Mechanisms for turn alternation in woodlice (Porcellio scaber): The role of bilaterally asymmetrical leg movements

Angles of free turn were observed in woodlice (Porcellio scaber) after they had been forced to turn left or right in runways. Alternation angles were increased by greater forced-turn angles and number of successive forced turns in one direction. Removal of one or both antennae had no effect on alternation. It was also repeatedly observed that the closer a woodlouse remained to the far wall while traveling along the exit alley of a runway, the greater was its angle of alternation. However, orientation toward this far wall bore no relation to alternation. When given three successive left or right forced turns followed by a fourth in the opposite direction, woodlice moved further away from the exit-alley far wall and repeated the last forced turn at the choice area. Along with results of the other experiments, this result in particular supported an explanation for woodlouse alternation based on bilaterally asymmetrical leg movements (BALM) arising from the negotiation of forced turns. Such asymmetry is seen as biasing an animal to turn in the opposite direction to a preceding forced turn.     

Dialogic spaces: a critical policy development perspective of educational leadership qualifications

The critical exploration of policy development processes employed to construct leadership qualifications is the focus of this inquiry. This exploration is made through specific application of the necessary conditions of Habermasian ‘practical discourse’ to current dialogic procedures used to develop policies for principal, supervisory officer and teacher leadership qualifications. This exploratory inquiry illuminates current means of policy development and the enhancements required for the embodiment of the idealizing conditions of practical discourse. Situating practical discourse within policy development practices for educational leadership also broaches the broader question of establishing a suitable moral epistemology for educational institutions in pluralist societies. As such, the current inquiry represents an important step in the progress of educational governance with relevant implications for all regulatory institutions charged with the task of creating policy guidelines that shape educational leadership practices across highly diverse and culturally rich societies.     

Development of the International Ocean Literacy Survey: measuring knowledge across the world.

The Ocean Literacy movement began in the U.S. in the early 2000s, and has recently become an international effort. The focus on marine environmental issues and marine education is increasing, and yet it has been difficult to show progress of the ocean literacy movement, in part, because no widely adopted measurement tool exists. The International Ocean Literacy Survey (IOLS) aims to serve as a community-based measurement tool that allows the comparison of levels of ocean knowledge across time and location. The IOLS has already been subjected to two rounds of field testing. The results from the second testing, presented in this paper, provide evidence that the IOLS is psychometrically valid and reliable, and has a single factor structure across 17 languages and 24 countries. The analyses have also guided the construction of a third improved version that will be further tested in 2018.     

Beyond Standard Models—Meeting the Challenge of Modelling

This paper reports on a project that incorporated mathematical modelling within a pre-university subject at a secondary college. The program emphasised modelling rather than models and extended over two years. A qualitative methodology was used to evaluate the program with information collected in a variety of forms including student written reports, oral interviews, video reports, diaries, questionnaire data, as well as informal observation. The program was evaluated in terms of five criteria derived from the stated aims. Erom the synthesis and triangulation of the data it was inferred that the program aims were achieved to an encouraging degree. The paper describes and illustrates key aspects of the program and its evaluation.     

Hydrotalcite

Hydrotalcite (HT) is an anionic clay found in nature. It has a variety of pharmaceutical applications. This article focuses on the versatility of this compound in the prevention and cure of peptic ulcer.     

Molecule of the month

A dinuclear copper (II) complex is a synthetic catalyst for modelling enzymatic cleavage of RNA     

The study of stress and competence in children: a building block for developmental psychopathology

This article discusses the building blocks for a developmental psychopathology, focusing on studies of risk, competence, and protective factors. The current Project Competence studies of stress and competence are described, with particular attention to the methodology and strategies for data analysis. The authors present a 3-model approach to stress resistance in a multivariate regression framework: the compensatory, challenge, and protective factor models. These models are illustrated by selected data. In the concluding section, an evaluation of the project is offered in terms of future directions for research.     

Sustainable development as a driver for educational innovation in engineering school: the case of UniLaSalle

ABSTRACT

The potential relationships between innovation and sustainability processes, in engineering education, is neither obvious nor simple, especially when innovation, generally speaking, is promoted regardless of sustainability. We used UniLaSalle (In January 2016, the ‘Institut Polytechnique LaSalle Beauvais’, a French engineering school, merged with another higher education engineering school (ESITPA, Rouen). Both campuses (Beauvais and Rouen) have a common name: UniLaSalle (www.unilasalle.fr). As the interview began during 2015, this article only describes the situation of the Beauvais campus.) as a ‘living Lab’ to identify and analyse the reasons for the integration of innovation and Sustainable Development (SD) in training programmes. The aim is to explore, in a perception and reflective approach, how SD can be understood as a driver for specific innovation attitudes in higher education engineering school. This paper adopts an empirical approach based on a qualitative study, using NVivo 9 software to analyse non-numerical data. Our research suggests that SD can be a structural driver for innovation if it is integrated in a transdisciplinarity approach and not just as a discipline per se.     

Interaction styles and expert social influence

An experiment examined the conditions under which an expert source induces less competent targets to adopt a point of view contradicting their own in a context of information transmission. In a 2×2 factorial design participants (N=86) were either 1st year or 4th year university students, and the style of the message delivered by the epistemic authority was either authoritarian or democratic. The main dependent variable was the degree to which participants went beyond mere approval and adopted the contradicting information. The principal finding was that the contradicting information was adopted more readily by the 1st year participants confronted with an authoritarian as compared to a democratic expert source. Students in their 4th year were more influenced by a democratic source than the 1st year students. These results partially confirm the correspondence hypothesis according to which appropriation of knowledge from an expert source is favoured when the characteristics of the influence relations match fundamental expectations that individuals have concerning this relationship, these expectations varying as a function of the stage they have reached in their university education.