The learning process as a cooperative task among teachers and students

This research project gathers several ideas and guidelines on professional improvement as a teacher. This study includes two empirical studies. The first one focuses mainly on the teacher's figure. It is meant to be a study of the several resources that the teacher uses in order to construct the student's knowledge in an English classroom context. The second empirical study focuses on the students. It is a study on how students learn cooperatively by analyzing their oral productions when working in small groups

Revisiting the size-R&D productivity relation: introducing the mediating role of decision-making style on the scale and quality of innovative output

We develop a mediation model in which firm size is proposed to affect the scale and quality of innovative output through the adoption of different decision styles during the R&D process. The aim of this study is to understand how the internal changes that firms undergo as they evolve from small to larger organizations affect R&D productivity. In so doing, we illuminate the underlying theoretical mechanism affecting two different dimensions of R&D productivity, namely the scale and quality of innovative output which have not received much attention in previous literature. Using longitudinal data of Spanish manufacturing firms we explore the validity of this mediation model. Our results show that as firms evolve in size, they increasingly emphasize analytical decision making, and consequently, large-sized firms aim for higher-quality innovations while small firms aim for a larger scale of innovative output.

The role of the object and the mourning process in the child

The young child's ability to go through a genuine mourning process has been a source of controversy in the psychoanalytical literature. This may seem surprising, considering that mourning is essential for and inherent to psychic development. This paper attempts to show that the young child's ability to go through a mourning process does not depend mainly on ego maturity, nor just on an acknowledgment of a loss in the external world, nor on the child's understanding the idea of death at an intellectual and cognitive level. But it may depend mainly on the establishment of the primordial mourning process inherent to the separation of the transnarcissistic mother-child relation and on the existence of the objectalizing function (A. Green, 1986) in the remaining or substitute parent's psyche. A clinical example serves to illustrate these hypotheses.

The problem of the competitiveness of nuclear energy: a biophysical explanation

In this study I try to explain the systemic problem of the low economic competitiveness of nuclear energy for the production of electricity by carrying out a biophysical analysis of its production process. Given the fact that neither econometric approaches nor onedimensional methods of energy analyses are effective, I introduce the concept of biophysical explanation as a quantitative analysis capable of handling the inherent ambiguity associated with the concept of energy. In particular, the quantities of energy, considered as relevant for the assessment, can only be measured and aggregated after having agreed on a pre-analytical definition of a grammar characterizing a given set of finite transformations. Using this grammar it becomes possible to provide a biophysical explanation for the low economic competitiveness of nuclear energy in the production of electricity. When comparing the various unit operations of the process of production of electricity with nuclear energy to the analogous unit operations of the process of production of fossil energy, we see that the various phases of the process are the same. The only difference is related to characteristics of the process associated with the generation of heat which are completely different in the two systems. Since the cost of production of fossil energy provides the base line of economic competitiveness of electricity, the (lack of) economic competitiveness of the production of electricity from nuclear energy can be studied, by comparing the biophysical costs associated with the different unit operations taking place in nuclear and fossil power plants when generating process heat or net electricity. In particular, the analysis focuses on fossil-fuel requirements and labor requirements for those phases that both nuclear plants and fossil energy plants have in common: (i) mining; (ii) refining/enriching; (iii) generating heat/electricity; (iv) handling the pollution/radioactive wastes. By adopting this approach, it becomes possible to explain the systemic low economic competitiveness of nuclear energy in the production of electricity, because of: (i) its dependence on oil, limiting its possible role as a carbon-free alternative; (ii) the choices made in relation to its fuel cycle, especially whether it includes reprocessing operations or not; (iii) the unavoidable uncertainty in the definition of the characteristics of its process; (iv) its large inertia (lack of flexibility) due to issues of time scale; and (v) its low power level.

A single LC-tandem mass spectrometry method for the simultaneous determination of 14 antimalarial drugs and their metabolites in human plasma.

