Conceptual Changes Research Articles

An Examination of Cross Sectional Change in Student’s Metaphorical Perceptions Towards Heat, Temperature and Energy Concepts

In science instruction, metaphors are an important means of realizing meaningful learning and conceptual formation. The current study aims to evaluate how the concepts of heat, temperature and energy are perceived by students in secondary school science classes and how the perceptions of these concepts vary depending on grade level (5 th , 6 th , 7 th and 8 th grades) based on the metaphors generated. The study group of the present research consists of 226 students selected from among 5 th , 6 th , 7 th and 8 th graders through criterion sampling method. Employing the descriptive method, the presents study collected its data through a metaphor questionnaire. The findings of the study revealed that there is a total of 176 metaphors were generated by students under four categories “Phenomenological-conceptual metaphors”, “Abstract metaphors”, “Environmental/daily metaphors” and “misconception metaphors”. When the findings were examined, it was seen that though there were some misconception detected about the concepts of heat, temperature and energy, conceptual changes in the other three categories vary depending on grade level. This variety needs to be discussed in relation to cognitive development and daily life. Some suggestions were made about the place and importance of metaphors in concept teaching for researchers and practitioners.

Assisted Reproduction in Israel: Law, Religion and Culture

AbstractThe theme of this composition is the right to procreate in the Israeli context. Our discussion of this right includes the implementation of the right to procreate, restrictions on the right (due to societal, legal, or religious concerns), and the effect of the changing conception of the right to procreate (both substantively and in practice) on core family concepts.In the current Israeli legal and cultural sphere, two issues are at the forefront of the discussion over the right to procreate: first, the regulations governing and conflicts surrounding surrogacy and egg donation, and second, the debate over posthumous fertilization. The first, surrogacy and egg donation, is the typological modern expansion of, or alternative to, traditional procreation. It opens the gates of procreation to individuals and couples for whom natural procreation was not possible in the past (due to medical reasons, sexual orientation, etc.), while, at the same time, it challenges the very understanding of fundamental family practices and concepts, especially as regards parenthood, motherhood, and fatherhood.Part 1of this composition accordingly discusses the right to procreate, focusing on the regulation and practice of surrogacy and egg donation in Israel.The second issue, posthumous procreation, is an excellent illustration of the expansion of the right to procreate, and a typological example of how this expansion moderates, or even blurs, existential dichotomies, such as life and death.Part 2therefore discusses posthumous fertilization, with a focus on the debate over posthumous sperm retrieval of fallen soldiers. This debate clarifies the conceptual distinction between an individual right to procreate and a communal, or familial, right to continuation, along with the fascinating tension between the legal system and the social and political atmospheres.On the basis of the first two parts,Part 3focuses on the dramatic conceptual changes of parenthood definitions resulting from the evolution of assisted reproductive technologies (art) and from the broadening of the right to procreate (both are, of course, related, and influence each other). This part deals with the move from formal to functional parenthood, both in Israeli civil law and in Jewish law. The perspective of Jewish law is a significant player at this field, and it is discussed in various occasion throughout this composition.Part 4accordingly completes the discussion by providing some description and analysis of the basic Jewish law approaches toart.To sum up, the main argument in this composition is that assisted reproduction in Israel gives expression to and develops the right to procreate. It is a complex right, and therefore at times no consensus has been reached on the form of its actual application (as in the case of surrogacy and egg donation, and, from a different direction, in that of posthumous sperm retrieval). This right, however, despite the debates on its boundaries, is widely accepted, practiced, and even encouraged in the Israeli context, with a constructive collaboration of three main elements: the Israeli civil legal system, religious law (which in the context of the Israeli majority is Jewish law), and Israeli society and culture.

Is or Are: The “United States” in Nineteenth-Century Print Culture

This article presents a computationally assisted analysis of conceptual changes in American national unity during the nineteenth century through grammatical singularization of the phrase United States in multiple contexts. The study uses corpora ranging from tens of millions to multiple billions of words assembled from books and newspapers published between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is among the first of its type to draw on such a variety of broad-based resources. Our findings include significantly slower and less uniform movement toward singular treatment of the nation than has been previously assumed, as well as surprisingly similar rates of change in newspapers and books. We conclude that event-driven historical narratives of national unity centered on the outcome of the Civil War, as well as media-specific claims about the nationally unifying role of print during the period, are not well supported by the data. We consider the implications of performing cultural analysis with large-scale data and suggest an alternative model of conceptual evolution to explain both the observed rate of change and the convergence across media forms.

