O que é a avaliação do ensino? Um estudo exploratório das crenças dos estudantes

The aim of the present paper was to explore student beliefs on teaching evaluation, their purposes, validity, and positive and negative aspects. One hundred sixty three college students of Social Sciences and Humanities majors of a Mexican public university participated in this study. Results point out that for students the evaluation of teaching has a summative purpose of control and supervision of classroom teaching. Students deem that evaluation of teaching lacks usefulness and student ratings of teaching are not a valid measure. The study concluded that policies on evaluation of teaching have not yielded expected results and that students’ beliefs are similar to those findings reported by recent research that is critical of the use of student ratings to improve the quality of teaching. Results are discussed.El propósito de este trabajo fue explorar las creencias de los estudiantes acerca de la evaluación de la docencia, sus fines, utilidad y validez. Participaron 163 estudiantes de carreras de las Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades de una universidad  pública mexicana. Los resultados del estudio indican que los estudiantes consideran que la evaluación de la docencia tiene un fin sumativo, de control y supervisión del trabajo del docente, que tiene poca utilidad y los cuestionarios de evaluación no son válidos. Asimismo, de manera secundaria consideran que los fines de la evaluación docente son de tipo formativo. Se concluye que las políticas de evaluación de la docencia vistas a través de los estudiantes, no han tenido el efecto de mejorar la calidad de la docencia. Asimismo que las creencias de los estudiantes en torno a la evaluación docente son semejantes a los hallazgos producidos por la investigación reciente que critica el uso de los cuestionarios para evaluar la docencia con el fin de elevar la calidad de la enseñanza. Se discuten los resultados.O objetivo deste trabalho foi explorar as crenças dos alunos sobre a avaliação da docência, seus fins, utilidade e validade. Participaram 163 estudantes de carreiras das áreas de Ciências Sociais e de Humanidades de uma universidade pública mexicana. Os resultados do estudo indicam que os estudantes acreditam que a avaliação da docência tem um fim sumativo, de controle e supervisão do trabalho do docente, que tem escassa utilidade e que os questionários não são válidos. A conclusão é que na ótica dos estudantes as políticas de avaliação da docência não contribuem para melhorar a qualidade da docência. Desse modo, as opiniões dos estudantes são semelhantes aos resultados produzidos pela pesquisa recente que critica o uso de questionários para avaliar a docência com a finalidade de elevar a qualidade do ensino. Discutem-se os resultados

Comparative Proteomics of Inner Membrane Fraction from Carbapenem-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii with a Reference Strain

Acinetobacter baumannii has been identified by the Infectious Diseases Society of America as one of the six pathogens that cause majority of hospital infections. Increased resistance of A. baumannii even to the latest generation of β-lactams like carbapenem is an immediate threat to mankind. As inner-membrane fraction plays a significant role in survival of A. baumannii, we investigated the inner-membrane fraction proteome of carbapenem-resistant strain of A. baumannii using Differential In-Gel Electrophoresis (DIGE) followed by DeCyder, Progenesis and LC-MS/MS analysis. We identified 19 over-expressed and 4 down-regulated proteins (fold change>2, p<0.05) in resistant strain as compared to reference strain. Some of the upregulated proteins in resistant strain and their association with carbapenem resistance in A. baumannii are: i) β-lactamases, AmpC and OXA-51: cleave and inactivate carbapenem ii) metabolic enzymes, ATP synthase, malate dehydrogenase and 2-oxoglutarate dehydrogenase: help in increased energy production for the survival and iii) elongation factor Tu and ribosomal proteins: help in the overall protein production. Further, entry of carbapenem perhaps is limited by controlled production of OmpW and low levels of surface antigen help to evade host defence mechanism in developing resistance in A. baumannii. Present results support a model for the importance of proteins of inner-membrane fraction and their synergistic effect in the mediation of resistance of A. baumannii to carbapenem

Predictors of enhancing human physical attractiveness: Data from 93 countries

People across the world and throughout history have gone to great lengths to enhance their physical appearance. Evolutionary psychologists and ethologists have largely attempted to explain this phenomenon via mating preferences and strategies. Here, we test one of the most popular evolutionary hypotheses for beauty-enhancing behaviors, drawn from mating market and parasite stress perspectives, in a large cross-cultural sample. We also test hypotheses drawn from other influential and non-mutually exclusive theoretical frameworks, from biosocial role theory to a cultural media perspective. Survey data from 93,158 human participants across 93 countries provide evidence that behaviors such as applying makeup or using other cosmetics, hair grooming, clothing style, caring for body hygiene, and exercising or following a specific diet for the specific purpose of improving ones physical attractiveness, are universal. Indeed, 99% of participants reported spending &gt;10 min a day performing beauty-enhancing behaviors. The results largely support evolutionary hypotheses: more time was spent enhancing beauty by women (almost 4 h a day, on average) than by men (3.6 h a day), by the youngest participants (and contrary to predictions, also the oldest), by those with a relatively more severe history of infectious diseases, and by participants currently dating compared to those in established relationships. The strongest predictor of attractiveness-enhancing behaviors was social media usage. Other predictors, in order of effect size, included adhering to traditional gender roles, residing in countries with less gender equality, considering oneself as highly attractive or, conversely, highly unattractive, TV watching time, higher socioeconomic status, right-wing political beliefs, a lower level of education, and personal individualistic attitudes. This study provides novel insight into universal beauty-enhancing behaviors by unifying evolutionary theory with several other complementary perspectives

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Suivi de segmentation spatio-temporelle pour la compression de séquences animées

Dans le cadre des schémas de codage de séquences d'images animées, les techniques de compression basées sur une segmentation en régions homogènes au sens de mouvement s'avèrent être une alternative efficace et moins arbitraire que les techniques usuelles de compensation de mouvement basées pixel ou blocs de taille et géométrie arbitraires (segmentation en blocs carrés, quadtree ..). Nous proposons dans cette étude une technique de compression de séquences animées basée sur une segmentation spatio-temporelle de la scène observée partitionnée en régions homogènes au sens du mouvement modélisé par des modèles affines et dont un module de suivi temporel assure la cohérence tout au long de la séquence. Nous détaillons ci-après les différents éléments de cette chaîne de compression