Among the various determinants of treatment response, the achievement of sufficient blood levels is essential for curing malaria. For helping us at improving our current understanding of antimalarial drugs pharmacokinetics, efficacy and toxicity, we have developed a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry method (LC-MS/MS) requiring 200mul of plasma for the simultaneous determination of 14 antimalarial drugs and their metabolites which are the components of the current first-line combination treatments for malaria (artemether, artesunate, dihydroartemisinin, amodiaquine, N-desethyl-amodiaquine, lumefantrine, desbutyl-lumefantrine, piperaquine, pyronaridine, mefloquine, chloroquine, quinine, pyrimethamine and sulfadoxine). Plasma is purified by a combination of protein precipitation, evaporation and reconstitution in methanol/ammonium formate 20mM (pH 4.0) 1:1. Reverse-phase chromatographic separation of antimalarial drugs is obtained using a gradient elution of 20mM ammonium formate and acetonitrile both containing 0.5% formic acid, followed by rinsing and re-equilibration to the initial solvent composition up to 21min. Analyte quantification, using matrix-matched calibration samples, is performed by electro-spray ionization-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry by selected reaction monitoring detection in the positive mode. The method was validated according to FDA recommendations, including assessment of extraction yield, matrix effect variability, overall process efficiency, standard addition experiments as well as antimalarials short- and long-term stability in plasma. The reactivity of endoperoxide-containing antimalarials in the presence of hemolysis was tested both in vitro and on malaria patients samples. With this method, signal intensity of artemisinin decreased by about 20% in the presence of 0.2% hemolysed red-blood cells in plasma, whereas its derivatives were essentially not affected. The method is precise (inter-day CV%: 3.1-12.6%) and sensitive (lower limits of quantification 0.15-3.0 and 0.75-5ng/ml for basic/neutral antimalarials and artemisinin derivatives, respectively). This is the first broad-range LC-MS/MS assay covering the currently in-use antimalarials. It is an improvement over previous methods in terms of convenience (a single extraction procedure for 14 major antimalarials and metabolites reducing significantly the analytical time), sensitivity, selectivity and throughput. While its main limitation is investment costs for the equipment, plasma samples can be collected in the field and kept at 4 degrees C for up to 48h before storage at -80 degrees C. It is suited to detecting the presence of drug in subjects for screening purposes and quantifying drug exposure after treatment. It may contribute to filling the current knowledge gaps in the pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics relationships of antimalarials and better define the therapeutic dose ranges in different patient populations.

The Rapakivi texture of feldspars in a plutonic mixing environment - A dissolution-recrystallization process

A new hypothesis is formulated to explain the development of rapakivi texture in and around the mafic enclaves of porphyritic granitoids, i.e. in environments involving magma mixing and mingling. The formation of a plagioclase mantle around alkali feldspar megacrysts is attributed to the localized presence of a melt resulting from the reaction of these megacrysts, with host hybrid magma with which they are in disequilibrium. This feldspathic melt adheres to the resorbed crystals and is virtually immiscible with the surrounding magma. Its composition is modified in terms of the relative proportions of K2O, Na2O, and CaO through selective diffusion of these elements, thus allowing the specific crystallization of andesine. With decreasing temperature, the K-feldspar, again stable, crystallizes along with the plagioclase, leading to mixed mantle structures.

Re-opening the black box in societal metabolism: the application of MuSIASEM to water

In this paper we address the complexity of the analysis of water use in relation to the issue of sustainability. In fact, the flows of water in our planet represent a complex reality which can be studied using many different perceptions and narratives referring to different scales and dimensions of analysis. For this reason, a quantitative analysis of water use has to be based on analytical methods that are semantically open: they must be able to define what we mean with the term “water” when crossing different scales of analysis. We propose here a definition of water as a resource that deal with the many services it provides to humans and ecosystems. WE argue that water can fulfil so many of them since the element has many characteristics that allow for the resource to be labelled with different attributes, depending on the end use –such as drinkable. Since the services for humans and the functions for ecosystems associated with water flows are defined on different scales but still interconnected it is necessary to organize our assessment of water use across different hierarchical levels. In order to do so we define how to approach the study of water use in the Societal Metabolism, by proposing the Water Metabolism, tganized in three levels: societal level, ecosystem level and global level. The possible end uses we distinguish for the society are: personal/physiological use, household use, economic use. Organizing the study of “water use” across all these levels increases the usefulness of the quantitative analysis and the possibilities of finding relevant and comparable results. To achieve this result, we adapted a method developed to deal with multi-level, multi-scale analysis - the Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM) approach - to the analysis of water metabolism. In this paper, we discuss the peculiar analytical identity that “water” shows within multi-scale metabolic studies: water represents a flow-element when considering the metabolism of social systems (at a small scale, when describing the water metabolism inside the society) and a fund-element when considering the metabolism o ecosystems (at a larger scale when describing the water metabolism outside the society). The theoretical analysis is illustrated using two case which characterize the metabolic patterns regarding water use of a productive system in Catalonia and a water management policy in Andarax River Basin in Andalusia.

IPH response to the Environmental Protection Agency Consultation on Stategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Process Checklist

The Institute of Public Health in Ireland is an all-island body which aims to improve health in Ireland by working to combat health inequalities and influence public policies in favour of health. The Institute promotes co-operation in research, training, information and policy in order to contribute to policies which tackle inequalities in health. Over the past six years the Institute has worked closely with the Department of Health and Children and the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety in Northern Ireland to build capacity for Health Impact Assessment. The Institute takes the view that health is determined by policies, plans and programmes in many sectors outside the health sector as well as being dependent on access to and availability of first class health services. The importance of other sectors is encapsulated in a social determinants of health perspective which recognises that health is largely shaped and influenced by the physical, social, economic and cultural environments in which people live, work and play. Figure 1 illustrates these multi-dimensional impacts on health and also serves to highlight the clear and inextricable links between health and sustainable development. Factors that impact on long-term sustainability will thus also impact on health.