The Impact of Two Curricular Models on Motivation, Engagement and Achievement in Physical Educatio

The purpose of this study was to compare motivation, engagement and achievement in two teaching conditions; one focusing on a skill-drill-game approach, and the second using Sport Education. Forty high school students were randomly selected to participate in either a Sport Education season or a Skill-Drill-Game unit. Post intervention measures of student enjoyment/interest, effort/importance, perceived competence, and pressure/tension were obtained for both groups. A daily gauge of engagement was obtained through pedometry. A pre- and postintervention measure of aerobic fitness was used to assess achievement. ANOVAs indicated a significant difference between groups for effort/importance (p= .012) and enjoyment/interest (p= .005), but not for pressure/tension (p= .762) or perceived competence (p= .218). Three separate oneway ANOVAs indicated that the SEM group took significantly more steps than the SDG group during the introduction and skill practice phase of the season/unit, during the preseason/modified games phase, and also during the regular season/game play phase. ANOVAs indicated a significant difference between groups on both engagement (p= .005) and aerobic fitness (p= .048). The results of this study provide initial, but cautious support for the notion that participation in Sport Education moves students towards more autonomous forms of motivation, which in turn results in greater levels of engagement in classes. The results support Sport Education as a viable curricular model for teachers in order to promote engagement in physical education. The challenge now is to plan studies that formally test this notion, and also use more sophisticated measures of engagement that use both the dimensions of active involvement as well as emotional intensity and effort

Valoración de alumnado y profesorado de educación física tras la aplicación de dos modelos de enseñanza. (Students and teachers’ perception after practice with two pedagogical models in physical education).

<p align="justify">Existe suficiente cantidad de estudios comparativos sobre modelos de enseñanza en educación física que utilizan diseños pre o cuasi experimentales. Sin embargo, no son tantos los que emplean algunas tipologías propias de estos diseños. Se pretende por ello comparar, desde la perspectiva de alumnos y de su profesor especialista, el modelo de Educación Deportiva con el modelo Tradicional. Para ello se utilizó un diseño cruzado simple de grupos aleatorios, en el que se aplicaron los dos niveles de la variable independiente (modelos de enseñanza) a las dos clases de quinto de Primaria participantes (n=33). Tras el análisis de los diarios, de las entrevistas y de los dibujos libres fundamentados, se identificó una “inercia metodológica” consecuencia del efecto acumulado de ambos modelos. Inercia que en una clase estimuló y en la otra dificultó el grado de implicación, tanto de alumnos como de su docente, en el proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje dado el orden de aplicación de los modelos objeto de estudio.</p>Abstract<p align="justify">There is enough quantity of comparative studies about pedagogical models in physical education, which use pre or quasi experimental designs. However, there are no so many of them which use some right typologies for these designs. The purpose of this paper was to compare the students and teachers’ perceptions after practice with different pedagogical models (Sport Education and Traditional Style). It was used a simple crossover with randomized groups design, in which it was applied the two levels of the independent variable to the two fifth grade classes under study (n=33). After analyzing the diaries, interviews and drawings, it was found a "methodological inertia" due to a cumulative effect between the two methodologies. This inertia improved in one class, and decreased in the other, the engagement of the students and their teacher in the instructional setting, due to the order of application of each model.</p

The similarity of the effect of carbohydrase or prebiotic supplementation in broilers aged 21 days, fed mixed cereal diets and challenged with coccidiosis infection

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect on growth performance and nutrient utilisation when supplementing diets deficient in energy and protein with carbohydrase enzymes or xylo-oligosaccharide in broilers challenged with coccidia. 960 Ross 308 broilers were used in this 21-day study. The treatments were arranged into a 2×4 factorial with 2 challenge states (challenged and non-challenged) and 4 different additive types (control, xylanase alone, xylanase and β-glucanase mixture and xylo-oligosaccharide). On day 14, the challenged group received 12× the recommended dose of coccidiosis vaccine while the non-challenged group received a sham treatment of water only. The birds and feed were weighed on days 0, 14 and 21. On day 21, two birds per pen were euthanized, the caeca were removed and the contents collected for short chain fatty acid analysis. Six more birds per pen were euthanized and ileal digesta were collected and pooled per pen for nutrient digestibility analysis. Feed intake was greater (P &lt; 0.05) on days 14 and 21 when xylo-oligosaccharide was included in the diet compared to the xylanase and β-glucanase mixture in birds challenged with coccidiosis. Including xylo-oligosaccharide in the diet improved (P &lt; 0.05) the digestibility of nitrogen and supplementing diets with the xylanase and β-glucanase mixture improved (P &lt; 0.05) the digestibility of several amino acids. The concentration of arabinose and xylose was (P &lt; 0.001) greater when broiler diets were supplemented with carbohydrase enzymes or xylo-oligosaccharide compared to the control. Although there was an increase in short chain fatty acid production due to the addition of carbohydrase enzymes or xylo-oligosaccharide, there was no additive effect on the %G+C profile of caecal bacteria however there was a negative effect of coccidiosis. In conclusion, the similarity in the response to carbohydrase enzymes or xylo-oligosaccharide supplementation illustrates that the hydrolysis products from carbohydrase activity may have prebiotic like effects

