Perceções de professores do 1º ciclo em relação ao talento criativo dos alunos

Tese de mestrado, Psicologia (Secção de Psicologia da Educação e da Orientação), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Psicologia, 2016Neste estudo procurou-se averiguar sobre as perceções dos professores de 1º ciclo sobre o talento criativo dos seus alunos. O objetivo desta investigação consiste no estudo da relação entre o talento criativo percecionado pelos professores e três dimensões (criatividade, inteligência e resultados escolares; para além de variáveis sóciodemográficas). Este estudo contou com 241 participantes, alunos do 3º e 4º ano do ensino básico provenientes de diversos agrupamentos de escolas portuguesas e 24 participantes professores das respetivas turmas. Os alunos participantes responderam a dois testes de criatividade figurativa da Bateria de Testes de Pensamento Criativo de Torrance (TTCT) e a um teste de criatividade verbal, bem como ao teste de inteligência das Matrizes Progressivas Coloridas de Raven (MPCR). Aos professores foi aplicado um questionário para que referissem quais os seus alunos com maior talento criativo e foram-lhes pedidas as pautas das notas com as avaliações escolares. As respostas ao TTCT foram avaliadas atendendo aos critérios fluência, flexibilidade, originalidade e elaboração e as respostas ao MPCR foram avaliadas a partir do seu resultado total. A análise das respostas teve como base o teste do Qui-quadrado para avaliar a relação entre o talento criativo e as restantes variáveis estudadas. Das 26 variáveis cruzadas com o talento criativo, só uma apresentou diferenças significativas (fluência na atividade 2), havendo ainda o sexo e as notas de exames que apresentaram diferenças interessantes, embora não significativas. Estes resultados podem demonstrar falhas metodológicas ou a efetiva inexistência de relação entre o talento criativo e as variáveis analisadas.In this study we sought to find out about teachers’ perceptions about their students’ creative talent. The goal of this research is to study the relationship between teachers’ perceived creative talent and three dimensions (creativity, intelligence and school evaluation, as well as socio-demographic variables). Data were collected from 241 students of 3rd and 4th grade and 24 participants’ teachers of the same classes. The students responded to two tests of figurative creativity of Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) and to a Verbal Creativity Test, as well as to Raven’s Colored Progressive Matrices test (RCPM). To the teachers it was applied a questionnaire for them to refer the most creatively talented students and they were requested to provide their students’ school grades. Responses to TTCT were evaluated taking into account the criteria fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration as well as RCPM responses that were evaluated with base on total scores. Of the 26 variables crossed with creative talent, only one showed significant differences (fluency in activity 2), however sex and exams grades showed interesting differences, though not significant. These results may demonstrate methodological flaws or the ineffective relationship between creative talent and the analyzed variables

Perceções de professores do 1º ciclo em relação ao talento criativo dos alunos

Tese de mestrado, Psicologia (Secção de Psicologia da Educação e da Orientação), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Psicologia, 2016Neste estudo procurou-se averiguar sobre as perceções dos professores de 1º ciclo sobre o talento criativo dos seus alunos. O objetivo desta investigação consiste no estudo da relação entre o talento criativo percecionado pelos professores e três dimensões (criatividade, inteligência e resultados escolares; para além de variáveis sóciodemográficas). Este estudo contou com 241 participantes, alunos do 3º e 4º ano do ensino básico provenientes de diversos agrupamentos de escolas portuguesas e 24 participantes professores das respetivas turmas. Os alunos participantes responderam a dois testes de criatividade figurativa da Bateria de Testes de Pensamento Criativo de Torrance (TTCT) e a um teste de criatividade verbal, bem como ao teste de inteligência das Matrizes Progressivas Coloridas de Raven (MPCR). Aos professores foi aplicado um questionário para que referissem quais os seus alunos com maior talento criativo e foram-lhes pedidas as pautas das notas com as avaliações escolares. As respostas ao TTCT foram avaliadas atendendo aos critérios fluência, flexibilidade, originalidade e elaboração e as respostas ao MPCR foram avaliadas a partir do seu resultado total. A análise das respostas teve como base o teste do Qui-quadrado para avaliar a relação entre o talento criativo e as restantes variáveis estudadas. Das 26 variáveis cruzadas com o talento criativo, só uma apresentou diferenças significativas (fluência na atividade 2), havendo ainda o sexo e as notas de exames que apresentaram diferenças interessantes, embora não significativas. Estes resultados podem demonstrar falhas metodológicas ou a efetiva inexistência de relação entre o talento criativo e as variáveis analisadas.In this study we sought to find out about teachers’ perceptions about their students’ creative talent. The goal of this research is to study the relationship between teachers’ perceived creative talent and three dimensions (creativity, intelligence and school evaluation, as well as socio-demographic variables). Data were collected from 241 students of 3rd and 4th grade and 24 participants’ teachers of the same classes. The students responded to two tests of figurative creativity of Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) and to a Verbal Creativity Test, as well as to Raven’s Colored Progressive Matrices test (RCPM). To the teachers it was applied a questionnaire for them to refer the most creatively talented students and they were requested to provide their students’ school grades. Responses to TTCT were evaluated taking into account the criteria fluency, flexibility, originality and elaboration as well as RCPM responses that were evaluated with base on total scores. Of the 26 variables crossed with creative talent, only one showed significant differences (fluency in activity 2), however sex and exams grades showed interesting differences, though not significant. These results may demonstrate methodological flaws or the ineffective relationship between creative talent and the analyzed variables

