Oral Communication Apprehension and Its Relationship to Language Achievement and Attitudes Toward the Language Arts

This study examined the occurrence of oral communication apprehension (OCA) among 547 sixth grade students in two Maryland schools. The focus was on the relationship between OCA and language achievement, as well as attitudes towards the language arts including sex differences. The Personal Report of Communication Fear Scale (McCroskey, 1977) was administered to categorize the subjects into five OCA levels - Low, Moderately Low, Moderate, Moderately High, and High. The scores gained on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills - Language Subtest were used to assess students' levels of language achievement, and their attitudes toward the language arts were measured by their scores on the Attitudes Toward the Language Arts Scale (Arlin-Hills) Frequencies and percentages were computed for estimating differences in the occurrence of oral communication apprehension among the groups and sexes while Chi-square analysis was used for testing significance of sex differences. Two-way ANOVA and Scheffe test for testing significance of sex differences in language achievement and attitudes to the language arts, as well as one-way ANOVA and intercorrelations of the scores of the PRCF and the two other measures were done to assess relationships between these variables. The following were the findings: 1. The High OCA group consisted of 15 percent of the sample, the Low 16 percent and the three combined Moderate OCA groups 69 percent. 2. Sex differences in the occurrence of OCA at each level were of no statistical significance, but slightly more girls than boys were highly apprehensive about oral communication. 3. The Low and Moderate OCA girls' groups scored significantly higher in language achievement than boys in these groups. 4. Sex differences in attitudes toward the language arts were not significant. 5. There was a relationship between OCA and language achievement indicated by a statistically significant difference among the five group means and the high apprehensives scored below the sample mean, while the low apprehensives scored above. 6. There was no relationship between OCA and attitudes towards the language arts as there was no statistically significant difference among the five OCA group means for the attitude scale

The normalisation of binge drinking? An historical and cross cultural investigation with implications for action

Binge drinking is a matter of current social, media and political concern, rarely out of the headlines and a focus of policy activity. Discussion of binge drinking has focussed on the activities of young people and it is believed to have resulted in significant harm to individuals and to communities. Binge drinking is sometimes portrayed as a recent phenomenon but it has a history and concern about it is not new. This project aimed to set the phenomenon of binge drinking in its historical cultural and contemporary context by considering: historical and anthropological perspectives; the definition and measurement of binge drinking; the contemporary situation in cross national perspective. The overall aim is to draw lessons for policy through the interaction of social science and historical perspectives

Binge drinking: a confused concept and its contemporary history

Binge drinking is a matter of current social, political and media concern. It has a long-term, but also a recent, history. This paper discusses the contemporary history of the concept of binge drinking. In recent years there have been significant changes in how binge drinking is defined and conceptualised. Going on a ‘binge’ used to mean an extended period (days) of heavy drinking, while now it generally refers to a single drinking session leading to intoxication. We argue that the definitional change is related to the shifts in the focus of alcohol policy and alcohol science, in particular in the last two decades, and also in the role of the dominant interest groups. The paper is a case study in the relationship between science and policy. We explore key themes, raise questions and point to a possible agenda for future research

"Some of us need to be taken care of": young adults' perspectives on support and help in drug reducing interventions in coercive contexts in Denmark and the UK

This paper provides an account of young people’s experiences of and perspectives on help and support in drug reducing interventions. It is based on interviews with young people age 14–25 who were in contact with the Criminal Justice System (CJS) and, at the same time, participated in a drug reducing intervention. The interview data forms part of the EU funded EPPIC project. Two main themes emerged from the young peoples’ accounts that cut across different types of interventions and social systems in both countries. The first revolves around the ‘system’ of welfare, criminal justice, health and educational services and the barriers young people encountered in navigating the system to find help. The second revolves around the young people’s experiences with professionals, including what they appreciated and what they found problematic in professionals’ approach to them. Basing our analysis on data from two different countries, we are able to emphasize similarities in the young peoples’ perspectives, despite being enrolled in different drug reducing and CJS interventions. The insights gained indicate a need for systems and service changes that can facilitate a better balance between building individual resilience and providing appropriate, timely and adequate support within a ‘resilience-building environmen

