Paper Abstracts (2013)

Nineteenth Conference of the Association of Christians in the Mathematical Science

19th Conference of The Associations of Christians In The Mathematical Sciences

Association of Christians in the Mathematical Sciences 19th Biennial Conference Proceedings, May 29 - June 1, 2011, Bethel University

Dynamic systems approach to the life sciences

Journal ArticleEach of the chapters in this book points to expanding our understanding of the multiple and complex relationships that surround development through the lifespan. In this chapter, we as the organizing committee of the Council for Human Development give a brief description and overview of the science of dynamic systems that is exemplified in the other chapters in this book. The goal of this chapter is to help people see how dynamic systems research helps us to understand human development and how it can assist in creating relevant policies and funding priorities. The dynamic systems approach is fundamentally different from existing ideas about simple cause and effect. It begins with the realization that the living world is too complex for any one factor to have a significant effect on an outcome in the absence of many other competing and cooperating factors, all of which change over time. Dynamic systems scientists, such as the authors of the chapters in this book, seek to understand certain aspects of this constantly changing network of mutual influences according to their focus of study

Physical fun : Exercise, social relations and learning in SuperPark

SuperParks offer a diverse set of activities, including trampolines, skate parks, obstacle walls, parkour courses, playtowers and many different games. The activities are aimed to people of all ages and fitness levels. However, the biggest group of visitors are children and young people, who make up a clear majority inside the SuperPark crowd. SuperPark describes the entertaining physical, social and mental activity inside as “sparking”. SuperPark Ltd, the company behind SuperParks, commissioned this study to investigate the quality of physical activities and social life inside the parks. The research was carried out by researchers from the South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences working in Juvenia and Active Life Lab, units focusing on youth studies and preventive wellbeing, respectively. University of Jyväskylä deserves credit for providing assistance for the research. This study report consists of two parts. Part 1 focuses on the physiology of sparking and physical data collected from participants at SuperPark Jyväskylä. Part 2 addresses the social life inside SuperPark using survey and interview data collected from young visitors inside SuperPark.SuperPark tarjoaa monipuolisen joukon aktiviteetteja, muun muassa trampoliineja, skeittiparkkeja, kiipeilyseiniä, parkour-ratoja ja monia erilaisia pelejä. Aktiviteetit on suunnattu kaikenikäisille ja -kuntoisille. Suurin ja näkyvin vierailijaryhmä ovat kuitenkin lapset ja nuoret. SuperPark käyttää ”sparkkaus” -termiä kuvaamaan puistoissa tapahtuvaa fyysistä, henkistä ja sosiaalista toimintaa. SuperParkien takana oleva SuperPark Oy tilasi tämän tutkimuksen saadakseen tutkimustietoa fyysisen aktiivisuuden ja sosiaalisen elämän laadusta puistoissa. Tutkimuksen toteuttivat Kaakkois-Suomen ammattikorkeakoulun tutkimusyksiköissä, nuorisoalan tutkimus- ja kehittämiskeskus Juveniassa ja tietoon perustuvia hyvinvointipalveluja kehittävässä Active Life Labissa, työskentelevät tutkijat. Jyväskylän yliopisto ansaitsee kiitoksen avusta, jota se tarjosi tutkimusprojektille. Tämä tutkimusraportti koostuu kahdesta osasta. Osa 1 käsittelee sparkkauksen fysiologiaa ja hyödyntää SuperPark Jyväskylän koehenkilöiltä koottua fyysistä mittausaineistoa. Osa 2 kuvaa sosiaalista elämää SuperParkeissa nuorilta Super-Park-vierailijoilta kootun verkkokysely- ja haastatteluaineiston avulla

A re-evaluation of ideas, interests and politics in repeal: the case of the Belgian Corn Laws, 1834-1873.

