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This paper focuses on describing the effects of scaffolding on the student teachers' learning process. The scaffolding is based on using information and communication technology in the PROFILES Three Stage Model; Scenario, Inquiry and Decision-making Stages. Six hours of medicine education intervention is conducted as a part of the student teachers' program in biology education. The scaffolded group is encouraged to work with the case and presentation templates, online, in Google Sites; the unscaffolded group work only with Word documents. During the Scenario Phase, student teachers discuss the important symptoms of flu, its prevention, and sources from which to find reliable information. In the Inquiry Phase, in the light of online materials and resources, student teachers recall and elaborate on these symptoms. In the Decision-making Phase, student teachers conclude their investigation by making a presentation with suggestions for treatment, and justify it with respect to reliable sources. The learning design is mainly based on the existing Internet site (Teaching children about the proper use of medicines). After their presentations, students reflect on questions that arise and discuss the subject. Results show that both groups discuss the reliability of different websites in the same way. However, the scaffolded group is quite effective in searching for information for their presentation, whereas the unscaffolded group has difficulties in finding relevant information. This suggests that by structuring the activity with Google Sites and presentation templates, scaffolding helps student teachers to work intensively and to prepare their presentations. Presentation modelling seems to be beneficial to the students' sense making process during the investigation, and it also supports them in coping with the collaborative case-based reasoning process. (DIPF/Orig.).

Nucleus-encoded pentatricopeptide repeat proteins (PPRs) are a superfamily of ubiquitous RNA-binding factors involved in organellar gene expression. To date, a large number of PPR genes have been identified and some of them have been functionally analyzed in higher plants, while the family in maize [ Zea mays (Zm)] has long been unknown. In this study, a genome-scale analysis was conducted to identify all ZmPPR gene members, and exon/intron structure, chromosomal mapping and gene duplication events were analyzed. Then, homology modeling was used to explore structure-function relationships. Finally, publically transcriptome data and real-time PCR were used for studying gene expression. A total of 521 PPR -encoding genes were predicted to occur in the maize genome and unevenly distributed on ten chromosomes. More than 66% PPR genes rarely contain introns and similar exon/intron structural patterns were observed in the same classes/subclasses. Three-dimensional (3D) structural modeling of ZmPPR479 provided insights into the mechanism of RNA recognition. The transcript abundance of 471 genes detected in 60 different developmental stages reveled that some members exhibit tissue-specific expression. Under salt stress, five significantly differentially expressed genes were found in crown root (CR) and ten detected in primary root (PR) and seminal root (SR), respectively. For drought stress, the expressions of seven ZmPPRs showed obvious upregulation in leaf, whereas ten genes were significantly downregulated. Additionally, the expression of 25 and 145 genes were evidently increased and decreased in cob, respectively. Furthermore, the expression patterns of 18 ZmPPRs were confirmed using quantitative real-time PCR.

This study investigates the performance of commercially available three-Dimensional (3D) numerical software, FLOW-3D, on the prediction of the water surface profiles using a series of experimental data obtained in a two stage channel with skewed bridge crossing. The experiments were carried out for four different types of bridge models with two different skew angles of ø = 30° and ø = 45°. FLOW-3D, which solves the Reynolds-averaged Navier - Stokes equations, was applied to experimental data for the prediction of water surface profiles along the compound channel from upstream to downstream. The comparison of free surface profiles of 3D model showed good agreement with the experimental data. Notably, the measured and computed afflux values are found to be almost identical.