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• A history of parallel and distributed computing (PDC) technology evolution, from the late 1990s to the present. • Specific ways in which teaching PDC has changed during that timespan. • Descriptions and pictures of a wide variety of Beowulf clusters. • Select software tools specifically designed for PDC education. • A dozen insights reflecting the author's experiences as a PDC educator. Much has changed about parallel and distributed computing (PDC) since the author began teaching the topic in the late 1990s. This paper reviews some of the key changes to the field and describes their impacts on his work as a PDC educator. Such changes include: the availability of free implementations of the message passing interface (MPI) for distributed-memory multiprocessors; the development of the Beowulf cluster; the advent of multicore architectures; the development of free multithreading languages and libraries such as OpenMP; the availability of (relatively) inexpensive manycore accelerator devices (e.g., GPUs); the availability of free software platforms like CUDA, OpenACC, OpenCL, and OpenMP for using accelerators; the development of inexpensive single board computers (SBCs) like the Raspberry Pi, and other changes. The paper details the evolution of PDC education at the author's institution in response to these changes, including curriculum changes, seven different Beowulf cluster designs, and the development of pedagogical tools and techniques specifically for PDC education. The paper also surveys many of the hardware and software infrastructure options available to PDC educators, provides a strategy for choosing among them, and provides practical advice for PDC pedagogy. Through these discussions, the reader may see how much PDC education has changed over the past two decades, identify some areas of PDC that have remained stable during this same time period, and so gain new insight into how to efficiently invest one's time as a PDC educator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to design and validate a tool to measure the three levels (knowledge, skill and attitude) of climate change competence in children aged 10–12 years (pre-teens). The scale was designed on the basis of an exhaustive literature review and the evaluation of a panel of CC experts. The initial model constructed was refined based on a pilot study with 67 children and a new evaluation by the panel of experts. The resulting scale was then validated using the confirmatory composite analysis using partial least squares-structural equation modelling (N = 459). The final scale consists of 30 items divided into the three dimensions of competence and the distribution of items is as follows: 14 in knowledge (three items in biophysical processes, three in causes, three in consequences and three in mitigation), nine in skill (three in consumerism, three in transport and three in energy saving) and nine in attitude (three in worry, three in hope and three in interest). Based on the high loadings obtained in the different sub-dimensions in the validation process, it is determined that the instrument "climate change competence scale in pre-teens" is reliable and suitable for the assessment of competence in students of this age range. • The title of the paper has been modified by revising the language. • First title: Validation of the three-dimensional climate change competence scale in preteens. • Second title: Evaluating Climate Change Competence in Preteens: Instrument Development and Validation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The NMRduino is a compact, cost-effective, sub-MHz NMR spectrometer that utilizes readily available open-source hardware and software components. One of its aims is to simplify the processes of instrument setup and data acquisition control to make experimental NMR spectroscopy accessible to a broader audience. In this introductory paper, the key features and potential applications of NMRduino are described to highlight its versatility both for research and education. [Display omitted] • Versatile, open-source pulse programmer and data acquisition unit for low-frequency magnetic resonance. • Leverages the extensive codebase and support community of the "Arduino" ecosystem. • Suitable for demonstrating magnetic resonance principles in teaching labs • Allows spin hyperpolarization control and detection in nT to mT fields [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Classical weed biological control is hardly practiced in Argentina today. • There is a small community of local experts that work mostly for overseas projects. • The National Strategy on Invasive Alien Species promotes biocontrol initiatives. • A prioritization process is developed to select the best target(s) for biocontrol. • Public awareness and outreach activities could help gain biocontrol public support. Argentina hosted pioneering classical weed biological control projects that were carried out by state institutions between the 1970s and 1990s, at a time when the practice was almost unheard of in Latin America. Despite the early development of these initiatives, the discipline did not prosper and all projects were discontinued. Notwithstanding, Argentina continued to provide biological control agents for the control of weeds in many other parts of the world, ensuring the expertise persisted. Although public concern about invasive plants and chemical-dependent agricultural practices has increased over time, it did not lead to a greater acceptance of classical biological control of weeds, which is still regarded with mistrust or ignored in many public and academic circles alike. Furthermore, there are no systems in place to reach a consensus on declaring weeds as targets for biological control in Argentina. In this paper we discuss different ways in which the community of researchers working in the field in Argentina can help relaunch the biological control of weeds, including the preparation of a prioritized list of target species. A list of this kind would not only reduce costs, but also help in developing trust in the discipline of biological control informing regulators and decision makers in this regard. Prospects are brighter today than a few years ago, but considerable communication and educational work on the benefits of this practice is still required to gain more support before it can effectively be re-implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer architecture courses typically include lab sessions to reinforce, from a practical perspective, concepts and architectural mechanisms studied in lectures. Lab sessions are mainly based on simulation frameworks because they benefit learning. Reading the source code that models certain processor mechanisms allows students to acquire a sound knowledge of how hardware works. Unfortunately, simulators that model current multicore processors are getting more and more complex, which lengthens the learning phase and complicates their use in time-bounded lab sessions. In this paper, we propose a new approach that complements the use of simulation frameworks in lab sessions of computer architecture courses. This approach is based on performing experiments on current commercial processors, where multiple hardware events related to the performance of the computer components under study are monitored. Then, students analyze the measured events and how they impact the overall performance. Such analysis motivates students and, not only helps reinforcing the theoretical concepts, but also increases their analysis skills. In this paper we present the methodology and scheduling framework that support the proposed approach and discuss five lab sessions, which can be applied in different courses, covering multiple computer architecture topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the debate on institutions and economic development by examining the historical link between land access inequality and education. Using information from the 464 districts existent in mid-19th century Spain, this paper confirms that there is a negative relationship