Creatividad, inteligencia y rendimiento escolar: estudio de las relaciones recíprocas en una muestra de alumnos de 6º año de escolaridad

Este artículo analiza las relaciones entre creatividad, inteligencia y rendimiento escolar. A una muestra de 69 alumnos de 6º año de escolaridad que asistían a un programa de enriquecimiento cognitivo se le aplicaron seis subtests del Test de Pensamiento Creativo de Torrance, siguiendo los criterios de adaptación de la versión brasileña (Wechsler, 2002), y la Escala de Inteligencia da Wechsler para Niños (WISC-III), en su adaptación portuguesa (Simões, Rocha y Ferreira, 2003). El análisis factorial de las puntuaciones en los criterios de evaluación de la creatividad (fluidez, flexibilidad, originalidad y elaboración) aplicado a los seis subtests (3 verbales y 3 figurativos) no permitió un agrupamiento de los desempeños ni según esos criterios, ni en función del contenido de las tareas. A su vez, los análisis correlacionales sugieren la relativa independencia entre las medidas de la creatividad y de la inteligencia, y entre la creatividad y el rendimiento escolar. Finalmente, el análisis de regresión muestra la importancia del CI en la explicación del rendimiento escolar de los alumnos (cerca del 35% de la varianza), incrementando dos de las tareas de creatividad apenas un 7% la varianza explicada

Impacto da capacidade cognitiva e das atribuições causais no rendimento escolar na matemática

A capacidade cognitiva e a motivação académica têm sido frequentemente assumidas como as variáveis do aluno mais determinantes da sua aprendizagem e rendimento escolar. Neste estudo, operacionalizando a capacidade cognitiva através de uma bateria de testes de raciocínio e a motivação através de uma escala de atribuições causais, analisa-se o impacto de ambas as variáveis psicológicas no rendimento dos alunos na disciplina de Matemática. A amostra é formada por todos os alunos do 6.° ano de escolaridade de uma escola privada, com contrato de associação, do distrito de Braga. Os resultados mostram que a capacidade cognitiva se apresenta como o melhor preditor do rendimento escolar, havendo ainda parte da variância do rendimento na matemática associada, em sentido negativo, à atribuição causal do sucesso à sorte. Este dado sugere que alunos que não atribuem o seu rendimento ao acaso apresentam, em geral, melhores classificações escolares.The cognitive ability and academic motivation have often been assumed as the most determinant variables of student learning and their school performance. ln this study, the operationalization of the cognitive ability through a battery of tests of reasoning and motivation through a scale of causal attributions, alIow us analyze the impact of both psychological variables in the student performance in mathematics. The sample consists of all students in the 6th grade at a private school, integrated in public system, in the district of Braga. The results showed that cognitive ability remains on the best predictor of academic performance, and part of students ' mathematics results variance is related negatively to causal attribution of success to luck. This last aspect shows that students who do not attribute their academic performance to random reasons have, in general, better academic results

Bateria "Aurora" : estudos exploratórios de adaptação e validação em Portugal

No quadro de alguma insatisfação com o tipo de provas usadas pelos psicólogos na avaliação da inteligência, em particular em contextos educativos, a Universidade Yale assume nesta última década um projecto internacional de validação da Bateria AURORA. Esta bateria de provas emerge da teoria triárquica de inteligência de Robert Sternberg, e pretende avaliar habilidades cognitivas nos domínios da inteligência analítica, criativa e prática. As tarefas propostas para cada uma destas inteligências recorrem a conteúdos verbais, numéricos e figurativos, procurando sempre situações bastante apelativas (motivantes) e associadas ao quotidiano das crianças/adolescentes (validade ecológica). A Bateria aparece, ainda, mencionada como um contributo futuro à identificação de alunos com características de sobredotação, ultrapassando as limitações apontadas habitualmente aos testes de QI. Nesta comunicação, a par da descrição das provas, descrevemos os estudos qualitativos e quantitativos iniciados junto de crianças e adolescentes portugueses, tendo em vista a adaptação e validação da Bateria

