"A Road to Peace and Freedom"

Zecker examines the multicultural civil-rights activism and union militancy of the International Workers Order and other left-leaning immigrant groups, investigating the program of such organizations regarding civil rights, unionizing, and workplace justice. It looks at what these organizations did that caused the U.S. government to prosecute them and how these groups sought to defend themselves and maintain a Popular Front coalition of progressives in the face of the rapidly developing call for Cold War conformity. The suppressions of dissent narrowed the degree of progress on economic justice and racial civil rights in America for decades to come, and the author argues that the story of the IWO’s demise has relevance for 21st century America's narrowed range of critiques of government policy and unequal racial and economic status quo

"A Road to Peace and Freedom"

Zecker examines the multicultural civil-rights activism and union militancy of the International Workers Order and other left-leaning immigrant groups, investigating the program of such organizations regarding civil rights, unionizing, and workplace justice. It looks at what these organizations did that caused the U.S. government to prosecute them and how these groups sought to defend themselves and maintain a Popular Front coalition of progressives in the face of the rapidly developing call for Cold War conformity. The suppressions of dissent narrowed the degree of progress on economic justice and racial civil rights in America for decades to come, and the author argues that the story of the IWO’s demise has relevance for 21st century America's narrowed range of critiques of government policy and unequal racial and economic status quo

Review of Overlooking Saskatchewan: Minding the Gap edited by Randal Rogers and Christine Ramsay.

Review of Overlooking Saskatchewan: Minding the Gap edited by Randal Rogers and Christine Ramsay

Finding common ground: identifying and eilciting metacognition in ePortfolios

Research has suggested ePortfolios reveal and support students’ metacognition, that is, their awareness, tracking, and evaluation of their learning over time. However, due to the wide variety of purposes and audiences for ePortfolios, it has been unclear whether there might be common criteria for identifying and assessing metacognition in ePortfolios across varied contexts. The purpose of this study was to identify evidence of metacognition across ePortfolios of three distinct populations of students: traditional-age undergraduates, graduate Education students, and adults returning to school to complete a bachelor’s degree. We set out to explore if and how ePortfolios could support these different learners’ growth as reflective, intentional learners and professionals. Through a qualitative coding process, we identified four key metacognition markers across students’ ePortfolios in these three populations. We conclude students can be guided to engage in metacognition in ways through thoughtful assignment design and assessment process, no matter their context

Prediction of photoperiodic regulators from quantitative gene circuit models

Photoperiod sensors allow physiological adaptation to the changing seasons. The external coincidence hypothesis postulates that a light-responsive regulator is modulated by a circadian rhythm. Sufficient data are available to test this quantitatively in plants, though not yet in animals. In Arabidopsis, the clock-regulated genes CONSTANS (CO) and FLAVIN, KELCH, F-BOX (FKF1) and their lightsensitive proteins are thought to form an external coincidence sensor. We use 40 timeseries of molecular data to model the integration of light and timing information by CO, its target gene FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT), and the circadian clock. Among other predictions, the models show that FKF1 activates FT. We demonstrate experimentally that this effect is independent of the known activation of CO by FKF1, thus we locate a major, novel controller of photoperiodism. External coincidence is part of a complex photoperiod sensor: modelling makes this complexity explicit and may thus contribute to crop improvement

Best practice for motor imagery: a systematic literature review on motor imagery training elements in five different disciplines

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The literature suggests a beneficial effect of motor imagery (MI) if combined with physical practice, but detailed descriptions of MI training session (MITS) elements and temporal parameters are lacking. The aim of this review was to identify the characteristics of a successful MITS and compare these for different disciplines, MI session types, task focus, age, gender and MI modification during intervention.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>An extended systematic literature search using 24 databases was performed for five disciplines: Education, Medicine, Music, Psychology and Sports. References that described an MI intervention that focused on motor skills, performance or strength improvement were included. Information describing 17 MITS elements was extracted based on the PETTLEP (physical, environment, timing, task, learning, emotion, perspective) approach. Seven elements describing the MITS temporal parameters were calculated: study duration, intervention duration, MITS duration, total MITS count, MITS per week, MI trials per MITS and total MI training time.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Both independent reviewers found 96% congruity, which was tested on a random sample of 20% of all references. After selection, 133 studies reporting 141 MI interventions were included. The locations of the MITS and position of the participants during MI were task-specific. Participants received acoustic detailed MI instructions, which were mostly standardised and live. During MI practice, participants kept their eyes closed. MI training was performed from an internal perspective with a kinaesthetic mode. Changes in MI content, duration and dosage were reported in 31 MI interventions. Familiarisation sessions before the start of the MI intervention were mentioned in 17 reports. MI interventions focused with decreasing relevance on motor-, cognitive- and strength-focused tasks. Average study intervention lasted 34 days, with participants practicing MI on average three times per week for 17 minutes, with 34 MI trials. Average total MI time was 178 minutes including 13 MITS. Reporting rate varied between 25.5% and 95.5%.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>MITS elements of successful interventions were individual, supervised and non-directed sessions, added after physical practice. Successful design characteristics were dominant in the Psychology literature, in interventions focusing on motor and strength-related tasks, in interventions with participants aged 20 to 29 years old, and in MI interventions including participants of both genders. Systematic searching of the MI literature was constrained by the lack of a defined MeSH term.</p

“Suppressed by swords and lead”: Radical Polish and Slovak Newspapers Combat Colonialism

For East European migrants, part of acculturating to the US was embracing a “white” frame of mind. This process was facilitated by the Slavic-language press, where African, Asian, and other colonized peoples were often covered in a condescending manner. Yet a counternarrative rejecting white privilege and championing colonized peoples was offered in Communist-affiliated newspapers. For leftist Slovaks, the newspaper Rovnosť ľudu unequivocally condemned American empire and European colonization of Africa and Asia. The paper was one of the few Slavic organs to denounce imperialism and champion anticolonial struggles. In the 1940s, a Polish leftist newspaper, Głos Ludowy, likewise consistently advocated an end to European and American colonialism. Although the Slovak paper was red-baited out of existence by the end of the 1940s, the Polish paper survived until 1979, and into the 1960s championed African and Asian independence movements from Kenya to Algeria to Rhodesia and condemned American adventures in Vietnam and other sites of US imperialism. These newspapers rejected a narrow focus on the immediate concerns of Slavic readers and instead consistently adopted an editorial policy with a transnational, anticolonial focus. The Communist immigrant newspapers indicate that, for a minority of Slavic American workers, solidarity with anticolonial struggles was possible across racial and international divides