Dot Display Affects Approximate Number System Acuity and Relationships with Mathematical Achievement and Inhibitory Control

Much research has investigated the relationship between the Approximate Number System (ANS) and mathematical achievement, with continued debate surrounding the existence of such a link. The use of different stimulus displays may account for discrepancies in the findings. Indeed, closer scrutiny of the literature suggests that studies supporting a link between ANS acuity and mathematical achievement in adults have mostly measured the ANS using spatially intermixed displays (e.g. of blue and yellow dots), whereas those failing to replicate a link have primarily used spatially separated dot displays. The current study directly compared ANS acuity when using intermixed or separate dots, investigating how such methodological variation mediated the relationship between ANS acuity and mathematical achievement. ANS acuity was poorer and less reliable when measured with intermixed displays, with performance during both conditions related to inhibitory control. Crucially, mathematical achievement was significantly related to ANS accuracy difference (accuracy on congruent trials minus accuracy on incongruent trials) when measured with intermixed displays, but not with separate displays. The findings indicate that methodological variation affects ANS acuity outcomes, as well as the apparent relationship between the ANS and mathematical achievement. Moreover, the current study highlights the problem of low reliabilities of ANS measures. Further research is required to construct ANS measures with improved reliability, and to understand which processes may be responsible for the increased likelihood of finding a correlation between the ANS and mathematical achievement when using intermixed displays

Exploring the Demands of Assimilation among White Ethnic Majorities in Western Europe

This article was published in the journal, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies [© Routledge (Taylor & Francis)] and the definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2012.640015Since the mid-1990s, assimilation has gradually regained momentum as both a normative and an analytical concept for understanding the ways in which migrants are incorporated into societies at large. Although scholars have investigated various dimensions of this process, they have tended to privilege the experience of migrants themselves. Comparatively little attention has been dedicated to the perspective of the dominant groups, particularly in relation to what ethnic majority people demand that migrants do in order to be accepted. This article explores these demands of assimilation through qualitative data collected among white local elites in four regional case-studies in Western Europe. The analysis reveals a different picture from the one usually portrayed by 'new assimilation theory'. Accordingly, I suggest rethinking assimilation in ways which incorporate more fully the plurality of demands put forward by dominant ethnic groups. © 2012 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

Gastroplasty for morbid obesity

With the advent of autosuture devices, gastric partitioning procedures have recently become popular surgical treatment of morbid obesity. One such procedure is Gomez gastroplasty. Using an autosuture device a small gastric fundal pouch, having a reservoir capacity of 60 ml and communicating with the remaining stomach through a 12 mm stoma is created along the greater curvature of the stomach. A 3-0 polyprolene internal seromuscular suture is used to reinforce the stoma without incising the stomach. This gastroplasty is extremely attractive because of the disarming simplicity of the procedure and its noninterruption of the normal sequence of the digestive tract.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/48152/1/261_2005_Article_BF01887641.pd

Assimilation—On (Not) Turning White: Memory and the Narration of the Postwar History of Japanese Canadians in Southern Alberta

This essay explores understandings of “race” – specifically, what it means to be Japanese – of nisei (“second generation”) individuals who acknowledge their near complete assimilation structurally and normatively into the Canadian mainstream. In historically-contextualized analyses of memory fragments from oral-history interviews conducted between 2011-2017, it focusses on voices and experiences of southern Alberta, an area whose significance to local, national, continental, and trans-Pacific histories of people of Japanese descent is belied by a lack of dedicated scholarly attention. In this light, this essay reveals how the fact of being Japanese in the latter half of the twentieth century was strategically central to nisei lives as individuals and in their communities. In imagining a racial hierarchy whose apex they knew they could never share with the hakujin (whites), the racial heritage they nevertheless inherited and would bequeath could be so potent as to reverse the direction of the colonial gaze with empowering effects in individual engagements then and as remembered now. We see how the narration and validation of one’s life is the navigation of wider historical contexts, the shaping of the post-colonial legacy of Imperial cultures, as Britain and Japan withdrew from their erstwhile colonial projects in Canada

Decreased Triiodothyronine Binding to the Hepatic Nuclear Thyroid Hormone Receptor in the Diabetic Mouse

The diabetic C57BL/KsJ-db m mouse has abnormal thyroid hormone levels and indications of thyroid hormone resistance. To investigate the basis of these abnormalities, the hepatic nuclear thyroid hormone receptor was extracted with 0.4 M KCl, 1.1 mM MgCl2, 20 mM Tris/HCl, pH 7.9 from hepatocyte nuclei of normal C57BL/KsJ, heterozygous C57BL/KsJ-db m (db/m), and diabetic C57BL/KsJ-db m (db/db) mice. Normal and heterozygous mice were grouped together as the controls. Triiodothyronine (T3) binding studies at 4°C using nitrocellulose filtration to separate free T3 from receptor bound T3 demonstrated an apparent dissociation constant of (1.3 ± 0.8) x 10-10 M for controls which was significantly less than that of (8.7 ± 10.4) x 10-10 M for diabetic mice (p \u3c 0.01, one tailed t-test). However, the maximum binding capacity were not significantly different at (4.6 ± 3.3) x 10-13 moles/mg DNA for controls and (3.2 ± 4.6) x 10-13 moles/mg DNA for diabetic mice. Triiodothyronine-receptor dissociation rates also demonstrated a significantly greater dissociation of the diabetic T3-receptor complex (p \u3c 0.05, one-tailed t-test). The half-life for dissociation was 101 ± 22 hours for controls versus 70 ± 21 hours for diabetics. Although equilibrium binding conditions were not achieved, the use of Scatchard analysis to compare the controls and diabetics is justified by the similar conclusion from dissociation experiments that T3 binding is significantly decreased in the diabetic mouse. Triiodothyronine was found to interact freely with the receptor, binding 98 ± 2% of that predicted to be bound if T3 were free in solution, even though 70 ± 2% of the T3 is initially adsorbed to the glassware. However, adsorption to glassware did explain the negative values for specific binding above 10-6 M T3 as calculated from the difference between total and nonspecific binding. Isoelectric focusing and sedimentation velocity of the receptor preparation did not demonstrate any differences between control and diabetic mice. Comparison of the level of saturation of the nuclear T3 receptor in the diabetic mouse to other obese syndromes suggests that the decreased T3 binding reported here has a significant impact on the obesity of the diabetic mouse