Da aplicação à implicação na antropologia médica: leituras políticas, históricas e narrativas do mundo do adoecimento e da saúde

Revisa parte da literatura da antropologia médica contemporânea, guiando-se pela orientação/implicação política na escolha de seus objetos de estudo, na análise e na construção de soluções para os problemas investigados. A partir de narrativas de antropólogos, evidenciam-se as bases históricas e sociopolíticas que caracterizaram o campo em seus países de origem ou de migração. No panorama traçado das três principais vertentes contemporâneas – as antropologias médica crítica, do sofrimento e do biopoder –, são caracterizadas escolhas teóricas e temáticas para atender à demanda de “politização” do debate antropológico na saúde, defendendo-se uma antropologia médica “implicada”

US experiences with STEM education reform and implications for Asia

Purpose The first indication that traditional lecture-style teaching is not very effective was provided by Dr Donald Bligh in the 1980s and 1990s. As empirical evidence about this fact has continued to accumulate, science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education in the USA has undergone a significant change in emphasis away from lecture-based approaches in favor of systems emphasizing more interactive learning. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach A wide range of experimental research has employed the principles of scientific teaching to investigate the efficacy of an ever widening range of pedagogical methods. For STEM education, the most successful of these has been active learning. Findings At its core, active learning is a redesign of in-class activities to maximize interactivity and feedback through facilitated problem-solving environments. Although the efficacies of both scientific teaching and active learning have been verified in a wide range of empirical works, the dissemination of these platforms, in general, teaching has been slow, even in the USA. Research limitations/implications The first significant impediment has been an overall lack of awareness coupled with general skepticism about alternative learning methods. Practical implications This paper first reviews the education literature behind scientific teaching and active learning before reviewing some of the challenges to their implementation on an institutional level. Social implications These challenges and known solutions are then applied to the European and East Asian contexts to examine why scientific teaching and active learning remain predominantly an American phenomenon. Originality/value For East Asian countries, the authors offer a commentary on how certain aspects of Confucian classroom culture may interact negatively with efforts to install scientific teaching and active learning systems. </jats:sec

Scientific Teaching and Active Learning yet to Revolutionize Education in East Asia

Science education in the United States has undergone a profound shift in emphasis away from lecture-based and knowledge-based approaches towards more hands-on platforms with emphasis on skill training and maximizing feedback. Of central importance in this movement has been the concept of scientific teaching: the idea of treating education like a scientific subject by performing experiments on educational outcomes. In the last two decades, a wealth of research has been conducted using this principle to examine the effectiveness of a wide range of pedagogical techniques. Of the many methods used to deliver class content to students, active learning has emerged as one of the most powerful. Another critical development in scientific teaching has been the realization of a wide range of standardized assessment tools for quantifying various student outcomes. Despite the convincing nature of empirical evidence in favor of the utility of both scientific teaching and active learning, dissemination of these platforms in average teaching practices has been slow, even in the US. This article reviews the many advances and challenges of scientific teaching reform, ending with a brief commentary of reform experiences in the US and how these may impact East Asia in the near future.</jats:p

The role of Chinese cabotage in Northeast-Asian hub-port development and container shipbuilding

China’s economic boom in the 1990s and 2000s created an unprecedented level of seaborne trade in Northeast Asia, which was regulated by various maritime policies. The most notable were cabotage laws, which restricted the free movement of foreign vessels in Chinese waters. These restrictions created a demand for international container transhipment; a call answered by different countries to different degrees, largely based on their historic economic links with China. In this article, we review the rise of transhipment hubs in Northeast Asia, while also examining the synergistic relationship between hub ports and container shipbuilding. We demonstrate that it is not a coincidence that over 80 per cent of all new container ships are produced in Northeast Asia, linking the transhipment boom to the phenomenon of container ship overcapacity observed in 2016. We also offer a five-stage visual summary depicting how a country can respond to an export boom by adjusting cabotage policies: first to facilitate export, then to protect domestic shipping. This concept offers specific predictions for two hubs actively involved in transhipment with China: Hong Kong and Busan. </jats:p

Membrane physical properties influence transmembrane helix formation

The pHLIP peptide has three states: (I) soluble in aqueous buffer, (II) bound to the bilayer surface at neutral pH, and (III) inserted as a transmembrane (TM) helix at acidic pH. The membrane insertion of pHLIP at low pH can be used to target the acidic tissues characteristic of different diseases, such as cancer. We find that the α-helix content of state II depends on lipid acyl chain length but not cholesterol, suggesting the helicity of the bound state may be controlled by the bilayer elastic bending modulus. Experiments with the P20G variant show the proline residue in pHLIP reduces the α-helix content of both states II and III. We also observe that the membrane insertion pKa is influenced by membrane physical properties, following a biphasic pattern similar to the membrane thickness optima observed for the function of eukaryotic membrane proteins. Because tumor cells exhibit altered membrane fluidity, we suggest this might influence pHLIP tumor targeting. We used a cell insertion assay to determine the pKa in live cells, observing that the properties in liposomes held in the more complex plasma membrane. Our results show that the formation of a TM helix is modulated by both the conformational propensities of the peptide and the physical properties of the bilayer. These results suggest a physical role for helix-membrane interactions in optimizing the function of more complex TM proteins.</jats:p