Quantitative concepts in third grade reading and content-subject textbooks

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston UniversityIt is the purpose of this study to list the quantitative concepts that occur in selected reading and content-subject third-grade textbooks and to determine the frequency of their occurrence. There were several reasons for the selection of the above topic: 1. the continuing trend in education toward closer correlation (of. such terms as unit, fusion, integration, etc.); 2. the increasing emphasis upon the importance of meanings, understandings, and concepts (of. such phrases, especially, as concept of number, concept of words, concept of processes, concept of skills, etc.); and 3. the suggestions, in articles (especially those 1n research periodicals) that indicate the need for new research concerning quantitative concepts and the teaching of such concepts

Dance training shapes action perception and its neural implementation within the young and older adult brain

How we perceive others in action is shaped by our prior experience. Many factors influence brain responses when observing others in action, including training in a particular physical skill, such as sport or dance, and also general development and aging processes. Here, we investigate how learning a complex motor skill shapes neural and behavioural responses among a dance-naïve sample of 20 young and 19 older adults. Across four days, participants physically rehearsed one set of dance sequences, observed a second set, and a third set remained untrained. Functional MRI was obtained prior to and immediately following training. Participants’ behavioural performance on motor and visual tasks improved across the training period, with younger adults showing steeper performance gains than older adults. At the brain level, both age groups demonstrated decreased sensorimotor cortical engagement after physical training, with younger adults showing more pronounced decreases in inferior parietal activity compared to older adults. Neural decoding results demonstrate that among both age groups, visual and motor regions contain experience-specific representations of new motor learning. By combining behavioural measures of performance with univariate and multivariate measures of brain activity, we can start to build a more complete picture of age-related changes in experience-dependent plasticity

Which outcome expectancies are important in determining young adults intentions to use condoms with casual sexual partners?: A cross-sectional study

Background: The prevalence of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection amongst young adults represents an important public health problem in the UK. Individuals attitude towards the use of condoms has been identified as an important determinant of behavioural intentions and action. The Theory of Planned Behaviour has been widely used to explain and predict health behaviour. This posits that the degree to which an individual positively or negatively values a behaviour (termed direct attitude) is based upon consideration of the likelihood of a number of outcomes occurring (outcome expectancy) weighted by the perceived desirability of those outcomes (outcome evaluation). Outcome expectancy and outcome evaluation when multiplied form indirect attitude. The study aimed to assess whether positive outcome expectancies of unprotected sex were more important for young adults with lower safe sex intentions, than those with safer sex intentions, and to isolate optimal outcomes for targeting through health promotion campaigns. Methods: A cross-sectional survey design was used. Data was collected from 1051 school and university students aged 16-24 years. Measures of intention, direct attitude and indirect attitude were taken. Participants were asked to select outcome expectancies which were most important in determining whether they would use condoms with casual sexual partners. Results: People with lower safe sex intentions were more likely than those with safer sex intentions to select all positive outcome expectancies for unprotected sex as salient, and less likely to select all negative outcome expectancies as salient. Outcome expectancies for which the greatest proportion of participants in the less safe sex group held an unfavourable position were: showing that I am a caring person, making sexual experiences less enjoyable, and protecting against pregnancy. Conclusions: The findings point to ways in which the attitudes of those with less safe sex intentions could be altered in order to motivate positive behavioural change. They suggest that it would be advantageous to highlight the potential for condom use to demonstrate a caring attitude, to challenge the potential for protected sex to reduce sexual pleasure, and to target young adults risk appraisals for pregnancy as a consequence of unprotected sex with casual sexual partners

Storage stability of whole and nibbed, conventional and high oleic peanuts (<i>Arachis hypogeae </i>L.)

Peanuts are increasingly being used as nibbed ingredients in cereal bars, confectionery and breakfast cereals. However, studies on their oxidative stability in this format are limited. Storage trials to determine the stability to oxidation were carried out on whole and nibbed kernels of conventional (CP) and high oleic (HOP) peanuts, with respect to temperature and modified atmosphere packaging. HOP exhibited the highest oxidative stability, with a lag phase in whole kernels of 12–15 weeks before significant oxidation occurred. HOP also showed higher levels of intrinsic antioxidants, a trolox equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) of 70 mMol equivalence and radical scavenging percentage (RSP) of 99.8 % at the beginning of storage trials, whereas CP showed values of 40 mMol and 81.2 %, respectively. The intrinsic antioxidants at the beginning of these storage trials were shown to affect the peroxide value (PV), where RSP and TEAC decreased, and PV increased. Therefore, in peanuts the processing format (nibbed or whole) had the highest influence on susceptibility of lipid oxidation, highest to lowest importance: processing format &gt; temperature &gt; atmospheric conditions

New Public Management and Nursing Relationships in the NHS

Western governments face increasing demands to achieve both cost efficiency and responsiveness in their public services leading to radical and challenging transformations. Following the imposition of New Public Management (NPM) approaches within England, it is argued that similar elements of NPM can be also seen within Scottish healthcare, despite policy divergences following devolution. This thesis considers the influence of NPM on Scottish hospital frontline nursing staff in their work. It explores the ways in which managerial practices (specifically professional management; discipline & parsimony; standard setting & performance measurement; and consumerism) have shaped the working relationships, interactions, and knowledge-exchange between managers, staff and patients and the ability of staff to carry out nursing duties within an acute hospital setting. The study is a qualitative interpretivist study grounded in the methodology of adaptive theory and draws upon the works of Lipsky (1980) in order to explore how the front-line nurses cope with and resist the demands of the workplace. Based on thirty-one qualitative interviews with front-line nursing staff in an inner city hospital in Scotland, this thesis presents the findings resulting from nurses’ views of management, finances, policies, targets, audits and consumerism. The findings show that these nurses believe there has been a proliferation of targets, audits and policies, an increasing emphasis on cost efficiency and effectiveness, a drive for professional management and a greater focus on consumerism in NHS Scotland. These are all closely linked to the ethos of NPM. From the findings it can be seen that many elements influence the working relationships of the frontline hospital nursing staff. The study suggests that the main reason for conflict between managers and nursing staff is due to their differing foci. Managers are seen to concentrate on issues of targets, audits and budgets with little thought given to the impact these decisions will have on patient care or nurses’ working conditions. Furthermore the findings highlight high levels of micro-management, self-surveillance, control and the regulation of the frontline nursing staff which has led to tensions both between nursing staff and managers, but also with patients and the public. Finally, although there has supposedly been policy divergence between Scotland and England, this thesis has identified many similarities between Scottish and English polices and NPM approaches continues to influence the working relationships of front-line nursing staff within this study despite the rhetoric that Scotland has moved away from such practices

The Taking and Use of Records

Volume 1 Number 5, February, 1935 Describes the record taking process and the types of observational records the teachers at the Harriet Johnson Nursery School were taking. Includes excerpts of observations.https://educate.bankstreet.edu/sixty-nine-bank-street/1004/thumbnail.jp