From Baby Formula To Solid Food: How The Influence Of Media Has Nourished Children\u27s Literature

This dissertation juxtaposes children\u27s literature and media and investigates the resulting influence of media on literature. Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin\u27s ideas regarding Remediation in conjunction with Henry Jenkins ideas regarding Convergence Culture provide the framework for my ideas regarding media and their roles in children\u27s literature. One way media influence children\u27s literature is through the realm of nostalgia. Adults reflect on their childhoods and the literature they encountered. Their desires to recreate the truths they recall learning from literature lead them to produce reflective and restorative remediations of texts that allow modern youths new opportunities with canonical texts. Another way media influence children\u27s literature is through the hypermediacy consumer culture creates surrounding popular literature franchises. Marketing companies and fan communities attempt to create immediacy and reality for characters that saturates the reader and is evidenced by toys, games, and interactive websites. This co-mingling of media and literature creates global knowledge communities, including complex fan cultures, which continually challenge readers to participate with texts beyond initial one-time readings. A third way media influence children\u27s literature is through character mediation. A medium is a message delivery system, which means children and young adults become media as they deliver messages from popular culture to one another. Since culture often exposes children and young adults to difficult content, they must decide how they want to mediate their messages. They also must decide if and how they will remediate themselves as they grow and mature due to difficult life circumstances. Authors model this in texts, giving readers the ability to reflect on literature and create restorative remediations of their lives. The final way I discuss media influencing children\u27s literature is through trans-media storytelling. When authors use multiple media to tell a story, they build a world within which readers can engage with the characters and with one another. World building sets the stage for hypertext storytelling, or stories within stories. Since readers are conditioned, from birth, to expect media which correspond with primary texts, authors have the opportunity to participate in co-creation with other authors and media creators to engage readers throughout multiple media

The Principal\u27s Role in Developing the Classroom Management Skills of the Novice Elementary Teacher

The purpose of this qualitative, multi-site case study was to investigate the principal’s role in facilitating the development of classroom management skills of novice teachers. Classroom management is a leading factor affecting the quality of instruction provided to students in public schools. The role of the administrator in supporting the novice teacher’s development as a classroom manager has limited research available, therefore, creating a gap. The rationale of investigating the principal’s role in new teacher classroom management effectiveness was achieved by using the conceptual framework of the principal as an instructional leader. An Instructional Leadership Checklist was utilized to identify three elementary principals within one district that exhibited leadership characteristics as defined by Blase and Blase (2004). The principals and their 20 novice K-5 teachers participated in semi-structured interviews and observations. Cross-case analysis was conducted to determine what leadership behaviors the principals exhibited when supporting novice teachers in classroom management and how the perceptions of new teachers and principals were similar and different. With strong evidence of the behaviors exhibited by principals, five themes were developed: collaboration, communication, professional development, instructional support and discipline support. These five themes and two additional themes (expectations and teacher recognition and feedback) were developed when addressing the similarities and difference of new teacher and principal perceptions of principal support in classroom management. Three findings were found to have common perceptions shared by both principals and teachers: collaboration, instructional support, and professional development. Two findings, communication and expectations, were perceived by principals to be more valuable methods of support. Finally, discipline support, feedback and positive recognition were deemed more vital as supports for teacher classroom management to teachers than principals. As elementary principals strive to support novice teacher classroom management they can benefit from recognizing the impact of their leadership behaviors. Principals can foster new teacher management by cultivating their ability to collaborate and communicate with teachers about classroom management, providing classroom management professional development, setting behavioral expectations, offering instructional and discipline support, and giving new teachers recognition for effective management and specific feedback which can be used to improve management strategies

Rhys Matters: New Critical Perspectives

Nicole Flynn is a contributing author, Clockwork Women: Termporality and Form in Jean Rhys\u27s Interwar Novels. , pp.41-65. Rhys Matters, the first collection of essays focusing on Rhys\u27s writing in over twenty years, encounters her oeuvre from multiple disciplinary perspectives and appreciates the interventions in modernism, postcolonial studies, Caribbean studies, and women\u27s and gender studies.https://openprairie.sdstate.edu/english_book/1011/thumbnail.jp