The effect of carbohydrases or prebiotic oligosaccharides on growth performance, nutrient utilisation and the development of the small intestine and immune organs in broilers fed nutrient-adequate diets based on either wheat or barley

BACKGROUND: Non‐starch polysaccharides are large complex molecules and are found in cereal grains. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of carbohydrase enzymes or prebiotic oligosaccharides on growth performance, nutrient utilisation and weight of organs associated with the immune system in broilers fed wheat‐ or barley‐based diets. RESULTS: In wheat‐based diets, feed intake was lower (P &lt; 0.05) following xylo‐oligosaccharide supplementation, whereas in barley‐based diets feed intake was greater (P &lt; 0.05) following β‐glucanase supplementation. Gross energy digestibility was improved (P &lt; 0.01) when either level of xylanase was added to wheat diets. Ileal digestible energy was greater (P &lt; 0.01) in wheat diets including an additive compared with the control diet. In wheat diets, bursa weight was lower (P &lt; 0.05) following xylo‐oligosaccharide supplementation compared with the control treatment. CONCLUSIONS: The current study showed that supplemented carbohydrases or prebiotic oligosaccharides could alter the development of immune organs or small intestine without any significant effect on growth performance in broilers receiving nutrient‐adequate diets

Processing and characterisation of II-VI ZnCdMgSe thin film gain structures

Lattice-matched II-VI selenide quantum well (QW) structures grown on InP substrates can be designed for emission throughout the visible spectrum. InP has, however, strong visible-light absorption, so that a method for epitaxial lift-off and transfer to transparent substrates is desirable for vertically-integrated devices. We have designed and grown, via molecular beam epitaxy, ZnCdSe/ZnCdMgSe multi-QW gain regions for vertical emission, with the QWs positioned for resonant periodic gain. The release of the 2.7 μm-thick ZnCdSe/ZnCdMgSe multi-QW film is achieved via selective wet etching of the substrate and buffer layers leaving only the epitaxial layers, which are subsequently transferred to transparent substrates, including glass and thermally-conductive diamond. Post-transfer properties are investigated, with power and temperature-dependent surface and edge-emitting photoluminescence measurements demonstrating no observable strain relaxation effects or significant shift in comparison to unprocessed samples. The temperature dependant quantum well emission shift is found experimentally to be 0.13 nm/K. Samples capillary-bonded epitaxial-side to glass exhibited a 6 nm redshift under optical pumping of up to 35 mW at 405 nm, corresponding to a 46 K temperature increase in the pumped region; whereas those bonded to diamond exhibited no shift in quantum well emission, and thus efficient transfer of the heat from the pumped region. Atomic force microscopy analysis of the etched surface reveals a root-mean-square roughness of 3.6 nm. High quality optical interfaces are required to establish a good thermal and optical contact for high power optically pumped laser applications

Synergistic drug combinations from electronic health records and gene expression.

ObjectiveUsing electronic health records (EHRs) and biomolecular data, we sought to discover drug pairs with synergistic repurposing potential. EHRs provide real-world treatment and outcome patterns, while complementary biomolecular data, including disease-specific gene expression and drug-protein interactions, provide mechanistic understanding.MethodWe applied Group Lasso INTERaction NETwork (glinternet), an overlap group lasso penalty on a logistic regression model, with pairwise interactions to identify variables and interacting drug pairs associated with reduced 5-year mortality using EHRs of 9945 breast cancer patients. We identified differentially expressed genes from 14 case-control human breast cancer gene expression datasets and integrated them with drug-protein networks. Drugs in the network were scored according to their association with breast cancer individually or in pairs. Lastly, we determined whether synergistic drug pairs found in the EHRs were enriched among synergistic drug pairs from gene-expression data using a method similar to gene set enrichment analysis.ResultsFrom EHRs, we discovered 3 drug-class pairs associated with lower mortality: anti-inflammatories and hormone antagonists, anti-inflammatories and lipid modifiers, and lipid modifiers and obstructive airway drugs. The first 2 pairs were also enriched among pairs discovered using gene expression data and are supported by molecular interactions in drug-protein networks and preclinical and epidemiologic evidence.ConclusionsThis is a proof-of-concept study demonstrating that a combination of complementary data sources, such as EHRs and gene expression, can corroborate discoveries and provide mechanistic insight into drug synergism for repurposing

