Investigating One Science Teacher’s Inquiry Unit Through an Integrated Analysis: The Scientific Practices Analysis (SPA)-Map and the Mathematics and Science Classroom Observation Profile System (M-SCOPS)

Since the 1950s, inquiry has been considered an effective strategy to promote students’ science learning. However, the use of inquiry in contemporary science classrooms is minimal, despite its long history and wide recognition elsewhere. Besides, inquiry is commonly confused with discovery learning, which needs minimal level of teacher supervision. The lack of thorough description of how inquiry works in diverse classroom settings is known to be a critical problem. To analyze the complex and dynamic nature of inquiry practices, a comprehensive tool is needed to capture its essence. In this dissertation, I studied inquiry lessons conducted by one high school science teacher of 9th grade students. The inquiry sequence lasted for 10 weeks. Using the Scientific Practices Analysis (SPA)-map and the Mathematics and Science Classroom Observation Profile System (M-SCOPS), elements of inquiry were analyzed from multiple perspectives. The SPA-map analysis, developed as a part of this dissertation, revealed the types of scientific practices in which students were involved. The results from the M-SCOPS provide thorough descriptions of complex inquiry lessons in terms of their content, flow, instructional scaffolding and representational scaffolding. In addition to the detailed descriptions of daily inquiry practices occurring in a dynamic classroom environment, the flow of the lessons in a sequence was analyzed with particular focus on students’ participation in scientific practices. The findings revealed the overall increase of student-directed instructional scaffolding within the inquiry sequence, while no particular pattern was found in representational scaffolding. Depending on the level of cognitive complexity imposed on students, the lessons showed different association patterns between the level of scaffolding and scientific practices. The findings imply that teachers need to provide scaffolding in alignment with learning goals to achieve students’ scientific proficiency

Investigating One Science Teacher’s Inquiry Unit Through an Integrated Analysis: The Scientific Practices Analysis (SPA)-Map and the Mathematics and Science Classroom Observation Profile System (M-SCOPS)

Since the 1950s, inquiry has been considered an effective strategy to promote students’ science learning. However, the use of inquiry in contemporary science classrooms is minimal, despite its long history and wide recognition elsewhere. Besides, inquiry is commonly confused with discovery learning, which needs minimal level of teacher supervision. The lack of thorough description of how inquiry works in diverse classroom settings is known to be a critical problem. To analyze the complex and dynamic nature of inquiry practices, a comprehensive tool is needed to capture its essence. In this dissertation, I studied inquiry lessons conducted by one high school science teacher of 9th grade students. The inquiry sequence lasted for 10 weeks. Using the Scientific Practices Analysis (SPA)-map and the Mathematics and Science Classroom Observation Profile System (M-SCOPS), elements of inquiry were analyzed from multiple perspectives. The SPA-map analysis, developed as a part of this dissertation, revealed the types of scientific practices in which students were involved. The results from the M-SCOPS provide thorough descriptions of complex inquiry lessons in terms of their content, flow, instructional scaffolding and representational scaffolding. In addition to the detailed descriptions of daily inquiry practices occurring in a dynamic classroom environment, the flow of the lessons in a sequence was analyzed with particular focus on students’ participation in scientific practices. The findings revealed the overall increase of student-directed instructional scaffolding within the inquiry sequence, while no particular pattern was found in representational scaffolding. Depending on the level of cognitive complexity imposed on students, the lessons showed different association patterns between the level of scaffolding and scientific practices. The findings imply that teachers need to provide scaffolding in alignment with learning goals to achieve students’ scientific proficiency

Identification of potential biomarkers for diagnosis of pancreatic and biliary tract cancers by sequencing of serum microRNAs

Background Pancreatic and biliary tract cancer (PC and BTC, respectively) are difficult to diagnose because of their clinical characteristics; however, recent studies suggest that serum microRNAs (miRNAs) might be the key to developing more efficient diagnostic methods for these cancers. Methods We analysed the genome-wide expression of serum miRNAs in PC and BTC patients to identify novel biomarker candidates using high-throughput sequencing and experimentally validated miRNAs on clinical samples. Results Statistical and classification analysis of the serum miRNA-expression profiles of 55 patient samples showed distinguishable patterns between cancer patients and healthy controls; however, we were unable to distinguish the two cancers. We found that three of the highest performing miRNAs were capable of distinguishing cancer patients from controls, with an accuracy of 92.7%. Additionally, dysregulation of these three cancer-specific miRNAs was demonstrated in an independent sample group by quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. Conclusions These results suggested three candidate serum miRNAs (mir-744-5p, mir-409-3p, and mir-128-3p) as potential biomarkers for PC and BTC diagnosis.This work was supported by the Post-Genome Technology Development Program. (No. 10040174; Multiple biomarker development through validation of useful markers generated by next-generation bio-data-based genome research) funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy (MOTIE, Korea). The funders had no role in study design, data collection, analysis and interpretation of data, or in the writing of the manuscript

