W.R.I.T.E: Writing’s Role in Thoughtful Endeavors

“Mathematicians actually spend a great deal of time writing. If a mathematician wants to contribute to the greater body of mathematical knowledge, she must be able communicate her ideas in a way which is comprehensible to others.” Lee, 2014, pg. 1 Why should our students be different from the mathematicians Lee (2014) refers to in the quote above? Learning mathematics requires a confluence of spoken, written and mathematically abstract languages. After all, who thinks entirely in mathematical symbols? No one, except a few mathematical thinkers who are live in the abstract worlds they construct. Thinking about mathematics in the language we speak is one way to learn. Therefore, it is natural to have students write about mathematics to learn the content and deal with the emotions that often arise when studying what many find to be a challenging, abstract subject

Crossing the race divide : interracial sex in antebellum Savannah

This article explores the social significance of inter-racial sexual contact in an antebellum Southern city. How did inter-racial sex challenge the established social hierarchy in Savannah? Was it a controversial issue, viewed as a threat to the social order, or was it accepted as an inevitable evil resulting from a mixed population residing in close proximity

The nature of emotional support and counselling provision for people with sight loss in the United Kingdom

People with sight loss in the United Kingdom are known to have lower levels of emotional wellbeing and to be at higher risk of depression. Consequently ‘having someone to talk to’ is an important priority for people with visual impairment. An on-line survey of the provision of emotional support and counselling for people affected by sight loss across the UK was undertaken. The survey was distributed widely and received 182 responses. There were more services offering ‘emotional support’, in the form of listening and information and advice giving, than offered ‘counselling’. Services were delivered by providers with differing qualifications in a variety of formats. Waiting times were fairly short and clients presented with a wide range of issues. Funding came from a range of sources, but many felt their funding was vulnerable. Conclusions have been drawn about the need for a national standardised framework for the provision of emotional support and counselling services for blind and partially sighted people in the U

Breaking Through the Noise: Literacy Teachers in the Face of Accountability, Evaluation, and Reform

In an era of increased accountability, it is important to understand how exemplary teachers navigate the demands placed on them by their schools, districts, and states in order to support student learning aligned with their beliefs of effective instruction. To understand these negotiations, tensions facing exemplary literacy teachers were examined through a qualitative interview study. Participants included nineteen experienced PK-6th grade teachers from across the U.S. Results of the study indicate that teachers experience discrepancies between their beliefs and state and local mandates, and they discuss a variety of strategies for negotiating these discrepancies. Findings suggest that schools can support effective literacy instruction by cultivating cultures of autonomy for teachers and strengthening teachers’ sense of agency

Personality Differences between Physical Education and Psychology Majors at SUNY Cortland

The role of assertive tendencies and gender roles in the prediction of career related potential is a connection that has been studied by many researchers and many inventories have been developed to assess these traits. Therefore, it is important that the psychological community continues to study and reevaluate both new potential predictors of career success, and replicate previous studies to verify that findings of the past continue to be sound today with the rapidly changing gender roles. Our study examines two different personality traits that have been shown to influence career path decisions. Two personality tests, which have been shown to be reliable in assessing different aspects of personality are the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) and the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule (RAS). Based on previous research, we hypothesized that students from different majors, who take both the BSRI and the RAS, would have a statistically significant difference in scores. Both tests were administered to 50 SUNY Cortland students (29 Psychology Majors and 21 Physical Education Majors). This study found that the BSRI and the RAS were reliable in evaluating gender roles and assertiveness, respectively. A statistically significant correlation was found between gender roles, masculine and feminine characteristics from the BSRI, and Assertiveness from the RAS [r = .605, p \u3c .01] using the Pearson –Product – Moment Correlation. There were also unexpected findings between scores on the RAS and scores on the Need for Cognition Scale, which warrant further examination

Are Principals Prepared to Lead in Schools with Diverse Student Populations Using Invitational Leadership?

This inquiry sought to create meaning via an invitational leadership lens about how principals are prepared to lead in schools with diverse student populations. Data revealed principals’ perceptions about preparation related to invitational leadership emphasized contradictions between principals’ inviting-oriented rhetoric and their underlying beliefs regarding diverse student populations. Implications include opportunities that principal preparation programs include invitational leadership at the forefront of social justice leadership, as they prepare leaders working with diverse student populations

Determinants of Agricultural Landowners’ Willingness to Supply Open Space Through Conservation Easements

