The role of stress processing abilities in the development of bilingual reading

French and Dutch differ regarding the manifestations and lexical functions of the stress pattern of words. The present study examined group differences in stress processing abilities between French‐native and Dutch‐native listeners, thus extending previous cross‐linguistic comparisons involving Spanish‐native and French‐native adults. The results show that Dutch‐native first‐graders significantly outperformed French monolinguals, and that French‐native listeners schooled in Dutch produced intermediary performances, suggesting that stress‐processing abilities are a learnable set of skills. The present study also examined the contribution of stress processing abilities to reading development in Dutch, a stress‐based language, compared to that in French, a syllable‐based language. Although the expected correlation between stress processing abilities and reading was not observed in the Dutch monolinguals, such correlation was observed in the French‐native bilinguals schooled in Dutch and not in the Dutch‐native bilinguals schooled in French. This suggests that stress processing abilities influence reading development in a second, stress‐based, language. Moreover, the monolinguals and bilinguals schooled in Dutch showed significant associations between lexical development and stress processing abilities. Ways in which prosody might be involved in lexical and reading development are explored and discussed.     

Asian achievement,brain size,and evolution: Comments on A. H. Yee

Asian achievement is now recognized to be global in manifestation. Yet most explanations of group differences remain narrowly focused on one country (the U.S.A.), on one character (test scores), and from one viewpoint (environmentalism). I offer an evolutionary perspective. Genetic distance estimates indicate an African origin for humans about 200,000 years ago, a dispersal event out of Africa about 110,000 years ago, and a Mongoloid-Caucasoid split about 41,000 years ago. This racial succession is matched by cranial capacities, IQ test scores, speeds of decision time, and numerous other life-history variables including rate of physical maturation, family functioning, testosterone level, law-abidingess, and frequency of dizygotic twinning. Evolutionary selection pressures are more cognitively demanding in the cold arctic where mongoloids evolved than in the hot savanna where Africans evolved. Genetic theories are needed to explain the proportionate group differences.     

Sequence-dependent rotation axis changes and interaction torque use in overarm throwing

We examined the role of rotation axes during an overarm throwing task. Participants performed such task and were asked to throw a ball at maximal velocity at a target. The purpose of this study was to examine whether the minimum inertia axis would be exploited during the throwing phases, a time when internal–external rotations of the shoulder are particularly important. A motion capture system was used to evaluate the performance and to compute the potential axes of rotation (minimum inertia axis, shoulder–centre of mass axis and the shoulder–elbow axis). More specifically, we investigated whether a velocity-dependent change in rotational axes can be observed in the different throwing phases and whether the control obeys the principle of minimum inertia resistance. Our results showed that the limbs’ rotational axis mainly coincides with the minimum inertia axis during the cocking phase and with the shoulder–elbow axis during the acceleration phase. Besides these rotation axes changes, the use of interaction torque is also sequence-dependent. The sequence-dependent rotation axes changes associated with the use of interaction torque during the acceleration phase could be a key factor in the production of hand velocity at ball release.     

Toward the Ideal Study Guide: an exploration of the functions and components of study guides

The study guide, as an important resource for student learning, is here conceptualized in an ideal general form. The process starts with an examination of its instructional context, then explores the learning functions it is meant to support. This in turn leads to a sketch of the practical components which can be employed in the design of a study guide, with a discussion of various practical decisions to be made along the way. The ideal study guide which is developed here is only meant as a prototype, a template of sorts for particular instructional design efforts in study guide development.     

Blood,politics, and social science. Richard Titmuss and the Institute of Economic Affairs, 1957-1973

Long before his last book, The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy, was published in early 1971, Richard M. Titmuss (1907-1973), a professor of social administration at the London School of Economics, had been a major figure in the debates over the welfare state. The Gift Relationship was the culmination of an eventful relationship with the Institute of Economic Affairs, a think tank that advocated the extension of rational pricing to social services. By arguing that the British system of blood procurement and distribution, based on free giving within the National Health Service, was more efficient than the partly commercialized American system, Titmuss intended to signal the dangers of the increasing commercialization of society. What made for the impact of his book, however, was not merely its argument that transfusion-transmitted infections were much more common with paid than with voluntary donors, but also its reflections on what it is that holds a society together. And here Titmuss argued that a "socialist" social policy, by encouraging the sense of community, played a central role. The eclecticism of Titmuss's work, together with its strong ethical and political flavor, makes it a rich and original account of the "social" at a time when heated debated over social policy, both in Britain and in the United States, raised the question of the division of labor among the social sciences.     

