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The psychology of science resistance, doubt, and denial has never had clearer consequences than during the COVID-19 pandemic. This manuscript explores how misconceptions about climate change, vaccines, and COVID-19 cannot be understood apart from the conscious and unconscious motivations and emotions which contribute to public (mis)understanding of science. Drawing on research presented during my Presidential Address for Division 15 of the American Psychological Association in 2020, interventions designed to upend misconceptions and promote understanding and appreciation of science in formal and informal settings are reviewed and recommendations are proposed for promoting public understanding of science in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Educational Psychologist is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems account for 43% of building energy consumption, yet only 38% of commercial building occupants are satisfied with the thermal environment. The primary reasons for low occupant satisfaction are that HVAC operations do not integrate occupant comfort requirements nor control the thermal environment at the individual level. Personal comfort systems (PCSs) enable local control of the thermal environment around each occupant. However, full manual control of PCS can be inefficient, and fully automated PCS reduces an occupant’s perceived control over the environment, which can then lead to lower satisfaction. A better solution might lie somewhere between fully manual and fully automated environmental control. In this article, we describe the development and implementation of an Internet-of-Things (IoT)-based intelligent agent that learns individual occupant comfort requirements and controls the thermal environment using PCS (i.e., a local fan and a heater). We tested different levels of automation where control is shared between an intelligent agent and the end user. Our results show that PCS use improves occupant satisfaction and including some level of automation can improve occupant satisfaction further than what is possible with manually operated PCS. Among the levels of automation investigated, inquisitive automation, where the user approves/declines the control actions of the intelligent agent before execution, led to highest occupant satisfaction with the thermal environment.

When individuals have questions about scientific issues, they often search the Internet. Evaluating sources of information and claims they find has become more difficult in the post-truth era. Stud...

Stay-at-home mandates following the COVID-19 pandemic increased work from home (WFH). While WFH offers many benefits, navigating work in nontraditional contexts can be a challenge. The objective of this study was to explore the benefits and challenges of WFH during COVID-19 to identify supports and resources necessary. Comments from two free-response questions on a survey regarding experiences of WFH ( N = 648, N = 366) were analyzed using inductive qualitative content analysis. Four themes emerged: time use, considerations of working in the home space, intersections between work-life and home-life, and temporality of WFH as situated within a pandemic. Across all themes were concerns related to participation in both work and home roles, work performance, and well-being. Findings highlight the importance of support during times of disruption of occupational patterns, roles, and routines. Despite challenges, many individuals hoped to continue WFH. Organizations should consider the complex intersections of work-life and home-life to develop supportive policies and resources.

Prior research from the field of science communication shows that, upon reading journalistic articles about novel scientific findings, readers who recognize the tentative nature of the findings rat...

Individuals often have misconceptions about education policy issues. Prior research has shown that refutation texts can address misconceptions in other areas (e.g., climate change, GMOs); this study is the first to explore whether participants’ views on controversial education policies—the Common Core State Standards and charter schools—are similarly malleable through refutation text interventions. Results of two experiments show that refutation texts reduced participants’ misconceptions and increased their correct conceptions about both policy issues. These impacts persisted for at least a week in both cases. Our findings hold promise for policymakers, implementers, and researchers seeking to buttress support for policies through direct, evidence-based refutation texts.

Behavioral intervention strategies have yet to become successful in the development of initiatives to foster pro-environmental behaviors in buildings. In this paper, we explored the potenti...

Workplace environments have a significant impact on worker performance, health, and well-being. With machine learning capabilities, artificial intelligence (AI) can be developed to automate individualized adjustments to work environments (e.g., lighting, temperature) and to facilitate healthier worker behaviors (e.g., posture). Worker perspectives on incorporating AI into office workspaces are largely unexplored. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore office workers’ views on including AI in their office workspace. Six focus group interviews with a total of 45 participants were conducted. Interview questions were designed to generate discussion on benefits, challenges, and pragmatic considerations for incorporating AI into office settings. Sessions were audio-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using an iterative approach. Two primary constructs emerged. First, participants shared perspectives related to preferences and concerns regarding communication and interactions with the technology. Second, numerous conversations highlighted the dualistic nature of a system that collects large amounts of data, that is, the potential benefits for behavior change to improve health and the pitfalls of trust and privacy. Across both constructs, there was an overarching discussion related to the intersections of AI with the complexity of work performance. Numerous thoughts were shared relative to future AI solutions that could enhance the office workplace. This study’s findings indicate that the acceptability of AI in the workplace is complex and dependent upon the benefits outweighing the potential detriments. Office worker needs are complex and diverse, and AI systems should aim to accommodate individual needs.

