Swafoto Kelompok Sebagai Task Design Permutasi pada Pembelajaran Jarak Jauh

Task design atau desain tugas merupakan komponen penting dalam mendorong terjadinya proses belajar matematika. Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk menyusun task design pembelajaran topik permutasi. Penelitian ini melibatkan 80 siswa Sekolah Menengah Atas di Ngabang, Kalimantan Barat pada tanggal 1 Januari sampai 5 Maret 2021. Penelitian ini menggunakan metodologi didactic engineering yang terdiri dari empat tahap yaitu 1) preliminary analysis, (2) design and a priori analysis, (3) implementation, observation, and data collection, dan (4) a posteriori analysis. Task design disusun dengan menggunakan kerangka Teori Situasi Didaktis. Pada setiap tahap, khususnya tahap keempat, data dianalisis secara deskriptif. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa untuk materi permutasi dapat dibuat task design berupa swafoto kelompok. Swafoto kelompok merupakan fundamental situation dalam task design yang dikonstruksi dengan kerangka Teori Situasi Didaktis dan sesuai dengan konteks siswa. Task design ini juga mampu mendorong siswa mengkonstruksi pengetahuannya melalui permasalahan swafoto kelompok. Dalam konteks pembelajaran jarak jauh, pada masa pandemi ini, swafoto kelompok merupakan bentuk task design yang kontekstual dan mendorong siswa terlibat aktif karena sifatnya personal. Hasil penelitian ini juga menunjukkan potensi dan penggunaan Teori Situasi Didaktis sebagai kerangka task design pada topik permutasi di Sekolah Menengah Atas.

Computational models in the service of X-ray and cryo-EM structure determination

CASP (Critical Assessment of Structure prediction) conducts community experiments to determine the state of the art in computing protein structure from amino acid sequence. The process relies on the experimental community providing information about not yet public or about to be solved structures, for use as targets. For some targets, the experimental structure is not solved in time for use in CASP. Calculated structure accuracy improved dramatically in this round, implying that models should now be much more useful for resolving many sorts of experimental difficulty. To test this, selected models for seven unsolved targets were provided to the experimental groups. These models were from the AlphaFold2 group, who overall submitted the most accurate predictions in CASP14. Four targets were solved with the aid of the models, and, additionally, the structure of an already solved target was improved. An a-posteriori analysis showed that in some cases models from other groups would also be effective. This paper provides accounts of the successful application of models to structure determination, including molecular replacement for X-ray crystallography, backbone tracing and sequence positioning in a Cryo-EM structure, and correction of local features. The results suggest that in future there will be greatly increased synergy between computational and experimental approaches to structure determination.

Error Analysis of Nitsche’s and Discontinuous Galerkin Methods of a Reduced Landau–de Gennes Problem

We study a system of semi-linear elliptic partial differential equations with a lower order cubic nonlinear term, and inhomogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions, relevant for two-dimensional bistable liquid crystal devices, within a reduced Landau–de Gennes framework. The main results are (i) a priori error estimates for the energy norm, within the Nitsche’s and discontinuous Galerkin frameworks under milder regularity assumptions on the exact solution and (ii) a reliable and efficient a posteriori analysis for a sufficiently large penalization parameter and a sufficiently fine triangulation in both cases. Numerical examples that validate the theoretical results, are presented separately.

Survey for a Vector of Zika Virus and Two Other Mosquito Species in Four Ecoregions of Missouri: An A Posteriori Analysis

In 2015, Zika emerged as a vector-borne disease in the Americas, causing a variety of health issues ranging from Guillain-Barre syndrome in adults to microcephaly in newborns. Following the documentation of mosquito-borne transmission of the disease in the southern United States, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services contracted with researchers at Missouri State University to complete a survey of possible mosquito vectors of the Zika in the state. The primary vector of the disease, Aedes aegypti, had been reported from Missouri in previous surveys from several decades ago, but a comprehensive survey of the state mosquitoes and never been completed. Researchers focused on mosquitoes that spend the immature stages in artificial containers because this is descriptive of the most important Zika vectors. The large survey over three years provided an opportunity for post hoc analysis of mosquito occurrence data across a variety of ecoregions inside the state, documenting changes in the vector populations as a result of invasive species. The survey also allowed an analysis of different trapping techniques for important species in the state. The results are reported in this chapter along with a discussion of the potential impact on human health of changes to the mosquito population.