Transacting With Texts

This chapter presents an applied model for supporting preschool children's executive function, skills that serve as protective factors against risks associated with poverty, using Rosenblatt's transactional theory. The authors posit pedagogy that elicits children's responses to an author's/illustrator's picturebook whereby preschool readers' responses are mediated by the teacher through reflective discussion. Children are encouraged to reflect upon literary characters' motivations, behaviors, and problem solving. A demonstration case analysis shows how this model is implemented in a diverse and inclusive university laboratory preschool program where approximately half the children are served through Head Start, a federal program for children living in poverty. Given the preschool years are an especially sensitive period for acquisition of executive function skills, the authors assert that supporting young children's transactions with and interpretations of a text is the type of transactional strategy that has potential for narrowing the opportunity gap.

Multisensory Virtual Reality for delivering training content to machinery operators

The issue of training operators in the use of machinery is topical in the industrial field and in many other contexts, such as university laboratories. Training is about learning how to use machinery properly and safely. Beyond the possibility of studying manuals to learn how to use a machine, operators typically learn through on-the-job training. Indeed, learning by doing is in general more effective, tasks done practically are remembered more easily, and the training is more motivating and less tiresome. On the other hand, this training method has several negative factors. In particular, safety may be a major issue in some training situations. An approach that may contribute overcoming negative factors is using Virtual Reality and digital simulation techniques for operators training. The research work presented in this paper concerns the development of a multisensory Virtual Reality application for training operators to properly use machinery and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). The context selected for the study is a university laboratory hosting manufacturing machinery. The application allows user to navigate the laboratory, to approach a machine and learn about how to operate it, and also to use proper PPE while operating a machine. Specifically, the paper describes the design and implementation of the application and presents the results of preliminary testing sessions.

Locating disease spread: cholera to coronavirus and the art of the image

This article considers the history of medical image-making to shed light on an aspect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Starting from a contemporary art commission in the Science Museum's ‘Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries’, we look at the role of image production and presentation in understanding the spread of disease. From the intertwined histories of art and scientific image-making, we explore five examples of iconic medical images, by John Snow, Florence Nightingale, Arthur Schuster, Donald Caspar and Aaron Klug, ending with a model of the coronavirus by the Cambridge University Laboratory of Molecular Biology. We trace how images have provided the means for discovery, for description and for diagnosis and outline the different ways in which diseases have been located in the history of the medical image: in the community, in the body, in the cell and on the image itself.

Theraband applications for improved wall slide exercise

Context: The wall slide exercise is commonly used in clinic and research settings. Theraband positioning variations for hip exercises are investigated and used, but theraband positioning variations for upper extremity wall slide exercise, though not commonly used, are not investigated. Objective: To investigate the effect of different theraband positions (elbow and wrist) on scapular and shoulder muscles' activation in wall slide exercises and compare them to the regular wall slide exercise for the upper limbs. Study Design: Descriptive Laboratory Study. Setting: University Laboratory Patients or Other Participants: 20 participants with healthy shoulders Interventions: Participants performed regular and two different variations of wall slide exercises (theraband at wrist and theraband at elbow) in randomized order. Main Outcome Measures: Surface EMG activity of the trapezius muscles (upper [UT], middle [MT], and lower trapezius [LT]), infraspinatus (IS), middle deltoid (MD), and serratus anterior (SA). Results: Regular wall slide exercise elicited low activity in MD and moderate activity in SA muscles (32% MVIC), while theraband at wrist and elbow variations elicited low activity in MT, LT, IS, and MD muscles and moderate activity in SA muscles (46% and 34% MVICs, respectively). UT activation was absent to minimal (0–15% MVIC) in all wall slide exercise variations. Theraband at wrist produced lower UT/MT, UT/LT, and UT/SA levels. Conclusion: In shoulder rehabilitation, clinicians desiring to activate scapular stabilization muscles should consider using theraband at wrist variation; clinicians desiring to achieve more shoulder abduction activation and less scapular stabilization should consider theraband at elbow variation of upper extremity wall slide exercise.

