Dialectical Teaching Strategies for First and Second-Year Students

An oppositional or bi-polar understanding of meaning (Rychlak, 1976). This ancient understanding of meaning has many applications for instructors.https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/btp_expo/1020/thumbnail.jp

Double-Loop Learning: An Approach to Critical Thinking

There is a general consensus that critical thinking is an essential part of college. Instructors should therefore be aware of the following: How they define and conceptualize critical thinking, how they are teaching critical thinking to their students, expectations for how students can exhibit critical thinking. Research-based how to strategies would be an example of single-loop learning, one form of critical thinking.https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/btp_expo/1056/thumbnail.jp

A Study of Red Snapper (Lutjanus Campechanus) Ecology in the Northern Gulf of Mexico and the Effect of Variable River Outflow Using Stable Isotope Analysis of the Food Web and Eye Lenses

In the Mississippi Bight and surrounding waters, river outflow impacts the basal resources of the Red Snapper food web, altering carbon sources and impacting prey and predator isotopes. In this study, the impact of riverine outflow on nutrients, particulate organic matter (POM), and physical water parameters on Red Snapper and their food web was analyzed using stable isotope and stomach content analysis over 5 years. The Mississippi, Pearl, Pascagoula, and Mobile rivers were included in the analysis of river impact. The Mississippi and Mobile rivers were found to significantly impact nutrients and POM in the region. River outflow was also broken out by high, medium, and low outflow regimes. Trends found in POM and zooplankton isotopes related to river outflow reflected the isotope values of Red Snapper and their prey, and Red Snapper body condition improved under moderate to low outflow regimes. Under these conditions diet changed enough to reflect in the isotopes of Red Snapper muscle tissue, though different diet analysis techniques did not agree on how diet changed. With increased river outflow due to climate change and more frequent and longer openings of river diversions, managers must understand how Red Snapper habitat use and dietary shifts change. Red Snapper eye lenses were compared to otoliths to determine if they could be used as an aging tool, and individual lamina of the eye lenses were analyzed for stable isotopes. Though eye lenses were not particularly useful as a primary aging tool, the successive layering of lens lamina over time was consistent enough to determine a general age. Stable isotope analysis of eye lens lamina captured ontogenetic shifts prevalent in the literature. The use of eye lenses provides the opportunity to use a single fish instead of many from different cohorts to study changes in diet and habitat use at ecologically and ontogenetically important time periods, under different outflow regimes

An Examination of Implicit Values in Cornerstone Student Affairs Textbooks

The field of student affairs is properly cautious about indoctrination. Indoctrination, after all, clearly contradicts the field\u27s ethical statements and standards. These cautions have led student affairs researchers to investigate explicit values in the field to prevent explicit forms of indoctrination. However, recent investigations of implicit values in the discipline of psychology have revealed a potential new source of indoctrination not currently studied in student affairs. Specifically, psychological researchers have identified a system of implicit values called liberal individualism that has been found to be pervasive throughout the psychological discipline. Given the widely acknowledged link between student affairs and psychology, it raises the question of whether a similar kind of indoctrination is occurring in student affairs. This study is an initial investigation into whether the system of values identified as dominant in psychology, liberal individualism, currently exists within the field of student affairs. A hermeneutic analysis was conducted on the content of cornerstone textbooks to establish if such textbooks promote implicit values aligned with the ideology of liberal individualism. Hermeneutics was used because the implicit values involved were meanings and hermeneutics has been developed as a type of qualitative investigation into meanings. Part of the hermeneutic method that was used for this study was to maximize the openness or objectivity of the investigator to either seeing or not seeing liberal individualism. Consequently, a contrasting set of implicit values called relationality was also investigated in these texts. The findings of this investigation provided evidence for a fairly pervasive influence of liberal individualism throughout these texts and a very limited influence of relationality. In this sense, these findings evidenced much more of a general, as opposed to a narrow, adoption of liberal individualism in the explanations and theories of the texts. This widespread individualist influence also extended to each of the eight features of liberal individualism: atomism, separation from context, artificial relationships, liberation from authority, value-freeness, happiness, instrumentalism, and autonomy. These features appeared to embody many common-sense notions of the field, such as how research is critiqued, how students develop, and how relationships thrive. The findings of this initial study could foster a whole series of productive investigations to help prevent implicit forms of indoctrination in student affairs

Employees that want to stay: How relationships with leader and organization interact to predict affective commitment

Previous research has attempted to explain how Leader-member exchange (LMX) is related to subordinate affective commitment to organizations. Since affective commitment is highly related to employee turnover, understanding the effects supervisors have on affective commitment is of great importance for fostering high-quality relationships within the workplace. While previous research has been conducted on this relationship, past conceptualizations have yet to account for both the moderating effects of supervisor’s organizational embodiment (SOE) in conjunction with the mediating effect of perceived organizational support (POS). The current study proposes a comprehensive moderated mediation model, describing a path that accounts for variability due to employee perceptions of supervisors and organizations alike. The main hypothesis for the proposed study is that SOE will serve as a moderating variable such that the relationship between LMX and affective commitment will be stronger at high levels of SOE. Similarly, SOE will also moderate the relationship between LMX and POS. Finally, we hypothesize that POS will partially mediate the relationship between LMX and affective commitment. These hypotheses will be tested using the SPSS macro PROCESS, using bootstrap sampling techniques to estimate these effects. Multiple survey timepoints will be used to collect self-report data, with the intent to reduce the effect of common method bias. The predictor and moderator variables will be collected at time one, followed by the mediator, and finally the outcome of affective commitment. This collection method should enable us to make stronger claims as to the direction of these relationships. Our proposed model aims to direct future research on describing these relationships and organizational efforts to increase employees’ affective commitment to the organization, retaining employees in the long term