between the fraction of farm labourers and male literacy rates. This result does not disappear when a large set of potential confounding factors are included in the analysis. The use of the Reconquest as a quasi-natural experiment allows us to rule out further concerns about potential endogeneity. In addition, controlling for different sources of spatial dependence does not explain away this result either. By analysing the rural–urban divide and the gender-specific information on the number of schools and teachers, as well as schooling enrolment rates, this paper also explores the mechanisms behind the observed relationship. As well as supply factors, our results show that demand effects also played a significant role in explaining the negative impact of inequality on education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The EasyPAP environment allows students to really focus on parallelism while developing OpenMP, OpenCL or MPI kernels. • Interactive display of increasingly optimized variants of a 2D kernel help to popularize HPC. • Linking CPUs and image tiles in monitoring windows allow to better understand scheduling policies. • Linking tasks and image tiles when visualizing port mortem execution traces help to diagnose parallel efficiency issues. This paper presents EasyPAP , an easy-to-use programming environment designed to help students to learn parallel programming. EasyPAP features a wide range of 2D computation kernels that the students are invited to parallelize using Pthreads, OpenMP, OpenCL or MPI. Execution of kernels can be interactively visualized, and powerful monitoring tools allow students to observe both the scheduling of computations and the assignment of 2D tiles to threads/processes. By focusing on algorithms and data distribution, students can experiment with diverse code variants and tune multiple parameters, resulting in richer problem exploration and faster progress towards efficient solutions. We present selected lab assignments which illustrate how EasyPAP improves the way students explore parallel programming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fast evolution of multicore processors makes it difficult for professors to offer computer architecture courses with updated contents. To deal with this shortcoming that could discourage students, the most appropriate solution is a research-oriented course based on current microprocessor industry trends. Additionally, we also seek to improve the students’ skills by applying active learning methodologies, where teachers act as guiders and resource providers while students take the responsibility for their learning. In this paper, we present the Advanced Multicore Architecture (AMA) course, which follows a research-oriented approach to introduce students in architectural breakthroughs and uses active learning methodologies to enable students to develop practical research skills such as critical analysis of research papers or communication abilities. To this end five main activities are used: (i) lectures dealing with key theoretical concepts, (ii) paper review & discussion, (iii) research-oriented practical exercises, (iv) lab sessions with a state-of-the-art multicore simulator, and (v) paper presentation. An important part of all these activities is driven by active learning methodologies. Special emphasis is put on the practical side by allocating 40% of the time to labs and exercises. This work also includes an assessment study that analyzes both the course contents and the used methodology (both of them compared to other courses). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Epilepsy awareness days around the world are playing a significant role in increasing epilepsy awareness but have not been researched. • We sought to find out what these days the world was, their nature, and roles in relation to the Intersectoral Global Action Plan (IGAP). • We found global awareness days (n = 2), awareness months (n = 4), regional awareness weeks (n = 5), regional awareness days (n = 1), and national awareness days (n = 7). • We concluded that if epilepsy awareness days are cost-effective, contextual, and collaborative, more could be achieved during the 10 years the IGAP is running. This research sought to find out the epilepsy awareness days around the world and understand the nature and role of the days in the fight against epilepsy in relation to the Intersectoral Global Action Plan (IGAP) on epilepsy and other neurological disorders (2022–2031). We conducted a review of journal articles. The databases that we searched were ProQuest Central, EBSCOhost Academic Search Complete, EBSCO Medline, PubMed Central, Wiley Online, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), African Journals Online (AJOL), and Google Scholar. We limited our search to papers of relevance to our subject published between January 2000 and January 2023. We searched 'epilepsy awareness day, week, or month'. From the databases, 13 articles met our inclusion criteria. We augmented our results with a search on Google of articles about epilepsy awareness day, week, or month. We also searched directly on the websites of epilepsy organizations. We found that epilepsy awareness days fall into these categories: global awareness days (n = 2), awareness months (n = 4), regional awareness weeks (n = 5), and regional awareness days (n = 1). Our search for national awareness days (n = 7) was not comprehensive, and this could be an area for future research. The literature shows that epilepsy awareness days could play a role in (1) reducing knowledge and treatment gaps, (2) increasing participation, (3) unlocking resources, and (4) necessitating policy change and increasing networking. The major role of these dedicated days in the IGAP is to accelerate awareness and advocacy for policy change and improved interventions. Epilepsy awareness days are bringing stakeholders together already, and IGAP initiatives could tap into this achievement to accelerate awareness in a cost effective, contextual and collaborative manner. This could be achieved by adopting themes that relate more directly to the IGAP goals. Another important strategy is to motivate countries that do not have national epilepsy days or regions that do not have a regional awareness days, to consider doing one within the confines of resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the results of a study aimed at charting the spread and development of the mathematical sciences in Sardinia over the period from 1720, the year in which the island was awarded to the Savoy dynasty following the Treaty of The Hague, to 1848, the year in which King Charles Albert of Sardinia placed Sardinia on a level political and administrative footing with the Kingdom's mainland territory. In particular, the paper analyses the role played in the transmission and spread of mathematics by the Savoy educational institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The aim of this study was to investigate how tissue characteristics influence psychomotor planning and performance during a suturing task. Our hypothesis was that participants would alter their technique based on tissue type with each subsequent stitch placed while suturing. Materials and methods Surgical attendings ( n = 6), residents ( n = 4), and medical students ( n = 5) performed three interrupted sutures on different simulated materials as follows: foam (dense connective tissue), rubber balloons (artery), and tissue paper (friable tissue). An optical motion tracking system captured performance data from participants' bilateral hand movements. Path length and suture time were segmented by each individual stitch placed to investigate changes to psychomotor performance with subsequent stitch placements. Repeated measures analysis of variance was used to evaluate for main effects of stitch order on path length and suture time and interactions between stitch order, material, and experience. Results When participants sutured the tissue paper, they changed their procedure time (F(4,44) = 5.14, P = 0.017) and path length (F(4,44) = 4.64, P = 0.003) in a linear