Marxists, Mormons and Indoctrination in Schools

It is argued that when we call a set of activities, \u27indoctrination: we are talking about something that is a matter of degree and that the degree of the indoctrination will be determined by a complex interrelationship between the teachers intentions, the content of what he teaches and the methods he uses. The content of indoctrination has to do with doctrines, doctrines being complex set of interrelated beliefs such as Mormonism and Marxism, that cannot be demonstrated to be unquestionably true (or unquestionably false). So teachers should make clear the equivocal status of doctrines. It is suggested that although full-blown indoctrination may be difficult to achieve in Australian state schools, teachers certainly have the opportunity of exerting subtle influences and pressures on children

Epistemic Authority, Rationality and the Fallacy of Educational Democracy

In any rational authority system, authority must be closely connected to point, purpose and function. The situation of authority in colleges and universities provides a special case of such point, purpose and function. The present paper tries to show the quite special features of the epistemic (knowledge) authority of academics that provide rational justification for their being in many positions of social authority in their institutions. To do this, (1) the particular aspects of the point, purpose and function of such epistemic authorities will be demonstrated, (2) the logical necessity of academic disciplines for rational endeavour will be pointed out, and (3) the mistakes involved in the common notion of educational democracy will be exposed

Is Curriculum Integration Like Miscegenation?

In this article I want to ask and to try to answer the question, \u27In the organization of the school curriculum, what do the words \u27integration\u27 and \u27inter-disciplinary\u27 mean?\u27 and to examine certain fundamental epistemological issues in doing so

The Effects of Prosocial and Aggressive Videogames on Children\u27s Donating and Helping

The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of prosocial videogames, played both singly and cooperatively, and aggressive videogames, played both singly and competitively, on children\u27s prosocial behavior. Eighty boys and 80 girls, half third and fourth graders, and half seventh and eighth graders, were randomly assigned to one of five conditions. In a control condition, children answered questions about videogame experience and enjoyment. In two of the treatment conditions, children played a videogame with prosocial content (a human-like fantasy character rescuing another from danger); half of the children played this game singly, while the other half played cooperatively. In the other two conditions, children played an aggressive videogame (stylized boxing), with half of the children playing singly and the other half competing. Following exposure to one of these conditions, each child\u27s game score, game enjoyment rating, level of donating, and level of helping were measured. The results of a three-way analysis of variance (sex x grade x treatment) on donating yielded significant effects for age, F(1, 140) = 34.12, p = Although prosocial videogame play did not increase prosocial responding, aggressive videogame play clearly suppressed this behavior. The failure of the prosocial condition to accelerate donating and helping might be due to the relatively brief exposure used in this study (10 minutes) and/or to the particular prosocial videogame utilized. The failure of the cooperative and competitive game modes to affect prosocial behavior may have been due to the age of the children or to the possibly aversive effects of the type of cooperation required

Scientific Theory and Teacher Education Theory

According to the empiricist tradition, science starts with observation. The observer should in an unprejudiced fashion faithfully record what he sees, hears, etc., about him. From his (admittedly) limited number of observation statements, the laws and theories of science can be established by generalization. Chalmers summaries the view when he writes, If a large number of A\u27s have been observed under a wide variety of conditions, and all those observed A\u27s without exception possessed the property B, then all A\u27s have the property B. (1976,5) There are more sophisticated versions of the empirical account, but the core of them is still covered by the above descriptions. But a significant problem derives from what is to count as a wide variety of conditions . What is to count as a significant variation in conditions which will allow us to decide that all A\u27s have the property B? Unless unimportant variations are eliminated, the number of possible variations in which we could test for B is infinite. The answer is that the experimenter uses his current theoretical understanding of the situation. But this of course is to admit the Trojan Horse of prior theory; it shows the key role that theory must play prior to observation. As Hanson says, all data are already theory·laden. I think that this general point about prior theory can be generalized right across the activities of life. Clearly it is the case in education. Understanding of educational - situations and activities does not begin with observation; it begins with present values and current theory of a commonsense or more sophisticated sort, dictated by the history of educational ideas

Acoustic, psychophysical, and neuroimaging measurements of the effectiveness of active cancellation during auditory functional magnetic resonance imaging

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is one of the principal neuroimaging techniques for studying human audition, but it generates an intense background sound which hinders listening performance and confounds measures of the auditory response. This paper reports the perceptual effects of an active noise control (ANC) system that operates in the electromagnetically hostile and physically compact neuroimaging environment to provide significant noise reduction, without interfering with image quality. Cancellation was first evaluated at 600 Hz, corresponding to the dominant peak in the power spectrum of the background sound and at which cancellation is maximally effective. Microphone measurements at the ear demonstrated 35 dB of acoustic attenuation [from 93 to 58 dB sound pressure level (SPL)], while masked detection thresholds improved by 20 dB (from 74 to 54 dB SPL). Considerable perceptual benefits were also obtained across other frequencies, including those corresponding to dips in the spectrum of the background sound. Cancellation also improved the statistical detection of sound-related cortical activation, especially for sounds presented at low intensities. These results confirm that ANC offers substantial benefits for fMRI research

Would Functional Agricultural Foods Improve Human Health?

