Weiterentwicklung von Berufen - Herausforderungen für die Berufsbildungsforschung

Berufe sind das wesentliche Strukturmerkmal der Erstausbildung von Fachkräften in Deutschland. Ihre Genese und Adaption an neue Anforderungen ist der Gegenstand der beruflichen Ordnungsarbeit. [...] Die Berufsbildungsforschung befasst sich im Nachgang mit Fragen der beruflichen Didaktik, des Wissenstransfers in die berufliche Praxis und der Qualität der Ausbildung. [...] Dabei stellt sich hier eine besondere Herausforderung: Wenn Berufe von Verbänden, Gewerkschaften und von der Berufsbildungspolitik quasi ausgehandelt werden, dann werden zwar die Interessen der vertretenen Gruppen, möglicherweise aber nicht immer die prospektiven Anforderungen des Beschäftigungssystems getroffen. [...] Wie kann die Berufsbildungsforschung mit ihrer Expertise und mit ihren Verfahren und Instrumenten dazu beitragen, dass die Ordnungsarbeit auf einer verlässlichen empirischen Grundlage stattfindet und absehbare Kompetenzanforderungen berücksichtigt? Wie kann sie Entscheidungsgrundlagen für interessegeleitete Ordnungsverfahren schaffen? Und schließlich: Ist sie in Kooperation mit anderen Disziplinen in der Lage, sich entwickelnde Anforderungen an Inhalte und Zuschnitte von Berufen, den Bedarf an neuen Berufen und die Obsoleszenz bestehender Berufe zu antizipieren? (DIPF/Orig.

Assessing the impact of alternative splicing on the diversity and evolution of the proteome in plants

Splicing is one of the key processing steps during the maturation of a gene’s primary transcript into the mRNA molecule used as a template for protein production. Splicing involves the removal of segments called introns and re-joining of the remaining segments called exons. It is by now well established that not always the same segments are removed from a gene’s primary transcript during the splicing process. The consequence of this splicing variation, termed Alternative Splicing (AS), is that multiple distinct mature mRNA molecules can be produced from a single gene. One of the two biological roles that are ascribed to AS is that of a mechanism which enables an organism to produce multiple functionally distinct proteins from a single gene. Alternatively, AS can serve as a means for controlling gene expression at the post-transcriptional level. Although many clear examples have been reported for both roles, the extent to which AS increases the functional diversity of the proteome, regulates gene expression or simply reflects noise in splicing machinery is not well known. Determining the full functional impact of AS by designing and performing wet-lab experiments for all AS events is unfeasible and bioinformatics approaches have therefore widely been used for studying the impact of AS at a genome-wide scale. In this thesis four bioinformatics studies are presented that were aimed at determining the extent to which AS is used in plants as a mechanism for producing multiple distinct functional proteins from a single gene. Each chapter uses a different method for analyzing specific properties of AS. Under the premise that functional genetic features are more likely to be conserved than non-functional ones, AS events that are present in two or more species are more likely to be biologically relevant than those that are confined to a single species. In chapter 2 we analyzed the conservation of AS by performing a comparative analysis between three divergent plant species. The results of that study indicated that the vast majority of AS events does not persist over long periods of evolution. We concluded, based on this lack of conservation, that AS only has a limited impact on the functional diversity of the proteome in plants. Following this conclusion, it can hypothesized that the variation that AS induces at the transcriptome level is not likely to be manifested at the protein level. In chapter 3 we tested this hypothesis by analyzing two independent proteomics datasets. This type of data can be used to directly identify proteins present in a biological sample. Our results indicated that the variation induced by AS at the transcriptome level is also manifested at the protein level. We concluded that either many AS events have a confined species-specific (not conserved) function or simply produce protein variants that are stable enough to escape rapid turn-over. Another method for determining whether AS increases the functional diversity of the proteome is by determining whether protein sequence variations that are typically induced by AS are common within the plant kingdom. We found (chapter 4) that this is not the case in plants and concluded that novel functions do not frequently arise through AS. We also found that most of the AS-induced variation is lost, similarly as for redundant gene copies, within a very short evolutionary time period. One limitation of genome-wide analyses is that these capture only the more general patterns. However, the functional impact of AS can be very different in different genes or gene-families. In order fully assess the functional impact of AS, it is therefore important to also study the process within the functional context of individual genes or gene families. In chapter 5 we demonstrated this concept by performing a detailed analysis of AS within the MADS-box gene family. We were able to provide clues as to how AS might impact the protein-protein interaction capabilities of individual MADS proteins. Some of our predictions were supported by experimental evidence. We further showed how AS can serve as an evolutionary mechanism for experimenting with novel functions (novel interactions) without the explicit loss of existing functions. The overall conclusion, based on the performed analyses is as follows: AS primarily is a consequence of noise in the splicing machinery and results in an increased diversity of the proteome. However, only a small fraction of the proteins resulting from AS will have beneficial functions and are subsequently selected for during evolution. The large remaining fraction is, similarly as for redundant gene-copies, lost within a very short evolutionary time period after its emergence. </p