fashion with the first stitch on the tissue paper having the longest procedure time and path length. Participants did not change their path lengths and procedure times when placing subsequent stitches in the foam ( P = 0.910) and balloon materials ( P = 0.769). Conclusions This study demonstrates quantifiable real-time adaptation by participants to material characteristics during a suturing task. Participants improved their motion-based performance with each subsequent stitch placement indicating changes in psychomotor planning or performance. This adaptation did not occur with the less difficult tasks. Motion capture technology is a promising method for investigating surgical performance and how surgeons adapt to operative complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current paper focuses on White British students in lower secondary education and investigates the effect of school ethnic diversity on their levels of trust and inclusive attitudes towards immigrants. Use is made of panel data of the Citizenship Education Longitudinal Study (CELS) to explore these relationships. Ethnic diversity is measured with the proportion of students in a grade identifying with a minority. In agreement with contact theory, the paper initially finds a positive relation between diversity and inclusive attitudes on immigrants. However, this link disappears once controls for social background, gender and prior levels of the outcome are included in the model. This indicates that students with particular pre-enrollment characteristics have self-selected in diverse schools and that inclusive attitudes have stabilized before secondary education. Diversity further appears to have a negative impact on trust, irrespective of the number of controls added to the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colour recording is a crucial aspect of rock art documentation. In this paper, we evaluate different systems to record the colour of rock art and propose a system to describe and communicate it in a reproducible and non-subjective way. Recording and communication of colour in rock art studies, and in general in archaeology, has been treated as dissociated dimensions. Colour rendition charts incorporated into photographic scenes have been used for recording. This process tries to preserve pictures with colours as close as possible to reality. In addition, the use of subjective terms for description and communication of colour has been replaced by the use of standard colour charts (Pantone, Munsell) that are still based on the naked eye observation of the researcher. During recent years, other systems, such as spectroradiometers, colourimeters or mobile platform apps for recording of colour, have been seen as alternatives. Some of these procedures lack internal corroboration or are useful only for recording or only for communication but not for both purposes. That limitation is a contradiction to the basis of colourimetry, the science of colour. The system proposed in this paper contends with the recording and communication of colour in rock art in a comprehensive, reliable and reproducible way, from digital photographic recording to the final communication of colour in publications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patients with epilepsy (PWE) have a significantly higher prevalence of psychiatric comorbid disorders involving depression, anxiety, psychotic, and attention-deficit disorders compared with the general population or patients with other chronic medical conditions. Currently, there is no systematic approach in the evaluation and management of psychiatric comorbidities in these patients. In addition, neurologists are not trained to recognize these disorders, and consequently, they remain undertreated. Despite the high prevalence of psychiatric comorbidities in patients evaluated for epilepsy surgery, most epilepsy centers in North America do not include a psychiatric evaluation as part of the presurgical work-up. Despite the intimate relationship between psychiatric comorbidities and epilepsy, collaboration between epileptologists and psychiatrists is sparse at best and nonexistent at worse. The purpose of this paper was to highlight and try to understand the causes behind the persistent lack in communication between neurologists and psychiatrists, the gap in the training of neurologists on psychiatric aspects of neurologic disorders and vice versa and to propose new initiatives to fix the problem. This article is part of the Special Issue "Obstacles of Treatment of Psychiatric Comorbidities in Epilepsy". • This article analyzes the reasons behind the lack of identification of psychiatric comorbidities by neurologists in patients with epilepsy. • This complex problem includes a lack of communication between neurologists and psychiatrists, the existence of serious gaps in the training of neurologists on psychiatric aspects of neurologic disorders (and vice-versa), and finally, the limited access to mental health services for these patients. • The article proposes strategies that can be implemented to optimize the training of Neurology and Psychiatry residents in these areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are highly prevalent illnesses, but the literature suggests they are under-detected and suboptimally managed by primary care practitioners (PCPs). In this paper, we propose and use an evaluation method, using digitally simulated patients (avatars) to evaluate the diagnostic and therapeutic reasoning of PCPs and compared it to the traditional use of paper-based cases. Verbal (think-aloud) protocols were captured in the context of a diagnostic and therapeutic reasoning task. Propositional and semantic representational analysis of simulation data during evaluation, showed specific deficiencies in PCP reasoning, suggesting a promise of this technology in training and evaluation in mental health. Avatars are flexible and easily modifiable and are also a cost-effective and easy-to-disseminate educational tool. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract Background The use of surgical video has great potential to enhance surgical education, but there exists limited information about how to effectively use surgical videos. We performed a systematic review of video technology in surgical training and provided evidence-based recommendations for its effective use. Materials and methods A systematic review of literature on surgical video in residency education was conducted. All articles meeting inclusion criteria were evaluated for technical characteristics pertaining to video usage. Included studies were critically appraised using a quality-scoring system. Recommendations were provided for the effective implementation of video in surgical education based on associations with improved training outcomes. Results Twenty articles met inclusion criteria. In these studies, the source of video acquisition was primarily laparoscopy (40.0% of papers), and the main perspective of video was endoscopy (45.0%). Features of videos included supplementation with other educational tools (55.0%), schematic diagrams or images (50.0%), audio (40.0%), and narration (25.0%). Videos were primarily viewed preoperatively (60.0%) or postoperatively (50.0%). The intended viewer for videos was usually residents (70.0%) but also included attendings/faculty (30.0%). When compared with a nonvideo training group, video training was associated with improved resident knowledge (100%), improved operative performance (81.3%), and greater participant satisfaction (100%). Conclusions Based on this review, we recommend that surgical training programs incorporate schematics and imaging into video, supplement video with other education tools, and utilize audio in video. For video review, we recommend that residents review video preoperatively and postoperatively for learning and that attendings review video postoperatively for assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The review emphasizes strengths-based perspectives on minority children's educational experiences. • We examine advances in education research made