Content Area Textbooks--Waste Not…

In helping students to read content area textbooks, there are Four Basic Areas of Concern: Word Recognition, Vocabulary, Comprehension, and Study Skills

Acquiring automaticity of basic math facts and the effect that this has on overall mathematic achievement

The purpose of this study was to prove, through a systematic approach, that teaching addition facts to mastery would improve the mathematics scores of second grade students. This study attempted to demonstrate that if a desired level of automatic recall of basic facts was achieved students would show improved scores on a nationally standardized test. Basic math facts were taught to a group of students over several months and they were tested daily on speed and accuracy. Standardized test scores were then compared from the end of first grade (prior to the intervention) and end of second grade scores (after the intervention) for each child who participated in the experimental group. This group was then compared to a group that had no intervention to see if there was a significant level of improvement, as measured by their end of first grade and end of second grade standardized test scores. The findings to the research question were that there were no differences, statistically, in the pretest calculation abilities of the control or experimental groups, and there were no differences, statistically, in the posttest calculation abilities of the control or experimental groups. However, it can be concluded that individual students made significant gains with the extensive drill and practice. Further research with a larger group of subjects may lead to more significantly favorable findings

The Vital Network: An Algorithmic Milieu of Communication and Control

The biological turn in computing has influenced the development of algorithmic control and what I call the vital network: a dynamic, relational, and generative assemblage that is self-organizing in response to the heterogeneity of contemporary network processes, connections, and communication. I discuss this biological turn in computation and control for communication alongside historically significant developments in cybernetics that set out the foundation for the development of self-regulating computer systems. Control is shifting away from models that historically relied on the human-animal model of cognition to govern communication and control, as in early cybernetics and computer science, to a decentred, nonhuman model of control by algorithm for communication and networks. To illustrate the rise of contemporary algorithmic control, I outline a particular example, that of the biologically-inspired routing algorithm known as a ‘quorum sensing’ algorithm. The increasing expansion of algorithms as a sense-making apparatus is important in the context of social media, but also in the subsystems that coordinate networked flows of information. In that domain, algorithms are not inferring categories of identity, sociality, and practice associated with Internet consumers, rather, these algorithms are designed to act on information flows as they are transmitted along the network. The development of autonomous control realized through the power of the algorithm to monitor, sort, organize, determine, and transmit communication is the form of control emerging as a postscript to Gilles Deleuze’s ‘postscript on societies of control.

The Interaction Model of Client Health Behavior as a conceptual guide in the explanation of children\u27s health behaviors

This study used the Interaction Model of Client Health Behavior (IMCHB) as a conceptual guide to explain the correlates of children\u27s diet and physical activity and explore the relationships of sex with their diet and physical activity of the school-aged child. A descriptive correlational study was conducted on 371 fifth-grade students and their parents. Information on the family\u27s demographics, health experience, social influence, and environmental resources was collected, as well as data on the children\u27s intrinsic motivation, cognitive appraisal, and affective response to food/physical activity. Children\u27s self-reports on diet and physical activity were collected, as were parents\u27 self-reports on health habits. Food preferences and diet self-efficacy explained the most variance in diet behavior for girls and boys. Girls scored healthier on food preferences and diet self-efficacy than did boys, but no difference was detected in their diet behavior. Girls participated in more low-intensity physical activity, but boys participated in more high-intensity physical activity than did girls. Findings provide strong support for the use of the IMCHB to explain children\u27s diet but weak support for the explanation of children\u27s physical activity. Further study of additional factors predictive of physical activity is indicated

Policy Dilemmas in India - The Impact of Changes in Agricultural Prices on Rural and Urban Poverty

Trade policy reforms which lead to changes in world prices of agricultural commodities or domestic policies aimed at affecting agricultural prices are often seen as causing a policy dilemma : a fall in agricultural prices benefits poor urban consumers but hurts poor rural producers, while a rise yields the converse. Poor countries have argued that they need to be able to use import protection and/or price support policies to protect themselves against volatility in world agricultural prices in order to dampen these effects. In this paper, we explore this dilemma in a CGE model of India that uses a new social accounting matrix (SAM) developed at the Indira Ghandi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) in Mumbai. The SAM includes extensive disaggregation of agricultural activities, commodity markets, labor markets, and rural and urban households. This SAM includes 115 commodities, 48 labor types and 352 types of households, (classified by social group, income class, region, and urban/rural). The CGE model based on this SAM can be used to explore the linkages between changes in world prices of agriculture and the incomes of poor rural and urban households, capturing rural-urban linkages in both commodity and factor markets. The results indicate that the inclusion of linkages between rural and urban labor markets is necessary to fully explore, and potentially eliminate, the dilemma. A fall in agricultural prices hurts agricultural producers, lowers wages and/or employment of rural labor, and in some cases spills over into urban labor markets, depressing wages and incomes of poor urban households as well. In these cases both rural and urban poverty increases. The paper explores the strength of these commodity and factor market linkages, and the potential spillover effects of policies affecting agricultural prices.Doha negotiations, India trade policy, World prices, Labour Market, CGE model

Saving lives or raising revenue: Analysing media coverage of the alcopops tax in light of the evidence on its effects

The Australian Government increased the tax on ready-to-drink (RTD) alcohol beverages in 2008, in order to address concerns about increasing alcohol consumption among young people. This decision resulted in significant debate and discussion in the media, and in academic circles. The aim of the current study was to examine media coverage of the debate – and particularly the arguments posed in favour of and against the tax – now that we have objective evidence of its impact. We find that business owners and industry groups were vocal in the media, raising a number of arguments in opposition to the tax; and that this opposition dominated media coverage, potentially misleading consumers as to the rationale for, and effectiveness of, the „alcopop tax‟

Mutant Tau knock-in mice display frontotemporal dementia relevant behaviour and histopathology

Peer reviewedPostprin