Presenter passion and presentation design on reviewer assessment and subsequent success: An empirical study of high technology proposal and business plan presentations

We investigate two fundamental research questions related to the funding of early-stage technology enterprises. First, does presentation design, and the presenting entrepreneur's passion and preparedness, influence experts' assessment of the merit and commercialization potential of an emerging firm's technology? Second, are the entrepreneur's passion and preparedness during a formal presentation associated with future technology success? We analyze twenty-two video-taped presentations to a U.S. Department of Defense technology transfer and granting consortium, and track subsequent technology success. From the data it appears that both entrepreneurial passion and presentation design does influence expert assessment of a technology, and future commercialization success can be predicted to some extent by the level of entrepreneurial passion exhibited during the presentation.     

Academic personality and the commodification of academic texts

This paper explores the nature of, and justification for, copyright in academic texts in the light of recent developments in information technology, in particular the growth of electronic publication on the internet. Copyright, like other forms of property, is best thought of as a cluster of rights. A distinction is drawn within this cluster between first order `control rights' and higher order `commodity rights'. It is argued that copyright in academic texts is founded on its role as a means to allow academics to fulfil their role responsibilities. While the possession and exercise by academics of commodity rights can be thus justified in the case of mechanical print-based publication, since this helps make possible the reproduction and dissemination of academic texts, they cannot be so justified in the case of electronic publication. There are nevertheless good reasons to retain various control rights.     

Theory of mind in dogs?: examining method and concept

In line with other research, Udell, Dorey, and Wynne’s (in press) finding that dogs and wolves pass on some trials of a putative theory-of-mind test and fail on others is as informative about the methods and concepts of the research as about the subjects. This commentary expands on these points. The intertrial differences in the target article demonstrate how critical the choice of cues is in experimental design; the intersubject-group differences demonstrate how life histories can interact with experimental design. Even the best-designed theory-of-mind tests have intractable logical problems. Finally, these and previous research results call for the introduction of an intermediate stage of ability, a rudimentary theory of mind, to describe subjects’ performance.     

The importance of being a ‘lady’: hyper‐femininity and heterosexuality in the private,single‐sex primary school

Drawing on recent ethnographic research in one single‐sex, private primary school, this paper will explore what it meant for the girls in this setting to embody the discourse of the ‘lady’. The paper will propose that classed and gendered discourses of respectability featured strongly in the girls’ lives, as they were expected to behave like ‘proper’ upper‐middle‐class ladies. However, the paper will also suggest that these discourses were being reworked through post‐feminist, neo‐liberal notions of modern girlhood, meaning that the girls also felt compelled to make themselves as heterofeminine ‘girly’ girls; as sassy, sexy and successful, as well as respectable and upper‐middle‐class(y) enough. By exploring the clash between these two sets of discourse, the paper will specifically seek to examine the lived embodiment of intersections of class, gender and sexuality and to explore the relevance of Judith Butler’s heterosexual matrix for these upper‐middle‐class girls.     

The relationship of teacher ratings of executive functions to emergent literacy in Head Start

Reading and Writing - The purpose of this study was to investigate the concurrent relationships between selected teacher-rated executive function (EF) and a comprehensive array of emergent literacy...     

Minds Under Siege: Cognitive Signatures of Poverty and Trauma in Refugee and Non-Refugee Adolescents

The impacts of war and displacement on executive function (EF)—what we might call the cognitive signatures of minds under siege—are little known. We surveyed a gender-balanced sample of 12- to 18-year-old Syrian refugees (n = 240) and Jordanian non-refugees (n = 210) living in Jordan. We examined the relative contributions of poverty, trauma exposure, posttraumatic stress, and insecurity to variance in inhibitory control and working memory. We observed associations between poverty and WM, suggesting that, even in populations exposed to substantial violence and fear, poverty is a specific pathway to WM deficit. We did not, however, find associations between EFs and exposures to trauma. Careful distinction between childhood adversities may illuminate which neurocognitive pathways matter for measures of cognitive function.     

Reading comprehension of immigrant students in Germany: research evidence on determinants and target points for intervention

International studies, such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), have shown that, in most participating countries, students who do not typically speak the test language at home reach lower levels of reading comprehension than students using the test language at home (Stanat & Christensen, 2006). Results from PISA indicate that Germany is among the countries with the most pronounced differences in reading comprehension between immigrant students and students from native families. The present article summarizes these findings and shows that the reading achievement gap persists even when the socioeconomic and educational background of students?? families are controlled. Furthermore, although controlling for background factors reduces the effect of the language spoken at home on reading, it continues to be substantial. Using these findings as a starting point, the article addresses the question of what should be done to close this gap. It summarizes research findings indicating that oral proficiency presents an important determinant of reading comprehension in a second language. This suggests that effective general approaches to second-language teaching are needed to promote reading literacy in a L2. The article closes with a discussion of the available evidence on the effectiveness of such approaches and outlines the need for further research.     

Measures of reading comprehension: do they measure different skills for children learning English as a second language?

The validity of two measures of English reading comprehension was examined across three different groups of English language learners (ELLs; 64 Portuguese, 66 Spanish and 65 Cantonese). All three groups were achieving within the average range in second grade. An exploratory principal components analysis of reading skills was carried out to determine which skills were related to two commonly used tests of reading comprehension, the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery??s test of Passage Comprehension (WLPB-PC; Woodcock, 1991) and the Gray Oral Reading Test-4 (GORT-4; Wiederholt & Bryant, 2001). The factor solutions were different for the three language groups but showed many similarities in that the GORT-4 and WLPB-R tests of reading comprehension fell on the same factor within each group. Hierarchical regression analyses examining relationships among vocabulary, decoding and reading comprehension showed that language group membership did not significantly predict performance on either measure of reading comprehension. Differences that arose are likely due to issues with task validity and not ELL status. Limitations and future research are discussed.