Defining teachers’ professional development needs:a study of implementing Marine Educator Training Course in Taiwan

Abstract. This thesis focuses on understanding teachers’ professional development needs after attending the Marine Educators Training Course in Taiwan from teachers’ perspectives. Taiwan started to implement Marine Education in 2008 after the White Paper on Marine Education Policy was released by the Ministry of Education, R.O.C. Teachers at all school levels were expected to integrate and teach marine-related topics in various fields of the 12-year basic education. Therefore, Taiwan Marine Education Center (TMEC) conducted an official Marine Educator Training Course to enhance teachers’ marine knowledge and teaching skills since 2017 to solve the dilemmas of implementing Marine Education discovered by the Ministry of Education, R.O.C. The conceptual frameworks of the thesis consist of teachers’ Marine Science Content Knowledge, Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK), teacher professional needs, Ocean Literacy (OL), and inspiration from UNESCO and SDGs. For this study, all the conceptual concepts are discussed under teacher professional development as the main fundamental concept. To clarify the conceptual framework of teachers’ needs for Marine Education in Taiwan, these five concepts were considered and related in implementing Marine Education for teachers. This is a qualitative research study involving an analysis of 51 responders among 173 participants of the Marine Educator Training Course from 2017 to 2019 in Taiwan. This study focused on understanding the teachers’ professional development needs that are still required for implementing Marine Education in the classroom after attending this training course. This study aimed to analyze the teachers’ answers to this specific open question was collected by an e-questionnaire. The methodology of this study used Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA). This study indicated that teachers in different school levels have different demand levels, and these demands could be divided into three areas. First, for elementary and junior high school teachers, they are the majority groups needing the support of Marine Educational TPACK compared to the other two groups. Second, the possible potential for the sixth principle of Ocean Literacy. Because the teacher lacks official textbooks and teaching materials in Marine Education. Third, the importance of school internal support. This internal support helps teachers to reduce their stressed and inexperienced feelings when implementing Marine Education. Simultaneously, teachers feel valued and acknowledged by the support from peers and administrations within schools. This study aims to bring insight from teachers’ perspectives and point out what the teachers’ professional development needs should have for marine education teachers in Taiwan. The observations of this study could be a potential example of Education for Sustainable Development for teacher training in basic education

Charmful Three-body Baryonic B decays

We study the charmful three-body baryonic B decays with $D^{(*)}$ or $J/\Psi$ in the final state. We explain the measured rates of $\bar B^0\to n\bar p D^{*+}$, $\bar B^0\to p\bar p D^{(*)0}$, and $B^-\to \Lambda \bar p J/\Psi$ and predict the branching fractions of $\bar B^0\to \Lambda\bar p D^{*+}$, $\bar B^0\to \Sigma^0\bar p D^{*+}$, $B^-\to\Lambda \bar p D^{0}$, and $B^-\to\Lambda \bar p D^{*0}$ to be of order $(1.2, 1.1, 1.1, 3.9)\times 10^{-5}$, respectively. They are readily accessible to the $B$ factories.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, version to appear in PR

Two separate gene clusters encode the biosynthetic pathway for the meroterpenoids, austinol and dehydroaustinol in Aspergillus nidulans

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see http://doi.org/10.1021/ja209809t.Meroterpenoids are a class of fungal natural products that are produced from polyketide and terpenoid precursors. An understanding of meroterpenoid biosynthesis at the genetic level should facilitate engineering of second-generation molecules and increasing production of first-generation compounds. The filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans has previously been found to produce two meroterpenoids, austinol and dehydroaustinol. Using targeted deletions that we created, we have determined that, surprisingly, two separate gene clusters are required for meroterpenoid biosynthesis. One is a cluster of four genes including a polyketide synthase gene, ausA. The second is a cluster of ten additional genes including a prenyltransferase gene, ausN, located on a separate chromosome. Chemical analysis of mutant extracts enabled us to isolate 3,5-dimethylorsellinic acid and ten additional meroterpenoids that are either intermediates or shunt products from the biosynthetic pathway. Six of them were identified as novel meroterpenoids in this study. Our data, in aggregate, allow us to propose a complete biosynthetic pathway for the A. nidulans meroterpenoids

Two-Echelon Inventory Optimization for Imperfect Production System under Quality Competition Environment

This paper develops two integrated optimization models of two-echelon inventory for imperfect production system under quality competition environment, in which the vendor’s production process is assumed to be imperfect, and JIT delivery policy is implemented to ship product from the vendor to the buyer. In the first model, product defect rate is fixed, and, in the second model, quality improvement investment is function of defect rate. The optimal policies of ordering quantity of buyer and shipment from vendor to buyer are obtained to minimize the expected annual total cost of vendor and buyer. Numerical examples are used to demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the models. Sensitivity analysis is taken to analyze the impact of demand, production rate, and defect rate on the solution. Implications are highlighted in that both the vendor and the buyer can benefit from the vendor’s investing in quality improvement

Japanese encephalitis virus co-opts the ER-stress response protein GRP78 for viral infectivity

The serum-free medium from Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) infected Baby Hamster Kidney-21 (BHK-21) cell cultures was analyzed by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to identify host proteins that were secreted upon viral infection. Five proteins were identified, including the molecular chaperones Hsp90, GRP78, and Hsp70. The functional role of GRP78 in the JEV life cycle was then investigated. Co-migration of GRP78 with JEV particles in sucrose density gradients was observed and co-localization of viral E protein with GRP78 was detected by immunofluorescence analysis in vivo. Knockdown of GRP78 expression by siRNA did not effect viral RNA replication, but did impair mature viral production. Mature viruses that do not co-fractionate with GPR78 displayed a significant decrease in viral infectivity. Our results support the hypothesis that JEV co-opts host cell GPR78 for use in viral maturation and in subsequent cellular infections