Integration of Biological Sources: Exploring the Case of Protein Homology

Data integration is a key issue in the domain of bioin- formatics, which deals with huge amounts of heteroge- neous biological data that grows and changes rapidly. This paper serves as an introduction in the field of bioinformatics and the biological concepts it deals with, and an exploration of the integration problems a bioinformatics scientist faces. We examine ProGMap, an integrated protein homology system used by bioin- formatics scientists at Wageningen University, and several use cases related to protein homology. A key issue we identify is the huge manual effort required to unify source databases into a single resource. Un- certain databases are able to contain several possi- ble worlds, and it has been proposed that they can be used to significantly reduce initial integration efforts. We propose several directions for future work where uncertain databases can be applied to bioinformatics, with the goal of furthering the cause of bioinformatics integration

Spurious four-wave mixing processes in generalized nonlinear Schrödinger equations

Numerical solutions of a nonlinear Schödinger equation, e.g., for pulses in optical fibers, may suffer from the spurious four-wave mixing processes. We study how these nonphysical resonances appear in solutions of a much more stiff generalized nonlinear Schödinger equation with an arbitrary dispersion operator and determine the necessary restrictions on temporal and spatial resolution of a numerical scheme. The restrictions are especially important to meet when an envelope equation is applied in a wide spectral window, e.g., to describe supercontinuum generation, in which case the appearance of the numerical instabilities can occur unnoticed

Zertifizierung informell erworbener beruflicher Kompetenzen

Veränderungen in der Arbeitswelt führen nicht nur zu neuen Inhalten beruflichen Lernens, sie begründen auch neue Formen des Aufbaus und Erhalts berufsrelevanter Kompetenzen. Erfahrungswissen, selbstorganisiertes Lernen und informell erworbene Kompetenzen gewinnen an Bedeutung. Das deutsche Zertifikats- und Anerkennungswesen trägt diesem Wandel bisher wenig Rechnung. Zur Dokumentation beruflicher Kompetenzen führen bisher fast ausschließlich der formelle Bildungsgang und dessen Zertifizierung. Standardisierte Zertifikate für die formale Bildung stehen zur Verfügung, sind ausreichend differenziert und den Akteuren des Arbeitsmarktes bekannt. Diese Qualifikationsnachweise beruhen auf formalisierten Bildungsgängen und Prüfungen, in der Regel in der Erstausbildung, die jedoch in einer langen Berufslaufbahn nur begrenzte Aussagekraft haben. Lernen, das sich unterhalb der formalisierten Bildung in offenen Kontexten vollzieht, wird hingegen in nur geringem Maße dokumentiert und sehr selten zertifiziert. Eine weitergehende Zertifizierung dieses informellen Lernens im Sinne des Erwerbs von Berechtigungen im Bildungs- und Beschäftigungssystem ist nicht vorgesehen. Die wenigen bestehenden Möglichkeiten werden kaum wahrgenommen. Aufgrund seiner Individualität und Kontextbezogenheit lässt sich informelles Lernen nur über die Lernergebnisse, nicht jedoch über den Lernweg in formalen Bildungsgängen vergleichbar machen. Erst die berufliche Kompetenz, zu der sowohl formale als auch informelle Lernprozesse beitragen, bildet die Grundlage einer vergleichenden Beurteilung und Zertifizierung der auf formalen wie informellen Wegen erworbenen beruflichen Kenntnisse und Fertigkeiten

