Esta es la versión de autor del artículo publicado en: This is an author produced version of a paper published in:Cultura y Educación 20.1 (2008)

Nations around the world are currently embarked in deep reforms of their education systems. There is widespread agreement among policymakers, scholars, and educators that one of the keys for success during these reforms is promoting the professional development (PD) of in-service teachers. Every year, governments invest astronomical amounts of money on teacher continuous learning. However, the literature shows that much of the PD offered to teachers is inefficient, having small or no effect on teaching practices and/or student learning. This monograph describes the perspectives and approaches to teacher PD of five nations heavily committed to research and/or practice in this field. Understanding how PD is structured in these nations may guide others in designing more favorable learning opportunities for their teachers. The article from United States provides a general framework regarding the features of high-quality PD and offers examples of recent effective initiatives. The four following articles describe the PD models of Australia, Hong Kong, Finland, and Singapore, among the highest-achievers in education presently. Because teacher continuous learning is a high priority in these nations, strong infrastructures for high-quality PD have been built to meet teachers' needs and interests. The monograph closes with a contribution from Spain, the country where the journal Psychology, Society and Education is edited. The author discusses the five prior articles and reflects on how the ideas presented could improve the PD currently offered to teachers in other nations, particularly Spain.

u n i v e r s i d a d a u t ó n o m a d e m a d r i d , s p a i n a b s t r a c tThere has been little research into the conceptions music performance teachers have about learning and instruction, by either psychological or educational researchers. The main aim of this study was to describe the conceptions of 45 Spanish piano teachers from music conservatories, by analysing their differences according to the variable 'Years of teaching experience' (YTE). Three groups of 15 teachers were studied as follows: (1) highly experienced teachers (more than 15 YTE); (2) experienced teachers (between five and 15 YTE); and (3) novice teachers (less than five YTE). Data was collected using written open-ended questionnaires, and analysed by means of the lexicometrical method. Three different conceptions were identified between these groups: direct, interpretative and constructive. The findings suggested that the less experienced the teachers were, the more sophisticated, complex and adapted to music education their conceptions about learning and instruction were. Psychological, educative and curricular implications are discussed. k e y w o r d s : conceptions about learning and instruction, conceptual change, piano teachers, teaching experience Psychology of Music 38 (1)

Diadenosine polyphosphates are naturally occurring substances that facilitate tear secretion. The occurrence of these dinucleotides in human tears has been established and quantified by an HPLC technique and phosphodiesterase treatment. The concentration of these compounds found in tears was 2.0+/-2.2 nM for diadenosine triphosphate (Ap3A), 108.0+/-18.3 nM for diadenosine tetraphosphate (Ap4A) and 37.0+/-6.2 nM for diadenosine pentaphosphate (Ap5A). When subjects were treated with topical ocular anaesthesia, the concentrations of Ap3A, Ap4A and Ap5A changed to 1.5+/-1.7 nM, 189.3+/-19.5 nM and 112.6+/-12.3 nM, respectively. Ap4A and Ap5A increased tear secretion in rabbits, the effect presenting an EC50 value of 19.0+/-1.2 ng/microl and 11.4+/-1.3 ng/microl respectively. In conclusion, diadenosine polyphosphates are released from the corneal epithelium, they stimulate tear production and therefore they may be considered as physiological modulators of tear secretion.

A reconstruction theorem in terms of the topology and geometrical structures on the spaces of light rays and skies of a given space-time is discussed. This result can be seen as part of Penrose and Low's programme intending to describe the causal structure of a spacetime M in terms of the topological and geometrical properties of the space of light rays, i.e., unparametrized time-oriented null geodesics, N . In the analysis of the reconstruction problem it becomes instrumental the structure of the space of skies, i.e., of congruences of light rays. It will be shown that the space of skies Σ of a strongly causal skies distinguishing space-time M carries a canonical differentiable structure diffeomorphic to the original manifold M . Celestial curves, this is, curves in N which are everywhere tangent to skies, play a fundamental role in the analysis of the geometry of the space of light rays. It will be shown that a celestial curve is induced by a past causal curve of events iff the legendrian isotopy defined by it is non-negative. This result extends in a nontrivial way some recent results by Chernov et al on Low's Legendrian conjecture. Finally, it will be shown that a celestial causal map between the space of light rays of two strongly causal spaces (provided that the target space is null nonconjugate) is necessarily induced from a conformal immersion and conversely. These results make explicit the fundamental role played by the collection of skies, a collection of legendrian spheres with respect to the canonical contact structure on N , in characterizing the causal structure of space-times.

Tras presentar los datos de un periodo de 33 meses sobre los índices de aceptación y rechazo, así como las trayectorias de los manuscritos durante su proceso de evaluación, se realizaron análisis lexicométricos de los informes enviados a los autores (128 informes de editores y 212 de evaluadores). Dichos análisis tomaron como variable principal la Decisión adoptada respecto a la publicación del manuscrito: aceptado, requiere modificaciones sustanciales, requiere una reelaboración profunda, rechazado. A pesar del notable acuerdo entre las decisiones de editores y evaluadores, los análisis lexicométricos revelaron importantes diferencias en la estructura, contenido y modalidad de comunicación de los informes según la decisión adoptada respecto a la publicación del manuscrito. Resultaron de especial interés las diferencias entre los informes que solicitaban modificaciones sustanciales y los que requerían reelaboración profunda, que además fueron las categorías más frecuentemente utilizadas. Se extraen conclusiones dirigidas a los potenciales autores de la revista, así como a sus revisores y editores. Palabras clave: Infancia y Aprendizaje, evaluación por pares, escritura académica, autor, revisor, editor, lexicometría, cultura de publicación. "After carefully reading your manuscript …"An analysis of reviewing processes in Infancia y Aprendizaje

Nucleotides are naturally occurring substances present in tear film that can stimulate tear secretion in animals and humans. We investigated whether certain nucleotides can affect the rate of wound healing in the cornea of white rabbits. In the absence of any added compound, the rate of healing was 72.4 +/- 2.2 microm h(-1). Of all the tested nucleotides, UTP and Ap(4)A were the most active ones, maximally increasing the rate of healing to 121.6 +/- 3.7 and 93.7 +/- 3.2 microm h(-1), respectively. Responses to UTP were dose dependent. UTP had a pD(2) value of 8.9 +/- 0.1 (EC(50): 1.25 nM). P2 purinoceptor antagonists such as suramin and reactive blue-2, inhibited the effect of UTP indicating the involvement of P2Y receptors. Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade inhibitors also abolished the effects of UTP, suggesting that P2Y receptors are coupled to the MAPK cascade, and that this is involved in controlling the rate of epithelial cell migration.

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