From silence to dissent fostering critical voice in teachers

Teachers today have lost almost all control over their work. Few are capable of standing up to state-mandates. They are tightly constrained by school districts seeking compliance and higher text scores. We need critical literate teachers capable of critical reflection

Meta-communicative signals and Humorous Verbal Interchanges. A Case Study

The aim of this article is to provide a system for analysis of verbal humorous interactions that incorporates both the General Theory of Verbal Humor and the meta-communicative level. The integration will be accomplished using a two-pronged analytical model of humorous interactions. According to the General Theory of Verbal Humor, the first phase will trace the humor in the text with particular attention given to the Script Opposition and to the Logical Mechanism; the second will monitor the meta-communicative level, focusing on meta-communicative signals. Information about the humorous frame constitutes a seventh Knowledge Resource, called Meta-Knowledge Resource. Applying this model to an Italian film starring the comic actor Tot\uf2 produced two results: 1) the definition of two kinds of humor on- and off-stage depending on the presence of Meta-Knowledge Resource and 2) a description of the \u201cideal author\u201d postulated by the text. The second result is achieved by an analysis that combines on- and off-stage humor with verbal and referential humor

Book review Zirker, Angelika and Winter-Froemel, Esme (Eds.) (2015). Wordplay and Metalinguistic/Metadiscursive Reflection: Authors, Contexts, Techniques, and Meta-Reflection. Berlin: De Gruyter, 311 pp.

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The retention of tactile stimulation with young and elderly adults

The purpose of this study is to test the retention of sensory experience in the modality of light-touch with both young and elderly subjects. Based on previous literature, it is expected that young Ss will be able to maintain more accurately the light-touch impression for a long delay period (two weeks) than older persons. The test for retention or the impression will be made immediately (two minutes) following the stimulation for one-half the Ss, and after two week a for the remaining Ss

Boosting the performance of the ASTRI SST-2M prototype: reflective and anti-reflective coatings

ASTRI is a Flagship Project of the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research, led by the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics, INAF. One of the main aims of the ASTRI Project is the design, construction and verification on-field of a dual mirror (2M) end-to-end prototype for the Small Size Telescope (SST) envisaged to become part of the Cherenkov Telescope Array. The ASTRI SST-2M prototype adopts the Schwarzschild-Couder design, and a camera based on SiPM (Silicon Photo Multiplier); it will be assembled at the INAF astronomical site of Serra La Nave on mount Etna (Catania, Italy) within mid 2014, and will start scientific validation phase soon after. The peculiarities of the optical design and of the SiPM bandpass pushed towards specifically optimized choices in terms of reflective coatings for both the primary and the secondary mirror. In particular, multi-layer dielectric coatings, capable of filtering out the large Night Sky Background contamination at wavelengths $\lambda \gtrsim 700$ nm have been developed and tested, as a solution for the primary mirrors. Due to the conformation of the ASTRI SST-2M camera, a reimaging system based on thin pyramidal light guides could be optionally integrated aiming to increase the fill factor. An anti-reflective coating optimized for a wide range of incident angles faraway from normality was specifically developed to enhance the UV-optical transparency of these elements. The issues, strategy, simulations and experimental results are thoroughly presented.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures. In Proceedings of the 33rd International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2013), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). All ASTRI contributions at arXiv:1307.463

Clowning in health care settings. The point of view of adults

Within the past decade, there has been a surge of interest in investigating the effects of clown intervention in a large variety of clinical settings. Many studies have focused on the effects of clown intervention on children. However, few studies have investigated clowning effects on adults. This paper presents an overview of the concept of medical clowning followed by a literature review conducted on the empirical studies drawn from three data bases (PubMed, PsycINFO, and Google Scholar), with the aim of mapping and discussing the evidence of clowning effects on non-children, namely adults. The following areas were investigated: Adult and elderly patients (mainly those with dementia), observers of clowning, namely non-hospitalized adults who are at the hospital as relatives of patients or health-care staff, and finally clowns themselves. The main results are that 1) clown intervention induces positive emotions, thereby enhancing the patient\u2019s well-being, reduces psychological symptoms and emotional reactivity, and prompts a decrease in negative emotions, such as anxiety and stress; 2) clown doctors are also well-perceived by relatives and healthcare staff and their presence appears to be useful in creating a lighter atmosphere in the health setting; 3) few pilot studies have been conducted on clown doctors and this lacuna represents a subject for future research

The use of humor by therapists and clients in cognitive therapy

The purpose of this study was to investigate several aspects of humour in cognitive therapy. Eight first therapy sessions were examined and seven examples of humour originating from the therapists or the clients are reported: three represent examples of humour initiated by the client, while four are representative of humour initiated by the therapist. This research focuses on the use of humour in psychotherapy and provides evidence that when the clients initiated humour, the therapists responded in three different ways, namely, by aligning themselves with the client, disaligning themselves, or by using a strategy comprising both alignment and disalignment. Diversely, in cases in which the therapist initiated humour, four different forms of humour were identified (i.e. rhetorical humour, humour relating to a surrealistic meaning, role shifting and humour relating to register). In these cases, the clients always laughed, thereby signaling their support. An analysis of these cases demonstrates that humour is an easily integrated therapeutic tool which may be used to favour positive changes