Street smarts

A pluralistic approach to folk psychology must countenance the evaluative, regulatory, predictive, and explanatory roles played by attributions of intelligence in social practices across cultures. Building off of the work of the psychologist Robert Sternberg and the philosophers Gilbert Ryle and Daniel Dennett, I argue that a relativistic interpretivism best accounts for the many varieties of intelligence that emerge from folk discourse. To be intelligent is to be comparatively good at solving intellectual problems that an interpreter deems worth solving

Neurally Implementable Semantic Networks

We propose general principles for semantic networks allowing them to be implemented as dynamical neural networks. Major features of our scheme include: (a) the interpretation that each node in a network stands for a bound integration of the meanings of all nodes and external events the node links with; (b) the systematic use of nodes that stand for categories or types, with separate nodes for instances of these types; (c) an implementation of relationships that does not use intrinsically typed links between nodes.Comment: 32 pages, 12 figure

Discursive Practice and the Nigerian Identity in Personal Emails

As communication by the electronic mail spreads and becomes increasingly common, more and more people are taking the advantage of its flexibility and simplicity for communicating social identity and cultural matters. This chapter, focuses on how Nigerian users of the electronic mails, apply the medium for expressing their identity through discursive means. Data comprises 150 personal emails written and sent between 2002 and 2009 in Lagos and Ota regions of Nigeria by individual email writers, comprising youths and adults from a university community and the Nigerian civil service. Applying socio-linguistic approach and computer-mediated discourse analysis, the study shows that the most common discursive means of expressing the Nigerian identity are greeting forms and modes of address; religious discursive practices and assertions of native personal names. The data also show evidences of Nigerian English in the email messages

Utilizing Teacher Response to Help Students Meet and Transfer First-Year Composition Course Objectives

For decades, considerable scholarship has explored how teachers can respond more effectively to student writing. There has also been significant research on how first-year-composition concepts can be transferred by students to other arenas of discourse outside of this required course. This thesis begins with a brief discussion on the meaning of transfer. Then, with the Council of Writing Program Administrators’ Outcomes (knowledge of conventions, rhetorical knowledge, critical thinking, processes) as a starting point, I redefine and pare down the seven response modes described by Elaine O. Lees to five types of response (calling for correction, reminding, explaining, suggesting, and assigning) designed to create a framework for understanding how teachers can respond to student writing more effectively. Additionally, four recommendations are presented for maximizing the effectiveness of teacher response, while providing students a voice in the conversation on the page. The first recommendation is for teachers to underline content in the draft, calling the student’s attention to issues in the text they must revise or to a suggestion the teacher has made. The second recommendation is to use peer response as an extension of teacher response by having peer groups work together to address each comment provided by the teacher on their drafts. The third recommendation calls on teachers to take an individualized method of response based on the disciplines students plan on joining. The final recommendation is the inclusion of critical thinking challenges that inquires about the student’s source vetting and tests their logic and reasoning skills through additional questioning and assigning within the teacher response. The purpose of this thesis is to theorize how the use of these recommendations and response types can serve as a catalyst for objectives to be met and for transfer to occur for FYC students

Mainstreaming Creativity: Creative Writing Enters General Education’s Advanced Writing Requirement

This essay describes twenty-first century general education reforms that create opportunities for creative writing studies proponents to negotiate a central role for the field in the core curriculum. This essay draws on existent research in creative writing pedagogy to make a case for “Introduction to Creative Writing” as part of the advanced writing requirements appearing now in liberal education plans. The essay also draws from scholarship and anecdotes describing new directions in general education at the author’s own school as well as colleges and universities nationwide to identify trends that can curtail or facilitate CW’s status as mainstream curricular business

Delivering Virtual Ethnicity Drama: A Pedagogical Design For Bridging Digital And Diversity Barriers

This study examines an original dramaturgical method for creating virtual world experience called virtual world drama. The instructional focus is improving students aptitude for analyzing ethnic identity by instilling both conceptual and multicultural competency. An exploratory research method is used, relying on observation (disguised and non-disguised) and survey information collected from a student sample spanning four academic quarters. Findings suggest that virtual world drama deepens the specificity of ethnic culture analysis and broadens the spectrum of ethnic culture awareness. In addition learning outcomes are evaluated based on improvements in ethnic aptitude collaboration, competence, and community

Genetic dissection of the dwarfing effect of the apple rootstock 'M.9' : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Plant Biology at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

The dwarfing phenomenon in apple is mainly characterized by the ability of a rootstock to reduce the vegetative growth and ultimate size of the scion grafted onto it. Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain the dwarfing effect of rootstocks, from the production and translocation of hormones to the altered anatomy of the graft union. However, despite the numerous studies undertaken, none of the studies support a single hypothesis. This study focussed on identifying genetic markers for genomic regions influencing the dwarfing effect of 'Malling 9' ('M.9'). Two rootstock populations derived from crosses between 'M.9' and the vigorous rootstock 'Robusta 5' ('R5') were propagated and phenotyped at the HortResearch Havelock North Research Centre (New Zealand). Bulked segregant analysis (BSA) and QTL analysis were performed using phenotypic data collected from scions grafted onto the rootstock populations. Several genomic regions in 'M.9' and 'R5' were found to have a significant influence on the dwarfing phenotype and other related traits. The percentage of variation explained by these QTLs ranged from 4.2% to 57.2%. A large number of traits had significant variation associated with the major dwarfing QTL DWJ (identified previously by BSA), confirming the influence of this gene on tree architecture. To identify the genes responsible for the dwarfing effect, a microarray analysis on RNA extracted from bark tissues was performed to detect genes differentially expressed among dwarfing and vigorous rootstocks derived from the 'M.9' x 'R5' family. Following the mapping of 16 markers developed from 12 candidate genes, their position was compared with those of the QTLs identified previously and co­ localisations among genes and QTLs were identified. Results to date indicate that none of these particular CGs co-segregate with DW1. In order to estimate the number of different genetic sources of dwarfing present in commercial rootstocks, two SSR markers mapping about 0.5 cM away from the dwarfing QTL DWJ were screened over 58 rootstock accessions. The majority of the dwarf and semi-dwarf accessions screened carried the locus DWl, indicating that there may be only a single genetic source of dwarfing in apple rootstocks. The identification of markers for dwarfing will have a major impact on apple rootstock breeding, which currently relies on laborious phenotyping of individuals in breeding populations that presently takes at least 5-7 years to adequately perform. The identification of the genetic function of DWJ would provide an opportunity to develop dwarfing rootstocks for other members of the Rosaceae family for which such rootstocks have not yet been developed

Martial Arts Participation, Aggression, and Self-Control: An Examination of the “Gentle Arts.”

The recent emergence of mixed-martial arts (MMA) as a professional sport has led to an increased interest in martial arts in the United States. While the visibility of the violence that constitutes mixed martial arts might be cause of concern, MMA is not indicative of martial arts participation as a whole. The martial arts have become an increasingly popular form of leisure that draws a broad, diverse group of participants. This study explores the relationships between martial arts participation, aggression, and self-control. Using the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ) (1992) and Tangney’s Brief Self-Control Scale (BSCS) (2004), my findings show that compared to non-participants, individuals who participate in martial arts training are less verbally aggressive, less hostile, less angry, and exhibit more self-control. &nbsp