Apparent hyperglycemic and hypoglycemic conditioned responses with exogenous insulin as the unconditioned stimulus

Rats were injected with either insulin or saline and placed in one of two distinctive environments for 25 min on each of several days. On test trials for conditioning, the animals were injected with saline in both environments and blood glucose levels were measured. Apparent conditioned changes were obtained, but the direction of the conditioned response depended upon the environment in which the animals were placed. A conditioned hyperglycemic response occurred in one environment, and a conditioned hypoglycemic response occurred in the other environment. This pattern occurred in both within-subject and between-subjects designs and was not influenced by route of insulin injection (ip or sc). The hypoglycemic, but not the hyperglycemic, response was blocked by methyl atropine. The occurrence of both CR patterns with the same low insulin dose is contrary to previous speculation that the different CR patterns are due to different dose levels of insulin.     

Free‐choice environmental education: understanding where children learn outside of school

Free‐choice learning and, derivatively, free‐choice environmental learning emerges as a powerful vehicle for supporting diversity in learning styles (Falk & Dierking, 2002 Falk J Dierking L (2002) Lessons without limit: how free choice learning is transforming education New York NY Altamira Press  [Google Scholar]). In this article, I argue that free‐choice environmental learning holds great potential for enabling us to understand what is at stake in environmental learning and thus help us build a sustainable future. I examine the different informal learning contexts for children, home (family and play), museums, zoos, nature parks and wilderness, among many others, and offer an explanation for how learning occurs in these settings, and how such domains or sectors can contribute to free‐choice environmental learning. This article also examines the nature of environmental learning in free choice settings to establish a connection with stages of childhood development. In the final section of this article, I draw on these examples to discuss research issues that emerge within various free‐choice settings.     

The reader,the text,the poem: the influence and challenge of Louise Rosenblatt

ABSTRACT

This paper is a re-examination of Louise Rosenblatt’s seminal work of reader-response theory, The Reader, The Text, The Poem. I argue that poems are essentially social in nature and that they open up a space in which conversation and interpretation can take place. With Rosenblatt I argue that until a reader engages with a poem, bringing to it a combination of her interest and experience, the text will lie dormant. I go on to argue that this implies a model of pedagogy and discourse about poetry which is currently inimical to the high stakes testing arrangements in the current context in England and the Anglophone world. Via the work of John Dewey, especially his notion of art as experience, I analyse the cultural and critical frameworks which influenced Rosenblatt innovations both directly and indirectly. This includes the tradition of the New Criticism, with its emphasis on empiricism and an assumed reader. For practitioners seeking a model of reader-response and classroom practice that promotes more than pre-prescribed comprehension questions, I offer examples of practice which prefigure the role of talk in aiding the reader’s aesthetic and transactional interpretations of poems.     

Effect of attention therapy on reading comprehension

This study quantified the influence of visual attention therapy on the reading comprehension of Grade 6 children with moderate reading disabilities (RD) in the absence of specific reading remediation. Thirty students with below-average reading scores were identified using standardized reading comprehension tests. Fifteen children were placed randomly in the experimental group and 15 in the control group. The Attention Battery of the Cognitive Assessment System was administered to all participants. The experimental group received 12 one-hour sessions of individually monitored, computer-based attention therapy programs; the control group received no therapy during their 12-week period. Each group was retested on attention and reading comprehension measures. In order to stimulate selective and sustained visual attention, the vision therapy stressed various aspects of arousal, activation, and vigilance. At the completion of attention therapy, the mean standard attention and reading comprehension scores of the experimental group had improved significantly. The control group, however, showed no significant improvement in reading comprehension scores after 12 weeks. Although uncertainties still exist, this investigation supports the notion that visual attention is malleable and that attention therapy has a significant effect on reading comprehension in this often neglected population.     

