Process Versus Content: Integrating Personal Awareness and Counseling Skills to Meet the Multicultural Challenge of the Twenty‐First Century

The authors describe a study in which there was a strong relationship between personal awareness and multicultural counseling skills during group supervision. The authors suggest that during supervision, supervisors should help counselors‐in‐training to attain wisdom, as defined by F. J. Hanna, F. Bemak, and R. C. Chung (1999). This should be done by promoting personal awareness and may result in improvement in both multicultural and general counseling skills.     

A hybrid system of pedagogical pattern recommendations based on singular value decomposition and variable data attributes

To carry out effective teaching/learning processes, lecturers in a variety of educational institutions frequently need support. They therefore resort to advice from more experienced lecturers, to formal training processes such as specializations, master or doctoral degrees, or to self-training. High costs in time and money are invariably involved in the processes of formal training, while self-training and advice each bring their own specific risks (e.g. of following new trends that are not fully evaluated or the risk of applying techniques that are inappropriate in specific contexts).This paper presents a system that allows lecturers to define their best teaching strategies for use in the context of a specific class. The context is defined by: the specific characteristics of the subject being treated, the specific objectives that are expected to be achieved in the classroom session, the profile of the students on the course, the dominant characteristics of the teacher, and the classroom environment for each session, among others. The system presented is the Recommendation System of Pedagogical Patterns (RSPP). To construct the RSPP, an ontology representing the pedagogical patterns and their interaction with the fundamentals of the educational process was defined. A web information system was also defined to record information on courses, students, lecturers, etc.; an option based on a unified hybrid model (for content and collaborative filtering) of recommendations for pedagogical patterns was further added to the system. RSPP features a minable view, a tabular structure that summarizes and organizes the information registered in the rest of the system as well as facilitating the task of recommendation. The data recorded in the minable view is taken to a latent space, where noise is reduced and the essence of the information contained in the structure is distilled. This process makes use of Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), commonly used by information retrieval and recommendation systems. Satisfactory results both in the accuracy of the recommendations and in the use of the general application open the door for further research and expand the role of recommender systems in educational teacher support processes.     

Visual templates in pattern generalization activity

In this research article, I present evidence of the existence of visual templates in pattern generalization activity. Such templates initially emerged from a 3-week design-driven classroom teaching experiment on pattern generalization involving linear figural patterns and were assessed for existence in a clinical interview that was conducted four and a half months after the teaching experiment using three tasks (one ambiguous, two well defined). Drawing on the clinical interviews conducted with 11 seventh- and eighth-grade students, I discuss how their visual templates have spawned at least six types of algebraic generalizations. A visual template model is also presented that illustrates the distributed and a dynamically embedded nature of pattern generalization involving the following factors: pattern goodness effect; knowledge/action effects; and the triad of stage-driven grouping, structural unit, and analogy.     

La situacion diglósica y su repercusión en la adquisición del lenguaje

Resumen

En este artículo se presenta una investigación cuyo objetivo es analizar las posibles consecuencias que la situación diglósica puede generar en la adquisición del lenguaje de los niños que la padecen. Se demuestra, mediante un riguroso análisis del lenguaje oral, que tal repercusión es claramente negativa en una circunstancia de no normalización lingüística. Dicha repercusión se materializa en una mayor pobreza morfo-sintáctica de la expresión oral cuando el niño debe desenvolverse en una lengua que no es la materna. Se deduce, por tanto, la conveniencia de que la lengua materna y la escolar sean una misma, al menos, en los primeros niveles de escolarización.     

So close,and yet so far: cross-racial interactions among undergraduate students in two neighboring borderland communities

This article discusses two studies on the extent and nature of cross-racial interactions (CRIs) among undergraduate students from two neighboring US–Mexico borderland communities. Of the four participating higher education institutions, two were adjacent to the US–Mexico borderline, while the other two were 45 miles away from the borderline. One study relied on survey responses from over 900 students, while the other relied on focus group data from over 30 students. The participating students were from two universities and two community colleges. Although the students shared some common experiences and attitudes, there were some marked and important differences among them. These differences made a compelling argument for localizing what diversity means and customizing efforts to foster CRIs on college campuses.     

Magnesium status and the physical performance of volleyball players: effects of magnesium supplementation

Abstract

The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that magnesium supplementation influences the physical performance of volleyball players, as the efficacy of this approach remains questionable. Twenty-five professional male volleyball players were assigned randomly to experimental (350 mg Mg · d^–1, 4 weeks) and control groups (500 mg maltodextrin · d^–1, 4 weeks) maintaining inter-group homogeneity of urinary magnesium. Erythrocyte, plasma and urinary magnesium levels, plasma creatine kinase activity, lactate production, maximal oxygen uptake (VO₂ max) and plyometric (squat jump, countermovement jump, countermovement jump with arm swing) and isokinetic (peak torque, potency and total work) performances were evaluated before (T₀) and after (T₁) supplementation. Levels of erythrocyte and urinary magnesium and creatine kinase activity and VO₂ max remained within normal ranges in both groups. Plasma magnesium decreased significantly only within the experimental group. Significant decreases in lactate production and significant increases (of up to 3 cm) in countermovement jump and countermovement jump with arm swing values were detected in the experimental group following magnesium supplementation, but not in the control group at T₁. It is concluded that magnesium supplementation improved alactic anaerobic metabolism, even though the players were not magnesium-deficient.     

