Effects of ammonium application rate on uptake of soil adsorbed amino acids by rice

In recent years, excessive use of chemical nitrogen (N) fertilizers has resulted in the accumulation of excess ammonium (NH ₄ ⁺ ) in many agricultural soils. Though rice is known as an NH ₄ ⁺ -tolerant species and can directly absorb soil intact amino acids, we still know considerably less about the role of high exogenous NH ₄ ⁺ content on rice uptake of soil amino acids. This experiment examined the effects of the exogenous NH ₄ ⁺ concentration on rice uptake of soil adsorbed glycine in two different soils under sterile culture. Our data showed that the sorption capacity of glycine was closely related to soils;’ physical and chemical properties, such as organic matter and cation exchange capacity. Rice biomass was significantly inhibited by the exogenous NH ₄ ⁺ content at different glycine adsorption concentrations. A three-way analysis of variance demonstrated that rice glycine uptake and glycine nutritional contribution were not related to its sorption capacity, but significantly related to its glycine:NH ₄ ⁺ concentration ratio. After 21-d sterile cultivation, the rice uptake of adsorbed glycine accounted for 8.8%;–22.6% of rice total N uptake, which indicates that soil adsorbed amino acids theoretically can serve as an important N source for plant growth in spite of a high NH ₄ ⁺ application rate. However, further studies are needed to investigate the extent to which this bioavailability is realized in the field using the ¹³C, ¹⁵N double labeling technology.     

Factors impacting job performance and role attractiveness in Academic Directors and their implications for policy and practice in higher education

The purpose of this study was to identify factors that impacted on the performance and attractiveness of the Academic Director’s role. Academic Directors are responsible for leading and managing an academic qualification. Academic Directors ( $n=101$ ) participating in a leadership development programme were invited to respond to an online $360^\circ $ feedback survey. They invited ( $n=808$ ) Significant Others to provide feedback using the same $360^\circ $ survey. In the main, there was agreement between the two groups on impact factors. The factors impacting strongly on performance were focused on workload points, complexity of the role, knowledge and skills, people skills and others’ expectations. The factors impacting strongly on role attractiveness were around working conditions, autonomy and authority, clarity of work goals and expectations of others. Middle level academic management positions in higher education are poorly researched and the implications of this research with respect to job design, leadership development and recruitment and retention are significant. This is the first study of its kind to investigate factors impacting on the performance of the Academic Director role.     

Agnotology, Scientific Consensus, and the Teaching and Learning of Climate Change: A Response to Legates, Soon and Briggs

Agnotology is a term that has been used to describe the study of ignorance and its cultural production (Proctor in Agnotology: the making and unmaking of ignorance. Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2008). For issues that are contentious in the societal realm, though largely not in the scientific realm, such as human evolution or the broad basics of human-induced climate change, it has been suggested that explicit study of relevant misinformation might be a useful teaching approach (Bedford in J Geogr 109(4):159–165, 2010). Recently, Legates et al. (Sci Educ. doi:10.1007/s11191-013-9588-3, 2013) published an aggressive critique of Bedford’s (J Geogr 109(4):159–165, 2010) proposals. However, the critique is based on a comprehensive misinterpretation of Bedford’s (J Geogr 109(4):159–165, 2010) paper. Consequently, Legates et al. (Sci Educ. doi:10.1007/s11191-013-9588-3, 2013) address arguments not actually made by Bedford (J Geogr 109(4):159–165, 2010). This article is a response to Legates et al. (Sci Educ. doi:10.1007/s11191-013-9588-3, 2013), and demonstrates their errors of interpretation of Bedford (J Geogr 109(4):159–165, 2010) in several key areas: the scientific consensus on climate change; misinformation and the public perception of the scientific consensus on climate change; and agnotology as a teaching tool. We conclude by arguing that, although no single peer-reviewed publication on climate change, or any other scientific issue, should be accepted without due scrutiny, the existence of a scientific consensus—especially one as overwhelming as exists for human-induced climate change—raises the level of confidence that the overall findings of that consensus are correct.     