since the integrative model was 1st published. • Recommendations for future research and theory development are discussed. Abstract In 1996, Garcia Coll and colleagues published a theoretical article detailing the many ways an integrative approach to studying minority child development is necessary. Advances in theory and methods since have pushed forward our thinking about how minority youth develop and achieve educational success in school contexts. This paper reviews research and theory since the 1996 article on ethnic minority children and adolescents in the US school system, attending to how empirical evidence and methods have supported the integrative model. Ethnic minority children's competencies are emphasized. We also highlight areas of growth needed in this research subfield, as well as specific ideas for using mixed-methodologies in the study of ethnic minority children. Particular attention is paid to the unique developmental competencies ethnic and racial minority youth must develop in order to be successful in the US school system, and implications for policy and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have been working on developing a low-cost tabletop NMR system. We reported that a field homogeneity as high as 50 ppm was achieved with a simple NMR magnet by employing two facing ferrite magnets with iron disks in between (Chonlathep et al., 2017). In this paper, we report two improvements added to our previous system: (1) an FPGA based signal processing unit to improve the S/N ratio and (2) a simple shimming mechanism to improve the field homogeneity. We obtained as high as 1 ppm field homogeneity in the best case. The signals from hydrogen nuclear spins in a methyl and carboxy group in acetic acid were resolved in NMR spectra. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the concept of educational utilization as an overlooked part of the education-to-work transition and a potential mechanism by which occupational sex segregation is generated among the college-educated labor force. The paper begins with a critical discussion of the operationalization approaches that have been used in prior research that implicitly measures educational utilization. Multiple empirical measure of the concept are then developed using data from the O*NET and the National Surveys of College Graduates. The explanatory power of each measure is assessed using conditional logit models of occupational attainment. A combined measure is then used to assess sex differences in educational utilization using data from the 1993 and 2003 National Surveys of College Graduates for 2 cohorts of college graduates—those who earned their baccalaureate or post-baccalaureate degrees and entered the labor market in the years 1985–1993 and 1995–2003. The analysis identifies sex differences in educational utilization that vary across field, degree level and cohort and concludes with an examination of the implications of sex differences in educational utilization for occupational segregation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: [E. Steingrímsson, Statistics on ordered partitions of sets, arXiv: math.CO/0605670] introduced several hard statistics on ordered set partitions and conjectured that their generating functions are related to the q-Stirling numbers of the second kind. In a previous paper, half of these conjectures have been proved by Ishikawa, Kasraoui and Zeng using the transfer-matrix method. In this paper, we shall give bijective proofs of all the conjectures of Steingrímsson. Our basic idea is to encode ordered set partitions by a kind of path diagrams and explore the rich combinatorial properties of the latter structure. As a bonus of our approach, we derive two new σ-partition interpretations of the -Stirling numbers of the second kind introduced by Wachs and White. We also discuss the connections with MacMahon''s theorem on the equidistribution of the inversion number and major index on words and give a partition version of his result. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Recent researchers (Fryer Jr., R.G., Levitt, S.D., 2004. The causes and consequences of distinctly black names. Quarterly Journal of Economics 119 (3); Figlio, D.N., 2003. Names, expectations, and black children’s achievement. Working Paper; Bertrand, M., Mullainathan, S., 2004. Are Emily and George more employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A field experiment on labor market discrimination. American Economic Review 94 (4); Hess, G., Aura, S., 2004. What’s in a name? Working Paper) have shown that people with racially identifiable names tend to have worse economic outcomes, and have tried to explain why. This paper extends this recent literature by deepening the psychological underpinnings of possible answers to this question in the context of undergraduate grades. Using a rich student-level administrative data set, I explore the effects on performance of both first and last name racial identifiability. I test for the presence of effects from either black or Asian names due to differential teacher expectations (Figlio, 2003), conventional teacher discrimination (Bertrand and Mullainathan, 2004), or differences in unobserved ability or racial identity that are correlated with name type and directly affect performance (Fryer and Levitt, 2004; Hess and Aura, 2004). A conceptual and empirical distinction is drawn in the paper between unobserved ability effects and racial identity effects. Name type is found to have little direct influence on performance via any channel. Mild evidence suggests that racial identity may be salient in predicting undergraduate grades. The paper contributes to the literatures in social effects, discrimination, and the burgeoning subfield of economics and identity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Industrialization that Latin America has experienced during the past 50 years, the increase of population and the growth of chemical-related industries has generated a variety of environmental problems that must be addressed. After assessing these profound changes, greater emphasis should be placed on the study of environmental health and toxicology. Latin American countries face many problems that are common to other developing nations. Therefore, there is a demand for safety assessment and regulatory control of chemicals that create a need for increasing numbers of toxicologists. To meet this demand, educational programs in toxicology have to be designed. This paper utilizes a consultation questionnaire that includes toxicology-network members, scientists and educational institutions where toxicology is taught. An analysis of the information collected is made, with an emphasis on what we currently lack and on future challenges for toxicology professionals. Although the response from the study institutions was 65% (13 countries out of 20), the paper aims to assess the present situation of toxicology. The convenience for a certification/recognition for toxicologists is also evaluated. Action needs to be taken to promote scientific development based on regional specific needs that require increasing at the number of toxicology programs, and promoting of cooperation between academics and researchers. Among the limitations we have are the variability of curricula, objectives and priorities. The increasing globalization of markets and regulations requires the harmonization of graduate/postgraduate programs to ensure that risk assessment and management are dealt with uniformly. Cooperation among our countries and international assistance should play a more prominent role in the promotion of regional integration and the more efficient utilization of international experience in defining educational policies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper examines the implications for academic careers of the apparent global trend towards marketisation and managerialism in higher education with reference to the UK and Germany. It discusses how university employers might exercise greater control over their employees, privileging research and international publication, and fragmenting the traditional unity of the academic role. The effect is to challenge the values of academic communities, subject individuals to greater uncertainty, competition and insecurity, and influence the shape and direction of academic careers. The paper notes how today’s academic careers could be understood in terms of Kanter’s three forms of career as well as the boundaryless and protean career. However, it argues that these approaches do not address the key issue in both the UK and German cases: the changed locus and exercise of power within the employment relationship. It concludes that, to understand how careers are changing, this power relationship and the context of career in general have to be taken into account. