The Effects Of Anodal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation On Neural Excitability And Function In Individuals With Chronic Ankle Instability: A Preliminary Investigation

Chronic ankle instability (CAI) is common after ankle sprains, characterized by repeated sensations of giving-way existing in 30% of active individuals; high reinjury rates attributed to changes in brain function, suggest current rehabilitation is insufficient. This study attempted to modify these injury-induced brain changes by using anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (aTDCS) with ankle strengthening among individuals with CAI. We implemented a randomized-controlled trial design. Dependent variables included: neural excitability, dynamic balance with muscle activation, side-hop test, and ankle strength tested at baseline, week-2, week-4, and week-6. Twenty-two individuals completed 10 sessions of ankle strengthening over 4-weeks with aTDCS (21.8±2.7yrs, 5M/6F) or sham (22.3±3.1yrs, 3M/8F) stimulation. The aTDCS group received 1.5mA of cortical stimulation for 18-minutes; the sham group received 1-minute of stimulation. Differences were assessed with group-by-time factorial ANOVA (?=0.05). Four-weeks of aTDCS with eccentric exercise enhanced cortical excitability and dynamic balance (baseline to week-6: p=0.024, p=0.026), and improved muscle activation of ankle stabilizers (p=0.044) within 250-ms after landing, compared to sham stimulation. This is the first study using brain stimulation to treat a musculoskeletal injury. Findings support that aTDCS may reverse maladaptive neuroplasticity and subsequently improve function, warranting further investigation into musculoskeletal rehabilitation

Beyond Boyer: SoTL in the Context of Interesting Scholarly Things

The positive effects of Ernest Boyer’s broader definition of scholarship have been attenuated by stress on published outcomes as indicators of all his scholarships, including the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). At universities outside the research university sector, we need to find ways to recognize and reward a wide variety of interesting scholarly things related to teaching that are not likely to meet the formal assessment criteria that have come to define the SoTL category of scholarship. The faculty’s scholarliness in teaching should be recognized and evaluated directly

Teacher Thinking About Students' Thinking

College teachers are frequently told that knowing the details of the cognitive psychological processes of their students will improve their teaching effectiveness. However, investigations of college teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning have yielded conceptions of teaching at a very general level. Most studies have resulted in conceptions that focus more on the teacher and teaching methods than on the learning processes of students. This paper argues for a more differentiated study of teacher thinking about student thinking that explores what teachers tacitly believe about their students' attention, memory, learning strategies and motivation. Potential implications of differences in how teachers may think about their students' cognitions are explored

Far more than I ever dared to hope for : Victorian traveler Isabella Bird in the Rocky Mountains

At age forty-two Victorian Englishwoman Isabella Bird traveled alone on horseback and in the winter through the Colorado Rockies, stopping at cabins and homesteads for shelter. Background biographical information informs the discussion of Bird’s travels and her lifelong invalidism, for which doctors prescribed travel. Her health vastly improved while traveling; possible reasons for this improvement while she was away from Victorian England and the demands of her homeland culture are explored. From her experiences in Colorado, she wrote the travel memoir, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains. Bird claimed that her memoir was written from letters she wrote home to her sister Henrietta, but a recently published collection of her transcribed letters, Letters to Henrietta, reveals that Bird did edit her letters before publication of A Lady’s Life. Some of the changes she made are noteworthy and therefore, are identified and discussed. Bird’s reaction to the Colorado landscape is a mixture of awe, enchantment, fascination, and fear. This thesis examines Bird's conflicting feelings toward the wilderness environment from feminist and psychoanalytical perspectives. Further, Bird often seems at home not only in a wilderness setting, but with the company of marginalized individuals, most notably Mountain Jim Nugent, a desperado. Her relationship with Mountain Jim is revealing as he reflects many of her own struggles with alienation. Bird, stifled by Victorian conventions, found relief from her mental and physical ill health in her travels and through her contact with others who lived outside the rules of polite Victorian society, as well in the wilderness landscape that welcomed and then challenged her

The impact of charter schools on rural traditional public-schools and their communities

Much of the research surrounding charter schools has focused on examining the achievement of students in charter schools and exploring the impact of charter schools specifically in urban areas. More charter schools have opened in recent years in rural areas, however, there is limited research surrounding the impact of these charter schools in rural areas. This study was designed to better understand how rural traditional public-schools have been impacted by the increased presence of, and competition from, charter schools in their communities, and to examine how those rural traditional public-schools have responded to this increased competition. In addition, I studied how the rural communities surrounding these traditional public-schools have been impacted the presence of charter schools in their community. In this qualitative case study, I researched the impacts of charter schools on rural traditional public-schools, the responses of rural traditional public-schools and the impact on their communities. I conducted semi-structured interviews with principals in a school feeder pattern in a rural school district in central North Carolina that has seen an increased number of charter school options arrive in their community. I also conduced semi-structured interviews with small-business owners who were tied into both the rural public-schools and the community through their small businesses, and conducted focus groups with parents from all four schools that operate in the community in which this study was located. I found that rural traditional public-schools have seen numerous impacts from the increased number of charter schools in their communities, and schools and school leaders are increasingly aware of these impacts and are working to mitigate them through increased programs and new practices within their buildings, including through the use of marketing practices and increased offerings for students and parents within their school community. I also found that rural communities are being divided as a result of the increased options for school choice, as parents who see themselves as loyal to their rural traditional public-schools feel betrayed or abandoned by parents who elect to enroll their children in charter schools, and as a result, tensions and divisions have emerged in the community