Principles and Practice of Scaled Difference Chi-Square Testing

We highlight critical conceptual and statistical issues and how to resolve them in conducting Satorra–Bentler (SB) scaled difference chi-square tests. Concerning the original (Satorra & Bentler, 2001 Satorra, A. and Bentler, P. M. 2001. A scaled difference chi-square test statistic for moment structure analysis. Psychometrika, 66: 507–514. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and new (Satorra & Bentler, 2010 Satorra, A. and Bentler, P. M. 2010. Ensuring positiveness of the scaled chi-square test statistic. Psychometrika, 75: 243–248. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) scaled difference tests, a fundamental difference exists in how to compute properly a model's scaling correction factor (c), depending on the particular structural equation modeling software used. Because of how LISREL 8 defines the SB scaled chi-square, LISREL users should compute c for each model by dividing the model's normal theory weighted least-squares (NTWLS) chi-square by its SB chi-square, to recover c accurately with both tests. EQS and Mplus users, in contrast, should divide the model's maximum likelihood (ML) chi-square by its SB chi-square to recover c. Because ML estimation does not minimize the NTWLS chi-square, however, it can produce a negative difference in nested NTWLS chi-square values. Thus, we recommend the standard practice of testing the scaled difference in ML chi-square values for models M ₁ and M ₀ (after properly recovering c for each model), to avoid an inadmissible test numerator. We illustrate the difference in computations across software programs for the original and new scaled tests and provide LISREL, EQS, and Mplus syntax in both single- and multiple-group form for specifying the model M ₁₀ that is involved in the new test.     

A new approach to the assessment of children's mathematical competence

The report is a translation of part of a Swedish paper entitled “On Students' Achievement in Mathematics after Finishing Comprehensive School”. The intention of the investigation was to

- diagnose the retention of some basic skills in some topics in algebra and geometry,

- reveal difficult steps in the learning processes in these topics.

Starting with a complicated question, e.g. the equation \(\frac{{3x - 2}}{2} = \frac{x}{3}\) a sequence consisting of 5–15 problems were constructed. Each new problem followed by the preceding one by taking away one or two details. \(\begin{gathered} 3(3x - 2) = 2x \\ {\text{ 9}}x - 6 = 2x \\ {\text{ 7}}x - 6 = 0 \\ {\text{ 7}}x = 6 \\ \end{gathered} \) is an example of a sequence belonging to the equation above. From about 10 complicated problems (“top-items”) and their sequences, in all 130 items, 10 sub-tests were put together in such a way that the pupils who took the test were not aware of the sequences but found no connection between the problems. Many surprising results were found, e.g., that the students scored higher on 14/(x+2)=2 than on 4/x=3, that the difficulty in finding the area of a triangle depended on the position of the triangle and that the problems “Simplify a/a ², a²/a, a/a” were of quite unequal difficulty. A discussion about the students' thinking in patterns and mechanically learning ends the report.     

An easy-to-hard effect after nonreinforced preexposure in a sweetness discrimination

Experiments 1A and 1B used a taste-aversion procedure with rats to demonstrate that exposure to easily discriminated flavors along a dimension (1 % and 10 % sucrose) can facilitate learning a subsequent hard discrimination (4 % and 7 % sucrose) when one of those flavors is paired with illness. Experiment 1A compared the effects of preexposure to the easily discriminated flavors against exposure to the same stimuli used in the discrimination training or no exposure at all. Experiment 1B replicated the conditions in Experiment 1A, with 2 additional days of training and unrestricted access to the flavors on CS+/CS– trials in discrimination training. Contrary to findings with multidimensional stimuli (Scahill & Mackintosh, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 30, 96–103, 2004; Suret & McLaren, The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 56B, 30–42, 2003), we found that preexposure to the easily discriminable stimuli varying along a single dimension of sweetness facilitated subsequent discrimination training over the other conditions in each experiment. We discuss the results in terms of the ideas presented by Gibson (1969) and Mackintosh (Psychological Review, 82, 276–298, 1975) and in terms of hedonic variables not considered by theories of perceptual learning.     

Ambiguities in the Lives of Children: Postmodern Views on the History and Historiography of Childhood in English Canada

Ambiguity is certainly instructive in that it reveals‐ that the problem itself persists at the heart of the solution presumably given to it.’ ^{1 1}’George Canguilhem, The Normal and the Pathological (New York. Zone Books, 1391) p. 76.      