Learning to Teach Sport Education: Initial Experience in Elementary Education

En este trabajo se pretende analizar la experiencia inicial de aplicación de un profesor y de sus alumnos en el contexto de la educación primaria, con objeto de comprobar si son coincidentes los resultados encontrados en la literatura de la ED, en un país no angloparlante como España y en las condiciones concretas de este trabajo (educación primaria, y habilidades no específicas de deporte). La unidad de análisis se compuso por una clase de 48 alumnos de tercer curso de primaria (29 chicos y 19 chicas) y un maestro con diez años de experiencia. Se diseñó y se aplicó una unidad didáctica (ocho sesiones), bajo los criterios del MED, de un juego tradicional de práctica de habilidades de lanzamiento y recepción denominado “Balón prisionero”. Las variables analizadas fueron la percepción del profesor y de los alumnos, en relación a los aspectos que definen el modelo. Los resultados muestran cómo los alumnos que participaron, valoraron positivamente el modelo de enseñanza y mejoraron su percepción de los aspectos que lo definen (competencia, cultura deportiva y entusiasmo por la práctica). Además, el profesor subrayó una experiencia muy enriquecedora a nivel profesional por innovadora y creativa. Los resultados obtenidos son coincidentes con los encontrados previamente en las investigaciones sobre ED en distintos países y con alumnos de mayor edad. El modelo de ED presenta una serie de ventajas como modelo curricular de enseñanza en alumnos de tercero de primaria.Actividad Física y DeporteEducació

A comparison of random forests, boosting and support vector machines for genomic selection

Genomic selection (GS) involves estimating breeding values using molecular markers spanning the entire genome. Accurate prediction of genomic breeding values (GEBVs) presents a central challenge to contemporary plant and animal breeders. The existence of a wide array of marker-based approaches for predicting breeding values makes it essential to evaluate and compare their relative predictive performances to identify approaches able to accurately predict breeding values. We evaluated the predictive accuracy of random forests (RF), stochastic gradient boosting (boosting) and support vector machines (SVMs) for predicting genomic breeding values using dense SNP markers and explored the utility of RF for ranking the predictive importance of markers for pre-screening markers or discovering chromosomal locations of QTLs

The application of predictive modelling for determining bio-environmental factors affecting the distribution of blackflies (Diptera: Simuliidae) in the Gilgel Gibe watershed in Southwest Ethiopia

Blackflies are important macroinvertebrate groups from a public health as well as ecological point of view. Determining the biological and environmental factors favouring or inhibiting the existence of blackflies could facilitate biomonitoring of rivers as well as control of disease vectors. The combined use of different predictive modelling techniques is known to improve identification of presence/absence and abundance of taxa in a given habitat. This approach enables better identification of the suitable habitat conditions or environmental constraints of a given taxon. Simuliidae larvae are important biological indicators as they are abundant in tropical aquatic ecosystems. Some of the blackfly groups are also important disease vectors in poor tropical countries. Our investigations aim to establish a combination of models able to identify the environmental factors and macroinvertebrate organisms that are favourable or inhibiting blackfly larvae existence in aquatic ecosystems. The models developed using macroinvertebrate predictors showed better performance than those based on environmental predictors. The identified environmental and macroinvertebrate parameters can be used to determine the distribution of blackflies, which in turn can help control river blindness in endemic tropical places. Through a combination of modelling techniques, a reliable method has been developed that explains environmental and biological relationships with the target organism, and, thus, can serve as a decision support tool for ecological management strategies

WT1 expression in breast cancer disrupts the epithelial/mesenchymal balance of tumour cells and correlates with the metabolic response to docetaxel

WT1 is a transcription factor which regulates the epithelial-mesenchymal balance during embryonic development and, if mutated, can lead to the formation of Wilms' tumour, the most common paediatric kidney cancer. Its expression has also been reported in several adult tumour types, including breast cancer, and usually correlates with poor outcome. However, published data is inconsistent and the role of WT1 in this malignancy remains unclear. Here we provide a complete study of WT1 expression across different breast cancer subtypes as well as isoform specific expression analysis. Using in vitro cell lines, clinical samples and publicly available gene expression datasets, we demonstrate that WT1 plays a role in regulating the epithelial-mesenchymal balance of breast cancer cells and that WT1-expressing tumours are mainly associated with a mesenchymal phenotype. WT1 gene expression also correlates with CYP3A4 levels and is associated with poorer response to taxane treatment. Our work is the first to demonstrate that the known association between WT1 expression in breast cancer and poor prognosis is potentially due to cancer-related epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and poor chemotherapy response