Author Archives: Guest Post

Vocabulary Instruction Failing U.S. Students

Vocabulary instruction in the early years is not challenging enough to prepare students for long-term reading comprehension, argues a study led by a Michigan State University education researcher.

The study, which appears in Elementary School Journal, analyzed commonly used reading curricula in U.S. kindergarten classrooms. It found that, generally, the programs do not teach enough vocabulary words; the words aren’t challenging enough; and not enough focus is given to make sure students understand the meaning of the words. (more…)

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IBM Delivers New Software and Cloud Services to Accelerate Social Business

ARMONK, N.Y. – 28 Jan 2013: IBM today announced new software and cloud-based services to help business leaders, such as chief marketing officers and chief human resource officers, advance their organization’s transformation with the adoption of social business technology. The new offerings will help business leaders integrate IBM’s industry-leading social networking and analytics technologies into their business processes to empower the 21st Century workforce and transform client experiences. (more…)

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Teenagers Avoid Early Alcohol Misuse Through Personality Management

In a study published in the very first issue of the new journal JAMA Psychiatry, researchers from Sainte-Justine University Hospital Center, University of Montreal and King’s College London have shown that personality-targeted school interventions delivered to high risk adolescents manage to reduce and postpone problem drinking, which is responsible for 9% of the deaths in young people between the ages of 15 and 29 in developed countries. Furthermore, by delaying alcohol uptake in at-risk youth, low-risk youth apparently gain group immunity due to reduced drinking within their social network.

“Two factors determine problem drinking: personality and peer pressure,” explains Dr. Patricia Conrod, the study’s first author, who supports the assumption that approaching at-risk youth from the angle of mental health rather than information on the dangers of alcohol is more effective at preventing early-onset alcohol misuse. “Teaching young people how to better manage their personality traits or vulnerabilities helps them make the right decisions in given situations,” she explained, “whether it is a matter of overcoming their fears, managing thoughts that make them very emotional, controlling their compulsions, analyzing objectively the intentions of others or improving their self-perception.” (more…)

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The Vibrant Features of the extra Luxury Villas in Tuscany

If you have a knack to visit vibrant and beautiful places then you must give a try with the luxury villas in Tuscany. These villas are available all around the year and they are just like dream houses. Some of these villas are situated in the most exotic destinations and Italy is known to be one of the hot and happening areas that houses thousand of these villas. (more…)

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UCLA’s New Nano-Lens Microscopes Can Detect Viruses, Other Objects at Nanoscale

By using tiny liquid lenses that self-assemble around microscopic objects, a team from UCLA’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has created an optical microscopy method that allows users to directly see objects more than 1,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

Coupled with computer-based computational reconstruction techniques, this portable and cost-effective platform, which has a wide field of view, can detect individual viruses and nanoparticles, making it potentially useful in the diagnosis of diseases in point-of-care settings or areas where medical resources are limited. (more…)

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Scientists Use Marine Robots to Detect Endangered Whales

Two robots equipped with instruments designed to “listen” for the calls of baleen whales detected nine endangered North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of Maine last month. The robots reported the detections to shore-based researchers within hours of hearing the whales (i.e., in real time), demonstrating a new and powerful tool for managing interactions between whales and human activities. (more…)

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In conversation: George Daniel Mostow, geometer of the Nth dimension

In awarding Yale’s George Daniel Mostow its 2013 Wolf Foundation Prize in mathematics — one of the field’s premier global awards — the foundation offered this crisp assessment: “Few mathematicians,” it said, “can compete with the breadth, depth, and originality of his works.” (more…)

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