Charles George Gordon : the evolution of a British hero

During the Second British Empire, Britons actively supported the idealized conception that one lone British officer or civil administrator could accomplish strenuous and often dangerous tasks, through sheer determination and a charismatic personality. Charles George Gordon, during his ill-fated expedition to Khartoum, was portrayed by the majority of Britons as the epitome of this highly romantic image. The purpose of this research is to examine critically the growth and development of the so-called Gordon legend. In doing so, one must attempt to discover the individuals responsible for its creation, while simultaneously examining the social, political and economic environments of Great Britain and certain Oriental countries, which had a direct bearing on the legend itself. Contrary to popular and some scholastic opinion, Gordon was scarcely recognized by the British public during and after his exploits in China (1863-1864) and his early adventures in the Sudan (1874-1879). He only obtained enduring fame from an empire-minded public when he was sent to evacuate Egyptian troops during his second Sudanese mission in 1884

Digital plant images as specimens: Toward standards for photographing living plants

Although specimens in natural history collections have traditionally been limited to physical objects, sets of images can serve many of the purposes of specimens if the images are collected in an appropriate manner. Image specimen sets should include standardized high resolution digital images of taxonomically important features of the organism, and the time, date, and location of image collection. Suggested image standards are presented here for woody and herbaceous angiosperms, gymnosperms, ferns, and cacti. Adoption of image standards will facilitate the creation of educational resources that can be made widely available through recently-developed electronic delivery methods such as the Internet and portable electronic devices

Reproductive morphology of Sargentodoxa cuneata (Lardizabalaceae) and its systematic implications.

The reproductive morphology of Sargentodoxa cuneata (Oliv) Rehd. et Wils. is investigated through field, herbarium, and laboratory observations. Sargentodoxa may be either dioecious or monoecious. The functionally unisexual flowers are morphologically bisexual, at least developmentally. The anther is tetrasporangiate, and its wall, of which the development follows the basic type, is composed of an epidermis, endothecium, two middle layers, and a tapetum. The tapetum is of the glandular type. Microspore cytokinesis is simultaneous, and the microspore tetrads are tetrahedral. Pollen grains are two-celled when shed. The mature ovule is crassinucellate and bitegmic, and the micropyle is formed only by the inner integument. Megasporocytes undergo meiosis resulting in the formation of four megaspores in a linear tetrad. The functional megaspore develops into an eight-nucleate embryo sac after three rounds of mitosis. The mature embryo sac consists of an egg apparatus (an egg and two synergids), a central cell, and three antipodal cells. The pattern of the embryo sac development follows a monosporic Polygonum type. Comparisons with allied groups show that Sargentodoxa shares more synapomorphies with the Lardizabalaceae than other Ranunculales. Characteristics of its reproductive morphology are consistent with the placement of Sargentodoxa as the sister group of the remaining Lardizabalaceae. It does not possess a sufficient number of apomorphic characters to justify its separation into a separate family or subfamily. It is best retained as a member of the Lardizabalaceae

Optimizing Learning of Scientific Category Knowledge in the Classroom: The Case of Plant Identification

Learning to identify organisms is extraordinarily difficult, yet trained field biologists can quickly and easily identify organisms at a glance. They do this without recourse to the use of traditional characters or identification devices. Achieving this type of recognition accuracy is a goal of many courses in plant systematics. Teaching plant identification is difficult because of variability in the plants’ appearance, the difficulty of bringing them into the classroom, and the difficulty of taking students into the field. To solve these problems, we developed and tested a cognitive psychology–based computer program to teach plant identification. The program incorporates presentation of plant images in a homework-based, active-learning format that was developed to stimulate expert-level visual recognition. A controlled experimental test using a within-subject design was performed against traditional study methods in the context of a college course in plant systematics. Use of the program resulted in an 8–25% statistically significant improvement in final exam scores, depending on the type of identification question used (living plants, photographs, written descriptions). The software demonstrates how the use of routines to train perceptual expertise, interleaved examples, spaced repetition, and retrieval practice can be used to train identification of complex and highly variable objects

An Experimental Test of a Biodynamic Method of Weed Suppression: The Biodynamic Seed Peppers

2015-2016 UNCG University Libraries Open Access Publishing Fund Grant Winner. An experimental test of a biodynamic agriculture method of weed suppression was carried out ingrowth chambers to establish the feasibility of the method as a preliminary to field trials. Fourgenerations of Brassica rapa plants were used in a randomized block design. Treated flatsreceived ashed seeds prepared according to biodynamic indications. Seed weight and countswere measured at the end of each generation, and germination of the control and experimentalseed was investigated at the end of generation four. The biodynamic seed peppers, created andapplied as described here, had no effect on seed production or viability, and did not effectivelyinhibit reproduction of the targeted species over the course of four consecutive treatments