Negotiation is a complex social interaction that encapsulates emotional encounters in human decision-making. Virtual agents that can negotiate with humans are useful in pedagogy and conversational AI. To advance the development of such agents, we explore the prediction of two important subjective goals in a negotiation - outcome satisfaction and partner perception. Specifically, we analyze the extent to which emotion attributes extracted from the negotiation help in the prediction, above and beyond the individual difference variables. We focus on a recent dataset in chat-based negotiations, grounded in a realistic camping scenario. We study three degrees of emotion dimensions - emoticons, lexical, and contextual by leveraging affective lexicons and a state-of-the-art deep learning architecture. Our insights will be helpful in designing adaptive negotiation agents that interact through realistic communication interfaces., Comment: Accepted at 9th International Conference on Affective Computing & Intelligent Interaction (ACII 2021)

This paper presents a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) that simulates the collaboration between a construction robot and a construction worker in order to support training in worker-robot teamwork on construction sites. The VLE presented in the paper utilizes a semi-autonomous remote-controlled demolition robot named Brokk. This paper describes the use-case robot (Brokk), system setup and configuration, and the learning scenarios. In this VLE, the trainee learns about the robot’s various components, safety management, functions of the robot's control box, and general guidelines used during common demolition tasks. Importantly, this VLE is developed based on adult learning theories in general— and andragogy principles in particular. In addition, we augment the VLE with useful features from existing VLEs. The effectiveness of the developed VLE will be evaluated with construction workers based on knowledge and performance assessments.

The emergence of construction robotics and automation has produced an urgent and vast need for construction workers to reskill and upskill for the future of work. Virtual Reality (VR)-based training has been considered and investigated as a safe and cost-effective training method that allows workers to be exposed to hazardous tasks with negligible actual safety risks in comparison to existing training methods (hands-on, lecture-based, apprenticeship training). This paper aims to investigate the impact of VR-based training on construction workers’ knowledge acquisition, operational skills, and safety behavior during robotic teleoperation compared to the traditional in-person training method. Fifty construction workers were randomly assigned to complete either VR-based or in-person training for operating a demolition robot. We used quantitative and qualitative data analyses to answer our research questions. Our results indicate that VR-based training was associated with a significant increase in knowledge, operational skills, and safety behavior compared to in-person training. Our findings suggest that VR-based training not only provides a viable and effective option for future training programs but a valuable option for construction robotics safety and skill training.

Date Presented Accepted for AOTA INSPIRE 2021 but unable to be presented due to online event limitations. This study explored office workers' perspectives on including artificial intelligence (AI) in their office workspace. Following an iterative analysis of six focus-group interviews with a total of 45 participants, three constructs emerged. Rich discussions demonstrated how acceptability of an AI workstation is complex and affected by the person, context, and their occupations. Primary Author and Speaker: Yoko E. Fukumura Contributing Authors: Julie McLaughlin Gray, Gale Lucas, Burcin Becerik-Gerber, and Shawn C. Roll

Occupant behavior is one of the most significant contributors to building energy consumption. Employing communication systems to enable buildings to interact with their occupants and influence the way they behave could significantly reduce energy consumption. We investigated the effectiveness of different delivery styles (i.e., avatar, voice, and text), as well as the impact of communicators persona (i.e., building facility manager and building itself) and gender (i.e., male and female) on occupants compliance with pro-environmental requests. The results showed that avatar is more effective than voice and voice is more effective than text on promoting compliance with persuasive pro-environmental requests. In addition, results showed greater compliance with requests made by the persona of a building facility manager than the persona of the building itself. Finally, participants were more likely to comply with the female communicator than the male communicator. Accordingly, this new interaction between buildings and their occupants could impact human behavior. Avatars were found to be more effective than voice at evoking compliance.Avatars and voice were more effective than text at prompting compliance.Participants comply with requests from female communicators more than males.Compliance was greater when personified as the building facility manager rather than the building.

People spend most of their day in buildings, and a large portion of the energy in buildings is used to control the indoor environment for creating acceptable conditions for occupants. However, majority of the building systems are controlled based on a ‘one size fits all’ scheme which cannot account for individual occupant preferences. This leads to discomfort, low satisfaction and negative impacts on occupants’ productivity, health and well-being. In this paper, we describe our vision of how recent advances in Internet of Things (IoT) and machine learning can be used to add intelligence to an office desk to personalize the environment around the user. The smart desk can learn individual user preferences for the indoor environment, personalize the environment based on user preferences, and act as an intelligent support system for improving user comfort, health and productivity. We briefly describe the recent advances made in different domains that can be leveraged to enhance occupant experience in buildings and describe the overall framework for the smart desk. We conclude the paper with a discussion of possible avenues for further research.

