Endemic species flocks inhabiting ancient lakes, oceanic islands and other long-lived isolated habitats are often interpreted as adaptive radiations. Yet molecular evidence for directional selection during species flocks radiation is scarce. Using partial transcriptomes of 64 species of Lake Baikal (Siberia, Russia) endemic amphipods and two nonendemic outgroups, we report a revised phylogeny of this species flock and analyse evidence for positive selection within the endemic lineages. We confirm two independent invasions of amphipods into Baikal and demonstrate that several morphological features of Baikal amphipods, such as body armour and reduction in appendages and sensory organs, evolved in several lineages in parallel. Radiation of Baikal amphipods has been characterized by short phylogenetic branches and frequent episodes of positive selection which tended to be more frequent in the early phase of the second invasion of amphipods into Baikal when the most intensive diversification occurred. Notably, signatures of positive selection are frequent in genes encoding mitochondrial membrane proteins with electron transfer chain and ATP synthesis functionality. In particular, subunits of both the membrane and substrate-level ATP synthases show evidence of positive selection in the plankton species Macrohectopus branickii, possibly indicating adaptation to active plankton lifestyle and to survival under conditions of low temperature and high hydrostatic pressures known to affect membranes functioning. Other functional categories represented among genes likely to be under positive selection include Ca-binding muscle-related proteins, possibly indicating adaptation to Ca-deficient low mineralization Baikal waters.

The article is devoted to learning analytics problems associated with the digital culture development in the university educational space and with the student activity control in the vocational training process. The empirical basis of the study was a series of surveys conducted by the Center for Sociological Research of the Peter the Great Polytechnic University in 2018–2020. To systematize the information on the traces of students’ activity in the digital space, the method of constructing a personal mental map, reflecting the cognitive characteristics of the student’s interactive actions in the network, was used. Because of the analysis of the mental maps, the general structure of the personal digital footprint was identified, which is significant for analytics of the student’s academic history and self-assessment of his activities in professional development. In conclusion, the constructive role of digital technology in assessing and modeling the educational process is emphasized. The study of students’ digital footprints on the university platforms, supplemented by the study of their activity in social networks, allows the development of educational modeling aimed at creating a more adequate set of competencies and soft skills of the graduate.

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Listening comprehension, as the most challenging receptive aspect of learning a foreign language at a technical university, is considered. It is noted that in addition to linguistic difficulties, students experience such psychological difficulties as a lack of recipient’s own perceptual experience, uncomfortable perception conditions, anxiety and fear of failure to perform this type of speech activity. It is shown that the perceptual activity of students, aimed at the auditory perception of English discourse, is naturally included in the most relevant students’ communicative competence. The study is aimed at considering psychological and pedagogical aspects in teaching ordinary listening comprehension without a video sequence and with the use of video materials. We reveal the advantages of using video materials that contribute to the creation of psychologically comfortable conditions for students in the educational process. Opinion analysis of first-year students of the St. Petersburg State University of Telecommunications on conducting listening comprehension in regular and flipped classroom modes is presented: it turns out that most students prefer to perform listening practice at home. We describe the audiovisual technology of advanced independent work on listening comprehension to professionally oriented video materials using the electronic resources VideoAnt, Mindmeister, LMS MOODLE. An advertising film of the computer company CISCO (USA) was used as video course basis, with its subject fully corresponding to the “Service” programme of St. Petersburg State University of Telecommunications.

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