Peer‐prompted Social Skills: the role of teacher consultation in student success

ABSTRACT A peer‐prompted social skills programme was introduced to two teachers in a local Head Start preschool programme, and changes in standardised social skills, observed play and problem behaviours were examined. The first teacher was given continuing classroom consultation and training directly addressing the use of the social skills programme. The second teacher was given an equivalent amount of consultation, but no consultant‐initiated efforts were made to support the use of the programme. Significant improvement in standardised measures of social skills and observed levels of associative/co‐operative play behaviour were found only in the skill‐specific consultation classroom. No changes were found for problem behaviour for either classroom. The data suggest that reinforcing the children for appropriate social interactions is not sufficient. Rather, peer support and consultation must be available for the teacher to produce significant changes in the children's behaviour.     

Zwischen Proliferation und Klassifikation

Der Beitrag befasst sich mit dem Ph?nomen der rasanten Expansion der Lernortmetapher sowohl in der p?dagogischen Praxis als auch in der Erziehungswissenschaft. Er zeigt, dass diese Expansion auf mindestens vier unterschiedliche soziale Kontexte zurückgeführt werden kann, die in ihrer gegenseitigen Verst?rkung die zentrifugalen Tendenzen von Lernvielfalt beschleunigen und deshalb zu neuen Ordnungsanstrengungen herausfordern. Organisationsbezogene Kooperation, semantische überh?hung und komplexit?tsreduzierende Klassifikation werden als drei Strategien einer derartigen Neuordnung identifiziert.     

Channel adaptive rate control for energy optimization

Low energy consumption is one of the main challenges for wireless video transmission on battery limited devices. The energy invested at the lower layers of the protocol stack involved in data communication, such as link and physical layer, represent an important part of the total energy consumption. This communication energy highly depends on the channel conditions and on the transmission data rate. Traditionally, video coding is unaware of varying channel conditions. In this paper, we propose a cross-layer approach in which the rate control mechanism of the video codec becomes channel-aware and steers the instantaneous output rate according to the channel conditions to reduce the communication energy. Our results show that energy savings of up to 30% can be obtained with a reduction of barely 0.1 dB on the average video quality. The impact of feedback delays is shown to be small. In addition, this adaptive mechanism has low complexity, which makes it suitable for real-time applications.     

Integrating plasmonic diagnostics and microfluidics

Plasmonics is generally divided into two categories: surface plasmon resonance (SPR) of electromagnetic modes propagating along a (noble) metal/dielectric interface and localized SPRs (LSPRs) on nanoscopic metallic structures (particles, rods, shells, holes, etc.). Both optical transducer concepts can be combined with and integrated in microfluidic devices for biomolecular analyte detections, with the benefits of small foot-print for point-of-care detection, low-cost for one-time disposal, and ease of being integrated into an array format. The key technologies in such integration include the plasmonic chip, microfluidic channel fabrication, surface bio-functionalization, and selection of the detection scheme, which are selected according to the specifics of the targeting analytes. This paper demonstrates a few examples of the many versions of how to combine plasmonics and integrated microfluidics, using different plasmonic generation mechanisms for different analyte detections. One example is a DNA sensor array using a gold film as substrate and surface plasmon fluorescence spectroscopy and microscopy as the transduction method. This is then compared to grating-coupled SPR for poly(ethylene glycol) thiol interaction detected by angle interrogation, gold nanohole based LSPR chip for biotin-strepavidin detection by wavelength shift, and gold nanoholes/nanopillars for the detection of prostate specific antigen by quantum dot labels excited by the LSPR. Our experimental results exemplified that the plasmonic integrated microfluidics is a promising tool for understanding the biomolecular interactions and molecular recognition process as well as biosensing, especially for on-site or point-of-care diagnostics.     

MEDIA TONE AND PUBLIC OPINION: A LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF MEDIA COVERAGE AND PUBLIC OPINION ON CHANCELLOR KOHL

This study investigates the relationship between media coverageof Helmut Kohl in seven leading German print media and the opinionsof the German general public about the politician between 1975and 1984. For the content analysis evaluative assessments aboutHelmut Kohl on six different dimensions of characteristics werecoded. The analysis of public opinion is based on 72 representativesurveys in which respondents expressed their evaluations ofthe politician. The two time series were compared by means ofcross-lagged correlations. The whole period was first examinedwith aggregations of three-months-intervals; then closer attentionwas paid to the time period since Helmut Kohl took office aschancellor on the basis of monthly intervals. In both cases,the results show that evaluation shifts in the media precedesimilar evaluation shifts in public opinion with a time lagof about three to six months for the whole period of investigation,and a somewhat shorter time lag for the time of his chancellorship.Evaluation shifts in the political magazines Der Spiegel andStern were more closely related to public opinion than evaluationshifts in the national dailies.     

The Bernoullis and the origin of probability theory: Looking back after 300 years

This paper describes the contribution of the four famous Bernoullis (Jacob, Johann, Daniel and Nicolaus) to the development of the theory of probability between 1670 and 1760. Their contributions are evaluated from a modern day position of probability theory and statistics. We argue that abstract formulation of problems and mathematical solution concepts for abstract problems and seemingly special questions have a long term impact on the diversification of science. In the appendix, reference is also given to the ongoing work of the Bernoulli Edition in Basel.     

Fragile knowledge and conflicting evidence: what effects do contiguity and personal characteristics of museum visitors have on their processing depth?

Until recently, museums mainly communicated well-established knowledge. Current science, however, is characterized by a rapid knowledge increase, so that we often have to deal with fragile and inconsistent knowledge. In order to develop exhibitions that encourage visitors to process information in a differentiated way, museums need to know how visitors deal with conflicting information. Furthermore, museum professionals need information on personal and situational factors that may promote the processing of such information. We tested whether conflict processing is influenced by personal characteristics such as situational interest, epistemological beliefs, tolerance of ambiguity, and self-efficacy on the one hand and by situational conditions such as the spatial arrangement of information on the other hand. In two science museums and one museum of cultural history, text pairs were displayed that described a topic from conflicting perspectives. The spatial distance between the two texts was manipulated. Semi-structured interviews and questionnaires captured the personal characteristics of 323 visitors and the way they dealt with conflicting information. The results showed that a majority of the visitors perceived a conflict, and a large proportion was willing to process the information at a deeper level. Sophisticated epistemological beliefs, a high tolerance of ambiguity, and high self-efficacy were found to promote situational interest in conflicting information. High situational interest, in turn, promoted a tendency to process deeply. Placing text pairs in close proximity had a positive effect on the processing depth in science museums but not in the museum of cultural history. A possible explanation lies in the higher density of additional and potentially interfering information in the science museums compared to the museum of cultural history.