Unintended learning in primary school practical science lessons from Polanyi’s perspective of intellectual passion

This study explored, from the perspective of intellectual passion developed by Michael Polanyi, the unintended learning that occurred in primary practical science lessons. We use the term ‘unintended’ learning to distinguish it from ‘intended’ learning that appears in teachers’ learning objectives. Data were collected using video and audio recordings of a sample of twenty-four whole class practical science lessons, taught by five teachers, in Korean primary schools with 10- to 12-year-old students. In addition, video and audio recordings were made for each small group of students working together in order to capture their activities and intra-group discourse. Pre-lesson interviews with the teachers were undertaken and audio-recorded to ascertain their intended learning objectives. Selected key vignettes, including unintended learning, were analysed from the perspective of intellectual passion developed by Polanyi. What we found in this study is that unintended learning could occur when students got interested in something in the first place and could maintain their interest. In addition, students could get conceptual knowledge when they tried to connect their experience to their related prior knowledge. It was also found that the processes of intended learning and of unintended learning were different. Intended learning was characterized by having been planned by the teacher who then sought to generate students’ interest in it. In contrast, unintended learning originated from students’ spontaneous interest and curiosity as a result of unplanned opportunities. Whilst teachers’ persuasive passion comes first in the process of intended learning, students’ heuristic passion comes first in the process of unintended learning. Based on these findings, we argue that teachers need to be more aware that unintended learning, on the part of individual students, can occur during their lesson and to be able to better use this opportunity so that this unintended learning can be shared by the whole class. Furthermore, we argue that teachers’ deliberate action and a more interactive classroom culture are necessary in order to allow students to develop, in addition to heuristic passion, persuasive passion towards their unintended learning

Isolated and dynamical horizons and their applications

Over the past three decades, black holes have played an important role in quantum gravity, mathematical physics, numerical relativity and gravitational wave phenomenology. However, conceptual settings and mathematical models used to discuss them have varied considerably from one area to another. Over the last five years a new, quasi-local framework was introduced to analyze diverse facets of black holes in a unified manner. In this framework, evolving black holes are modeled by dynamical horizons and black holes in equilibrium by isolated horizons. We review basic properties of these horizons and summarize applications to mathematical physics, numerical relativity and quantum gravity. This paradigm has led to significant generalizations of several results in black hole physics. Specifically, it has introduced a more physical setting for black hole thermodynamics and for black hole entropy calculations in quantum gravity; suggested a phenomenological model for hairy black holes; provided novel techniques to extract physics from numerical simulations; and led to new laws governing the dynamics of black holes in exact general relativity.Comment: 77 pages, 12 figures. Typos and references correcte

Potentially toxic metals in historic landfill sites: Implications for grazing animals

Municipal waste disposal is an increasing global problem, frequently solved by the use of landfill sites. Following closure, such sites contain a legacy of pollutants and must be managed to provide a safe and useful end life. The soils and vegetation from four historic landfill sites were analysed to determine the extent of pollution by potentially toxic metals (PTMs). Data were subsequently assessed to determine if post closure uses involving grazing were safe for the animals. The heaviest and widest spread soil contamination was due to Ni. Concentrations at all sites exceeded the 95th percentile value for rural soils, in one case by a factor of 30. Cu and Pb contamination was identified at some sites, but no evidence of Al or Zn contamination was found. Oral bioaccessibility testing showed that the availability of Ni in soil was exceedingly low, whilst that of Cu and Pb was high. Concentrations in plant shoots differed significantly amongst the sites, but interspecific differences in shoot concentration were only significant in the case of Cu. The results indicated that exposure levels to grazers would be at or below tolerable levels, indicating that it is generally safe to graze historic landfill. However, animals could be exposed to higher levels of PTMs than would be expected from rural locations, and grazing under conditions where soil consumption may be high could result in levels of exposure to Al, Ni and Pb exceeding tolerable levels. © Springer International Publishing 2014

