819 research outputs found
Overcoming cross-cultural group work tensions: mixed student perspectives on the role of social relationships
As universities worldwide rapidly internationalise, higher education classrooms have become unique spaces for collaboration between students from different countries. One common way to encourage collaboration between diverse peers is through group work. However, previous research has highlighted that cross-cultural group work can be challenging and has hinted at potential social tensions. To understand this notion better, we have used robust quantitative tools in this study to select 20 participants from a larger classroom of 860 students to take part in an in-depth qualitative interview about cross-cultural group work experiences. Participant views on social tensions in cross-cultural group work were elicited using a unique mediating artefact method to encourage reflection and in-depth discussion. In our analysis of emergent interview themes, we compared student perspectives on the role of social relationships in group work by their academic performance level. Our findings indicated that all students interviewed desired the opportunity to form social relationships with their group work members, but their motivations for doing so varied widely by academic performance level
Creative and Stylistic Devices Employed by Children During a Storybook Narrative Task: A Cross-Cultural Study
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of culture on the creative and stylistic features children employ when producing narratives based on wordless picture books.
Method: Participants included 60 first- and second-grade African American, Latino American, and Caucasian children. A subset of narratives based on wordless picture books collected as part of a larger study was coded and analyzed for the following creative and stylistic conventions: organizational style (topic centered, linear, cyclical), dialogue (direct, indirect), reference to character relationships (nature, naming, conduct), embellishment (fantasy, suspense, conflict), and paralinguistic devices (expressive sounds, exclamatory utterances).
Results: Many similarities and differences between ethnic groups were found. No significant differences were found between ethnic groups in organizational style or use of paralinguistic devices. African American children included more fantasy in their stories, Latino children named their characters more often, and Caucasian children made more references to the nature of character relationships.
Conclusion: Even within the context of a highly structured narrative task based on wordless picture books, culture influences children’s production of narratives. Enhanced understanding of narrative structure, creativity, and style is necessary to provide ecologically valid narrative assessment and intervention for children from diverse cultural backgrounds
Lepton Flavor Violation in Z and Lepton Decays in Supersymmetric Models
The observation of charged lepton flavor non-conservation would be a clear
signature of physics beyond the Standard Model. In particular, supersymmetric
(SUSY) models introduce mixings in the sneutrino and the charged slepton
sectors which could imply flavor-changing processes at rates accessible to
upcoming experiments. In this paper we analyze the possibility to observe Z -->
lep_I lep_J in the GigaZ option of TESLA at DESY. We show that although models
with SUSY masses above the current limits could predict a branching ratio BR(Z
--> mu e) accessible to the experiment, they would imply an unobserved rate of
mu --> e gamma and thus are excluded. In models with a small mixing angle
between the first and the third (or the second and the third) slepton families
GigaZ could observe Z --> tau mu (or Z --> tau e) consistently with present
bounds on lep_J --> lep_I gamma. In contrast, if the mixing angles between the
three slepton families are large the bounds from mu --> e gamma push these
processes below the reach of GigaZ. We show that in this case the masses of the
three slepton families must be strongly degenerated (with mass differences of
order 10^{-3}). We update the limits on the slepton mass insertions
delta_{LL,RR,LR} and discuss the correlation between flavor changing and g_mu-2
in SUSY models.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures. Version to appear in Phys. Rev.
A Mathematical model for Astrocytes mediated LTP at Single Hippocampal Synapses
Many contemporary studies have shown that astrocytes play a significant role
in modulating both short and long form of synaptic plasticity. There are very
few experimental models which elucidate the role of astrocyte over Long-term
Potentiation (LTP). Recently, Perea & Araque (2007) demonstrated a role of
astrocytes in induction of LTP at single hippocampal synapses. They suggested a
purely pre-synaptic basis for induction of this N-methyl-D- Aspartate (NMDA)
Receptor-independent LTP. Also, the mechanisms underlying this pre-synaptic
induction were not investigated. Here, in this article, we propose a
mathematical model for astrocyte modulated LTP which successfully emulates the
experimental findings of Perea & Araque (2007). Our study suggests the role of
retrograde messengers, possibly Nitric Oxide (NO), for this pre-synaptically
modulated LTP.Comment: 51 pages, 15 figures, Journal of Computational Neuroscience (to
appear
Observation of the Isospin-Violating Decay
Using data collected with the CLEO~II detector, we have observed the
isospin-violating decay . The decay rate for this mode,
relative to the dominant radiative decay, is found to be .Comment: 8 page uuencoded postscript file, also available through
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN
Measurement of the Partila Width and Form Factor Parameters
We have studied the decay , where . From a fit to the differential decay rate we measure the
rate normalization and form factor slope
, and, using measured values of , find . The resulting branching
fractions are and .
The form factor parameters are in agreement with those measured in decays, as predicted by heavy quark effective theory.Comment: 11 pages, postscript file also available through
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN
Limit on the Two-Photon Production of the Glueball Candidate at CLEO
We use the CLEO detector at the Cornell electron-positron storage ring, CESR,
to search for the two-photon production of the glueball candidate f_J(2220) in
its decay to K_s K_s. We present a restrictive upper limit on the product of
the two-photon partial width and the K_s K_s branching fraction. We use this
limit to calculate a lower limit on the stickiness, which is a measure of the
two-gluon coupling relative to the two-photon coupling. This limit on
stickiness indicates that the f_J(2220) has substantial glueball content.Comment: 9 page postscript file, postscript file also available through
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN
Further Search for the Two-Photon Production of the Glueball Candidate
The CLEOII detector at the Cornell e+ e- storage ring CESR has been used to
search for the two-photon production of the decaying into pi+ pi-.
No evidence for a signal is found in data corresponding to an integrated
luminosity of 4.77/fb and a 95% CL upper limit on of 2.5 eV is set. If this result is combined with the BES Collaboration's
measurement of in radiative decay, a 95% CL
lower limit on the stickiness of the of 73 is obtained. If the
recent CLEO result for \Gamma_{two-photon} * BR{\K_S K_S} is combined with
the present result, the stickiness of the is found to be larger
than 102 at the 95% CL. These results for the stickiness (the ratio of the
probabilities for two-gluon coupling and two-photon coupling) provide further
support for a substantial neutral parton content in the .Comment: 8 pages, postscript file also available through
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN
Measurements of the Ratios and
Using the CLEO~II detector we measure , and .
We find the vector to pseudoscalar ratio, , which is similar to the
ratio found in non strange decays.Comment: 11 page uuencoded postscript file, postscript file also available
through http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN
Study of Gluon versus Quark Fragmentation in and Events at \sqrt{s}=10 GeV
Using data collected with the CLEO II detector at the Cornell Electron
Storage Ring, we determine the ratio R(chrg) for the mean charged multiplicity
observed in Upsilon(1S)->gggamma events, to the mean charged multiplicity
observed in e+e- -> qqbar gamma events. We find R(chrg)=1.04+/-0.02+/-0.05 for
jet-jet masses less than 7 GeV.Comment: 15 pages, postscript file also available through
http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN
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