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Clinical neuropsychology has frequently considered visuospatial and non-verbal tests to be culturally and educationally fair or at least fairer than verbal tests. This paper reviews the cross-cultural differences in performance on visuoperceptual and visuoconstructional ability tasks and analyzes the impact of education and culture on non-verbal neuropsychological measurements. This paper compares: (1) non-verbal test performance among groups with different educational levels, and the same cultural background (inter-education intra-culture comparison); (2) the test performance among groups with the same educational level and different cultural backgrounds (intra-education inter-culture comparisons). Several studies have demonstrated a strong association between educational level and performance on common non-verbal neuropsychological tests. When neuropsychological test performance in different cultural groups is compared, significant differences are evident. Performance on non-verbal tests such as copying figures, drawing maps or listening to tones can be significantly influence by the individual’s culture. Arguments against the use of some current neuropsychological non-verbal instruments, procedures, and norms in the assessment of diverse educational and cultural groups are discussed and possible solutions to this problem are presented. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The ability to accurately evaluate one's understanding of text information is critical for optimum learning to take place. One widely used paradigm for examining the accuracy of individuals' self-assessed comprehension has been termed calibration of comprehension. In this paradigm, students read a passage and are asked to make predictions about their future performance on a comprehension test. Calibration of comprehension is the relation between students' confidence and performance or between predicted and actual performance. In the present paper we review research on calibration of comprehension, examining a number of variables that have been found to influence calibration ability. In the first three sections of our paper we focus on the effects of individual, task, and text variables on students' calibration of comprehension. In the final section, we discuss implications of research on calibration for education and instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children who are born with a profound hearing loss have no or only distorted acoustic speech target to imitate and compare their own production with. Computer based visual feedback, visual presentation of speech on screen has shown to be an effective supplement of incomplete or distorted auditory feedback in the case of children with grave hearing-impairment. In this paper, we introduce a novel prosody teaching system where intensity (accent), intonation and rhythm are presented visually for the students (in both separate and combined display mode) as visual feedback and automatic assessment scores are given jointly and separately for the goodness of intonation and rhythm. Evaluation of the automatic assessment was done with cooperation of experts in the field of treatment of hard of hearing children. The results showed that the automatic assessment scores correspond to the subjective evaluations given by the teachers. The evaluation of the whole system was done in a school for hard of hearing children, by comparing the development of a group of students using our prosody teaching system with the development of a control group. The speaking ability of students were compared by a subjective listening experiment after a 3 months teaching course. The students who used the computer based prosody teaching software could produce nicer prosody than the students in the control group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work describes the design and evaluation of an augmented reality experience using storytelling techniques, aimed at visitors to a literary museum and city tour focused on the famous Italian novelist Italo Svevo, who lived in Trieste between the 19th and the 20th century. The project was initiated by the Svevo Museum’s management in order to augment the space of the small museum, increase the accessibility of its collections and to enhance the experience of the visitors, who are mainly adults and senior people. The project provided the opportunity to explore different research questions. In particular, this paper focuses on the impact in the development process of introducing an AR authoring tool which is accessible to cultural heritage experts. It also explores the relationship between AR technology and storytelling and the feasibility of using AR in literary museums with adult and senior people having little experience in the use of AR technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The establishment of the Commissioners of National Education in 1831 provided Ireland with a non-denominational education system that was aimed at uniting the population. The development and implementation of a state-controlled system of education represents a shift in policy away from a disciplinary mechanism used to proselytise Irish children to that of a governmental technology directed at influencing the conduct of the population. This paper looks at the ideology that influenced Irish national education, how that was representative of a wider imperial ideology, and how the Irish system itself influenced the spread of that ideology. It briefly examines the rationale, structure and operation of the national system, showing the attempt to refocus social relations through encouraging cooperation in the establishment and management of schools. In this way the influence of national education went beyond the classroom to wider society. The influence of Irish education reforms are then examined in respect to those in England and in the Anglophone colonies, notably in Canada and Australia. The direct influence of the Irish system across the British Empire, including the textbooks published in Ireland, represents the development of a wider rationale aimed at changing the conduct of colonists and creating imperial citizens. The Irish national system therefore went far beyond a model for the structure of an educational system, but also encouraged the spread of an imperial ideology that legitimised and secured the governance of colonial authorities across the British Empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a wide variety of commercial bread types and the present study identifies potential pitfalls in consumer evaluations of bread from a health perspective. The aim is to describe consumers' health-related perceptions of bread by exploring which health-related quality attributes consumers associate with bread and whether there are differences with regard to age, gender and education level. A postal and web-based sequential mixed-mode survey (n = 1134, 62% responded online and 38% by paper) with open-ended questions and an elicitation task with pictures of commercial breads were used. Responses were content analyzed and inductively categorized. Three fourths (n = 844) knew of breads they considered healthy; these were most commonly described using terms such as "coarse," "whole grain," "fiber rich," "sourdough," "crisp," "less sugar," "dark," "rye," "seeds," "a commercial brand," "homemade" and "kernels." The breads were perceived as healthy mainly because they "contain fiber," are "good for the stomach," have good "satiation" and beneficial "glycemic properties." The frequency of several elicited attributes and health effects differed as a function of age group (18-44 vs. 45-80 years), gender and education level group (up to secondary education vs. university). Difficulties identifying healthy bread were perceived as a barrier for consumption especially among consumers with a lower education level. Several of the health effects important to consumers cannot be communicated on food packages and consumers must therefore use their own cues to identify these properties. This may lead to consumers being misled especially if a bread is labeled e.g., as a sourdough bread or a rye bread, despite a low content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is generally argued that, in the context of Imperial Germany, public primary education was used to form “loyal citizens” and to build a nation. In this paper we analyze to what extent state spending on primary education affected participation at general elections and votes for pro-nationalist parties. We combine census data on the composition of school funding with federal election data at the level of 199 constituencies in five-year intervals from 1886 to 1911. Panel estimates of models with constituency and time-fixed effects show that an increase in the share of central spending is positively related to the vote share for pro-nationalist parties. Results on voter turnout are weaker and less clear cut. Estimates of models with lagged state spending by category of expenditure are consistent with the role of indoctrination of public primary education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article determines two learning-theoretic combinatorial parameters, the teaching dimension and the recursive teaching dimension, for various families of pattern languages over alphabets of varying size. Our results and formal proofs are of relevance to recent studies in computational learning theory as well as in formal language theory. This is an expanded and corrected version of an earlier paper by Mazadi et al. (2014). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science communication is becoming an increasingly important part of a scientist’s remit, and engaging with primary and secondary schools is one frequently chosen strategy. Here we argue that science communication in schools will be more effective if based on good understanding of the realities of school life, which can be achieved through structured participation and/or collaboration with teachers. For example, the Manchester Fly Facility advocates the use of the fruit fly Drosophila as an important research strategy for the discovery processes in the biomedical sciences. To communicate this concept also in schools, we developed the ‘droso4schools’ project as a refined form of scientist-teacher collaboration that embraces the expertise and interests of teachers. Within this project, we place university students as teaching assistants in university partner schools to collaborate with teachers and develop biology lessons with adjunct support materials. These lessons teach curriculum-relevant biology topics by making use of the profound conceptual understanding existing in Drosophila combined with parallel examples taken from human biology. By performing easy to implement experiments with flies, we bring living organisms into these lessons, thus endeavouring to further enhance the pupil’s learning experience. In this way, we do not talk about flies but rather work with flies as powerful teaching tools to convey mainstream curriculum biology content, whilst also bringing across the relevance of Drosophila research. Through making these lessons freely available online, they have the potential to reach out to teachers and scientists worldwide. In this paper, we share our experiences and strategies to provide ideas for scientists engaging with schools, including the application of the droso4schools project as a paradigm for long-term school engagement which can be adapted also to other areas of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the need for multicore-aware programmers rises in both science and industry, Computer Science departments in universities around the USA are having to rethink their parallel computing curriculum. At Rice University, this rethinking took the shape of COMP 322, an introductory parallel programming course that is required for all Bachelors students. COMP 322 teaches students to reason about the behavior of parallel programs, educating them in both the high level abstractions of task-parallel programming as well as the nitty gritty details of working with threads in Java. In this paper, we detail the structure, principles, and experiences of COMP 322, gained from 6 years of teaching parallel programming to second-year undergraduates. We describe in detail two particularly useful tools that have been integrated into the curriculum: the HJlibparallel programming library and the Habanero Autograder for parallel programs. We present this work with the hope that it will help augment improvements to parallel computing education at other universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thanks to the ubiquity of multicore processors, today’s CS students must be introduced to parallel computing or they will be ill prepared as modern software developers. Professional developers of parallel software think in terms of parallel design patterns , which are markedly different from traditional (sequential) design patterns. It follows that the more we can teach students to think in terms of parallel patterns, the more their thinking will resemble that of parallel software professionals. In this paper, we present patternlets —minimalist, scalable, syntactically correct programs, each designed to introduce students to a particular parallel design pattern. The collection currently includes 44 patternlets (16 MPI, 17 OpenMP, 9 Pthreads, and 2 heterogeneous), of which we present a representative sample. We also present data that indicate the use of patternlets to introduce parallelism in CS2 produced a modest improvement in student understanding of parallel concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computer Science students must understand parallel and distributed computing (PDC) concepts to be effective computer scientists in the workforce, as reflected in the 2013 ACM Curriculum guidelines. Significant work has been done by CS educators to develop curriculum materials and increase access to parallel compute environments (PCEs) by leveraging and clustering a plethora of small multicore systems. Even with these resources there is a barrier to entry for students to use PCEs, namely the unfamiliar and complex system software ecosystem of modern PCEs. The OnRamp project lowers that barrier to entry for exploring PDC concepts on a variety of PCEs by abstracting away the details of interacting with the system and focuses the students’ attention on the PDC concepts. This top-down approach is in contrast to existing approaches involving all aspects of PDC necessarily being taught before the key concepts can be explored. In this paper we discuss the motivation, design and implementation of OnRamp, a general purpose web portal for supporting the exploration of PDC concepts that harnesses the existing educational resources created by the CS education community. It coaches students through interactive modules that teach them about PDC concepts and PCEs while allowing them to launch parallel applications from day one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By introducing parallelism in introductory programming courses, all computer science students can receive a basic understanding of this crucial topic. Such an early introduction, however, has many challenges. This paper first presents a fall 2013 comparison of two Computer Science I (CS1) sections, leading to a conclusion emphasizing the importance of devoting sufficient time to a sufficiently small set of