Active shooter incidents present an increasing threat to the American society. Many of these incidents occur in building environments, therefore, it is important to consider design and security elements in buildings to decrease the risk of active shooter incidents. This study aims to assess current security countermeasures and identify varying considerations associated with implementing these countermeasures. Fifteen participants, with expertise and experience in a diverse collection of operational and organizational backgrounds, including security, engineering, law enforcement, emergency management and policy making, participated in three focus group interviews. The participants identified a list of countermeasures that have been used for active shooter incidents. Important determinants for the effectiveness of countermeasures include their influence on occupants' behavior during active shooter incidents, and occupants' and administrators' awareness of how to use them effectively. The nature of incidents (e.g., internal vs. external threats), building type (e.g., office buildings vs. school buildings), and occupants (e.g., students of different ages) were also recognized to affect the selection of appropriate countermeasures. The nexus between emergency preparedness and normal operations, and the importance of tradeoffs such as the ones between cost, aesthetics, maintenance needs and the influence on occupants' daily activities were also discussed. To ensure the effectiveness of countermeasures and improve safety, the participants highlighted the importance of both training and practice, for occupants and administrators (e.g., first responder teams). The interview results suggested that further study of the relationship between security countermeasures and occupants' and administrators’ responses, as well as efficient training approaches are needed.

e24051 Background: CSOC conducts quality improvements (QI) for cancer patients that facilitate delivery of appropriate health maintenance and supportive cancer care at diagnosis and during treatment. CSOC is implementing a care planning QI starting at diagnosis using the 4R oncology model (Right Info / Care / Patient / Time), which provides patients a formal personalized care plan called Patient Care Sequence. Each Care Sequence includes health maintenance, cancer treatments and supportive care. As part of CSOC, we conducted provider surveys as a pre-intervention baseline to inform QI opportunities. Methods: Online survey of cancer providers from 8 cancer centers (4 academic, 4 community) conducted July 2018 - October 2019, prior to 4R implementation. The survey focused on current care planning practices and inclusion of guideline recommended health maintenance in care plans. Results: Survey response rate: 80% (180/225); respondents were 53% physicians, 20% advanced practice, 27% nurses. Only 59% (107/180) of respondents give patients care plans at diagnosis: 61% (65/107) verbally, 22% (24/107) written, 17% (18/107) using a printed form. Providers reported considerable gaps in including guideline-based health maintenance and promotion activities in care plans given to patients (Table). Additionally, 61% of providers reported concerns that it is challenging for their patients to manage their own health maintenance activities. Providers who are concerned about patients’ challenges in managing their own health maintenance are significantly more likely to give their patients a written or printed plan (76%, 32/42) compared to those providing care plans to patients verbally or not at all (56%, 77/138), p = .02. Conclusions: Guideline based health promotion activities are not consistently included in care plans, and care planning is not sufficiently conducted at cancer diagnosis. The CSOC 4R Oncology Model, which implements Patient Care Sequences at diagnosis, will address these gaps and examine the impact of formal care planning on improving utilization of health maintenance and promotion activities. [Table: see text]

Research has demonstrated promising benefits of applying virtual trainers to promote physical fitness. The current study investigated the value of virtual agents in the context of personal fitness, compared to trainers with greater levels of perceived agency (avatar or live human). We also explored the possibility that the effectiveness of the virtual trainer might depend on the affective tone it uses when trying to motivate users. Accordingly, participants received either positively or negatively valenced motivational messages from a virtual human they believed to be either an agent or an avatar, or they received the messages from a human instructor via skype. Both self-report and physiological data were collected. Like in-person coaches, the live human trainer who used negatively valenced messages were well-regarded; however, when the agent or avatar used negatively valenced messages, participants responded more poorly than when they used positively valenced ones. Perceived agency also affected rapport: compared to the agent, users felt more rapport with the live human trainer or the avatar. Regardless of trainer type, they also felt more rapport - and said they put in more effort - with trainers that used positively valenced messages than those that used negatively valenced ones. However, in reality, they put in more physical effort (as measured by heart rate) when trainers employed the more negatively valenced affective tone. We discuss implications for human--computer interaction.

