Infusing social emotional learning into the teacher education curriculum

Research supports the importance of policies and interventions to infuse social emotional curricula in schools. The role of teachers in supporting young children’s social and emotional readiness for classroom learning has been recognized, but instruction in children’s well-being and social emotional competence is a low priority in teacher preparation programs. In this study we, used qualitative methods to examine whether we could successfully infuse an undergraduate curriculum and instructional course with social emotional learning content. The article reports on this effort, and considered the following questions: How can courses infused with SEL content impact prospective teachers’ views on the overall role of emotions in the classroom? What is the influence of the course on preservice teachers’ conceptions of SEL and its association with children’s classroom learning and behavior? How can teacher preparation programs encourage prospective teachers to consider children’s social emotional skills once they enter the classroom as teachers? At course end, the 15 enrolled students responded to predetermined questions as part of a self-reflection assignment. Using grounded theory methods, three themes were identified from participants’ reflections, including the connection between SEL and academic learning, shifting from teacher- to student-centered pedagogy, and the desire for continued learning related to SEL. An in-depth examination of these themes revealed that SEL concepts can be successfully infused in an undergraduate course on curriculum and instruction. Implications for teacher training are discussed and future avenues for research are presented.peer-reviewe

Convergent variational calculation of positronium-hydrogen-atom scattering lengths

We present a convergent variational basis-set calculational scheme for elastic scattering of positronium atom by hydrogen atom in S wave. Highly correlated trial functions with appropriate symmetry are needed for achieving convergence. We report convergent results for scattering lengths in atomic units for both singlet ($=3.49\pm 0.20$) and triplet ($=2.46\pm 0.10$) states.Comment: 11 pages, 1 postscript figure, Accepted in J. Phys. B (Letter

A Prospective Study Comparing Distance-based vs. Time-based Exercise Prescriptions of Walking and Running in Previously Sedentary Overweight Adults

International Journal of Exercise Science 10(5): 782-798, 2017. Prior work has reported that the declines observed in body mass index (BMI) and circumference measurements in their cross-sectional data were twice as large when calculated from distance energy expenditure estimations compared to energy expenditure estimations based on time and intensity. The primary purpose of this study was to compare walking/running for distance to walking/running for time as part of an exercise intervention. This study followed a between-subjects, repeated measures design. Fifteen overweight, but otherwise healthy participants completed the study. The time-based group walked/ran for self-reported time while the distance-based group walked/ran for self-reported distance. A mixed-factor repeated-measures ANOVA was used to compare all dependent variables both within-subjects and between-subjects. Weekly adherence rates to the exercise program did not exhibit a significant difference (p \u3e 0.05). Significant interactions were shown for mean body mass loss between groups as well as mean blood glucose level (p \u3c 0.05). Distance-based group exhibited a decline in body mass and blood glucose while the time-based group exhibited an increase in both variables. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study is the first to directly compare a distance-based vs. a time-based exercise program for walking and running for improvement of risk factors of cardiovascular disease. The results of this study would suggest that a distance-based exercise prescription of walking or running should provide a clinician or researcher with a closer estimation of overall accumulated exercise and resultant weight loss

The Ursinus Weekly, October 28, 1963

69 women pledge sororities at bid signing Saturday • Class of 1966 to sell slaves at Bazaar • Annual Founders Day November 3; Five honorary degrees to be awarded • Navy debate team bows UC 31-29 • Young Democrats begin activities • Halloween reading night October 30 • Indians warpath at Jr. turnabout • Pre-med society hears Dr. French • Biggest bargain of the year: 1964 Ruby sales begin • $8500 scholarships available for Univ. of Hawaii • Editorial: Which way out?; Action, please • Letters to the editor • Conservatism reconsidered: Spencer\u27s article decried • Human understanding theme of presentation • Fundamental need unfilled • Penna. seeks librarians • Groups schedule career conf. • Federal service exam November 23 • Greek gleanings • Kaffee klatsch: Foreign students reception • Bears topple Swarthmore on fine team effort, 14-6 • Player of the week • Soccer team bows twice • Hockey team still undefeatedhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/weekly/1255/thumbnail.jp

Multiplex Networks to Characterize Seizure Development in Traumatic Brain Injury Patients