parallelism topics. Six additional CS1 sections are then considered, offered from spring 2014 through spring 2016 by three different instructors. Five of these removed coverage of Java thread programming due to challenges found in fall 2013, only to show measurably reduced effectiveness of the parallelism module. Thus a new thread programming integration strategy is presented, as done in spring 2016. This strategy includes active out-of-class activities that split the disparate challenges of Java thread programming into distinct exercises. Results demonstrate improved student interest and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A ring R is said to be left pure-hereditary (resp. RD -hereditary) if every left ideal of R is pure-projective (resp. RD -projective). In this paper, some properties and examples of these rings, which are nontrivial generalizations of hereditary rings, are given. For instance, we show that if R is a left RD -hereditary left nonsingular ring, then R is left Noetherian if and only if u . dim ( R R ) < ∞ . Also, we show that a ring R is quasi-Frobenius if and only if R is a left FGF, left coherent right pure-injective ring. A ring R is said to be left FP-hereditary if every left ideal of R is FP-projective. It is shown that if R is a left CF ring, then R is left Noetherian if and only if R is left pure-hereditary, if and only if R is left FP-hereditary, if and only if R is left coherent. It is shown that every left self-injective left FP-hereditary ring is semiperfect. Finally, it is shown that a ring R is left FP-hereditary (resp. left coherent) if and only if every submodule (resp. finitely generated submodule) of a projective left R -module is FP-projective, if and only if every pure factor module of an injective left R -module is injective (resp. FP-injective), if and only if for each FP-injective left R -module U , E ( U ) / U is injective (resp. FP-injective). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the factors determining variations in spatial rates of overeducation. A quantile regression model has been implemented on a sample of region-yearly data drawn from the EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) and several institutional and macroeconomic features captured from other data-sets. Potential determinants of overeducation rates include factors such as labour market risk, financial aid to university students, excess labour demand and institutional factors. We find significant effects both for labour market structural imbalances and institutional factors. The research supports the findings of micro based studies which have found that overeducation is consistent with an assignment interpretation of the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A traditional education system, based on the Confucian classics, was a pillar of imperial China's social structure for centuries, preparing elites for a series of highly competitive exams conferring gentry status and civil service positions. Reformers in late imperial China called for the modernization of educational institutions, seeing in Western education the skills necessary to develop China's economy. In the late 19th century, the traditional education system was joined by a “modern”, Western track, which offered teaching in science, math, social science, law, and engineering. In this paper, early 20th century employee records from the Tianjin-Pukou Railroad are analyzed to identify differences in labor market outcomes associated with study in the traditional and modern educational systems. The employee records reveal that modern and traditional education were both associated with wage premiums, but that these were significantly larger for individuals trained at high levels in the modern system, especially those trained in engineering. Individuals trained in the traditional system worked disproportionately in the clerical department of the railroad, while those with modern education were more often in managerial and technical roles. Qualitative and quantitative evidence suggests that these results are not driven by sorting into educational institutions according to ability. These findings indicate that beyond years of schooling, the content of schooling can play an important role in the process of economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tests the hypothesis that the cultural distance between migrants and natives impedes the provision of public goods. The Taiping Rebellion was a shock that caused groups without a history of shared governance to be relocated to the same region. We use a unique historical dataset of surnames in the Lower Yangzi of China to construct a measure of the cultural distance between migrants and natives (MNCD). We find that a one-standard-deviation increase in the MNCD is associated with a decrease of over 0.19 public primary schools per 10,000 persons in the early twentieth century. The results survive various robustness checks and an instrumental variable analysis that exploits the pre-existing cultural distances between the native and the nearby population. Evidence from the timing of when the MNCD takes effect suggests that the primary mechanism runs from migrant-native cultural distance through quality of collective decision-making to modern primary education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the paper was to investigate (a) similarities and differences in cultural perspectives, self-concept, and school motivation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australian students; and (b) the relative influences of self-concept, motivation, and cultural perspectives on academic engagement. Data were collected from Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students in Years 3 to 6 from 52 primary schools in metropolitan Sydney ( N  = 1745). Students completed a questionnaire asking about three cultural perspective factors (Aboriginal perspective, cultural diversity, and cultural identity), school self-concept, two motivation factors (a mastery approach goal and a performance approach goal), and a behavioral outcome (academic engagement). Results indicated that Aboriginal students were higher in all three cultural perspectives, but did not differ much from non-Aboriginal students in school self-concept, motivation, and academic engagement. For both groups cultural diversity, cultural identity, school self-concept, and a mastery approach goal orientation were positive predictors of academic engagement. A performance approach goal orientation was not a significant predictor of engagement but higher SES and being female were positive predictors. The findings suggest that teachers should understand the importance of promoting a positive sense of culture in the classroom to better engage students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Support Vector Regression (SVR) is a popular supervised data-driven approach for building empirical models from available data. Like all data-driven methods, under non-stationary environmental and operational conditions it needs to be provided with adaptive learning capabilities, which might become computationally burdensome with large datasets cumulating dynamically. In this paper, a cost-efficient online adaptive learning approach is proposed for SVR by combining Feature Vector Selection (FVS) and Incremental and Decremental Learning. The proposed approach adaptively modifies the model only when different pattern drifts are detected according to proposed criteria. Two tolerance parameters are introduced in the approach to control the computational complexity, reduce the influence of the intrinsic noise in the data and avoid the overfitting problem of SVR. Comparisons of the prediction results is made with other online learning approaches e.g. NORMA, SOGA, KRLS, Incremental Learning, on several artificial datasets and a real case study concerning time series prediction based on data recorded on a component of a nuclear power generation system. The performance indicators MSE and MARE computed on the test dataset demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed online learning