Measuring oral proficiency in distance, face-to-face, and blended classrooms

Although the foreign-language profession routinely stresses the importance of technology for the curriculum, many teachers still harbor deep-seated doubts as to whether or not a hybrid course, much less a completely distance-learning class, could provide L2 learners with a way to reach linguistic proficiency, especially with respect to oral language skills. In this study, we examine the case of Spanish Without Walls (SWW), a first-year language course offered at the University of California - Davis in both hybrid and distance-learning formats. The SWW curriculum includes materials delivered via CD-ROM/DVD programs, online content-based web pages, and synchronous bimodal chat that includes sound and text. The contribution of each of these components is evaluated in the context of a successful technologically assisted course. To address the issue of oral proficiency, we compare the results from both classroom and distance-learning students who took the 20-minute Versant for Spanish test, delivered by phone and automatically graded. The data generated by this instrument shows that classroom, hybrid, and distance L2 learners reach comparable levels of oral proficiency during their first year of study. Reference is also made to two other ongoing efforts to provide distance-learning courses in Arabic and Punjabi, two languages where special difficulties in their writing systems have an impact on the design of the distant-learning format. The rationale for offering language courses in either a hybrid or distance-learning format is examined in light of increasing societal pressures to help L2 learners reach advanced proficiency, especially in less commonly taught languages (LCTLs)

Effects of low carbohydrate diets high in red meats or poultry, fish and shellfish on plasma lipids and weight loss

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Low carbohydrate diets (LCDs) have been demonstrated to be effective tools for promoting weight loss and an improved plasma lipid profile. Such diets are often associated with increased meat consumption, either poultry, fish, and shellfish (PFS), which are generally high in polyunsaturated fat (PUFA) or red meats (RM), generally high in saturated fat (SFA). The fatty acid profile and content of a diet may influence the plasma lipid profile of humans. This study examined whether the type of meat consumed could influence the outcome of an LCD.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Moderately obese subjects consumed two different LCDs as part of a weight loss regimen: 1) a diet high in foods of mammalian origin (RM) intended to contain more SFA, or 2) a diet high in PFS intended to contain more PUFA. Diet dependent changes in body weight, nutritional intake, and plasma lipids were evaluated during a 28 day study period.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Both diets were associated with significant weight loss after 28 days, -5.26 ± 0.84 kg and -5.74 ± 0.63 kg for RM and PFS groups, respectively. The PFS diet was associated with a significantly higher intake of PUFA and cholesterol. Despite high cholesterol and fat intakes, neither diet was associated with significant changes in plasma cholesterol or the plasma lipoprotein cholesterol profile. While plasma triglycerides were reduced in both groups, the effect was only statistically significant for the PFS diet.</p

Predicting Mid-Life Capital Formation with Pre-School Delay of Gratification and Life-Course Measures of Self-Regulation

How well do pre-school delay of gratification and life-course measures of self-regulation predict mid-life capital formation? We surveyed 113 participants of the 1967–1973 Bing pre-school studies on delay of gratification when they were in their late 40’s. They reported 11 mid-life capital formation outcomes, including net worth, permanent income, absence of high-interest debt, forward-looking behaviors, and educational attainment. To address multiple hypothesis testing and our small sample, we pre-registered an analysis plan of well–powered tests. As predicted, a newly constructed and pre-registered measure derived from preschool delay of gratification does not predict the 11 capital formation variables (i.e., the sign-adjusted average correlation was 0.02). A pre-registered composite self-regulation index, combining preschool delay of gratification with survey measures of self-regulation collected at ages 17, 27, and 37, does predict 10 of the 11 capital formation variables in the expected direction, with an average correlation of 0.19. The inclusion of the preschool delay of gratification measure in this composite index does not affect the index\u27s predictive power. We tested several hypothesized reasons that preschool delay of gratification does not have predictive power for our mid-life capital formation variables

