U radu je prikazano kontinuirano izgrađivanje pojma nadarenosti tijekom znanstvenog i stručnog bavljenja tom, vrlo složenom, prirodnom i društvenom pojavom. Taj se konceptualizacijski proces, i pored ...ranijih začetaka, odvijao od vremena kada su za to stvorene znanstvene i metodičke pretpostavke, tj. uglavnom od polovice prošlog vijeka do danas. Prikazani su izabrani primjeri definicija nadarenosti, nekoliko modela strukture nadarenosti, pokušaji klasifikacija vrsta nadarenosti, neke liste indikativnih znakova nadarenosti i uloga društvene zajednice u razvoju nadarenih pojedinaca. Već i ovdje mali broj izlučenih definicija i dinamičkih strukturnih modela nadarenosti pokazao je, s jedne strane na mogućnost opisa te pojave s različitih teorijskih i praktičnih gledišta, i s druge strane na postepeno unošenje u njih sve većeg broja sastavnica koje određuju taj pojam. Jedna od značajnih, ovdje posebno naglašenih komponenti je društvo koje se javlja u dvostrukoj ulozi, kao stimulator razvoja, ali kao i korisnik duhovnih
i materijalnih proizvoda nadarenih pojedinaca. Na kraju je naglašeno, da i pored kontinuirane i dalje očekivane reinterpretacije pojma nadarenosti u skladu s novim znanstvenim spoznajama, već i sada postoji solidna teorijska i empirijska podloga za praktične aktivnosti u tom području.
Povijesni interes za odnose između ljudskih tjelesnih i mentalnih funkcija poticao je različita empirijska istraživanja i odgovarajuće analize s kojima se željelo spoznati prirodu tog odnosa. U ovom ...su radu prikazani rezultati iz nekoliko takvih istraživačko-analitičkih programa. Odabrana su ona istraživanja u kojima je razmatrana relacija između tjelesno-zdravstvenog i mentalnog statusa osoba (pretežno djece i adolescenata) s natprosječnim intelektualnim
sposobnostima. Kao najčešći pokazatelji tjelesno-zdravstvenog statusa korišteni su somatotipija, opće zdravstveno stanje i konativni patološki faktori, a kao reprezentant intelektualnog statusa najčešće je upotrebljavan kvocijent inteligencije.
Podaci su uzeti iz nekoliko longitudinalnih studija praćenja razvoja intelektualno nadarenih pojedinaca i iz desetak pojedinačnih istraživačkih projekata u kojima su promatrani pojedini organski procesi, kao npr. aktivitet moždanih stanica i lučenje endokrinih žlijezda, te neka patološka stanja, poput depresivnosti, anoreksije, neuroze, suicidnosti, delinkventnosti i drugih poremećaja. Premda dobiveni nalazi nisu potpuno istoznačni, utvrđene su određene značajne razlike između intelektualno nadarenih i intelektualno prosječnih pojedinaca u tim varijablama. Pored važnih teoretskih spoznaja, iz ovih nalazaproizlazi i jedna pragmatička poruka: intelektualno nadareni pojedinci (naročito takva djeca i adolescenti) su izrazito rizična skupina u konativnoj sferi, pa su nužne preventivne odgojne mjere (za njih i njihovu okolinu) kako bi se spriječilile ili bar ublažile moguće devijacije u tom području.
Kao uvod u temu autor izdvaja nekoliko karakteristika Križevačkih pedagoških dana koje su omogućile da je taj regionalni skup učiteljstva prerastao u zapaženu znanstveno-stručnu manifestaciju. Jedna ...je od tih karakteristika i njegova interdisciplinarnost, a u toj karakteristici značajno je prisutna i psihološka komponenta. Među psihološkim doktrinama koje nalazimo u pedagoškoj praksi izdvojena su neka područja, primjerice zakonitosti razvojnih etapa u ontogenezi pojedinca, strukturiranje ukupne čovjekove ličnosti, različite vrste i
modeli učenja, ličnost i kompetencije učitelja i slični psihološki koncepti. Zatim su analizirani primjeri konkretnih psiholoških tema, kako onih koje su obradili psiholozi stručnjaci, tako i primjeri dominantno pedagoških tema u koje su bili uključeni pojmovi i spoznaje iz područja psiholoških znanosti. U zaključku se ističe da su Križevački pedagoški dani u svojim programskim sadržajima potvrdili potrebu interdisciplinarnosti u rješavanju odgojno-obrazovne problematike i u tom sklopu pokazali na komplementarnost pedagoške i psihološke teorije i prakse.
Haplotype-resolved genome assemblies are important for understanding how combinations of variants impact phenotypes. To date, these assemblies have been best created with complex protocols, such as ...cultured cells that contain a single-haplotype (haploid) genome, single cells where haplotypes are separated, or co-sequencing of parental genomes in a trio-based approach. These approaches are impractical in most situations. To address this issue, we present FALCON-Phase, a phasing tool that uses ultra-long-range Hi-C chromatin interaction data to extend phase blocks of partially-phased diploid assembles to chromosome or scaffold scale. FALCON-Phase uses the inherent phasing information in Hi-C reads, skipping variant calling, and reduces the computational complexity of phasing. Our method is validated on three benchmark datasets generated as part of the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP), including human, cow, and zebra finch, for which high-quality, fully haplotype-resolved assemblies are available using the trio-based approach. FALCON-Phase is accurate without having parental data and performance is better in samples with higher heterozygosity. For cow and zebra finch the accuracy is 97% compared to 80-91% for human. FALCON-Phase is applicable to any draft assembly that contains long primary contigs and phased associate contigs.