A-31 Distinguishing Neuro-Markers of Math Learning Disability Using EEG Coherence

Objective The current study evaluated brain connectivity in math learning disability (MLD) by examining intra- and interhemispheric electroencephalography (EEG) coherence in three groups of children with differing math profiles. Differential patterns of connectivity were evaluated during “at-rest” conditions and statistically evaluated across three groups. Method Testing occurred in a university laboratory setting. Participants were recruited through media and local agencies serving children with disabilities. The Woodcock Johnson cognitive and achievement tests were used to determine general intelligence and skills across all math achievement subtests. Additionally, 3-minute eye-closed EEG resting data was collected. Groups used in the current study were: neurotypical controls (NC) (n = 30), math learning disability (MLD) (n = 15), and lower achievement (LA) (n = 15). Participants’ mean age was 9.58 (SD = 1.38) with 53.3% being male. Results Intrahemispheric comparisons suggest MLD children demonstrated reduced left hemispheric coherence to NC’s (p = 0.006), not seen in LA children. Additionally, NC’s had greater beta coherence (p = 0.002). Interhemispheric analyses revealed the MLD group had reduced alpha occipital coherence compared to the LA group (p = 0.031). Conclusion The current study provides supporting evidence for implicating brain connectivity as an underlying cause of MLD. Specifically, left hemispheric differences in delta coherence were found in children with MLD not observed in children with LA profiles. Weaknesses in areas of visuo-spatial integration in the MLD group were also observed. Results suggest atypical patterns of brain connectivity in the default-mode network (DMN) in delta wavelengths may serve as a useful biomarker of MLD.

Multisensory VR for Delivering Training Content to Machinery Operators

The issue of training operators in the use of machinery is topical in the industrial field and in many other contexts, such as university laboratories. Training is about learning how to use machinery properly and safely. Beyond the possibility of studying manuals to learn how to use a machine, operators typically learn through on-the-job training. Indeed, learning by doing is in general more effective, tasks done practically are remembered more easily, and the training is more motivating and less tiresome. On the other hand, this training method has several negative factors. In particular, safety may be a major issue in some training situations. An approach that may contribute overcoming negative factors is using Virtual Reality and digital simulations techniques for operators training. The research work presented in this paper concerns the development of a multisensory Virtual Reality environment for training operators to properly use machinery and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). The context selected for the study is a university laboratory hosting manufacturing machinery. It has been developed an application that allows user to navigate the laboratory, to approach a machine and learn about how to operate it and also what PPE to use while operating. Specifically, the paper describes the design and implementation of the application.

Inventing Laboratory Science in Meiji Japan

This chapter investigates the way in which laboratory science and training were introduced to Japanese universities in the Meiji period (1868–1912), with a strong emphasis on ‘laboratory’ as both a concept and a physical space. In the late 1860s and early 1870s, when ‘laboratory’ started to appear in Japanese lexicons for Western languages, the word was simply translated into Japanese as ‘a workplace for chemists’, revealing its chemical origins and the lack of a concise Japanese term corresponding to it. The 1870s and 1880s saw the diversification of laboratories and the coining of suitable words for them, the two most frequently used being shiken shitsu試験室‎ and jikken shitsu実験室‎. The former was used mainly for chemical, assaying, and electrical laboratories where materials were examined, often with industrial purposes in mind. The latter had the much broader meaning of a place for students to examine, experience, or observe natural phenomena and even make medical diagnoses. The dominance of jikken shitsu as the translation for a university laboratory, by the early 1900s, was due to its capacity to embrace a variety of rooms with different functions for different disciplines. It also signaled the establishment of its core meaning as a space for individual training; a prototype space for the training of research scholars, giving each student the opportunity to witness and experience disciplinary practices. To reveal how such training was provided there, this chapter examines the design of laboratories for chemistry—the archetypal laboratory science—by focusing on the following four aspects of training: 1) student supervision, 2) combined laboratory work and seminars, 3) socializing, and 4) the formation of the ‘research imperative’.