Current Status of Research in Teaching and Learning Evolution: II. Pedagogical Issues

This is the second of two articles that address recent scholarship about teaching and learning about evolution. This second review seeks to summarize this state of affairs and address the implications of this work for the classroom by addressing four basic questions: (1) What is evolution?/What components of the theory are important at the introductory level? (2) Why do students and members of the public at large need to understand evolution? (3) What makes evolution difficult to teach and learn? and (4) What promising instructional approaches have been developed and tested? The paper will also focus on concerns about both the research designs and the measures used in this work. Based on this review, I will then propose a set of pedagogical implications and recommendations for the classroom instructor and call for studies to address specific gaps identified.     

名辩逻辑提纲(上)

构建中国逻辑的横向体系，编写出教科书式的中国逻辑读本，是一项极具意义的学术工程。《提纲》乃这方面的闯新之作，计有“绪论”“概念”“辩说”“余论”四章。“概念”“辩说”叙说中国逻辑的两大支柱部分；“绪论”“余论”阐述中国逻辑的总体、总貌和特色     

Easier Said Than Done: Rejoinder on Sijtsma and on Green and Yang

The main points of Sijtsma and Green and Yang in Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice (34, 4) are that reliability, internal consistency, and unidimensionality are distinct and that Cronbach's alpha may be problematic. Neither of these assertions are at odds with Davenport, Davison, Liou, and Love in the same issue. However, many authors in the testing community mention these terms not only together, but sometimes as if they are synonymous. Moreover, Cronbach's coefficient alpha is very popular as an index of reliability. Thus, articles discussing alpha are not only appropriate, but necessary. Our concerns are the same as formed the genesis of prior (2009) articles by these same authors, Sijtsma and Green and Yang. This rejoinder also makes comments about item parcels when tests are multidimensional and about factor analytic approaches to assessing reliability.     

The effect of inspiratory muscle fatigue on acid-base status and performance during race-paced middle-distance swimming

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of pre-induced inspiratory muscle fatigue (IMF) on race-paced swimming and acid-base status. Twenty-one collegiate swimmers performed two discontinuous 400-m race-paced swims on separate days, with (IMF trial) and without (control trial) pre-induced IMF. Swimming characteristics, inspiratory and expiratory mouth pressures, and blood parameters were recorded. IMF and expiratory muscle fatigue (P < 0.05) were evident after both trials and swimming time was slower (P < 0.05) from 150-m following IMF inducement. Pre-induced IMF increased pH before the swim (P < 0.01) and reduced bicarbonate (P < 0.05) and the pressure of carbon dioxide (PCO₂) (P < 0.05). pH (P < 0.05), bicarbonate (P < 0.01) and PCO₂ (P < 0.05) were lower during swimming in the IMF trial. Blood lactate was similar before both trials (P > 0.05) but was higher (P < 0.01) in the IMF trial after swimming. Pre-induced IMF induced respiratory alkalosis, reduced bicarbonate buffering capacity and slowed swimming speed. Pre-induced and propulsion-induced IMF reflected metabolic acidosis arising from dual role breathing and propulsion muscle fatigue.     

低氧暴露后提高平原运动能力的非血液学机制

在过去五十多年中,高原训练常被应用于优秀耐力运动员,旨在提高其平原的运动能力.大多研究认为,高原适应的优势主要集中在血液学方面,即提主平原运动能力的主要机制是高原环境下氧气利用下降激发红细胞生成加速反应,从而起红细胞量、 VO2max和竞技能力的提高.     

Select Books – the struggle of an independent bookshop

Abstract

This is a first‐hand account of the initial 28 years of Select Books, an independent bookshop, located in Singapore, but with a regional Southeast Asian focus and a global reach. Select Books carved a niche for itself by specializing in books about Southeast Asia and published in Southeast Asia. Its comprehensive and in‐depth book stock gave it an edge over formidable competition at home and abroad. The author relates the difficulties encountered and the novel solutions Select Books employed to overcome administrative problems and sidestep bureaucratic red tape. Select Books operated on all levels of the book trade: as bookseller, distributor, library supplier and publisher. Equally important is its intangible role as a promoter of Southeast Asian authors and their works in Singapore as well as to the first world. Select Books provided a cultural space where authors could meet with their readership. Turning to the broader book community, the author is critical of the Eurocentric mindsets of public and academic institutions in Singapore. She is equally critical of the parochial and prejudiced international market that dismisses books about Asia as insufficiently ‘mainstream’ for their market.     

A group recommendation system for online communities

Online communities are virtual spaces over the Internet in which a group of people with similar interests or purposes interact with others and share information. To support group activities in online communities, a group recommendation procedure is needed. Though there have been attempts to establish group recommendation, they focus on off-line environments. Further, aggregating individuals’ preferences into a group preference or merging individual recommendations into group recommendations—an essential component of group recommendation—often results in dissatisfaction of a small number of group members while satisfying the majority. To support group activities in online communities, this paper proposes an improved group recommendation procedure that improves not only the group recommendation effectiveness but also the satisfaction of individual group members. It consists of two phases. The first phase was to generate a recommendation set for a group using the typical collaborative filtering method that most existing group recommendation systems utilize. The second phase was to remove irrelevant items from the recommendation set in order to improve satisfaction of individual members’ preferences. We built a prototype system and performed experiments. Our experiment results showed that the proposed system has consistently higher precision and individual members are more satisfied.