Proteins embedded in biological membranes perform essential functions in all organisms, serving as receptors, transporters, channels, cell adhesion molecules, and other supporting cellular roles. ...These membrane proteins comprise ~30% of all human proteins and are the targets of ~60% of FDA-approved drugs, yet their extensive characterization using established biochemical and biophysical methods has continued to be elusive due to challenges associated with the purification of these insoluble proteins. In response, the development of nanodisc techniques, such as nanolipoprotein particles (NLPs) and styrene maleic acid polymers (SMALPs), allowed membrane proteins to be expressed and isolated in solution as part of lipid bilayer rafts with defined, consistent nanometer sizes and compositions, thus enabling solution-based measurements. Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) is a relatively simple yet powerful optical microscopy-based technique that yields quantitative biophysical information, such as diffusion kinetics and concentrations, about individual or interacting species in solution. Here, we first summarize current nanodisc techniques and FCS fundamentals. We then provide a focused review of studies that employed FCS in combination with nanodisc technology to investigate a handful of membrane proteins, including bacteriorhodopsin, bacterial division protein ZipA, bacterial membrane insertases SecYEG and YidC,
type III secretion protein YopB, yeast cell wall stress sensor Wsc1, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), ABC transporters, and several G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs).
Through a synthesis of 25 years worth of studies concerning the lived experience of children who are gifted and talented within the context of school, a more comprehensive picture can be presented. ...The intent is to provide information for teachers, parents, administrators, and psychologists to better understand and support advanced development. How students experience and relay issues concerning identity, passion, labeling, stigma, culture, schooling, academic resistance, and bullying are discussed through analyzing phenomenological qualitative research conducted over the past 25 years.
Passion for learning (PFL) in children is a phenomenon that is little understood. The experience of PFL was studied with phenomenological and qualitative modes of inquiry. Case studies of six domains ...(acting, reading, filmmaking, spelling, math, and preaching) describe how the passion developed using the voices of children and parents. Their stories support variations in development across domains. The study demonstrates a fertile field for future research into domain-specific learning and advanced development.
Teachers have many methods available to them for instructing students. This article presents a teacher’s perspective on conducting a discussion with a group of children who were gifted and talented. ...I studied one teacher using participant observation and ethnographic interviewing as he taught in a special program. I used the concept of professional practical knowledge to describe the information and skills acquired through past experience that characterized his teaching. Eight patterns of thought and behavior were central to how he conducted discussions. I organized these patterns and their subroutines into a cognitive map to represent his teaching. I discuss the cognitive map and the implications of this study for future research and for the preparation of teachers of children who are gifted.
Being a Teacher Coleman, Laurence J.
Journal for the education of the gifted,
03/2014, Volume:
37, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The emotions experienced by teachers while teaching is a relatively unexplored avenue of research. One teacher, Alex, was studied using phenomenological interviews and participant observation to ...understand the emotions he experienced while teaching in a special program for gifted and talented children. Data were analyzed using inductive procedures. Alex experienced a variety of emotions generated when the instructional dynamics of the lesson were congruent or incongruent with his professional practical knowledge. Most of his emotions were positive. A compelling emotional state, “being a teacher,” was found to incorporate many of his feelings and was found repeatedly in his classes. Alex seemed to be trying to recreate being a teacher as he taught. His emotional state was interpreted to be isomorphic to what Csikszentmihalyi (1990) calls “optimal experience.” The findings suggest that the special class setting established conditions which increased the probability that Alex would be having an optimal experience.
The paper argues that educators of the gifted have overlooked important evidence on the power of special environments because of our habit of considering cognitive outcomes and an outsider view of ...evidence as the standard for judging the benefits of special environments. The author proposes that social context be used as a construct to help rethink how to study the benefits of special environments.
Although a general understanding of the phenomenon of giftedness is evident in the literature, missing is a body of information on the thoughts and actions of gifted persons in those situations that ...we suspect influence the emergence of extraordinary accomplishment. In this article I propose a change in direction for the study of the advanced development. Grounded in the theoretically based research of Feldman and Vygotsky, I argue that we focus on the ordinary parts of life that contribute to extraordinary achievements. People should be studied within a field over a period of time. We have tended to look at characteristics of persons and products and, less so, on the process that yielded extraordinary accomplishment. Whatever methodologies we use, they must allow us to look at the individual and at the situation in detail. Suggestions for conducting such studies are offered.
Most of our information on how teachers of the gifted and talented think while they plan and implement instruction is from the perspective of the researcher, not from the teacher’s perspective. One ...expert teacher was studied in great detail using ethnographic and phenomenological techniques. More specifically, a teacher was studied as he planned and taught two philosophy courses. After extensive observation and interviewing, the teacher’s thoughts were categorized into planning thoughts and action thoughts. The author argues that the way in which the teacher’s thoughts are linked to his practice cannot be adequately understood unless one gains access to the invisible, tacit knowledge of the teacher. The teacher’s hidden world is described in relation to how the researcher discovered it. The concept of professional practical knowledge is discussed in terms of further research and teacher training.
A study of the effects of schooling on the social cognition of gifted adolescents is reported. A student attitude questionnaire (SAQ) exploring the cognitive behavioral strategies utilized to manage ...the stigma of giftedness was developed after conducting phenomenological interviews of fifteen gifted adolescents attending the Tennessee Governor’s Schools (Coleman & Cross, 1988). The questionnaire asked subjects to respond to six scenarios described as potentially stigmatizing events during the normal school day. Five common strategies noted during the interviews were provided as options in each of the scenarios. The data reported herein are based on the responses of 1,465 students over a two-year period. The patterns of responses suggested that gifted adolescents utilize the five strategies to differing degrees across situations. Situations most closely associated with test performance seemed to elicit the greatest variation in coping strategies, while those primarily reflecting social situations showed a consistently narrow range of strategies. The “placate” coping strategy was the most frequently used across the school-based scenarios.
Is Being Gifted a Social Handicap? Coleman, Laurence J.; Cross, Tracy L.
Journal for the education of the gifted,
03/2014, Volume:
37, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The paper explores the question of how gifted and talented adolescents experience being gifted in high school. Fifteen subjects were interviewed twice while attending a special summer program in ...order to answer this general question. The data were analyzed and interpreted using a set of research questions which postulated that the subjects would voice feelings of difference and would make statements indicating recognition that being gifted interfered with full social acceptance. The results support the notion that many, but not all, gifted and talented adolescents experience giftedness as a social handicap. The data also suggested that some students manage information about themselves to minimize their visibility as gifted students to others.
