Effectiveness of the Socratic Method: A Comparative Analysis of the Historical and Modern Invocations of an Educational Method

This senior thesis evaluates the Socratic method by comparing its original form, used by Socrates with students such as Meno, to its modern invocations in institutions such as law or medical school. In order to gauge the actual efficacy of the Socratic method in teaching logicality, which is the primary goal of Socratic dialogues, a pilot study was run. The results and implications of this study are embedded in the central portion of the thesis. The study found a statistically significant correlation between the amount of Socratic instruction a student had and that student\u27s performance on a syllogistic reasoning task. Overall, this thesis was intended to start a conversation about how we teach educate our future lawyers. If the method were ineffective - or in this case, potentially not the most efficient method - then perhaps law schools should turn to other educational strategies. The final take away from this thesis is that the Socratic method is effective at its base level; however, educational institutions should, at least, begin using the method earlier on in a student\u27s education (i.e., basic Socratic questioning in elementary school classrooms)

Shared Features Dominate Semantic Richness Effects for Concrete Concepts

When asked to list semantic features for concrete concepts, participants list many features for some concepts and few for others. Concepts with many semantic features are processed faster in lexical and semantic decision tasks [Pexman, P. M., Lupker, S. J., & Hino, Y. (2002). The impact of feedback semantics in visual word recognition: Number-of-features effects in lexical decision and naming tasks. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,9, 542–549; Pexman, P. M., Holyk, G. G., & MonFils, M.-H. (2003). Number-of-features effects and semantic processing. Memory & Cognition,31,842–855]. Using both lexical and concreteness decision tasks, we provided further insight into these number-of-features (NoF) effects. We began by replicating the effect using a larger and better controlled set of items. We then investigated the relationship between NoF and feature distinctiveness and found that features shared by numerous concrete concepts such as facilitate decisions to a greater extent than do distinctive features such as . Finally, we showed that NoF effects are carried by shared visual form and surface, encyclopedic, tactile, and taste knowledge. We propose a decision-making account of these results, rather than one based on the computation of word meaning

The correlation between architecture and mRNA abundance in the genetic regulatory network of Escherichia coli

Background: Two aspects of genetic regulatory networks are the static architecture that describes the overall connectivity between the genes and the dynamics that describes the sequence of genes active at any one time as deduced from mRNA abundances. The nature of the relationship between these two aspects of these networks is a fundamental question. To address it, we have used the static architecture of the connectivity of the regulatory proteins of Escherichia coli to analyse their relationship to the abundance of the mRNAs encoding these proteins. In this we build on previous work which uses Boolean network models, but impose biological constraints that cannot be deduced from the mRNA abundances alone. Results: For a cell population of E. coli, we find that there is a strong and statistically significant linear dependence between the abundance of mRNA encoding a regulatory protein and the number of genes regulated by this protein. We use this result, together with the ratio of regulatory repressors to promoters, to simulate numerically a genetic regulatory network of a single cell. The resulting model exhibits similar correlations to that of E. coli. Conclusion: This analysis clarifies the relationship between the static architecture of a regulatory network and the consequences for the dynamics of its pattern of mRNA abundances. It also provides the constraints on the architecture required to construct a model network to simulate mRNA production

Can we use verbal estimation to dissect the internal clock? Differentiating the effects of pacemaker rate, switch latencies, and judgment processes

Behavioural timing is frequently assumed to be based on the accumulation of pulses from a pacemaker. In humans, verbal estimation is often used to determine whether the effect of factors which influence subjective time become more pronounced at longer durations - that is, if they affect the slope of the judgment function, consistent with a change in the rate of the pacemaker. Here, participants judged blank intervals marked by two squares which either did or did not differ in size. In Experiment 1, a small change in marker size produced shorter temporal judgments than a large change. This effect was independent of objective duration and indicates that the slope changes seen in previous work are not an inevitable artefact of the verbal estimation procedure. However, Experiments 2 and 3 included conditions where the markers did not change size and established (a) that the effect of marker size depends on the other stimuli presented during the experiment, and (b) that slope effects occur even when they cannot possibly be due to a change in the rate of the pacemaker. Taken together, these results urge some caution in the use of verbal estimation as a methodology for deconstructing the putative internal clock

Shear-induced fractures and three-dimensional motions in an organogel

The flow behavior of a viscoelastic organogel is investigated using ultrasonic velocimetry combined with rheometry. Our gel presents a decreasing flow curve, i.e., the measured stress decreases as a function of the applied shear rate. Strikingly, we note that the local flow curve calculated from the velocity profiles also exhibits a decreasing part. We attribute this regime to the presence of a fracturing process and three-dimensional motions in the bulk of the sample.Comment: 13 pages, 19 figure

Assessment of the relationship between genotypic status of a DT-diaphorase point mutation and enzymatic activity

DT-diaphorase, a cytosolic reductase, has been implicated as an activator of chemotherapeutic prodrugs and a detoxifier of certain potentially carcinogenic xenobiotics. A common C to T nucleotide 609 substitution in DT-diaphorase cDNA has been associated with protein instability and reduced catalytic activity. The degree to which the allelic status of the substitution correlates with enzymatic activity was assessed in 45 normal human skin fibroblast strains using a PCR-RFLP assay. Included in this study was the 3437T strain, which is unique in that it is heterozygous for the polymorphism yet contains undetectable enzymatic activity. An allele-specific RT-PCR-RFLP technique attributed this phenomenon to exclusive DT-diaphorase mRNA expression from the variant allele. Overlap in activities was observed between individual strains homozygous for the wild-type allele and heterozygotes, but the former group displayed enzymatic activity that was on average 2-fold higher. Western blot analysis of the two strains in this panel that are homozygous for the variant allele revealed that they express relatively low amounts of DT-diaphorase protein, consistent with the role of the substitution in protein instability. This work confirms that genotypic status is a reliable initial estimate of DT-diaphorase activity. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaig

A liquid Xenon Positron Emission Tomograph for small animal imaging : first experimental results of a prototype cell

A detector using liquid Xenon (LXe) in the scintillation mode is studied for Positron Emission Tomography (PET) of small animals. Its specific design aims at taking full advantage of the Liquid Xenon scintillation properties. This paper reports on energy, time and spatial resolution capabilities of the first LXe prototype module equipped with a Position Sensitive Photo- Multiplier tube (PSPMT) operating in the VUV range (178 nm) and at 165 K. The experimental results show that such a LXe PET configuration might be a promising solution insensitive to any parallax effect.Comment: 34 pages, 18 pages, to appear in NIM