Material properties of historic parchment: A reference collection survey

Historic parchment is a complex biological material, and due to various methods of production or inks used, unknown environmental histories of objects and heterogeneous nature of animal skin, it represents a particular analytical challenge. Due to the number of variables it is likely that patterns in degradation of these historic objects can only be revealed by surveying the material properties of a significant number of real objects. In this work, a sacrificial collection of ca. 100 historic parchments (fifteenth to twentieth century) was characterized using a range of techniques available to conservation practitioners that can usefully be used to reliably and rapidly characterize parchment. We focused on micro-destructive methods, such as shrinkage temperature (T_s), as the most widely used indicator of parchment degradation. Lipid content, roughness, and ink pH were additionally measured, while a limited number of samples containing iron gall ink were also examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and SEM-EDX, to explore the distribution of ink components. Even in the absence of detailed environmental histories, it is possible to acknowledge the significance of the effect of iron gall ink and its acidity, and of lipids on parchment degradation, as measured using T_s. This research reports valuable reference data, while the collection remains accessible for further research.     

Correcting Students’ Misconceptions about Automobile Braking Distances and Video Analysis Using Interactive Program Tracker

The present paper informs about an analysis of students’ conceptions about car braking distances and also presents one of the novel methods of learning: an interactive computer program Tracker that we used to analyse the process of braking of a car. The analysis of the students’ conceptions about car braking distances consisted in obtaining their estimates of these quantities before and after watching a video recording of a car braking from various initial speeds to a complete stop and subsequent application of mathematical statistics to the obtained sets of students’ answers. The results revealed that the difference between the value of the car braking distance estimated before watching the video and the real value of this distance was not caused by a random error but by a systematic error which was due to the incorrect students’ conceptions about the car braking process. Watching the video significantly improved the students’ estimates of the car braking distance, and we show that in this case, the difference between the estimated value and the real value of the car braking distance was due only to a random error, i.e. the students’ conceptions about the car braking process were corrected. Some of the students subsequently performed video analysis of the braking processes of cars of various brands and under various conditions by means of Tracker that gave them exact knowledge of the physical quantities, which characterize a motor vehicle braking. Interviewing some of these students brought very positive reactions to this novel method of learning.     

Knowledge of general practitioners on dementia and mild cognitive impairment: a cross-sectional,questionnaire study from Hungary

General practitioners (GPs) play a pivotal role in dementia recognition, yet research suggests that dementia often remains undetected in primary care. Lack of knowledge might be a major contributing factor to low recognition rates. Our objective was to address a gap in the scientific literature by exploring GPs’ knowledge on dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) for the first time in Hungary by conducting a cross-sectional, questionnaire study among practicing GPs. Recruitment of the participants (n = 402) took place at mandatory postgraduate training courses and at national GP-conferences; the applied questionnaire was self-administered and contained both open-ended and fixed-response questions.

Results showed that GPs highlighted vascular and metabolic factors (38.3% of the answer items) and unhealthy lifestyle (29.1% of the answer items) as dementia risk factors. They perceived vascular dementia as the most common dementia form, followed by Alzheimer’s disease. Almost half of the respondents (44.9%) were not familiar with MCI. Most GPs identified memory problems (98.4%) and personality change (83.2%) as the leading symptoms of dementia.

In summary, GPs demonstrated adequate knowledge on areas more relevant to their practices and scope of duties (risk and preventive factors, main types and symptoms of dementia); however, uncertainties were uncovered regarding epidemiology, MCI, and pharmacological therapy. As only one-fifth (19.4%) of the GPs could participate recently in dementia-focused trainings, continued education might be beneficial to improve dementia detection rates in primary care.     

The Croatian Collection at The New York Public Library

It is generally known that the New York Public Library (NYPL) is one of the most important repositories of Slavic intellectual and cultural documents, literature, and scholarly writings outside Europe. The specifics of the Croatian collection are not so well known, however. In an attempt to provide scholars with an overview of the NYPL's resources, this report describes the holdings of three of the Library's research divisions: the Slavic and Baltic Division, the General Research Division, and the Map Division, which are located at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan. Although the divisions function autonomously and are at a physical remove from each other within the institution, their Croatian holdings are uniformly cataloged within one electronic database (CATNYP), which can be accessed via the web at http://catnyp.nypl.org.     

Quality of religious education in Croatia assessed from teachers’ perspective

The main aim of the present study was to examine the quality of religious education in Croatian primary schools when assessed from teachers’ perspective. Religious education teachers (N?=?226) rated the impact of certain factors on the existing quality of religious education in primary schools and expressed their expectations about the future status of this aspect of education. In addition, teachers rated different sources of their professional satisfaction as religious education teachers. We identified understandable latent dimensions of teachers’ opinions, expectations and satisfaction where retained dimensions are modestly interrelated. The conducted regression analyses suggest that teachers with different professional status-related personal attributes are fairly uniform in their views, expectations and satisfactions. An interesting finding of this study concerns the relationship between school-based Catholic religious education and the parish-based catechesis, where an existing relationship represents a weak source of religious education teachers’ satisfaction. This represents a valuable empirically driven insight regarding the Catholic religious education in Croatian schools with some importance to the broader context of religious education in general.     

Infants Perceive Three‐Dimensional Illusory Contours as Occluding Surfaces

The study assessed the contribution of stereoscopic depth cues to infants' perception of a Kanizsa rectangle as a surface that temporarily occludes a moving object. In Experiment 1, the Kanizsa figure was shifted into the foreground by enriching it with stereoscopic depth information. According to the results, perception of a three‐dimensional Kanizsa figure as an occluding surface emerges between 5 (n = 16) and 7 (n = 16) months of age. Experiment 2 demonstrated that 7‐month‐old (n = 16) infants performed similarly to the 7‐month‐olds who participated in Experiment 1 if the moving object was shifted into the background. These findings suggest that 7‐month‐old infants respond to stereoscopic depth cues and that they exploit it to perceive subjective contours as occluders.     

Cultural capital and intellectual ability as predictors of scholastic achievement: a study of Slovenian secondary school students

Cultural capital, originally a general sociological concept, has been transformed into a construct that is often applied in predicting scholastic attainment. Intellectual ability (IQ) has also been proven to be a strong, although basically psychological, predictor of educational attainment. However, these strands of research have hardly been contrasted in terms of their predictive power and in terms of their potential interaction. In the current study of Slovenian secondary school students, the results indicated that both constructs had statistically significant predictive power, both as to attainment and as to transition into type of secondary education. Results also indicated that: both constructs were fairly robust, as their predictive power remained statistically significant even after control variables were entered into the model; and they operated independently as results indicated no interaction between these constructs. The ‘return’ on cultural capital was greater for students whose parents had lower educational status.