Targeting of P-Element Reporters to Heterochromatic Domains by Transposable Element 1360 in Drosophila melanogaster

Heterochromatin is a common DNA packaging form employed by eukaryotes to constitutively silence transposable elements. Determining which sequences to package as heterochromatin is vital for an organism. Here, we use Drosophila melanogaster to study heterochromatin formation, exploiting position-effect variegation, a process whereby a transgene is silenced stochastically if inserted in proximity to heterochromatin, leading to a variegating phenotype. Previous studies identified the transposable element 1360 as a target for heterochromatin formation. We use transgene reporters with either one or four copies of 1360 to determine if increasing local repeat density can alter the fraction of the genome supporting heterochromatin formation. We find that including 1360 in the reporter increases the frequency with which variegating phenotypes are observed. This increase is due to a greater recovery of insertions at the telomere-associated sequences (∼50% of variegating inserts). In contrast to variegating insertions elsewhere, the phenotype of telomere-associated sequence insertions is largely independent of the presence of 1360 in the reporter. We find that variegating and fully expressed transgenes are located in different types of chromatin and that variegating reporters in the telomere-associated sequences differ from those in pericentric heterochromatin. Indeed, chromatin marks at the transgene insertion site can be used to predict the eye phenotype. Our analysis reveals that increasing the local repeat density (via the transgene reporter) does not enlarge the fraction of the genome supporting heterochromatin formation. Rather, additional copies of 1360 appear to target the reporter to the telomere-associated sequences with greater efficiency, thus leading to an increased recovery of variegating insertions

Household-level and surrounding peri-domestic environmental characteristics associated with malaria vectors Anopheles arabiensis and Anopheles funestus along an urban–rural continuum in Blantyre, Malawi

Abstract Background Malaria is increasing in some recently urbanized areas that historically were considered lower risk. Understanding what drives urban transmission is hampered by inconsistencies in how “urban” contexts are defined. A dichotomized “urban–rural” approach, based on political boundaries may misclassify environments or fail to capture local drivers of risk. Small-scale agriculture in urban or peri-urban settings has been shown to be a major risk determinant. Methods Household-level Anopheles abundance patterns in and around Malawi’s commercial capital of Blantyre (~ 1.9 M pop.) were analysed. Clusters (N = 64) of five houses each located at 2.5 km intervals along eight transects radiating out from Blantyre city centre were sampled during rainy and dry seasons of 2015 and 2016. Mosquito densities were measured inside houses using aspirators to sample resting mosquitoes, and un-baited CDC light traps to sample host seeking mosquitoes. Results Of 38,895 mosquitoes captured, 91% were female and 87% were Culex spp. Anopheles females (N = 5058) were primarily captured in light traps (97%). Anopheles abundance was greater during rainy seasons. Anopheles funestus was more abundant than Anopheles arabiensis, but both were found on all transects, and had similar associations with environmental risk factors. Anopheles funestus and An. arabiensis females significantly increased with distance from the urban centre, but this trend was not consistent across all transects. Presence of small-scale agriculture was predictive of greater Anopheles spp. abundance, even after controlling for urbanicity, number of nets per person, number of under-5-year olds, years of education, and season. Conclusions This study revealed how small-scale agriculture along a rural-to-urban transition was associated with An. arabiensis and An. funestus indoor abundances, and that indoor Anopheles density can be high within Blantyre city limits, particularly where agriculture is present. Typical rural areas with lower house density and greater distance from urban centres reflected landscapes more suitable for Anopheles reproduction and house invasion. However, similar characteristics and elevated Anopheles abundances were also found around some houses within the city limits. Thus, dichotomous designations of “urban” or “rural” can obscure important heterogeneity in the landscape of Plasmodium transmission, suggesting the need for more nuanced assessment of urban malaria risk and prevention efforts.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144215/1/12936_2018_Article_2375.pd