Public discourse on HIV and AIDS: an archival analysis of national newspaper reporting in Uganda, 1996–2011

Uganda is recognised as an early success story in the HIV epidemic at least in part due to an open and vigorous national dialogue about HIV prevention. This study examined the national discourse about HIV, AIDS, and young people in New Vision, Uganda's leading national newspaper between 1996 and 2011, building from a previous archival analysis of New Vision reporting by Kirby (1986–1995). We examined the continuing evolution in the public discourse in Uganda, focusing on reporting about young people. An increase in reporting on HIV and AIDS occurred after 2003, as antiretroviral treatment was becoming available. While the emphasis in newspaper reporting about adults and the population at large evolved to reflect the development of new HIV treatment and prevention methods, the majority of the articles focused on young people did not change. Articles about young people continued to emphasise HIV acquisition due to early and premarital sexual activity and the need for social support services for children affected by HIV and AIDS. Articles often did not report on the complex social conditions that shape HIV-related risk among young people, or address young people who are sexually active, married, and/or HIV-infected. With HIV prevalence now increasing among young people and adults in Uganda, greater attention to HIV prevention is needed.     

Sexuality education: findings and recommendations from an analysis of 10 United States programmes

In this study, we identified 10 sexuality education programmes from different locations in the USA that aim to give young people knowledge and skills to develop healthy relationships, as well as avoid pregnancy and disease. We conducted in-depth interviews with programme administrators to develop a series of case studies and provide concrete recommendations for education and public health professionals to implement similar approaches in their communities. Many programme administrators succeeded in developing partnerships, adapting existing curricula to suit their environments, engaging external evaluators and garnering support from teachers and parents. However, few programme developers conducted formal needs assessments before developing programmes and many struggled to implement curricula with fidelity and to employ rigorous evaluation designs. Nearly all participants identified concerns over funding as a threat to sustainability. We conclude that schools and organisations need technical assistance to build capacity for rigorous programme planning, implementation and evaluation, as well as additional funding streams to support emerging programmes.     

Testing the limits of optimality: the effect of base rates in the Monty Hall dilemma

The Monty Hall dilemma is a probability puzzle in which a player tries to guess which of three doors conceals a desirable prize. After an initial selection, one of the nonchosen doors is opened, revealing that it is not a winner, and the player is given the choice of staying with the initial selection or switching to the other remaining door. Pigeons and humans were tested on two variants of the Monty Hall dilemma, in which one of the three doors had either a higher or a lower chance of containing the prize than did the other two options. The optimal strategy in both cases was to initially choose the lowest-probability door available and then switch away from it. Whereas pigeons learned to approximate the optimal strategy, humans failed to do so on both accounts: They did not show a preference for low-probability options, and they did not consistently switch. An analysis of performance over the course of training indicated that pigeons learned to perform a sequence of responses on each trial, and that sequence was one that yielded the highest possible rate of reinforcement. Humans, in contrast, continued to vary their responses throughout the experiment, possibly in search of a more complex strategy that would exceed the maximum possible win rate.     

A Behind‐the‐Scenes Guide to School‐Based Research

Schools are an important context for both basic and applied scientific research. Unlike the laboratory, however, the physical and social conditions of schools are not under the exclusive control of scientists. In this article, we liken collecting data in schools to putting on a theatrical production. We begin by describing the large cast of characters whose collaborative efforts make school‐based research possible. Next, we address the critics, including the university Institutional Review Board (IRB) and school administrators, whose feedback often improves the final study design. We then turn our attention to set building, stage directions, and rehearsals—key steps in the iterative process of refining study procedures. We end with a discussion of the day of data collection itself and activities that take place after the curtain drops. Throughout, we make recommendations based on our recent experience collecting data at several high schools.     

A known group analysis validity study of the Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education in US elementary and secondary schools

The Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education (VAL-ED) provides educators with a tool for principal evaluation based on principal, teacher, and supervisor reports of principals’ learning-centered leadership. In this study, we conduct a known group analysis as part of a larger argument for the validity of the VAL-ED in US elementary and secondary schools. We asked superintendents to select the principals in their district who they believe in performance of their duties are in the top 20 % and the bottom 20 %. We ask how accurately VAL-ED scores can identify membership of the two known groups. Using a discriminant analysis, the VAL-ED places principals in the superintendent groups, on average, 70 % of the time for both elementary and secondary schools. Placement accuracy is greater for the top group than the bottom group.     

Conditioned avoidance responses survive contingency degradation in the garden slug,Lehmannia valentiana

Joint presentations of a conditioned stimulus (CS) and an unconditioned stimulus (US) strengthen the contingency between them, whereas presentations of one stimulus without the other degrade this contingency. For example, the CS can be presented without the US either before conditioning (CS–no US and then CS–US; latent inhibition) or after conditioning (CS–US and then CS–no US; extinction). In vertebrate subjects and several invertebrate species, a time lapse usually results in a return of the conditioned response, or spontaneous recovery. However, in land mollusks, spontaneous recovery from extinction has only recently been reported, and response recovery after latent inhibition has not been reported. In two experiments, using conditioned aversion to a food odor as a measure of learning and memory retention, we observed contingency degradation via latent inhibition (Experiment 1) and extinction (Experiment 2) in the common garden slug, Lehmannia valentiana. In both situations, the contingency degradation procedure successfully attenuated conditioned responding, and delaying testing by several days resulted in recovery of the conditioned response. This suggests that the CS–US association survived the degradation manipulation and was retained over an interval of several days.     

Expanding Opportunity for the American People

Hi, everybody. In my State of the Union Address, I talked about the idea of opportunity for all.
Opportunity is the idea at the heart of this country--that no matter who you are or how you started out, with hard work and responsibility, you can get ahead.     

Effects of Headings on Text Summarization

A summarization task was used to study whether headings influence readers' representations of the topic structure of a text. College students (Experiments 1-3) and sixth- and eighth-graders (Experiment 3) summarized a multiple topic text that (a) included headings introducing every new subtopic, (b) included headings introducing half of the new subtopics, or (c) included no headings. In all experiments, topics were more likely to be included in a summary if they were signaled than if they were not signaled. This effect was magnified when the text was only half signaled: Signaled topics were more likely to appear in a summary if only half the text topics were signaled than if all of the topics were signaled; however, unsignaled topics were less likely to appear in a summary if half of the text topics were signaled than if none of the text topics were signaled. The findings demonstrate that readers rely heavily on headings in a task that emphasizes attention to a text's topic structure. It is suggested that previously observed signaling effects on text recall are mediated by effects on how readers represent a text's topic structure. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.