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Long Time Frames (long + time_frame)
Selected AbstractsA Ten-Year Chronicle of Student Attitudes Toward Foreign Language in the Elementary SchoolMODERN LANGUAGE JOURNAL, Issue 2 2007AUDREY L. HEINING, BOYNTON This article reports the results of 2 studies conducted over a 10-year period that researched student attitudes toward early foreign language learning. These studies are unique because of the long time frame in which the students were followed, and the large data sets collected at the elementary school level. Surveys of students in the Foreign Language in the Elementary Schools (FLES) programs examined the attitudes of all children in 2 school systems in North Carolina: one suburban and one urban. The students studied either French or Spanish. The number of responses to the survey questions ranged from 22,549 to 52,227 for a 4-year period. The results indicated that boys and girls had positive attitudes when responding to 2 questions about enjoyment of their FLES classes and teachers. The girls were positively inclined, and the boys were neutral, in their desire to continue with foreign language study in the next grade. Two items about the use of foreign language outside the school venue and comprehension of foreign language teacher input revealed negative attitudes for both genders. As a follow-up to the quantitative study, qualitative data about attitudes toward foreign language speakers, foreign cultures, and their own education with respect to foreign language study were gathered through structured interviews. The participants were the same students who had completed the original surveys 10 years earlier. In corroboration of the quantitative data, a qualitative analysis revealed that, for a majority of the students, foreign language study was viewed positively, as were foreign language speakers and their cultures. [source] Calibrating conservation: new tools for measuring successCONSERVATION LETTERS, Issue 4 2008Valerie Kapos Abstract Conservation practitioners, policy makers, and donors agree that there is an urgent need to identify which conservation approaches are most likely to succeed in order to use more effectively the limited resources available for conservation. While recently developed standards of good practice in conservation are helpful, a framework for evaluation is needed that supports systematic analysis of conservation effectiveness. A conceptual framework and scorecard developed by the Cambridge Conservation Forum help to address common constraints to evaluating conservation success: unclear objectives, ineffective information management, the long time frames of conservation outcomes, scarcity of resources for evaluation, and lack of incentives for such evaluation. For seven major categories of conservation activity, the CCF tools help clarify conservation objectives and provide a standardized framework that is a useful basis for managing information about project outcomes and existing conservation experience. By identifying key outcomes that can predict conservation success and can be assessed in relatively short time frames, they help to make more efficient use of scarce monitoring and evaluation resources. With wide application, the CCF framework and evaluation tool can provide a powerful platform for drawing on the experience of past and ongoing conservation projects to identify quantitatively factors that contribute to conservation success. [source] Analysis of Compact Fluorescent Lights for Use by Patients with Photosensitive ConditionsPHOTOCHEMISTRY & PHOTOBIOLOGY, Issue 4 2009Rachel S. Klein Ultraviolet radiation (UVR) is hazardous to patients with photosensitive skin disorders, such as lupus erythematosus, xeroderma pigmentosum and skin cancer. As such, these patients are advised to minimize their exposure to UVR. Classically, this is accomplished through careful avoidance of sun exposure and artificial tanning booths. Indoor light bulbs, however, are generally not considered to pose significant UVR hazard. We sought to test this notion by measuring the UV emissions of 19 different compact fluorescent light bulbs. The ability to induce skin damage was assessed with the CIE erythema action spectrum, ANSI S(,) generalized UV hazard spectrum and the CIE photocarcinogenesis action spectrum. The results indicate that there is a great deal of variation amongst different bulbs, even within the same class. Although the irradiance of any given bulb is low, the possible daily exposure time is rather lengthy. This results in potential daily UVR doses ranging from 0.1 to 625 mJ cm,2, including a daily UVB (290,320 nm) dose of 0.01 to 15 mJ cm,2. Because patients are exposed continually over long time frames, this could lead to significant cumulative damage. It would therefore be prudent for patients to use bulbs with the lowest UV irradiance. [source] Grooming in mandrills and the time frame of reciprocal partner choiceAMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY, Issue 10 2009Gabriele Schino Abstract In this study, we examined the time frame of reciprocal partner choice in the grooming interactions of captive mandrills (Mandrillus sphinx) in order to test the hypothesis that the cognitive limitations of primates constrain the occurrence of reciprocation to short time intervals. In contrast to this hypothesis, mandrills groomed preferentially those individuals that groomed them more even when cases of immediate reciprocation were excluded from the analysis. These results show that mandrills were not limited to reciprocating grooming over short time intervals. It is proposed that a system of emotional bookkeeping may support the ability of primates to reciprocate over long time frames. Am. J. Primatol. 71:884,888, 2009. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] | ||||||||||