Separated by Removal: The Impact of Parental Deportation on Latina/o Children’s Postsecondary Educational Goals

This research examines the impact of parental deportation on Latino/a adolescents’ postsecondary aspirations. Based on interviews with students, their families, and site observations, the study finds that for some adolescents who held college aspirations prior to the deportation, this type of abrupt parental removal negatively affects their perception of safety and stability in their home and school environments (i.e., microsystem) (Bronfenbrenner, 2005). Where this vulnerability is not countered with emotional, economic, and institutional support, it can hinder their development of the social capital (Coleman, 1988; Stanton-Salazar, 2001) that would be conducive to their higher educational aspirations.     

Student accounts of action learning on a DBA programme: learning inaction

This account of practice sets out the action learning experience of three doctoral students on the same Doctoral Programme in Business Administration at a UK university. It also include the sense-making of a fourth member of the set. It explores the tension between their area of work and their engagement in the action learning process and, in so doing, contributes to the ongoing debate about the relative priority of learning and problem-solving in action learning. The account narrates the students’ personal accounts of their involvement with the action learning set (ALS), what they felt worked and what did not before reflecting on their personal contributions as hybrid practitioner-learners. Insights into the experience are offered up to illuminate the function and purpose of the ALS within a management education programme.     

R&D price indexes and real R&D expenditures in the United States

The rate of inflation in R&D is very difficult to measure. The official government statistics in the United States use the GNP deflator to deflate R&D expenditures. Little is known about the extent to which price indexes for R and D inputs, if they were constructed in various industries, would differ from the GNP deflator. This paper reports the findings of a study that attempts to fill this important gap. Laspeyres price indexes are presented both for R and D inputs and for inputs used in other stages of the innovation process. Also, price indexes for R and D inputs are constructed, assuming that the relevant production function is Cobb-Douglas. On the basis of the results, we estimate the extent and direction of the errors in the official R&D statistics due to the use of the GNP deflator.Our findings, based on detailed data obtained from firms accounting for about one-ninth of all company-financed R&D in the U.S., indicate that the GNP deflator underestimated the rate of price increase for R&D inputs during 1969–1979 in practically every industry we studied. The bulk of the apparent increase in real R&D in these industries (which was relatively modest in any event) seems to have been due to the inadequacies of the GNP deflator. One important moral seems to be that more attention and resources should be devoted to the construction of better price indexes for R&D.     

Cultivating minority scientists: Undergraduate research increases self‐efficacy and career ambitions for underrepresented students in STEM

In this study, Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) is used to explore changes in the career intentions of students in an undergraduate research experience (URE) program at a large public minority‐serving college. Our URE model addresses the challenges of establishing an undergraduate research program within an urban, commuter, underfunded, Minority‐Serving Institution (MSI). However, our model reaches beyond a focus on retention and remediation toward scholarly contributions and shifted career aspirations. From a student's first days at the College to beyond their graduation, we have encouraged them to explore their own potential as scientists in a coordinated, sequential, and self‐reflective process. As a result, while the program's graduates have traditionally pursued entry‐level STEM jobs, graduates participating in mentored research are increasingly focused on professional and academic STEM career tracks involving post‐graduate study. In addition to providing an increasingly expected experience and building students’ skills, participation in undergraduate research is seen to have a transformative effect on career ambitions for many students at MSIs. While undergraduate research is often thought of in context of majority‐serving institutions, we propose that it serves as a powerful equalizer at MSIs. Building on the institutional characteristics that drive diversity, our students produce scholarly work and pursue graduate degrees, in order to address the long‐standing under‐representation of minorities in the sciences. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 54: 169–194, 2017     

Science perceived through the Science Citation Index

The progress of science is essentially a cumulative process, each research worker building on the foundations laid by his predecessors and contemporaries. The published literature reflects the picture of progress as a whole, but analysis shows that the reflections from some areas are more intense than from others. This article reviews some of the instructive deductions that can be made if such analysis is systematically applied to the content of scientific journals as a whole.