Major Areas Of Knowledge Research Articles

Large-scale contamination by Bisphenol A: are we aware of the risk and forms of exposure?

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a substance extensively used in daily life, mainly in plastic materials. This study assessed the exposure of university students to endocrine disruptor BPA, their knowledge about this substance and the damage it causes to human health. This is a cross-sectional descriptive study carried out with 500 students from a University in Curitiba. The sample was selected proportionally to the three major areas of knowledge, and the courses interviewed were drawn at random. Students were asked to fill out an objective questionnaire consisting of three parts: socioeconomic, assessment of exposure and knowledge tests. Of the respondents, 91.3% consume food stored in plastic packaging, 90.06% use drinks in this type of container and 84.8% consume canned food/drinks. However, only 19.8% have heard of BPA and 97.2% do not know about the relationship between exposure to BPA and endocrine changes. A high rate of exposure to BPA and a low level of knowledge on the subject was detected. This disproportion highlights the need for more in-depth research on the topic among the Brazilian population, in addition to broadening dissemination of information measures on the issue.

Qualidade do sono e workaholism em docentes de pós-graduação stricto sensu

Resumo Objetivo investigar a associacao entre a qualidade do sono e o workaholism em docentes de pos-graduacao stricto sensu. Metodos estudo transversal desenvolvido com docentes de todas as grandes areas de conhecimento de uma universidade publica localizada na Regiao Sul do Brasil. A coleta de dados ocorreu no periodo de maio a agosto de 2018, por meio de formulario eletronico contendo um questionario de caracterizacao sociodemografica e ocupacional, a Dutch Work Addiction Scale e o Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Foram convidados os 790 docentes de pos-graduacao stricto sensu da referida instituicao, dos quais 196 consentiram a participacao na pesquisa. Os dados foram analisados descritivamente e por regressao logistica binaria univariada e multipla, adotando-se nivel de significância de 95%. Resultados a qualidade do sono ruim esteve associada ao trabalho excessivo (ORaj:2,056; p=0,026) e ao workaholism (ORaj:2,056; p=0,040). Qualidade subjetiva do sono, latencia do sono, duracao do sono, disturbios do sono e sonolencia diurna associaram-se significativamente ao trabalho excessivo e compulsivo, bem como ao workaholism. Conclusao as altas demandas de trabalho caracteristicas do processo de trabalho dos docentes em nivel stricto sensu podem repercutir na baixa qualidade do sono, visto que os docentes workaholics apresentaram duas vezes a chance de apresentarem ma qualidade do sono.

Early Career Teachers’ Experiences of Developing Professional Knowledge

This study aims to explore early career teachers’ (ECTs’) experiences of professional knowledge developed during their research-based teacher education and throughout their first five years in the profession. This study uses Shulman’s (1986) framing of professional knowledge, which posits that teachers must have content knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge. Ten Finnish primary school teachers with five years of work experience participated in this study. The data was collected from individual interviews and analysed using qualitative content analysis. Three major areas of knowledge were identified that together distinguish ECTs’ professional knowledge: pedagogical and didactic, relational, and research-related knowledge. The results indicate that teacher education provides a solid foundation while the first five years of professional experience add to the teachers’ professional knowledge.

Considerations for Designing Context-Aware Mobile Apps for Mental Health Interventions.

This work identifies major areas of knowledge and proposes a set of relevant dimensions by area that must be taken into account in the design and delivery of context-aware mobile applications for mental health interventions. We argue that much of the related research has focused only on a few dimensions, paying little or no attention to others and, most importantly, to potential relationships between them. Our belief is that the improvement of the effectiveness of mobile interventions to support mental health necessarily implies that developers and therapists comprehensively consider the interaction between the proposed dimensions. Taking as a starting point the three areas of knowledge (Technology, Context, and Mental Health), we re-examine each area to identify relevant dimensions, discuss the relationships between them and finally draw a series of considerations. The resulting considerations can help therapists and developers to devise, design, and generate custom mobile applications in a way that increases the motivation and engagement of patients and, therefore, the effectiveness of psychological treatments.