사회적 상호작용을 활용한 과학수업이 초등학생의 전자석 개념변화에 미치는 영향

Abstract The purpose of this study is to analyze elementary school students' pre-concept of electromagnet and to investigate effects of instruction through social interactions on conceptual changes of the electromagnet. For the purpose, 108 elementary school students of 3 classes were selected from the 6th grade. They were divided into the control group I, control group II and experimental group. The control group I was treated through traditional instruction on the basis of text book. The control group II was instructed with a modified version of the textbook to help them better understand the concept of electromagnet. The experimental group was treated through instruction on the basis of the above modified version of the text book and social interactions. Conceptual changes on electromagnet before and after the treatment were quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed using the identical test. The students' styles of social interaction were qualitatively analyzed with tape records of their discussions and work sheets. Effects of instruction through social interactions based on radical constructivism on the 6th-grade elementary school students' concept of electromagnet were examined here. The results were described as follows. Firstly, after the treatment, the experimental group was statistically significantly higher in mean values of conceptual understanding and academic achievement than both the control groupⅠ and II. Secondly, styles of social interaction in the three sub-groups of the experimental group were qualitatively analyzed, among the threes, high- and medium-level sub-groups were higher in the frequency of linguistic social interaction than the low-level sub-group. Those students who were excellent in communication skills actively participated in linguistic social interactions. In discussions among the three sub-groups, students of the high- and medium-level sub-groups provided explanations or information while those of the other sub-group sometimes were passive by just listening, but in large actively participated in communication. In conclusion, instruction through social interactions was effectively changed in the 6th-grade elementary school students' concept of electromagnet. Key words : Social interaction, Radical constructivism, Conceptual change, ElectromagnetCorresponding author : 051-500-7248, pkyoo@pnue.ac.kr

Preoperative Preparation and Patient Selection for Cytoreductive Surgery and HIPEC.

Peritoneal dissemination is a significant variable affecting long term survival of abdominal cancer patients. A generally accepted clinical point of view is that peritoneal dissemination is tantamount to distant organ metastases. This implies it to be a terminal condition. Current practice dictates that if peritoneal dissemination is observed intraoperatively, the curative therapeutic options are deferred and comprehensive systemic chemotherapy remains the only option with a dismal prognosis. The past few years have generated lot of interest in management of peritoneal carcinomatosis. Prof Paul Sugarbaker has researched, validated and fine-tuned the concept of cytoreductive surgery with peritonectomy procedure (Sugarbaker technique) and perioperative chemotherapy as HIPEC & EPIC. Recognition of a HIPEC centre is based on an infrastructure equipped with basic knowledge of the tumor biology, oncosurgical techniques, technical knowhow for HIPEC administration, intensive care unit etc. There are some aspects which need to be accorded special consideration. Comprehensive therapy of Cytoreduction surgery (CRS) and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) is initiated with exploration and cytoreductive surgery and includes visceral resections and peritonectomy procedure when achieved optimally results in complete, visible resection of all cancer within the abdomen and pelvis. Subsequent to CRS, HIPEC forms an integral part of the surgical procedure. This approach involves conceptual changes in both the route and timing of chemotherapy administration. Patient selection is of utmost importance. The greatest impediment to lasting benefits from intraperitoneal chemotherapy remains an improper patient selection. Currently, there are four important clinical assessments of peritoneal metastasis that need to be used to select patients ie; histopathological type of tumour, radiological distribution of disease, peritoneal cancer index and completeness of cytoreduction. Patients undergoing HIPEC surgery face the usual physiological insults of a major surgery in addition to the thermal stress secondary to intraperitoneal administration of heated chemotherapy agent. A team approach of everyone involved in care of these patients is known to improve patient outcomes. It has also been observed that with the necessary preoperative & perioperative steps, the morbidity and mortality for this treatment can be brought down as comparable to any other major abdominal surgeries.

Government financial statistics and accounting in Europe: is ESA 2010 improving convergence?

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the impact of ESA 2010 on EU member states, looking at countries both individually and as a whole and analysing the global impact of the adjustments and the partial impacts of each category. Changing the system of national accounts has introduced conceptual and methodological changes, but there has not been any significant variation in the convergence/divergence between government financial statistics and budgetary accounting in reporting deficits. The effect on the deficits reported by individual member states was quite marked however.