We describe a method that adds long-read sequencing to a mix of technologies used to assemble a highly complex cattle rumen microbial community, and provide a comparison to short read-based methods. ...Long-read alignments and Hi-C linkage between contigs support the identification of 188 novel virus-host associations and the determination of phage life cycle states in the rumen microbial community. The long-read assembly also identifies 94 antimicrobial resistance genes, compared to only seven alleles in the short-read assembly. We demonstrate novel techniques that work synergistically to improve characterization of biological features in a highly complex rumen microbial community.
Neonatal pain-related stress is associated with elevated salivary cortisol levels to age 18 months in children born very preterm, compared to full-term, suggesting early programming effects. ...Importantly, interactions between immune/inflammatory and neuroendocrine systems may underlie programming effects. We examined whether cortisol changes persist to school age, and if common genetic variants in the promoter region of the NFKBIA gene involved in regulation of immune and inflammatory responses, modify the association between early experience and later life stress as indexed by hair cortisol levels, which provide an integrated index of endogenous HPA axis activity. Cortisol was assayed in hair samples from 128 children (83 born preterm ≤ 32 weeks gestation and 45 born full-term) without major sensory, motor or cognitive impairments at age 7 years. We found that hair cortisol levels were lower in preterm compared to term-born children. Downregulation of the HPA axis in preterm children without major impairment, seen years after neonatal stress terminated, suggests persistent alteration of stress system programming. Importantly, the etiology was gender-specific such that in preterm boys but not girls, specifically those with the minor allele for NFKBIA rs2233409, lower hair cortisol was associated with greater neonatal pain (number of skin-breaking procedures from birth to term), independent of medical confounders. Moreover, the minor allele (CT or TT) of NFKBIA rs2233409 was associated with higher secretion of inflammatory cytokines, supporting the hypothesis that neonatal pain-related stress may act as a proinflammatory stimulus that induces long-term immune cell activation. These findings are the first evidence that a long-term association between early pain-related stress and cortisol may be mediated by a genetic variants that regulate the activity of NF-κB, suggesting possible involvement of stress/inflammatory mechanisms in HPA programming in boys born very preterm.
Engineering bone tissue from human embryonic stem cells Marolt, Darja; Campos, Iván Marcos; Bhumiratana, Sarindr ...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
05/2012, Letnik:
109, Številka:
22
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
In extensive bone defects, tissue damage and hypoxia lead to cell death, resulting in slow and incomplete healing. Human embryonic stem cells (hESC) can give rise to all specialized lineages found in ...healthy bone and are therefore uniquely suited to aid regeneration of damaged bone. We show that the cultivation of hESC-derived mesenchymal progenitors on 3D osteoconductive scaffolds in bioreactors with medium perfusion leads to the formation of large and compact bone constructs. Notably, the implantation of engineered bone in immunodeficient mice for 8 wk resulted in the maintenance and maturation of bone matrix, without the formation of teratomas that is consistently observed when undifferentiated hESCs are implanted, alone or in bone scaffolds. Our study provides a proof of principle that tissue-engineering protocols can be successfully applied to hESC progenitors to grow bone grafts for use in basic and translational studies.
Advances in long-read sequencing technologies and genome assembly methods have enabled the recent completion of the first telomere-to-telomere human genome assembly, which resolves complex segmental ...duplications and large tandem repeats, including centromeric satellite arrays in a complete hydatidiform mole (CHM13). Although derived from highly accurate sequences, evaluation revealed evidence of small errors and structural misassemblies in the initial draft assembly. To correct these errors, we designed a new repeat-aware polishing strategy that made accurate assembly corrections in large repeats without overcorrection, ultimately fixing 51% of the existing errors and improving the assembly quality value from 70.2 to 73.9 measured from PacBio high-fidelity and Illumina k-mers. By comparing our results to standard automated polishing tools, we outline common polishing errors and offer practical suggestions for genome projects with limited resources. We also show how sequencing biases in both high-fidelity and Oxford Nanopore Technologies reads cause signature assembly errors that can be corrected with a diverse panel of sequencing technologies.
The decrease in sequencing cost and increased sophistication of assembly algorithms for short-read platforms has resulted in a sharp increase in the number of species with genome assemblies. However, ...these assemblies are highly fragmented, with many gaps, ambiguities, and errors, impeding downstream applications. We demonstrate current state of the art for de novo assembly using the domestic goat (Capra hircus) based on long reads for contig formation, short reads for consensus validation, and scaffolding by optical and chromatin interaction mapping. These combined technologies produced what is, to our knowledge, the most continuous de novo mammalian assembly to date, with chromosome-length scaffolds and only 649 gaps. Our assembly represents a ∼400-fold improvement in continuity due to properly assembled gaps, compared to the previously published C. hircus assembly, and better resolves repetitive structures longer than 1 kb, representing the largest repeat family and immune gene complex yet produced for an individual of a ruminant species.