The cyber domain of military operations presents many challenges. A unique element is the social dynamic between cyber operators and their leadership because of the novel subject matter expertise involved in conducting technical cyber tasks, so there will be situations where senior leaders might have much less domain knowledge or no experience at all relative to the warfighters who report to them. Nonetheless, it will be important for junior cyber operators to convey convincing information relevant to a mission in order to persuade or influence a leader to make informed decisions. The power dynamic will make it difficult for the junior cyber operator to successfully influence a higher ranking leader. Here we present a perspective with a sketch for research paradigm(s) to study how different factors (normative vs. informational social influence, degree of transparency, and perceived appropriateness of making suggestions) might interact with differential social power dynamics of individuals in cyber decision-making contexts. Finally, we contextualize this theoretical perspective for the research paradigms in viable training technologies.

A common barrier to healthcare for psychiatric conditions is the stigma associated with these disorders. Perceived stigma prevents many from reporting their symptoms. Stigma is a particularly pervasive problem among military service members, preventing them from reporting symptoms of combat-related conditions like posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, research shows increased reporting by service members when anonymous assessments are used. For example, service members report more symptoms of PTSD when they anonymously answer the Post-Deployment Health Assessment (PDHA) symptom checklist compared to the official PDHA, which is identifiable and linked to their military records. To investigate the factors that influence reporting of psychological symptoms by service members, we used a transformative technology: automated virtual humans that interview people about their symptoms. Such virtual human interviewers allow simultaneous use of two techniques for eliciting disclosure that would otherwise be incompatible; they afford anonymity while also building rapport. We examined whether virtual human interviewers could increase disclosure of mental health symptoms among active-duty service members that just returned from a year-long deployment in Afghanistan. Service members reported more symptoms during a conversation with a virtual human interviewer than on the official PDHA. They also reported more to a virtual human interviewer than on an anonymized PDHA. A second, larger sample of active-duty and former service members found a similar effect that approached statistical significance. Because respondents in both studies shared more with virtual human interviewers than an anonymized PDHA -even though both conditions control for stigma and ramifications for service members’ military records- virtual human interviewers that build rapport may provide a superior option to encourage reporting.

Background: It is becoming more commonplace for employees to use prescription medication outside of intended use. Opioid and other prescription misuse has implications for the health and productivity of workers. Easy-to-access webinars that help employees learn about alternatives to prescription use may decrease risk. Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the efficacy of an interactive but brief health consciousness and prescription drug intervention for a diverse sample of employees and show effectiveness via both Internet-delivered webinar and classroom delivery. Methods: Employees from a variety of workplaces filled out pre- and post-questionnaires upon completion of a one-hour long intervention. Results: A total of 114 participants completed the pre- and post-questionnaires. Results showed that, compared with before the training, participants reported significantly more knowledge about prescription drug misuse and alternatives to prescription drug use after the training (t113=7.91, P

We investigate the capabilities of automatic audiovisual nonverbal behavior descriptors to identify indicators of psychological disorders such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Due to strong correlations between these disordersas measured with standard self-assessment questionnaires in this study, we focus our investigations in particular on a generic distress measure as identified using factor analysis. Within this work, we seek to confirm and enrich present state of the art, predominantly based on qualitative manual annotations, with automatic quantitative behavior descriptors. We propose a number of nonverbal behavior descriptors that can be automatically estimated from audiovisual signals. Such automatic behavior descriptors could be used to support healthcare providers with quantified and objective observations that could ultimately improve clinical assessment. We evaluate our work on the dataset called the Distress Assessment Interview Corpus (DAIC) which comprises dyadic interactions between a confederate interviewer and a paid participant. Our evaluation on this dataset shows correlation of our automatic behavior descriptors with the derived general distress measure. Our analysis also includes a deeper study of self-adaptor and fidgeting behaviors based on detailed annotations of where these behaviors occur.

Dr. John Gergely passed away on July 26, 2013 after a long and distinguished career. His publications spanned 67 years. He founded the Department of Muscle Research in the Retina Foundation (which later became the Boston Biomedical Research Institute) and served as director for 34 years. Dr. Gergely served on the editorial boards of ten scientific journals. He was elected as a Fellow of both the Biophysical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Gergely made major contributions concerning muscle protein structure and function. He was best known for his work on the troponin complex. The insights of John and his associates have provided the foundation for our understanding of calcium regulation in skeletal and cardiac muscle.

Plausibility is a central but under-examined topic in conceptual change research. Climate change is an important socio-scientific topic; however, many view human-induced climate change as implausible. When learning about climate change, students need to make plausibility judgments but they may not be sufficiently critical or reflective. The purpose of this study was to examine how students' plausibility judgments and knowledge about human-induced climate change transform during instruction promoting critical evaluation. The results revealed that treatment group participants who engaged in critical evaluation experienced a significant shift in their plausibility judgments toward the scientifically accepted model of human-induced climate change. This shift was accompanied by significant conceptual change postinstruction that was maintained after a six-month delay. A comparison group who experienced a climate change activity that is part of their normal curriculum did not experience statistically significant changes.