Drivers Advancing Oral Health in a Large Group Dental Practice Organization

Three change drivers are being implemented to high standards of patient centric and evidence-based oral health care within the context of a large multispecialty dental group practice organization based on the commitment of the dental hygienist chief operating officer and her team. Background and purposeA recent environmental scan elucidated 6 change drivers that can impact the provision of oral health care. Practitioners who can embrace and maximize aspects of these change drivers will move dentistry forward and create future opportunities. This article explains how 3 of these change drivers are being applied in a privately held, accountable risk-bearing entity that provides individualized treatment programs for more than 417,000 members. To facilitate integration of the conceptual changes related to the drivers, a multi-institutional, multidisciplinary, highly functioning collaborative work group was formed. Methods and approachThe document Dental Hygiene at a Crossroads for Change1 inspired the first author, a dental hygienist in a unique position as chief operating officer of a large group practice, to pursue evidence-based organizational change and to impact the quality of patient care. This was accomplished by implementing technological advances including dental diagnosis terminology in the electronic health record, clinical decision support, standardized treatment guidelines, quality metrics, and patient engagement to improve oral health outcomes at the patient and population levels. The systems and processes used to implement 3 change drivers into a large multi-practice dental setting is presented to inform and inspire others to implement change drivers with the potential for advancing oral health. ConclusionsTechnology implementing best practices and improving patient engagement are excellent drivers to advance oral health and are an effective use of oral health care dollars. Improved oral health can be leveraged through technological advances to improve clinical practice.

Process patterns and conceptual changes in knowledge representations during information seeking and sensemaking: A qualitative user study

The construction of knowledge representations during sensemaking resembles meaningful learning in which conceptual changes to knowledge structure take place in various forms. Guided by a cognitive process model of sensemaking expanding prior models with ideas from learning and cognitive psychology, we conducted a qualitative user study of 15 participants with news writing and business analysis tasks to investigate the evolvement of their knowledge structures. We collected and analysed think-aloud protocols along with recorded screen activities, intermediate work products including notes and concept maps, and the final reports. Findings suggested that: (a) the sensemaking process can be viewed as composed of several iterations that fall into nine slightly varied common patterns, which make up the components of sensemaking; (b) conceptual changes fall into three broad classes – accretion, tuning and restructuring; and (c) changes in forms of representation seem to assist in sensemaking. These findings provide insights for system design that assists in sensemaking and intelligent use of information.

Episodic Memory and Beyond: The Hippocampus and Neocortex in Transformation.

The last decade has seen dramatic technological and conceptual changes in research on episodic memory and the brain. New technologies, and increased use of more naturalistic observations, have enabled investigators to delve deeply into the structures that mediate episodic memory, particularly the hippocampus, and to track functional and structural interactions among brain regions that support it. Conceptually, episodic memory is increasingly being viewed as subject to lifelong transformations that are reflected in the neural substrates that mediate it. In keeping with this dynamic perspective, research on episodic memory (and the hippocampus) has infiltrated domains, from perception to language and from empathy to problem solving, that were once considered outside its boundaries. Using the component process model as a framework, and focusing on the hippocampus, its subfields, and specialization along its longitudinal axis, along with its interaction with other brain regions, we consider these new developments and their implications for the organization of episodic memory and its contribution to functions in other domains.

Concept Creep: Psychology's Expanding Concepts of Harm and Pathology

Many of psychology's concepts have undergone semantic shifts in recent years. These conceptual changes follow a consistent trend. Concepts that refer to the negative aspects of human experience and behavior have expanded their meanings so that they now encompass a much broader range of phenomena than before. This expansion takes “horizontal” and “vertical” forms: concepts extend outward to capture qualitatively new phenomena and downward to capture quantitatively less extreme phenomena. The concepts of abuse, bullying, trauma, mental disorder, addiction, and prejudice are examined to illustrate these historical changes. In each case, the concept's boundary has stretched and its meaning has dilated. A variety of explanations for this pattern of “concept creep” are considered and its implications are explored. I contend that the expansion primarily reflects an ever-increasing sensitivity to harm, reflecting a liberal moral agenda. Its implications are ambivalent, however. Although conceptual change is inevitable and often well motivated, concept creep runs the risk of pathologizing everyday experience and encouraging a sense of virtuous but impotent victimhood.

The New Concept of Banks Resolution

The report is devoted to a rapid and inclusive process of Cyprus banks resolutions. The mechanism applied is referred to as bail-in. Its uniqueness lies, inter alia, in the necessity to harmonize foreign and domestic legislation on bank resolution. To that end, the author feels it urgent to explore the problems and perspectives of implementation of this instrument in Russia, and to determine necessary conceptual changes of legislation on bank deposit insurance system and banks resolutions.