Sporopollenin as an efficient green support for covalent immobilization of a lipase

Sporopollenin exine capsules (SECs), derived from the spores of Lycopodium clavatum, have been functionalised with 1,n-diamines and the resulting aminoalkyl microcapsules used to immobilize Candida antarctica lipase B (Cal B) via a glutaradehyde-based diimine covalent linker. The supported enzyme efficiently catalyzes the esterification of oleic acid with ethanol. Initial rates using the SEC-CalBs were comparable to the commercial enzyme Novozym 435, but displayed up to 20-fold higher specific activity. The supported enzymes could also be recycled and after four cycles displayed only a modest decrease in conversions. In a kinetic resolution the SEC-CalBs efficiently acetylated rac-1-phenylethanol, with conversions up to 37% after 5 hours and product enantiomeric excesses of >99%. Related to this, the dynamic resolution of rac-1-phenylethylamine, in the presence of Pd-BaSO₄ and ammonium formate, led to the acetylated amine with a 94% conversion and >99% ee

Revisiting stellar properties of star-forming galaxies with stellar and nebular spectral modelling

Spectral synthesis is a powerful tool for interpreting the physical properties of galaxies by decomposing their spectral energy distributions into the main luminosity contributors (e.g. stellar populations or ionised gas). However, the impact nebular emission has on the inferred properties of star-forming (SF) galaxies has been largely overlooked over the years. The objective of this work is to estimate the relations between stellar properties of SF galaxies from SDSS DR7 by simultaneously fitting the stellar and nebular continua with FADO and comparing them to the results derived using STARLIGHT, a representative of purely stellar population synthesis codes. Differences between codes regarding average mass, mean age and mean metallicity values can go as high as $\sim$0.06 dex for the overall population of galaxies and $\sim$0.12 dex for SF galaxies (galaxies with EW(H$\alpha$)>3 \AA), with the most prominent difference between both codes in the light-weighted mean stellar age. A closer look into the average light- and mass-weighted star formation histories of intensively SF galaxies (EW(H$\alpha$)>75 \AA) suggests that STARLIGHT is underestimating the average light-weighted age of intensively SF galaxies by up to $\sim$0.17 dex and overestimating the light-weighted metallicity by up to $\sim$0.13 dex compared to FADO (or vice versa). The comparison between the average stellar properties of passive, SF and intensively SF galaxy samples also reveals that differences between codes increase with increasing EW(H$\alpha$) and decreasing total stellar mass. This work finds indirect evidence that a purely stellar population synthesis approach negatively impacts the inferred stellar properties of galaxies with relatively high star formation rates. In turn, this can bias interpretations of fundamental relations such as the mass-age or mass-metallicity.Comment: 27 pages, 25 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Educação do aluno Sobredotado no Brasil e em Portugal: uma análise comparativa

Este estudo compara o percurso da educação dosobredotado no Brasil e em Portugal. Para issodescreve-se a trajectória histórica, a legislação ea terminologia adoptada, os programas e serviçosde atendimento ao sobredotado, a formação dosprofissionais e a produção científica brasileira eportuguesa na área. As análises efectuadas indicamuma maior consistência da legislação e das medidaseducativas no Brasil em atenção aos alunos sobredotados, havendo uma maior consistência histórica e um maior reconhecimento social desta área. O desenvolvimento da área no Brasil assenta em três pilares: estruturas governativas da educação, associações e instituições de ensino superior, sendo que em Portugal o contributo por parte das entidades governativas ao desenvolvimento da área é inexistente. Face à proximidade linguística e cultural,e ao significativo intercâmbio académico entre os dois países, apontam-se algumas iniciativas para os próximos anos em prol do desenvolvimento da educação do aluno sobredotado. Essa aposta passa pela realização de estudos e publicações conjuntas ou pelo intercâmbio de estudantes e profissionaisinteressados na área.Palavras-chave: Sobredotação; necessidades educativas; desenvolvimento de talento; Brasil; Portugal

