Regular Features (regular + feature)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Computer-assisted teaching and assessment of disabled students in higher education: the interface between academic standards and disability rights

JOURNAL OF COMPUTER ASSISTED LEARNING, Issue 3 2007
O. Konur
Abstract, Computer-assisted teaching and assessment has become a regular feature across many areas of the curriculum in higher education courses around the world in recent years. This development has resulted in the ,digital divide' between disabled students and their nondisabled peers regarding their participation in computer-assisted courses. However, there has been a long-standing practice to ensure that disabled students could participate in these courses with a set of disability adjustments that are in line with their learning modalities under the headings of presentation format, response format, timing, and setting adjustments. Additionally, there has been a set of supporting antidiscriminatory disability laws around the world to avoid such divide between disabled students and their nondisabled peers. However, following a successful pre cedent in Davis v. Southeastern Community College (1979), the opponents of disability rights have consistently argued that making disability adjustments for disabled students to participate in computer-assisted courses would undermine academic and professional standards and these laws have resulted in a ,culture of fear' among the staff. This paper challenges such myths and argues, based on a systematic review of four major antidiscriminatory laws, that universities have full academic freedom to set the academic standards of their computer-assisted courses despite the introduction of such laws and that there has been no grounds for the perceived culture of fear about the consequences of the participation of disabled students in computer-assisted courses. [source]


The effects of macrolocalization of deformation in Al-based composites with Al2O3 inclusions

FATIGUE & FRACTURE OF ENGINEERING MATERIALS AND STRUCTURES, Issue 4 2003
YE. YE.
ABSTRACT Using a television optical TOMSC system, regular features of localization of macroplastic deformation are studied in composite aluminum-based materials with hard inclusions of Al2O3 under tension. Before investigation, the specimens are subjected to cold rolling, tempering for 30 min at 500 °C with subsequent cooling in air, and annealing at 550 °C during 2 h with subsequent cooling in furnace. It is shown that the tempered and annealed alloys exhibit mobile centers of active macrolocalization long before the formation of a stationary neck preceding material fracture. Physical mesomechanics, relying on the concepts of the leading role of different-scale stress concentrators that relax and develop in a loaded heterogeneous material, is capable of providing a qualitative description of macrolocalization development. [source]


How Should We Look at Rape in Early America?

HISTORY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 3 2006
Sharon Block
While rape may not have affected events associated with traditional linear histories, sexual assaults were regular features of early American life that affected individuals and society at large. But how should historians determine the influence of rape on early America? Based on nearly one thousand incidents of possible sexual coercion and hundreds of extra-legal commentaries on rape, this article explore how early Americans discussed rape and what impact it may have had on their lives. Attending to the micro and the macro influences of rape can help historians understand early Americans' worlds and relationships to one another. [source]


Comparison of the three-dimensional structures of a human Bence-Jones dimer crystallized on Earth and aboard US Space Shuttle Mission STS-95,

JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR RECOGNITION, Issue 2 2003
Simon S. Terzyan
Abstract Crystals of a human (Sea) Bence-Jones dimer were produced in a capillary by vapor diffusion under microgravity conditions in the 9 day US Space Shuttle Mission STS-95. In comparison to ground-based experiments, nucleation was facile and spontaneous in space. Appearance of a very large (8,×,1.6,×,1.0,mm) crystal in a short time period is a strong endorsement for the use of microgravity to produce crystals sufficiently large for neutron diffraction studies. The Sea dimer crystallized in the orthorhombic space group P212121, with a,=,48.9,Å, b,=,85.2,Å, and c,=,114.0,Å. The crystals grown in microgravity exhibited significantly lower mosaicities than those of ground-based crystals and the X-ray diffraction data had a lower overall B factor. Three-dimensional structures determined by X-ray analysis at two temperatures (100 and 293,K) were indistinguishable from those obtained from ground-based crystals. However, both the crystallographic R factor and the free R factor were slightly lower in the models derived from crystals produced in microgravity. The major difference between the two crystal growth systems is a lack of convection and sedimentation in a microgravity environment. This environment resulted in the growth of much larger, higher-quality crystals of the Sea Bence-Jones protein. Structurally, heretofore unrecognized grooves on the external surfaces of the Sea and other immunoglobulin-derived fragments are regular features and may offer supplementary binding regions for super antigens and other elongated ligands in the bloodstream and perivascular tissues. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Non-standard spellings in media texts: The case of German fanzines

