The Culture of Mexican-Americans: Its Importance for Early Childhood Educators

This paper provides an introduction to the Mexican-American culture, describing (1) cultural diversity and linguistic policies in the United States; (2) cultural and linguistic studies that have examined the backgrounds of Mexican-American individuals; (3) the characteristics of this population; (4) issues on discrimination and human relations; (5) the socioeconomic factors that Mexican-American individuals encountered due to their lack of education; and (6) the predominance of poorly paid and undereducated unskilled workers. Although many Mexican Americans have moved up the social ladder to the middle class, others have not. However, they have a richness of language and culture to share with the school.     

The influence of carbohydrate and protein ingestion during recovery from prolonged exercise on subsequent endurance performance

Ingesting carbohydrate plus protein following prolonged exercise may restore exercise capacity more effectively than ingestion of carbohydrate alone. The objective of the present study was to determine whether this potential benefit is a consequence of the protein fraction per se or simply due to the additional energy it provides. Six active males participated in three trials, each involving a 90-min treadmill run at 70% maximal oxygen uptake (run 1) followed by a 4-h recovery. At 30-min intervals during recovery, participants ingested solutions containing: (1) 0.8 g carbohydrate x kg body mass (BM)(-1) h(-1) plus 0.3 g kg(-1) h(-1) of whey protein isolate (CHO-PRO); (2) 0.8 g carbohydrate x kg BM(-1) h(-1) (CHO); or (3) 1.1 g carbohydrate x kg BM(-1) h(-1) (CHO-CHO). The latter two solutions matched the CHO-PRO solution for carbohydrate and for energy, respectively. Following recovery, participants ran to exhaustion at 70% maximal oxygen uptake (run 2). Exercise capacity during run 2 was greater following ingestion of CHO-PRO and CHO-CHO than following ingestion of CHO (P< or = 0.05) with no significant difference between the CHO-PRO and CHO-CHO treatments. In conclusion, increasing the energy content of these recovery solutions extended run time to exhaustion, irrespective of whether the additional energy originated from sucrose or whey protein isolate.     

Thomson Scientific's expanding Web of Knowledge: beyond citation databases and current awareness services

As end-user demand for easy access to electronic full text continues to climb, an increasing number of information providers are combining that access with their other products and services, making navigating their Web sites by librarians seeking information on a given product or service more daunting than ever. One such provider of a complex array of products and services is Thomson Scientific. This paper looks at some of the many products and tools available from two of Thomson Scientific's businesses, Thomson ISI and Thomson ResearchSoft. Among the items of most interest to health sciences and veterinary librarians and their users are the variety of databases available via the ISI Web of Knowledge platform and the information management products available from ResearchSoft.     

Angel: post-implementation evaluation at the Indiana University School of Medicine

With continued adoption of course management systems, librarians are assuming new roles and challenges with regard to providing information resources and library services in a digital environment. For approximately five years, the Indiana University School of Medicine has employed Angel as its online teaching environment, and the Ruth Lilly Medical Library has been actively involved in the adoption of Angel. As the implementation phase was completed, a post-implementation evaluation was due. The authors conducted an evaluation of the Angel system to evaluate utilization level, content types, and library resources/services integration. This article provides the findings of the post-implementation Angel Courses Evaluation.     

The Methodology of the 'Views and Visions Project' of Land Use-UK: Practices,issues, decisions and experiences

The Land Use-UK Project was conducted with the support of teachers and students in schools throughout the UK. At the time they acted as surveyors of the landscape and, as well as mapping the land use, students recorded their perceptions of what they had seen together with their views for the future. Referred to now as the 'Views and Visions Project', these collective opinions from mostly whole class groups of students provide a database of 1287 responses. Along with the richness of discovery and meaning which the readings of these narratives of landscape experience provide, there have been many decisions to be made regarding the appropriate style and strategies needed for development of the data and interpretation and analysis of the research. This paper provides a reflection on the methodological decisions taken from the personal perspective of the authors as well as some critical comment on the limitations and possibilities of this essentially qualitative research approach.     

Canada’s national initiative to advance access to electronic journals*

This paper describes a national experiment in the licensing of full text information in journals, primarily in the fields of science, technology and medicine. It discusses the initiative of the federal government of Canada through the creation of the Canada Foundation for Innovation as a new funding agency, with an objective of improving research and creativity in Canadian science. The successful efforts initiated by the Canadian Association of Research Libraries/Association des bibliothèques de recherche du Canada to create a funding opportunity to develop the ‘information infrastructure’ for Canadian researchers and the resulting Canadian National Site Licensing Project (CNSLP) progress is discussed. The evolution of a project governance structure to maintain the support of the 64 participating institutions is reviewed and the need to develop an appropriate exit strategy at the conclusion of the federal funding is also considered.     

The Contribution of Memory and Anxiety to the Math Performance of College Students with Learning Disabilities

The impact of memory and anxiety on math performance was analyzed in a sample of 115 college undergraduates, all of whom had a diagnosed learning disability. The direct effects of memory and anxiety on math performance were first examined, followed by an examination of whether anxiety moderates the relationship between memory and math. Both memory and anxiety were found to directly affect math performance. Additionally, anxiety served as a moderator of the relationship between memory and math for most, but not all, measures of math achievement. The moderating effect of anxiety was stronger for long-term retrieval than for short-term memory. The relationships between memory, anxiety, and math were not significantly different for males and females. These findings suggest that, when working with individuals who have low anxiety but poor memory, enhancing memory strategies may be effective for remediating problems in math. However, for those with high levels of anxiety, it may be more efficacious to first ameliorate the anxiety, as working on memory may have a negligible effect on math performance for these individuals.