Puberty Predicts Approach But Not Avoidance on the Iowa Gambling Task in a Multinational Sample

According to the dual systems model of adolescent risk taking, sensation seeking and impulse control follow different developmental trajectories across adolescence and are governed by two different brain systems. The authors tested whether different underlying processes also drive age differences in reward approach and cost avoidance. Using a modified Iowa Gambling Task in a multinational, cross‐sectional sample of 3,234 adolescents (ages 9–17; M = 12.87, SD = 2.36), pubertal maturation, but not age, predicted reward approach, mediated through higher sensation seeking. In contrast, age, but not pubertal maturation, predicted increased cost avoidance, mediated through greater impulse control. These findings add to evidence that adolescent behavior is best understood as the product of two interacting, but independently developing, brain systems.     

Education inputs,student performance and school finance reform in Michigan

This paper estimates the impact of the Michigan school finance reform, Proposal A, on education inputs and test scores. Using a difference-in-difference estimation strategy, I find that school districts in Michigan used the increase in educational spending generated through Proposal A to increase teacher salaries and reduce class size to a smaller extent. Then, using the foundation allowance created by Proposal A as an instrument, I estimate the causal effect of increased spending on 4th and 7th grade math scores for two test measures – a scaled score and a percent satisfactory measure – and find positive effects of increased spending on 4th grade test scores. A 60% increase in spending increases the percent satisfactory score by one standard deviation. The positive impact of expenditures on test performance seems largely due to higher teacher salaries.     

Extracting Fuel Efficiency Information From the Car Dashboard Display An Application of Interpolation Technique

We discuss an application of interpolation of curves to extract fuel efficiency information of cars. Input data is taken from the mileage meter in the dashboard display of cars equipped with such a facility. This is also an application of harmonic mean.     

Quality of effluents from Hattar Industrial Estate

Of 6634 registered industries in Pakistan, 1228 are considered to be highly polluting. The major industries include textile, pharmaceutical, chemicals （organic and inorganic）, food industries, ceramics, steel, oil mills and leather tanning which spread all over four provinces, with the larger number located in Sindh and Punjab, with smaller number in North Western Frontier Province （NWFP） and Baluchistan. Hattar Industrial Estate extending over 700 acres located in Haripur district of NWFP is a new industrial estate, which has been developed with proper planning for management of industrial effluents. The major industries located in Hattar are ghee industry, chemical （sulfuric acid, synthetic fiber） industry, textile industry and pharmaceuticals industry. These industries, although developed with proper planning are discharging their effluents in the nearby natural drains and ulti- mately collected in a big drain near Wah. The farmers in the vicinity are using these effluents for growing vegetables and cereal crops due to shortage of water. In view of this discussion, there is a dire need to determine if these effluents are hazardous for soil and plant growth. So, effluents from different industries, sewage and normal tap water samples were collected and analysed for pH electrical conductivity （EC）, total soluble salts （TSS）, biological oxygen demand （BOD）, chemical oxygen demand （COD）, total nitrogen, cations and anions and heavy metals. The effluents ofghee and textile industries are highly alkaline. EC and TSS loads of ghee and textile industries are also above the National Environmental Quality Standards （NEQS）, Pakistan. All the effluents had residual sodium carbonates （RSCs）, carbonates and bicarbonates in amounts that cannot be used for irrigation. Total toxic metals load in all the effluents is also above the limit i.e. 2,0 mg/L. Copper in effluents of textile and sewage, manganese in ghee industry effluents and iron contents in all the effluents were higher than NEQS. BOD and COD values of all the industries are also above the NEQS. On the whole, these effluents cannot be used for irrigation without proper treatment otherwise that may cause toxicity to soil, plants and animals as well add to the problems of salinity and sododicity. Similarly, these effluents cannot be used for fish farming.     

Research and the young child in India: shifting from alienation to adaptability using an expanded framework

Conventional psychological research has focused primarily on intrapersonal dimensions of human activity, often evading shared knowledge, interpersonal perspective-taking, and collective beliefs. The ideology of individualism and the ‘embryonic fallacy’ are largely responsible for the focus on the individual as an isolated entity. Most available methods for assessment are transacted through the temporary separation of a “subject” from a familiar cultural setting. In the case of children, this instantly distances them from known surroundings. When researchers adopt methods created and standardized in a different cultural context, there is a double alienation; first of the social setting, and the second, more profound (but less evident) distancing is ideological, between the shared reality of the community to which the child belongs and the culture of origin of the method. This paper provides evidence from research on Indian children to discuss the importance of adaptation to the context and shared understanding. By identifying three distinct levels of activity, the subjective, inter-subjective, and inter-objective, we bring forward some of the processes that often remain hidden in the study of the individual. These levels are then employed to discuss specific research encounters.     

Programming skills: Visualization,interaction, home language and problem solving

Education and Information Technologies - As a novice, learning computer programming is challenging. It requires learners to be inquisitive and acquire skills to analyze problems to get to solutions...     

Informed Systems: ‘Designing Together’ for ‘Learning Together’

Informed Systems promotes using information to learn during systems design and within designed systems, to advance coworker capability and further organizational capacity. In this spirit, an Informed Systems Capacity Bridge Model is presented, which connects individual information use and collective workplace learning. The associated Information Curation and Knowledge Management Conceptual Map presents requisite elements of an information-focused and technology-enabled workplace ecosystem. Concluding reflections place information experience in the foreground to enhance ‘what works well’ for ‘learning together’ through ‘designing together’, to catalyze workplace learning, activate systems thinking, animate reflective dialog, and catalyze organizational inquiry.     

A comparative content analytical study of negative news in western and third world newspapers

Since the advent of the NWIO debate, the Western media have been under attack over the perceived emphasis on negative news when dealing with Third World countries. This paper seeks to determine the degree of bias between Western and Third World media in their reporting of each other, and examines the role of culture in perceiving/selecting news of one kind over another.

The study covers four elite English‐language daily newspapers from the US, UK, India and Nigeria.     

The Myth of Universal Sensitive Responsiveness: Comment on Mesman et al. (2017)

This article considers claims of Mesman et al. (2017) that sensitive responsiveness as defined by Ainsworth, while not uniformly expressed across cultural contexts, is universal. Evidence presented demonstrates that none of the components of sensitive responsiveness (i.e., which partner takes the lead, whose point of view is primary, and the turn‐taking structure of interactions) or warmth are universal. Mesman and colleagues’ proposal that sensitive responsiveness is “providing for infant needs” is critiqued. Constructs concerning caregiver quality must be embedded within a nexus of cultural logic, including caregiving practices, based on ecologically valid childrearing values and beliefs. Sensitive responsiveness, as defined by Mesman and attachment theorists, is not universal. Attachment theory and cultural or cross‐cultural psychology are not built on common ground.