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) may cause secondary debilitating problems, such as post-traumatic epilepsy (PTE), which occurs with unprovoked recurrent seizures, months or even years after TBI. Currently, the Epilepsy Bioinformatics Study for Antiepileptogenic Therapy (EpiBioS4Rx) has been enrolling moderate-severe TBI patients with the goal to identify biomarkers of epileptogenesis that may help to prevent seizure occurrence and better understand the mechanism underlying PTE. In this work, we used a novel complex network approach based on segmenting T1-weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans in patches of the same dimension (network nodes) and measured pairwise patch similarities using Pearson's correlation (network connections). This network model allowed us to obtain a series of single and multiplex network metrics to comprehensively analyze the different interactions between brain components and capture structural MRI alterations related to seizure development. We used these complex network features to train a Random Forest (RF) classifier and predict, with an accuracy of 70 and a 95% confidence interval of [67, 73%], which subjects from EpiBioS4Rx have had at least one seizure after a TBI. This complex network approach also allowed the identification of the most informative scales and brain areas for the discrimination between the two clinical groups: seizure-free and seizure-affected subjects, demonstrating to be a promising pilot study which, in the future, may serve to identify and validate biomarkers of PTE

Transferability of training benefits differs across neural events: Evidence from ERPs

Humans can show striking capacity limitations in sensorimotor processing. Fortunately, these limitations can be attenuated with training. However, less fortunately, training benefits often remain limited to trained tasks. Recent behavioral observations suggest that the extent to which training transfers may depend on the specific stage of information processing that is being executed. Training benefits for a task that taps the consolidation of sensory information (sensory encoding) transfer to new stimulus–response mappings, whereas benefits for selecting an appropriate action (decision-making/response selection) remain specific to the trained mappings. Therefore, training may have dissociable influences on the neural events underlying subsequent sensorimotor processing stages. Here, we used EEG to investigate this possibility. In a pretraining baseline session, participants completed two four-alternative-choice response time tasks, presented both as a single task and as part of a dual task (with another task). The training group completed a further 3,000 training trials on one of the four-alternative-choice tasks. Hence, one task became trained, whereas the other remained untrained. At test, a negative-going component that is sensitive to sensory-encoding demands (N2) showed increased amplitudes and reduced latencies for trained and untrained mappings relative to a no-train control group. In contrast, the onset of the stimulus-locked lateralized readiness potential, a component that reflects the activation of motor plans, was reduced only for tasks that employed trained stimulus–response mappings, relative to untrained stimulus–response mappings and controls. Collectively, these results show that training benefits are dissociable for the brain events that reflect distinct sensorimotor processing stages

Rotation measure variations for 20 millisecond pulsars

We report on variations in the mean position angle of the 20 millisecond pulsars being observed as part of the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) project. It is found that the observed variations are dominated by changes in the Faraday rotation occurring in the Earth's ionosphere. Two ionospheric models are used to correct for the ionospheric contribution and it is found that one based on the International Reference Ionosphere gave the best results. Little or no significant long-term variation in interstellar RM was found with limits typically about 0.1 rad m$^{-2}$ yr$^{-1}$ in absolute value. In a few cases, apparently significant RM variations over timescales of a few 100 days or more were seen. These are unlikely to be due to localised magnetised regions crossing the line of sight since the implied magnetic fields are too high. Most probably they are statistical fluctuations due to random spatial and temporal variations in the interstellar electron density and magnetic field along the line of sight.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Scienc

Changing impacts of Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone tsunamis in California under future sea-level rise

The amplification of coastal hazards such as distant-source tsunamis under future relative sea-level rise (RSLR) is poorly constrained. In southern California, the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone has been identified as an earthquake source region of particular concern for a worst-case scenario distant-source tsunami. Here, we explore how RSLR over the next century will influence future maximum nearshore tsunami heights (MNTH) at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Earthquake and tsunami modeling combined with local probabilistic RSLR projections show the increased potential for more frequent, relatively low magnitude earthquakes to produce distant-source tsunamis that exceed historically observed MNTH. By 2100, under RSLR projections for a high-emissions representative concentration pathway (RCP8.5), the earthquake magnitude required to produce \u3e1 m MNTH falls from ~Mw9.1 (required today) to Mw8.0, a magnitude that is ~6.7 times more frequent along the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone