scholarly journals Exploring Students’ Descriptions of Mutation from a Cognitive Perspective Suggests How to Modify Instructional Approaches

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. ar45
Author(s):  
FangFang Zhao ◽  
Anita Schuchardt

Prior studies have shown that students have difficulty understanding the role of mutation in evolution and genetics. However, little is known about unifying themes underlying students’ difficulty with mutation. In this study, we examined students’ written explanations about mutation from a cognitive science perspective. According to one cognitive perspective, scientific phenomena can be perceived as entities or processes, and the miscategorization of processes as entities can lead to noncanonical ideas about scientific phenomena that are difficult to change. Students’ incorrect categorization of processes as entities is well documented in physics but has not been studied in biology. Unlike other scientific phenomena that have been studied, the word “mutation” refers to both the process causing a change in the DNA and the entity, the altered DNA, making mutation a relevant concept for exploration and extension of this theory. In this study, we show that, even after instruction on mutation, the majority of students provided entity-focused descriptions of mutation in response to a question that prompted for a process-focused description in a lizard or a bacterial population. Students’ noncanonical ideas about mutation occurred in both entity- and process-focused descriptions. Implications for conceptual understanding and instruction are discussed.

Author(s):  
Wai-Tat Fu ◽  
Jessie Chin ◽  
Q. Vera Liao

Cognitive science is a science of intelligent systems. This chapter proposes that cognitive science can provide useful perspectives for research on technology-mediated human-information interaction (HII) when HII is cast as emergent behaviour of a coupled intelligent system. It starts with a review of a few foundational concepts related to cognitive computations and how they can be applied to understand the nature of HII. It discusses several important properties of a coupled cognitive system and their implication to designs of information systems. Finally, it covers how levels of abstraction have been useful for cognitive science, and how these levels can inform design of intelligent information systems that are more compatible with human cognitive computations.


Author(s):  
Annabel J. Cohen

This chapterexamines how the effects of film music on meaning, memory, and the construction of a reality within a film can be addressed or understood from a cognitive scientific perspective. It reviews studies that aim to explain why music is important to film as well as how music functions in film, and it discusses the principles of cognitive science and cognitive perspective. It also considers the Congruence-Associationist Model for understanding filmmusic, which was developed to account for the fact that the attitudes toward three geometric film characters were affected differently by background music.


Author(s):  
Andrew Williams ◽  
Craig Paterson

Abstract The increase in calls for police reform following the death of George Floyd has led to renewed debate about social inequality and the role of policing in society. Modern bureaucratic police systems emerged from locally administered structures and Anglo-American policing models continue to be aligned, to varying degrees, with the political, socio-cultural, legal, and ideological aspects of contemporary liberal democratic society with its emphasis on democratic localism and decentralised accountability. However, at a time when society is reimagining itself and technology, government, and nations are radically re-shaping themselves, a critical question is whether there is a sufficiently common philosophical and conceptual understanding of policing to support its development rather than just a common understanding of police functions. This is profoundly important when considering the current calls for reform of policing in the USA and other western democratic states. The article argues that there is an urgent need to reconsider how we conceptualize policing and its relationship with social development.


Author(s):  
Rayendra Wahyu Bachtiar ◽  
Ralph F. G. Meulenbroeks ◽  
Wouter R. van Joolingen

AbstractThis article reports on a case study that aims to help students develop mechanistic reasoning through constructing a model based stop-motion animation of a physical phenomenon. Mechanistic reasoning is a valuable thinking strategy for students in trying to make sense of scientific phenomena. Ten ninth-grade students used stop-motion software to create an animation of projectile motion. Retrospective think-aloud interviews were conducted to investigate how the construction of a stop-motion animation induced the students’ mechanistic reasoning. Mechanistic reasoning did occur while the students engaged in creating the animation, in particular chunking and sequencing. Moreover, all students eventually exhibited mechanistic reasoning including abstract concepts, e.g., not directly observable agents. Students who reached the highest level of mechanistic reasoning, i.e., chaining, demonstrated deeper conceptual understanding of content.


Istoriya ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8 (106)) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Natalia Zaitseva

The paper examines the relationship between logic and cognitive science. We consider various aspects of this relationship, among which we distinguish three of the most importance, in our thought. First, it is the role of cognitive science in the justification of logic. Secondly, the mutual influence of cognitive science and modern trends of non-classical logic, which have a clearly applied character. Third, we discuss the prospects of the so-called experimental logic arising from attempts to apply the methods of cognitive science in logic. As usual, the conclusion summarizes the results of the research and focuses on the issue of the status of pure logic.


1985 ◽  
Vol 63 (11) ◽  
pp. 1167-1175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles G. Suhayda ◽  
Alfred Haug

At a molar excess of [citrate]/[aluminum], this organic acid can protect calmodulin from aluminum binding if the metal is presented to the protein in stoichiometric micromolar quantities, as judged by fluorescence and circular dichroism spectroscopy. Similar citrate concentrations are also capable of fully restoring calmodulin's hydrophobic surface exposure to that of the native protein when calmodulin was initially damaged by aluminum binding. Fluoride anions are equally effective in restoring calmodulin's native structure as determined by fluorescence spectroscopy. Measurements of the kinetics of citrate-mediated aluminum removal also indicated that the metal ions are completely removed from calmodulin, consistent with results derived from atomic absorption experiments. On the other hand, results from circular dichroism studies indicated that citrate-mediated aluminum removal from calmodulin can only partially restore the α-helix content to that originally present in apocalmodulin or in calcium–calmodulin, dependent upon the absence or presence of calcium ions. The results that chelators like citrate can protect calmodulin from aluminum injury may provide a conceptual understanding of physiological observations regarding aluminum-tolerant plant species which are generally rich in certain organic acids.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jewel Ju Ea Kim ◽  
Ildikó Kocsmár ◽  
György Miklós Buzás ◽  
Ildikó Szirtes ◽  
Orsolya Rusz ◽  
...  

The global rise in clarithromycin (Cla) resistance is considered to be the main contributor of Helicobacter pylori (Hp) eradication failures. In nearly half of the Cla-resistant Hp infections, Cla-susceptible bacteria are simultaneously present with the Cla-resistant ones (Cla-heteroresistance). The proportion of resistant bacteria in the bacterial population (R-fraction) and its predictive role for the use of Cla-based therapies in Cla-heteroresistant infections has not yet been investigated. Our retrospective study analyzed gastric biopsy samples of 62 Hp-positive patients with Cla-heteroresistant infection. Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization technique was used to visualize the coexistence of resistant and susceptible bacteria within one tissue sample. R-fraction was quantified on multichannel microimages by digital morphometry. Resistant bacteria had a patchy distribution within the whole bacterial population causing high diversity among the investigated areas. Patients were subdivided into two major groups according to whether a Cla-based eradication attempt was conducted before or after the biopsy sampling. R-fraction was significantly lower among cases having only one previous Cla-based eradication attempt vs. those that had multiple previous eradications, including at least one Cla-containing therapy (0.41 vs. 0.89, p = 0.0308). Majority of the patients without previous eradication attempt had successful eradication with Cla-containing regimen (59.26%), verified by a negative 13C-urea breath test or control biopsy. Multivariable model indicated that the therapeutic outcome using Cla-based regimens depended on the bacterial density rather than the R-fraction. Our study raises the potential use of Cla-containing eradication therapies in certain Cla-heteroresistant Hp infections, taking into account the possible predictive role of bacterial density.


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