Concern over diet-health relationships has moved to the forefront of public health concerns in the UK and much of the developed world. It has been estimated, for example, that obesity costs the UK National Health Service up to £6b per year (Rayner and Scarborough, 2005), but if all consumers were to follow recommended healthy eating guidelines there would be major implications for food consumption, land use and international trade (Srinivasan et al, 2006). This is unlikely to happen, at least in the short term, but it is realistic to anticipate some dietary adjustment toward the recommendations, resulting in an improvement in diet quality (Mazzocchi et al, 2007). Although consumers are reluctant to make major changes to their diets, they may be prepared to substitute existing foods for healthier alternatives. Three of the most prominent nutritional recommendations are to consume more fruit and vegetables, which contain phytochemicals beneficial to health, reduce consumption of saturated fatty acids (SFA) and increase intake of long-chain n-3 fatty acids (FA). In the first case, consumption of fruit and vegetables has been stable at around three 80 g portions per person per day according to the Health Survey for England. It is estimated that 42,200 deaths per year could be avoided in England and 411,000 Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) could be saved if fruit and vegetable consumption were increased to the recommended 5 portions per day (Ofcom 2006). As well as continuing to encourage people to eat more, it could be desirable to ‘intensify’ the beneficial phytochemical content of existing fruit and vegetables.Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Industrial Organization,

On the cost of electrodialysis for the desalination of high salinity feeds

We propose the use of electrodialysis to desalinate produced waters from shale formations in order to facilitate water reuse in subsequent hydraulic fracturing processes. We focus on establishing the energy and equipment size required for the desalination of feed waters containing total dissolved solids of up to 192,000 ppm, and we do this by experimentally replicating the performance of a 10-stage electrodialysis system. We find that energy requirements are similar to current vapour compression desalination processes for feedwaters ranging between roughly 40,000-90,000 ppm TDS, but we project water costs to potentially be lower. We also find that the cost per unit salt removed is significantly lower when removed from a high salinity stream as opposed to a low salinity stream, pointing towards the potential of ED to operate as a partial desalination process for high salinity waters. We then develop a numerical model for the system, validate it against experimental results and use this model to minimise salt removal costs by optimising the stack voltage. We find that the higher the salinity of the water from which salt is removed the smaller should be the ratio of the electrical current to its limiting value. We conclude, on the basis of energy and equipment costs, that electrodialysis processes are potentially feasible for the desalination of high salinity waters but require further investigation of robustness to fouling under field conditions.Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Office of the Dean for Graduate Education (Hugh Hampton Young Memorial Fellowship)MIT Energy Initiativ

Towards More Precise Survey Photometry for PanSTARRS and LSST: Measuring Directly the Optical Transmission Spectrum of the Atmosphere

Motivated by the recognition that variation in the optical transmission of the atmosphere is probably the main limitation to the precision of ground-based CCD measurements of celestial fluxes, we review the physical processes that attenuate the passage of light through the Earth's atmosphere. The next generation of astronomical surveys, such as PanSTARRS and LSST, will greatly benefit from dedicated apparatus to obtain atmospheric transmission data that can be associated with each survey image. We review and compare various approaches to this measurement problem, including photometry, spectroscopy, and LIDAR. In conjunction with careful measurements of instrumental throughput, atmospheric transmission measurements should allow next-generation imaging surveys to produce photometry of unprecedented precision. Our primary concerns are the real-time determination of aerosol scattering and absorption by water along the line of sight, both of which can vary over the course of a night's observations.Comment: 41 pages, 14 figures. Accepted PAS

Submillimeter Observations of Dense Clumps in the Infrared Dark Cloud G049.40-00.01

We obtained 350 and 850 micron continuum maps of the infrared dark cloud G049.40-00.01. Twenty-one dense clumps were identified within G049.40-00.01 based on the 350 micron continuum map with an angular resolution of about 9.6". We present submillimeter continuum maps and report physical properties of the clumps. The masses of clumps range from 50 to 600 M_sun. About 70% of the clumps are associated with bright 24 micron emission sources, and they may contain protostars. The most massive two clumps show extended, enhanced 4.5 micron emission indicating vigorous star-forming activity. The clump size-mass distribution suggests that many of them are forming high mass stars. G049.40-00.01 contains numerous objects in various evolutionary stages of star formation, from pre-protostellar clumps to HII regions.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures; accepted for publication in Ap