Persecution and behavior: a report of refugee children from Chile

A Swedish study of 50 newly resettled refugee children from Chile describes the children's experiences of persecution in their home country and coping patterns in the receiving country. Thirty-six children had experiences directly related to persecution, and seven of these had been victims of physical assault for political reasons. Sleep disturbances and dependency were behaviors significantly associated with experiences of persecution. Resettled refugee families need to be approached by concerned professionals as symptoms of trauma in refugee children are often recognized only in the family sphere.     

Women mentoring in the academe: a faculty cross-racial and cross-cultural experience

Two women faculty members, one White from the southeastern United States and one Black African from Zimbabwe, purposefully explored their informal mentoring relationship with the goal of illuminating the complexities associated with their cross-racial, cross-cultural experience. Concentrating on their four-year mentor-mentee academic relationship at a predominantly White institution (PWI), these women employed a dialogic duoethnographic methodology to uncover emerging, nuanced characteristics contributing to the positive nature of their mentoring experience. Calling upon a seminal nine-function mentoring framework focused on advancing mentee personal growth and professional advancement, the authors, engaged in critical interplay of dialogic considerations of their mentoring experiences, relationship, and literature. The authors revealed a distinct cross-cultural and cross-racial journey where each, as participant researcher, uncovered a deeper appreciation for the importance of engaged dialog. Emerging is a complex interplay of understandings about trust, care, and power dynamics as factors in defining mentoring relationships that work for good.     

Professional Development of Teacher Trainers: a case study

This paper reviews the literature on teacher trainers with special reference to current initiatives in Spain, and provides a case study of the design, delivery and follow‐up to a course for teacher trainers of English language teaching and the pedagogy of language. The course was designed to promote the concept of teachers as reflective practitioners.     

Stress,coping strategies and academic achievement in teacher education students

University students experience stress, and how they cope with this stress affects their academic achievement. This study examined stress in teacher education students and had three objectives: to describe different degrees of stress and coping styles; to study the relationship between stress, coping strategies and academic achievement; and to examine whether increased age can moderate the effects of stress on academic achievement in 334 university-students. There were three main findings: many students experienced stress and used avoidance coping strategies; the students who were under less stress and engaged less in cognitive avoidance and more in problem-focused coping were also the students who made more academic achievement; and students under more stress performed worse, but with age stress affected performance less. In teacher education students, it is important to recognize and address the harmful effects of stress on well-being and academic achievement, to avoid long-term problems in professional and personal life.     

Change Blindness as a Means of Studying Expertise in Physics

Previous studies examining expertise have used a wide range of methods. Beyond characterizing expert and novice behavior in different contexts and circumstances, many studies have examined the processes that comprise the behavior itself and, more recently, processes that comprise training and practice that develop expertise. Other studies, dating back more than 50 years, have used various recall memory tasks to compare experts and novices. In this article, we describe another method for investigating expertise that has its origin in the study of change blindness, a phenomenon within the field of visual cognition. We demonstrate how an incidental change detection paradigm can be used in the context of introductory physics in a way that allows for inferences regarding the formation of mental representations about physical situations. Possible uses in future learning sciences research are discussed.     

News from the Funding Front: Upcoming Opportunities,Proposals Welcomed

Many life sciences faculty and administrators are unaware of existing funding programs and of the strategies needed for writing an educationally related proposal. We hope to remedy this problem by making the life sciences audience aware of two National Science Foundation programs underutilized by the biology community.This column has been a welcome opportunity to keep the CBE—Life Sciences Education readership aware of national efforts to improve undergraduate education in the life sciences and of ways to become a part of that effort (Woodin et al. 2009 , 2010 , 2012 ; Wei and Woodin, 2011 ). Throughout the years of engagement in the Vision and Change initiative, from the summer of 2007 to the present, the three primary agencies involved, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), have continually maintained a dialogue with participants through formal and informal conversations, workshops, and meetings. Our shared focus has been on how the life sciences community itself can change biology undergraduate education in order to better reflect and respond to the current educational environment, including the

• rapid advances in the discipline,
• new educational technologies and platforms becoming available,
• evidence developed through research on effective practices in undergraduate education, and
• challenges of accomplishing the necessary changes with the resources available.

