Do master narratives change among High School Students?: a characterization of how national history is represented

Master narratives frame students’ historical knowledge, possibly hindering access to more historical representations. A detailed analysis of students’ historical narratives about the origins of their own nation is presented in terms of four master narrative characteristics related to the historical subject, national identification, the main theme and the nation concept. The narratives of Argentine 8th and 11th graders were analyzed to establish whether a change toward a more complex historical account occurred. The results show that the past is mostly understood in master narrative terms but in the 11th grade narratives demonstrate a more historical understanding. Only identification appears to be fairly constant across years of history learning. The results suggest that in history education first aiming at a constructivist concept of nation and then using the concept to reflect on the national historical subject and events in the narrative might help produce historical understanding of a national past.This article was written with the support of projects EDU-2010-17725 (DGICYT, Spain) and PICT-2008-1217 (ANPCYT, Argentina), coordinated by the first author. We are grateful for that support

Left Ventricular Diastolic Function in Healthy Adult Individuals: Results of the World Alliance Societies of Echocardiography Normal Values Study

Background: The World Alliance Societies of Echocardiography (WASE) study was conducted to describe echocardiographic normal values in adults and to compare races and nationalities using a uniform acquisition and measurement protocol. This report focuses on left ventricular (LV) diastolic function. Methods: WASE is an international, cross-sectional study. Participants were enrolled with equal distribution according to age and gender. Echocardiograms were analyzed in a core laboratory based on the latest American Society of Echocardiography/European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging guidelines. Left ventricular diastolic function was assessed by E, E/A, e' velocities, E/e', left atrial volume index (LAVI), and tricuspid regurgitation velocity. Determination of LV diastolic function was made using the algorithm proposed by the guidelines. Results: A total of 2,008 subjects from 15 countries were enrolled. The majority were of white or Asian race (42.8, 41.8, respectively). E and E/e' were higher in female patients, while LAVI was similar in both genders. Consistent increase in E/e' and decrease in E/A, E, and e' were found as age increased. The upper limit of normal for LAVI was higher in WASE compared with the guidelines. The lower limits of normal for e' were smaller in elder groups than those in the guidelines, while the upper limits of normal for E/e' were below the guideline values. These findings suggest that the cutoff value for LAVI should be shifted upward and age-specific cutoff values for e' should be considered. In WASE, <93.6 of patients were classified as normal LV diastolic function using the guidelines' algorithm, and the proportion increased to 97.4 when applying the revised cutoff values for LAVI obtained in our study. Conclusions: Guideline-recommended normal values for e' velocities and LAVI should be reconsidered. The algorithm for the determination of LV diastolic function proposed by the guidelines is useful, but adjustments to LAVI could further improve it. © 2020 American Society of Echocardiograph

Kinematic Evidence For Top-quark Pair Production In W Plus Multijet Events In P(p)over-bar Collisions At Root-s=1.8 Tev

We present a study of W+multijet events that compares the kinematics of the observed events with expectations from direct QCD W+jet production and from production and decay of top quark pairs. The data were collected in the 1992-93 run with the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) from 19.3 pb-1 of proton-antiproton collisions at s =1.8 TeV. A W+2 jet sample and a W+3 jet sample are selected with the requirement that at least the two or three jets have energy transverse with respect to the beam axis in excess of 20 GeV. The jet energy distributions for the W+2 jet sample agree well with the predictions of direct QCD W production. From the W+3 jet events, a "signal sample" with an improved ratio of tt̄ to QCD produced W events is selected by requiring each jet to be emitted centrally in the event center of mass frame. This sample contains 14 events with unusually hard jet ET distributions not well described by expectations for jets from direct QCD W production and other background processes. Using expected jet ET distributions, a relative likelihood is defined and used to determine if an event is more consistent with the decay of tt̄ pairs, with Mtop=170 GeV/c2, than with direct QCD W production. Eight of the 14 signal sample events are found to be more consistent with top-quark than direct QCD W production, while only 1.7 such top-quark-like events are expected in the absence of tt̄. The probability that the observation is due to an upward fluctuation of the number of background events is found to be 0.8%. The robustness of the result was tested by varying the cuts defining the signal sample, and the largest probability for such a fluctuation found was 1.9%. Good agreement in the jet spectra is obtained if jet production from tt̄ pair decays is included. For those events kinematically more consistent with tt̄ we find evidence for a b-quark content in their jets to the extent expected from top quark decay, and larger than expected for background processes. For events with four or more jets, the discrepancy with the predicted jet distributions from direct QCD W production, and the associated excess of b-quark content, is more pronounced. © 1995 The American Physical Societ