Protection against muscle damage in competitive sports players: the effect of the immunomodulator AM3

Strenuous physical exercise of the limb muscles commonly results in damage, especially when that exercise is intense, prolonged and includes eccentric contractions. Many factors contribute to exercise-induced muscle injury and the mechanism is likely to differ with the type of exercise. Competitive sports players are highly susceptible to this type of injury. AM3 is an orally administered immunomodulator that reduces the synthesis of proinflammatory cytokines and normalizes defective cellular immune fractions. The ability of AM3 to prevent chronic muscle injury following strenuous exercise characterized by eccentric muscle contraction was evaluated in a double-blind and randomized pilot study. Fourteen professional male volleyball players from the First Division of the Spanish Volleyball League volunteered to take part. The participants were randomized to receive either placebo (n?=?7) or AM3 (n?=?7). The physical characteristics (mean±s) of the placebo group were as follows: age 25.7±2.1 years, body mass 87.2±4.1?kg, height 1.89±0.07?m, maximal oxygen uptake 65.3±4.2?ml?·?kg^?1?·?min^?1. Those of the AM3 group were as follows: age 26.1±1.9 years, body mass 85.8±6.1?kg, height 1.91±0.07?m, maximal oxygen uptake 64.6±4.5?ml?·?kg^?1?·?min^?1. All participants were evaluated for biochemical indices of muscle damage, including concentrations of aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase, alkaline phosphatase, creatine kinase (CK) and its MB fraction (CK-MB), myoglobin, lactate dehydrogenase, urea, creatinine and γ-glutamyltranspeptidase, both before and 30 days after treatment (over the peak of the competitive season). In the placebo group, competitive exercise (i.e. volleyball) was accompanied by significant increases in creatine kinase (494±51 to 560±53?IU?·?l^?1, P?<?0.05) and myoglobin (76.8±2.9 to 83.9±3.1?μg?·?l^?1, P?<?0.05); aspartate aminotransferase (30.8±3.0 to 31.1±2.9?IU?·?l^?1) and lactate dehydrogenase (380±31 to 376±29?IU?·?l^?1) were relatively unchanged after the 30 days maximum effort. AM3 not only inhibited these changes, it led to a decrease from baseline serum concentrations of creatine kinase (503±49 to 316±37?IU?·?l^?1, P?<?0.05) and myoglobin (80.1±3.2 to 44.1±2.6?IU?·?l^?1, P?<?0.05), as well as aspartate aminotransferase (31.1±3.3 to 26.1±2.7?IU?·?l^?1, P?<?0.05) and lactate dehydrogenase (368±34 to 310±3?IU?·?l^?1, P?<?0.05). The concentration of CK-MB was also significantly decreased from baseline with AM3 treatment (11.6±1.2 to 5.0±0.7?IU?·?l^?1, P?<?0.05), but not with placebo (11.4±1.1 to 10.8±1.4?IU?·?l^?1). In conclusion, the use of immunomodulators, such as AM3, by elite sportspersons during competition significantly reduces serum concentrations of proteins associated with muscle damage.     

Correlations between serum and salivary hormonal concentrations in response to resistance exercise

Abstract

The aim of present study was to examine the relationships between serum and salivary values of free testosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone, and cortisol before and after a session of resistance exercise. Twenty-eight healthy men (mean age 40 years, s = 4) participated in the present study. Serum and salivary samples were collected at rest and after a multiple-sets resistance exercise protocol, of approximately 25 minutes duration. Concentrations of free testosterone, dehydroepiandrosterone, and cortisol were measured using radioimmunoassay kits. No significant correlation was observed between serum free testosterone and salivary testosterone (r = 0.22 to 0.26, P > 0.05). Serum cortisol was significantly correlated with salivary cortisol before (r = 0.52, P = 0.005) and after (r = 0.62, P = 0.001) the exercise protocol. Serum and salivary concentrations of dehydroepiandrosterone were significantly correlated before (r = 0.68, P < 0.001) and after (r = 0.7, P < 0.001) exercise. The results of the present study suggest that even under exercise conditions, the salivary values of cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone can reflect the behaviour of these hormones in blood. However, further studies are necessary to verify if salivary testosterone reflects the behaviour of serum free testosterone during resistance exercise.