Trogodišnji trend promjena tjelesne pripremljenosti i indeksa tjelesne mase u učenika u dobi od 12 do 16 godina s ekstremnim indeksima tjelesne mase

The aim of this study was to investigate a three-year development in BMI and physical fitness of schoolchildren aged 12-16 years with extreme weight status. Taiwan Physical Fitness Test Battery, assessing aerobic fitness (1600-meter walk/run test), power (standing long jump), muscular endurance (sit-up), and flexibility (sit-and-reach) in 16,945 boys, was implemented in September from the year 2006 till 2008. Overweight and underweight were defined by the baseline BMI data values that fall within the highest and lowest 5% of their age population, whereas the BMI data values that fall within one standard deviation of the mean was considered “normal” in this study. The results showed that BMI of schoolchildren in 2006 was ~2–3 kg/m2 above the national average reported in 1993. All physical fitness components in the overweight group were substantially poorer than those in the normal group. Yet, these fitness parameters were improved over the three years in all groups. BMI in the underweight group increased at a faster rate than that in the normal and overweight groups. No difference was found in the jumping distance between the underweight and normal groups. Aerobic fitness in the underweight group was superior but flexibility and muscular endurance were slightly lower than those in the normal group. BMI of Taiwan schoolchildren increased substantially from 1993 to 2006 but leveled off from 2006 to 2008. Underweight schoolchildren during the growing period should not a priori be considered as physically weaker or unfit individuals.Cilj je ovog istraživanja bio ustanoviti trogodišnji trend razvoja indeksa tjelesne mase (ITM) i tjelesne pripremljenosti u učenika, u dobi između 12 i 16 godina, s ekstremnim vrijednostima tjelesne težine. Tajvanski sklop testova za tjelesnu pripremljenosti (Taiwan Physical Fitness Test Battery), koja uključuje procjenu aerobne pripremljenosti (test hodanja/ trčanja na 1600 metara), eksplozivne snage (skok u dalj s mjesta), mišićne izdržljivosti (podizanje trupa iz ležanja na leđima) i fleksibilnosti (sjed-i-dohvat), primijenjen je od 2006 do 2008 godine u mjesecu rujnu na uzorku od 16.945 dječaka. Preteški (overweight) i prelagani (underweight) ispitanici bili su definirani prema inicijalnoj vrijednosti ITM-a za dobnu skupinu populacije ispitanika kao oni koji se ubrajaju među 5% s najvišim odnosno najnižim vrijednostima ITM. Ispitanici koji su se nalazili unutar jedne standardne devijacije smatrali su se „normalnima“. Rezultati su pokazali da je ITM tajvanskih učenika u 2006. godini bio za ~2–3kg/m2 veći od nacionalnog prosjeka objavljenog 1993. godine. Sve varijable tjelesne pripremljenosti u grupi prekomjerno teških bile su značajno lošije u odnosu na rezultate koje su postigli ispitanici u normalnoj grupi. Ipak, rezultati su se u svim mjerenim varijablama u svim grupama poboljšali tijekom 3 godine mjerenja. ITM je u grupi nedovoljno teških porastao većom brzinom nego u grupama normalnih i prekomjerno teških učenika. Nije utvrđena značajna razlika u rezultatima skoka u dalj s mjesta između grupa nedovoljno teških i normalnih ispitanika. Nedovoljno teški ispitanici imali su najbolje rezultate u aerobnoj izdržljivosti u odnosu na ostale grupe, dok su u fleksibilnosti i mišićnoj izdržljivosti bili nešto slabiji nego ispitanici u normalnoj grupi. ITM je u tajvanske djece značajno porastao u razdoblju od 1993. do 2006. godine, ali je i stagnirao u razdoblju od 2006. do 2008. godine. Nedovoljno teška djeca ne bi se smjela a priori smatrati fizički slabijom ili nespremnom tijekom perioda odrastanja

Positive Effect of Severe Nakagami- m

This paper investigates the positive effect of severe Nakagami-m fading on the performance of multiuser transmit antenna selection/maximal-ratio combining (TAS/MRC) systems with high selection gain. Both amount of fading (AF) and symbol error rate (SER) of M-QAM are derived as closed-form expressions for integer m. For arbitrary m, the AF and the SER are expressible as a single infinite series of Gamma function and Gauss hypergeometric function, respectively. The analytical results lead to the following observations. First, the SER performance can demonstrate the positive effect of severe Nakagami-m fading on multiuser TAS/MRC systems with high selection gain. Second, the AF performance only exhibits the negative impact of severe fading regardless of high selection gain. Last, the benefit of severe fading to the system performance diminishes at high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)

A Network of microRNAs Acts to Promote Cell Cycle Exit and Differentiation of Human Pancreatic Endocrine Cells.

Pancreatic endocrine cell differentiation is orchestrated by the action of transcription factors that operate in a gene regulatory network to activate endocrine lineage genes and repress lineage-inappropriate genes. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are important modulators of gene expression, yet their role in endocrine cell differentiation has not been systematically explored. Here we characterize miRNA-regulatory networks active in human endocrine cell differentiation by combining small RNA sequencing, miRNA over-expression, and network modeling approaches. Our analysis identified Let-7g, Let-7a, miR-200a, miR-127, and miR-375 as endocrine-enriched miRNAs that drive endocrine cell differentiation-associated gene expression changes. These miRNAs are predicted to target different transcription factors, which converge on genes involved in cell cycle regulation. When expressed in human embryonic stem cell-derived pancreatic progenitors, these miRNAs induce cell cycle exit and promote endocrine cell differentiation. Our study delineates the role of miRNAs in human endocrine cell differentiation and identifies miRNAs that could facilitate endocrine cell reprogramming