11,309 research outputs found
Case Studies in Critical Reflection Praxis in University Studies: The Stance and Dance
This article articulates the experience of three professors from different disciplines, teaching at three levels of University Studies, Portland State University\u27s general education program, for whom the toggling between personal/professional critical practices and use of reflective practices in the classroom has led to transformative learning experiences for them and their students. It describes the specific reflective tools and methods they used for teaching and professional development, and considers the challenges to sustaining critical reflection and how those challenges might be addressed. The authors argue that critical reflection (CR) is an important practice for teachers and students of general education. In particular, CR engages the habits of mind and capacities, such as critical thinking, central to the goals of general education, as well as engaging the practical skills needed to procure jobs and succeed as professionals. As a professional practice for teachers, it contributes to improved and purposeful teaching methods and rationales, and can build rapport, trust, and credibility with students. Because CR takes time and practice, it is important for students to be exposed to many different methods and have opportunities to practice CR methods from a variety of disciplines/backgrounds throughout their general education
A randomised controlled trial of a brief cognitive behavioural intervention for men who have hot flushes following prostate cancer treatment (MANCAN)
OBJECTIVE: Hot flushes and night sweats (HFNS) are experienced by up to 80% of prostate cancer patients undergoing androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). This study evaluates the effects of a guided self-help cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) intervention on HFNS problem-rating (primary outcome), HFNS frequency, mood and health-related quality of life (secondary outcomes) in patients undergoing ADT. METHODS: Patients reporting treatment-induced HFNS were randomly assigned to CBT (n = 33) or treatment as usual (TAU) (n = 35), stratified for cancer type. The CBT intervention included a booklet, CD plus telephone contact during a 4-week period. Validated self-report questionnaires were completed at baseline, 6 weeks and 32 weeks after randomisation. The primary outcome was HFNS problem rating (perceived burden of HFNS) at 6 weeks after randomisation. Potential moderators and mediators were examined. Data analysis was conducted on a modified intention-to-treat basis. RESULTS: Compared with TAU, CBT significantly reduced HFNS problem rating (adjusted mean difference: -1.33, 95% CI -2.07 to -0.58; p = 0.001) and HFNS frequency (-12.12, 95% CI -22.39 to -1.84; p = 0.02) at 6 weeks. Improvements were maintained at 32 weeks, but group differences did not reach significance. There were significant reductions in negative HFNS Beliefs and Behaviours following CBT, but not in mood or quality of life. CONCLUSIONS: Guided self-help CBT appears to be a safe and effective brief treatment for men who have problematic HFNS following prostate cancer treatments. Further research might test the efficacy of the intervention in a multicentre trial
Distilling Information Reliability and Source Trustworthiness from Digital Traces
Online knowledge repositories typically rely on their users or dedicated
editors to evaluate the reliability of their content. These evaluations can be
viewed as noisy measurements of both information reliability and information
source trustworthiness. Can we leverage these noisy evaluations, often biased,
to distill a robust, unbiased and interpretable measure of both notions?
In this paper, we argue that the temporal traces left by these noisy
evaluations give cues on the reliability of the information and the
trustworthiness of the sources. Then, we propose a temporal point process
modeling framework that links these temporal traces to robust, unbiased and
interpretable notions of information reliability and source trustworthiness.
Furthermore, we develop an efficient convex optimization procedure to learn the
parameters of the model from historical traces. Experiments on real-world data
gathered from Wikipedia and Stack Overflow show that our modeling framework
accurately predicts evaluation events, provides an interpretable measure of
information reliability and source trustworthiness, and yields interesting
insights about real-world events.Comment: Accepted at 26th World Wide Web conference (WWW-17
Bounds on Lorentz and CPT Violation from the Earth-Ionosphere Cavity
Electromagnetic resonant cavities form the basis of many tests of Lorentz
invariance involving photons. The effects of some forms of Lorentz violation
scale with cavity size. We investigate possible signals of violations in the
naturally occurring resonances formed in the Earth-ionosphere cavity.
