Bridging the Gap: 21st Century Media Meets Theoretical Pedagogical Literacy Practices

In this chapter, the researchers used an ethnographic stance to demonstrate how conversation evolved within a social media platform. They investigated the online discussions and face-to-face dialogues between teacher educators and pre-service teachers. They compared the participants’ reciprocal conversations within this case study to analyze patterns in the language used in each forum in order to identify the affordances and constraints of perceived understanding. Through this discourse analysis the authors sought to identify indicators of each participant’s metacognitive development while engaging in an online book discussion through a social media platform. Data analysis indicated that there was metacognitive growth when comparing the initial reciprocal conversations with the final conversations

A fully quantum mechanical calculation of the diffusivity of hydrogen in iron using the tight binding approximation and path integral theory

We present calculations of free energy barriers and diffusivities as functions of temperature for the diffusion of hydrogen in bcc-Fe. This is a fully quantum mechanical approach since the total energy landscape is computed using a new self consistent, transferable tight binding model for interstitial impurities in magnetic iron. Also the hydrogen nucleus is treated quantum mechanically and we compare here two approaches in the literature both based in the Feynman path integral formulation of statistical mechanics. We find that the quantum transition state theory which admits greater freedom for the proton to explore phase space gives result in better agreement with experiment than the alternative which is based on fixed centroid calculations of the free energy barrier. We also find results in better agreement compared to recent centroid molecular dynamics (CMD) calculations of the diffusivity which employed a classical interatomic potential rather than our quantum mechanical tight binding theory. In particular we find first that quantum effects persist to higher temperatures than previously thought, and conversely that the low temperature diffusivity is smaller than predicted in CMD calculations and larger than predicted by classical transition state theory. This will have impact on future modeling and simulation of hydrogen trapping and diffusion

Exploring the Use of Courageous Followership in Conversations with Nurses and Their Colleagues

Health care is fraught with communication issues, many of which can lead to patient safety errors and toxic behaviors. Communication in a hierarchical environment has been historically challenging, especially for nurses. Courageous followership, a style of leadership first introduced in the early 1990s, is a duality of “powerful leaders supporting powerful followers” (Chaleff, 2009, p. 3). The tenets of this leadership style empower both the leader and the follower to have the courage: to assume responsibility, serve, transform, challenge, take moral action, speak up to the hierarchy, and listen to the follower. All of these actions are needed in the hierarchical health care environment to empower the staff and the leaders to speak up both for themselves and for their patients. I investigated whether nurses currently utilize the concepts of this leadership style in conversations with their colleagues. Through the use of critical incident technique, stories were collected to understand if this type of leadership is naturally occurring in conversations with nurses and their colleagues. Meaningful incidents, either positive or negative, were collected and analyzed for relevance to this topic. The research showed that positive leadership, CF concepts, and communication can influence and be beneficial to the future health care environment for both staff and patients. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA: Antioch University Repository and Archive, https://aura.antioch.edu and OhioLINK ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.ed

The effects of Childhood Obesity on Self-Esteem

Obesity is a growing health problem affecting children in the United States. The prevalence of obesity has increased dramatically over the past 10 years across virtually all populations and age groups. Recent data suggest that 15 percent of U.S. children are severely overweight or obese (National Center for Health Statistics, 2002) . Obese children are at risk for significant health problems, but also face many psychological and social consequences, including low self-esteem. Children who are obese face an increased risk of emotional problems lasting well into adulthood. Factors such as peer rejection, weight-related teasing, and internalized social standards play a major role in diminishing an obese child’s self-esteem. Self-esteem affects numerous aspects of health and behavior including social adjustment, activity engagement, goal direction, and the presence of anxiety. Furthermore, low self-esteem has been associated with depression and suicidal ideas (Harter & Marold, 1994). The purpose of this study is to examine the effect obesity has on children’s self-esteem, as rated by the Piers-Harris Children’s Self-Concept Scale, 2nd Edition

Pathways to Power: The Role of Political Parties in Women’s National Political Representation

