A Chat Room—Educational Psychologists but No Curriculum Methodologists?

Although educational psychologists once were tied in with teachers in solving instructional problems, the progression of the science of psychology has led them away from the practical aspects of teaching. Instead, educational psychologists find themselves talking about theories—in their own language—to each other, and not to their colleagues in the curriculum areas. To this end they are not a continuing source of productive information for solving practical problems in classroom practice. Suggestions are made for improving communication between educational psychologists and on-line educators.     

International orientierte höhere Schulen in Deutschland – Zwei Varianten von Internationalität im Wechselspiel von Institution und Schülerbiografie

During the last decades, the education system has been marked by distinct processes of internationalisation. In the field of higher education, there are numerous and varied schools with different international profiles. This paper focuses on processes of internationalisation in the German sector of higher education. We contrast two higher secondary schools with international profiles: one international school in a West German metropolitan region with a long tradition and a younger internationally-profiled school located in the periphery of an East German urban centre. This institutional analysis presents school cultural similarities and differences with regard to different claims and concepts of internationality. This analysis is complemented by a reconstruction of three patterns of biographical meaning examining the internationality of pupils and their respective habitual fit to these internationally-profiled schools. We draw on qualitative data, consisting mainly of interviews with head teachers and pupils of these two schools. We argue that these differing regional forms of internationalisation indicate a stratification and hierarchisation in the field of higher education in Germany.     

Parental reactions to children's negative emotions: longitudinal relations to quality of children's social functioning

Relations between self-reported parental reactions to children's negative emotions (PNRs) and children's socially appropriate/problem behavior and negative emotionality were examined longitudinally. Evidence was consistent with the conclusion that relations between children's externalizing (but not internalizing) emotion and parental punitive reactions to children's negative emotions are bidirectional. Reports of PNRs generally were correlated with low quality of social functioning. In structural models, mother-reported problem behavior at ages 10-12 was at least marginally predicted from mother-reported problem behavior, children's regulation, and parental punitive or distress reactions. Moreover, parental distress and punitive reactions at ages 6-8 predicted reports of children's regulation at ages 8-10, and regulation predicted parental punitive reactions at ages 10-12. Father reports of problem behavior at ages 10-12 were predicted by earlier problem behavior and parental distress or punitive reactions; some of the relations between regulation and parental reactions were similar to those in the models for mother-reported problem behavior. Parental perceptions of their reactions were substantially correlated over 6 years. Some nonsupportive reactions declined in the early to mid-school years, but all increased into late childhood/early adolescence.     

A women's scientific society in the west. The late eighteenth-century assimilation of science

The Natuurkundig Genootschap der Dames (Women's Society for Natural Knowledge), formally established by and for women, met regularly from 1785 to 1881 and sporadically until 1887. It challenges our stereotypes both of women and the physical sciences during the eighteenth century and of the intellectual interests open to women in the early European republics. This essay aims not simply to identify the society and its members but to describe their pursuits and consider what their story adds to the history of Western science. What does this society's existence tell us about the relationship between women and early science in general and about science and society in the Dutch setting in particular? Science and gender look rather different when observed through the activities of the immensely prosperous women of Middelburg, citizens of one of the most highly literate Western countries. The elite lives of the first-generation members of the women's society also offer us a glimpse into the early domestication of science, a process vital to its acceptance and assimilation.     

A case of IgA multiple myeloma: Nutritional perspective in diagnostic testing

A 64-year-old security guard and longstanding known hypertensive presented with hypertensive heart disease (HHD), weight loss, an enlarged prostate, and a spontaneously fractured rib. Malignancy of the prostate with possible metastases to the ribs was strongly suspected. Biochemical profiling revealed a paraprotein. Other biochemical and hematological correlates that were on hand before serum protein electrophoresis were rather atypical. Paraprotein studies by immunofixation revealed IgA myelomatosis. Unlike previous reports from Caucasians there was normocalcaemia, normal protein level, microcytic hypochromia, low MCHC, cholesterol level at the lower limit of the reference range and normal urea level (in the face of markedly raised creatinine level). Nutritional modulation of the classical laboratory features of this disease may account for the fairly atypical laboratory picture. The need to appreciate the influence of nutritional status on the laboratory (especially biochemical) features of a disease and thus interpretation of diagnostic tests appears of exceptional current importance, given the widening gap in socioeconomic status and the level of poverty between the resource poor and developed countries from which the classical, clinical and laboratory features of most diseases were first described. This case report reminds of the need not only to recognize theoretically the impact of nutritional status on the laboratory characteristics of a disease but of the practical application of the nutritional perspective in the interpretation of diagnostic investigations, especially in nutritionally disadvantaged communities.     

Evaluation of ovulisa: An indigenous ELISA kit for detection of ovulation

Aprototype kit for the detection of occurrence of ovulation based on urinary pregnanediol glucuronide estimations by ELISA was developed in our laboratory. This kit was sent for evaluation at 4 centres in Bombay and Pune, India. The diagnosis of ovulation/anovulation based on the results of the kit is comparable with that based on reference parameters commonly used (ultrasonography of ovarian follicles and serum progesterone estimations). The accuracy of the test was 93.5%, specificity was 87.5% and sensitivity was 95.7%. This rapid indigenous test can be very useful in assessing ovulatory status of the woman by the clinicians in their offices.