The System of Occupational Risks Assessment and Management: Problems of Legal Regulation

Review. The problem of finding ways of conceptual changes in understanding occupational safety as the system of preserving life and health of workers in recent years can be traced both in studies by Russian jurists, and statutory documents of program policy and legal nature. The main task of a new occupational health and safety management system has become a transition to professional risk assessment and management. The quality solution of this task can be achieved by transforming the National institute of occupational risk management in line with internationally recognized trends. This article contains a comparative analysis of models of legal regulation of systems of occupational risk assessment and management, used in the coordinate system of the international and European labour law regulation and in Russian labour law. The author formulates a conclusion on significant distinctions between the specified models which arose due to the differences in interpretations of "professional risk" concept in European and Russian legal traditions. The paper considers the perspectives of development of the National Institute of occupational safety in the management of occupational risks, with emphasis on the need for updating and maintaining the established legal framework, "hosting" occupational risks management system, in part of the implementation of procedures of identifying and assessing occupational risks (in particular, the risks of psycho-physiological nature) and the risks associated with the implementation of labour (professional) obligations, conditions of exercising internal control (self-control) of adherence to labour laws and other regulatory legal acts containing rules of labour law. Enshrinement in labour legislation of a new concept of labour protection, based on the idea of management of risks damage to the health of workers, will entail adjustments to a number of existing legal norms, fundamentally contradicting it. With the introduction of a special procedure for assessing working conditions the legal rules on the reduction of working time and the procedure for granting additional leave for those working in hazardous or dangerous conditions have changed: "time" protection of persons working in such conditions may be replaced by monetary compensation, that is not a satisfactory way of preventing the onset of occupational risk. In conclusion, the author emphasizes the importance of achieving the conceptual integrity of the legislation in the spirit of the predominance of preventive measures in the legal regulation of labour protection.

THE EFFECT OF 7E MODEL ON CONCEPTUAL SUCCESS OF STUDENTS IN THE UNIT OF ELECTROMAGNETISM

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of the course materials developed in accordance with 7E model in the unit of electromagnetism in high school physics class on students' conceptual success. The present study was conducted with a total of 52 11th grade students in two separate classrooms at a high school. The action research design was used as the research method. The data of the study were collected through worksheets, open-ended and multiple-choice conceptual achievement tests and individual interviews. The worksheets, which were developed in order to ensure conceptual change and development based on experimental activities, were prepared and administrated in accordance with 7E model. In the research, 6 students with high level, moderate level and low level of conceptual changes were interviewed about their achievements. The activities and materials, which were applied according to the average scores of students, were found to be effective on conceptual development and eliminating existing misconceptions of students about the subject of electromagnetism. Recommendations were made in accordance with the findings obtained.

Climate Change Conceptual Change: Scientific Information Can Transform Attitudes.

Of this article's seven experiments, the first five demonstrate that virtually no Americans know the basic global warming mechanism. Fortunately, Experiments 2-5 found that 2-45 min of physical-chemical climate instruction durably increased such understandings. This mechanistic learning, or merely receiving seven highly germane statistical facts (Experiment 6), also increased climate-change acceptance-across the liberal-conservative spectrum. However, Experiment 7's misleading statistics decreased such acceptance (and dramatically, knowledge-confidence). These readily available attitudinal and conceptual changes through scientific information disconfirm what we term "stasis theory"--which some researchers and many laypeople varyingly maintain. Stasis theory subsumes the claim that informing people (particularly Americans) about climate science may be largely futile or even counterproductive--a view that appears historically naïve, suffers from range restrictions (e.g., near-zero mechanistic knowledge), and/or misinterprets some polarization and (noncausal) correlational data. Our studies evidenced no polarizations. Finally, we introduce HowGlobalWarmingWorks.org--a website designed to directly enhance public "climate-change cognition."

Management of hepatocellular carcinoma with portal vein tumor thrombosis: Review and update at 2016.

Portal vein tumor thrombosis (PVTT) is a common phenomenon in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Compared to HCC without PVTT, HCC with PVTT is characterized by an aggressive disease course, worse hepatic function, a higher chance of complications related to portal hypertension and poorer tolerance to treatment. Conventionally, HCC with PVTT is grouped together with metastatic HCC during the planning of its management, and most patients are offered palliative treatment with sorafenib or other systemic agents. As a result, most data on the management of HCC with PVTT comes from subgroup analyses or retrospective series. In the past few years, there have been several updates on management of HCC with PVTT. First, it is evident that HCC with PVTT consists of heterogeneous subgroups with different prognoses. Different classifications have been proposed to stage the degree of portal vein invasion/thrombosis, suggesting that different treatment modalities may be individualized to patients with different risks. Second, more studies indicate that more aggressive treatment, including surgical resection or locoregional treatment, may benefit select HCC patients with PVTT. In this review, we aim to discuss the recent conceptual changes and summarize the data on the management of HCC with PVTT.

