RECALL SCORES OF OLD AND YOUNG PEOPLE AS A FUNCTION OF REGISTRATION INTERVALS

The subjects, 24 old (mean age, 69 yr) and 24 young (mean age, 19 yr) people, were given one learning trial on paired associate lists under each of four temporal conditions: (1) 3 sec study (association) interval; (2) self‐paced study interval; (3) self‐paced study interval and 4 sec registration interval; (4) self‐paced study and registration intervals. The response interval for the single recall trial was self‐paced for all conditions. The subject was instructed to use the registration interval to ensure that the association between the paired items was “fixed” in his or her mind. The recall scores of the elderly subjects but not the young subjects improved significantly as a function of the registration interval. The results suggest that with advanced age more time is required for information processing, and specifically for the registration of an association and/or its transfer from primary to secondary memory. The significant improvement of the older subjects from the paced‐study‐interval condition to the self‐paced‐study‐and‐registration‐intervals condition supports the contention that modification of conditions under which the older person is expected to perform can result in substantial performance increments.     

“The Nation Stands Behind You”: Mobilizing Social Support on 38pitches.com

This research explored social support expressions to and for Boston Red Sox pitcher, Curt Schilling, in response to troubling events he disclosed on his blog, www.38pitches.com. An interpretive analysis of 514 comments posted by blog readers to Schilling's blog entries was conducted. The analysis revealed that, via their supportive postings, blog readers emerged as a mobilized support group who authenticated Schilling's identity as a sports media critic and active sports media participant while also cementing his legacy in Red Sox culture. The analysis suggests that blogs possess valuable public relations utility for professional athletes, particularly for those who have combative relationships with sports journalists, as social support is covertly obtained, enabling professional athletes to preserve “face” while simultaneously garnering support for their views.     

Community college students’ views on learning mathematics in terms of their epistemological beliefs: a Q method study

The purpose of this study was to explore the views of students enrolled at a small United States Midwestern community college toward learning mathematics, and to examine the relationship between student beliefs about mathematic learning and educational experiences with mathematics using Q methodology and open-ended response prompts. Schommer’s (Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 495–504, 1990) multidimensional theory of personal epistemology provided the structural framework for the development of 36 domain specific Q sort statements. Analysis of the data revealed three distinct but related views of learning mathematic which were labeled Active Learners, Skeptical Learners, and Confident Learners. Chi-square tests of independence revealed no significant differences based on gender. Additionally, there was no evidence for differences based on level of mathematics completed, age, or college hours accumulated. Student’s previous experiences in instructional environments, however, were closely associated with beliefs. Results are discussed in view of the implications for establishing learning environments and considerations in implementing Standards-based curricula in higher education.     

Modeling actions of PubMed users with n-gram language models

Transaction logs from online search engines are valuable for two reasons: First, they provide insight into human information-seeking behavior. Second, log data can be used to train user models, which can then be applied to improve retrieval systems. This article presents a study of logs from PubMed^®, the public gateway to the MEDLINE^® database of bibliographic records from the medical and biomedical primary literature. Unlike most previous studies on general Web search, our work examines user activities with a highly-specialized search engine. We encode user actions as string sequences and model these sequences using n-gram language models. The models are evaluated in terms of perplexity and in a sequence prediction task. They help us better understand how PubMed users search for information and provide an enabler for improving users’ search experience.     

Biochemical Profile of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Patients in Eastern India with Histopathological Correlation

