Some comments about pre-service Teacher Education programs and stabilization of the Bachelor/Master Bologna structure in Italy.

a) University Physics Degree The Bologna structure Bachelor/Master (or colloquially 3 + 2) has been implemented in Italian Universities since academic year 2001-02 in force of a national bill of law. The Italian public education system is centralised, all compulsory parts of curricula and syllabuses being decided by Ministry of Instruction and Ministry of University. Before the Bologna transition the legal duration of the Physics Degree (Laurea) was 4 years; the average actual one being (5.5 - 6) years. A long, not easy process has been needed to re-design the courses contents to have them fit into the (3 + 2) schema. In successful cases the transition has been exploited to try solving solution for old, common, well known problems (e. g. a semester structure to address the heavy annual courses). In some cases the ``squeezing'' of a 4 years set of syllabuses into a Bachelor program has not been completely avoided. In Naples the modularization has been interpreted as module = course (some ECUs). We started the (3 + 2) schema in a. y. 2001-02 and a special effort has been put on helping the students enrolled in the previous 4 years curriculum to obtain their Degree or to transfer to the Bachelor program. Soon after the first cycle of 3 years has been completed the Master program has been implemented in Naples (a. y 2004-05). A vast majority of the students with Bachelor Degree (in Italy named Laurea Triennale) enrolled into the Master (Laurea Specialistica o Magistrale). In the global perception of many students and professors the Bachelor was ``not enough'' to become a ``good physicist'' as meant by the previous Laurea. At the same time not many positions tailored to a Bachelor Degree were on the job market. The main positive and negative aspects of the Bologna transition have been, at least in the Naples case, more capability to follow a semester structure but, if students have some delay, it's very difficult for them to recover, - difficult to stabilize 3+2 because of continues changes imposed by law. While it was time for an accurate analysis of the Bologna transition, in 2006 a new bill of law has imposed to modify the fine structure of the 3 + 2 schema (reduction of maximum number of tests per year, increase of ECUs related to basic courses, etc.). b) Pre-service Physics Teacher Education In force of a national bill of law, in the a.y. 1999, a post university program/cycle of 2 years, about 1500 hours of attendance, has been implemented in order to get a degree enabling to enter the list of secondary school teachers and possibly to be appointed as a state employee. Each of the 20 Italian Regions had to have such a SSIS (Scuola Specializzazione per l'Insegnamento Secondario) organised and run by the Universities present in the Region. The SSIS contents have covered both pedagogical and disciplinary subjects, together with a final period of work on the field, supervised by experienced school teachers. The cycle 2008-09 has never started since the SSIS have been abolished by law and substituted by a specific Master program aimed at pre-service teacher education. Up to now this Master has not been defined in details and there is a de-facto lack of a substitute of former SSIS. For both cases of University Physics Degree and pre-service Physics Teacher Education changes imposed by law have weakened the opportunity, at a time when it was appropriate, to analyse the experience done in order to optimise the adopted schema

On the use of new methods and multimedia

In the STEPS project the working group WG2 studied “New teaching and learning methods” and “The use of new multimedia”. Both were surveyed in Bachelor and Master studies of all STEPS members An inventory among universities and alumni on tools, software, programming languages and the importance of transferable skills was made. A list of categorized methods, tools and transferable skills resulted. The WG2 evaluated MultiMedia (MM) with the MPTL group. In 2009 the project STEPS TWO started. The WG2 focuses on project-based and student centred learning, also trying out some best practice materials with students and teachers. We address some problems found in categorizing and evaluating methods and materials We describe some didactical aspects and conditions for an effective integration of MM

Dynamic images to address conceptual nodes about mechanical waves: Example materials and preliminary results of the experimentation of the teacher training module IMAGONDE

In the framework of the 2002-03 project “Fisica per la Formazione Culturale - FORMazione Insegnanti” funded by Italy ministry of Education, a set of training materials, focused on mechanical waves, has been developed. The core of the materials is represented by animated images purposely designed in order to: 1) address intrinsically dynamic aspects of one-dimensional impulses/waves propagation on a string; 2) have the trainees reflect upon students’ difficulties in reading/interpreting static images (as the ones which are featured in common textbooks) and animations. In this paper we discuss example materials concerning transversal impulses on strings to address conceptual nodes such as: 1) configuration of the string at a given time and its abstract representation; 2) displacement vs. time graph of a string element and its abstract representation; 3) relationships between the two abstract representations; 4) modelization of mechanical wave propagation in one dimension. Moreover the results of the experimentation of the training materials in the framework of the Post Graduate School to Became Physics Teacher in Secondary Schools are presented and commented

Gene Catchr—Gene Cloning And Tagging for Caenorhabditis elegans using yeast Homologous Recombination: a novel approach for the analysis of gene expression