Global climate change is receiving increasing attention as a classroom topic. At the same time, research has shown that individuals have strong emotions about the topic. Emotions about controversial topics and individuals' dispositions toward knowledge have been shown to influence judgments about these topics. This study examined the relationships among preservice elementary and in-service secondary science teachers' emotions about and plausibility perceptions of climate change, background knowledge of weather and climate distinctions (a principle related to understanding climate change), and dispositions toward knowledge. Teachers' topic emotions (anger and hopelessness) were significant predictors of plausibility perceptions, with more anger associated with lesser plausibility and greater hopelessness associated with higher plausibility. Decisiveness—an urgent desire to reach closure—was also significantly related to plausibility perceptions with greater decisiveness associated with reduced plausibility...

This study explored the relationship between task values, engagement, and conceptual change. One hundred and sixty-six under graduate students were randomly assigned to one of three task value instructional inductions (utility, attainment, and control) to determine whether induced task values would result in different degrees of engagement and conceptual change when reading a refutation text about the common cold. It was hypothesized that the participants in the utility, attainment, and control conditions would differ in their engagement, and degree of conceptual change. Statistical differences were observed among the participants in the task value and control conditions on perceived engagement as well as conceptual change. The results indicate that the participants who were in the utility condition rated their engagement as significantly higher than those in the control condition. Furthermore, participants in the utility condition demonstrated the greatest degree of conceptual change. The usefulness of task value inductions for facilitating engagement and conceptual change is discussed.

This paper builds on prior psychological studies that identify signals of trustworthiness between two human negotiators. Unlike prior work, the current work tracks such signals automatically and fuses them into computational models that predict trustworthiness. To achieve this goal, we apply automatic trackers to recordings of human dyads negotiating in a multi-issue bargaining task. We identify behavioral indicators in different modalities (facial expressions, gestures, gaze, and conversational features) that are predictive of trustworthiness. We predict both objective trustworthiness (i.e., are they honest) and perceived trustworthiness (i.e., do they seem honest to their interaction partner). Our experiments show that people are poor judges of objective trustworthiness (i.e., objective and perceived trustworthiness are predicted by different indicators), and that multimodal approaches better predict objective trustworthiness, whereas people overly rely on facial expressions when judging the honesty of their partner. Moreover, domain knowledge (from the literature and prior analysis of behaviors) facilitates the model development process.

Telling stories is an important aspect virtual agents designed to interact with people socially over time. We describe an experiment designed to investigate the impact of the identity, presentation form, and perspective of a virtual storyteller on a human user who engages in a story-swapping activity with two virtual characters. For each interaction, the user was given 10 “ice-breaker” questions to ask a virtual character and respond to the character’s reciprocal request. Participants also filled out a post-interaction survey, measuring rapport with the character and impressions of the character’s personality. Results generally show that participants prefer characters who tell first person stories, however there were some interactions with presentation order. No significant preferences were established for the form or identity variables.

This article examines the potential for teaching negotiation with virtual humans. Many people find negotiations to be aversive. We conjecture that students may be more comfortable practicing negotiation skills with an agent than with another person. We test this using the Conflict Resolution Agent, a semi-automated virtual human that negotiates with people via natural language. In a between-participants design, we independently manipulated two pedagogically-relevant factors while participants engaged in repeated negotiations with the agent: perceived agency (participants either believed they were negotiating with a computer program or another person) and pedagogical feedback (participants received instructional advice or no advice between negotiations). Findings indicate that novice negotiators were more comfortable negotiating with a computer program (they self-reported more comfort and punished their opponent less often) and expended more effort on the exercise following instructional feedback (both in time spent and in self-reported effort). These findings lend support to the notion of using virtual humans to teach interpersonal skills.

PURPOSE Hospital-acquired venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a common and preventable adverse event that most patients are at risk of developing during their hospital stay. VTE prophylactic anticoagulation (chemoprophylaxis) is the preferred pharmacological assignment for reducing risk of VTE, but it is underused in current practices involving risk stratification (RS) for VTE prevention. The purpose of this study was to determine whether a protocol that eliminates the RS step (non-RS protocol) is more likely to lead residents to evidence-based VTE assignment than the currently used RS protocol. The non-RS protocol follows a methodology that reduces complexity by assuming that the risk of VTE is present and uses contraindications to determine appropriate VTE assignment. METHOD In 2009, 41 medicine residents at the Nebraska Western Iowa Veterans Affairs clinic participated in an online comparison of two different protocols (RS and non-RS) for assigning chemoprophylaxis for VTE. Six validated, hypothetical patient scenarios were used to compare appropriate (evidence-based) VTE assignments for VTE and completion times for each protocol. RESULTS Statistical analyses found that the non-RS protocol produced significantly faster (P < .001) scenario completion times and significantly more (P < .001) appropriate VTE assignments than the RS protocol for four of the six patient scenarios. CONCLUSIONS This study used a new, streamlined protocol (non-RS), which improved VTE assignment and the use of chemoprophylaxis and simplified the process when compared with the use of a traditional RS protocol.