Aminotransferase assay is often used as a screening test as well as an endpoint for resolution of disease in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Aim of the study was to evaluate the relationship of transaminase level with metabolic variables and histology in NAFLD. Single center observational study was conducted in a gastroenterology clinic at Cuttack in coastal Odisha. Subjects were consecutive patients presenting with functional bowel disease and undergoing abdominal sonography. All participants were evaluated for the presence of metabolic syndrome (MS), insulin resistance, liver function test and lipid profile. Various parameters were compared between NAFLD subjects and controls. 53.5 % of NAFLD had normal serum transaminases, whereas 20.8 % of healthy controls had transaminitis. NAFLD patients had significantly higher BMI, fasting plasma glucose, serum transaminases, serum triglycerides, serum insulin and homeostatic model assessment (HOMA) IR than controls. NAFLD patients who had transaminitis had significantly higher incidence of MS and higher mean HOMA IR than those without. There was no significant difference in histopathological features between NAFLD with and without transaminitis. To conclude, over half of NAFLD subjects do not have transaminitis while transaminitis is present in a fifth of healthy people without fatty liver. Hence serum transaminase should not be used as screening test for NAFLD. NAFLD patients with transaminitis had a higher incidence of MS and insulin resistance than those without. However, there was no significant difference in histopathological features between these two groups.     

Gender ratio in dyslexia

This paper is based on a study carried out in Great Britain on a national sample of 11,804 ten-year olds. The first section describes an attempt to pick out cases of “specific developmental dyslexia” (Critchley 1970), a constellation or syndrome of difficulties which some believe to be recognizable clinically. When specified criteria for dyslexia were used, 269 children qualified as dyslexic (2.28 percent of the sample). These included 223 boys and 46 girls, for a ratio of 4.51 to 1. Two possible difficulties in interpreting these data are discussed, and a defense is offered of the criteria used. Since some recent research papers report a gender ratio much nearer 1:1 (Shaywitz et al. 1990; Wadsworth et al. 1992; Lubs et al. 1993), those papers were examined for possible differences in procedure; it was found that the definition of dyslexia they used was “poor reading in relation to intelligence.” We carried out a further analysis on our own data using the same criterion. Of the 494 children who qualified as dyslexic on the basis of discrepancy criteria alone (4.19 percent of the sample), 314 were boys and 180 were girls for a ratio of 1.69 to 1. It seems, therefore, that the apparent differences in gender ratio reported in the literature have arisen because different criteria for dyslexia have been used. We argue that the definition based on clinical criteria leads to a more powerful taxonomy and that the widespread equation of “dyslexia” with “poor reading” is a hindrance to progress.     

A comparison between the WISC and WISC-R among educable mentally retarded students

The study compared differences and similarities between WISC and WISC-R scores for 48 ten- and thirteen-year-old EMR students, who were matched according to sex and race. The WISC-R yielded significantly lower VS, PS, and FS IQ scores than the WISC for this predominantly rural Georgia population. The FS IQ scores from the WISC-R averaged 7.5 points lower than the WISC FS IQs, with similar differences noted for VS and PS scores. There was no significant difference in FS IQs between the two age groups. Results suggest that many children classified as “Borderline” or slightly above by the WISC will be classified as “Mentally Deficient” by the WISC-R.     

Effect of the addition of hydroxyl-terminated polydimethylsiloxane to TEOS-based stone consolidants

Hybrid stone consolidants prepared from tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) and α,ω-hydroxyl-terminated polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS-OH) have been considered as one of the most promising approaches to improve the effectiveness of traditional alkoxysilane-based formulations. They have emerged as response to the negative reports commonly found in the literature: the resulting silica gel phase (SiO₂) tends to develop fractures and fissures inside the stone as the gel shrinks during the drying stage. In this work, we employed SEM, solid-state ²⁹Si NMR spectroscopy and compressive tests to characterize SiO₂-PDMS hybrid gels. We report the morphological characteristics exhibited by gels prepared in vitro and in situ. It was found an appreciable reduction of gel fracture for hybrids prepared from 5% w/w of PDMS. As TEOS polycondenses, PDMS-OH is chemically incorporated into the gel matrix via Si-O-Si bonds. The inclusion of these elastic chains provides the necessary flexibility to resist the stress imposed by capillary pressure. Additionally, an important hydrophobic character is imparted to the stone.     

A mechanical method for graphical solution of polynomials

A mechanical synthesizer with thirty harmonic elements (fifteen sine components and fifteen cosine components) may be used to graph a polynomial in a complex plane. The sum of the sine components is recorded by a tracing point which moves vertically. The sum of the cosine components is recorded by horizontal motion of a drawing board.