Contextualising ECEC research: the case of Slovenia

In the present study the longitudinal relations between quantity of centre-based child care (in months) and teacher reports of internalising and externalising behaviour in the first and second grades were examined for 325 Slovenian children. The socio-political context of affordable, accessible and homogenously high-quality child care is quite different compared to the context in countries from which many child-care studies originate (e.g. the USA). In Slovenia quality standards are regulated (child:staff ratio, teacher education, curriculum), the service is subsidised and children are guaranteed a place after the end of parental leave (i.e. at 11 months). In the described socio-political context a beneficial effect of child care quantity was found for internalising behaviour, while there were negative effects for externalising behaviour. Children who spent more time in child care exhibited less internalising behaviour and more externalising behaviour in the first grade of school, both with small coefficient sizes. Our study shows that even in the context of progressive child care some positive as well as less positive effects of child care participation on child development occur.     

Knocking on employment’s door: internships and job attainment

Higher Education - Undergraduate internships have gained popularity among students, universities, governments and firms since the creation of the European Higher Education Area. However, empirical...     

University students’ strategies and criteria during self-assessment: instructor’s feedback,rubrics, and year level effects

European Journal of Psychology of Education - This study explores the effects of feedback type, feedback occasion, and year level on student self-assessments in higher education. In total, 126...     

Evaluating the feasibility of remotely administered curriculum-based measurement for students with autism: A pilot study

Students with autism may struggle to develop the academic skills necessary for success in school and beyond. Understanding and improving academic skills performance requires appropriate measurement approaches. One such option that has been minimally studied with students with autism is curriculum-based measurement (CBM). Coinciding with the need to study different approaches to academic skills measurement for students with autism was the global pandemic which forced a shift to remote service delivery with little warning. While some autistic students struggled with this shift, others thrived, raising questions about how to further support students with autism in virtual formats. The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility of using remotely administered CBM for autistic students by studying both the practicality and acceptability of this approach. Five students with autism (Grades 2–5) participated in this pilot study, completing reading, math, and writing CBMs at three time points. Student behavior and assessor fidelity were collected to examine practicality; assessor ratings of usability provided insight regarding the acceptability of the approach. Results indicated that remotely administered CBM is feasible for some students with autism: all participants completed the study tasks with minimal behavioral difficulties, and assessor ratings of acceptability were high.     

Revisiting Cross-document Structure Theory for multi-document discourse parsing

Multi-document discourse parsing aims to automatically identify the relations among textual spans from different texts on the same topic. Recently, with the growing amount of information and the emergence of new technologies that deal with many sources of information, more precise and efficient parsing techniques are required. The most relevant theory to multi-document relationship, Cross-document Structure Theory (CST), has been used for parsing purposes before, though the results had not been satisfactory. CST has received many critics because of its subjectivity, which may lead to low annotation agreement and, consequently, to poor parsing performance. In this work, we propose a refinement of the original CST, which consists in (i) formalizing the relationship definitions, (ii) pruning and combining some relations based on their meaning, and (iii) organizing the relations in a hierarchical structure. The hypothesis for this refinement is that it will lead to better agreement in the annotation and consequently to better parsing results. For this aim, it was built an annotated corpus according to this refinement and it was observed an improvement in the annotation agreement. Based on this corpus, a parser was developed using machine learning techniques and hand-crafted rules. Specifically, hierarchical techniques were used to capture the hierarchical organization of the relations according to the proposed refinement of CST. These two approaches were used to identify the relations among texts spans and to generate multi-document annotation structure. Results outperformed other CST parsers, showing the adequacy of the proposed refinement in the theory.     

A deep vein thrombosis caused by 20209C>T mutation in homozygosis of the prothrombin gene in a Caucasian patient

Introduction:

Additional nucleotide substitutions in the 3′-untranslated region of prothrombin gene could explain some thrombotic events and also adverse pregnancy outcomes. We describe the first case of a homozygous 20209C>T mutation as the cause of deep vein thrombosis in a Spanish patient.

Case and methods:

The 56-year-old male patient with a partial tear of the Achilles tendon developed calf (tibial) deep vein thrombosis after immobilization and was treated with an anticoagulant. To determine if the deep vein thrombosis was of genetic origin, a peripheral blood DNA sample was analysed for the presence of the three most frequent mutations associated with thrombotic events: factor V Leiden (1691G>A), prothrombin (20210G>A) and methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase (677C>T). The presence or absence of the normal allele of prothrombin could not be determined using the PTH-FV-MTHFR StripAssay (Vienna Lab).

Results:

Comprehensive analysis showed that the patient had a variant interfering with the polymerase chain reaction product, we sequenced the entire prothrombin gene and found that the patient had a homozygous C>T mutation at position 20209; this interfered with the polymerase chain reaction product, which needs a C at this position to be able to bind to the wild-type probe present in the test strip.

Conclusion:

The homozygous 20209C>T mutation and the presence of the mutation 677C>T in heterozygosity explained the patient’s deep vein thrombosis because the combination of mutations would increase the risk of thrombosis. Suitable genetic counselling should be provided to the patient and first-degree relatives as it important to detect prothrombin gene variants that could increase risk for thrombotic events.     

Globalisation in Foreign Language Teaching: Establishing Transatlantic Links in Higher Education

This article makes an explicit comparison between the reconfiguration of tertiary language education in Europe, the USA and Canada. It argues that, despite certain minor differences between continents, the same trends are operative across the Atlantic. It then examines each of them, illustrating how similar forces are at work in shaping higher education language teaching, how analogous policy frameworks are being employed to channel them and how parallel challenges and responses can be detected transatlantically. The conclusion is that unifying efforts and connecting initiatives has highly beneficial effects for advancing the application of higher education language policy worldwide.     

大运动量训练时自由式摔跤运动员应激激素变化的探讨

观察了大运动量训练期8名自由式摔跤运动员应激激素、焦虑水平及主观强度感的变化。研究过程中,每周安排11次大运动量训练,共进行2次实验,每次3个取样点(运动前、即刻和次日晨)。结果显示,两次取样时期次日晨ACTH水平较运动后即刻明显降低;C水平在第二次取样运动后即刻水平和次日晨水平明显高于运动前的,并且该时期运动后即刻C水平也明显高于第一次取样时期运动后即刻水平;E水平在第二次取样运动后即刻水平明显高于第一次取样运动后即刻的,且次日晨该激素水平也明显高于第一次取样次日晨的;血浆β-END水平在第二次取样运动后即刻水平明显高于运动前,也高于第一次取样运动后即刻,第二次取样次日晨该激素水平均低于运动前和运动后即刻水平,同时低于第一次取样次日晨的;血清NE水平变化与β-END水平变化类似;而RPE等级和焦虑水平在两次测试中呈现出运动后即刻水平高于运动前和次日晨的趋势,但不明显;RPE等级与诸多应激激素之间存在着弱相关关系。这预示着,在运动员身体机能评定工作中欲采用简单易行的显示身体机能的外部指标来表现不易测到的内部变化还需努力。