PDSTD - The Portsmouth Dynamic Spontaneous Tears Database

The vast majority of research on human emotional tears has relied on posed and static stimulus materials. In this paper, we introduce the Portsmouth Dynamic Spontaneous Tears Database (PDSTD), a free resource comprising video recordings of 24 female encoders depicting a balanced representation of sadness stimuli with and without tears. Encoders watched a neutral film and a self-selected sad film and reported their emotional experience for 9 emotions. Extending this initial validation, we obtained norming data from an independent sample of naïve observers (N = 91, 45 females) who watched videos of the encoders during three time phases (neutral, pre-sadness, sadness), yielding a total of 72 validated recordings. Observers rated the expressions during each phase on 7 discrete emotions, negative and positive valence, arousal, and genuineness. All data were analyzed by means of general linear mixed modelling (GLMM) to account for sources of random variance. Our results confirm the successful elicitation of sadness, and demonstrate the presence of a tear effect, i.e., a substantial increase in perceived sadness for spontaneous dynamic weeping. To our knowledge, the PDSTD is the first database of spontaneously elicited dynamic tears and sadness that is openly available to researchers. The stimuli can be accessed free of charge via OSF from https://osf.io/uyjeg/?view_only=24474ec8d75949ccb9a8243651db0abf.

Infectious Disease Images: A Remarkable, Free Resource

Infectious Disease Images (idimages.org) features well over 1,000 cases with a vast array of diagnoses. The website is organized by cases and images and boasts an atlas with scores of bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites, and ectoparasites. As a free resource, Infectious Disease Images lends itself nicely to both learners and educators at all levels.

PlantRep: a resource of plant repeats

We re-annotated repeats sequence of 459 plant genomes and release a new resource of plant repeats: PlantRep (http://www.plantrep.cn/). We compared the structural and evolutionary characteristics of repeat sequences in different plant taxonomic group. The contribution of repeat sequences to the genes was examined systematically. PlantRep sheds lights of evolution of plant repeats and provides a free-resource for deep annotation of genome and comparative genomics research of repeat elements in plants.

Peers as Change Agents

This chapter details the many advantages of utilizing peers as change agents in behavioral interventions, including being a readily available and free resource, increasing opportunities to respond, promoting generalization, being socially valid and culturally relevant, increasing student engagement with intervention, providing access to natural reinforcement, promoting social skill development, and supporting the development of peer social relationships. The chapter also positions peer-mediated interventions as relevant to the development of children and highlights the value and usefulness of identifying the behaviors the intervention is targeting and then emphasizing the importance of the peer’s role. This chapter also discusses the research supporting the effectiveness of peers as interventionists, indicating that they can be reliably trained to carry out interventions in schools.

Scopus CiteScore and Clarivate Journal Citation Reports

This review compares Scopus CiteScore (free resource) and Clarivate Journal Citation Reports (subscription resource). It focuses on the similarities and differences in these two database(s) primarily their searching interfaces, elements included in the records; and the availability of useful help. It uses two sets of journals to compare their content; highlight their assignments in various categories; in quartiles within these categories; and their difference and similarities of their Impact Factor.

Using “threshold concepts” as a framework for teaching information literacy

We would like to explore the idea of threshold concepts as a framework for information literacy (IL) instruction in a higher education setting. Threshold concepts are central to a discipline; difficult to learn, but once understood, impossible to “unlearn”. They are implicitly incorporated in practitioners’ day-to-day work, and form part of the tacit knowledge in a profession. Threshold concepts are thus both taken for granted and difficult to teach; they have become so internalized by the expert that it is easy to forget that they were actually learned at some point. This could lead to a failure in appreciating how hard the concepts can be to master for the novice. According to Hofer, Hanick & Townsend (2018), possible threshold concepts relevant to IL-instruction are: authority; format; information commodities; organizing systems; research process. As we came across these ideas, we asked ourselves how teaching librarians could utilize this approach when helping students cross the IL thresholds. For example, when teaching how to check the authority of a source, how do we help students handle the distinction between trust and truth? When promoting the library as a free resource, how can students understand the information economy? Starting with a brief presentation of the idea of threshold concepts, and an introduction to the IL-specific concepts, we would like to invite the round table participants to reflect upon their own approaches when teaching IL. The discussion will be structured around questions such as: What concepts do you normally find students have difficulties grasping? When did you yourself master those concepts? How did that happen? How can that understanding help you as a teacher to facilitate your students’ learning of the concepts? Possible outcomes of the discussion may entail new didactic ideas, as well as tentative new IL-related threshold concepts.