The Structure of Phonological Processing and Its Relationship to Basic Reading

We investigated various structural models of phonological processing and the relationship of phonological processing abilities to basic reading. Data were collected on 116 kindergarten and first grade students. The specific ability model, which included phonological awareness, phonological memory, and rapid automatized naming as separate abilities, had the strongest fit to the data. Of the specific phonological processing abilities, rapid automatized naming was least associated with a second-order factor. Phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming accounted for variance in word reading, although the latter demonstrated limited practical utility. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Inflectional morphology and dyslexia: Italian children’s performance in a nonword pluralization task

In this study, we present the results of an original experimental protocol designed to assess the performance in a pluralization task of 52 Italian children divided into two groups: 24 children with developmental dyslexia (mean age 10.0 years old) and 28 typically developing children (mean age 9.11 years old). Our task, inspired by Berko’s Wug Test, had the aim of testing the subjects’ ability to apply pluralization rules to nonwords in the morphologically complex context of Italian nominal inflection. Results demonstrate that dyslexics display poorer morphological skills in comparison to controls, showing lower accuracy in the task. Furthermore, the dissimilar performances reported by the subjects in the different conditions indicate that the ability to inflect nonwords depends on factors such as the rule’s productivity, frequency, and opacity with respect to gender. Finally, the children’s performance in this task was significantly related to their reading proficiency, and it could predict accuracy in word reading independently of phonological awareness and working memory.     

Open the ‘black box’ creativity and innovation: a study of activities in R&D departments. Some prospects for engineering education

Innovation is a key component to the success and longevity of companies. Our research opens the ‘black box’ of creativity and innovation in R&D teams. We argue that understanding the nature of R&D projects in terms of creativity/innovation, efficiency/inefficiency, is important for designing education policies and improving engineering curriculum. Our research addresses the inventive design process, a lesser known aspect of the innovation process, in 197 R&D departments of industrial sector companies in France. One fundamental issue facing companies is to evaluate processes and results of innovation. Results show that the evaluation of innovation is confined by a lack of methodology of inventive projects. We will be establishing the foundations of a formal ontology for inventive design projects and finally some recommendations for engineering education.     

Resources for Media Education — an International Selection

Abstract

This article describes the progress of an ICEM/ Unesco project which started in late 1986 with the aim of producing an international catalogue of material to support teaching and learning in the field of media education. It was believed that such a catalogue would stimulate the development of media education in countries which were still in the early stages of introducing these studies into the curriculum. A large amount of data was gathered for the catalogue and a first version was given limited circulation in 1988. Following feedback from recipients of this first version and the collection of further data, a second version of the catalogue is now at the final editorial stage and will be circulated widely before the end of 1989. The author outlines some of the problems encountered in the production of the catalogue and suggests some future action which might be undertaken at the end of the current project.     

A call for more mixed methods in sport management research

Despite the popularity and strong advocacy for combining quantitative and qualitative methods, few mixed methods approaches are found in the sport management research. As a result, this article examines the frequency with which mixed methods research has been used in recent sport management research, and demonstrates ways in which mixed methods can help improve the validity of research findings in sport management related topics. Because research in sport management often is concerned with causal questions, this article provides mixed methods designs for improving causal inference. Examples are provided from three areas of sport management research, including marketing, organizational behavior, and finance. The designs that are provided are based on the mixed methods design dimensions of time order and priority of quantitative and qualitative data.     

Bioresistive identification of heat shock protein 90

90 kDa heat shock protein (HSP90) is a ubiquitous molecular chaperone and is one of the abundant proteins present in a cell under normal and stressed conditions. The adenosine triphosphate (ATP) binding region of HSP90 is currently under a great degree of study because of the interest of its role in cancer and protein maintenance; the binding of ATP to HSP90 induces a large conformational change in the protein as a result of the activity of different types of stressors within the cells. In the present paper, a simple microfluidic biosensor is proposed for the characterization of ATP-HSP90 interactions through the principle of bioresistive variation. The experimental results prove that the present biosensor system is highly suitable for the detection of heat shock proteins present in a real-time biological sample, which is very useful for in-situ biomedical applications and rapid pathogenic detections.