method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Demonstrations, rallies, boycotts, and other forms of protest were common under apartheid in South Africa. Using a compilation of more than 150 geocoded protests between 1948 and 1990, this paper compares people affected and unaffected by protests at every age throughout childhood. Exposure to protests before age 14 was associated with 2.7 percent fewer years of completed schooling. This difference was larger following violent protests, and for African residents of South Africa. On the other hand, people who experienced protests as children were up to 6.9 percent more likely to be employed as adults. The paper considers social solidarity as a possible channel connecting protests to changes in education and employment, and finds that places that had more protests during apartheid had lower reported levels of trust and physical safety in the years after apartheid ended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the effects of exposure to toxic chemicals, and individual airborne metals in particular, in early childhood on school-level standardized test performance a decade later. The analysis links the cohort-level proficiency of primary school students born in the United States in the early 2000s to Toxics Release Inventory exposure, exploiting variation in the timing and magnitude of toxicity risk within public school catchment areas to estimate the impact of early exposure on educational outcomes. Estimates of airborne toxicity, which account for composition, may better correspond to human health risks from air pollution than total fine particulates. One standard deviation higher aggregate airborne toxicity in the catchment area during the year in which most students were born causes cohorts to perform 0.016 standard deviations worse on statewide tests. Finally, airborne chromium is identified as a driver of this effect: a ten percent change in ambient chromium concentrations during the first year of life causes a decrease in standardized test proficiency of 0.01 standard deviations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Printed maps are the most common tool to prepare people for emergency evacuation in contexts such as public buildings or transportation. Unfortunately, they are poorly understood and often ignored by people. Virtual environments (VEs) could be a more effective method to support people in acquiring spatial knowledge about the real-world environment to evacuate. This paper pursues three main goals. First, we propose a VE-based tool to support spatial knowledge acquisition for evacuation purposes, using aviation as a real-world domain in which such knowledge is crucial for passengers’ safety. Second, we study in detail one of the VE design choices (active or passive navigation), comparing a version of our tool in which users navigate by actively controlling their position with another version in which users are passively led along pre-defined routes. Third, we contrast the two versions of the tool with the traditional, printed diagrammatic map provided to passengers by airlines. Results of our study show that the VE-based approach produces objectively better spatial knowledge when users are asked to pinpoint their assigned position in the environment, and that active navigation produces a performance improvement in a subsequent virtual evacuation. Moreover, the VE-based approach is perceived as more enjoyable, easier to comprehend and more effective than printed maps when active navigation is available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effective education can support people with epilepsy to develop the attributes and skills required to function as equal partners with clinical service providers, make informed decisions, and competently self-manage their healthcare. However, despite knowledge deficits, unmet information needs, and a poor sense of empowerment, the study of education for people with epilepsy is often neglected and is a poorly understood component of holistic practice within epilepsy healthcare. Historically, the only debate with regard to education and people with epilepsy has been guided either within a positivist or within a constructivist philosophy. We argue that new pedagogies are warranted, recognizing the views of people with epilepsy regarding their illness. Therefore, this paper explores the potential of an educational framework for people with epilepsy based upon critical social theory (CST). By utilizing a CST approach for education, people with epilepsy are engaged with as active ‘participants’. This is a key difference that distinguishes CST from other metatheoretical frameworks. It has the potential to support people with epilepsy to acquire the skills and confidence to manage the biopsychosocial challenges associated with their condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the association between mass education and married women’s experience with domestic violence in rural Nepal. Previous research on domestic violence in South Asian societies emphasizes patriarchal ideology and the widespread subordinate status of women within their communities and families. The recent spread of mass education is likely to shift these gendered dynamics, thereby lowering women’s likelihood of experiencing domestic violence. Using data from 1775 currently married women from the Chitwan Valley Family Study in Nepal, we provide a thorough analysis of how the spread of mass education is associated with domestic violence among married women. The results show that women’s childhood access to school, their parents’ schooling, their own schooling, and their husbands’ schooling are each associated with their lower likelihood of experiencing domestic violence. Indeed, husbands’ education has a particularly strong, inverse association with women’s likelihood of experiencing domestic violence. These associations suggest that the proliferation of mass education will lead to a marked decline in women’s experience with domestic violence in Nepal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Boardgames pervasive in Iron Age southern Africa. • Boardgames played a vital role in education, skills development and relaxation. • Boardgames were played across class, age, and gender categories. • Meanings and names of boardgames in southern Africa different to that of other regions of the Indian Ocean. What games did the inhabitants of ancient southern Africa play to enrich their lives during the Iron Age (500–1900 CE)? We address this question by drawing from archaeological fingerprints of board games (tsoro / mufuvha) documented at farmer and forager sites in different parts of southern Africa. The typology of games and their spatial locations in the archaeology were compared with historical and contemporary gaming in selected African communities to map continuity and change in social significance temporally and spatially. Within limitations imposed by a lack of well-resolved chronologies for the material remains of board games, the comparison provided a platform to make inferences about how and why the games were played in the everyday life of Iron Age communities. Based on the strong correlation between the ethnographic and archaeological data, the conclusion of the paper is that board games were played for edutainment, skills development, gambling, and social engineering. However, this is tentative and opens possibilities for further research into the role of indigenous games in the development of ancient southern African communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of worker displacement on health in the United States from 1975–2004, especially the extent to which the impact of displacement on health varies according to the economic conditions in the year of displacement and the education level of the displaced worker. Findings from ordered probit and fixed effects models suggest that the negative impact of displacement on health is exacerbated by a higher unemployment rate at the time of displacement and for displaced workers with a college degree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]