Art as Propaganda in Ancient Greece: The Feeding of the Greek Soldier’s Ego

The stories of an all-female warrior race had long been told and depicted in artistic forms prior to sixth century Greece. These tales, that may have had some basis in real life events, were eventually woven into the cloak of influence that the classical Greeks wore in their rally to control the world around them. Many of these accounts focused on the overpowering strength of Greece’s military and their soldier heroes, such as Achilles. In Achilles’ case, in battle against the Amazon Queen Penthesilea at Troy, artistic depictions of the accounts of the struggle became less about the struggle between two great fighters and more about the domination of any outside force that challenged the Greek empire. The depiction of Penthesilea on the frieze at the Temple of Apollo Epikourious at Bassai 429 BCE, pleading for Achilles’ sympathy as he is about to kill her differs greatly from the display of her wielding a spear and fighting to the death on a black figure amphora 530-525 BCE. The difference in these representations of Penthesilea may have been due to the growing advancements and challenges in the Greek empire as a military and political power, determined on dominating all forces, real or mythical, that presented a threat to their power

The Impact of NCLB Reforms in the Elementary Schools Comparing Perceptions/Practices from 2002 to 2011

With the advent of No Child Left behind in 2002, public education in the United States entered into a reform movement with mounting consequences and ramifications. This unprecedented federal in-road into public education became the umbrella regulator over programs, staff, budgets and students. The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine to what extent NCLB had impacted educational leadership and classroom practices as educators have strived to serve their students and the federal mandates at the same time. A request for participants went out over the internet to over 1000 elementary principals. Asking if they had been in the same assignment since 2002 and if they had been would they complete a survey and have five of their teachers who had been in the same assignment as well complete it. 123 principals responded and 95 of their teachers. The survey requested years in education, years their district had or had not made AYP, and a list of their top five professional priorities for 2002 when NCLB was signed. The survey asked further that they list their current top five professional priorities and state whether they had changed due to NCLB and if the change had had a positive or negative effect on student learning. The responses were tallied and multiple comparisons were made between the two years. The study compared staff responses between those that had made AYP and those that hadn\u27t. It also looked for the changes where respondents had said there was a negative impact on student learning. There were also understandable and surprising differences between teachers and principals. Findings included time restraints due to the addition of the required components of NCLB. Educators are doing more, faster and with less autonomy. Their autonomy is limited by the limited amount of time and resources which are the leftovers once they get through the NCLB mandates. Even those responders whose districts met AYP a majority of the time had had to change their priorities to meet the requirements

Malaria-filaria coinfection in mice makes malarial disease more severe unless filarial infection achieves patency

Coinfections are common in natural populations, and the literature suggests that helminth coinfection readily affects how the immune system manages malaria. For example, type 1–dependent control of malaria parasitemia might be impaired by the type 2 milieu of preexisting helminth infection. Alternatively, immunomodulatory effects of helminths might affect the likelihood of malarial immunopathology. Using rodent models of lymphatic filariasis (Litomosoides sigmodontis) and noncerebral malaria (clone AS Plasmodium chabaudi chabaudi), we quantified disease severity, parasitemia, and polyclonal splenic immune responses in BALB/c mice. We found that coinfected mice, particularly those that did not have microfilaremia (Mf), had more severe anemia and loss of body mass than did mice with malaria alone. Even when controlling for parasitemia, malaria was most severe in Mf coinfected mice, and this was associated with increased interferon-g responsiveness. Thus, in Mf mice, filariasis upset a delicate immunological balance in malaria infection and exacerbated malaria-induced immunopathology. Helminth infections are prevalent throughout tropical regions where malaria is transmitted [1–5]. Interactions among infections commonly alter disease severity [6, 7], and malaria-helminth coinfection can either exac

Reflections on design of active learning module for training emergency management professionals in virtual reality

Experiences gained through learning design projects can be used as the basis to build systematic knowledge of digitization and active leaning in higher education. One such project funded by the Norwegian Agency for Digital Learning in Higher Educations (Norgesuniversitetet) has explored the design and trialling of a new resource for Emergency Management education that is based on theories of Active Learning and applies an innovative use of virtual reality technologies (VR). The project de-velops an active learning module (ALM) in a specialized VR simulation. The ALM has the learning objective to aid Emergency Management and Health professional students in the training of communi-cations in management during a crisis situation. The student interactions in the virtual reality simulat-ed ALM are active learning, because they are required to make real-time decisions while (1) interact-ing with the simulated environment and (2) they are communicating with colleagues within profession and across professions. This paper is based on observed and collected data from two days of trials using the ALM, with non-professional students in April 2016 and with Emergency Management and Health professional students in March 2017. The purpose of this paper is not to report on the learning outcomes for the students participating in these particular trials. Rather, based on the experiences of the trial-runs, the educational module (ALM) designers will reflect on the educational challenges within the thematic area. We will describe and discuss the elements of the active learning design such as the learning activities, the assessment forms, and the organizational implementation within the thematic educational programs. We will discuss how technology plays a role in achieving or hindering active learning objectives. Finally, we will reflect on how future designs of ALM can be further devel-oped to better meet the learning needs of the primary target learning group. Keywords: active learning, virtual reality, emergency management trainingpublishedVersio

Centerscope

Centerscope, formerly Scope, was published by the Boston University Medical Center "to communicate the concern of the Medical Center for the development and maintenance of improved health care in contemporary society.

Aboriginal Science Symposium: Enabling Aboriginal student success in post-secondary institutions

Context: Research in the sciences is now beginning to acknowledge what many Aboriginal educators and students have experienced or witnessed in educational curricula, a general dismissal of Indigenous knowledge as being considered scientifically ‘worthy’. This is the result of educational institutions’, and the systems within which they are placed, failure to teach from broad cultural orientations. Aboriginal persons are under-represented in post-secondary education programs, with a similar disparity in the limited number of Aboriginal persons holding careers in health, science and engineering occupations. Issues: The University of Lethbridge is attempting to increase the number of Aboriginal students who successfully complete programs in a variety of areas. To that end, the Support Program for Aboriginal Nursing Students (SPANS) commenced in Fall 2007 in order to increase the numbers of Aboriginal students who enter and complete the 4 year nursing program. At one time there were as few as 2–3 Aboriginal nursing students across the 4 years of the program. Since SPANS began there are now 34 students of Aboriginal background across all 4 years of the nursing program. This is noteworthy because statistically there are only 1200 Aboriginal Registered Nurses in Canada, a daunting statistic that is alarming low. One of the objectives of SPANS is to enhance the nursing faculty and clinical instructors’ understanding of Aboriginal science so that it can be integrated into the current curriculum. With this aim, an Aboriginal Science Symposium was held in May 2009 to bring nursing faculty together with other University faculty and experts in Aboriginal science. The symposium attempted to highlight the links between programs in nursing and health sciences and the need for integration with Aboriginal science. The 3 specific symposium objectives were to: (1) generate an understanding of traditional scientific knowledge; (2) bridge Aboriginal and Western scientific thought, toward and; (3) understand ways of implementing and raising awareness of how Aboriginal knowledge and understanding of science can be applied to help inform and improve teaching in all educational science settings. Lessons learned: From keynote addresses, panel group discussions, and breakout sessions, participant responses to the symposium objectives coalesced into 4 themes: (1) Aboriginal ways of knowing: informing Western science curricula; (2) Elders and community, enhancing science education; (3) Aboriginal student experience in the science classroom; and (4) strategies and advice to meet the needs of the Aboriginal science student.Jennifer Richmond (production editor for Rural and Remote Health Online)