Strategies Designed To Promote Active Learning And Student Satisfaction

Four strategies designed to promote active learning and student satisfaction were employed with two classes of undergraduate students, one day and one evening, in a course in adolescent development. They included the use of small group collaborative testing; face-to-face interviews with adolescents and oral presentations of the results; naturalistic field observations with reports and discussion; and PowerPoint slide presentations with handouts. The students anonymously rated each of the strategies using a likert-type scale at the end of the semester. The evaluations were very positive with 89% to 97% of the students rating the strategies as “liked it very much” or “liked it” for all of the strategies. The average grade achieved in both classes was a “B”. Means for the day class were compared to the evening class and no significant differences were found, suggesting similar positive ratings by both classes. Findings add support to the literature regarding student preferences for the use of active learning methods, involvement in cooperative learning activities, and collaborative test taking compared to lectures “straight from the podium” and individual testing

Meditation, Breath Work, And Focus Training For Teachers And Students - The Five Minutes A Day That Can Really Make A Difference

This paper is based on information researched and presented in a faculty development seminar for elementary teachers for use with students preparing for national testing to manage stress and increase attention focus. It reviews effects of stress on behavior, mood, and concentration; explains basics of breath work and meditation; provides meditation instructions in a simple and direct way; and describes how to use the techniques in the classroom. Statements from the principal, as well as workshop evaluations and follow up communications regarding the training, were very positive. It appears both teachers and students are receptive to the use of meditation, breath work, and focus training – the five minutes a day that can really make a difference for teachers and students

Diversity of cervical microbiota in asymptomatic chlamydia trachomatis genital infection: a pilot study

Chlamydia trachomatis genital infection continues to be an important public health problem worldwide due to its increasing incidence. C. trachomatis infection can lead to severe sequelae, such as pelvic inflammatory disease, obstructive infertility, and preterm birth. Recently, it has been suggested that the cervico-vaginal microbiota may be an important defense factor toward C. trachomatis infection as well as the development of chronic sequelae. Therefore, the investigation of microbial profiles associated to chlamydial infection is of the utmost importance. Here we present a pilot study aiming to characterize, through the metagenomic analysis of sequenced 16s rRNA gene amplicons, the cervical microbiota from reproductive age women positive to C. trachomatis infection. The main finding of our study showed a marked increase in bacterial diversity in asymptomatic C. trachomatis positive women as compared to healthy controls in terms of Shannon's diversity and Shannon's evenness (P = 0.031 and P = 0.026, respectively). More importantly, the cervical microbiota from C. trachomatis positive women and from healthy controls significantly separated into two clusters in the weighted UniFrac analysis (P = 0.0027), suggesting that differences between the two groups depended entirely on the relative abundance of bacterial taxa rather than on the types of bacterial taxa present. Furthermore, C. trachomatis positive women showed an overall decrease in Lactobacillus spp. and an increase in anaerobes. These findings are part of an ongoing larger epidemiological study that will evaluate the potential role of distinct bacterial communities of the cervical microbiota in C. trachomatis infection

A topoanalise em "A ceia dominicana": Romance neolatino, de Reinaldo Santos Neves