Economic interests, the influence of economic ideas and politics have been put forward in the literature as explanations for the British Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. In this paper, we will evaluate these competing explanations using the case of the liberalization of Belgian corn tariffs. The Belgian protectionist Corn Laws of 1834 were abolished in different steps between 1845 and 1873. The first part of this paper uses quantitative methods to assess the success of party affiliation, personal interests and the economic profile of the constituencies in predicting voting behavior. Thanks to the detailed censuses of 1846 on agriculture, industry and population, it is possible to typify the economic make-up of the electoral districts in much more detail than in the British case. However, the analysis of roll-call voting proves that party affiliation and personal and constituency economic interests are insufficient to explain the shift towards free trade. The second part of the paper then discusses the role played by political strategy and ideas in the liberalization of corn tariffs, using a qualitative analysis of the debates on tariff policy. The large number of votes over a forty year period allows us to document the relationship between ideas and interests in a new way.

Parental experiences of education at home during a pandemic

Acknowledgements The research team would like to express their gratitude to the study participants for generously contributing their time and experiences to this research. The lead researcher also wishes to thank Dr. Mark Jenkins for his unwavering and invaluable guidance, encouragement and support.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A Creative Cognition Framework for Generating Breakthrough Ideas

Latest developments in creative cognition, largely informed by neuroscience, give us the ability to debunk pervasive and insidious creativity myths that get in the way of creating breakthrough ideas. This paper, through a review of creative cognition and neuroscience literature derives and synthesises a creative cognition framework focused on engaging metacognition of the creative process, activating creating drive, shifting perspective to gain insight, deploying defocused attention and finally, and only when the other dimensions have been established, sparking remote connections and getting to breakthrough ideas. As practitioners we need to ensure we are strategically deploying this framework, creating the time and space for deep thinking, and that the process seamlessly supports people to be at their creative best. As thinking on creative cognition develops further over time, this framework will be updated and also iterated with practical learnings from deployment

The Public Life of Data: Investigating Reactions to Visualizations on Reddit

This research investigates how people engage with data visualizations when commenting on the social platform Reddit. There has been considerable research on collaborative sensemaking with visualizations and the personal relation of people with data. Yet, little is known about how public audiences without specific expertise and shared incentives openly express their thoughts, feelings, and insights in response to data visualizations. Motivated by the extensive social exchange around visualizations in online communities, this research examines characteristics and motivations of people's reactions to posts featuring visualizations. Following a Grounded Theory approach, we study 475 reactions from the /r/dataisbeautiful community, identify ten distinguishable reaction types, and consider their contribution to the discourse. A follow-up survey with 168 Reddit users clarified their intentions to react. Our results help understand the role of personal perspectives on data and inform future interfaces that integrate audience reactions into visualizations to foster a public discourse about data

Emotion, Place, and Practice: Exploring the Interplay in Children\u27s Engagement in Ecologists\u27 Sampling Practices

In science education, there has been a sustained focus on supporting the emergence of science practices in K–12 and field-based settings. Recent work has elevated the integral role of emotion in sparking and sustaining such disciplinary practices, deepening the field\u27s understanding of what is entailed in “doing” science. Yet even as we gain this richer understanding of practice, less attention has been given to the places where practice emerges. These places play a critical role in the co-emergence of emotion and practice, and while separate strands of research have elevated emotion and practice or, alternately, place and practice, rarely has their dynamic relationship been considered together. In this article, I explore this interplay of emotion, place, and practice emergent in children\u27s sampling practices within a multiweek curriculum centered around their schoolyard soil ecosystem. Through a comparative case study analysis of two student pairs using video data, student interviews, and classroom artifacts, my analysis reveals how children\u27s emergent emotion was entangled in their relationships with the schoolyard and life within, shaping not only how they engaged in sampling practices but also what dimensions of the ecological system they attended to. I argue that emotion and place should be central to the design, teaching, and analysis of learning contexts, in turn centering the social and emplaced dimensions of science disciplinary practices for children and scientists alike. Implications for science teaching and learning are discussed, with particular consideration of field-based sciences