University teachers' approaches to teaching and their pedagogical use of ICT : A comparative case study of Finland, Japan and India

The purpose of this study was to explore what salient characteristics can be found in some university teachers’ approaches to teaching in Finland, Japan and India, and in what ways university teachers in Finland, India and Japan use ICTs (information and communication technologies) in their own teaching. Furthermore, this study aimed to investigate what ICT applications these same teachers use in their teaching. The data were collected via an electronic survey and interviews. The participants (N=21) were university teachers from Finland (N=8), Japan (N=10) and India (N=3). Their approaches to teaching were explored by applying the ATI (approaches to teaching inventory) and its modified version focusing on the use of ICTs in teaching. The study reported in this paper was a pilot study, thus the results are based on the limited number of respondents. The ATI and ATI_ICT subscales and ICT inventory applied in this study have been confirmed to be valid. The university teachers in Japan and Finland differed in their approaches to teaching: The Finnish teachers scored higher on the CCSF (conceptual change orientated, student-focused) approach to teaching than the Japanese teachers, while the Japanese teachers scored higher on the ITTF information transmitting, teacher-focused) approach to teaching. Two Indian teachers were classified as having a teacher-focused approach to teaching, while the third was classified as having a student-focused approach to teaching. The teachers’ differences in their use of ICTs related more to their disciplinary status than to their cultural background. approaches to teaching; use of ICT in teaching; Japan; Finland; IndiaPeer reviewe

Performance of a Steel Sheet-Pile Barrier against Ground Vibration Originating in Railway Traffics

In order to develop an effective and practical isolation method against ground vibrations caused by running trains, the authors tried to apply sheet pile walls beside of real railway tracks. Field tests were carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of this countermeasure for reducing the ground vibrations. An estimation method for vibration reduction by sheet pile walls is presented, being based on FEM simulation analysi

AtUBL5 regulates growth and development through pre-mRNA splicing in Arabidopsis thaliana

Ubiquitin-like proteins play important roles in the regulation of many biological processes. UBL5 (Ubiquitin-like protein 5)/Hub1 (Homologous to ubiquitin 1), a member of the ubiquitin family, acts as a ubiquitin-like modifier on a specific target, the spliceosomal protein Snu66, in yeast and human cells. The 22nd aspartic acid (Asp22) is involved in the attachment of Hub1 to the Hub1 interaction domain (HIND) of Snu66 in yeast to modulate spliceosomal activity. Hub1 differs from other modifiers which interact covalently with their targets. It modulates pre-mRNA splicing by binding to Snu66 non-covalently in both yeast and human cells. However, the molecular mechanisms of Hub1-mediated pre-mRNA splicing in plant systems remains unclear. To better understand the function of Hub1 in plants, we examined the role of this ubiquitin-like modifier in Arabidopsis thaliana, which has two Hub1 homologues. Arabidopsis UBL5/Hub1(UBL5) is highly conserved at the amino acid level, compared to eukaryotic homologues in both plants and animals. In this study, phenotypic analysis of A. thaliana with reduced UBL5 gene expression, generated by RNA interference of AtUBL5a and AtUBL5b were performed. Interestingly, knock down plants of AtUBL5 showed abnormalities in root elongation, plant development, and auxin response. AtUBL5b is highly expressed in the vascular tissue of the leaf, stem, and root tissue. Yeast two-hybrid analysis revealed that AtUBL5a and AtUBL5b interact with the putative splicing factor AtPRP38 through its C-terminal domain (AtPRP38C). Knock down of AtUBL5b resulted in a pattern of insufficient pre-mRNA splicing in several introns of AtCDC2, and in introns of IAA1, IAA4, and IAA5. Defects of pre-mRNA splicing in an AtPRP38 mutant resulted in an insufficient pre-mRNA splicing pattern in the intron of IAA1. Based on these results, we showed that AtUBL5b positively regulates plant root elongation and development through pre-mRNA splicing with AtPRP38C in A. thaliana

Designing Novel Breeding Strategies for Producing High-Oil Crops Based on a Molecular Understanding of Triacylglycerol Metabolism

Seeds are storage organ in plants and main resource of plant oils to human civilization and the demand of plant oils are increasing yearly and expansion of the production capacity is an urgent issue worldwide. Thus, it is necessary to improve oil yields per unit area and generation of crops with high-oil content is needed. Arabidopsis thaliana plays a vital role in advancement of genetics and molecular biology in plant sciences. The forward and reverse genetic approaches with Arabidopsis have provided an overview of triacylglycerol metabolism. The elucidation of the overview contributes to understanding of spatiotemporal regulation of a metabolic flow of triacylglycerol metabolism in plant cell. This understanding sheds light on bottlenecks in triacylglycerol biosynthesis and provides novel clues for increasing seed triacylglycerol content. Recent advance in metabolic engineering approaches demonstrate several evidences that triacylglycerol metabolism is coordinated with other metabolisms. Most notably, triacylglycerol biosynthesis competes with biosynthesis of starch or seed storage proteins. These studies indicate that alterations of the metabolic pathways to avoid the competitions could be a novel concept for increasing seed oil content