"Give me some space" : exploring youth to parent aggression and violence

A small scale qualitative project, undertaken by an interdisciplinary domestic violence research group involving academic researchers and research assistants, with colleagues from Independent Domestic Abuse Services (IDAS), investigated youth aggression and violence against parents. Following the literature review, data was generated through several research conversations with young people (n = 2), through semi-structured interviews with mothers (n = 3) and practitioners (n = 5), and through a practitioner focus group (n = 8). Thematic analysis and triangulation of the data from parents, practitioners and young people, elicited interconnected and complex overarching themes. Young people could be both victim and perpetrator. The witnessing or experiencing of domestic aggression and violence raised the concept of ‘bystander children’. The impact of young people experiencing familial violence was underestimated by parents. For practitioners, the effects of working with domestic violence was shown to be significant - both positively and negatively

Studying synapses in human brain with array tomography and electron microscopy

Postmortem studies of synapses in human brain are problematic due to the axial resolution limit of light microscopy and the difficulty preserving and analyzing ultrastructure with electron microscopy. Array tomography overcomes these problems by embedding autopsy tissue in resin and cutting ribbons of ultrathin serial sections. Ribbons are imaged with immunofluorescence, allowing high-throughput imaging of tens of thousands of synapses to assess synapse density and protein composition. The protocol takes approximately 3 days per case, excluding image analysis, which is done at the end of the study. Parallel processing for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) using a protocol modified to preserve structure in human samples allows complimentary ultrastructural studies. Incorporation of array tomography and TEM into brain banking is a potent way of phenotyping synapses in well-characterized clinical cohorts to develop clinico-pathological correlations at the synapse level. This will be important for research in neurodegenerative disease, developmental diseases, and psychiatric illness

Biochemical and structural characterization of mycobacterial aspartyl-tRNA synthetase AspS, a promising TB drug target.

The human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the causative agent of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB), a disease with high worldwide mortality rates. Current treatment programs are under significant threat from multi-drug and extensively-drug resistant strains of M. tuberculosis, and it is essential to identify new inhibitors and their targets. We generated spontaneous resistant mutants in Mycobacterium bovis BCG in the presence of 10× the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of compound 1, a previously identified potent inhibitor of mycobacterial growth in culture. Whole genome sequencing of two resistant mutants revealed in one case a single nucleotide polymorphism in the gene aspS at 535GAC>535AAC (D179N), while in the second mutant a single nucleotide polymorphism was identified upstream of the aspS promoter region. We probed whole cell target engagement by overexpressing either M. bovis BCG aspS or Mycobacterium smegmatis aspS, which resulted in a ten-fold and greater than ten-fold increase, respectively, of the MIC against compound 1. To analyse the impact of inhibitor 1 on M. tuberculosis AspS (Mt-AspS) activity we over-expressed, purified and characterised the kinetics of this enzyme using a robust tRNA-independent assay adapted to a high-throughput screening format. Finally, to aid hit-to-lead optimization, the crystal structure of apo M. smegmatis AspS was determined to a resolution of 2.4 Å

The influence of infant feeding attitudes on breastfeeding duration: Evidence from a cohort study in rural Western Australia

Background - Breast milk is the optimal source of nutrition for infants in the first six months of life. Promoting and protecting breastfeeding is reflected in public health policy across the globe, but breastfeeding rates in both developing and industrialised countries continue to demonstrate that few mothers meet these recommendations. In addition to sociodemographic factors such as age, education and income, modifiable factors such as maternal infant feeding attitudes have been shown to influence breastfeeding duration. The objective of this paper was to describe the influence of infant feeding attitudes on breastfeeding duration in rural Western Australia. Methods - A cohort of 427 women and their infants were recruited from hospitals in rural Western Australia and followed for a period of 12 months. Information about feeding methods was gathered in hospital and at a further seven follow-up contacts. Infant feeding attitude was measured using the Iowa Infant Feeding Attitude Scale (IIFAS), and a score of > 65 was considered positive towards breastfeeding. Results - Mothers with an IIFAS score of > 65 were approximately twice as likely to be exclusively breastfeeding at six months, and breastfeeding at any intensity to 12 months. The median duration of exclusive breastfeeding for mothers with an IIFAS score of > 65 was 16 weeks (95 % CI 13.5, 18.5) compared with 5 weeks for those with a score  65 (48 vs. 22 weeks, p < 0.001). Conclusions -Women in this rural cohort who had a more positive attitude towards breastfeeding had a longer duration of both exclusive breastfeeding to six months and any breastfeeding to 12 months. Further research examining the breastfeeding attitudes of specific subgroups such as men, grandparents and adolescents in rural areas will contribute to the evidence base and help to ensure that breastfeeding is seen as the normal method of infant feeding

