Merging of Research and Teaching in Developmental Biology: Adaptation of Current Scientific Research Papers for Use in Undergraduate Laboratory Exercises

Acid rain, the environmentalcause célèbreof the 1980s seems to have vanished from popular conscience. By contrast, scientific research, despite funding difficulties, has continued to produce hundreds of research papers each year. Studies of acid rain taught much about precipitation chemistry, the behaviour of snow packs, long-range transport of pollutants and new issues in the biology of fish and forested ecosystems. There is now evidence of a shift away from research in precipitation and sulfur chemistry, but an impressive theoretical base remains as a legacy.

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Actionable knowledge with the help of method repositories

Digital Library Perspectives ◽

10.1108/dlp-02-2020-0009 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 36 (2) ◽

pp. 149-156

Author(s):

Hero Khezri ◽

Peyman Rezaei-Hachesu ◽

Reza Ferdousi

Keyword(s):

Rapid Growth ◽

Design Methodology ◽

Scientific Research ◽

The Other ◽

Research Papers ◽

Content Type ◽

Actionable Knowledge ◽

New Methods ◽

The People ◽

Scientific Terms

Purpose Nowadays, there is a rapid growth in different sciences that has led to thousands of publications in the form of scientific research papers. The readers of these papers are generally the people that are involved in science (i.e. researchers, students, teachers and professors). On the other hand, practitioners rarely use these articles as a resource to learn and apply new methods. They prefer an easy to understand, step-by-step guide (i.e. cookbook) helping them skip over the difficult scientific terms and structures. Therefore, because of a shortage of tools in this space, it takes practitioners many years to use newly developed methods. Design/methodology/approach The purpose of this study is to review the literature on verified repositories and presents the necessity of method repositories. Findings This paper aims to introduce method repositories as new tools to bridge the gap between science and practice. Originality/value Method repositories presented in this paper act as an easy to understand guide for newly developed methods in specific fields.

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What Is Lost in the Weismann Barrier?

Journal of Developmental Biology ◽

10.3390/jdb8040035 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 (4) ◽

pp. 35

Author(s):

Abigail P. Bline ◽

Anne Le Goff ◽

Patrick Allard

Keyword(s):

Developmental Biology ◽

Health Status ◽

Germ Cells ◽

Scientific Research ◽

Epigenetic Inheritance ◽

Environmental Context ◽

Transgenerational Epigenetic Inheritance ◽

Basic Tenet ◽

Weismann Barrier ◽

Historical Origins

The Weismann barrier has long been regarded as a basic tenet of biology. However, upon close examination of its historical origins and August Weismann’s own writings, questions arise as to whether such a status is warranted. As scientific research has advanced, the persistence of the concept of the barrier has left us with the same dichotomies Weismann contended with over 100 years ago: germ or soma, gene or environment, hard or soft inheritance. These dichotomies distract from the more important questions we need to address going forward. In this review, we will examine the theories that have shaped Weismann’s thinking, how the concept of the Weismann barrier emerged, and the limitations that it carries. We will contrast the principles underlying the barrier with recent and less recent findings in developmental biology and transgenerational epigenetic inheritance that have profoundly eroded the oppositional view of germline vs. soma. Discarding the barrier allows us to examine the interactive processes and their response to environmental context that generate germ cells in the first place, determine the entirety of what is inherited through them, and set the trajectory for the health status of the progeny they bear.

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The Application of Keystone Concept Map in Scientific Research and Teaching

2009 First International Workshop on Education Technology and Computer Science ◽

10.1109/etcs.2009.334 ◽

2009 ◽

Author(s):

YongYue Chen

Keyword(s):

Concept Map ◽

Scientific Research ◽

Research And Teaching

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Assessing students’ ability to critically evaluate evidence in an inquiry-based undergraduate laboratory course

AJP Advances in Physiology Education ◽

10.1152/advan.00118.2016 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 41 (1) ◽

pp. 154-162

Author(s):

Kay Colthorpe ◽

Hyab Mehari Abraha ◽

Kirsten Zimbardi ◽

Louise Ainscough ◽

Jereme G. Spiers ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Undergraduate Research ◽

Critical Evaluation ◽

Scientific Research ◽

Research Articles ◽

Communication Processes ◽

Primary Literature ◽

Undergraduate Laboratory ◽

Scientific Research Articles ◽

Undergraduate Science ◽

The Impact

The ability to critically evaluate and use evidence from one’s own work or from primary literature is invaluable to any researcher. These skills include the ability to identify strengths and weakness of primary literature, to gauge the impact of research findings on a field, to identify gaps in a field that require more research, and to contextualize findings within a field. This study developed a model to examine undergraduate science students’ abilities to critically evaluate and use evidence through an analysis of laboratory reports from control and experimental groups in nonresearch-aligned and research-aligned inquiry-based laboratory classes, respectively, and contrasted these with published scientific research articles. The reports analyzed ( n = 42) showed that students used evidence in a variety of ways, most often referring to literature indirectly, and least commonly highlighting limitations of literature. There were significant positive correlations between grade awarded and the use of references, evidence, and length, but there were no significant differences between control and experimental groups, so data were pooled. The use of evidence in scientific research articles ( n = 7) was similar to student reports except that expert authors were more likely to refer to their own results and cite more references. Analysis showed that students, by the completion of the second year of their undergraduate degree, had expertise approaching that of published authors. These findings demonstrate that it is possible to provide valuable broad-scale undergraduate research experiences to all students in a cohort, giving them exposure to the methods and communication processes of research as well as an opportunity to hone their critical evaluation skills.

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PHENOMENOLOGICAL APPROACH TO PROFILE IMPACT OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH: CITATION MINING

Advances in Complex Systems ◽

10.1142/s0219525902000523 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 05 (01) ◽

pp. 19-42 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

J. A. DEL RIO ◽

R. N. KOSTOFF ◽

E. O. GARCIA ◽

A. M. RAMIREZ ◽

J. A. HUMENIK

Keyword(s):

Text Mining ◽

Applied Research ◽

Citation Index ◽

Scientific Research ◽

Basic Research ◽

Research Impact ◽

Phenomenological Approach ◽

The Novel ◽

Research Papers ◽

Novel Concept

In this paper we present a phenomenological approach to describe a complex systemcolon; scientific research impact through Citation Mining. The novel concept of Citation Mining, a combination of citation bibliometrics and text mining, is used for the phenomenological description. Citation Mining starts with a group of core papers whose impact is to be examined, retrieves the papers that cite these core papers, and then analyzes the bibliometrics characteristics of the citing papers as well as their linguistic and thematic characteristics. The Science Citation Index is used as the source database for the core of citing papers, since its citation-based structure enables the capability to perform citation studies easily. This paper presents illustrative examples in photovoltaics (applied research) and sandpile dynamics (basic research) to show the types of output products possible. Bibliometric profiling is performed over a number of the citing papers' record fields to offer different perspectives on the citing (user) community. Text mining is performed on the aggregate citing papers, to identify aggregate citing community themes, and to identify extra-discipline and applications themes. The photovoltaics applied research papers had of the order of hundreds of citations in aggregate. All of the citing papers ranged from applied research to applications, and their main themes were fully aligned with those of the aggregate cited papers. This seems to be the typical case with applied research. The sandpile dynamics basic research papers had hundreds of citations in aggregate. Most of the citing papers were also basic research whose main themes were aligned with those of the cited paper. This is typically the case with basic research. However, about twenty percent of the citing papers were research or development in other disciplines, or development within the same discipline. In addition, there was a four year lag time between publication and citation by the development papers.

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