Opening Eyes by Opening Classroom Doors: Multicultural Musings of Study Abroad in Italy

Abstract Opening Eyes by Opening Classroom Doors: Multicultural Musings of Study Abroad in Italy This narrative inquiry examines multicultural site-based experiences of five pre-service teachers (early childhood and special education) during a four-week university sponsored study abroad program. Experiential learning (Kolb, 1984) opportunities were created for observations and teaching mini-lessons in Italian classrooms and immersion into Italian culture. The researcher’s study emanates from the pre-service teachers’ daily journal entries, informal conversations, and personal observations of reflections of their developing multicultural understandings, scaffolding upon their rural American backgrounds. To facilitate processing their lived experiences, it was necessary to work from an operational definition of culture (Nieto & Bode, 2012), collecting and interpreting data, and making their unique stories personally meaningful (Connelly and Clandinin, 2006). Conclusions indicate program goals of opening eyes through opening classroom doors were met, stimulating a wider global lens and a more critical, deeper understanding of others, moving beyond generalizations and stereotypes. Keywords: Pre-service teachers, study abroad, multiculturalism, narrative inquir

Evaluation of a Coping Kit of Items to Support Children with Developmental Disorders in the Hospital Setting

This study attempted to answer the question, Do nurses perceive coping kits to be effective at meeting the needs of hospitalized children with developmental disabilities who are at increased risk for challenging behaviors? A cross-sectional post-test survey study design was used, with a convenience sample of 24 registered nurses at a Midwestern free-standing children\u27s hospital. A coping kit with simple communication cards, social script book, and distraction items (toys) was developed to enhance communication and distract children with developmental disabilities (including autism spectrum disorder) undergoing procedures in the hospital. A modified version of Hudson\u27s (2006) intervention effectiveness survey was used to measure the nurse\u27s perception of the effectiveness of the coping kit. Nurses perceived the coping kits to be effective for decreasing their patient\u27s anxiety, calming the child\u27s behavior, and increasing cooperation during procedures. The nurse can develop a plan of care that includes a coping kit to help gain cooperation with the hospitalized child with challenging behaviors

Sodium bicarbonate improves 4 km time trial cycling performance when individualised to time to peak blood bicarbonate in trained male cyclists

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) on 4 km cycling time trial (TT) performance when individualised to a predetermined time to peak blood bicarbonate (HCO3−). Eleven male trained cyclists volunteered for this study (height 1.82 ± 0.80 m, body mass (BM) 86.4 ± 12.9 kg, age 32 ± 9 years, peak power output (PPO) 382 ± 22 W). Two trials were initially conducted to identify time to peak HCO3− following both 0.2 g.kg−1 BM (SBC2) and 0.3 g.kg−1 BM (SBC3) NaHCO3. Thereafter, on three separate occasions using a randomised, double-blind, crossover design, participants completed a 4 km TT following ingestion of either SBC2, SBC3, or a taste-matched placebo (PLA) containing 0.07 g.kg−1 BM sodium chloride (NaCl) at the predetermined individual time to peak HCO3−. Both SBC2 (−8.3 ± 3.5 s; p < 0.001, d = 0.64) and SBC3 (−8.6 ± 5.4 s; p = 0.003, d = 0.66) reduced the time to complete the 4 km TT, with no difference between SBC conditions (mean differ- ence = 0.2 ± 0.2 s; p = 0.87, d = 0.02). These findings suggest trained cyclists may benefit from individualising NaHCO3 ingestion to time to peak HCO3− to enhance 4 km TT performance

Coulomb crystal mass spectrometry in a digital ion trap

We present a mass spectrometric technique for identifying the masses and relative abundances of Coulomb-crystallized ions held in a linear Paul trap. A digital radio-frequency wave form is employed to generate the trapping potential, as this can be cleanly switched off, and static dipolar fields are subsequently applied to the trap electrodes for ion ejection. Close to 100% detection efficiency is demonstrated for Ca+ and CaF+ ions from bicomponent Ca+ − CaF+ Coulomb crystals prepared by the reaction of Ca+ with CH3F. A quantitative linear relationship is observed between ion number and the corresponding integrated time-of-flight (TOF) peak, independent of the ionic species. The technique is applicable to a diverse range of multicomponent Coulomb crystals—demonstrated here for Ca+ − NH3+ − NH4+ and Ca+ − CaOH+ − CaOD+ crystals—and will facilitate the measurement of ion-molecule reaction rates and branching ratios in complicated reaction systems

The effect of phase transitions on the droplet size distribution in homogeneous isotropic turbulence

We investigate the dynamics of an ensemble of discrete aerosol droplets in a homogeneous, isotropic turbulent flow. Our focus is on the stationary distribution of droplet sizes that develops as a result of evaporation and condensation effects. For this purpose we simulate turbulence in a domain with periodic boundary conditions using pseudo-spectral discretization. We solve in addition equations for the temperature and for a scalar field, which represents the background humidity against which the size of the droplets evolves. We apply large-scale forcing of the velocity field to reach a statistically steady state. The droplets are transported by the turbulent field while exchanging heat and mass with the evolving temperature and humidity fields. In this Euler-Lagrange framework, we assume the droplets volume fraction to be sufficiently low to allow one-way coupling of the droplets and turbulence dynamics. The motion of the droplets is time-accurately tracked. The Stokes drag force is included in the equation of motion of the individual droplets. The responsiveness of the droplets to small turbulent scales is directly related to the size of the individual spherical droplets. We perform direct numerical simulation to ultimately obtain the probability density function of the evolving radius of the droplets at different points in time with characteristic heat and mass transfer parameters. We determine the gradual convergence of the distribution function to its statistically stationary state for forced homogeneous, isotropic turbulence

