Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Apparent Patterns (apparent + pattern)
Selected AbstractsPregnancy outcomes following cabergoline treatment: extended results from a 12-year observational studyCLINICAL ENDOCRINOLOGY, Issue 1 2008Annamaria Colao Summary Objective, Cabergoline is a dopamine agonist used to treat hyperprolactinaemia. Because hyperprolactinaemia is a significant cause of infertility in women, cabergoline and other dopamine agonists are frequently prescribed to reduce prolactin levels and restore normal menses. They are usually discontinued shortly after the patient becomes pregnant. Although cabergoline has been used to treat hyperprolactinaemia since the mid-1990s, safety data related to maternal and foetal exposure to this agent are still limited. Design, The current prospective, observational study reports on a total of 380 pregnancies. This extends by 154 pregnancies the results of a previously published interim report on the outcomes of 226 pregnancies in women treated with cabergoline up to 1994. Main outcome measures, Outcomes examined include the incidence of abortions and premature delivery and the number and types of foetal malformations or abnormalities. Results, Follow-up data were available for 329 pregnancies, including 258 (78%) deliveries and 71 (22%) abortions. Of the 71 reported abortions, 31 (44%) were voluntary, 30 (42%) were spontaneous miscarriages, and nine (13%) were therapeutic. Of the 258 deliveries, 250 (97%) were live deliveries, four (2%) were stillbirths, and the status of delivery was unknown for the remaining four (2%). Of the 250 live deliveries, 193 (77%) were term deliveries (gestational period > 37 weeks), 45 (18%) were preterm deliveries (gestational period , 37 weeks), and 62% of the infants had normal birthweights (i.e. 3,4 kg). Neonatal abnormalities were recorded for 23 (9%) of the infants with no apparent pattern in type or severity. Conclusion, The results of this study suggest that foetal exposure to cabergoline through early pregnancy does not induce any increase in the risk of miscarriage or foetal malformation. [source] Elevation gradients of species-density: historical and prospective viewsGLOBAL ECOLOGY, Issue 1 2001MARK. V. Lomolino Abstract Studies of elevation clines in diversity and composition of ecological communities date back to the origins of biogeography. A modern resurgence of interests in these elevational clines is likely to contribute important insights for developing a more general theory of species diversity. In order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of geographical clines in diversity, the research programme for montane biogeography should include statistically rigorous tests of apparent patterns, comparisons of patterns among regions and taxonomic or ecological groups of species, and analyses of clines in environmental variables concurrent with biogeographical surveys. The conceptual framework for this research programme should be based on the assumption that elevational gradients in species diversity result from a combination of ecological and evolutionary processes, rather than the presumed independent effects of one overriding force. Given that montane ecosystems are hot spots of biological diversity, an expanded and integrated programme for biogeographic surveys in montane regions should provide valuable insights for conservation biologists. [source] Building a learning progression for celestial motion: Elementary levels from an earth-based perspectiveJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 7 2010Julia D. Plummer Abstract Prior research has demonstrated that neither children nor adults hold a scientific understanding of the big ideas of astronomy, as described in standards documents for science education [National Research Council [1996]. National science education standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press; American Association for the Advancement of Science 1993. Benchmarks for science literacy. New York: Oxford University Press]. This manuscript focuses on ideas in astronomy that are at the foundation of elementary students' understanding of the discipline: the apparent motion of the sun, moon, and stars as seen from an earth-based perspective. Lack of understanding of these concepts may hinder students' progress towards more advanced understanding in the domain. We have analyzed the logic of the domain and synthesized prior research assessing children's knowledge to develop a set of learning trajectories that describe how students' initial ideas about apparent celestial motion as they enter school can be built upon, through successively more sophisticated levels of understanding, to reach a level that aligns with the scientific view. Analysis of an instructional intervention with elementary students in the planetarium was used to test our initial construction of the learning trajectories. This manuscript presents a first look at the use of a learning progression framework in analyzing the structure of astronomy education. We discuss how this work may eventually lead towards the development and empirical testing of a full learning progression on the big idea: how children learn to describe and explain apparent patterns of celestial motion. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47:768,787, 2010 [source] Early elementary students' development of astronomy concepts in the planetariumJOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING, Issue 2 2009Julia D. Plummer Abstract The National Science Education Standards [National Research Council (1996) National science education standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press] recommend that students understand the apparent patterns of motion of the sun, moon and stars by the end of early elementary school. However, little information exists on students' ability to learn these concepts. This study examines the change in students' understanding of apparent celestial motion after attending a planetarium program using kinesthetic learning techniques. Pre- and post-interviews were conducted with participants from seven classes of first and second grade students (N,=,63). Students showed significant improvement in knowledge of all areas of apparent celestial motion covered by the planetarium program. This suggests that students in early elementary school are capable of learning the accurate description of apparent celestial motion. The results also demonstrate the value of both kinesthetic learning techniques and the rich visual environment of the planetarium for improved understanding of celestial motion. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 46: 192,209, 2009 [source] Logic of experiments in ecology: is pseudoreplication a pseudoissue?OIKOS, Issue 1 2001Lauri Oksanen Hurlbert divides experimental ecologist into ,those who do not see any need for dispersion (of replicated treatments and controls), and those who do recognize its importance and take whatever measures are necessary to achieve a good dose of it'. Experimental ecologists could also be divided into those who do not see any problems with sacrificing spatial and temporal scales in order to obtain replication, and those who understand that appropriate scale must always have priority over replication. If an experiment is conducted in a spatial or temporal scale, where the predictions of contesting hypotheses are convergent or ambiguous, no amount of technical impeccability can make the work instructive. Conversely, replication can always be obtained afterwards, by conducting more experiments with basically similar design in different areas and by using meta-analysis. This approach even reduces the sampling bias obtained if resources are allocated to a small number of well-replicated experiments. For a strict advocate of the hypothetico-deductive method, replication is unnecessary even as a matter of principle, unless the predicted response is so weak that random background noise is a plausible excuse for a discrepancy between predictions and results. By definition, a prediction is an ,all-statement', referring to all systems within a well-defined category. What applies to all must apply to any. Hence, choosing two systems and assigning them randomly to a treatment and a control is normally an adequate design for a deductive experiment. The strength of such experiments depends on the firmness of the predictions and their a priori probability of corroboration. Replication is but one of many ways of reducing this probability. Whether the experiment is replicated or not, inferential statistics should always be used, to enable the reader to judge how well the apparent patterns in samples reflect real patterns in statistical populations. The concept ,pseudoreplication' amounts to entirely unwarranted stigmatization of a reasonable way to test predictions referring to large-scale systems. [source] | ||||||||||