Sexual revictimization prevention: An outcome evaluation.

This investigation tested a program to reduce women's risk for sexual revictimization. Participants were 66 women with histories of sexual victimization as adolescents or adults who were randomly assigned to a preventive intervention group or a no-treatment control group. They completed initial measures assessing history of sexual assault, self-efficacy, and psychological functioning, returning approximately 2 months later for follow-up assessment using the same measures. Results suggest that the prevention program may be effective in reducing the incidence of sexual assault revictimization in this population. In addition, participants in the intervention group displayed significant improvement in psychological adjustment and self-reported self-efficacy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

继承与创新:Innovasic Fido微控制器

上世纪最早出现的CISC(复杂指令集计算机)计算机结构,现又悄然兴起--Xilinx,Tensilica,Sun Microsystems和Power联盟等组织带头复兴CISC计算机结构.     

Effectiveness of user testing and heuristic evaluation as a function of performance classification

For different levels of user performance, different types of information are processed and users will make different types of errors. Based on the error's immediate cause and the information being processed, usability problems can be classified into three categories. They are usability problems associated with skill-based, rule-based and knowledge-based levels of performance. In this paper, a user interface for a Web-based software program was evaluated with two usability evaluation methods, user testing and heuristic evaluation. The experiment discovered that the heuristic evaluation with human factor experts is more effective than user testing in identifying usability problems associated with skill-based and rule-based levels of performance. User testing is more effective than heuristic evaluation in finding usability problems associated with the knowledge-based level of performance. The practical application of this research is also discussed in the paper.     

Students’ expectation,confirmation, and continuance intention to use electronic textbooks

Technology applied to education has produced numerous changes. One of these changes is the availability of electronic textbooks. However, the adoption of electronic textbooks has been slower than anticipated. This research examines adoption of electronic textbooks through studying electronic textbook users’ continuance intentions. Data for the model were collected using a survey of university students. The questionnaire was web-based and distributed using a student listserv. The sample consisted of 469 usable responses received from students who had previously used an electronic textbook. The theoretical model was analyzed using structural equations modeling and maximum likelihood estimation applied to the sample. A confirmatory factor analysis was also performed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the measures for the constructs in the theoretical model. The psychometric properties of the measures were good. The fit of the measured theoretical model to the data was also good and all the paths in the measurement and structural models were statistically significant. The structural model shows that confirmation influences perceived usefulness of electronic textbooks and satisfaction with electronic textbooks. Satisfaction and perceived usefulness of electronic textbooks influence electronic textbook continuance intention. Implications and conclusions based on these findings were also provided.     

Understanding internet recruitment via signaling theory and the elaboration likelihood model

A detailed model specifying the linkages between Internet recruitment websites and organizational attraction was examined. Participants (N = 581) viewed Fortune 500 company websites and responded to questions about the content and design of these websites and their resulting attitudes, fit perceptions, and organizational attraction. Results showed that recruitment website content and design influence attitudes toward the recruitment websites, organizational attitudes, and subsequently organizational attraction. The moderating effects of person-organization (P-O) and person-job (P-J) fit were examined. Two sets of hypotheses based on signaling theory (  and ) and the elaboration likelihood model ( Petty & Cacioppo, 1981) were largely supported. Consistent with signaling theory, the amount of job and organizational information on a recruitment website interacted with website usability, such that when less job information was presented, website usability played a greater role in predicting favorable attitudes towards the organization. Consistent with the elaboration likelihood model, when P-J fit was high, website aesthetics were less important in predicting attitudes towards the organization.     

Characterizing Discourse Among Undergraduate Researchers in an Inquiry‐Based Community of Practice

Engineering education increasingly incorporates pedagogies that promote guided, inquiry‐based, active learning within authentic “communities of practice”. Such pedagogies apply observations made about workplace interaction: that knowledge is distributed across social and physical networks. However, the process through which multiple dimensions of learning occur within a network of distributed cognition—where every person contributes to the learning of every other person—calls for further investigation. The present study, set in an active learning environment, identifies seven speech events that characterize linguistic processes of distributed cognition among undergraduate researchers in the Research Communications Studio (RCS) at the University of South Carolina. Close analysis of a small group session in the RCS revealed that participants enact critique, elicitation of critique, internalization, (direct and indirect) instruction, contextualization, explanation, and collaborative negotiation of knowledge throughout their interactions. Awareness of these speech events, which emerged from the analysis, may better equip engineering educators to optimize interactions in other active group learning environments and to facilitate such activities in more traditional pedagogical settings.     