Payment coupled to production - sectoral impacts specific features in case of soy production

Between 2014 and 2020 there have been substantial rearrangements within the Common Agricultural Policy, which – in harmony with the former reform phases of CAP – has aimed to implement real conceptual and technical changes in the system of direct subsidies and market measures. As a result of this process, the system of subsidies coupled to production could be extended in Hungary, too. This new approach, which was totally different from the previous reform phases, does not restrict, but rather expands the possible amount and areas of implementation. This, in many cases, may result in a number of favourable impacts for the beneficiary sectors. Sectors, which have not received any EU subsidies before, can be supported and the member states have substantial say in forming the conditions according to their needs. In general, it is still a question, what effects can be expected, what actual consequences of the measures can be quantified on the basis of the currently available information. Following these, the main goal of this paper is to characterize the consequences of the coupled support payment by the soy production.

Integration of DFE and DFMA for the sustainable development of an automotive component

The recent developments in manufacturing organizations recognize sustainability as an important value addition for survival in the competitive scenario. The design engineers are in search of approaches for creating environmental conscious products. The purpose of this paper is to report a research carried out for ensuring sustainable product design by the integration of Design for Environment (DFE) and Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA) methodologies. In this context, this paper reports a case study carried out in an automotive component. The candidate product is the charge alternator pulley. The existing pulley has been created using Computer Aided Design. Then sustainability analysis was conducted on the existing component for determining environmental impact. This is followed by the engineering analysis of the component using ANSYS. Then conceptual design changes were developed in the proposed product using DFMA concept. Then the environmental impact has been evaluated in terms of carbon footprint, energy consumption and air/water impacts on proposed product. It has been found that the optimized pulley design possesses minimal environmental impact. The result of the case study indicated that the integration of DFE and DFMA concept could initiate new developments in sustainable designs with minimal impact to the environment and it also reduces the product cost.

Psychology and the historical power–body conjunction: Foucault’s different view of the history and philosophy of psychology

By changing his primary concepts—abstraction, alienation, dream, morale, and power—Foucault changed his perception of mental illness and the history and philosophy of psychology throughout his career. Nevertheless, despite conceptual changes, it seems that Nietzsche’s genealogical view of knowledge and the historical power–body conjunction runs like a red thread through Foucault’s works as early as 1961. This article highlights Foucault’s coherent and divergent views on the history and philosophy of psychology and their effects on his theories, findings, and contributions.

Place-based learning: action learning in MA program for educational practitioners

ABSTRACTThe study presents a new pedagogical idea and practice for educational practitioners. The practice was developed as a workshop of MA program in order to change and expand the meaning of education for the wellbeing of the community. The ‘place-based learning’ workshop combined action learning (AL) with project-based learning (PBL). The students’ assignment was to develop and operate a plan for the contribution of specific places (e.g. parks, public buildings, organizations and industries) to the community. The findings indicate conceptual and behavioral changes among the students concerning educational processes. At the end of the workshop, the students tended to be more tolerant of ambiguity, sustain judgment and collaborate with peers. The new practice emphasizes coping with fundamental emotional needs such as autonomy, self-efficacy, engagement and belonging. The synergy between AL and PBL was found to have great potential for meaningful learning and doing.

Da mestiçagem à reconstrução diaspórica do pertencimento étnico-racial

O artigo traz uma reflexão a respeito das mudanças conceituais percebidas no Brasil ao longo do último século no que tange às suas características étnico-raciais. O objetivo é analisar as transformações sentidas não apenas na composição étnico-racial do país, mas também os motivos sociais, teóricos e políticos que fizeram com que se abandonassem os debates em torno do mestiço e se chegasse ao contexto atual, em que se pauta outra lógica, qual seja: a identificação afro-brasileira. A ideia de um país mestiço e a busca pelo branqueamento do país significaram a institucionalização da desmemória das origens étnico-raciais. Isso fez com que negros e indígenas fossem incorporados na sociedade brasileira não como sujeitos plenos de direitos, mas enquanto “marcos da brasilidade”. O negro no Brasil do século XXI, por meio de sua intelectualidade, tem se afirmado enquanto afro-brasileiro, trilhando o caminho de recriar sua origem para além da fronteira nacional; ou seja, não se trata de um retorno ao lar africano, mas do refazer de sua subjetividade, em um terceiro espaço, um território subjetivo. Isso se dá por meio da crítica à racialização de sua pertença étnica, bem como à hierarquização a qual foi submetida sua história, denunciando a maneira como a diferença se transformou em pretexto e justificativa para a desigualdade social.