An easy-to-hard effect after nonreinforced preexposure in a sweetness discrimination

Experiments 1A and 1B used a taste-aversion procedure with rats to demonstrate that exposure to easily discriminated flavors along a dimension (1 % and 10 % sucrose) can facilitate learning a subsequent hard discrimination (4 % and 7 % sucrose) when one of those flavors is paired with illness. Experiment 1A compared the effects of preexposure to the easily discriminated flavors against exposure to the same stimuli used in the discrimination training or no exposure at all. Experiment 1B replicated the conditions in Experiment 1A, with 2 additional days of training and unrestricted access to the flavors on CS+/CS– trials in discrimination training. Contrary to findings with multidimensional stimuli (Scahill & Mackintosh, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 30, 96–103, 2004; Suret & McLaren, The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 56B, 30–42, 2003), we found that preexposure to the easily discriminable stimuli varying along a single dimension of sweetness facilitated subsequent discrimination training over the other conditions in each experiment. We discuss the results in terms of the ideas presented by Gibson (1969) and Mackintosh (Psychological Review, 82, 276–298, 1975) and in terms of hedonic variables not considered by theories of perceptual learning.     

“Suited to Their Needs”: White Innocence as a Vestige of Segregation

Discourses that supported de jure segregated schools often invoked White innocence in the form of altruistic motivations. These same invocations are found in more contemporary school policy discourses. The authors of this article argue, based on the concept of intertextuality of discourse, the existence of contemporary schooling policies as vestiges of segregation.     

Too Many Chosts

it was a dark night. Shaggy and his dog Scooby hid （躲藏）behind a tree. ＂Look! There are two ghosts （鬼） and three witches （女巫） !＂ said Shaggy.     

Musselin,Christine & Teixeira,Pedro N ed (2014) Reforming higher education Springer (Berlin) isbn 978‐94‐007‐7027‐0 233 pp £90 http://www.springer.com/education+%26+language/higher+education/book/978‐94‐007‐7027‐0

As a whole, this is an extraordinary book if you wish to study and understand the evolution of higher education—especially in Europe in these times of change of educational paradigms generated by the Bologna Process. However, if the subject of this book is relevant to you as a learning technologist, I advise that you will probably find only parts of it of interest or use. Jesus Garcia Laborda     

马尔克斯——为拉丁美洲发声

正【阅读难度:】耽字迷文,阅读是一种受益终生的习惯。拉丁美洲作家马尔克斯于2014年4月17日辞世,享年87岁。他是拉丁美洲魔幻现实主义文学的代表人物,20世纪最有影响力的作家之一,1982年诺贝尔文学奖得主。他将现实主义与幻想结合起来,创造了一部风云变幻的哥伦比亚和整个南美大陆的神话般的历史。     

Faculty Employment Trends in Criminology and Criminal Justice

The academic job search process is perhaps one of the most important and stressful events for scholars hoping to gain full‐time employment in academia. The stress that this process induces is due, at least in part, to the fact that candidates are forced to make important, life‐changing decisions with very little information. The goal of the present study is to provide an update on faculty employment trends in criminology and criminal justice by examining faculty position announcements posted in The Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE) from August 2004 to July 2009. Findings reveal that candidates seeking assistant professor positions will have the most choice, as positions posted at this rank make up the largest category of advertisements. Furthermore, when a specialization was included in the announcement, most departments sought those with a law enforcement focus, followed by generalists.     

Review of The 2009 UNESCO framework for cultural statistics

The main goal of the 2009 UNESCO Framework for Cultural Statistics is to facilitate comparisons through a common understanding of culture and the use of standardized definitions and classifications. This review contains an in-depth analysis of the 2009 Framework's contribution to the existing literature on measuring the economic impact of culture, and it concludes by suggesting future avenues of research. By achieving international consensus on the concept of culture and its measurement, we will be able to progress in our studies of the competitive advantages that allow cultural firms to generate wealth nowadays.     

Using Dialogic Writing Assessment to Support the Development of Historical Literacy

Though discipline-specific approaches to literacy instruction can support adolescents' academic literacy and identity development, scant attention has been paid to ways of targeting such instruction to address individual student needs. Dialogic writing assessment is an approach to conducting writing conferences that foregrounds students' composing process so that teachers can assess and support that process with instructional feedback. Because such feedback is immediate, teachers can observe how students take it up. While dialogic assessment has shown promise as an approach to revealing and supporting students' writing processes in English Language Arts classrooms, it remains to be explored how this approach can support developing writers in other subject areas. This paper offers an analytic narrative account of how a high school social studies teacher used this method to support the writing process of one student, exploring what the method revealed about the challenges the student faced in writing about history, the gaps and misconceptions in their understanding of history and the intersection between the two. We discuss how certain ‘mediational moves’ the teacher employed enabled the student to compose collaboratively with the teacher, and in this collaborative composing, to capture ideas that she later used in her independent writing.     

Discrete-time synchronization strategy for input time-delay mobile robots

This paper considers a synchronization strategy for a group of differentially driven mobile robots subject to input time-delayed control signals. The continuous time model of the vehicles is exactly discretized in order to obtain a larger dimension representation free of delays. The control strategy is based on the concept of synchronization, under two main assumptions: a specific formation for the group of robots and the tracking of a particular desired trajectory. The control strategy proposed in this work allows the consideration of causal feedback laws avoiding the use of an additional prediction strategy that counteracts the undesired input time-delay effects. The performance of the synchronization strategy is evaluated by real-time experiments with the help of a group of three mobile robots and an indoor absolute localization system based on artificial vision.     

The Progression of Prospective Primary Teachers’ Conceptions of the Methodology of Teaching

This article describes the evolution of prospective primary teachers’ conceptions of the methodology of teaching. Three categories were analyzed: the concept of activity, the organization of activities, and the concept of teaching resources. The study was conducted with five teams of prospective teachers, who were participating in teacher education courses of a constructivist orientation. The results showed very different itineraries in the processes of change, and the presence of two major obstacles—the belief that teaching is the direct cause of learning, and epistemological absolutism. The study allows us to deduce some implications for initial teacher education.