Promotion of lung adenocarcinoma following inhalation exposure to multi-walled carbon nanotubes

Background

Engineered carbon nanotubes are currently used in many consumer and industrial products such as paints, sunscreens, cosmetics, toiletries, electronic processes and industrial lubricants. Carbon nanotubes are among the more widely used nanoparticles and come in two major commercial forms, single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) and the more rigid, multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT). The low density and small size of these particles makes respiratory exposures likely. Many of the potential health hazards have not been investigated, including their potential for carcinogenicity. We, therefore, utilized a two stage initiation/promotion protocol to determine whether inhaled MWCNT act as a complete carcinogen and/or promote the growth of cells with existing DNA damage. Six week old, male, B6C3F1 mice received a single intraperitoneal (ip) injection of either the initiator methylcholanthrene(MCA, 10 μg/g BW, i.p.), or vehicle (corn oil). One week after i.p. injections, mice were exposed by inhalation to MWCNT (5 mg/m³, 5 hours/day, 5 days/week) or filtered air (controls) for a total of 15 days. At 17 months post-exposure, mice were euthanized and examined for lung tumor formation.

Results

Twenty-three percent of the filtered air controls, 26.5% of the MWCNT-exposed, and 51.9% of the MCA-exposed mice, had lung bronchiolo-alveolar adenomas and lung adenocarcinomas. The average number of tumors per mouse was 0.25, 0.81 and 0.38 respectively. By contrast, 90.5% of the mice which received MCA followed by MWCNT had bronchiolo-alveolar adenomas and adenocarcinomas with an average of 2.9 tumors per mouse 17months after exposure. Indeed, 62% of the mice exposed to MCA followed by MWCNT had bronchiolo-alveolar adenocarcinomas compared to 13% of the mice that received filtered air, 22% of the MCA-exposed, or 14% of the MWCNT-exposed. Mice with early morbidity resulting in euthanasia had the highest rate of metastatic disease. Three mice exposed to both MCA and MWCNT that were euthanized early had lung adenocarcinoma with evidence of metastasis (5.5%). Five mice (9%) exposed to MCA and MWCNT and 1 (1.6%) exposed to MCA developed serosal tumors morphologically consistent with sarcomatous mesotheliomas, whereas mice administered MWCNT or air alone did not develop similar neoplasms.

Conclusions

These data demonstrate that some MWCNT exposures promote the growth and neoplastic progression of initiated lung cells in B6C3F1 mice. In this study, the mouse MWCNT lung burden of 31.2 μg/mouse approximates feasible human occupational exposures. Therefore, the results of this study indicate that caution should be used to limit human exposures to MWCNT.     

Cuticular Hydrocarbons of Termites of the British Virgin Islands

A survey of the termites (Isoptera) of 17 islands of the British Virgin Island (BVI) complex yielded eight taxa belonging to three families. The Kalotermitidae include Neotermes mona (Banks), Cryptotermes brevis (Walker), Procryptotermes corniceps (Snyder), and an undetermined species of Incisitermes, likely Incisitermes nr snyderi (Light) or I. incisus (Silvestri). The only rhinotermitid collected is an undetermined species of Heterotermes (Froggatt). Parvitermes wolcotti (Snyder), Nasutitermes costalis (Holmgren), and N. acajutlae (Holmgren) comprise the Termitidae. Cuticular hydrocarbon mixtures were characterized for each of the taxa. Blends of abundant hydrocarbons are species-specific and can be used to identify a given taxon without the diagnostic castes, soldiers, or imagoes, although the species of Incisitermes were not separable on the basis of cuticular hydrocarbons.