Personal Meaning Mapping (PMM): A Qualitative Research Method for Museum Education

Qualitative research in education has been widely conducted in the West and settled as a research method in Korea. There has been a lot of qualitative research in museum education; however, only a little has been done in the field of museum education. Hence, this paper introduces 'Personal Meaning Mapping (PMM)' as a qualitative research method for museum education, and endeavours to discuss its theoretical background and its strengths and weaknesses. PMM was developed by John F. Falk and his colleagues in 1998 in order to assess the impact of educational experiences on individual learning. Originally, PMM was derived from Concept Mapping devised by Joseph Novak in 1970s, which was criticised by Falk for its complexity and positivism. The data collection process of PMM involves two open-ended interviews, before and after the educational experience. Participants are given a blank paper with a prompt (a key word) written on it, and invited to write or draw anything the word reminds them of. Once completed, they are asked to make amendments to the responses or add more information. PMM analyses the responses along with four semi-independent dimensions: Extent, Breadth, Depth and Mastery. First three dimensions are an independent measure and the last dimension is a holistic analysis. PMM data can be interpreted within and across individuals. This analysis is useful to illustrate the learning outcomes from the same educational experiences across the different learners. PMM is also applicable to longitudinal studies. The strengths of PMM are easiness, flexibility, ethicality and abundance of data. Given the short history of PMM, this method is still under development and has weakness to amend. Therefore, it is recommended that each researcher adapt the method according to their own needs for further development

Etymology and Educational Implication of the Term of ‘Museum(博物館)’ in Europe and East Asia

The purpose of this paper is to examine the educational implication in the term, ‘museum(博物館)’, in Europe and East Asia. This paper endeavours to trace the etymological history of the terms respectively. In Europe, the ‘museum’ was originated from ‘Mouseion (Μουσειόν)’, the ancient Greek temple where art objects were known to be displayed. In the Roma era, this term was translated into Latin as ‘Museum’. Given that the Roman Museum played a different role from current museums, the term is more an etymological origin rather than the functional origin of the modern institution. However, the Greco-Roman ‘museums’ had an educational role such as teaching and research which is common to the museum of today. During the Renaissance, the term, museum, started to be related to the collection of art works, and, the Ashmolean Museum in the seventeenth century England became the first example of using the term as a modern institutional concept. On the other hand, ‘Bakmoolgwan(博物館, museum)’, the term commonly used in Korea, China and Japan, was originated from Japan in 1860 and introduced in Korea in 1876 by Ki‐Soo Kim in his book, “the Observation Report (修信使日記)”. However, the word ‘Bakmool(博物)’ was originated from the Chinese ancient literatures such as “Chun Qiu Zuo Dian (春秋左傳)”. The word ‘Bakmool(博物)’ is a combination of two words ‘extensive (博)’ and ‘matter (物)’; however, the whole word tends to mainly refer to ‘wide knowledge’ than ‘many objects’ in Chinese and Japanese. In other words, the core concept of the word ‘Bakmool (博物)’ would be ‘knowledge’ rather than ‘objects’. Therefore, given the etymology of the term, museum (博物館) should be understood in relation to knowledge than objects and the role of the museum should be emphasised in regard to ‘research and education’ rather than ‘the collection’

History of Museum and Gallery Education in Europe and America

Museum education can be defined as a combination of the function of the museum and nature of education and occurs in the museum which is an institution and venue for learning. This book makes a distinction between the institutions established before and after the seventeenth century, and goes on to define the pre-seventeenth century institutions which were etymologically or functionally related to the museum as ‘pseudo-museums’. Then, the book explores the development of the museum education and related discussions in Europe and America. From the Ancient times to the Renaissance, various kinds of pseudo-museums such as mouseion, temples and churches conducted the educational role of the modern museums. After Renaissance, 'early museums' such as "cabinet of curiosities" appeared. During the seventeenth century, when the Enlightenment prevailed, actual museums started to be established and museum education was initiated. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, education became the key function of the museum due to the emergence of the public museums. However, the educational function of the museum had been reduced from the early twentieth century, and in the mid-twentieth century, museum education was degraded as part of sub-function of the museum. The importance of museum education had re-emerged during the 1960s, and since the 1990s education has recovered its status as a pivotal function of the museum. In the twenty-first century, the field of museum education has been expanding in quantity and quality, and various theories and practices have been developed in order to provide greater number of visitors with broader experience in the museum. In the West, museum education has been expanded and developed, and has remained as a key function of the museum throughout the history despite the difference in content

