Collaborative Approaches to Resolving Difficult ILL Borrowing Requests: Using a Working Group and a Wiki for Knowledge Sharing

Interlibrary loan borrowing staff at the University of Arizona Main Library, who handle difficult interlibrary loan requests, are taking a collaborative approach to obtaining unique, difficult-to-locate materials. A working group within the document delivery team meets weekly to share examples processed during the preceding week to increase the fill rate of challenging interlibrary loan requests. The group also established a wiki for the purpose of sharing resources that have been used to solve difficult requests. The wiki serves as an advanced interlibrary loan training resource that can be accessed by a greater number of staff, enabling them to gain the skills necessary to process difficult requests.     

Procedure and reliability of conditioned respiratory suppression

Changes in respiration amplitude, respiration rate, and heart rate in response to a conditioned signal for shock were measured concurrently in kittens and adult cats. The data were analyzed with respect to qualitative and quantitative variability across trials and subjects; correlation among measures; skewness; and kurtosis. Suppression of respiration amplitude was the most reliable response across trials and subjects, with increases in respiration rate second and heart rate by far the least reliable. Correlations between each pair of measures were moderate. Respiration-amplitude responses were negatively skewed, but this deviation from normality was moderate and consistent across subjects. The measurement of conditioned respiratory suppression is a viable addition or alternative to the conditioned emotional response procedure in studies of classically conditioned fear.     

Index for Volume 55 (1984)

Abstract

This study investigated the timing of the trigger pull in relation to the cardiac cycle during air rifle shooting. Electrocardiogram) was recorded from 20 male nonelite rifle shooters in two separate testing sessions. The testing was conducted at an indoor shooting range using an optoelectronic shooting system. Each participant fired a shot in the standing position at a distance of 10 m from the target. The results showed that compared to random triggering, the shooters fired more often during the phase of 10–50% of the R wave-to-R wave (R-R) interval and less often during the phase of 50–90%. With regard to performance accuracy, the participants exhibited average or above average performance, when the shot occurred in the beginning (0–50%) and in the end (70–99%) of the R-R interval. The less optimal range for the triggering was located within the 50–70% phase of the R-R interval. The length of R-R interval (i.e., heart rate) did not affect the relation of shot placement within the cardiac cycle to the accuracy of shooting performance. The present results extend previous findings by showing that in air rifle shooting the optimum firing time within the cardiac cycle may be located in the systolic phase. It is argued that the systole-diastole dichotomy is not a sufficiently accurate way to investigate the effects of shot placement in the cardiac cycle. Further research is needed to examine the extent to which the relationship between the timing of triggering within the cardiac cycle and shooting performance depends a shooter's skill level.     

INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS

The participants in the workshop are welcomed and the rationale for the workshop and its objectives are stated. As the diversification of higher education structures is necessary and is taking place spontaneously throughout eastern and central Europe, the need has arisen to give it some direction, above all to ensure that higher education evolves in ways compatible with the transition to democracy and a market economy.     

The Kinetic-Molecular and Thermodynamic Approaches to Osmotic Pressure: A Study of Dispute in Physical Chemistry and the Implications for Chemistry Education

Osmotic pressure proves to be a useful topic for illustrating the disputes brought to bear on the chemistry profession when mathematics was introduced into its discipline. Some chemists of the late 19th century thought that the introduction of mathematics would destroy that chemical feeling or experience so necessary to the practice of chemistry. These chemists were critical of the suggestion that mathematically analogous expressions for macroscopic phenomena implied similar kinetic-molecular processes at the microscopic level because they believed that a chemical phenomenon discovered by chemical experience through experiment was a more reliable guide to molecular processes than was mathematics. In general physical chemists of the modern era are also critical of the suggestion that mathematically analogous expressions for macroscopic phenomena imply similar kinetic-molecular processes at the microscopic level but for different reasons. The mathematical analogy between the van’t Hoff law and the ideal gas law is regarded as an artefact of the mathematical thermodynamic treatment of osmosis and not as a result of a correlation of kinetic-molecular processes. Some chemists however, albeit a minority, while agreeing with the thermodynamic treatment of osmotic pressure suggest that the mathematical analogy is more significant than being simply a mathematical artefact. They propose a controversial kinetic-molecular model of osmotic pressure which they believe has more educational value than the thermodynamic model. The significance of mathematically analogous expressions for different chemical properties and the desirability of highlighting unifying chemical principles for the teaching and learning of tertiary level chemistry are discussed predominantly in the context of historical osmotic studies.     

Meaning Making and “The Learning Paradigm”: A Provocative Idea in Practice

Amidst the considerable literature published on institutional change in undergraduate teaching and learning, an article co-authored by Robert Barr and John Tagg in 1995 stands out. The authors offered a vision and —perhaps most importantly—gave it a memorable name, the Learning Paradigm. From Teaching to Learning—A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education is the most frequently cited article in the history of Change. In this article, Barr blended his voice with colleagues who helped initiate Learning Paradigm programs at a public university and in a liberal arts college setting. Through multiple forms of inquiry, including discourse and metaphor analysis, they interpreted the shift from teaching to learning and speculate about its future.     

Letter from the Editors

Journal of Science Teacher Education -     

Market versus Mandator. Control Structure and Strategies for Change in School Organizations 1

Berg, G. 1984. Market versus Mandator. Control Structure and Strategies for Change in School Organizations. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 28, 49‐70. An organization's activities are a function of the external control originating in its environment and the internal control regulating the interaction of its various component parts. In other words, an organization is shaped by its external and internal control structures. The nature of this control varies from one organization to another, the character of the control structure being dependent on the tasks or functions the organization is there to perform. It is argued that the type of control structure existing determines (a) what theoretical model has the greatest explanatory value in an analysis of phenomena occurring in a specific organization, and (b) what strategy for change corresponds to the control structure in question.

     

Mathematics in science: The role of the history of science in communicating the significance of mathematical formalism in science

The use of a historical profile for illustrating the significance of the mathematical components of a scientific law is discussed in this paper. Such an approach addresses the need for the purposive use of scientific laws rather than the blind substitutionary procedures characteristic of most problem-solvers. The approach has the potential for increasing female participation in the physical sciences because of its reliance on learning modes favourable to female participation.