ULEEN: A Novel Architecture for Ultra Low-Energy Edge Neural Networks

The deployment of AI models on low-power, real-time edge devices requires accelerators for which energy, latency, and area are all first-order concerns. There are many approaches to enabling deep neural networks (DNNs) in this domain, including pruning, quantization, compression, and binary neural networks (BNNs), but with the emergence of the "extreme edge", there is now a demand for even more efficient models. In order to meet the constraints of ultra-low-energy devices, we propose ULEEN, a model architecture based on weightless neural networks. Weightless neural networks (WNNs) are a class of neural model which use table lookups, not arithmetic, to perform computation. The elimination of energy-intensive arithmetic operations makes WNNs theoretically well suited for edge inference; however, they have historically suffered from poor accuracy and excessive memory usage. ULEEN incorporates algorithmic improvements and a novel training strategy inspired by BNNs to make significant strides in improving accuracy and reducing model size. We compare FPGA and ASIC implementations of an inference accelerator for ULEEN against edge-optimized DNN and BNN devices. On a Xilinx Zynq Z-7045 FPGA, we demonstrate classification on the MNIST dataset at 14.3 million inferences per second (13 million inferences/Joule) with 0.21 $\mu$s latency and 96.2% accuracy, while Xilinx FINN achieves 12.3 million inferences per second (1.69 million inferences/Joule) with 0.31 $\mu$s latency and 95.83% accuracy. In a 45nm ASIC, we achieve 5.1 million inferences/Joule and 38.5 million inferences/second at 98.46% accuracy, while a quantized Bit Fusion model achieves 9230 inferences/Joule and 19,100 inferences/second at 99.35% accuracy. In our search for ever more efficient edge devices, ULEEN shows that WNNs are deserving of consideration.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figures Portions of this article draw heavily from arXiv:2203.01479, most notably sections 5E and 5F.

MicroRNAs targeting oncogenes are down-regulated in pancreatic malignant transformation from benign tumors

BACKGROUND MicroRNA (miRNA) expression profiles have been described in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), but these have not been compared with pre-malignant pancreatic tumors. We wished to compare the miRNA expression signatures in pancreatic benign cystic tumors (BCT) of low and high malignant potential with PDAC, in order to identify miRNAs deregulated during PDAC development. The mechanistic consequences of miRNA dysregulation were further evaluated. METHODS Tissue samples were obtained at a tertiary pancreatic unit from individuals with BCT and PDAC. MiRNA profiling was performed using a custom microarray and results were validated using RT-qPCR prior to evaluation of miRNA targets. RESULTS Widespread miRNA down-regulation was observed in PDAC compared to low malignant potential BCT. We show that amongst those miRNAs down-regulated, miR-16, miR-126 and let-7d regulate known PDAC oncogenes (targeting BCL2, CRK and KRAS respectively). Notably, miR-126 also directly targets the KRAS transcript at a "seedless" binding site within its 3'UTR. In clinical specimens, miR-126 was strongly down-regulated in PDAC tissues, with an associated elevation in KRAS and CRK proteins. Furthermore, miR-21, a known oncogenic miRNA in pancreatic and other cancers, was not elevated in PDAC compared to serous microcystic adenoma (SMCA), but in both groups it was up-regulated compared to normal pancreas, implicating early up-regulation during malignant change. CONCLUSIONS Expression profiling revealed 21 miRNAs down-regulated in PDAC compared to SMCA, the most benign lesion that rarely progresses to invasive carcinoma. It appears that miR-21 up-regulation is an early event in the transformation from normal pancreatic tissue. MiRNA expression has the potential to distinguish PDAC from normal pancreas and BCT. Mechanistically the down-regulation of miR-16, miR-126 and let-7d promotes PDAC transformation by post-transcriptional up-regulation of crucial PDAC oncogenes. We show that miR-126 is able to directly target KRAS; re-expression has the potential as a therapeutic strategy against PDAC and other KRAS-driven cancers