Enhanced Twitter Sentiment Classification Using Contextual Information

The rise in popularity and ubiquity of Twitter has made sentiment analysis of tweets an important and well-covered area of research. However, the 140 character limit imposed on tweets makes it hard to use standard linguistic methods for sentiment classification. On the other hand, what tweets lack in structure they make up with sheer volume and rich metadata. This metadata includes geolocation, temporal and author information. We hypothesize that sentiment is dependent on all these contextual factors. Different locations, times and authors have different emotional valences. In this paper, we explored this hypothesis by utilizing distant supervision to collect millions of labelled tweets from different locations, times and authors. We used this data to analyse the variation of tweet sentiments across different authors, times and locations. Once we explored and understood the relationship between these variables and sentiment, we used a Bayesian approach to combine these variables with more standard linguistic features such as n-grams to create a Twitter sentiment classifier. This combined classifier outperforms the purely linguistic classifier, showing that integrating the rich contextual information available on Twitter into sentiment classification is a promising direction of research.Twitter (Firm

Determinants of curvature constant (W’) of the power duration relationship under normoxia and hypoxia: the effect of pre-exercise alkalosis

Purpose This study investigated the effect of induced alkalosis on the curvature constant (W’) of the power-duration relationship under normoxic and hypoxic conditions. Methods Eleven trained cyclists (mean ± SD) Age: 32 ± 7.2 years; body mass (bm): 77.0 ± 9.2 kg; VO2peak: 59.2 ± 6.8 ml·kg−1·min−1 completed seven laboratory visits which involved the determination of individual time to peak alkalosis following sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) ingestion, an environment specific ramp test (e.g. normoxia and hypoxia) and four x 3 min critical power (CP) tests under different experimental conditions. Participants completed four trials: alkalosis normoxia (ALN); placebo normoxia (PLN); alkalosis hypoxia (ALH); and placebo hypoxia (PLH). Pre-exercise administration of 0.3 g.kg−1 BM of NaHCO3 was used to induce alkalosis. Environmental conditions were set at either normobaric hypoxia (FiO2: 14.5%) or normoxia (FiO2: 20.93%). Results An increase in W’ was observed with pre-exercise alkalosis under both normoxic (PLN: 15.1 ± 6.2 kJ vs. ALN: 17.4 ± 5.1 kJ; P = 0.006) and hypoxic conditions (ALN: 15.2 ± 4.9 kJ vs. ALN: 17.9 ± 5.2 kJ; P < 0.001). Pre-exercise alkalosis resulted in a larger reduction in bicarbonate ion (HCO3 −) concentrations during exercise in both environmental conditions (p < 0.001) and a greater blood lactate accumulation under hypoxia (P = 0.012). Conclusion Pre-exercise alkalosis substantially increased W’ and, therefore, may determine tolerance to exercise above CP under normoxic and hypoxic conditions. This may be due to NaHCO3 increasing HCO3 − buffering capacity to delay exercise-induced acidosis, which may, therefore, enhance anaerobic energy contribution

Mesonic Excitations of QGP: Study with an Effective Model

We study the correlations between quark-antiquark pairs in different quantum number channels in a deconfined plasma by using an effective model of QCD. Using the three flavour PNJL model, the finite temperature spectral functions for different mesonic states are studied at zero and nonzero quark chemical potentials. It is found that in the $\eta$ channel resonance structures survive above the chiral transition temperature \tc, while the kaonic states seem to get washed off just above \tc. The sensitivity of the structures to the anomaly term are carefully investigated.Comment: 15page

On board sampling of the rockfish and lingcod commerical passenger fishing vessel industry in northern and central California, May 1987 to December 1991

From May 1987 to June 1990 and from August to December 1991 Fishery Technicians sampled catches on board 690 Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel (CPFV) trips targeting rockfish and lingcod from the general port areas of Fort Bragg, Bodega Bay, San Francisco, Monterey, and Morro Bay. Data are presented for species composition by port area, year, and month, for catch-per-unit-effort, mean length, and length frequency of lingcod and the 18 most frequently observed rockfish species, and for trends in fishing effort related to fishing time, depth, and distance from port. Total catch estimates are presented based on unadjusted logbook records, logbook records adjusted by sampling data and compliance rates, and effort data from a marine recreational fishing statistics survey. Average catch of kept fish per angler day was 11.8 and average catch of kept fish per angler hour was 3.7. A trend of an increasing frequency of trips to deep (>40 fm) locations was observed in the Bodega Bay, San Francisco, and Monterey areas from 1988 to 1990-91. No trend was evident relative to trip frequency and distance from port. A total of 74 species was observed caught during the study. Rockfishes comprised 88.5% to 97.9% by number of the observed catch by port area. The five most frequently observed species were chilipepper, blue, yellowtail, and widow rockfishes, and bocaccio, with lingcod ranking seventh. In general, mean length and catch-per-angler-hour of sport fishes caught by CPFV anglers varied considerably and did not show steady declines during the study period. However, port-specific areas of major concern were identified for chilipepper, lingcod, and black rockfish, and to a lesser extent brown, canary, vermilion, yelloweye, olive, and widow rockfish. These areas of concern included steadily declining catch rate, steadily declining mean length, and a high percentage of sexually immature fish in the sampled-catch. Recent sampling of the commercial hook-and-line fishery in northern and central California indicated that most species of rockfishes taken by CPFV anglers are also harvested commercially. (261pp.