Accounting for the Relationship Between Initial Status and Growth in Regression Models

Educational analysts studying achievement and other educational outcomes frequently encounter an association between initial status and growth, which has important implications for the analysis of covariate effects, including group differences in growth. As explicated by Allison (1990 Allison, P. D. (1990). Change scores as dependent variables in regression analyses. Sociological Methodology, 20, 93–114.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), where only two time points of data are available, identifying a preferred model can be difficult or impossible. In this paper we extend Allison's inquiry by considering multiple sources of the association between initial status and growth simultaneously, including measurement error but also intrinsic associations between initial status and growth. We illustrate the potential trade-offs between the change-score model specifications (models without a control for initial status) and regressor-variable specifications (with a control for initial status) using simulated data.     

Mario Bunge’s Scientific Realism

This paper presents and comments on Mario Bunge??s scientific realism. After a brief introduction in Sects. 1 and 2 outlines Bunge??s conception of realism. Focusing on the case of quantum mechanics, Sect. 3 explores how his approach plays out for problematic theories. Section?4 comments on Bunge??s project against the background of the current debate on realism in contemporary analytic philosophy.     

The effect of mindfulness on extinction and behavioral resurgence

In the present experiments, we investigated the effects of mindfulness on behavioral extinction and resurgence. Participants received instrumental training; either they received FI training (Experiment 1), or they were trained to emit high rates and low rates of response via exposure to a multiple VR yoked-VI schedule prior to exposure to a multiple FI FI schedule in order to alter their rates of responding learned during Experiment 2. Participants were then exposed to either a focused- (mindfulness) or an unfocused-attention induction task. All participants were finally exposed to an extinction schedule in order to determine whether a mindfulness induction task presented immediately prior to extinction training affected extinction (Experiment 1) and behavioral resurgence (Experiment 2). During the extinction phase, the rates of responding were higher in the control group than in the mindfulness group, indicating that the mindfulness group was more sensitive to the contingencies and, thus, their prior performance extinguished more readily (Experiment 1). Moreover, rates of response in the extinction components less precisely reflected previous training in the mindfulness group, suggesting less resurgence of past behaviors after the mindfulness induction (Experiment 2).     

关于中心厄米特矩阵的广义反特征值问题

1　Introduction　AmatrixA∈Cn×missaidtobecentrohermitianifA =Jn AJm,andskewcentrohermitianifA =-Jn AJm,where Adenotetheconjugateofthema trixAandJlisthepermutationmatrixoforderlwithonesonthecrossdiagonal(bottomlefttotopright)andzeroselsewhere .ThehermitianToeplitzmatricesformanimportantsubclassofcentrohermi tianmatriceswhichoccurnaturallyindigitalsignalprocessingandotherareas ,seeforinstance[1] andreferencetherein .Thecentrohermitianandrelatedmatricesrecentlyplayanimportantroleinthesolu…     

Because trucks aren’t bicycles: orthographic complexity as an important variable in reading research

Severe enduring reading- and writing-accuracy difficulties seem a phenomenon largely restricted to nations using complex orthographies, notably Anglophone nations, given English’s highly complex orthography (Geva and Siegel, Read Writ 12:1–30, 2000; Landerl et al., Cognition 63:315–334, 1997; Share, Psychol Bull 134(4):584–615, 2008; Torgesen and Davis, J Exp Child Psychol 63:1–21, 1996; Vellutino, J Learn Disabil 33(3):223, 2000). They seem rare in transparent orthography nations such as Finland, which use highly regular spelling and few spelling rules beyond letter sounds, and most children read and write with impressive accuracy by the end of Year 1 (Holopainen et al., J Learn Disabil 34(5):401–413, 2001; Seymour et al., Br J Psychol 94:143–174, 2003; Spencer and Hanley, Br J Psychol 94(1):1–29, 2003; J Res Read 27(1):1–14, 2004). Orthographic complexity has strong and diverse impacts on reading, writing and academic development (Aro, Learning to read: The effect of orthography, 2004; Galletly and Knight, Aust J Learn Disabil 9(4):4–11, 2004; Aust Educ Res 38(3):329–354, 2011). Despite these strong effects, orthographic complexity is rarely included as a variable in reading research studies considering evidence from both Anglophone (complex orthography) and transparent-orthography readers, or included in discussion of factors influencing results. This paper discusses the differences in reading-accuracy development and difficulties evidenced in studies of Anglophone (complex-orthography) and transparent-orthography readers. It then explores instances of orthographic complexity not being considered in studies where it may have impacted results. This disregarding of orthographic complexity as a variable in research studies appears an oversight, one likely to be contributing to continuing confusion on many aspects of reading and writing development in both healthy- and low-progress readers. Needs for research in these areas are discussed.     