Expression patterns of gene products provide important insights into gene function. Reporter constructs are frequently used to analyze gene expression in Caenorhabditis elegans, but the sequence context of a given gene is inevitably altered in such constructs. As a result, these transgenes may lack regulatory elements required for proper gene expression. We developed Gene Catchr, a novel method of generating reporter constructs that exploits yeast homologous recombination (YHR) to subclone and tag worm genes while preserving their local sequence context. YHR facilitates the cloning of large genomic regions, allowing the isolation of regulatory sequences in promoters, introns, untranslated regions and flanking DNA. The endogenous regulatory context of a given gene is thus preserved, producing expression patterns that are as accurate as possible. Gene Catchr is flexible: any tag can be inserted at any position without introducing extra sequence. Each step is simple and can be adapted to process multiple genes in parallel. We show that expression patterns derived from Gene Catchr transgenes are consistent with previous reports and also describe novel expression data. Mutant rescue assays demonstrate that Gene Catchr-generated transgenes are functional. Our results validate the use of Gene Catchr as a valuable tool to study spatiotemporal gene expression

The impact of the consumer and neighbourhood food environment on dietary intake and obesity-related outcomes: A systematic review of causal impact studies.

Background The food environment has been found to impact population dietary behaviour. Our study aimed to systematically review the impact of different elements of the food environment on dietary intake and obesity. Methods We searched MEDLINE, Embase, PsychInfo, EconLit databases to identify literature that assessed the relationship between the built food environments (intervention) and dietary intake and obesity (outcomes), published between database inception to March 26, 2020. All human studies were eligible except for those on clinical sub-groups. Only studies with causal inference methods were assessed. Studies focusing on the food environment inside homes, workplaces and schools were excluded. A risk of bias assessment was conducted using the CASP appraisal checklist. Findings were summarized using a narrative synthesis approach. Findings 58 papers were included, 55 of which were conducted in high-income countries. 70% of papers focused on the consumer food environments and found that in-kind/financial incentives, healthy food saliency, and health primes, but not calorie menu labelling significantly improved dietary quality of children and adults, while BMI results were null. 30% of the papers focused on the neighbourhood food environments and found that the number of and distance to unhealthy food outlets increased the likelihood of fast-food consumption and higher BMI for children of any SES; among adults only selected groups were impacted - females, black, and Hispanics living in low and medium density areas. The availability and distance to healthy food outlets significantly improved children's dietary intake and BMI but null results were found for adults. Interpretation Evidence suggests certain elements of the consumer and neighbourhood food environments could improve populations dietary intake, while effect on BMI was observed among children and selected adult populations. Underprivileged groups are most likely to experience and impact on BMI. Future research should investigate whether findings translate in other countries

INSTRUCTION MATTERS: INFLUENCE OF INSTRUCTION ON MOTOR SKILL LEARNING ACROSS DIFFERENT MASTERY MOTIVATIONAL CLIMATE CONDITIONS

Research suggests that both practice and reinforcement are necessary for skill learning. In school settings however, there is typically only one teacher per class, and by consequence, providing individual feedback and reinforcement to all students is more challenging. Thus, the design of the task in schools/classes is extremely critical to maximize opportunities for practice and feedback. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of different teacher behaviors (i.e., explicit instruction and feedback) within mastery climates on motor skill performance. 99 Preschool age children (Mage= 4.75 years) participated in a mastery motivational climate physical play programme intervention bi-weekly for 7 weeks. Children were randomly assigned to a motor skill condition, physical activity condition, mixed condition, or a free play control group. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) with pre-test scores as the covariate were conducted to determine the effects of condition on post-test motor skill scores. Results indicated that the children from the motor skill and mixed conditions showed significantly greater improvements than the other two groups. These findings suggest that instruction matters in learning motor skills. In the two conditions where children were given explicit instructional cues and feedback about performing tasks, they showed far superior gains than those children where the lesson focus was simply just on physical activity or when no instruction was given at all.  Article visualizations

A Signal Decomposition Model-Based Bayesian Framework for ECG Components Separation

The paper introduces an improved signal decomposition model-based Bayesian framework (EKS6). While it can be employed for multiple purposes, like denoising and features extraction, it is particularly suited for extracting electrocardiogram (ECG) wave-forms from ECG recordings. In this framework, the ECG is represented as the sum of several components, each describing a specific wave (i.e., P, Q, R, S, and T), with a corresponding term in the dynamical model. Characteristic Waveforms (CWs) of the ECG components are taken as hidden state variables, distinctly estimated using a Kalman smoother from sample to sample. Then, CWs can be analyzed separately, accordingly to a specific application. The new dynamical model no longer depends on the amplitude of the Gaussian kernels, so it is capable of separating ECG components even if sudden changes in the CWs appear (e.g., an ectopic beat). Results, obtained on synthetic signals with different levels of noise, showed that the proposed method is indeed more effective in separating the ECG components when compared with another framework recently introduced with the same aims (EKS4). The proposed approach can be used for many applications. In this paper, we verified it for T/QRS ratio calculation. For this purpose, we applied it to 288 signals from the PhysioNet PTB Diagnostic ECG Database. The values of RMSE obtained show that the T/QRS ratio computed on the components extracted from the ECG, corrupted by broadband noise, is closer to the original T/QRS ratio values (RMSE=0.025 for EKS6 and 0.17 for EKS4)

