Selected topics in probiotics and prebiotics: meeting report for the 2004 international scientific association for probiotics and prebiotics

On August 2931, 2004, 84 academic and industry scientists from 16 countries gathered in Copper Mountain, Colorado USA to discuss certain issues at the forefront of the science of probiotics and prebiotics. The format for this invitation only meeting included six featured lectures: engineering human vaginal lactobacilli to express HIV inhibitory molecules (Peter Lee, Stanford University), programming the gut for health (Thaddeus Stappenbeck, Washington University School of Medicine), immune modulation by intestinal helminthes (Joel Weinstock, University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics), hygiene as a cause of autoimmune disorders (G. A. Rook, University College London), prebiotics and bone health (Connie Weaver, Purdue University) and prebiotics and colorectal cancer risk (Ian Rowland, Northern Ireland Centre for Food and Health). In addition, all participants were included in one of eight discussion groups on the topics of engineered probiotics, host-commensal bacteria communication, 'omics' technologies, hygiene and immune regulation, biomarkers for healthy people, prebiotic and probiotic applications to companion animals, development of a probiotic dossier, and physiological relevance of prebiotic activity. Brief conclusions from these discussion groups are summarized in this paper.

‘Did Ronald McDonald also tend to scare you as a child?’: working to emplace consumption, commodities, and citizen-students in a large classroom setting

So-called ‘radical’ and ‘critical’ pedagogy seems to be everywhere these days on the landscapes of geographical teaching praxis and theory. Part of the remit of radical/critical pedagogy involves a de-centring of the traditional ‘banking’ method of pedagogical praxis. Yet, how do we challenge this ‘banking’ model of knowledge transmission in both a large-class setting and around the topic of commodity geographies where the banking model of information transfer still holds sway? This paper presents a theoretically and pedagogically driven argument, as well as a series of practical teaching ‘techniques’ and tools—mind-mapping and group work—designed to promote ‘deep learning’ and a progressive political potential in a first-year large-scale geography course centred around lectures on the Geographies of Consumption and Material Culture. Here students are not only asked to place themselves within and without the academic materials and other media but are urged to make intimate connections between themselves and their own consumptive acts and the commodity networks in which they are enmeshed. Thus, perhaps pedagogy needs to be emplaced firmly within the realms of research practice rather than as simply the transference of research findings.

Linking classroom learning and research to advance ideas about social-ecological resilience

There is an increasing demand in higher education institutions for training in complex environmental problems. Such training requires a careful mix of conventional methods and innovative solutions, a task not always easy to accomplish. In this paper we review literature on this theme, highlight relevant advances in the pedagogical literature, and report on some examples resulting from our recent efforts to teach complex environmental issues. The examples range from full credit courses in sustainable development and research methods to project-based and in-class activity units. A consensus from the literature is that lectures are not sufficient to fully engage students in these issues. A conclusion from the review of examples is that problem-based and project-based, e.g., through case studies, experiential learning opportunities, or real-world applications, learning offers much promise. This could greatly be facilitated by online hubs through which teachers, students, and other members of the practitioner and academic community share experiences in teaching and research, the way that we have done here.

Rawls and Rousseau: 'amour-propre' and the strains of commitment

In this paper I try to illuminate the Rawlsian architectonic through an interpretation of what Rawls’ Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy say about Rousseau. I argue that Rawls’ emphasis there when discussing Rousseau on interpreting amour-propre so as to make it compatible with a life in at least some societies draws attention to, and helps explicate, an analogous feature of his own work, the strains of commitment broadly conceived. Both are centrally connected with protecting a sense of self which is vital for one’s own agency. This allows us to appreciate better than much of the literature presently does the requirement for Rawls that justice and the good are congruent, that a society of justice does not disfigure citizens’ ability to live out lives relatively unmarked by relations of domination. Some comments on G. A. Cohen’s critiques of Rawls are made.

Flipped classroom and learning strategies

This paper seeks to answer the research question "How does the flipped classroom affect students’ learning strategies?" In e-learning research, several studies have focused on how students and teachers perceive the flipped classroom approach. In general, these studies have reported pleasing results. Nonetheless, few, if any, studies have attempted to find out the potential effects of the flipped classroom approach on how students learn. This study was based on two cases: 1) a business modelling course and 2) a research methodology course. In both cases, participating students were from information systems courses at Dalarna University in Sweden. Recorded lectures replaced regular lectures. The recorded lectures were followed by seminars that focused on the learning content of each lecture in various ways. Three weeks after the final seminar, we arranged for two focus group interviews to take place in each course, with 8 to 10 students participating in each group. We asked open questions on how the students thought they had been affected and more dedicated questions that were generated from a literature study on the effects of flipped classroom courses. These questions dealt with issues about mobility, the potential for repeating lectures, formative feedback, the role of seminars, responsibility, empowerment, lectures before seminars, and any problems encountered. Our results show that, in general, students thought differently about learning after the courses in relation to more traditional approaches, especially regarding the need to be more active. Most students enjoyed the mobility aspect and the accessibility of recorded lectures, although a few claimed it demanded a more disciplined attitude. Most students also expressed a feeling of increased activity and responsibility when participating in seminars. Some even felt empowered because they could influence seminar content. The length of and possibility to navigate in recorded lectures was also considered important. The arrangement of the seminar rooms should promote face-to-face discussions. Finally, the types of questions and tasks were found to affect the outcomes of the seminars. The overall conclusion with regard to students’ learning strategies is that to be an active, responsible, empowered, and critical student you have to be an informed student with possibilities and mandate to influence how, where and when to learn and be able to receive continuous feedback during the learning process. Flipped classroom can support such learning.