SARS-CoV-2 introductions and early dynamics of the epidemic in Portugal

Genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal was rapidly implemented by the National Institute of Health in the early stages of the COVID-19 epidemic, in collaboration with more than 50 laboratories distributed nationwide. Methods By applying recent phylodynamic models that allow integration of individual-based travel history, we reconstructed and characterized the spatio-temporal dynamics of SARSCoV-2 introductions and early dissemination in Portugal. Results We detected at least 277 independent SARS-CoV-2 introductions, mostly from European countries (namely the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Italy, and Switzerland), which were consistent with the countries with the highest connectivity with Portugal. Although most introductions were estimated to have occurred during early March 2020, it is likely that SARS-CoV-2 was silently circulating in Portugal throughout February, before the first cases were confirmed. Conclusions Here we conclude that the earlier implementation of measures could have minimized the number of introductions and subsequent virus expansion in Portugal. This study lays the foundation for genomic epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 in Portugal, and highlights the need for systematic and geographically-representative genomic surveillance.We gratefully acknowledge to Sara Hill and Nuno Faria (University of Oxford) and Joshua Quick and Nick Loman (University of Birmingham) for kindly providing us with the initial sets of Artic Network primers for NGS; Rafael Mamede (MRamirez team, IMM, Lisbon) for developing and sharing a bioinformatics script for sequence curation (https://github.com/rfm-targa/BioinfUtils); Philippe Lemey (KU Leuven) for providing guidance on the implementation of the phylodynamic models; Joshua L. Cherry (National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health) for providing guidance with the subsampling strategies; and all authors, originating and submitting laboratories who have contributed genome data on GISAID (https://www.gisaid.org/) on which part of this research is based. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the view of the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the United States government. This study is co-funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia and Agência de Investigação Clínica e Inovação Biomédica (234_596874175) on behalf of the Research 4 COVID-19 call. Some infrastructural resources used in this study come from the GenomePT project (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-022184), supported by COMPETE 2020 - Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation (POCI), Lisboa Portugal Regional Operational Programme (Lisboa2020), Algarve Portugal Regional Operational Programme (CRESC Algarve2020), under the PORTUGAL 2020 Partnership Agreement, through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Catálogo Taxonômico da Fauna do Brasil: setting the baseline knowledge on the animal diversity in Brazil

The limited temporal completeness and taxonomic accuracy of species lists, made available in a traditional manner in scientific publications, has always represented a problem. These lists are invariably limited to a few taxonomic groups and do not represent up-to-date knowledge of all species and classifications. In this context, the Brazilian megadiverse fauna is no exception, and the Catálogo Taxonômico da Fauna do Brasil (CTFB) (http://fauna.jbrj.gov.br/), made public in 2015, represents a database on biodiversity anchored on a list of valid and expertly recognized scientific names of animals in Brazil. The CTFB is updated in near real time by a team of more than 800 specialists. By January 1, 2024, the CTFB compiled 133,691 nominal species, with 125,138 that were considered valid. Most of the valid species were arthropods (82.3%, with more than 102,000 species) and chordates (7.69%, with over 11,000 species). These taxa were followed by a cluster composed of Mollusca (3,567 species), Platyhelminthes (2,292 species), Annelida (1,833 species), and Nematoda (1,447 species). All remaining groups had less than 1,000 species reported in Brazil, with Cnidaria (831 species), Porifera (628 species), Rotifera (606 species), and Bryozoa (520 species) representing those with more than 500 species. Analysis of the CTFB database can facilitate and direct efforts towards the discovery of new species in Brazil, but it is also fundamental in providing the best available list of valid nominal species to users, including those in science, health, conservation efforts, and any initiative involving animals. The importance of the CTFB is evidenced by the elevated number of citations in the scientific literature in diverse areas of biology, law, anthropology, education, forensic science, and veterinary science, among others