Comparison with observed resonances places the first terrestrial constraints on
coefficients associated with dimension-three Lorentz-violating operators at the
level of 10^{-20} GeV.Comment: 8 pages REVTe
Men's experience of a guided self-help intervention for hot flushes associated with prostate cancer treatment
Up to 80% of men who receive androgen deprivation therapy report hot flushes and for many these are associated with reduced quality of life. However it is recognised that there are a number of barriers to men’s engagement with support to manage symptoms and improve quality of life. This qualitative study was embedded within a larger randomised controlled trial (MANCAN) of a guided self-help cognitive behavioural intervention to manage hot flushes resulting among men receiving androgen deprivation therapy. The study aimed to explore the engagement and experiences with the guided self-help intervention. Twenty men recruited from the treatment arm of the MANCAN trial participated in a semi-structured interview exploring acceptability of the intervention, factors affecting engagement and perceived usefulness of the intervention. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using a Framework approach. Over two thirds of respondents (69%) reported reading the intervention booklet in full and over 90% reporting practising the relaxation CD at least once a week. Analysis of the interviews identified three super-ordinate themes and these related to changes in hot flush symptomatology (learned to cope with hot flushes in new ways), the skills that participants had derived from the intervention (promoting relaxation and reducing stressors), and to a broader usefulness of the intervention (broader impact of the intervention and skills). The present study identified positive engagement with a guided self-help intervention and that men applied the skills developed through the intervention to help them undertake general lifestyle changes. Psycho-educational interventions (e.g. cognitive behaviour therapy, relaxation, and positive lifestyle elements) offer the potential to be both effective and well received by male cancer survivors
A Development Environment for Visual Physics Analysis
The Visual Physics Analysis (VISPA) project integrates different aspects of
physics analyses into a graphical development environment. It addresses the
typical development cycle of (re-)designing, executing and verifying an
analysis. The project provides an extendable plug-in mechanism and includes
plug-ins for designing the analysis flow, for running the analysis on batch
systems, and for browsing the data content. The corresponding plug-ins are
based on an object-oriented toolkit for modular data analysis. We introduce the
main concepts of the project, describe the technical realization and
demonstrate the functionality in example applications
Disorder-induced microscopic magnetic memory
Using coherent x-ray speckle metrology, we have measured the influence of
disorder on major loop return point memory (RPM) and complementary point memory
(CPM) for a series of perpendicular anisotropy Co/Pt multilayer films. In the
low disorder limit, the domain structures show no memory with field cycling--no
RPM and no CPM. With increasing disorder, we observe the onset and the
saturation of both the RPM and the CPM. These results provide the first direct
ensemble-sensitive experimental study of the effects of varying disorder on
microscopic magnetic memory and are compared against the predictions of
existing theories.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical Review
Letters in Nov. 200
An HST/WFPC Survey of Bright Young Clusters in M31. II. Photometry of Less Luminous Clusters in the Fields
We report on the properties of 89 low mass star clusters located in the
vicinity of luminous young clusters (blue globulars) in the disk of M31. 82 of
the clusters are newly detected. We have determined their integrated magnitudes
and colors, based on a series of Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field/Planetary
Camera 2 exposures in blue and red (HST filters F450W and F814W). The
integrated apparent magnitudes range from F450W = 17.5 to 22.5, and the colors
indicate a wide range of ages. Stellar color-magnitude diagrams for all
clusters were obtained and those with bright enough stars were fit to
theoretical isochrones to provide age estimates. The ages range from 12 Myr to
>500 Myr. Reddenings, which average E(F450 - F814) = 0.59 with a dispersion of
0.21 magnitudes, were derived from the main sequence fitting for those
clusters. Comparison of these ages and integrated colors with single population
theoretical models with solar abundances suggests a color offset of 0.085
magnitudes at the ages tested. Estimated ages for the remaining clusters are
based on their measured colors. The age-frequency diagram shows a steep decline
of number with age, with a large decrease in number per age interval between
the youngest and the oldest clusters detected.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figure
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