2004 Water Quality Education Onboard the Gundalow, Bolster, M

The Gundalow Company (a non-profit 501(c)3 organization) sponsors maritime history and environmental educational programs for school groups and the public onboard the replica gundalow Captain Edward Adams from May through November in 12-15 riverfront locations in the Piscataqua region. The project funded by the NHEP in 2004 included the development of an expanded Gundalow Company education program curriculum in order to motivate all gundalow visitors to appreciate the relationship between regional maritime history, contemporary water quality issues and future stewardship responsibilities. The NHEP grant also supported the Gundalow Company’s efforts to bring the gundalow to Durham and Newmarket. The content of the curriculum is adaptable to all the programs offered by the Gundalow Company staff and volunteers including formal one-hour programs with school groups onboard the gundalow and in classrooms, general interpretive tours when the gundalow is open to the public, group tours for adults, and special events

Bringing the Outside World In: Using Mixed Panel Assessment of Oral Presentations with Electrical and Electronic Engineering Students

Engineering students have been portrayed as having poor oral communication skills despite oral communication competence being a key factor in future career success. With the aim of equipping students with attributes identified as important for Engineering graduates this paper presents a research project carried out at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China in the Division of Science & Engineering with Electrical and Electronic with undergraduate students, focusing on the use of a mixed specialist and non-specialist audience for students’ end of semester oral presentations assessment. It is known that oral presentations are an important academic genre developing communication skills and confidence in students but it is an area which has been found to be lacking in traditional engineering courses. The innovation of the mixed panel was to help prepare students for life after university by giving them experience of pitching technical material appropriate to the knowledge of the audience, which is something they will have to do when working in companies or on projects. This paper outlines the experience from the perspective of the assessors from different disciplines who were interviewed to determine what they were looking for in the presentations. It will also review the experience of the students themselves, based on a survey which considered the impact the mixed audience had on their presentation preparation in terms of language, presenting skills and content. This innovation in assessment encourages multi-disciplinary thinking in students and the impact of audience on presentation content and delivery is something which could be explored across different academic fields

The sentinel lymph node in breast cancer, a re-appraisal

Contains fulltext : 120584.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 06 december 2013Promotores : Tjan-Heijnen, V.C., Wobbes, T. Co-promotor : Bult, P

The role of cognitive appraisals in the disruption of anxiety-buffer functioning among trauma survivors experiencing posttraumatic distress

Background According to anxiety-buffer disruption theory (ABDT, Pyszczynski & Kesebir, 2011), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) results, in part, from a breakdown in a person’s cultural worldview, which subsequently leaves them vulnerable to experiencing death anxiety (Yalom, 1980, 2008). The cognitive model (Ehlers & Clark, 2000), in turn, proposes that negative appraisals relating to a trauma and its sequelae maintain the symptoms of PTSD. The purpose of the current study was to examine a possible theoretical link between ABDT and the cognitive model. Specifically, it aimed to investigate whether negative trauma-related appraisals play a role in undermining traumatised individuals’ cultural worldviews, thereby leaving them more vulnerable to experiencing death anxiety. Method A two-way between-groups experimental design was employed to examine this. Participants with high and low PTSD symptom severity were randomly assigned to either a mortality salience or control condition. Participants were then instructed to complete measures of their cultural worldview and negative trauma-related appraisals. Results No relationship was found between participants’ cultural worldviews and their negative trauma-related appraisals. Doctoral thesis: The role of cognitive appraisals in André Bolster the disruption of anxiety-buffer functioning among trauma survivors experiencing posttraumatic distress iii Discussion Due to methodological limitations in the study’s design, it was not possible to draw any firm conclusions concerning the relationship between cultural worldviews and negative trauma-related appraisals. Nevertheless, it seems that no relationship exists between both variables. This is because cultural worldviews and negative trauma-related appraisals appear to operate according to different levels of logic. While cultural worldviews function on a pre-logical level, negative trauma-related appraisals are more conscious and rational in their orientation. The theoretical and clinical implications of this are discussed and areas for future research recommended