Externalities, technological complementarities and sustained economic growth

Externalities as conventionally defined miss many of the spillovers that are both causes and consequences of the technological changes that underlie economic growth. We introduce a much wider concept called technological complementarities. New general purpose technologies (GPTs) rejuvenate the growth process by creating technological complementarities, which are adequately measured neither by total factor productivity (TFP) nor by externalities. There would be major gains from technological change even if the returns on capital invested in innovation never exceeded the returns on investing in existing technologies so that there were neither externalities nor positive changes in TFP.     

Using A Split-ballot Survey to Explore the Robustness of the 'MIP' Question in Agenda-Setting Research: A Methodological Study

Three aspects of the ‘most important problem’ questionused in agenda-setting research to measure issue salience amongthe public were examined. A split-ballot design in a state-widesurvey compared versions of the public agenda with a socialframe of reference versus a personal frame of reference, versionsusing the traditional term ‘problem’ versus ‘issue’,and the effects of question order. High correlations betweenthe different versions were found in all three sets of comparisons.     

Qualitative and quantitative analysis of goat ovaries,follicles and oocytes in view of in vitro production of embryos

Goat ovaries were collected from the slaughterhouse and categorized as right, left, corpus luteum （CL）-present and -absent group and evaluated on the basis of weight （g）, length （cm）, width （cm）, number of follicles, follicles aspirated and number and state ofcumulus-oocyte-complexes （COCs）. Comparatively higher weight [（0.66±0.02） vs （0.64±0.02） g], length [（1.17±0.02） vs （1.1 ±0.02） cm] and width [（0.77±0.02） vs （0.74±0.02） cm] were found in right ovaries than those of left. On the other hand significantly （P〈0.05） higher weight [（0.71±0.03） vs （0.64±0.01） g] and width [（0.76±0.03） vs （0.75±0.01） cm] were found in CL-present group than those of CL-absent group of ovaries. The left ovaries contained comparatively higher number of normal COCs [（1.06±0.09） per ovary] than fight ovaries [（1.03±0.10） per ovary] and the similar trend was found in total number of follicles [（4.51±0.25） vs （4.30±0.23） per ovary] and follicles aspirated [（2.55±0.14） vs （2.52±0.12） per ovary]. But the total COCs per ovary was almost similar in both ovaries [right and left： （1.85±0.12） and （1.85±0.11） per ovary, respectively]. Higher number of total COCs [（1.87±0.09） vs （1.76±0.16） per ovary], total number of follicles [（4.45±0.19） vs （4.16±0.37） per ovary], follicles aspirated [（2.55±0.10） vs （2.48±0.21） per ovary] and normal COCs [（1.12±0.07） vs （0.76±0.14） per ovary] were found in CL-absent group than those of CL-present group of ovaries.     

Phenomenal permanence and the development of predictive tracking in infancy

The perceived spatiotemporal continuity of objects depends on the way they appear and disappear as they move in the spatial layout. This study investigated whether infants' predictive tracking of a briefly occluded object is sensitive to the manner by which the object disappears and reappears. Five-, 7-, and 9-month-old infants were shown a ball rolling across a visual scene and briefly disappearing via kinetic occlusion, instantaneous disappearance, implosion, or virtual occlusion. Three different measures converged to show that predictive tracking increased with age and that infants were most likely to anticipate the reappearance of the ball following kinetic occlusion. These results suggest that infants' knowledge of the permanence and nonpermanence of objects is embodied in their predictive tracking.     

Together I Can! Joint Attention Boosts 3- to 4-Year-Olds’ Performance in a Verbal False-Belief Test

Effects of joint attention were addressed on 3- to 4-year-olds’ performance in a verbal false-Belief Test (FBT), featuring the experimenter as co-watcher rather than narrator. In two experiments, children (N = 183) watched a filmed-FBT jointly with a test leader, disjointed from a test leader, or alone. Children attending jointly with a test leader were more likely to pass the FBT compared with normative data and to spontaneously recall information indicating false-belief understanding, suggesting that joint attention strengthens the plausibility of the FBT and renders plot-critical information more salient. In a third experiment (N = 59), results were replicated using a typical, image-based FBT. Overall findings highlight the profound impact of experimenter as social context in verbal FBTs, and link recall of specific story features to false-belief understanding.     

Walking backwards into the future: Indigenous wisdom within design education

This research parallels Tongan academic Hūfanga ‘Okusitino Māhina’s assertions in the 1994 Contemporary Pacific article Our Sea of Islands, that ‘People are thought to walk forward into the past and walk backward into the future, both taking place in the present, where the past and the future are constantly mediated in the ever-transforming present’ alongside those of Professor Terry Irwin and fellow Transition Designers in which they discuss the use of Indigenous Wisdom to enable designing for the Long Now as defined by Brand in his 1999 book The Clock for the Long Now: Time and Responsibility. In the 2015 Transition Design Monograph Irwin asserts that, ‘Transition Design draws on knowledge and wisdom from the past to conceive solutions in the present with future generations in mind’. This paper draws on the pre-industrial wisdom of indigenous knowledge, specifically that of the Pacific regions, Moana, who have lived and designed sustainably in-place for generations to illustrate the value it holds for the formulation of sustainable and sustaining futures.     

