Bionic mechanical design and 3D printing of novel porous Ti6Al4V implants for biomedical applications

Journal of Zhejiang University-SCIENCE B - In maxillofacial surgery, there is a significant need for the design and fabrication of porous scaffolds with customizable bionic structures and...     

Understanding Sexual Aggression in Male College Students: The Role of Self‐Monitoring and Pluralistic Ignorance

The authors examined the relationship between self‐monitoring and pluralistic ignorance and self‐reported sexually aggressive behaviors by freshman and sophomore male college students. Results indicated that self‐monitoring style and level of pluralistic ignorance were correlated positively with sexual aggression. The authors review relevant literature, present research findings, and discuss implications of the findings for college counselors.     

Transitive inference in pigeons: Simplified procedures and a test of value transfer theory

Minimal procedures for the demonstration of transitive inference (TI) in animals have involved the training of four simultaneous discriminations: for example, A+B?, B+C?, C+D?, and D+E?, followed by the demonstration of a preference for B over D on test trials. In Experiment 1, we found that TI in pigeons can be found with successive training involving A+B?, B+C?, A+C?, C+D?, D+E?, C+E?, and A+E?. In Experiment 2, we found that demonstration of TI did not require inclusion of experience with the nonadjacent stimulus pairs (A+C?, C+E?, A+E?). Experiment 3 provided a test of value transfer theory (VTT; Fersen, Wynne, Delius, & Staddon, 1991). When pigeons were trained with stimulus pairs that did not permit the transitive ordering of stimuli, but did permit the differential transfer of value (e.g., A+B?, C?E+, C+D?, & A+E?), preference for B over D was still found. Analyses of the relation between direct experiences with reinforced and nonreinforced responding and stimulus preferences on test trials failed to support a reinforcement-history account of TI.     

How college science students engage in note‐taking strategies

A composite theory of college science student note‐taking strategies was derived from a periodic series of five interviews with 23 students and with other variables, including original and final versions of notes analyzed during a semester‐long genetics course. This evolving composite theory was later compared with Van Meter, Yokoi, and Pressley's (Journal of Educational Psychology, 86, 323–338, 1994) corresponding composite “college students' theory of note‐taking.” Students' notes in this long‐term study were also compared with a standard of “adequate” note‐taking established by experts. Analyses detected many similarities between the two composite theories. Analyses also provided evidence of inadequate note‐taking strategies, inconsistencies between what students claimed and evidently did with their notes, and weak self‐regulating learning strategies. Recommendations included prompting students during class on how to take notes. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 43: 786–818, 2006     

Teaching the basic relationships between sentences

Research and classroom experience (Bormuth et al., 1970; Nichols, 1980) support the idea that middle and secondary students often have difficulty understanding relationships within and between sentences. Knowledge gleaned from discourse analysis concepts can assist teachers in providing useful instructional strategies to help students comprehend progressively larger units of meaning. We want to encourage teachers to try some of the instructional strategies we have provided and also to experiment with additional ideas drawn from the information presented here. We hope other teachers will further explore this potentially rich area of comprehension instruction.     

Development of mental attention in gifted and mainstream children: the role of mental capacity, inhibition, and speed of processing

The study examined performance of 6- to 11-year-old children, from gifted and mainstream academic programs, on measures of mental-attentional capacity, cognitive inhibition, and speed of processing. In comparison with mainstream peers, gifted children scored higher on measures of mental-attentional capacity, responded more quickly on speeded tasks of varying complexity, and were better able to resist interference in tasks requiring effortful inhibition. There was no group difference on a task requiring automatic inhibition. Comparisons between older and younger children yielded similar results. Correlations between inhibition tasks suggest that inhibition is multidimensional in nature, and its application may be affected by task demands. Measures of efficiency of inhibition and speed of processing did not explain age or group differences on a complex intellective measure of mental-attentional capacity.     

Developing an HIV/AIDS Education Curriculum for Takalani Sesame, South Africa's Sesame Street

The HIV/AIDS pandemic in South Africa has prompted a need for extensive efforts to educate citizens of all ages about the disease and ways of coping with its impact. This paper describes the process of developing an HIV/AIDS education curriculum for Takalani Sesame, an educational media project for young South African children. The process began with formative research with adults and children, and extensive discussions with HIV/AIDS health specialists. Guided by the research and advice from specialists, a team of educators developed a comprehensive curriculum that the Takalani Sesame production team will use to create HIV/AIDS education messages for television, radio and outreach materials for children ages 3-7 and the adults who care for them.     

Differences between physical and social sciences in university graduate departments

The greater articulation of scientific fields with well-developed paradigms — in Kuhn's sense of the term — is viewed as facilitating scientific activities within those fields. Contrasting two physical science with two social science fields, earlier research reported greater consensus in the physical sciences, greater willingness to work with graduate students, and large advantages in research support and funding as compared to the social sciences.Data on influence in decision-making indicate that physical science departments enjoy greater autonomy from their central administrations, although physicists in lower-quality departments report some administrative pressures over choices of research areas. While social science departments feel less autonomous from their central administrations, they grant more autonomy to individual members. Decisions related to teaching processes are made differently across fields, with the physical sciences relying more heavily on committees, and the social sciences relying on individual-chairman negotiations.Across all four fields (physics, chemistry, sociology, and political science), departments with relatively high reputations exhibit collegial structures, while departments with lower reputations show marked tendencies toward bureaucratization. These findings hold when size of department or university is controlled, although departments in smaller universities report more administrative influence than those in extremely large ones.It is argued: (1) Departmental autonomy in the physical sciences is enhanced by the visibility of consequences made possible by greater paradigm development. (2) Maintenance of individual autonomy in the social sciences is necessitated by the lower visibility of consequences and the uncertainty of outcomes of those fields. (3) The maintenance of collegiality within universities may depend on visibility of favorable consequences relative to socially approved goals.The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations; of the Science, Technology, and Society Group at Cornell; and of Cornell University. Requests for reprints should be sent to Janice B. Lodahl, School of Management, Crosby Hall, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, N.Y. 14214.     

Telling and Retelling Our Stories on the Professional Knowledge Landscape

Drawing on a 3-year study focusing on the shaping influences of the professional knowledge landscape on the personal practical knowledge of experienced teachers, we first explore how stories are shaped as they are told and responded to in different places and, second, explore whether or not this sharing leads to imagining new possibilities for retelling and reliving stories. By sharing and exploring a story of a disagreement between a parent and a teacher, we focus on what we do when we tell stories in schools and what we do when we tell stories off the school landscape. In making meaning from this story, we show that both in the teacher's living of the story with the parent and in her numerous recountings of the story to others on the school landscape, she did not have opportunities to figure out new ways to relive the story. In our research group, she shared her story again. In this telling, we asked her to focus on who she, the mother, and the principal are in the story, and we inquire into what plotlines each were living. We ask questions about how they were positioned as characters in relation to one another. Re-searching the story in this way enabled us to understand the embodied nature of the teacher's knowing and how this knowledge shaped the events of the story as they were lived out, particularly how the teacher's living of a relational story countered the story of teacher and principal as positioned above parent. By drawing on Nelson's work on 'found' and 'chosen' communities, we imagine ways in which schools could become chosen communities where the story of school might be one of fostering the living out of multiple stories. We imagine the stories emerging from such communities might significantly shape the landscape of schools by opening up new possibilities for living in relation with others.