Developmental perspectives of numerical thinking for the interpretation of physical quantities

This research reveals the perspectives in the teaching of numerical thinking through a documentary review. The representation of physical elements such as functions, vectors and operators, and their subsequent interpretation through numerical thinking gives meaning to the physical quantities that such elements represent. A documentary sample integrated for 40 sources on numerical thinking such as articles published in indexed journals, postgraduate dissertations, and books is considered. A qualitative content analysis method is used. First, an encoding procedure is applied for tagging the extracted information from the source documents. Then, a split and merge procedure is considered in order to establish from the tags the dimensions and categories that allow determining the conceptual relationships that support the developmental perspectives of numerical thinking. The method reveals that the numerical thinking can be developed in the global context from four perspectives, namely, historical, theoretical, curricular, and social perspectives. From these results, an incorporation of the such perspectives can be institutionalized for promoting curricular, didactic and evaluative new proposals for numerical thinking teaching

Latitude dictates plant diversity effects on instream decomposition

Running waters contribute substantially to global carbon fluxes through decomposition of terrestrial plant litter by aquatic microorganisms and detritivores. Diversity of this litter may influence instream decomposition globally in ways that are not yet understood. We investigated latitudinal differences in decomposition of litter mixtures of low and high functional diversity in 40 streams on 6 continents and spanning 113 degrees of latitude. Despite important variability in our dataset, we found latitudinal differences in the effect of litter functional diversity on decomposition, which we explained as evolutionary adaptations of litter-consuming detritivores to resource availability. Specifically, a balanced diet effect appears to operate at lower latitudes versus a resource concentration effect at higher latitudes. The latitudinal pattern indicates that loss of plant functional diversity will have different consequences on carbon fluxes across the globe, with greater repercussions likely at low latitudes

Consenso colombiano de atención, diagnóstico y manejo de la infección por SARS-COV-2/COVID-19 en establecimientos de atención de la salud Recomendaciones basadas en consenso de expertos e informadas en la evidencia

The “Asociación Colombiana de Infectología” (ACIN) and the “Instituto de Evaluación de Nuevas Tecnologías de la Salud” (IETS) created a task force to develop recommendations for Covid 19 health care diagnosis, management and treatment informed, and based, on evidence. Theses reccomendations are addressed to the health personnel on the Colombian context of health services. © 2020 Asociacion Colombiana de Infectologia. All rights reserved

Consistent patterns of common species across tropical tree communities

Trees structure the Earth’s most biodiverse ecosystem, tropical forests. The vast number of tree species presents a formidable challenge to understanding these forests, including their response to environmental change, as very little is known about most tropical tree species. A focus on the common species may circumvent this challenge. Here we investigate abundance patterns of common tree species using inventory data on 1,003,805 trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm across 1,568 locations1,2,3,4,5,6 in closed-canopy, structurally intact old-growth tropical forests in Africa, Amazonia and Southeast Asia. We estimate that 2.2%, 2.2% and 2.3% of species comprise 50% of the tropical trees in these regions, respectively. Extrapolating across all closed-canopy tropical forests, we estimate that just 1,053 species comprise half of Earth’s 800 billion tropical trees with trunk diameters of at least 10 cm. Despite differing biogeographic, climatic and anthropogenic histories7, we find notably consistent patterns of common species and species abundance distributions across the continents. This suggests that fundamental mechanisms of tree community assembly may apply to all tropical forests. Resampling analyses show that the most common species are likely to belong to a manageable list of known species, enabling targeted efforts to understand their ecology. Although they do not detract from the importance of rare species, our results open new opportunities to understand the world’s most diverse forests, including modelling their response to environmental change, by focusing on the common species that constitute the majority of their trees.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Emotional intelligence in the initial teacher training

The objective of the article is to evaluate emotional intelligence in the initial teacher training of the mathematics bachelor program at the "Universidad Francisco de Paula Santander", San José de Cúcuta, Colombia. The methodology is framed in the qualitative approach with some complementary aspects of the quantitative approach, the applied technique is the interview and the trait meta-mood scale instrument. The results describe that the impacts of integrating the emotive dimension in the learning strategies of mathematics is a greater resilience in the teachers in formation, since thanks to the contact with their emotions through introspection and reflection they manage to draw plans and alternatives that help them to devote more time, ask more and study better, especially in those aspects that cause them difficulty

Simulating scenarios for compost and vinasse use to improve the economics and environmental aspects of representative Colombian sugarcane production systems

The Colombian industrial sector is moving toward alternative forms of treatment of industrial waste, considering that the waste can be a source of raw material in the production chain. Thus, aiming at the decrease in mineral fertilizer use, and maintaining or even raising the crop yield, the sugarcane industry has recently advanced in the composting of the industrial waste and application in the field, both of them being potentially sustainable practices. This manuscript reports the economic benefits and the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to the sugarcane production system in Colombia that has been simulated in this study to evaluate the beneficial effects of reusing industrial waste from ethanol production. This study was performed using the Virtual Sugarcane Biorefinery (VSB) modeling software for the simulation of agricultural and industrial parameters on integrated alternatives for the sugarcane industry. Colombian sugarcane sector was modeled using three scenarios representing agricultural systems that do not use composted industrial waste vs a paired scenario for each condition where composted waste is utilized. Regarding compost and vinasse use as fertilizer and soil conditioner, GHG emissions from the biogenic origin are not included as a reported item in the matrix of GHG emissions of the sugarcane sector. Inputs for the economic and environmental assessment models are based on actual operational data from two mill sites, one located in the traditional sugarcane production region of Cauca River Valley and the other one, on the agricultural expansion region of Llanos Orientales. Here, we have found that the reuse of composted industrial waste is beneficial and provides an economic cost savings of 2–6% per year. However, it also results in an annual increase of 10–20% in the GHG emissionsCOORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DE PESSOAL DE NÍVEL SUPERIOR - CAPESFUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO - FAPESPsem informação2012/00282-