As the participants have talked and the funding agencies have listened, it has become clear that many life sciences faculty and administrators are unaware of existing funding programs and of the strategies needed for writing an educationally related proposal. In this column, we hope to remedy this problem (in part) by making the life sciences audience aware of two NSF programs particularly relevant to Vision and Change that appear to be underutilized by the biology community. These are:

• Transforming Undergraduate Education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (TUES) program (anticipated Spring of 2013 release), and
• Undergraduate Research Coordination Networks–Undergraduate Biology Education (RCN-UBE) program (next deadline is June 14, 2013).

     

Intermittent hypoxia exposure in a hypobaric chamber and erythropoietin abuse interpretation

Abstract

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of intermittent hypoxia exposure on direct and indirect methods used to evaluate recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEPO) misuse. Sixteen male triathletes were randomly assigned to either the intermittent hypoxia exposure group (experimental group) or the control normoxic group (control group). The members of the experimental group were exposed to simulated altitude (from 4000 to 5500 m) in a hypobaric chamber for 3 h per day, 5 days a week, for 4 weeks. Blood and urine samples were collected before and after the first and the final exposures, and again 2 weeks after the final exposure. While serum EPO significantly increased after the first [from a mean 8.3 IU · l^?1 (s = 3.2) to 16.6 IU · l^?1 (s = 4.7)] and final exposures [from 4.6 IU · l^?1 (s = 1.4) to 24.8 IU · l^?1 (s = 9.3)], haemoglobin, percentage of reticulocytes, and soluble transferrin receptor were not elevated. Second-generation ON/OFF models (indirect rhEPO misuse detection) were insensitive to intermittent hypoxia exposure. The distribution of the urinary EPO isoelectric profiles (direct rhEPO misuse detection) was altered after intermittent hypoxia exposure with a slight shift towards more basic isoforms. However, those shifts never resulted in misinterpretation of results. The intermittent hypoxia exposure protocol studied did not produce any false-positive result for indirect or direct detection of rhEPO misuse in spite of the changes in EPO serum concentrations and urinary EPO isoelectric profiles, respectively.     

Valoración diagnóstica de la Batería Piaget-Head (Primera parte)

RESUMEN

Se presenta una discusión crítica sobre el uso de la batería de Piaget-Head para la valoración diagnóstica de dificultades en el aprendizaje. Esta batería fue elaborada por Galifret-Granjon a partir de la selección de pruebas provenientes de Piaget y Head. El estudio encuentra errores en la elaboración de la batería. Los objetivos de las pruebas de Piaget discrepan de los objetivos originales del autor y las pruebas procedentes de Head se escogen según un criterio inadecuado. Los errores que se puedan cometer en la batería parecen más bien debidos a la forma operativa (adecuada o inadecuada) con que el sujeto elabora, que a una alteración del esquema corporal, de la orientación espacial, o de la estructuración del lenguaje.     

Reflexiones sobre el lenguaje autista. I.—Análisis descrpitivos y diferencias con la disfasia receptiva

Resumen

En este articulo, se revisan las descripciones clínicas y los estudios sistemáticos que tratan de establecer los rasgos que definen al lenguaje de los autistas cuando se les compara con el dé los sujetos normales o con otras clases de alteraciones. En la última parte de él, se analizan especialmente las semejanzas y diferencias entre el lenguaje autista y el de los niños con disfasia receptiva del desarrollo y anlizaremos la llamada «tesis de continuidad», que concibe el autismo como una especie de disfasia receptiva grave. En un trabajo posterior, se analizarán más específicamente algunas de las alteraciones más características del lenguaje de los autistas (p.e. ecolalia, inversión pronominal, problemas de comprensión) y se discutirán sus anomalías y retrasos en relación con los distintos componentes (fonológico, morfosintáctico, léxico, etc.) en que puede analizarse el lenguaje.