The poultry industry has made significant advances in growth rate, feed efficiency, and breast muscle yield through intensive breeding of turkeys. However, a meat quality problem known as pale, soft, exudative (PSE) meat presents the industry with a major challenge during periods of stress, such as the onset of a prolonged heat wave. The biochemical characteristics of PSE turkey are strikingly similar to those of PSE pork. Abnormally rapid postmortem metabolism, stimulated in part by high concentrations of calcium ions, may be one of the underlying factors associated with the incidence of PSE turkey. This presentation summarizes our studies on the avian ryanodine receptors and suggests that heat stress may alter the expression pattern of splice variants of ryanodine receptors, which, in turn, could affect postmortem calcium homeostasis.

Theoretical perspectives on spelling characterize development as a progression through qualitatively different phases or as a process of more or less continuous growth. This study investigated the potential utility of a different perspective, the overlapping-wave model, for characterizing spelling development (Rittle-Johnson & Siegler, 1999). In addition, the study examined the relationship between students' developing use of spelling strategies and their spelling errors. We employed a microgenetic, mixed-design approach with multiple forms of data for triangulation. We administered six spelling inventories to 31 first-grade students individually over a period of five months in a trial-by-trial investigation. Our findings showed evidence of the three requirements for the overlapping-wave model: (1) variability, (2) gradual change, and (3) adaptive choice. Our findings also suggested a reciprocal relationship between spelling strategy use and developing orthographic knowledge. Additionally, our data showed evidence of a Matthew effect. The results of this study extend prior research by demonstrating a more complex view of spelling development and the need for additional studies employing a fine-grained analysis of developmental spelling. [Note: Ann Sharp discusses the research presented in this article in a podcast presented by the “Voice of Literacy”: http:www.voiceofliteracy.orgposts27490]. تصور الوجهات التنظيرية الهجائية التطور كعملية تسير في مراحل مختلفة خاصية أو كعملية ذات التنمية المستمرة بشكل أو بآخر. وتم استقصاء هذا البحث الفائدة المحتملة لوجهة نظر مختلفة وهي نموذج الموجة المتشابكة لتصوير التطور في الهجاء. وبالإضافة إلى ذلك تتقصى هذه الدراسة العلاقة بين استخدام الطلاب التخطيطات الهجائية الوليدة وأخطأهم الهجائية. وقد استخدمنا اتجاها مصمما مختلطا بأشكال متعددة من البيانات لتأكيد صحة المعطيات من خلال ثلاثة مصادر. وعليه فأجرينا بالانفراد ستة جردا هجائيا على 31 طالبا من الصف الأول لمدة خمسة أشهر في تحقيق أجري فحصا بفحص. ولقد بينت نتائج بحثنا دليلا على الشروط الثلاث لنموذج الموجة المتشابكة: 1) التغيرية و2) التغير التدريجي و3) الخيار المتكيف وكذلك أوضح بحثنا دليلا على وجود علاقة متبادلة بين استخدام تخطيط هجائي واكتساب معرفة خط اللغة وصوته. وعلاوة على ذلك أشارت بيانات بحثنا إلى احتمال وجود تأثير ماثيو. وفي الختام تمد نتائج هذه الدراسة الأبحاث العلمية السابقة بإظهار منظور للهجاء أكثر تعقيدا من ذي قبل والحاجة إلى أبحاث إضافية مستخدمة تحليلا دقيقا للتهجية المتطورة. [Podcast: http:www.voiceofliteracy.orgposts27490]. 一般理论观点视拼写能力为循着不同性质阶段而渐进的发展，又或视之为一个或多或少的持续增长过程。本研究调查一个与此不同的理论观点的潜在效用，这观点用重叠波浪模型以表示拼写能力发展的特点。此外，本研究亦考查学生发展中的拼写策略运用与拼写错误之间的关系。我们使用微变化研究法的混合设计法及多元资料三角交叉检视法。在为期五个月的逐个试验研究中，我们个别考查了311名一年级学生拼字能力六次。研究结果证明了重叠波浪模型的三个必要条件：(1)变异性，(2)渐变，(3)适应性选择。研究结果亦显示拼写策略运用与对拼写法认识发展之间的相互关系。此外,我们的资料亦显示出马太效应的佐证。整体而言本研究的结果进一步延展了先前的研究，说明了对拼写发展的一个较为复杂的理论观点，及以细密方法分析拼写发展作为补充研究的需要。 [Podcast: http:www.voiceofliteracy.orgposts27490]. Les positions theoriques de l'ecriture presentent son developpement comme une suite d'etapes qualitativement differentes ou comme un processus de progression plus ou moins continue. l'etude presentee ici examine l'utilite potentielle d'une position differente pour presenter le developpement de l'ecriture - un modele avec chevauchements - Cette etude examine egalement les relations entre le developpement par les eleves de l'utilisation de strategies d'ecriture differentes et les erreurs qu'ils commettent. Nous avons employe une approche microgenetique, au moyen d'un dispositif mixte recourant a des donnees de formes multiples par triangulation. Nous avons administre six batteries d'ecriture a 31 eleves de premiere annee, vus individuellement au cours d'une periode de cinq mois en procedant essai par essai. Nos resultats mettent en evidences la necessite pour un modele par chevauchements de trois caracteristiques: 1) variabilite, 2) progressivite 3) choix adaptatifs. Nos resultats suggerent egalement qu'il existe une relation reciproque entre l'utilisation d'une strategie d'ecriture et le developpement des connaissances orthographiques. Nos resultats, de plus, indiquent l'existence d'un effet Mathieu. Les resultats de cette recherche vont au-dela des recherches anterieures en presentant une image plus complexe du developpement de l'ecriture et la necessite de nouvelles etudes faisant appel a une analyse plus fine de son developpement. [Podcast: http:www.voiceofliteracy.orgposts27490]. Согласно теоретическим взглядам на становление орфографических навыков, ученик либо проходит несколько качественно различных этапов, либо находится в процессе более или менее непрерывного роста. Настоящее исследование рассматривало потенциальную применимость иного взгляда на становление навыков правописания, а именно модели «перекрывающихся волн». Кроме того, исследовалась взаимосвязь между использованием учащимися определенных приемов для проверки правописания и наличием орфографических ошибок в их работах. Три составляющие данного исследования: микрогенетический подход, смешанные группы и разнообразные способы получения данных. На протяжении пяти месяцев были последовательно проведены шесть контрольных проверок орфографических навыков у 31 первоклассника. Результаты подтверждают три основных положения модели «перекрывающихся волн»: (1) разнообразие, (2) поступательное изменение, (3) адаптивный выбор. Также нашла подтверждение идея о взаимовлиянии стратегий проверки правописания и становления орфографических знаний. Кроме того, полученные данные свидетельствуют о наличии т.н. эффекта Матфея (То есть, успешные двигаются вперед все более успешно, а отстающие все более безнадежно отстают. – Прим. переводчика). Данное исследование расширяет предшествующие представления о становлении орфографических навыков, демонстрируя более сложный характер этого процесса. Подчеркивается потребность в дополнительных исследованиях и более подробного анализа их результатов. [Podcast: http:www.voiceofliteracy.orgposts27490]. Las perspectivas teoricas sobre la ortografia caracterizan su desarrollo como una progresion por fases cualitativamente diferentes o como un proceso de crecimiento mas o menos continuo. Este estudio investiga la utilidad potencial de una perspectiva diferente, el modelo de ondas sobrepuestas, para caracterizar el desarrollo de la ortografia. Ademas, el estudio examina la relacion entre el uso en desarrollo de las estrategias de ortografia y los errores de ortografia. Usamos un acercamiento de diseno mixto microgenetico con multiples formas de datos para triangular. Suministramos seis inventarios de ortografia individualmente a 31 estudiantes de primer grado por un periodo de cinco meses en una investigacion de prueba a prueba. Nuestros resultados mostraron evidencia de los tres requisitos para el modelo de ondas sobrepuestas: (1) variabilidad, (2) cambio gradual, y (3) eleccion adaptada. Nuestros resultados tambien sugirieron una relacion reciproca entre el uso de estrategias ortograficas y el conocimiento en desarrollo de la ortografia. Ademas, nuestros datos mostraron evidencia de un efecto de Mateo (Matthew effect). Los resultados de este estudio amplian la investigacion anterior al demostrar una perspectiva mas compleja del desarrollo de la ortografia y la necesidad de hacer mas estudios que empleen un analisis muy fino del desarrollo de la ortografia. [Podcast: http:www.voiceofliteracy.orgposts27490].

