantes es un tópico de creciente investigación entre los expertos en este ámbito, ante el bajo rendimiento en muchos contextos académicos, principalmente en el área de matemáticas. Existe un gran consenso entre los investigadores sobre la importancia que guardan las variables relacionadas con el contexto familiar en el proceso educativo de los alumnos. Investigaciones recientes reportan que el rendimiento académico guarda relación con diferentes variables familiares, entre las que destacan el tamaño de la familia, el orden de nacimiento de los hijos y la preparación académica de los padres. Sin embargo, hasta el momento dichos aspectos no han sido indagados de manera interrelacionada en la formación universitaria en matemáticas. Dado ello, el objetivo de investigación que nos hemos planteado corresponde a analizar, en el marco de un programa de matemáticas básicas para ingenieros, la relación que guardan el nivel de estudios de los padres, el número de hermanos y el orden de nacimiento con el rendimiento académico de los estudiantes. En el contexto mexicano, participaron 593 estudiantes, entre 18 y 21 años de edad, de familias con un solo hijo y con varios hijos. Los resultados mostraron que los varones con menos hermanos y cuyo padre tiene mayor nivel de estudios tienden a tener mejores calificaciones, que aquellos con un mayor número de hermanos. Las mujeres primogénitas tienen un mayor rendimiento que aquellas nacidas después. Podemos concluir que existe un patrón específico por sexo entre las características familiares y el rendimiento académico; los varones con pocos hermanos o ninguno están más orientados hacia el estudio y hacia los estándares académicos paternos, mientras que las mujeres primogénitas tienden a desarrollar una mayor implicación académica, lo cual contribuye a un mejor rendimiento en ambos casos.The incidence of various contextual factors on the academic performance of students is a growing topic of research among experts in this area, given the poor performance in many academic settings, primarily in the area of mathematics. There is a broad consensus among researchers on the importance of variables related to family background in students’ educational process. Recent research reports that academic achievement is related to different family variables among which are the size of the family, the place of birth of the children and parents academic preparation. However, until now these aspects have not been investigated in an interrelated manner in university, specifically in mathematics. Given this, the research objective we have set corresponds to analyse, within the framework of a program of basic mathematics for engineers, the relationship between the educational level of parents, the number of siblings and birth order to students’ academic performance. In the Mexican context, participants were 593 students, between 18 and 21 years-old, belonging to families with one child or several children. Results showed that men with fewer siblings whose father has a higher level of education tend to have better grades than those with a greater number of siblings. First-born women have a higher academic performance than those born later. We can conclude that there is a specific pattern by sex between family characteristics and academic performance; men with few or no siblings are more oriented towards their study and parental academic standards, while first-born women tend to develop a greater academic involvement, which contributes to better performance in both cases

Managing Distributed Projects in GENESIS

The success of large software projects conducted by different organization sites may be determined by the inter-site coordination and cooperation of the working teams, thus automated support to distributed project management can be useful. In this context we present the GENESIS (Generalized ENvironment for procESs management in cooperatIve Software engineering) approach to distributed process modelling and enactment, realized through an event dispatching architecture whose distinctive feature is a decentralized and autonomous definition of the multi-site software processes

Managing Coordination and Cooperation in Distributed Software Processes: the GENESIS Environment

We present the GENESIS platform (GEneralised eNvironment for procEsS management in cooperatIve Software engineering), the outcome of a research project aiming at designing and developing a noninvasive and open-source system to support software engineering processes in a highly distributed environment. The system supports the cooperation and coordination in software processes as its process modeling language enables the decomposition of complex processes into subprocesses that can be distributed and executed at different organizational sites. In GENESIS, workflow management technologies have been integrated with artifact management and communication services to meet the necessary requirements of managing the cooperation among distributed teams. Its strengths are a powerful activity management, covering all the main aspects of the life cycle of an activity; an efficient and flexible project monitoring, collecting productivity and quality metrics to show on-demand snapshots of the whole process and of its parts at different levels of detail, and a careful consideration of the process evolution questions, allowing to adequately manage the most common exceptions happening during process execution in a simple and flexible way