Obituary: Clarence James Leuba (1899–1985).

Presents an obituary for Clarence J. Leuba. Leuba spent a large part of his career (from 1930 to 1962) as chair of the Department of Psychology at Antioch College. At Antioch he was a pioneer in student counseling and in new teaching methods. Feeling that the lecture method was inadequate, he established small student-led discussion groups that could be monitored directly by the professor who was close at hand to offer aid or advice without being intrusive. He was a prolific writer, authoring numerous articles, chapters in others' books, and his own books, and was active in numerous professional organizations. In terms of Leuba's lifework, his principal contribution to psychology was his emphasis on the integration of the many aspects of the field that were developing in his lifetime and that were, too often in his view, not on speaking terms with each other. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The road not taken: Understanding the implications of initial uncertainty in evaluating spatial directions.

In a developmental study of sustained cognitive monitoring, 21 2nd graders, 21 6th graders, and 21 college students followed a 2-part sequence of spatial directions and then judged whether they could be sure they had reached the destination intended by the direction giver. Some directions were constructed such that the 1st part was referentially ambiguous and such that the 2nd part, although seemingly unambiguous in itself, failed to clarify the initial ambiguity and consequently left the intended destination still uncertain. Although the younger Ss understood and could recall that the initial part of the directions was ambiguous, they tended to disregard this information when making their judgments, concluding incorrectly that they could be sure they were at the intended destination because the 2nd part seemed unambiguous. In contrast, the older Ss tended to keep the initial ambiguity in mind, analyze the relation between the 2 parts, and conclude correctly that they could not be sure. Cognitive monitoring skills of the general type examined in this study appear to be useful in many real-world cognitive enterprises. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Frontiers of current research: Section introduction.

This article introduces the special section in the current issue of the American Psychologist. The articles in this section appear in two groups. The first is titled "Developmental Perspectives"; the second is titled "Learning and Teaching." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Instructional Hierarchy: A conceptual model for understanding the effective components of reading interventions.

Examines the Instructional Hierarchy, a conceptual framework for refining the notion of academic responding according to a learning hierarchy and describing treatment components (e.g., modeling, drill, reinforcement, etc.) that correspond to different stages of the learning hierarchy. Academic responding occurs within the context of classroom curricular activities. Teachers allocate time to instruction; students are either academically engaged or not engaged during that time. The research on the relationship between different treatment components and student responding is reviewed and recommendations for the practice of academic intervention in reading and for future research in this area are made. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparison of behaviors elicited by electrical brain stimulation in dorsal brain stem and hypothalamus of rats.

Investigated 4 brain-stimulation phenomena elicited from both dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic sites, using a total of 20 male albino Holtzman Sprague-Dawley rats. Results show that (a) intracranial self-stimulation rate-intensity functions for dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic sites yielded very high (over 1,000 responses/15 min) to moderate (201-500 responses/15 min) response rates; (b) dextroamphetamine produced higher response rates than either levoamphetamine or saline at both dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic sites, indicating that noradrenergic dorsal brain stem fibers (or cell bodies) support intracranial self-stimulation; (c) dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic self-stimulation sites reliably produced escape behavior; (d) simultaneous stimulation of dorsal brain stem and hypothalamic sites at subthreshold intensities interacted to produce suprathreshold response rates. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Dual Selection Module for Directed Evolution of Genetic Circuits

We have developed a genetic selection module which enables us to select for positive and negative expression of a gene by controlling the expression of two antibiotic resistance genes. This module can be used to tune the performance of genetic circuits that yield simple ON/OFF gene expression outputs depending on the environment (input). We have demonstrated the utility of the module by selecting a genetic inverter from a 200 fold excess of nonfunctional inverters in two rounds.     

Collaboration and Teamwork: Immersion and Presence in an Online Learning Environment

In the world of OTIS, an online Internet School for occupational therapists, students from four European countries were encouraged to work collaboratively through problem-based learning by interacting with each other in a virtual semi-immersive environment. This paper describes, often in their own words, the experience of European occupational therapy students working together across national and cultural boundaries. Collaboration and teamwork were facilitated exclusively through an online environment, since the students never met each other physically during the OTIS pilot course. The aim of the paper is to explore the observations that (1) there was little interaction between students from different tutorial groups and (2) virtual teamwork developed in each of the cross-cultural tutorial groups. Synchronous data from the students was captured during tutorial sessions and peer-booked meetings and analyzed using the qualitative constructs of immersion, presence and reflection in learning. The findings indicate that immersion was experienced only to a certain extent. However, students found both presence and shared presence, within their tutorial groups, to help collaboration and teamwork. Other evidence suggests that communities of interest were established. Further study is proposed to support group work in an online learning environment. It is possible to conclude that collaborative systems can be designed, which encourage students to build trust and teamwork in a cross cultural online learning environment.This revised version was published online in March 2005 with corrections to the cover dateFunded by the European Union through the TENTelecom programme.     

Identification of some marine oil constituents by chromatography

Summary and Conclusion A scheme for the separation and identification of some constituents of marine oils was developed. A preliminary separation on a silicic acid column with five solvent systems was followed by further separation and identification on silicic acid impregnated glass-fiber filter paper. This method can be used successfully for qualitative determinations, but the irregularities in the density of the glass paper prevent an accurate quantitative assay. Supported, in part, by grants from the Fish and Wildlife Service of the United States Department of the Interior, the Robert A. Welch Foundation, and the Office of Naval Research.     

Thermodynamically calculated phase diagrams for the Co-Cr-Ta and Co-Cr-Nb systems

Phase diagrams for the Co-Cr-Ta and Co-Cr-Nb systems have been calculated from thermodynamic data for the binary systems involved. Eleven isothermal sections for temperatures between 2200 and 1500 K are given. The calculations are in good agreement with the limited available experimental phase diagram data for these systems.