eCPD Programme - Enhanced Learning.

This collection of papers (edited by Kevin Donovan) has been produced by the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) for LSIS. They are based on the summaries used by presenters during workshops at the 2009 launch of the eCPD Programme

Jealousy as a Function of Rival Characteristics: Two large replication studies and meta-analyses support gender differences in reactions to rival attractiveness but not dominance

Jealousy is a key emotion studied in the context of romantic relationships. One seminal study (Dijkstra, P., & Buunk, B. (1998). Jealousy as a function of rival characteristics: An evolutionary perspective. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24 (11), 1158–1166. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672982411003) investigated the interactions between a participant’s gender and their reactions to the attractiveness or dominance of a romantic rival. In a vignette-based study, it was found that women’s jealousy was more responsive than men’s to a rival’s attractiveness, whereas in contrast, the rival’s dominance evoked more jealousy from men than from women. Here, we attempt to replicate these interactions in two samples (N = 339 and N = 456) and present subsequent meta-analyses (combined Ns = 5,899 and 4,038, respectively). These meta-analyses showed a small, significant effect of gender on jealousy provoked by rival attractiveness, but no such response to rival dominance. We discuss the potential reasons for these findings and future directions for research on jealousy and rival characteristics

Creating SkillZone: a tutoring program for international students and scholars

According to the Institute of International Education, international students represent a sizeable portion of the student body within the higher education system of the United States – a total of 886, 052 international students were enrolled in either a public or private institution during the 2013-2014 academic year. However, literature related to tutoring centers built specifically for international students is lacking. As such, it is essential that this specific population be addressed within relevant research. The purpose of this article is to shed light on the current model of an academic support center for international students at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Gravitational and distributed heating effects of a cD galaxy on the hydrodynamical structure of its host cluster

We investigate the effects of a cD galaxy's gravity and AGN heating of the host galaxy cluster. We consider a standard prescription for the hydrodynamics, with the structures determined by mass continuity, momentum and energy conservation equations in spherical symmetry. The cluster comprises a dark matter halo (DM) and ionised X-ray emitting intracluster gas (ICM), which jointly determine the gravitational potential. The cD galaxy is an additive gravitational potential component. The DM assumes a polytropic equation of state (determined by its microphysics), which could be non-radiative self-interacting particles or more exotically interacting particles. The AGN provides distributed heating, counteracting radiative cooling. Stationary density and velocity dispersion profiles are obtained by numerically integrating the hydrodynamic equations with appropriate boundary conditions. The minimum gas temperature in the cluster core is higher when a cD galaxy is present than when it is absent. The solutions also yield a point-like mass concentration exceeding a minimum mass: presumably the AGN's supermassive black hole (SMBH). Consistency with observed SMBH masses constrains the possible DM equations of state. The constraints are looser when a cD galaxy is present. Distributed (AGN) heating alters cluster global properties, and also reduces the lower limits for the central point-mass, for the preferred DM models in which the dark particles have greater heat capacity than point particles. Eluding these constraints would require dominant non-spherical or anisotropic effects (e.g. bulk rotation, non-radial streaming, asymmetric lumps, or a strong magnetic field).Comment: 18 pages, 12 figures; MNRAS in press. Typos fixed to match corrected proof