Disponibilidade no acervo do Portal de Periódicos CAPES dos periódicos citados em teses da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina

Este trabalho tem por objetivo verificar a disponibilidade no acervo do Portal de Periódicos CAPES dos periódicos científicos citados em teses da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Visa também analisar os periódicos com mais artigos citados, identificando o país de origem, a indexação nas bases de dados Web of Science, Scopus, Latindex e SciELO e a classificação Qualis. Essas análises serão realizadas comparativamente a partir das nove grandes áreas do conhecimento da CAPES, visando detectar semelhanças e diferenças entre os padrões de uso de periódicos e as necessidades informacionais dos pesquisadores doutorais. Utiliza as técnicas de amostragem estratificada uniforme e aleatória simples para definir a amostra de 90 teses, sendo dez de cada grande área do conhecimento, correspondendo a 20,3% do total de 443 teses defendidas em 2015 na Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Os resultados mostram que 84,76% dos periódicos eletrônicos citados nas teses estão disponíveis no Portal, sendo Ciências Biológicas (94,15%) a área com maior disponibilidade e Linguística, Letras e Artes (69,23%), com menor disponibilidade. Periódicos estrangeiros, sobretudo dos Estados Unidos, da Inglaterra e da Holanda, são os mais utilizados na maioria das áreas, exceto nas Ciências Sociais, Humanas e Linguística, Letras e Artes, que utilizam mais periódicos nacionais. Do total de periódicos do núcleo, 71% está indexado na Web of Science, 82% na Scopus, 9% no Latindex e 16% no SciELO. Periódicos A1 e A2 são mais utilizados na média geral. Constata-se, portanto, que o acervo Portal de Periódicos CAPES é significativamente adequado as necessidades dos pesquisadores doutorais, principalmente nas ciências naturais, tecnológicas e da saúde, áreas que fazem maior uso de periódicos estrangeiros, indexados na Web of Science e na Scopus e de classificação Qualis A1 e A2.

Forty years of Semina: Ciências Agrárias

Forty years of Semina: Ciências Agrárias

Physical activity and academic performance in high school students


 
 
 There are still doubts about the real benets of physical activity on the academic performance of adolescents. The aim of this study was to determine whether the physical activity (PA) interferes in the academic performance of high school students.The study included 348 adolescents from one fed- eral public school. For information regarding PA, the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ short-version) was used. For PAL classication the adolecents who had 300 minutes/week or more of physical activity were considered as active. The information related to the participation in sports schools was obtained through a question inserted in IPAQ. For the academic performance, the average grades of the rst semester of 2015 were used, within the three major Knowledge Areas, as dened by the National Curriculum Standards. ere was no signicant correlation between academic performance and PA (r= 0.06; p= 0.28). Higher minimum scores were found among active high school students and higher average school for areas 1 – Languages, Codes and its Technologies (7.2±0.8) and 2 – Natural Sciences, Mathematics and its Technologies (6.6±1.3) among participants in sports schools, with statistical signicance (p= 0.017; p= 0.014). In conclusion, PAL did not relate to the academic performance of pupils in this study and participants of sports schools achieved better academic performance demonstrating that sports activities can cause benecial eects in their cognitive performances.
 
 

Scrapping new product development efforts: when to keep going, when to fold

Purpose The innovative process of new product development remains unique within most organizations. This uniqueness stems from the requirements of the new product development manager to grapple with both the universe of emerging technologies from which a new feature or improvement must be found and to simultaneously maintain a constant awareness of the requirements of an ever-changing customer base. Amongst all of this uncertainty, there is still a time when new product development managers choose to ignore the warning signals that a project is failing and continue to commit resources. This paper refers to this as irrational commitment. This paper aims to examine the uncertainty of new product development and the reasons for this irrational commitment to failed projects. Design/methodology/approach The paper used a structured systematic review of literature to identify the most common types of irrational commitment in new product development and their impact on the corporation. Findings The paper provides insights into the causes and effects of management irrationally committing to new product development projects that are doomed to failure. It suggests that the three major areas of knowledge that need to be better integrated into the decision-making process are technology trends, marketing knowledge and the capabilities of the company itself. Research limitations/implications Because of the chosen research approach of using a systematic review of literature, primary research needs to be conducted in the future to validate and refine the findings of the paper. Practical implications The paper provides leadership with guidelines to avoid irrationally committing to failed new product development efforts. Originality/value This paper adds to the literature on innovation systems.