'When in doubt,preserve': exploring the traces of teaching and material culture in English schools

To start with polytechnics, and so on, is like presenting a naked man with a top‐hat when what he wants is a pair of trousers. ^{1 1}D. Dilks, Curzon in India, (2 vols., New York, 1969), I, 244.

Lord Curzon, 1901

     

Analysis of the Methods and Research Topics in a Sample of the Brazilian Distance Education Publications, 1992 to 2007

Abstract

The objective of this study was to identify the methodological approaches employed in a sample of Brazilian distance education scientific literature and compare with similar publications in the United States. Brazilian sample articles (N = 983) published in several journals and meetings were compared with a sample of articles published in The American Journal of Distance Education (AJDE) from 1987 to 2006. A categorization system based on Gall, Gall, and Borg (2006 Gall, J. P., Gall, M. D. and Borg, W. R. 2007. Educational research: An introduction, Boston: Pearson.  [Google Scholar]) and Lee, Driscoll, and Nelson (2007) Lee, Y. and Driscoll, M. P. 2007. “Trends in research: A content analysis of major journals”. In Handbook of distance education, 2nd, Edited by: Moore, M. G. 31–41. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.  [Google Scholar] was used. The methodological approach employed in the Brazilian sample was predominantly qualitative, and this feature remained largely unchanged over the past seven years. The predominant research method continues to be exploratory, followed by case studies. Of note, the most frequent research topic in AJDE articles was evaluation, contrasting with the predominant topic of management in Brazilian publications.     

Serial overshadowing of taste aversion learning by stimuli preceding the target taste

Three experiments tested whether events taking place before a rat has access to a target taste, sucrose, can proactively interfere with the acquisition of a sucrose aversion when sucrose is followed by a lithium chloride injection. Using a serial overshadowing procedure with various delays before lithium injection, proactive interference by a taste (Experiments 1 and 3) and by a novel context (Experiment 2) was found following two conditioning sessions, but not after a single conditioning session. Conversely, overshadowing by a taste given after the target was detectable after a single conditioning trial (Experiment 3) and, thus, indicated that retroactive interference involves a process different from that producing proactive interference. A simulation confirmed that the results are consistent with a modified Rescorla and Wagner (1972) interpretation of Revusky??s (1971) concurrent interference theory of delay learning.     

“I See Trayvon Martin”: What Teachers Can Learn from the Tragic Death of a Young Black Male

The goal of this article is to examine the racially hostile environment of U.S. public schooling towards Black males. Drawing on the work of Foucault (Discipline and punish. The birth of the prison, Penguin Books, London, 1977; Michel Foucault: beyond structuralism and hermeneutics, The Harvester Press, Brighton, 1982) regarding the construction of society’s power relations and Bourdieu’s (Power and ideology in education, Oxford University Press, New York, 1977; Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education. Greenwood Press, New York, 1986; The logic of practice. Polity Press, Cambridge, 1990) work concerning how beliefs are established, this article demonstrates how power operates within schools alongside racism, racial profiling, and gender stereotypes to criminalize Black males. Additionally, the utilization of the theoretical lenses of populational reasoning (Popkewitz in Struggling for the soul: the politics of schooling and the construction of the teacher, Teachers College Press, New York, 1998), conceptual narrative (Somers and Gibson in Social theory and the politics of identity, Blackwell, Cambridge, 1994), and critical race theory (Delgado and Stefancic 2001) links the common narrative and the cultural memory of Black males to the death of Trayvon Martin and the treatment of Black males in schools.     