Persistence of upper stratospheric wintertime tracer variability into the Arctic spring and summer

Using data from the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) and Aura satellites, we have categorized the interannual variability of winter- and springtime upper stratospheric methane (CH4). We further show the effects of this variability on the chemistry of the upper stratosphere throughout the following summer. Years with strong wintertime mesospheric descent followed by dynamically quiet springs, such as 2009, lead to the lowest summertime CH4. Years with relatively weak wintertime descent, but strong springtime planetary wave activity, such as 2011, have the highest summertime CH4. By sampling the Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) according to the occultation pattern of the AIM Solar Occultation for Ice Experiment (SOFIE), we show that summertime upper stratospheric chlorine monoxide (ClO) almost perfectly anticorrelates with the CH4. This is consistent with the reaction of atomic chlorine with CH4 to form the reservoir species, hydrochloric acid (HCl). The summertime ClO for years with strong, uninterrupted mesospheric descent is about 50 % greater than in years with strong horizontal transport and mixing of high CH4 air from lower latitudes. Small, but persistent effects on ozone are also seen such that between 1 and 2 hPa, ozone is about 4–5 % higher in summer for the years with the highest CH4 relative to the lowest. This is consistent with the role of the chlorine catalytic cycle on ozone. These dependencies may offer a means to monitor dynamical effects on the high-latitude upper stratosphere using summertime ClO measurements as a proxy. Additionally, these chlorine-controlled ozone decreases, which are seen to maximize after years with strong uninterrupted wintertime descent, represent a new mechanism by which mesospheric descent can affect polar ozone. Finally, given that the effects on ozone appear to persist much of the rest of the year, the consideration of winter/spring dynamical variability may also be relevant in studies of ozone trends

Role of the QBO in modulating the influence of the 11 year solar cycle on the atmosphere using constant forcings

We present a set of six 20 year experiments made with a state-of-the-art chemistry-climate model that incorporates the atmosphere from the surface to the lower thermosphere. The response of the middle atmosphere to the 11 year solar cycle, its impact on the troposphere, and especially the role of an externally prescribed stratospheric quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) is investigated with NCAR's Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM3). The model experiments use either fixed solar cycle inputs or fixed solar cycle together with prescribed QBO phase. The annual mean solar response in temperature and ozone in the upper stratosphere is in qualitative agreement with other modeling and observational studies and does not depend on the presence of the imposed QBO. However, the solar response in the middle to lower stratosphere differs significantly for the two QBO phases. During solar maxima a weaker Brewer-Dobson circulation with relative downwelling, warming, and enhanced ozone occurs in the tropical lower stratosphere during QBO east conditions, while a stronger circulation, cooling, and decreased ozone exists during QBO west conditions. The net ozone increase during QBO east is the combined result of production and advection, whereas during QBO west the effects cancel each other and result in little net ozone changes. Especially during Southern Hemisphere late winter to early spring, the solar response at polar latitudes switches sign between the two QBO phases and qualitatively confirms observations and other recent model studies. During a poleward downward modulation of the polar night jet and a corresponding modulation of the Brewer-Dobson circulation in time, solar signals are detected all the way down to the extratropical troposphere. Possible limitations of the model experiments with respect to the fixed solar cycle conditions or the prescribed QBO phases, as well as the constant sea surface temperatures, are discussed

Genetic structure and variability within and among populations of the fat-tailed Barbarine sheep breed using microsatellites markers

This study investigates the genetic diversity and the structure of the most dominant native fat-tailed Tunisian sheep breed (Barbarine, BAR) using microsatellite markers. Blood samples from 183 BAR animals, belonging to 4 subpopulations according to phenotypic traits, were collected across all regions in Tunisia. BAR animals and 31 Appenninica Italian sheep breed (APP) used as an out-group were genotyped at 17 microsatellites loci. A total of 270 alleles were identified with average gene diversity equal to 0.812. The mean observed heterozygosity (0.745) and allelic richness (8.09) estimates were high within BAR breed highlighting notable levels of genetic diversity. The low FIS (0.078) and FIT (0.084) values indicate low level of inbreeding within this breed while a low FST estimate (0.007) shows that the subpopulations are not genetically differentiated. The clustering analysis performed with ‘structure’ detected the absence of substructures and the clear uniqueness of the BAR. Tomiuk and Loeschcke’s DTL genetic distance values confirmed the distinction between APP and BAR breeds. Results arising from our microsatellites analysis represent a starting point for the valorization of this indigenous Tunisian sheep breed. A suggestion was made to monitor its genetic variability and for the preservation of this breed for the next generations.Keywords: Tunisian Barbarine sheep breed, microsatellite markers, genetic variability, population structureAfrican Journal of Biotechnology, Vol. 13(1), pp. 44-54, 1 January, 201