Enhancing students’ experimental planning competences by introducing and evaluating the IS4O teaching approach

ABSTRACT

We herein report the introduction of the IS⁴O (Improving Students’ Scientific Skills by Using Scaffolding Outlines) teaching approach and its implementation to successfully empower students with initial minor planning competences in mastering complex scientific challenges in the course of Germany’s most-renowned scientific competitions. The IS⁴O teaching approach itself comprises the unique combination of the differentiating teaching methods Backward Planning and Project Mapping as core teaching elements. The beneficial effect of the IS⁴O teaching approach on the enhancement of the students planning competences is also discussed. Based on the given results, this teaching approach is mandatory to empower students with initial minor competences in completing a scientific competition successfully with very high assignment of tasks.     

研究生在基础与临床相结合科研项目中培养方法的几点思考

随着我国科研创新的开展与推进,学生进入实际科研项目已逐渐成为研究生培养的重要方式。基础与,临床相结合的科研项目立论均来自于临床问题,把在患者身上无法实现的方法通过基础实验的手段加以实施和验证,从而达到发现和揭示病因与发病机制的目的,结果甚或对临床产生指导意义。首都医科大学病理与病理生理学系研究生培养点结合这类研究项目的推进,在规范的方法和流程中引导和培养研究生从临床现象中设问、从海量数据中分析和论证的能力,并通过这些训练,使研究生为进一步深入研究奠定基础,共同为转化医学研究做出贡献。     

Mapping Cod: Fisheries Science,Fish Harvesters’ Ecological Knowledge and Cod Migrations in the Northern Gulf of St. Lawrence

Some recent scholarship has focused on integrating local and/or traditional knowledge with conventional scientific information in fisheries management to improve the factual foundation of and strengthen support for management decisions. This article compares a sequence of historical and contemporary scientific texts and maps about the migrations and stock structure of cod in the Northern Gulf of St. Lawrence with texts and maps generated by the authors through the collection, aggregation and interpretation of commercial fish harvesters’ ecological knowledge. We find that the relationship between fisheries science and harvesters’ ecological knowledge is dynamic and has changed over time, and that both are ‘situated’ socially and ecologically. Overall, each paints an incomplete picture of cod movements and stock structure but the knowledge of harvesters provides a valuable complement to scientific information, particularly at the local scale, and has the potential to contribute to the identification of local cod stocks that are new to science and management. We end by considering how this case study informs the larger discussion about the challenges and potential benefits of the so-called integration project to bring together science and the ecological knowledge of fish harvesters.

洞庭湖区重引入麋鹿的可行性研究

洞庭湖湖区湿地是麋鹿（Elaphurus davidianus)的古栖息地。为了使麋鹿重返洞庭湖,2000－2001年,我们考察了湖北石首天鹅洲麋鹿自然保护区,北京麋鹿苑和江苏大丰麋鹿自然保护区的麋鹿种群,勘察洞庭湖区岳阳市,常德市和益阳市的10处洲滩,发现湖南汉寿县枝桔林垸,华容县集成垸与湖北天鹅洲麋鹿自然保护区的自然条件相似,是洞庭湖区麋鹿重引入的适宜地点。于是,我们对桔林垸和集成垸的自然条件和动植物资源等进行了调查,并对麋鹿喜食植物的生物量进行了抽样调查,确定了环境容纳量。集成垸的植被有3个植被型组,有维管植物75科189属264种,可用于放养麋鹿的面积为2000hm^2,麋鹿夏季喜食植物有50种,其鲜重21158．4吨,麋鹿环境容纳量为1000余头。桔林垸在1998年退田还湖后,天然植被恢复很快,其植被类型有3个植被型组,有维管植物75科189属250余种,具有麋鹿夏季喜食的植物52种,其鲜重达18859．0吨,可供9408余头麋鹿生存。其适合放养麋鹿面积为1703．1hm^2,环境容纳量在850头麋鹿以上。无论从气候还是从食物,环境容纳量来看,桔林垸和集成垸均适合重新引入麋鹿。本文讨论了再引入麋鹿的人类协助性措施。保证生存空间,防治疾病,生境改造和种群与生境监测等,以期最终在洞庭湖湿地恢复麋鹿自然种群。     

An Assessment of a Small Urban Stream Restoration Project in Northern California

Stream restoration projects have become increasingly common, and the need for systematic post‐project evaluation, particularly for small‐scale projects, is evident. This study describes how a 70‐m restored reach of a small urban stream, Baxter Creek (in Poinsett Park, El Cerrito, California), was quickly and inexpensively evaluated using habitat, biological, and resident‐attitude assessments. The restoration involved opening a previously culverted channel, planting riparian vegetation, and adding in‐stream step‐pool sequences and sinuosity. Replicated benthic macroinvertebrate samples from the restored site and an upstream unrestored site were compared using several metrics, including taxa richness and a biotic index. Both biological and habitat quality improved in the restored compared with the unrestored section. However, when compared with a creek restored 12 years before, habitat condition was of lower quality in the recently restored creek. A survey of the neighborhood residents indicated that, overall, they were pleased with the restored creek site. The approach used in this demonstration project may be applicable to other small‐scale evaluations of urban stream restorations.     