The authors extend previous research on women’s participation in politics by examining the role of female elites in political parties in selecting and supporting women as political candidates. They hypothesize that political parties, in their role as gatekeepers, mediate the relationship between country-level factors, such as women’s participation in the labor force, and political outcomes for women. The article focuses on three outcomes for women: the percentage of female political party leaders, the percentage of female candidates in a country, and the percentage of women elected. New cross-national measures of women’s inclusion in political parties are developed and analyzed in a cross-national, path-analytic model of women in politics to find that (1) women’s position in party elites translates into gains for women as candidates only under proportional representation systems, (2) women’s position in party elites increases the likelihood that female candidates will be elected only in non-proportional representation systems, and (3) parties may be overly sensitive to the perceived liability of women as candidates, when in fact, women have success as candidates across all regions of the world

Update on Geospatial Patterns of Antecedent Behavior among Perpetrators in the American Terrorism Study (ATS)

As part of the Terrorism and Extremist Violence in the United States (TEVUS) database integration effort, researchers at the Terrorism Research Center in Fulbright College at the University of Arkansas and the University of Oklahoma have been adding: 1) federal terrorism court cases and associated data and 2) incident and antecedent geospatial data from these court cases to the American Terrorism Study (ATS). The goal of the project is to examine geospatial patterns in perpetrator behavior and determine if the patterns identified in earlier studies have changed significantly. The ATS allows examination of a number of different units of analysis. Analyses may examine: (1) characteristics of federal terrorism court cases; (2) the characteristics of persons indicted in each court case or involved in incidents, otherwise referred to as indictees; (3) characteristics of incidents and planned incidents; and (4) antecedent activities that lead up to the incident and are necessary to carry it out and/or achieve the goals of the persons or groups

Assessment of experimental observables for local extinction through unsteady laminar flame calculations

© 2019 The Combustion Institute Unsteady premixed and non-premixed counterflow laminar flame simulations were conducted in order to investigate extinction effects on observables commonly used in turbulent combustion. CH4 and n-C12H26 were the fuels studied, with air as the oxidizer at pressures of 1, 5, and 10 bar. It was determined that CH2O persists, compared to all other reactive species, during the extinction transient for both fuels and at all conditions, as the loss of OH concentration removes the dominant CH2O consumption pathway. The persistence of CH2O concentration is duplicated similarly in CH4 and n-C12H26 premixed flames. For non-premixed flames, the results indicate that the peak CH2O concentration reduction for n-C12H26 flames is milder compared to CH4 flames. Increasing the pressure causes an extension of reactivity, resulting in greater CH2O production and thus a delayed decay during the extinction transient. In addition, a change in the magnitude of the applied scalar dissipation rate for the non-premixed flames did not alter the trends of CH2O during extinction. Thus, caution is suggested when using CH2O in turbulent combustion experiments as a marker of the preheat zone thickness, given that increased levels of CH2O could be a result of multiple local extinction events. In addition, the product of OH and CH2O was found to scale well with the heat release rate for CH4 and n-C12H26 flames at multiple pressures. Finally, the CH* and OH* chemiluminescence was examined. CH* was found to extinguish slightly before the other species and more importantly, that once its concentration is reduced to a negligible level, the flame is on its way to extinction with no chance of recovery. OH* was determined to scale well with heat release at both 1 and 10 bar for both fuels and type of flames

Asteroseismic classification of stellar populations among 13000 red giants observed by Kepler

Of the more than 150000 targets followed by the Kepler Mission, about 10% were selected as red giants. Due to their high scientific value, in particular for Galaxy population studies and stellar structure and evolution, their Kepler light curves were made public in late 2011. More than 13000 (over 85%) of these stars show intrinsic flux variability caused by solar-like oscillations making them ideal for large scale asteroseismic investigations. We automatically extracted individual frequencies and measured the period spacings of the dipole modes in nearly every red giant. These measurements naturally classify the stars into various populations, such as the red giant branch, the low-mass (M/Msol 1.8) secondary clump. The period spacings also reveal that a large fraction of the stars show rotationally induced frequency splittings. This sample of stars will undoubtedly provide an extremely valuable source for studying the stellar population in the direction of the Kepler field, in particular when combined with complementary spectroscopic surveys.Comment: 6 page, 5 figures, accepted by ApJ