Process performance model for predicting Delivered Defect Density in a software scrum project

Agile scrum projects are gaining popularity for software development and delivery, due to its inherent attributes of flexibility in execution and quicker time to market. However, the critics of Agile have been raising questions on the predictability of success of Agile execution as the emphasis given to quantitative management using predictive techniques for an Agile project may not be to the extent of large mission critical projects which uses in-process leading indicators to predict outcomes. One possible solution to this challenge is to use the best practices from industry adopted models like the Capability Maturity Model Integration® for planning and managing Agile software delivery. In this paper, we present a study were a prediction model was developed for use in Agile projects for systematic in-process monitoring and decision making. The purpose of this paper is to propose a predictive model as a driver for continuous improvement of Delivered Defect Density in the context of a Scrum project.Our findings show that using the prediction model, the success of Agile project could be forecasted and controlled during its planning and execution phases as against waiting for the final release to The paper starts with defining the background and context of the study, research methodology and study of existing literature in this area. A brief description of the major knowledge areas considered in the study namely Agile, CMMI and High Maturity practices in CMMI is then presented. An introduction on measures, metrics and prediction models is also provided. The development of the Agile Prediction Model and the application of the model Agile SCRUM projects is addressed as the main theme of the paper which concludes with the advantages, shortcomings and limitations of the model developed. 1. Background of the study In organizations where quality of software is a primary goal for the software projects, it is useful to measure and observe Delivered Defect Density as a lagging indicator signifying the quality of developed software. Though this is a good metric to indicate the goodness of the delivered software, the metric lacks the ability to be controlled, as it is an outcome of the software development process and not an in-process metric. In this context, the need for in-process or leading indicators which will help practitioners get visibility on the outcome is important. In this paper, the processes and sub-processes leading to Delivered Defect Density is

Service-learning and Employability. A View from the Major Areas of Scientific Knowledge.

This research is proposed within a context of change in and for the university, with new organizational approaches deriving from a unique situation, that associated to the EEES. We must therefore try to educate university students in such a way that they are able to strengthen a scale of social values and coherent attitudes, taking into consideration the autonomous formation of personality and paying special attention to social experiences.To this effect, we relate service-training and university to be of use in managing changes in the initial training of future graduates, attempting to strengthen aspects relating to professional competence. The problem of research appears in terms of pedagogical feasibility and efficiency, following a prior assessment of the situation in Galician universities as potential promoters of service-learning programmes. This paper focuses on an analysis of the main differences existing between the major areas of knowledge when examining the labour insertion of students and the relevance of service-learning in this respect.In short, we have observed that teachers from the fields of Legal and Social Sciences are more prone to regard civic and ethical training in university as a means to the labour insertion of students, without this giving rise to statistically significant differences compared to the other fields of knowledge. Thus, this group shows it has a greater knowledge of service-learning although Experimental Science teachers testify to the greatest number of experiences.

Aulas Web dialogam: uso da abordagem freireana na elaboração de materiais didáticos online

A elaboração de materiais didáticos para a Educação a Distância Online contempla aspectos relevantes que precisam ser considerados para que correspondam às expectativas de aprendizagem daqueles que buscam por esta modalidade educacional. Compartilhando com Freire (2006, 2007) a necessidade de refletir nesses materiais os princípios da Educação Dialógica, este artigo analisa as características dialógicas da edição mais atual de um curso de formação para professores-tutores iniciantes, ofertado online. Participaram do estudo 114 cursistas que para fins de análise foram agrupadas em cinco áreas de conhecimento, de acordo com os conteúdos estudados. Os materiais didáticos foram analisados a partir de categorias construídas com base no referencial teórico de Paulo Freire sobre o diálogo: afetividade, mediação, colaboração, autonomia e criticidade. Os participantes responderam a um questionário investigativo sobre a sua percepção em relação ao alinhamento das aulas com essas características. Os resultados apontam a presença marcante de elementos dialógicos neste curso de formação, segundo a visão dos cursistas. A dialogicidade foi verificada através de aspectos como o uso da linguagem cordial, a promoção da aprendizagem colaborativa, o incentivo ao desenvolvimento da autonomia dos alunos e a presença de situações que favoreçam a reflexão dos cursistas sobre conhecimentos teóricos e práticos ligados à sua área de formação.