三峡工程重庆库区民翼手类研究

1996年至1997年,通过对三峡工程重庆库区13个县（区）68个洞穴的考察和标本采集,结合历史资料记述,确认重庆库区共有翼手目动物4科26种。其中8种为重庆市新记录,分别是绒菊头蝠、皮菊头蝠、西南鼠耳蝠、水鼠耳蝠、尖耳鼠耳蝠、大足鼠耳蝠、长折翼蝠和皱唇蝠。研究发现冀手类更喜欢潮湿、低海拔、人类干扰少、洞深在50m以上、周围是农田－草灌的洞穴。     

Biodiversity on the brink: Evaluating a transdisciplinary research collaboration

Global biodiversity is facing an extinction crisis. Australia has one of the highest terrestrial species extinction rates in the world. Scientists, policy advisors and governments have recommended that the issue be addressed at a landscape-scale, while noting that there are significant knowledge gaps that are hampering implementation of such an approach. From 2011–2015, the Australian Government funded a transdisciplinary research program, the Landscapes and Policy Hub, to meet this need. Transdisciplinary research is widely acknowledged as essential to address the complexity of contemporary environmental problems. Given that such research programs are in their infancy, it is important to evaluate their efficacy and provide an empirical basis for improving their design. This paper presents an evaluation of the strategies fostering transdisciplinarity adopted by the Landscapes and Policy Hub. A heavy emphasis on communication, with skilled knowledge brokering, regular face-to-face meetings using participatory activities and shared field engagements enhanced transdisciplinary interaction between researchers and research users. However, establishing a fully integrated interdisciplinary research program remained a challenge. Efforts to enable shared conceptual frameworks to emerge through adaptive application of theory in practice could have been balanced with increased effort at the outset for researchers and research users to collaboratively formulate shared research questions, leading to the establishment of teams that could address these questions through cross-mobilisation of interdisciplinary expertise.     

The different effects of PEG 6000 and NaCI on leaf development are associated with differential inhibition of root water transport

The inhibitory effects of PEG on whole-plant growth can exceed the effects of other osmolytes such as NaCI, and this has been ascribed to toxic contaminants, or to reduced oxygen availability in PEG solutions. We investigated another possibility, namely that PEG has an additional inhibitory effect on root water transport which in turn affects leaf development. The effects on first-leaf growth of applications of PEG 6000 or isoosmotic NaCI to the roots were determined using hydroponically grown maize (Zea mays L.) seedlings. Leaf growth rates were inhibited within minutes of PEG application to the roots and remained inhibited for days. The inhibitory effects on growth of NaCI, and also of KCl and mannitol, were much smaller. The comparative effects of NaCI and PEG on root water transport were determined by assaying pressurized flow through excised roots. PEG induced a 7-fold greater inhibition of flow through live roots than NaCI. Killing of the roots by heat treatment, to reduce cell membrane resistances to solute penetration, nearly doubled the flow rate for roots in NaCI, but not for roots in PEG. We suggest that the greater viscosity of PEG solutions, as compared with NaCI, may be a primary factor contributing to the additional inhibition of water flow through live and killed roots. PEG did not have additional effects on leaf turgor but had a 3 times greater inhibitory effect than NaCI on the irreversible extensibility of the leaves and induced 16 times more leaf accumulation of the growth inhibitory stress hormone abscisic acid (ABA). We conclude that greater inhibition of root water transport by PEG 6000, as compared with NaCI, leads to additional reductions in extensibility, additional ABA accumulation, and a greater inhibition of leaf growth.     

Governance of indigenous policy in the neo-liberal age: indigenous disadvantage and the intersecting of paternalism and neo-liberalism as a racial project

Thinking about the governance of Indigenous poverty as an economic, social and racial project, the paper offers a way of understanding the dynamics of Indigenous policy formation in Australia in the neo-liberal age as what Howard Winant first coined a racial formation. In providing this analysis, this paper sits alongside a small, but growing body of work that reveals the racialized effects of governing through poverty in the neo-liberal age.