1,720,971 research outputs found
Species Identification Skills in Teacher Education Students: The Role of Attitude, Context and Experience
Get PDFKnowledge about local species and a positive attitude towards all living organisms are important to motivate the next generations to protect biodiversity. We compared local species identification skills and declared attitude towards invertebrates across genders in Italian and Norwegian students in teacher education. We focused on Norway and Italy for this comparative study, because of their different teaching traditions and relationships with outdoor education. We found a significant difference in local species identification skills between Italian and Norwegian students, who could identify 21% and 57% of the species, respectively. Overall, females had a more negative attitude towards invertebrates than males. However, Norwegian women had a more positive attitude towards invertebrates than Italian women did. Our result could reflect both differences in time spent in nature and teaching programs between countries. We also found a positive correlation between species identification skills and declared interest towards invertebrates. We discuss several approaches that could help to address this issue, in order for future teachers to become more aware of the risk that their biophobic attitude is transferred to the next generation with negative effects on biodiversity conservation
Attitude towards species and conservation among teacher students in Italy, Norway, and Pakistan
No full textGiven the high global rate of species disappearance due to human impacts on ecosys-tems, it is crucial to examine attitudes towards species conservation to foster futurecoexistence. This study investigated attitudes towards various species and their con-servation priorities among teacher students in Norway, Italy and Pakistan. As futureeducators, these students will play a key role in shaping the next generation’s attitudesand knowledge of biodiversity. A total of 207 teacher-education students participated inthe study by completing a voluntary online questionnaire. The questionnaire includeddemographic questions (age and nationality), five items from the NR-6 nature related-ness scale, 15 species images and a ranking task in which students ranked seven reasonsfor protecting biodiversity based on perceived importance. An invariance analysisshowed that the nature relatedness scale was not comparable among the three coun-tries. The investigation of the PCA-scores on the nature relatedness scale suggests thatthe patterns differed most between Pakistan and Norway. Pakistani and Italian studentsgenerally declared a more positive attitude towards species conservation than theirNorwegian counterparts. The intrinsic value of species and their role in ecosystemswere ranked the most important reasons for conserving species in Italy and Norway,whereas religion was ranked first in Pakistan. Given the ongoing biodiversity crisis, it isconcerning that some future educators hold negative attitudes towards protectingcertain species. Teacher education programs should place greater emphasis on theimportance of plants and invertebrates in ecosystems and promote discussions onattitudes towards species to promote coexistence
The digestive system of ballan wrasse (Labrus bergylta), a marine agastric carnivorous teleost
No full textThe knowledge of the digestive system of teleosts is limited, especially when considering the huge variation in morphology. There are particularly few studies of the digestive system of agastric (stomachless) teleosts such as the ballan wrasse (Labrus bergylta), one of several species currently used as cleaner fish in Norwegian fish farms. They are known for their ability to graze on parasitic sea lice (Caligidae) which target salmonids specifically.
This study was conducted with the goal of creating a comprehensive descriptive and quantitative overview of the ballan wrasse digestive system. A new method was developed to estimate total intestinal surface area (including microvilli) from serial microscope sections of the digestive tract and accessory tissues. These were removed as one unit and fixated with the goal of preserving the organs' natural position in the buccal cavity. The tissue volume of digestive organs was estimated as well (intestine, liver, pancreas and adipose tissue). Additionally, this study included an analysis of mucus-secreting cells along the digestive tract, specifically a histochemical analysis of mucin content (oesophagus and intestine) and estimates of goblet cell density (intestine).
The digestive tract of ballan wrasse was characterized by the adaptation of the pharyngeal teeth and foregut/oesophagus towards mechanical digestion (pharygnaty) rather than a handling/swallowing function. The rounded molariform pharyngeal teeth are used for crushing the outer shells of exoskeleton-bearing invertebrates (durophagous feeding behaviour).
The mucous oesophagus was lined with a simple cuboidal epithelium, folded into thin blood-filled branches to form a feather-like pattern. This epithelial type (simple, rather than stratified) has not been previously described in the teleost oesophagus. Contrary to what is common for marine teleosts, the ballan wrasse oesophagus did not contain an “oesogaster”, a columnar, microvillous epithelium, believed to function in osmoregulation. It is possible that the feather-like mucosa and thin epithelium serve a similar osmoregulatory function in the absence of the oesogaster.
Although the intestine was short and lacked pyloric caeca, the intestinal surface area of ballan wrasse was, in fact, larger than any of the species that were compared in this study, including gastric and agastric teleosts of various diets/trophic levels and environments. The large intestinal surface area of ballan wrasse can be attributed mainly to the extensive mucosal folding and large microvilli surface area as well as the inclusion of a distended intestinal bulb
The digestive system of ballan wrasse (Labrus bergylta), a marine agastric carnivorous teleost
No full textThe knowledge of the digestive system of teleosts is limited, especially when considering the huge variation in morphology. There are particularly few studies of the digestive system of agastric (stomachless) teleosts such as the ballan wrasse (Labrus bergylta), one of several species currently used as cleaner fish in Norwegian fish farms. They are known for their ability to graze on parasitic sea lice (Caligidae) which target salmonids specifically.
This study was conducted with the goal of creating a comprehensive descriptive and quantitative overview of the ballan wrasse digestive system. A new method was developed to estimate total intestinal surface area (including microvilli) from serial microscope sections of the digestive tract and accessory tissues. These were removed as one unit and fixated with the goal of preserving the organs' natural position in the buccal cavity. The tissue volume of digestive organs was estimated as well (intestine, liver, pancreas and adipose tissue). Additionally, this study included an analysis of mucus-secreting cells along the digestive tract, specifically a histochemical analysis of mucin content (oesophagus and intestine) and estimates of goblet cell density (intestine).
The digestive tract of ballan wrasse was characterized by the adaptation of the pharyngeal teeth and foregut/oesophagus towards mechanical digestion (pharygnaty) rather than a handling/swallowing function. The rounded molariform pharyngeal teeth are used for crushing the outer shells of exoskeleton-bearing invertebrates (durophagous feeding behaviour).
The mucous oesophagus was lined with a simple cuboidal epithelium, folded into thin blood-filled branches to form a feather-like pattern. This epithelial type (simple, rather than stratified) has not been previously described in the teleost oesophagus. Contrary to what is common for marine teleosts, the ballan wrasse oesophagus did not contain an “oesogaster”, a columnar, microvillous epithelium, believed to function in osmoregulation. It is possible that the feather-like mucosa and thin epithelium serve a similar osmoregulatory function in the absence of the oesogaster.
Although the intestine was short and lacked pyloric caeca, the intestinal surface area of ballan wrasse was, in fact, larger than any of the species that were compared in this study, including gastric and agastric teleosts of various diets/trophic levels and environments. The large intestinal surface area of ballan wrasse can be attributed mainly to the extensive mucosal folding and large microvilli surface area as well as the inclusion of a distended intestinal bulb
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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