A Salmonella Small Non-Coding RNA Facilitates Bacterial Invasion and Intracellular Replication by Modulating the Expression of Virulence Factors

Small non-coding RNAs (sRNAs) that act as regulators of gene expression have been identified in all kingdoms of life, including microRNA (miRNA) and small interfering RNA (siRNA) in eukaryotic cells. Numerous sRNAs identified in Salmonella are encoded by genes located at Salmonella pathogenicity islands (SPIs) that are commonly found in pathogenic strains. Whether these sRNAs are important for Salmonella pathogenesis and virulence in animals has not been reported. In this study, we provide the first direct evidence that a pathogenicity island-encoded sRNA, IsrM, is important for Salmonella invasion of epithelial cells, intracellular replication inside macrophages, and virulence and colonization in mice. IsrM RNA is expressed in vitro under conditions resembling those during infection in the gastrointestinal tract. Furthermore, IsrM is found to be differentially expressed in vivo, with higher expression in the ileum than in the spleen. IsrM targets the mRNAs coding for SopA, a SPI-1 effector, and HilE, a global regulator of the expression of SPI-1 proteins, which are major virulence factors essential for bacterial invasion. Mutations in IsrM result in disregulation of expression of HilE and SopA, as well as other SPI-1 genes whose expression is regulated by HilE. Salmonella with deletion of isrM is defective in bacteria invasion of epithelial cells and intracellular replication/survival in macrophages. Moreover, Salmonella with mutations in isrM is attenuated in killing animals and defective in growth in the ileum and spleen in mice. Our study has shown that IsrM sRNA functions as a pathogenicity island-encoded sRNA directly involved in Salmonella pathogenesis in animals. Our results also suggest that sRNAs may represent a distinct class of virulence factors that are important for bacterial infection in vivo

A framework for teaching epistemic insight in schools

This paper gives the rationale and a draft outline for a framework for education to teach epistemic insight into schools in England. The motivation to research and propose a strategy to teach and assess epistemic insight followed research that investigated how students and teachers in primary and secondary schools respond to big questions about the nature of reality and human personhood. The research revealed that there are pressures in schools that dampen students’ expressed curiosity in these types of questions and limit their developing epistemic insight into how science, religion and the wider humanities relate. These findings prompted the construction of a framework for education for students aged 5–16 designed to encourage students’ expressed interest in big questions and develop their understanding of the ways that science interacts with other ways of knowing. The centrepiece of the framework is a sequence of learning objectives for epistemic insight, organised into three categories. The categories are, firstly, the nature of science in real world contexts and multidisciplinary arenas; secondly, ways of knowing and how they interact; and thirdly, the relationships between science and religion. Our current version of the Framework is constructed to respond to the way that teaching is organised in England. The key principles and many of the activities could be adopted and tailored to work in many other countries

Foxp2 controls synaptic wiring of corticostriatal circuits and vocal communication by opposing Mef2c

Cortico-basal ganglia circuits are critical for speech and language and are implicated in autism spectrum disorder, in which language function can be severely affected. We demonstrate that in the mouse striatum, the gene Foxp2 negatively interacts with the synapse suppressor gene Mef2c. We present causal evidence that Mef2c inhibition by Foxp2 in neonatal mouse striatum controls synaptogenesis of corticostriatal inputs and vocalization in neonates. Mef2c suppresses corticostriatal synapse formation and striatal spinogenesis, but can itself be repressed by Foxp2 through direct DNA binding. Foxp2 deletion de-represses Mef2c, and both intrastriatal and global decrease of Mef2c rescue vocalization and striatal spinogenesis defects of Foxp2-deletion mutants. These findings suggest that Foxp2-Mef2C signaling is critical to corticostriatal circuit formation. If found in humans, such signaling defects could contribute to a range of neurologic and neuropsychiatric disorders.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant R37 HD028341)Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U.S.) (Award R37 HD028341