Introduction to Tapestries Volume 7: Breaking the Shackles of Silence: Knowledge Production as Activism and Resistance

Introduction to volume 7 of Macalester College\u27s journal Tapestries: Interwoven voices of local and global identities

“Float First:” Trapped Air Between Clothing Layers Significantly Improves Buoyancy on Water After Immersion

Approximately 450,000 people drown annually worldwide. The capacity of immersed adults and children to float in clothing is less well understood, but it is possible that air trapped between clothing layers increases buoyancy. Study 1 (n = 24) quantified this buoyancy and the consequence of any buoyancy by measurement of airway freeboard (mouth to water level distance). Study 2 examined the capability of children (n = 29) to float with freeboard used as the outcome measure and is expressed as a percentage of occasions that freeboard was achieved. Buoyancy (Newtons; N) was provided for winter clothing as 105 [+ 12], Autumn/Spring 87 [+ 13], Summer 68 [+ 11]N. Average freeboard was 63 (+ 2) % for winter clothing, 62 (+ 2) % for autumn/spring clothing, 66[+ 2] % for summer clothing, and 15[+ 1] % for the control condition. Children were more buoyant, 95 [+ 17] % freeboard), irrespective of gender, than adults. “Float first” should be advocated

“Float First:” Trapped Air Between Clothing Layers Significantly Improves Buoyancy on Water After Immersion

Approximately 450,000 people drown annually worldwide. The capacity of immersed adults and children to float in clothing is less well understood, but it is possible that air trapped between clothing layers increases buoyancy. Study 1 (n = 24) quantified this buoyancy and the consequence of any buoyancy by measurement of airway freeboard (mouth to water level distance). Study 2 examined the capability of children (n = 29) to float with freeboard used as the outcome measure and is expressed as a percentage of occasions that freeboard was achieved. Buoyancy (Newtons; N) was provided for winter clothing as 105 [+ 12], Autumn/Spring 87 [+ 13], Summer 68 [+ 11]N. Average freeboard was 63 (+ 2) % for winter clothing, 62 (+ 2) % for autumn/spring clothing, 66[+ 2] % for summer clothing, and 15[+ 1] % for the control condition. Children were more buoyant, 95 [+ 17] % freeboard), irrespective of gender, than adults. “Float first” should be advocated

Children’s Reading of Sublexical Units in Years Three to Five: A Combined Analysis of Eye-Movements and Voice Recording

Purpose Children progress from making grapheme–phoneme connections to making grapho-syllabic connections before whole-word connections during reading development (Ehri, 2005a). More is known about the development of grapheme–phoneme connections than is known about grapho-syllabic connections. Therefore, we explored the trajectory of syllable use in English developing readers during oral reading. Method Fifty-one English-speaking children (mean age: 8.9 years, 55% females, 88% monolinguals) in year groups three, four, and five read aloud sentences with an embedded target word, while their eye movements and voices were recorded. The targets contained six letters and were either one or two syllables. Result Children in grade five had shorter gaze duration, shorter articulation duration, and larger spatial eye-voice span (EVS) than children in grade four. Children in grades three and four did not significantly differ on these measures. A syllable number effect was found for gaze duration but not for articulation duration and spatial EVS. Interestingly, one-syllable words took longer to process compared to two-syllable words, suggesting that more syllables may not always signify greater processing difficulty. Conclusion Overall, children are sensitive to sublexical reading units; however, due to sample and stimuli limitations, these findings should be interpreted with caution and further research conducted

A systematic review of studies investigating the acute effects of N-methyl- D-aspartate receptor antagonists on behavioural despair in normal animals suggests poor predictive validity.

The ability of the N-methyl- D -aspartate receptor antagonist ketamine to induce a rapid and sustained antidepressant effect has led to a surge in pre-clinical studies investigating underlying mechanisms and seeking novel treatments. Animal models are key to this research as they can provide a behavioural readout linking underlying mechanisms to clinical benefits. However, quantifying depression-related behaviours in rodents represents a major challenge with the validity of traditional methods such as models of behavioural despair (forced swim test and tail suspension test) a topic of debate. While there is good evidence to support the value of using these behavioural readouts to study the effects of stress, these approaches have largely failed to detect reliable phenotypic effects in other disease models. In this systematic review, we identified publications which had tested N-methyl- D -aspartate receptor antagonists in normal animals using either the forced swim test or tail suspension test. We compared findings for different doses and time points and also drugs with different clinical profiles to investigate how well the outcomes in the rodent model predicted their effects in the clinic. Despite clear evidence that N-methyl- D -aspartate receptor antagonists reduce immobility time and hence exhibit an antidepressant profile in these tasks, we found similar effects with both clinically effective drugs as well as those which have failed to show efficacy in clinical trials. These findings suggest that behavioural despair tests in normal animals do not provide a good method to predict clinical efficacy of N-methyl- D -aspartate receptor antagonists