The conflicts and contradictions of working in a mass higher education system

Education must be a force for opportunity and social justice, not for the entrenchment of privilege. We must make certain that the opportunities that higher education brings are available to all those who have the potential to benefit from them, regardless of their background (DfES, 2003 Department for Education and Skills. 2003. The Future of Higher Education, London: The Stationery Office. Cm 5735 [Google Scholar] : 67).

We will continue to widen participation in higher education and encourage students of all backgrounds with academic potential to go to university (Queen’s Speech, 15 November 2006).     

Educational Technologists: Leading Change for a New Paradigm of Education

The transition from the industrial age to the information age has happened and is still happening in our society (Duffy, 2009). However, our current educational systems still operate based on the needs of the industrial-age society (Watson, Watson, & Reigeluth, n.d), making them among the least impacted organizations (Reigeluth & Joseph, 2002). This misalignment between schools and society takes the form of a discrepancy between what and how we teach students in schools and how schools are organized and operated (Banathy, 1991; Hargreaves, 1999; Wagner et al., 2006). Educational systems should address current students’ needs to facilitate their learning process and better preparethem for their future lives in society (Collins & Halverson, 2009). In this article, we explain how we envision the new paradigm of education and what roles educational technologists should play to help transform educational systems to this new paradigm.     

Interpreting biography in the History of Education: past and present

Epigraph

At the time I began work in university, I entered a world which was leisured, privileged and patriarchal, in the United Kingdom at least…. I came from a world in which only 3% of the population aspired to university. I belonged to a world in which, having got where I was through the eleven-plus and ‘A’ levels, there was almost a sense that society owed us a living. (Roy Lowe, 2002 ^{1 1}Roy Lowe, ‘Do We Still Need History of Education: Is it Central or Peripheral?’ History of Education 31, no. 6 (2002): 492–3. )

Women were not obviously on the outside when I attended my first conference – a day conference in 1976 at what was then the Birmingham Polytechnic, now University of Central England. Many women attended although in the first years few were keynote speakers. More importantly there was little about women in the history itself except in the meetings of the Women’s Education Study Group where Carol Dyhouse, June Purvis, Penny Summerfield and Gaby Weiner were all dominant. (Ruth Watts, 2005 ^{2 2}Ruth Watts, ‘Gendering the Story: Change in the History of Education’, History of Education 34, no. 3 (2005): 226. )

In 1967, aged 11, I moved on from my primary school in south London, and was selected to enter the local grammar school. I left most of my friends behind and began a daily routine of walking nervously through the council housing estates in my school uniform. By the time I left this school, seven years later, it had moved to one of the more prosperous suburbs of London to avoid being turned into a comprehensive. In the early twenty-first century, it is one of the leading academic secondary schools in the country, which it certainly was not in 1967. (Gary McCulloch, 2007 ^{3 3}Gary McCulloch, ‘Forty Years On: Presidential Address to the History of Education Society, London 4 November 2006’, History of Education 36, no. 1 (2007): 6. )     

Understanding Cultural Differences in the Antecedents of Pro-Environmental Behavior: A Comparative Analysis of Business Students in the United States and Chile

We surveyed business students in the U. S. (n = 256) and Chile (n = 310). The survey included measures drawn from studies of pro-environmental behavior using Schwartz's norm activation theory (Schwartz, 1977 Schwartz, S. H. 1977. “Normative influences on altruism”. In Advances in experimental social psychology, Edited by: Berkowitz, L. Vol. 10, 221–279. New York: Academic Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), the theory of reasoned action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980 Ajzen, I. and Fishbein, M. 1980. Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.  [Google Scholar]), and a values-beliefs-norms model created by Stern, Dietz, Abel, Guagnano, and Kalof (1999) Stern, P. C., Dietz, T., Abel, T., Guagnano, G. A. and Kalof, L. 1999. A value-belief-norm theory of support for social movements: The case of environmentalism. Human Ecology Review, 6(2): 81–97.  [Google Scholar]. Our results show Chilean business students are more altruistic than business students in the United States and Chilean students felt stronger pressures from their peers to engage in pro-environmental behaviors. Chilean business students also expressed higher levels of awareness of environmental problems, a greater sense of obligation to protect the environment, a stronger willingness to limit property rights, and stronger intentions to engage in pro-environmental behavior.