Designing As You Like It: exemplification level 6 (Active Shakespeare: Capturing evidence of learning)

"What is it about; Providing active and engaging ways to integrate Shakespeare in the ongoing periodic assessment of pupils’ reading. What is it for?; To support the teaching and assessment of Shakespeare at Key Stage 3." - Back cover

Directing Romeo and Juliet: teacher notes (Active Shakespeare: Capturing evidence of learning)

"Providing active and engaging ways to integrate Shakespeare in the ongoing periodic assessment of pupils’ reading. What is it for? To support the teaching and assessment of Shakespeare at Key Stage 3." - Back cover

Genomic relatedness within five common Finnish Campylobacter jejuni pulsed-field gel electrophoresis genotypes studied by amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis, ribotyping and serotyping

Thirty-five Finnish Campylobacter jejuni strains with five SmaI/SacII pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) genotypes selected among human and chicken isolates from 1997 and 1998 were used for comparison of their PFGE patterns, amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) patterns, HaeIII ribotypes, and heat-stable (HS) serotypes. The discriminatory power of PFGE, AFLP, and ribotyping with HaeIII were shown to be at the same level for this selected set of strains, and these methods assigned the strains into the same groups. The PFGE and AFLP patterns within a genotype were highly similar, indicating genetic relatedness. The same HS serotypes were distributed among different genotypes, and different serotypes were identified within one genotype. HS serotype 12 was only associated with the combined genotype G1 (PFGE-AFLP-ribotype). These studies using polyphasic genotyping methods suggested that common Finnish C. jejuni genotypes form genetic lineages which colonize both humans and chickens

The Maastricht Convergence Criteria and Optimal Monetary Policy for the EMU Accession Countries.

The EMU accession countries are obliged to fulfill the Maastricht convergence criteria prior to entering the EMU. This paper uses a DSGE model of a two-sector small open economy, to address the following question: How do the Maastricht convergence criteria modify optimal monetary policy in an economy facing domestic and external shocks? First, we derive the micro founded loss function that represents the objective function of the optimal monetary policy not constrained to satisfy the criteria. We find that the optimal monetary policy should not only target inflation rates in the domestic sectors and aggregate output fluctuations but also domestic and international terms of trade. Second, we show how the loss function changes when the monetary policy is constrained to satisfy the Maastricht criteria. The loss function of such a constrained policy is characterized by additional elements penalizing fluctuations of the CPI inflation rate, the nominal interest rate and the nominal exchange rate around the new targets which are potentially different from the steady state of the unconstrained optimal monetary policy. Under the chosen parameterization, the unconstrained optimal monetary policy violates two criteria: concerning the CPI inflation rate and the nominal interest rate. The constrained optimal policy results in targeting the CPI inflation rate and the nominal interest rate that are 0.7% lower (in annual terms) than the CPI inflation rate and the nominal interest rate in the countries taken as a reference. The welfare costs associated with these constraints need to be offset against credibility gains and other benefits related to the compliance with the Maastricht criteria that are not modelled. JEL Classification: F41, E52, E58, E61EMU accession countries, Maastricht convergence criteria, optimal monetary policy

Avaliação da segurança da introdução de Pseudomonas putida no ambiente: testes ecotoxicológicos da Fase 1 e perspectivas de implementação de novos estudos.

Resumo: Os procedimentos de avaliação de risco necessários para a liberação de agentes microbianos em campo são executados de acordo com protocolos em fases sequenciais nas quais estão incluídos os estudos em organismos não-alvo. A bactéria Pseudomonas putida - linhagem AF7- (P. putida AF7) tem demonstrado potencial de aplicação no meio ambiente, tanto como biorremediador, como no controle de pragas. No presente estudo foram avaliados alguns efeitos desta bactéria em roedores (ratos Wistar) e organismos aquáticos (Daphnia similis) que constam da Fase inicial dos protocolos. Também foi avaliada a atividade enzimática microbiana em três tipos de solo após a sua inoculação com o agente biológico. Os ratos não demonstraram sintomas de patogenicidade, apesar do agente biológico ter sido recuperado em homogeneizados de pulmão após 16 horas de exposição. P. putida não alterou significativamente a sobrevivência de D. similis durante 21 dias, nem diminuiu a sua reprodução. As atividades enzimáticas (fosfatase ácida, protease e ?-glucosidase) dos solos analisados apresentaram valores que oscilaram para mais e para menos, após a inoculação da bactéria. Apesar de não constar dos atuais protocolos de avaliação, a medida de alterações nas características bioquímicas do solo é apresentada como uma via alternativa para a avaliação dos efeitos do agente biológico a ser introduzido no ambiente. Esta inserção seria feita na primeira fase da analise de risco aplicado a ecossistemas tropicais. Abstract: The evaluation of the exposure effects on non-target organisms is a mandatory procedure before the release of microbial agents in the field. It is performed with non-target organisms in a tiered sequence according to the risk assessment guidelines. The bacteria Pseudomonas putida ? strain AF7- (P. putida AF7) is a promising organism for the agriculture that has been investigated as a bioremediator and as a pest control agent. The effects of this bacteria in rodents (Wistar rats) and in aquatic organisms (Daphnia similis) were investigated. The enzymatic activity of microrganisms belonging to three types of soils was also evaluated after the inoculation with P. putida AF7. Although it was detected the presence of the biological agent in lung homogenates after rat exposure for 16 hours, clinical alterations were not detected. Daphnia reproduction and survival (21 days) were not significantly reduced. Acid phosphatase, protease and ?-glucosidase activities in the soil showed a fluctuation pattern that was noted after the bacteria inoculation. An alternative way to asses the biological agent effects is proposed with basis in changes in soil biochemical properties. This would be feasible at the first level procedures in risk assessment applied to tropical ecosystems.bitstream/item/48291/1/boletim-60.pd

Electroencephalography (EEG)-Derived Markers to Measure Components of Attention Processing

Although extensively studied for decades, attention system remains an interesting challenge in neuroscience field. The Attention Network Task (ANT) has been developed to provide a measure of the efficiency for the three attention components identified in the Posner’s theoretical model: alerting, orienting and executive control. Here we propose a study on 15 healthy subjects who performed the ANT. We combined advanced methods for connectivity estimation on electroencephalographic (EEG) signals and graph theory with the aim to identify neuro-physiological indices describing the most important features of the three networks correlated with behavioral performances. Our results provided a set of band-specific connectivity indices able to follow the behavioral task performances among subjects for each attention component as defined in the ANT paradigm. Extracted EEG-based indices could be employed in future clinical applications to support the behavioral assessment or to evaluate the influence of specific attention deficits on Brain Computer Interface (BCI) performance and/or the effects of BCI training in cognitive rehabilitation applications