Unbraced cables

For long span cables, either with or without concentrated load, the usual methods of design are found to be inaccurate because they omit the elastic stretch of the cable and they assume an inaccurate shape of the resulting curve. Equations are derived to cover all possible cases, loaded and unloaded cable, based upon assumptions of elastic flexible cables with fixed supports. Equations are also derived showing the variation in several quantities with changes in temperature and movement of supports. Conditions of possible loads and elastic properties of cables are discussed. A bibliography covering major references to the subject is included.     

Connecting Forensics and Assessment in the Twenty-First Century

A major feature of education in the twenty-first century is assessment. Forensic educators should heighten the importance of learning outcomes and utilize assessment efforts to directly measure how forensic programs develop educational foundations for students. This article focuses on the use of tournaments and noncompetitive educational outcomes, such as engagement within academic communities, service-learning, and the promotion of the value of forensics, to connect the educational benefits of the activity to help define the mission of forensics in the twenty-first century.     

Language and reading impairments are associated with increased prevalence of non-right-handedness

Handedness has been studied for association with language-related disorders because of its link with language hemispheric dominance. No clear pattern has emerged, possibly because of small samples, publication bias, and heterogeneous criteria across studies. Non-right-handedness (NRH) frequency was assessed in N = 2503 cases with reading and/or language impairment and N = 4316 sex-matched controls identified from 10 distinct cohorts (age range 6–19 years old; European ethnicity) using a priori set criteria. A meta-analysis (N_cases = 1994) showed elevated NRH % in individuals with language/reading impairment compared with controls (OR = 1.21, CI = 1.06–1.39, p = .01). The association between reading/language impairments and NRH could result from shared pathways underlying brain lateralization, handedness, and cognitive functions.     

National Sporting Pastimes,Spectacles of Sporting Otherness and American Imaginings, 1880–1920

This discussion focuses on how the rise of America's national sporting pastimes, during the period 1880–1920, was inextricably tied to the ambitions and outpourings of American print capitalism and a concomitant congealing of a sense of modern American nationhood. In examining this thematic, we explicate the manner in which American national sporting audiences during the period 1880–1920 were variously constituted through discourses of national and ethnic sporting difference or Otherness. Hence, we examine the popular representation of turn of the century rodeo practices (as narrated through the spectacle of the western showman William Frederick ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody's Wild West show productions), the position of early-twentieth-century American baseball in relation to other sporting cultures (graphically depicted by Albert Goodwill, or A.G., Spalding's promotional publications, specifically the 1911 America's National Game) and the national and ethnic differences discerned within the global sporting landscape more generally (explicated within the 1919 National Geographic article ‘The Geography of Games’). These performances and representations of ethnic and national sporting Otherness played an important role in re-inscribing and legitimating the (White European American) normative core of American sport culture (as manifest within and through the dominant practices of playing and/or spectating of football, baseball and basketball).     

Sequential structure in televised social behavior

Karl Erik Rosengren, Lawrence A. Wenner, &; Philip Palmgreen (Eds.). Media gratifications research: Current perspectives. Beverly Hills: Sage, 1985. 312 pp. $25.00 (cloth)

James A. Anderson. Communication research: Issues and methods. New York: McGraw‐Hill, 1987.423 pp. $32.95 (cloth)

Joseph R. Dominick &; James E. Fletcher (Eds.). Broadcasting research methods. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1985. 330 pp. $38.50 (cloth)

Roger D. Wimmer &; Joseph R. Dominick. Mass media research: An introduction (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1987. 514 pp. $36.00 (cloth)

Renata Adler. Reckless disregard: Westmoreland v. CBS, et al. and Sharon v. Time. New York: Knopf, 1986. 243 pp. $16.95 (cloth)

Rodney A. Smolla. Suing the press. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. 277 pp. $19.95 (cloth)

L. Rowell Huesmann &; Leonard D. Eron (Eds.). Television and the aggressive child: A cross‐national comparison. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1986. 314 pp. $36.00 (cloth)

Tannis MacBeth Williams (Ed.). The impact of television: A natural experiment in three communities. Orlando, FL: Academic Press, 1986.446 pp. $53.00 (cloth), $34.95 (paper)

Margaret B. W. Graham. RCA and the videodisc player: The business of research. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. 258 pp. $19.95 (cloth)     

The Impact of a Professional Development Program on Teachers' Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching,Instruction, and Student Achievement

In this paper, we describe findings from a three-year evaluation of a well-developed mathematics professional development program that is commercially available on a wide scale. The professional development is designed to improve teachers' mathematical knowledge for teaching and to enable them to elicit more student thinking and reasoning during mathematics lessons. Specifically, it focused on helping teachers (a) learn more mathematics, (b) understand how children learn math, (c) use formative assessment to develop insight into what specific students know and do not know, and (d) develop effective classroom instructional strategies that enable student problem solving. Participants included 105 fourth- and fifth-grade teachers teaching in 19 low-income schools within a single district. Teachers were randomly assigned within schools either to a “business as usual” control group or to receive the professional development. The training consisted of a week-long summer institute and four to six in-service days during the school year. The training was run by full-time trained associates. We find some limited evidence of positive impacts on teachers' mathematical knowledge for teaching, but no effects on instructional practice or student outcomes.