Anti-diabetic effect of Cyclo-His-Pro (CHP)-enriched yeast hydrolysate in streptozotocin-induced diabetic mice

The present study was designed to investigate the hypoglycemic effects of the daily oral dose of 0.50 to 0.75 g/kg of yeast hydrolysate (YH) containing high Cyclo-His-Pro (51.0 mg CHP/g YH) on normal and streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats for 14 days. In STZ-induced diabetic rats, after administrations of the YH for 14 days, the body weight gain was significantly increased in dose dependent manner, and the plasma glucose levels were decreased approximately (60%) as compared to the STZ induced diabetic control group. Glucose level showed significant differences between the diabetic control (DC) and the YH administered groups in oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) (P<0.05). Results of the OGTT showed a significant decrease in the area under curve (AUC) value of YH supplemented groups as compared to the DC group. The present data suggests that the CHP-enriched YH has potential anti-diabetic effect, which can help in the cure and management of diabetes.Keywords: Yeast hydrolysate, Cyclo-His-Pro (CHP), diabetes, streptozotocin.African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(35), pp. 5473-547

Antibiotic resistance mechanisms inform discovery: identification and characterization of a novel amycolatopsis strain producing ristocetin.

Discovering new antibiotics is a major scientific challenge, made increasingly urgent by the continued development of resistance in bacterial pathogens. A fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of bacterial antibiotic resistance will be vital for the future discovery or design of new, more effective antibiotics. We have exploited our intimate knowledge of the molecular mechanism of glycopeptide antibiotic resistance in the harmless bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor to develop a new two-step cell wall bioactivity screen, which efficiently identified a new actinomycete strain containing a previously uncharacterized glycopeptide biosynthetic gene cluster. The screen first identifies natural product extracts capable of triggering a generalized cell wall stress response and then specifically selects for glycopeptide antibacterials by assaying for the induction of glycopeptide resistance genes. In this study, we established a diverse natural product extract library from actinomycete strains isolated from locations with widely varying climates and ecologies, and we screened them using the novel two-step bioassay system. The bioassay ultimately identified a single strain harboring the previously unidentified biosynthetic gene cluster for the glycopeptide ristocetin, providing a proof of principle for the effectiveness of the screen. This is the first report of the ristocetin biosynthetic gene cluster, which is predicted to include some interesting and previously uncharacterized enzymes. By focusing on screening libraries of microbial extracts, this strategy provides the certainty that identified producer strains are competent for growth and biosynthesis of the detected glycopeptide under laboratory conditions.This work was supported by funding from the Royal Society, UK (516002.K5877/ROG), the Medical Research council, UK (G0700141) and St. John’s College, University of CambridgeThis the the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from ASM at http://aac.asm.org/content/early/2014/07/09/AAC.03349-14.abstract

Glutathione S-transferase pi (GST-pi) inhibition and anti-inflammation activity of the ethyl acetate extract of Streptomyces sp. strain MJM 8637

AbstractTo investigate the anti-cancer properties of soil-borne actinobacteria, MJM 8637, the glutathione S-transferase pi (GST-pi) assay, anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α assay, the level of antioxidant potential by DPPH radical scavenging activity, NO scavenging activity, and ABTS radical scavenging activity in ethyl acetate extract were determined. The 16S rDNA sequencing analysis revealed that Streptomyces sp. strain MJM 8637, which was isolated from Hambak Mountain, Korea, has 99.5% similarity to Streptomyces atratus strain NBRC 3897. The physiological and the morphological characteristics of the strain MJM 8637 were also identified. The ethyl acetate extract of MJM 8637 inhibited TNF-α production approximately 61.8% at concentration 100μg/ml. The IC50 value of the strain MJM 8637 extract on GST-pi was identified to be 120.2±1.6μg/ml. In DPPH, NO, and ABTS radical scavenging assays, the IC50 values of the strain MJM 8637 extract were found to be 977.2μg/ml, 1143.7μg/ml, and 454.4μg/ml, respectively. The ethyl acetate extract of the strain MJM 8637 showed 97.2±1.3% of cell viability at 100μg/ml in RAW 264.7 cell viability assay. The results obtained from this study suggest that the ethyl acetate extract of Streptomyces sp. strain MJM 8637 could be considered as a potential source of drug for the cancers that have multidrug resistance with its GST-pi inhibition and anti-inflammation activities, and low cytotoxicity