Developmental changes in the structure of shyness and internalizing symptoms from early to middle childhood: A network analysis

Shyness is a temperamental trait that shares considerable conceptual overlap with aspects of internalizing problems, creating difficulties in operationalizing and assessing these two constructs and their association. This study addresses these issues by employing network analyses. Participants were, white, N = 555 children (M_age = 52.45 months, SD = 15.96, 55% girls) followed longitudinally over 4 years (2016–2010) in Norway. Teachers rated child shyness and assessed children's internalizing symptoms. Results suggest that two behavioral shyness traits were the most central aspects of shyness. The centrality of these aspects was robust across age. The most influential symptom connecting internalizing symptoms with shyness was “unhappy.” Shyness became more differentiated with development, and associations between anxiety-related symptoms and shyness increased as children entered formal schooling.     

Factors influencing Malaysian public attitudes to agro-biotechnology

Despite considerable research in advanced countries on public perceptions of and attitudes to modern biotechnology, limited effort has been geared towards developing a structural model of public attitudes to modern biotechnology. The purpose of this paper is to identify the relevant factors influencing public attitudes towards genetically modified (GM) soybean, and to analyze the relationship between all the attitudinal factors. A survey was carried out on 1,017 respondents from various stakeholder groups in the Klang Valley region. Results of the survey have confirmed that attitudes towards complex issues such as biotechnology should be seen as a multifaceted process. The most important factors predicting support for GM soybean are the specific application-linked perceptions about the benefits, acceptance of risk and moral concern while risk and familiarity are significant predictors of benefit and risk acceptance. Attitudes towards GM soybean are also predicted by several general classes of attitude.     

Exposure to Interparental Conflict and Children''s Adjustment and Physical Health: The Moderating Role of Vagal Tone

Physiological regulation, as indexed by baseline vagal tone and delta vagal tone (the change in vagal tone during an attention-demanding or challenging task), was examined as a moderator in the relations between exposure to verbal and physical parental marital conflict and children's adjustment and physical health. Higher vagal tone was posited to serve a protective function (i.e., buffer) for children exposed to higher levels of marital conflict. Seventy-five 8- to 12-year-olds and their mothers completed measures of parental conflict, and children's adjustment and physical health. Children's vagal tone was assessed during baseline conditions and during exposure to an audiotaped interadult argument. Results indicate that higher vagal tone buffered children against increased externalizing, internalizing, and health problems related to exposure to more frequent marital conflict, especially verbal conflict. Further, higher levels of delta vagal tone protected boys against externalizing problems associated with verbal conflict, and health problems associated with physical conflict.     

Teacher-center and school-based models of collegiality and professional development: Case studies of the teachers’ resource center and the Aga Khan school system in Karachi, Pakistan

Based on two recent teacher development efforts in Pakistan, this chapter examines efforts to promote teacher collegiality within these initiatives. The chapter first describes relevant contextual differences among schools in Karachi and summarizes the history of the two projects within this context. It then analyzes similarities and differences across these two projects in how they dealt with collegiality and professional development. While participants in both projects made progress in ameliorating extreme forms of teacher isolation and authoritarian relationships, they also discovered that balancing increased collegiality within a hierarchy of responsibilities and rewards is a difficult and elusive goal.     

A dynamic systems analysis of classrooms: teacher experience and student motivation

Learning Environments Research - In this study, classrooms were regarded as systems in which the teacher and students interact in context and behaviors of the teacher and students affect each other...     

Academic promotion in Malaysian public universities: a critical look at issues and challenges

The expansion and transformation of Malaysian universities have generated major changes in the nature of academic employment and the structure of academic promotion in higher education institutions. These changes have considerable implications, in particular for the policy and practice of academic promotion in the public universities. We argue that despite sharing one common grade and salary system, distinct and significant differences exist in the academic promotion systems of the public universities. Drawing on one recent study on the academic promotion process in Malaysian public universities to contextualise our discussion, this paper highlights the complexity in the promotion process in these institutions. It also discusses and articulates the attendant issues and challenging aspects of the academic promotion process. We argue that the interrelated issues and challenges, and certain academic practices and habits stemming from the pressure to gain a promotion are pervasive, and that they affect the academic value system and work culture. We conclude by asserting the importance of applying a consistent standard for promotion within a single salary system and that the academic promotion system in the public universities should ultimately affirm and communicate core academic values, and also aim at obtaining evidence of excellent accomplishments.     

New insights on the utilization of ultrasonicated mustard seed cake: chemical composition and antagonistic potential for root-knot nematode,Meloidogyne javanica

This study focused, for the first time, on the effect of ultrasonic features on the extraction efficiency of secondary metabolites in mustard seed cake(MSC). The nematostatic potential of sonicated seed cake was examined against the second-stage juveniles(J2 s) of root-knot nematode, Meloidogyne javanica. The results show that a 35 ppm(parts per million) concentration of a sonicated extract(SE) sample of MSC caused 65% J2 s mortality at 18 h exposure period in vitro. It also significantly suppressed the root-knot index(RKI=0.94) in tomato roots. The lethal concentration values for SE were 51.76, 29.79, and 13.34 ppm,respectively, at 6, 12, and 18 h of the exposure period, and the lethal concentration values for the non-sonicated extract(NSE)sample were 116.95, 76.38, and 55.59 ppm, respectively, at similar exposure time. Sinapine and gluconapin were identified as the major compounds in ultrasonic-assisted MSC. Because of the high extraction efficiency of metabolites in the SE, all treatments of SE were shown to be antagonistic to J2 s. Thus, this study of ultrasonication activity-based profiling of MSC may help generate target-based compounds at a scale relevant to the control of disease caused by nematodes in economic crops.     

Worst case analysis of resistive networks using linear programming approach

It is shown that for DC networks in which certain components are allowed to vary, the worst case DC problem can be solved by solving a linear programming problem. The constraints used in the linear programming problem are determined from the elements tolerance regions. This enables us to obtain the worst case solution without having to compute the gradient of the network functions.     

Malaysian university students' attitudes to academic dishonesty and business ethics

Academic dishonesty is believed to have predictive ability for subsequent behaviours in the workplace. This study adds to the literature by investigating Malaysian business students' attitudes to academic dishonesty and their attitudes to ethics issues in business. This study also explores the association between these two constructs. The form of academic dishonesty being investigated here is related to assignments, quizzes, and examinations. Employing data collected from 153 business students from different academic years, this exploratory study concludes that business students may have found that some level of dishonesty is acceptable in some academic settings as well as in business settings. The study's outcomes highlight the possibility of using students' attitudes to academic dishonesty to explain their attitudes to ethics in business contexts. The findings of this study, to a certain extent, indicate that years spent in business education might contribute to such unfavourable attitudes. This exploratory study also draws attention to several issues related to the teaching of ethics within business education.