Predicting the Impact of Alternative Splicing on Plant MADS Domain Protein Function

Several genome-wide studies demonstrated that alternative splicing (AS) significantly increases the transcriptome complexity in plants. However, the impact of AS on the functional diversity of proteins is difficult to assess using genome-wide approaches. The availability of detailed sequence annotations for specific genes and gene families allows for a more detailed assessment of the potential effect of AS on their function. One example is the plant MADS-domain transcription factor family, members of which interact to form protein complexes that function in transcription regulation. Here, we perform an in silico analysis of the potential impact of AS on the protein-protein interaction capabilities of MIKC-type MADS-domain proteins. We first confirmed the expression of transcript isoforms resulting from predicted AS events. Expressed transcript isoforms were considered functional if they were likely to be translated and if their corresponding AS events either had an effect on predicted dimerisation motifs or occurred in regions known to be involved in multimeric complex formation, or otherwise, if their effect was conserved in different species. Nine out of twelve MIKC MADS-box genes predicted to produce multiple protein isoforms harbored putative functional AS events according to those criteria. AS events with conserved effects were only found at the borders of or within the K-box domain. We illustrate how AS can contribute to the evolution of interaction networks through an example of selective inclusion of a recently evolved interaction motif in the MADS AFFECTING FLOWERING1-3 (MAF1–3) subclade. Furthermore, we demonstrate the potential effect of an AS event in SHORT VEGETATIVE PHASE (SVP), resulting in the deletion of a short sequence stretch including a predicted interaction motif, by overexpression of the fully spliced and the alternatively spliced SVP transcripts. For most of the AS events we were able to formulate hypotheses about the potential impact on the interaction capabilities of the encoded MIKC protein

Duale Ausbildung zukunftsfähig gestalten: Flexibilität und Durchlässigkeit in der Berufsausbildung erhöhen

Das duale System sichert eine hochwertige und bedarfsgerechte Facharbeiterqualifikation in Deutschland durch seine Kombination von Arbeit und Lernen. Die betriebliche Ausbildung jedoch bereitet nur noch einen geringer werdenden Teil junger Menschen auf ihr Erwerbsleben vor. Die zunehmende Attraktivität akademischer Bildungsgänge einerseits, hohe Schwellen zum Einstieg in anerkannte Ausbildungsberufe andererseits haben dazu beigetragen, dass die Aufnahmefähigkeit des dualen Systems der Berufsbildung in Deutschland abnimmt. Nicht zuletzt die hohen Zahlen von "Altbewerbern" in einem unübersichtlichen Puzzle von Maßnahmen im "Übergangssystem" legen Zeugnis ab von der sinkenden Integrationskraft dieses Systems in seiner gegenwärtigen Verfasstheit. Angesichts demografiebedingt abnehmender Bewerberzahlen bei zugleich steigendem Fachkräftebedarf, eines beschleunigten Wandels von Qualifikationsanforderungen an betrieblichen Arbeitsplätzen und der entsprechend veränderten Arbeitsmarktanforderungen stehen mit dem "Lernort Betrieb" zugleich das duale System selbst und seine Leistungsfähigkeit für den Wirtschaftsstandort auf dem Prüfstand. Gelingt es nicht, betriebliche Ausbildung besser für Betriebe wie Jugendliche zu erschließen, wird die zentrale Rolle der "Dualität" schulischer und betrieblicher Ausbildung für die Berufsausbildung in Deutschland beeinträchtigt. Der folgende Beitrag geht der Frage nach, wie durch eine Neugestaltung der Ausbildungs- und Berufelandschaft mehr Betriebe an Ausbildung herangeführt und bisher brachliegende Potenziale für eine duale Ausbildung erschlossen werden können. Die Darstellung stützt sich auf zentrale Ergebnisse der Expertise zur "Berufsbildung 2015", in der Berufsbildungsexperten und Akteure der verschiedenen "Interessengruppen" des Berufsbildungssystems Entwicklungsperspektiven für das duale System untersucht haben (Bertelsmann Stiftung 2009)