Product design outsourcing in a supply chain: impact of the design and conformance quality trade-off

© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.In many industries, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have been practicing production outsourcing to specialized manufacturing firms called contract manufacturers (CMs). Recently, with the growing research and development capabilities of CMs, OEMs have begun to delegate both product design and manufacturing to CMs. However, due to the design and conformance quality trade-off, it may be challenging for OEMs to achieve competitive levels of product quality by sending the total design and manufacturing to CMs. An increase in the level of product design quality with new technologies can decrease the level of product conformance quality with increased defects. Thus motivated, this study investigates the impact of the quality trade-off on the outsourcing decisions of OEMs. We consider a supply chain with an OEM and a CM facing the quality trade-off and analyze when the OEM benefits from product design outsourcing to the CM. Interestingly, we find that the interaction between the two quality types fosters the merit of OEM’s design outsourcing. This result suggests that CMs under design outsourcing actually can strike a good balance between the two quality levels. To promote CMs’ investment in design quality more widely, we propose an incentive-based contract and show that it can effectively enhance the benefit of design outsourcing for OEMs and CMs.N

Transformation of K(2)Sb(8)Q(13) and KSb(5)Q(8) Bulk Crystals to Sb(2)Q(3) (Q = S, Se) Nanofibers by Acid-Base Solution Chemistry

The ability to manipulate crystal structures using kineticcontrolis of broad interest because it enables the design of materials withstructures, compositions, and morphologies that may otherwise be unattainable.Herein, we report the low-temperature structural transformation ofbulk inorganic crystals driven by hard-soft acid-base(HSAB) chemistry. We show that the three-dimensional framework K(2)Sb(8)Q(13) and layered KSb(5)Q(8) (Q = S, Se, and Se/S solid solutions) compounds transformto one-dimensional Sb(2)Q(3) nano/microfibers inN(2)H(4)& BULL;H2O solution by releasingQ(2-) and K+ ions. At 100 & DEG;C and ambientpressure, a transformation process takes place that leads to significantstructural changes in the materials, including the formation and breakageof covalent bonds between Sb and Q. Despite the insolubility of thestarting crystals in N2H4 & BULL;H2O under the given conditions, the mechanism of this transformationcan be rationalized by applying the HSAB principle. By adjusting factorssuch as the reactants' acid/base properties, temperature, andpressure, the process can be controlled, allowing for the achievementof a wide range of optical band gaps (ranging from 1.14 to 1.59 eV)while maintaining the solid solution nature of the anion sublatticein the Sb(2)Q(3) nanofibers.N

Production of Metal-Free C, N Alternating Nanoplatelets and Their In Vivo Fluorescence Imaging Performance without Labeling

The use of luminescent probes with proper optical and morphological properties, high serum stability, low cytotoxicity, and good biocompatibility is a cost-effective method for bioimaging. In this work, a route is developed to produce a novel bioimaging probe framework. A C(3)N(4)material (UCN-H) is produced by thermal condensation of urea under humidified air treatment. Chemical characterizations reveal that the UCN-H contains C(3)N(4)networks with smaller grain sizes and more amine-based functionalities at the edges than UCN, which is separately produced without the humidified air treatment. Highly stable aqueous dispersions including fluorescent C(3)N(4)nanoplatelets are generated by sonication of the UCN-H powder. The photoluminescence (PL), time resolved-PL, and 2D excitation-emission spectra of the dispersions show that the UCN-H has less-intra bandgap traps and longer PL lifetime than UCN. In confocal microscopic study using the nanoplatelets, clear fluorescent cell images are obtained without any cytosolic aggregation. In in vivo imaging studies with MDA-MB-231 tumor-bearing mice models, persistently strong fluorescence signals are successfully observed on tumor lesions without any interference of autofluorescence from live tissues after their accumulation by passive tumor targeting. Ex vivo biodistribution and histology results are well-matched with in vivo fluorescence imaging results.