The Effect of Emotionally Arousing Negative Images on Judgments About News Stories

Two experiments investigated the influence effects of negative photographs on people's attitudes after reading a news story. Experiment 1 presented an online news emulation to participants showing a story and images (high-emotion/low-emotion/no image) about African famine relief efforts. Experiment 2 replicated the design with a story and images about U.S. involvement in the Afghanistan War. As anticipated, using the predictions of the Affect Heuristic model of judgment formation, the addition of pictures with strong emotional activation had a diminishing effect on people's support for the war in Afghanistan and their support for famine aid. Additionally, decreasing effects were observed in broader attitudes concerning participants' support of a militaristic national policy in Experiment 2. These results are discussed regarding their implications for theories of judgment formation and journalistic practice.     

Research psychographics of the nurse professoriate in a Philippine comprehensive University

This two-pronged study seeks to ascertain the research psychographic characteristics of a select group of nurse professoriate (n=37) in a comprehensive university in the Philippines. The quantitative part of the study had an adapted survey questionnaire, which profiled the demographic and psychographic characteristics of the respondents. Defining the qualitative aspect of the inquiry was an in-depth interview with five (5) of the respondents chosen purposively to triangulate the data yielded by the questionnaire. Data were treated statistically and interpretively to describe the phenomenon under inquiry. It is interesting to note that while the nurse professoriate had shown a positive attitude towards research, variables such as time constraints, lack of research knowledge, research support structure and motivation hinder them from doing research activities. Implications of the study to reculturing, restructuring and reformulating efforts in research are also discussed.     

Using Newspapers to Examine the Nature of Science

This paper describes the use of newspapers in a philosophy of science course.Using the newspaper as a required text facilitates student exploration of the nature of science by examining current scientific topics. Students in the course read The New York Times on a weekly basis. The articles from the Times support two pedagogical activities: newspaper journals and weekly discussions. The journals consist of free responses to published articles and serve as a means to encourage students to direct their own learning. The weekly discussions permit a free exchange of ideas about controversial topics while facilitating discourse about a multitude of topics concerning the nature of science. This paper describes the course design and provides several examples of how newspaper articles can be used as pedagogical resource.     

Environmental education research in Brazil: some highlights from theses and dissertations

Abstract

This article discusses an analysis of abstracts of Brazilian theses and dissertations on environmental education from a database organised and maintained by a group of researchers in the EArt Project (www.earte.net). In presenting extracts of key trends in this dataset, our aim is to provide a snapshot of the many possible approaches to, and histories of, Brazilian environmental education research. The data also allow us to raise some questions that explore possible ‘blank spots’, ‘blind spots’ and ‘bald spots’ in Brazilian research on environmental education. Given the temporal development of the research field since the 1980s, we illustrate these ‘spots’ by exploring data related to epistemological and methodological diversity, from the viewpoint of knowledge areas as well as the graduate programmes that have been developing research on environmental education. Finally, we draw a picture of the methodological trends that have been privileged by Brazilian researchers, and pose questions as to what is needed in shaping an agenda for research on environmental education in Brazil into the future.     

Graphenes — Aromatic giants

Recently, extremely large benzenoid hydrocarbons have been synthesized. These compounds resemble graphite in many ways, and have been named graphenes. Because of their nonstandard properties, graphenes have already found numerous applications, especially as special-purpose materials in electronics. In this article we outline the basic chemical facts on graphenes. Ivan Gutman is Professor of Physical Chemistry at the Faculty of Science, Kragujevac, Serbia. Among his interests are mathematical methods in chemistry and the theory of polycyclic aromatic compounds. Boris Furtula is secretary of the journal ‘MATCH Communications in Mathematical and in Computer Chemistry’.     

Vitamins: essential dietary constituents discovered

Until a century or more ago disease was generally attributed to the presence of some undesirable feature. The realization that disease could be due to the absence of a desirable factor was revolutionary. During the 18th and 19th centuries, however, foundations were laid for the recognition in the 20th century that to prevent some diseases certain ‘accessory substances’—the vitamins—were essential in the diet. This article tells the story of their discovery, their current significance, and future trends in vitamin research.     

Haemoglobin A1c-based screening for prediabetes and diabetes mellitus: a multi-center study in Croatian adult population

IntroductionBased on the hypothesis that there is a substantial rate of adults with prediabetes and undiagnosed diabetes mellitus (DM), our aim was to perform haemoglobin A1c (HbA_1c)-based screening in a cohort of Croatian adults and estimate the prevalence of prediabetes and undiagnosed DM according to American Diabetes Association criteria.Materials and methodsThis multi-center, cross-sectional study performed in six Croatian hospitals included 5527 patients aged 40 to 70 years admitted to the Emergency Department or undergoing a primary care check-up. Haemoglobin A1c was measured from leftover whole blood samples using the enzymatic method on either Alinity c or Architect c-series analyser (Abbott Laboratories, Chicago, USA). Haemoglobin A1c between 39-47 mmol/mol was classified as prediabetes, while ≥ 48 mmol/mol as undiagnosed DM.ResultsAfter exclusion of 435 patients with known DM, the final cohort included 5092 patients (median age 57; 56% males). A total of 882 (17.3%) patients had HbA_1c values between 39 and 47 mmol/mol. There were 214 (4.2%) patients with HbA_1c ≥ 48 mmol/mol. Prediabetes prevalence ranged from 14.2% to 20.5%, while undiagnosed DM from 3.3% to 7.3%, with statistically significant differences among settings (P < 0.001). Age-stratified analysis showed that prediabetes and undiagnosed DM prevalence increase with age (P < 0.001), being 25.4% and 5.8%, respectively, in patients aged 60 to 70 years.ConclusionUnderlying impairment of glucose metabolism was identified in about one in five adults, with significant number of patients with already overt DM. These results should serve as a starting point for further steps directed towards promotion of preventive measures for DM in Croatia.