Open space provides a range of benefits to many people of a community, beyond the benefits that accrue to private landowners. Parks and natural areas can be used for recreation; wetlands and forests supply storm-water drainage and wildlife habitat; farms and forests provide aesthetic benefits to surrounding residents. Moreover, undeveloped land can give relief from congestion. Agricultural lands are an important source of open space, but many of these lands are under great development pressure. One tool that is currently being used to aid in the preservation of open space by landowners is conservation easements. The rate of land protection by state and local land trusts has tripled since the beginning of the decade, and the West is the fastest growing region for both the number of acres under conservation easements and number of land trusts according to the Land Trust Alliance. Given the increased demand for amenities provided by private agricultural lands and the increased use of conservation easements, it is interesting to note that there is a paucity of research related to landowners’ preferences regarding conservation easements. The specific research objective of this paper is to determine important factors affecting an agricultural landowners’ potential choice regarding the placement of a parcel of land under a conservation easement. Knowing these factors could be useful to communities, public organizations and land trusts trying to provide open space to meet a growing demand for this public good. Information to construct a survey was obtained through a series of focus groups held in Wyoming and Colorado. Results from these focus groups were then used to develop twelve versions of a stated choice survey instrument. The first part of the survey included questions about the landowner’s specific community. These Likert scale questions were to designed to elicit a measurement of the respondents’ “sense of place” regarding his or her community. The second part of the survey questioned participants about their land and their land’s attributes, including what the landowner felt his land was worth, types of production and non-production activities land was used for, the types of developmental pressures being felt by the landowner, and the kinds of amenities he would like to conserve on his property. The third section of the survey included questions about the landowner’s personal knowledge of easements and two stated choice questions regarding conservation easements. These stated choice questions focused on five attributes: contract length, managerial control, wildlife habitat, access and payment. The final section of the survey asked respondents about demographic characteristics. Data were analyzed as a multinomial logit random utility model in LIMDEP. Respondents preferred an easement that was in perpetuity over an easement that was term in length. Respondents were less likely to accept an easement if public access on their property was required. As payment proportion in relation to the respondents’ perception of the value of their land went up, so did the likelihood that they would accept the easement. Landowners in Colorado were more likely to accept an easement than landowners in Wyoming. This is somewhat expected as developmental pressures in Colorado are higher than Wyoming, and thus far more easements have been transacted in Colorado than in Wyoming. Years on the land and connection to community were significant in explaining the acceptance of an easement scenario. The more connected one was to their community, the more likely they were to accept an easement. The longer a respondent had lived on their land, the more likely they were to accept an easement as well. The level of education a respondent had achieved negatively impacted easement acceptance. If an easement was already in place on a respondents’ property, the likelihood of accepting an easement scenario increased significantly.Land Economics/Use,

Bone Tissue Engineering Scaffolds: Function of Multi-Material Hierarchically Structured Scaffolds

Bone tissue engineering (BTE) is a topic of interest for the last decade, and advances in materials, processing techniques, and the understanding of bone healing pathways have opened new avenues of research. The dual responsibility of BTE scaffolds in providing load-bearing capability and interaction with the local extracellular matrix to promote bone healing is a challenge in synthetic scaffolds. This article describes the usage and processing of multi-materials and hierarchical structures to mimic the structure of natural bone tissues to function as bioactive and load-bearing synthetic scaffolds. The first part of this literature review describes the physiology of bone healing responses and the interactions at different stages of bone repair. The following section reviews the available literature on biomaterials used for BTE scaffolds followed by some multi-material approaches. The next section discusses the impact of the scaffold's structural features on bone healing and the necessity of a hierarchical distribution in the scaffold structure. Finally, the last section of this review highlights the emerging trends in BTE scaffold developments that can inspire new tissue engineering strategies and truly develop the next generation of synthetic scaffolds

Effect of bisphosphonates on the osteogenic activity of osteoprogenitor cells cultured on titanium surfaces

Purpose: This study investigated the effects of bisphosphonates (BPs) namely Alendronate (ALN) and Zoledronate (ZA) on the osteogenic activity of osteoprogenitor cells cultured on titanium surfaces at therapeutic doses in order to assess if altered osteoblastogenesis could compromise osseointegration and contribute in etiopathogenesis of painful disorders like BPrelated Osteonecrosis of the Jaw (BRONJ) following implant placement. Materials and Methods: MC3T3-E1 Subclone 4 cells were utilised in this study. Therapeutic doses of ALN and ZA were calculated based off reported peak plasma concentrations. The viability, proliferation, adhesion, and mineralisation potential of cells was assessed using a LIVE/DEAD stain, alamarBlue® assay, immunofluorescence microscopy, and Alizarin Red S staining respectively. Results: Therapeutic doses of ZA negatively affected cell viability, whereas therapeutic doses of ALN significantly enhanced cell differentiation and the amount of bone formation compared to the control. Conclusions: The findings of this study may provide some insight into the pathogenesis of BRONJ developing following implant placement in patients treated with ZA and may have promising implications towards improved wound healing and osseointegration in patients treated with ALN

Using satellites to investigate the sensitivity of longwave downward radiation to water vapor at high elevations

Many studies suggest that high-elevation regions may be among the most sensitive to future climate change. However, in situ observations in these often remote locations are too sparse to determine the feedbacks responsible for enhanced warming rates. One of these feedbacks is associated with the sensitivity of longwave downward radiation (LDR) to changes in water vapor, with the sensitivity being particularly large in many high-elevation regions where the average water vapor is often low. We show that satellite retrievals from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) can be used to expand the current ground-based observational database and that the monthly averaged clear-sky satellite estimates of humidity and LDR are in good agreement with the well-instrumented Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies ground-based site in the southwestern Colorado Rocky Mountains. The relationship between MODIS-retrieved precipitable water vapor and surface specific humidity across the contiguous United States was found to be similar to that previously found for the Alps. More important, we show that satellites capture the nonlinear relationship between LDR and water vapor and confirm that LDR is especially sensitive to changes in water vapor at high elevations in several midlatitude mountain ranges. Because the global population depends on adequate fresh water, much of which has its source in high mountains, it is critically important to understand how climate will change there. We demonstrate that satellites can be used to investigate these feedbacks in high-elevation regions where the coverage of surface-based observations is insufficient to do so