Brazilian bibliometric coauthorship networks

The Brazilian Lattes Platform is an important academic/résumé data set that registers all academic activities of researchers associated with different major knowledge areas. The academic information collected in this data set is used to evaluate, analyze, and document the scientific production of research groups. Information about the interactions between Brazilian researchers in the form of coauthorships, however, has not been analyzed. In this article, we identified and characterized Brazilian academic coauthorship networks of researchers registered in the Lattes Platform using topological properties of graphs. For this purpose, we explored (a) strategies to develop a large Lattes curricula vitae data set, (b) an algorithm for identifying automatic coauthorships based on bibliographic information, and (c) topological metrics to investigate interactions among researchers. This study characterized coauthorship networks to gain an in‐depth understanding of the network structures and dynamics (social behavior) among researchers in all available major Brazilian knowledge areas. In this study, we evaluated information from a total of 1,131,912 researchers associated with the eight major Brazilian knowledge areas: agricultural sciences; biological sciences; exact and earth sciences; humanities; applied social sciences; health sciences; engineering; and linguistics, letters, and arts.

Spatial distribution of scientific activities: An exploratory analysis of Brazil, 2000-10

The literature analyzing the spatial distribution of scientific and technological production in Brazil identifies differences in the regional distribution of scientific and technological resources. In this paper, we contribute to this discussion, by analyzing the dynamics of the production of new scientific knowledge in the states that contributed the most to national scientific production in the period 2000–10: Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Rio Grande do Sul, also known as the ‘scientific quartet’. Our hypothesis is that even with federal policies aimed at the expansion and decentralization of the production of new scientific knowledge, this production is still strongly anchored in the ‘scientific quartet’. We further identify a concentration of scientific production in three major areas of knowledge: agricultural, biological and health sciences.

Genre organization in specialized discourse: Disciplinary variation across university textbooks

Not many studies have focused on the analysis of the rhetorical organization of a genre and the respective frequency of occurrence of moves and steps as they occur in a corpus across disciplines – particularly, with a complementary qualitative-quantitative approach. This article aims to become a step in helping to fill this gap in research on Spanish. In this way, the textbook genre, the occurrence of its rhetorical macro-moves, moves and steps and disciplinarity are the central focus of this study. More specifically, in this article we seek to determine and to compare the frequency of occurrence of macro-moves, moves and steps in a corpus of 126 university textbooks across the academic discourse of four disciplines. We distinguish the major areas of knowledge (Basic Sciences and Engineering and Social Sciences and Humanities) as well as the specific disciplines (Social Work, Psychology, Industrial Chemistry and Construction Engineering). The main findings show there are differences between the occurrence of some discourse moves and steps across the texts of disciplines under study, which reveals a distinctive feature in the didactic component of textbooks. So we can infer that knowledge construction process through this genre is not carried out in the same way and that disciplinarity plays an important role in the diversifying organizational discourse patterns detected.

Factores endógenos y exógenos que impactan en el uso de la biblioteca en tres universidades del área metropolitana de Monterrey, Nuevo León

The purpose of this research was to identify the factors that motivate students to use libraries in three universities in metropolitan Monterrey. The study employed a multivariate analysis model incorporating factors associated exclusively with the library’s operation (endogenous factors) and factors associated with the academic and cultural context in which the library operates (exogenous factors). A stratified sample of sixth semester students enrolled in the three universities responded to the instrument designed to measure the target perceptions. Results show that five variables (out of nine) predicted by the model in fact significantly influence use of the university library. Additionally, the study analyzes individual samples from the three universities, grouping these into three major knowledge areas. Measures of library use for these groups are significantly distinct.

Um modelo explicativo para o bem-estar subjetivo: estudo com mestrandos e doutorandos no Brasil

The main objective of the current study is to map the relationships among stressors, stress, coping, and subjective well-being in Master's and PhD students in Brazil. It has also been drawn up an explanatory model of the determination of subjective well-being in the mentioned population. Participants were 2150 Master's and PhD students in Brazil, from the five regions of the country and from all major knowledge areas of CAPES (Coordenacao de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior). The instruments used were a questionnaire about stressors in post-graduate programs, the Perceived Stress Scale, the Ways of Coping Scale, and the Scale of Subjective Well-Being. Finally, it was found that the model of subjective well-being, tested by path analysis, denoted satisfactory goodness-of-fit indices and corroborated the theoretical assumption.