Stepwise evolution of two giant composite LTR-retrotransposon-like elements DA and Xiao

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We recently discovered two composite long terminal repeat (LTR)-retrotransposon-like elements which we named DA (~300 kb) and Xiao (~30 kb), meaning big and small in Chinese respectively. Xiao and DA (three types of DA identified) were found to have been derived from several donor sites and have spread to 30 loci in the human genome, totaling to 5 Mb. Our bioinformatics analyses with the released human, chimp, rhesus macaque, orangutan, and marmoset genomic sequences indicate that DA and Xiao emerged ~25 million years (Myr) ago.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>To better understand the evolution of these two complex elements, we investigated various internal junctions of DA and Xiao as well as orthologous genomic sites of the 30 DA/Xiao loci in non-human primates including great apes, lesser apes, Old World monkeys, New World monkeys, and a prosimian. We found that Xiao and type I DA first emerged in the genome between 25 and 18 Myr ago, whereas type II and Type III DAs emerged between 14 and 7 Myr ago. Xiao and DA were most active in great apes, with their amplification peaking during 25-14 and 14-7 Myr ago, respectively. Neither DA nor Xiao seem to have been active in the human and chimp genomes during last 6 Myr.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The study has led to a more accurate age determination of the DA and Xiao elements than our previous bioinformatics analyses, and indicates that the amplification activity of the elements coincided with that of group I HERV-Es during evolution. It has also illustrated an evolutionary path with stepwise structural changes for the elements during past 25 Myr, and in doing so has shed more light on these two intriguing and complex elements that have reshaped our genome.</p

Organizational perceptions of I-O interventions: Construction of a diagnostic measure

Despite the fact that Industrial-Organizational (I-O) psychology consultants provide interventions meant to benefit companies, many organizations remain skeptical about the effectiveness of consultants and have concerns about I-O psychologists, their methods, and the results they promise. This skepticism may manifest through resistance towards interventions, resulting in strained client-consultant relationships and a decreased interest in future use of I-O consultant services. Understanding and evading these negative outcomes is highly relevant to the interests of I-O psychology as a whole, but research has yet to quantitatively examine factors contributing to an organization’s decision to pursue I-O consultation. The purpose of the current study is to develop a diagnostic tool to understand perceptions that organizations may have about I-O consultants and to link these to a company’s likeliness to purchase I-O consulting services. The proposed measure is made up of seven individual facets regarding both organizational and consultant entities: readiness for change, duration of project, cost/benefit, depth of intervention, internal/external implementation, faith in I-O expertise, and attitudes towards consultants. Items will be refined through pilot testing, and the measure structure will be analyzed through the use of factor analytic methods. Unique samples will be used to examine the factor structure of the measurement through both exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. We hypothesize that the measure will exhibit a seven-factor structure, entailing each dimension as its own factor. We also hypothesize that a two-factor structure will also fit the measure data, including one for organizational factors and one for consultant factors. Additionally, we hypothesize that scores on the measure will positively predict the likelihood to purchase I-O consulting services. Utilization of this measure should enable consultants to quantitatively locate and target specific insecurities and skepticism contributing to organizational resistance toward I-O interventions, potentially increasing the effectiveness of these interventions and boosting consumer confidence in I-O psychologists

Atypical Interstitial Pneumonia in the Bovine

On August 5, 1980, a dead 950 pound steer was submitted to the Iowa Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory for necropsy (IVDL Case 18274). The history included acute dyspnea, raspy cough, a temperature of 40.5-41.7 C (105-107 F) in 20 out of 125 animals and two death.s These cattle had been purchased on July 17, 1980 and first noticed sick on August 4, 1980. The tentative diagnoses were Hemophilus pneumonia and viral pneumonia. Treatment included intravenous tetrayccline and intramuscular penicillin and resulted in a fairly good response

EXPLORING LEADERSHIP AMONG DEAF COLLEGE STUDENTS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY AT A POPULATION SERVING INSTITUTION AND PREDOMINANTLY HEARING INSTITUTIONS

This thesis examined the influence of deaf student experiences at a deaf serving institution versus predominantly hearing institutions on leadership outcomes. This study utilized the I-E-O Model and the Social Change Model of Leadership. Data were collected from a random sample of 365 undergraduates at Gallaudet University and 216 undergraduates nationally through the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership. The study was administered over the web utilizing the Socially Responsible Leadership Scale-Revised2. Data were analyzed using a two way multivariate analysis of variance examining institutional serving type and gender differences on outcomes and a hierarchical multiple regression analysis examining input and environmental variables on a specified outcome. Participants at hearing serving institutions scored significantly higher than participants at a deaf serving institution on the outcomes of Congruence, Commitment, and Controversy with Civility. The variable accounting for the most variance in the outcome measure of Controversy with Civility was discussions of socio-cultural issues

Building Relationships for UNLV Students’ Success

Racially diverse, first-generation students gain more from one key relationship with an instructor or administrator than from money spent on typical support services (Bensimon, 2007). Instructors can strive to build this relationship with their students by meeting one-on-one for 3-5 minutes outside of class.https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/btp_expo/1041/thumbnail.jp