Victim sensitivity and altruistic behavior in school: mediating effects of teacher justice and teacher-student relationship

The current study aimed to explore how victim sensitivity influenced altruistic behaviors in school and to explore the mediating roles of teacher justice and teacher-student relationship. In 2018, we recruited 1,856 Chinese adolescents including 989 fourth graders (M = 10.35, SD = 0.56) and 867 eighth graders (M = 15.57, SD = 0.91), and the participation rate was 100%. Participations completed the self-report victim sensitivity scale, the teacher justice scale, the teacher-student relationship scale, and the altruistic behavior toward classmate scale. Structural equation modeling (SEM) indicated that victim sensitivity had a direct negative effect on altruistic behavior in school, but this relationship was mediated by teacher justice. There was also a mediated path between teacher justice and altruistic behavior by way of teacher-student relationship. These findings suggested possible mechanisms to explain the relationship between victim sensitivity and altruistic behavior and provided new directions for intervention

A strong magneto-optical activity in rare-earth La3+ substituted M-type strontium ferrites

The Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License to their work.M-type strontium ferrites with substitution of Sr2+ by rare-earth La3+ were prepared by conventional ceramic technology. The structure, magnetic properties, and magneto-optical Kerr activity of Sr1−xLaxFe12O19 (x = 0, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, 0.20) were investigated by x-ray diffraction (XRD), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), and magneto-optical ellipsometry, respectively. X-ray diffraction showed that the samples sintered at 1290 °C for 3 h were single M-type hexagonal ferrites. The magnetic properties were remarkably changed due to the valence change of Fe ions induced by the substitution of La ions. Most significantly, an important magneto-optical activity was induced in the La3+ substituted M-type strontium ferrites around 3 eV.The authors acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 50672001 and 51072002, the 211 Project of Anhui University and from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science under project MAT2009-14534-C03-03. L. Fernandez- Garcia acknowledges the JAE program for a PhD grant.Peer reviewe

Effects of Working Memory, Strategy Use, and Single-Step Mental Addition on Multi-Step Mental Addition in Chinese Elementary Students

The aim of this paper was to examine the roles of working memory, single-step mental addition skills, and strategy use in multi-step mental addition in two independent samples of Chinese elementary students through different approaches to manipulate two dimensions of task characteristics (the primary task). In Study 1, we manipulated strategy types through the dimension of schema automaticity (whether intermediate sums were 10s) and the dimension of working memory load (WML, two steps versus four steps). A hierarchical linear model (HLM) analysis was conducted at case level, strategy level, and individual level. In Study 2, we manipulated task characteristics through schema automaticity (one-time versus two-time regrouping) and the WML (partial versus complete decomposition). A three-level HLM analysis was applied. The general findings of Study 1 and Study 2 suggested that shorter response time on single-step mental addition corresponded to shorter response time on multi-step mental addition. The use of strategies (from easier to more difficult strategies) negatively predicted response time on multi-step mental addition. Easier strategy was associated with shorter response time on multi-step mental addition. Better phonological loop was associated with shorter response time on multi-step mental addition. The findings in both studies highlighted the important role of phonological loop in mental addition in Chinese children, suggesting that the involvement of a specific subcomponent of working memory in mental arithmetic might be subject to linguistic, instructional, and contextual factors

Cellular and clinical impact of Haploinsufficiency for genes involved in ATR signaling

Ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3-related (ATR) protein, a kinase that regulates a DNA damage-response pathway, is mutated in ATR-Seckel syndrome (ATR-SS), a disorder characterized by severe microcephaly and growth delay. Impaired ATR signaling is also observed in cell lines from additional disorders characterized by microcephaly and growth delay, including non-ATR-SS, Nijmegen breakage syndrome, and MCPH1 (microcephaly, primary autosomal recessive, 1)-dependent primary microcephaly. Here, we examined ATR-pathway function in cell lines from three haploinsufficient contiguous gene-deletion disorders--a subset of blepharophimosis-ptosis-epicanthus inversus syndrome, Miller-Dieker lissencephaly syndrome, and Williams-Beuren syndrome--in which the deleted region encompasses ATR, RPA1, and RFC2, respectively. These three genes function in ATR signaling. Cell lines from these disorders displayed an impaired ATR-dependent DNA damage response. Thus, we describe ATR signaling as a pathway unusually sensitive to haploinsufficiency and identify three further human disorders displaying a defective ATR-dependent DNA damage response. The striking correlation of ATR-pathway dysfunction with the presence of microcephaly and growth delay strongly suggests a causal relationship