Bureaucracies in Schools—Approaches to Support Measures in Swedish Schools Seen in the Light of Skrtic’s Theories

In Sweden, policy changes for provision of special support have been introduced, implying that teachers are obliged to provide and evaluate extra adaptations in regular classrooms prior to referring pupils to special support. The policy changes raise questions about school staffs’ views of support measures and of necessary professional competence for provision of the support measures. We conducted focus group interviews with 60 school staff representatives—headmasters, general education teachers, and special educators/school welfare teams—about their understandings of the new policy. The data were analyzed qualitatively, with the objective to explore school staffs’ approaches to the policy changes. Two main “ideal type approaches” were discerned, using Skrtic’s theories, viz. the bureaucracy approach and adhocracy approach. In the light of Skrtic’s theory, professionals’ reasoning about the new policy may reflect difficulties that are encountered in the process of implementing the policy in bureaucracy-steered schools.     

The Teacher Behavior Inventory: validation of teacher behavior in an interactive lecture environment

Students’ rating of teacher behaviors provides valuable information on teaching improvement and instructional quality. Unfortunately, there is a lack of new validated instruments for measuring teacher behaviors. The Teacher Behaviors Inventory is an old inventory that was initially developed to measure teaching behaviors as regards lecture-based instructions, which is effected through the use of low-inference items. The aim of this study was to assess its continued suitability in the present educational setting by examining its construct validity and internal consistency through the lens of one lecturer’s teaching behaviors, as rated by 527 students after six interactive lectures. The variables evaluated, as mentioned above, were achieved after an items removal process, which resulted in a 32-item version. Apart from being valid and reliable, this condensed version allows for immediate assessment of teaching behaviors after an instruction session as the rating procedure is now more straightforward and less time-consuming, and also enables a reduction in rating errors. Therefore, the 32-item format serves as a practical diagnostic feedback tool in the present educational arena, permitting a longitudinal teaching behavior assessment to enhance teachers’ professional development.     

Ghosts in the Nursery 2.0

SYNOPSIS

Parental working is not unambiguously beneficial for children. On the one hand, working parents can be positive role models for their children, and income can improve children’s lives in many ways. On the other hand, work can impair parent-child interactions, especially when the parents experience high levels of working stress. In my commentary, I conclude that the paper by River, enjoys strong support for the impact of maternal state anxiety (attachment anxiety) and work-interfering-with-family (WIF)-conflict related guilt on parents behaviors. Considering the cognitive-relational stress-theory by Lazarus and Folkman, the balance of personal resources and external demands can explain parental stress, which could be associated with parental behavior. Full-time-working parents, who experience high levels of guilt and report high levels of attachment anxiety, are more prone to show low levels of stress resistance toward crying infants. However, these associations are not studied in families with high risk factors. Furthermore, future studies should include aspects of mental health status in a theoretical model. Taken together, the target article provides a solid foundation for further research. I also propose to transfer the findings into more realistic research setting, which includes high-risk groups (parents with low socioeconomic status, low-income, mental health problems) to study how infant cry can influence parents’ patterns of care and abuse. The commentary tries to enrich the study by including Fraiberg’s “ghosts in the nursery” to further integrating parental mentalizing processes in the model explaining parents’ reactions to infant cry signal in the context of WIF conflicts.     

Development and Implementation of the Inaugural Anatomy Education Research Institute (AERI 2017)

Education research is increasingly being recognized as a legitimate route for faculty development in universities. However, many anatomy faculty lack the appropriate training and access to experienced mentors who can help them develop their own education research projects. Inspired by the American Physiological Society’s Institute for Teaching and Learning, the coauthors proposed and developed the inaugural Anatomy Education Research Institute (AERI 2017). Funded by an American Association of Anatomists Innovations grant, the five-day institute was held in Bloomington, Indiana in July 2017. The coauthors spent two years preparing the conference schedule, inviting speakers who could discuss education research topics and mentor applicants, reviewing applications, developing assessment instruments for the institute, and hosting the institute. A total of 62 registered participants (applicants and invited speakers) attended AERI 2017. Through a series of presentations and workshops, participants were introduced to many aspects of education research and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, including developing rigorous education research questions, determining appropriate methods to assess these questions, and searching the education research literature. Each day also included regular time devoted to work on their own education research project with help from more experienced mentors. Throughout the conference, participants were encouraged to post information on Twitter, using the hashtag #AERI2017. Participants had strong positive impressions of the conference and strongly requested future AERI conferences be held. Follow-up analyses will assess the institute in alignment with Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Evaluation Model, though preliminary evaluation indicates AERI 2017 met the original aims of the proposal.