O presente trabalho dissertativo de análise foi apresentado com o objetivo de pesquisar o elemento espaço, mais especificamente o topos na obra A ceia dominicana: romance neolatino (2008), de Reinaldo Santos Neves. Visou-se analisar a importância e relevância dos lugares nesta obra literária em suas diversas formas, como relacionar os reflexos e a importância da espacialidade no comportamento das personagens e a sua consequente função para o direcionamento da narrativa, a recepção leitora para a construção dos espaços através da semiose, a involuntária identificação extratextual do espaço capixaba através da cartografia reapresentada no livro a partir do mundo empírico, juntamente com a apropriação do espaço Clássico através da interface Satiricon/A ceia dominicana e a simbologia dos signos relacionados a este específico espaço literário. A base teórica utilizada foi a de Gaston Bachelard (2008) e Ozíris Borges Filho (2007), com a contribuição de outros teóricos respeitados no meio acadêmico relacionados aos Estudos Literários e também com a apropriação do aporte teórico de outras áreas de conhecimento, como a Geografia Humanista, a Física, a Psicologia e a Filosofia. Metodologicamente, procurou-se uma vertente mais abrangente para as análises devido à grande diversidade de linhas de pesquisa que a obra de Reinaldo Santos Neves promove a partir de sua pluralidade interpretativa e riqueza enquanto obra literária, assim utilizou-se o pós-estruturalismo para que houvesse liberdade de absorção de conhecimentos de tais áreas pautados na característica de escrita contemporânea do autor. Com tamanha possibilidade, o trabalho ganhou ares ensaísticos ao romper de forma tênue com a formalidade no que tange a composição dissertativa da escrita analítica, respeitando-se, porém, a forma monográfica em suas divisões e subdivisões. De forma geral, este trabalho pretende reforçar ao leitor a importância do conhecimento dos espaços na construção das narrativas, utilizando-se de uma literatura que permite tal análise do topos de forma ampla e didática

Il medico di medicina generale e il paziente con litiasi renale

Abstract non disponibil

Tourisme et milieu montagnard

International audienc

Involvement of pro-inflammatory cytokines and growth factors in the pathogenesis of Dupuytren's contracture: a novel target for a possible future therapeutic strategy?

Dupuytren's contracture (DC) is a benign fibro-proliferative disease of the hand causing fibrotic nodules and fascial cords which determine debilitating contracture and deformities of fingers and hands. The present study was designed to characterize pro-inflammatory cytokines and growth factors involved in the pathogenesis, progression and recurrence of this disease, in order to find novel targets for alternative therapies and strategies in controlling DC. The expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines and of growth factors was detected by immunohistochemistry in fibrotic nodules and normal palmar fascia resected respectively from patients affected by DC and carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS; as negative controls). Reverse transcription (RT)-PCR analysis and immunofluorescence were performed to quantify the expression of transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1, interleukin (IL)-1β and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) by primary cultures of myofibroblasts and fibroblasts isolated from Dupuytren's nodules. Histological analysis showed high cellularity and high proliferation rate in Dupuytren's tissue, together with the presence of myofibroblastic isotypes; immunohistochemical staining for macrophages was completely negative. In addition, a strong expression of TGF-β1, IL-1β and VEGF was evident in the extracellular matrix and in the cytoplasm of fibroblasts and myofibroblasts in Dupuytren's nodular tissues, as compared with control tissues. These results were confirmed by RT-PCR and by immunofluorescence in pathological and normal primary cell cultures. These preliminary observations suggest that TGF-β1, IL-1β and VEGF may be considered potential therapeutic targets in the treatment of Dupuytren's disease (DD)

Assessing water reservoirs management and development in Northern Vietnam

Abstract. In many developing countries water is a key renewable resource to complement carbon-emitting energy production and support food security in the face of demand pressure from fast-growing industrial production and urbanization. To cope with undergoing changes, water resources development and management have to be reconsidered by enlarging their scope across sectors and adopting effective tools to analyze current and projected infrastructure potential and operation strategies. In this paper we use multi-objective deterministic and stochastic optimization to assess the current reservoir operation and planned capacity expansion in the Red River Basin (Northern Vietnam), and to evaluate the potential improvement by the adoption of a more sophisticated information system. To reach this goal we analyze the historical operation of the major controllable infrastructure in the basin, the HoaBinh reservoir on the Da River, explore re-operation options corresponding to different tradeoffs among the three main objectives (hydropower production, flood control and water supply), using multi-objective optimization techniques, namely Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm. Finally, we assess the structural system potential and the need for capacity expansion by application of Deterministic Dynamic Programming. Results show that the current operation can only be relatively improved by advanced optimization techniques, while investment should be put into enlarging the system storage capacity and exploiting additional information to inform the operation