阿尔卑斯山高山-亚高山过渡区高山黄花茅的群体遗传结构和分化研究

应用等位酶分析，在瑞士阿尔卑斯山的阿尔拜特(Arpette)和拜阿尔普(Belalp)，沿三个不同的海拔梯度，研究了高山黄花茅3个自然居群的遗传变异和分化。研究结果表明，平均的多态性位点比例为64．9％，每个位点平均等位基因数为2．37，平均期望杂合性为0．252。亚居群间平均的遗传距离为0．011，发现79％的遗传变异存在于居群内。基于等位酶分析，边缘亚居群与中心亚居群似乎有类似的遗传变异性。相对比较高的遗传分化、低的亚居群间基因流和小的邻居大小值暗示，近交和随后的遗传漂变可能是导致阿尔拜特黄花茅居群遗传变异性较低的主要原因。     

Investigating the theoretical structure of the DAS‐II core battery at school age using Bayesian structural equation modeling

Bayesian structural equation modeling (BSEM) was used to investigate the latent structure of the Differential Ability Scales—Second Edition core battery using the standardization sample normative data for ages 7–17. Results revealed plausibility of a three‐factor model, consistent with publisher theory, expressed as either a higher‐order (HO) or a bifactor (BF) model. The results also revealed an alternative structure with the best model fit, a two‐factor BF model with Matrices (MA) and Sequential and Quantitative Reasoning (SQ) loading on g only with no respective group factor loading. This was only the second study to use BSEM to investigate the structure of a commercial ability test and the first to use a large normative sample and the specification of both approximate zero cross‐loadings and correlated residual terms. It is believed that the results produced from the current study will advance the field's understanding of not only the factor structure of the DAS‐II core battery but also the potential utility of BSEM in psychometric investigations of intelligence test structures.     

Three Gorges Dam: friend or foe of riverine greenhouse gases?

Dams are often regarded as greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters. However, our study indicated that the world''s largest dam, the Three Gorges Dam (TGD), has caused significant drops in annual average emissions of CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O over 4300 km along the Yangtze River, accompanied by remarkable reductions in the annual export of CO₂ (79%), CH₄ (50%) and N₂O (9%) to the sea. Since the commencement of its operation in 2003, the TGD has altered the carbonate equilibrium in the reservoir area, enhanced methanogenesis in the upstream, and restrained methanogenesis and denitrification via modifying anoxic habitats through long-distance scouring in the downstream. These findings suggest that ‘large-dam effects’ are far beyond our previous understanding spatiotemporally, which highlights the fundamental importance of whole-system budgeting of GHGs under the profound impacts of huge dams.     

Biological significance attenuates overshadowing, relative validity, and degraded contingency effects

Miller and Matute (1996) showed that blocking is attenuated when the blocked conditioned stimulus (CS) is “biologically significant” (i.e., when the CS has the potential to elicit vigorous responding of any kind). To the extent that blocking is representative of cue competition, this finding suggests that biological significance protects CSs against cue competition effects in general. In the present experiments, we tested this possibility by examining the influence of biological significance of CSs on other examples of cue competition, namely, overshadowing, the relative stimulus validity effect, and the degraded contingency effect in rats. In Experiment 1, we found that intense auditory stimuli induced transient unconditioned lick suppression, thereby indicating that intense sounds were of high inherent biological significance. In Experiment 2A, we found that cues with high inherent biological significance were protected from overshadowing. In Experiment 2B, this finding was extended to cues with high acquired biological significance, which was obtained through prior pairings with a reinforcer of the valence opposite to that used in the overshadowing treatment. In Experiments 3 and 4, we found that cues with high inherent biological significance attenuated the relative validity effect and the degraded contingency effect, respectively. These results lend support to the view that biological significance (inherent and acquired) protects stimuli from cue competition effects, a finding that is problematic for many contemporary theories of learning.     

Modelling performance and skeletal muscle adaptations with exponential growth functions during resistance training

System theory is classically applied to describe and to predict the effects of training load on performance. The classic models are structured by impulse-type transfer functions, nevertheless, most biological adaptations display exponential growth kinetics. The aim of this study was to propose an extension of the model structure taking into account the exponential nature of skeletal muscle adaptations by using a genetic algorithm. Thus, the conventional impulse-type model was applied in 15 resistance trained rodents and compared with exponential growth-type models. Even if we obtained a significant correlation between actual and modelled performances for all the models, our data indicated that an exponential model is associated with more suitable parameters values, especially the time constants that correspond to the positive response to training. Moreover, positive adaptations predicted with an exponential component showed a strong correlation with the main structural adaptations examined in skeletal muscles, i.e. hypertrophy (R² = 0.87, 0.96 and 0.99, for type 1, 2A and 2X cross-sectional area fibers, respectively) and changes in fiber-type composition (R² = 0.81 and 0.79, for type 1 and 2A fibers, respectively). Thus, an exponential model succeeds to describe both performance variations with relevant time constants and physiological adaptations that take place during resistance training.