Ages of White Dwarf-Red Subdwarf Systems

We provide the first age estimates for two recently discovered white dwarf-red subdwarf systems, LHS 193AB and LHS 300AB. These unusual systems provide a new opportunity for linking the reliable age estimates for the white dwarfs to the (measurable) metallicities of the red subdwarfs. We have obtained precise photometry in the $V_{J}R_{KC}I_{KC}JH$ bands and spectroscopy covering from 6000\AA to 9000\AA for the two new systems, as well as for a comparison white dwarf-main sequence red dwarf system, GJ 283 AB. Using model grids available in the literature, we estimate the cooling age as well as temperature, surface gravity, mass, progenitor mass and {\it total} lifetimes of the white dwarfs. The results indicate that the two new systems are probably ancient thick disk objects with ages of at least 6-9 Gyr. We also conduct searches of red dwarf and white dwarf compendia from SDSS data and the L{\'e}pine Shara Proper Motion (LSPM) catalog for additional common proper motion white dwarf-red subdwarf systems. Only seven new candidate systems are found, which indicates the rarity of these systems.Comment: accepted for publication in Ap

Superposition as memory: unlocking quantum automatic complexity

Imagine a lock with two states, "locked" and "unlocked", which may be manipulated using two operations, called 0 and 1. Moreover, the only way to (with certainty) unlock using four operations is to do them in the sequence 0011, i.e., $0^n1^n$ where $n=2$. In this scenario one might think that the lock needs to be in certain further states after each operation, so that there is some memory of what has been done so far. Here we show that this memory can be entirely encoded in superpositions of the two basic states "locked" and "unlocked", where, as dictated by quantum mechanics, the operations are given by unitary matrices. Moreover, we show using the Jordan--Schur lemma that a similar lock is not possible for $n=60$. We define the semi-classical quantum automatic complexity $Q_{s}(x)$ of a word $x$ as the infimum in lexicographic order of those pairs of nonnegative integers $(n,q)$ such that there is a subgroup $G$ of the projective unitary group PU$(n)$ with $|G|\le q$ and with $U_0,U_1\in G$ such that, in terms of a standard basis $\{e_k\}$ and with $U_z=\prod_k U_{z(k)}$, we have $U_x e_1=e_2$ and $U_y e_1 \ne e_2$ for all $y\ne x$ with $|y|=|x|$. We show that $Q_s$ is unbounded and not constant for strings of a given length. In particular, $$Q_{s}(0^21^2)\le (2,12) < (3,1) \le Q_{s}(0^{60}1^{60})$$ and $Q_s(0^{120})\le (2,121)$.Comment: Lecture Notes in Computer Science, UCNC (Unconventional Computation and Natural Computation) 201

Emerging Issues in Micro Finance Banks in Nigeria

Microfinance is an economic development strategy intended to provide financial services such as credit, savings, micro insurance micro leasing and payment services to the poor and low income client.  This paper shall be dealing with emerging issues in microfinance banks in Nigeria. This paper is divided into eleven sections.  Introduction, microfinance concept and needs, characteristics and ownership of microfinance banks microfinance banking in Nigeria will be discussed. The paper also discusses functions and number of licensed MFB’s, forms of lending and microfinancing challenges.  This paper concludes by recommending measures for improvement of microfinancing services in Nigeria

Universal Mandelbrot Set as a Model of Phase Transition Theory

The study of Mandelbrot Sets (MS) is a promising new approach to the phase transition theory. We suggest two improvements which drastically simplify the construction of MS. They could be used to modify the existing computer programs so that they start building MS properly not only for the simplest families. This allows us to add one more parameter to the base function of MS and demonstrate that this is not enough to make the phase diagram connectedComment: 5 pages, 3 figure