Which One Is the “Best”: a Cross-national Comparative Study of Students’ Strategy Evaluation in Equation Solving

This cross-national study examined students’ evaluation of strategies for solving linear equations, as well as the extent to which their evaluation criteria were related to their use of strategies and/or aligned with experts’ views about which strategy is the best. A total of 792 middle school and high school students from Sweden, Finland, and Spain participated in the study. Students were asked to solve twelve equations, provide multiple solving strategies for each equation, and select the best strategy among those they produced for each equation. Our results indicate that students’ evaluation of strategies was not strongly related to their initial preferences for using strategies. Instead, many students’ criteria were aligned with the flexibility goals, in that a strategy that takes advantages of task context was more highly valued than a standard algorithm. However, cross-national differences in strategy evaluation indicated that Swedish and Finnish students were more aligned with flexibility goals in terms of their strategy evaluation criteria, while Spanish students tended to consider standard algorithms better than other strategies. We also found that high school students showed more flexibility concerns than middle school students. Different emphases in educational practice and prior knowledge might explain these cross-national differences as well as the findings of developmental changes in students’ evaluation criteria

Exploring students’ procedural flexibility in three countries

BackgroundIn this cross-national study, Spanish, Finnish, and Swedish middle and high school students’ procedural flexibility was examined, with the specific intent of determining whether and how students’ equation-solving accuracy and flexibility varied by country, age, and/or academic track. The 791 student participants were asked to solve twelve linear equations, provide multiple strategies for each equation, and select the best strategy from among their own strategies.ResultsOur results indicate that knowledge and use of the standard algorithm for solving linear equations is quite widespread across students in all three countries, but that there exists substantial within-country variation as well as between-country variation in students’ reliance on standard vs. situationally appropriate strategies. In addition, we found correlations between equation-solving accuracy and students’ flexibility in all three countries but to different degrees.ConclusionsAlthough it is increasingly recognized as an important construct of interest, there are many aspects of mathematical flexibility that are not well-understood. Particularly lacking in the literature on flexibility are studies that explore similarities and differences in students’ repertoire of strategies for solving algebra problems across countries with different educational systems and curricula. This study yielded important insights about flexibility and can push the field to explore the extent that within- and between-country differences in flexibility can be linked to differences in countries’ educational systems, teaching practices, and/or cultural norms around mathematics teaching and learning

Experimental and Theoretical Study of Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectra of Sulfadiazine Adsorbed on Nanoscale Gold Colloids.

Sulfadiazine, as a class of antibiotics, has been widely used in the world for decades; however, its surface-enhanced Raman spectra (SERS) on gold colloids are obviously different from ordinary Raman spectra in the solid powder and liquid solution. To explore the reasons for such significant differences, we used density functional theory calculations and normal-mode analysis to investigate the effects of the configuration, conformation, protonation, hydrogen-bonding interaction, and adsorption configurations of sulfadiazine on gold clusters to check these different effects on the vibrational assignments. Our calculated results can be summarized as two points. First, the Raman spectra strongly depend on the configuration, conformation, protonation, and hydrogen bonding of sulfadiazine. Second, the wagging vibration displays a significant vibrational frequency shift and a very strong SERS peak responsible for the observed SERS signal when sulfadiazine is adsorbed on gold clusters through the terminal amino group. This is different from another adsorption configuration through two oxygen atoms of the -SO2NH- group on gold clusters. Finally, we further investigate the potential energy surfaces along the wagging vibration and the binding interaction of -NH2 adsorbed on different sites of gold surfaces