Competencies for the physician medical geneticist in the 21st century

Competencies for the physician medical geneticist in the 21st century

JOB ANALYSIS OF THE KNOWLEDGE IMPORTANT FOR NEWLY LICENSED SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHERS

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study was to conduct a job analysis focusing on the knowledge important for newly licensed (certified) Social Studies teachers. The results of the job analysis will be used to develop test specifications for the Subject Assessment in Social Studies of the Praxis Series: Professional Assessments for Beginning Teachers™.A domain consisting of 10 major knowledge areas (United States History, World History, Skills/Themes, Government/Civics/Political Science, Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Geography, Economics, and Pedagogy Specific to Social Studies) and 483 knowledge statements was developed by subject‐matter experts.Due to the large size of the content domain, two survey forms were developed. Form 1 consisted of the major areas of U.S. History, World History, and Skills/Themes and contained 249 specific knowledge statements. Form 2 consisted of the areas of World History, Government/Civics/Political Science, Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Geography, Economics, and Pedagogy Specific to Social Stuies and contained 234 statements.These survey forms were then administered to a national sample of social studies teachers, administrators, and college faculty whose names were obtained from the membership of the National Council of the Social Studies (NCSS). In addition, a supplementary group of teachers from schools with high levels of minority students (80–100%) and teachers with five or less years of teaching experience were included in order to increase the likelihood that a sufficient number of responses from these groups would be available to reflect their perspectives on the job of a newly licensed social studies teacher. These professionals rated the importance of each knowledge area and statement using a 5‐point rating scale that ranged from 0 (of no importance) to 4 (very important).A cut point of a mean importance rating of 2.50 (the midpoint between moderately important [scale value 2] and important [scale value 3] was established to identify the core of important statements. The results of the mean analysis conducted for teachers and college faculty in the primary sample and for teachers in the supplementary sample for Form 1 showed that 19 of the 249 knowledge statements were rated less then 2.50 by one or more of the three groups. This represents 7.6% of the content domain. The corresponding results for Form 2 yielded 21 (9.0%) statements with mean ratings below the cut point. In the mean analysis for subgroups, 34 (13.7%) statements were rated below 2.50 for Form 1, while in Form 2, 29 (12.4%) were rated below the cut point.The knowledge statements that were verified to be important by the surveyed teachers, college faculty, and the demographic subgroups should be used as the foundation for the development of test specifications.

A JOB ANALYSIS OF THE KNOWLEDGE IMPORTANT FOR NEWLY LICENSED/CERTIFIED TEACHERS OF ART

ABSTRACT A job analysis was conducted to determine the knowledge important for newly certified or licensed teachers of art. The results of this job analysis will be used to develop test specifications for the art assessment of The Praxis Series of Professional Assessments for Beginning Teachers and to support the content validity of the assessment. Three successive drafts were reviewed and revised by advisory committees comprised of art teachers, teacher educators, and state administrators. The final draft domain consisted of 8 major knowledge areas and 307 knowledge statements. The revised domain was subjected to verification through a national survey mailed to 519 art teachers, 41 administrators, and 255 college faculty for a total of 815 practicing professionals who were asked to rate the importance of the knowledge statements. Of the 307 statements, 102 failed to meet the cutoff point for one or more subgroups of respondents. The remaining 205 statements should be used to develop test specifications for the assessment of knowledge for art teachers. Six appendixes contain supplemental information and the survey itself. Five tables present study findings. (Contains four

Continuing education needs as perceived by dietetic practitioners

Educational needs of dietitians were identified by 232 practitioners in Ohio by means of a self-administered questionnaire. Three major knowledge areas--managerial science, nutritional care science, and behavioral, communicative, and socio-cultural science--were covered in 109 questions. The respondents perceived a need for more professional knowledge than for behavioral, communicative, and socio-cultural sciences. Greater need was expressed for skills in technical and human ability than for skills in conceptual ability, and generally for nutritional knowledge rather than application. The findings could form the basis for continuing education programs.