JOURNAL OF SOCIOLINGUISTICS, Issue 4 2000
Jannis K. Androutsopoulos
Based on an investigation of spellings in German punk fanzines (a blend of ,fan'+,(maga)zine'), this paper sketches a framework for the analysis of non-standard spellings in media texts. The analysis distinguishes between a number of spelling types, which include both representations of spoken language and purely graphemic modifications, and three patterns of spelling usage: spellings as a part of the text's regular features, spelling choices as contextualization cues, and as cues of subcultural positioning. By examining the relations between types and usages of non-standard spellings, the paper demonstrates how young writers creatively use the graphemic resources of their language in order to communicate sociocultural meanings, at the same time constructing an orthographic anti-standard in the restricted field of music-related subcultural discourse. [source]


The neurochemistry of waking and sleeping mental activity: The disinhibition-dopamine hypothesis

PSYCHIATRY AND CLINICAL NEUROSCIENCES, Issue 4 2002
CLAUDE GOTTESMANN
Abstract This paper describes a hypothesis related to the neurochemical background of sleep-waking mental activity which, although associated with subcortical structures, is principally generated in the cerebral cortex. Acetylcholine, which mainly activates cortical neurons, is released at the maximal rate during waking and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep dreaming stage. Its importance in mental functioning is well-known. However, brainstem-generated monoamines, which mainly inhibit cortical neurons, are released during waking. Both kinds of influences contribute to the organized mentation of waking. During slow wave sleep, these two types of influence decrease in intensity but maintain a sufficiently high level to allow mental activity involving fairly abstract pseudo-thoughts, a mode of activity modelled on the diurnal pattern of which it is a poor reply. During REM sleep, the monoaminergic neurons become silent except for the dopaminergic ones. This results in a large disinhibition and the maintained dopamine influence may be involved in the familiar psychotic-like mental activity of dreaming. Indeed, in this original activation,disinhibition state, the increase of dopamine influence at the prefrontal cortex level could explain the almost total absence of negative symptoms of schizophrenia during dreaming, while an increase in the nucleus accumbens is possibly responsible for hallucinations and delusions, which are regular features of mentation during this sleep stage. [source]


35 YEARS OF BJSE: Personal reflections on 35 years of BJSE

BRITISH JOURNAL OF SPECIAL EDUCATION, Issue 4 2008
Christina Tilstone
Christina Tilstone was, for many years, the editor of BJSE and subsequently became the chair of the Editorial Board for the nasen journals. She is therefore in an excellent position to reflect upon the contribution the journal has made to the field over the past 35 years. In this article, she traces the origins of the journal back over 100 years. She notes the launch of BJSE's ancestor, Special Education: Forward Trends, and shares the contents of the issue of this journal that marked the publication of Mary Warnock's seminal report in 1978 and the development of the notion of inclusion. She goes on to describe the metamorphosis of Special Education: Forward Trends into BJSE in 1985 and soon after that, in 1992, the formation of nasen , still BJSE's sponsoring organisation. Christina Tilstone records the origins of BJSE's valued ,Research Section', now building a substantial archive of educational research papers, and the popular ,Focus on Practice' feature that enables practitioners to share reports of their work. She also notes the role that BJSE's other regular features, ,Book Reviews', ,Politics Page UK' and ,Notes from the SENCo-Forum' (itself now ten years old) have played in the journal's recent national and international success. [source]