Some mathematical aspects and scattering amplitudes in the pure spinor formalism

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Husserl's two notions of completeness: husserl and hilbert on completeness and imaginary elements in mathematics

In this paper I discuss Husserl's solution of the problem of imaginary elements in mathematics as presented in the drafts for two lectures he gave in Göttingen in 1901 and other related texts of the same period, a problem that had occupied Husserl since the beginning of 1890, when he was planning a never published sequel to Philosophie der Arithmetik (1891). In order to solve the problem of imaginary entities Husserl introduced, independently of Hilbert, two notions of completeness (definiteness in Husserl's terminology) for a formal axiomatic system. I present and discuss these notions here, establishing also parallels between Husserl's and Hilbert's notions of completeness. © 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Dilthey: The hermeneutics of life and the universal aspirations of pedagogy

Dilthey claimed that first psychology and then hermeneutics played the foundational role for his philosophy of life, whose main practical goal is to develop a pedagogy or theory of education. Pedagogy needs help from h ethics to establish its ends, and from psychology to indicate it means. This paper intends to show the relationship between Dilthey's hermeneutics of life and his pedagogy. Dilthey's philosophy of life, in so far it adopts the hermeneutical procedure, engages in the understanding of or the search for the meaning of human socio-historical creations, by adopting a special type of relationship between parts and whole. It is exactly within this hermeneutical balance that we propose to extinguish any indication of a rupture, breach, or contradiction between the quest for universal principles of human behavior and :Dilthey's defense of the impossibility of constructing human moral tasks by means of universal principles. Dilthey began his ethics lectures at the University of Berlin in 1890. These lectures, published in 1958 by Herman Nohl in volume X of Dilthey's collected works, indicate the direction of the trajectory by which formative or social ethics are consolidated as a historical solution for reaching universal principles that can guide human purposes. This trajectory is a result of the distinctively human exercise of self-reflection, by means of which we can fulfill our destiny of manifesting and exteriorizing in time the immanent energy of the absolute spirit. We wish to show that it is possible that such a pedagogy can respect its universal task of orienting the historical development of the younger generation without directing this process by means of fixed and rigid aims.

Spiritist Psychiatric Hospitals in Brazil: Integration of Conventional Psychiatric Treatment and Spiritual Complementary Therapy

In Brazil, during the XX century, dozens of Spiritist psychiatric hospitals emerged seeking to integrate conventional medical treatment with complementary spiritual therapy. This combined inpatient treatment is largely found in Brazil, where many psychiatric hospitals stem from the Spiritist movement. The present report describes the use of these spiritual practices, their operating structure, health professionals involved, modalities of care, and institutional difficulties in integrating spiritual practices with conventional treatment in six leading Brazilian Spiritist psychiatric hospitals. These hospitals combine conventional psychiatric treatment with voluntary-based spiritual approaches such as laying on of hands ("fluidotherapy"), lectures regarding spiritual and ethical issues, intercessory prayer, spirit release therapy ("disobsession") and "fraternal dialogue". The non-indoctrination and optional nature of these spiritual complementary therapies seem to increase acceptance among patients and their family members. In conclusion, the Spiritist psychiatric hospitals in Brazil have, for more than half a century, provided an integrative approach in the treatment of psychiatric disorders, associating conventional and spiritual treatments, more specifically Spiritist therapy. The lack of standardized treatment protocols and scientific studies remain a barrier to assessing the impact of this integrative approach on patients' mental health, quality of life, adherence, and perceived quality of treatment.

Generating multiple random exams using mathematica package and LATEX

[EN]In the framework of the European Higher Education Area, the assessment has been one of the most important aspects considered. In the Spanish Universities, one of the main differences with regard to the previous system is the incorporation of the continuous assessment to the evaluation process that is understood in several ways depending on the Universities, the courses and the lecturers. Focus on our context, a course of Mathematics of the first academic year in the Faculty of Business Administration at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain), the continuous assessment has brought the preparation of a large amount of different tests to evaluate the students enrolled in it, therefore the incorporation of new tools and skills in order to make the teaching–learning process easier and more dynamic has become a need mainly in those degrees with a large number of students as the case we consider here. In this work we provide an efficient and effective way to elaborate random multiple-choice examina tion tests (although essay exams are also possible) by using Mathematica package and LATEXin order to make easier to the lectures the preparation of a large number of mid-term tests for a large number of students.

Channels and transporters. Mini-symposium of the Division of Medicinal Chemistry (DMC) of the Swiss Chemical Society (SCS) at the Department of Chemistry, University of Basel, May 27, 2010

During a half-day symposium, the topic 'Channels and Transporters' was covered with five lectures, including a presentation on 'Introduction and Basics of Channels and Transporters' by Beat Ernst, lectures on structure, function and physiology of channels and transporters ('The Structural Basis for Ion Conduction and Gating in Pentameric Ligand-Gated Ion Channels' by Raimund Dutzler and 'Uptake and Efflux Transporters for Endogenous Substances and for Drugs' by Dietrich Keppler), and a case study lecture on 'Avosentan' by Werner Neidhart. The program was completed by Matthias Hediger who introduced to the audience the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR)-TransCure in his lecture entitled 'From Transport Physiology to Identification of Therapeutic Targets'.

Pathomorphology and treatment of femoroacetabular impingement

Femoroacetabular impingement is recognized as a major cause of hip pain and early hip joint osteoarthritis in young adults. The dynamic conflict between the femoral neck and the acetabular rim has been shown to result in labral tears, cartilage lesions, and early osteoarthritis. To be successful, the treatment strategy should address the underlying pathomorphology at the femoral neck, the acetabulum, or both. An overview of the various pathomorphologies leading to femoroacetabular impingement and a treatment algorithm intended to preserve the native hip joint should be helpful to the orthopaedic surgeon treating patients with this condition.