Microaggressions in graduate students’ lives: How they are encountered and their consequences

This article explores the experiences of teaching assistants from nonmainstream backgrounds in a predominantly white institution (PWI) of U.S. education. We focus on how such teaching assistants experience and respond to “microaggressions” or subtle challenges to their teaching based on race and ethnicity. We also explore the consequences of microaggressions for teaching assistants’ future career plans. Analyses of life history interviews show how processes of microaggressions permeated teaching assistants’ relationships with white prospective and cooperating teachers. The authors suggest ways to interrupt these in teacher education programs.     

Nothing in the History of Spanish <Emphasis Type="Italic">Anís</Emphasis> Makes Sense,Except in the Light of Evolution

We describe, discuss and illustrate a metaphoric parallel between the history of the most famous Spanish liqueur, “Anís del Mono” (Anís of the Monkey), and the evolution of living organisms in the light of Darwinian theory and other biological hypotheses published subsequent to Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. Also, we report the use of a caricature of a simian Darwin with a positive connotation, perhaps the only one ever produced. We conclude that, like some species in the natural world, Anís of the Monkey has evolved, adapted, survived and become the fittest and most successful anís in the Spanish market and possibly the world. We hope this paper will contribute a new useful metaphor for the teaching of biological evolution.     

The contribution of knowledge about anaphors,organisational signals and refutations to reading comprehension

Expository texts contain rhetorical devices that help readers to connect text ideas (within a text and with prior knowledge) and to monitor reading. Rhetorical competence addresses readers' skill in detecting, understanding and using these devices. We examined the contribution of rhetorical competence to reading comprehension on two groups of 11‐ to 13‐year‐old students: low‐level (Study 1) and high‐level (Study 2) reading skills. The measures of rhetorical competence assessed students' knowledge about anaphors, organisational signals and refutations. In both studies, each measure of rhetorical competence contributed significantly to reading comprehension once prior knowledge, working memory and decoding skills were controlled for. This contribution was higher in Study 2. Furthermore, whereas in Study 1, each measure of rhetorical competence had a unique contribution to reading comprehension when controlling for the other measures of rhetorical competence, in Study 2, only the knowledge about organisational signals and refutations had this unique contribution.     

Predicting centre of mass horizontal speed in low to severe swimming intensities with linear and non-linear models

We aimed to compare multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural networks, radial basis function neural networks (RBF) and linear models (LM) accuracy to predict the centre of mass (CM) horizontal speed at low-moderate, heavy and severe swimming intensities using physiological and biomechanical dataset. Ten trained male swimmers completed a 7 × 200 m front crawl protocol (0.05 m.s^?1 increments and 30 s intervals) to assess expiratory gases and blood lactate concentrations. Two surface and four underwater cameras recorded independent images subsequently processed focusing a three-dimensional reconstruction of two upper limb cycles at 25 and 175 m laps. Eight physiological and 13 biomechanical variables were inputted to predict CM horizontal speed. MLP, RBF and LM were implemented with the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm (feed forward with a six-neuron hidden layer), orthogonal least squares algorithm and decomposition of matrices. MLP revealed higher prediction error than LM at low-moderate intensity (2.43 ± 1.44 and 1.67 ± 0.60%), MLP and RBF depicted lower mean absolute percentage errors than LM at heavy intensity (2.45 ± 1.61, 1.82 ± 0.92 and 3.72 ± 1.67%) and RBF neural networks registered lower errors than MLP and LM at severe intensity (2.78 ± 0.96, 3.89 ± 1.78 and 4.47 ± 2.36%). Artificial neural networks are suitable for speed model-fit at heavy and severe swimming intensities when considering physiological and biomechanical background.     

A case analysis of semantic technologies for R&D intermediation information management

It is evident that companies and research centres can find a myriad of instruments to fund their R&D (Research & Development) activities. Due to the dynamics of the information management in these circumstances there is a need for intermediary businesses intervention. Consequently, intermediary companies are thus involved in a complex process that needs to be managed and controlled. Within this scenario an Information Technology (IT) platform, named RDi-Advise, was developed by EgeoIT using semantic technologies to support R&D process decisions. This case analysis describes the development and implementation of the platform including the lessons learned during the activity period.     

Didactic Problems in the Concept of Electric Potential Difference and an Analysis of its Philogenesis

This paper makes an analysis of the different didactic problems to come from the fact that electric charge is inseparable from the mass, the impossibility of its direct observation (only its effects) and the meaning associated with the basic concepts of electricity, like electric potential or electric potential difference.In order to know the origin of the different meaning found in textbooks of the concept of electric potential difference, we have made an analysis of the relevant historical milestones. In this review, it is seen that the content assigned to it is taken from the mathematical formalism of field theory, which causes problems in its structure and its logico-formal communication as well as teaching problems.