Negotiation between virtual agents and humans is a complex field that requires designers of systems to be aware not only of the efficient solutions to a given game, but also the mechanisms by which humans create value over multiple negotiations. One way of considering the agent's impact beyond a single negotiation session is by considering the use of external “ledgers” across multiple sessions. We present results that describe the effects of favor exchange on negotiation outcomes, fairness, and trust for two distinct cross-cultural populations, and illustrate the ramifications of their similarities and differences on virtual agent design.

We present the SimSensei system, a fully automatic virtual agent that conducts interviews to assess indicators of psychological distress. With this demo, we focus our attention on the perception part of the system, a multimodal framework which captures and analyzes user state behavior for both behavioral understanding and interactional purposes. We will demonstrate real-time user state sensing as a part of the SimSensei architecture and discuss how this technology enabled automatic analysis of behaviors related to psychological distress.

Machiavellianism, by definition, is the tendency to use other people as a tool to achieve one's own goals. Despite the large focus on the Big Five traits of personality, this anti-social trait is relatively unexplored in the computational realm. Automatically recognizing anti-social traits can have important uses across a variety of applications. In this paper, we use negotiation as a setting that provides Machiavellians with the opportunity to reveal their exploitative inclinations. We use textual, visual, acoustic, and behavioral cues to automatically predict High vs. Low Machiavellian personalities. These learned models have good accuracy when compared with other personality-recognition methods, and we provide evidence that the automatically-learned models are consistent with existing literature on this anti-social trait, giving evidence that these results can generalize to other domains.

We argue for the importance of negotiation as a challenge problem for virtual human research, and introduce a virtual conversational agent that allows people to practice a wide range of negotiation skills. We describe the multi-issue bargaining task, which has become a de facto standard for teaching and research on negotiation in both the social and computer sciences. This task is popular as it allows scientists or instructors to create a variety of distinct situations that arise in real-life negotiations, simply by manipulating a small number of mathematical parameters. We describe the development of a virtual human that will allow students to practice the interpersonal skills they need to recognize and navigate these situations. An evaluation of an early wizard-controlled version of the system demonstrates the promise of this technology for teaching negotiation and supporting scientific research on social intelligence.

Negotiation is a challenging domain for virtual human research. One aspect of this problem, known as opponent modeling, is discovering what the other party wants from the negotiation. Research in automated negotiation has yielded a number opponent modeling techniques but we show that these methods do not easily transfer to human-agent settings. We propose a more effective heuristic for inferring preferences both from a negotiator’s pattern of offers and verbal statements about their preferences. This method has the added advantage that it can detect negotiators that lie about their preferences. We discuss several ways the method can enhance the capabilities of a virtual human negotiator.

Background and Purpose. From an academic perspective, there exists the continuing challenge to integrate how well a physical therapist graduate student has performed in the academic course of study with how successfully the student has demonstrated appropriate professional behaviors that are consistent with professional practice standards. Potential conflict arises when a student may be progressing satisfactorily in coursework but demonstrates certain professional behaviors that the faculty deem inconsistent with successful physical therapy practice and which may suggest removal of the student from the program. It is the intent of this article to not only provide a legal framework for administrators and faculty often faced with legal issues surrounding such decisions, but to provide experienced-based recommendations regarding how best to evaluate professional behaviors within the academic program environment. Case Description, Outcomes, and Discussion. This paper presents a case study of a physical therapist graduate student who demonstrated several behaviors inconsistent with professional standards despite good academic standing with a description of the due process through which the student pursued an appeal of suspension from the program. The events of the case are presented with a discussion of those legal issues in higher education relevant to the case and lead to several recommendations for ensuring good faith and due process in maintaining professional standards. Key Words: Professional behaviors in academic programs, Goodfaith and due process. INTRODUCTION Professional education in physical therapy, as in all health care programs at the graduate level, includes the learning of specialized knowledge and skills as well as the accumulation of the values, beliefs, and attitudes of that profession.1 The continuing challenge for physical therapist educators is to provide effective didactic and experiential opportunities for students so that they may be prepared for the rigors of practice, but also to teach them to display the attitudes and behaviors that portray those traits embraced by the physical therapy profession. Inherent in this process is the need for educators to determine whether students have made sufficient progress in the academic and/or clinical curriculum to merit continuance in the physical therapist education program. In addition to obtaining excellent clinical skills needed for practice-based issues, students must also be able to act professionally and work with patients using superior "interpersonal and communication skills."2·3 The expected professional behaviors and attitudes are similar in many of the health care professions. Specifically, May and colleagues, in discussing desirable student capabilities, identified several professional behavioral traits expected of students entering the physical therapy profession.4 Similarly, Kaufman advocates that effective professional practice and the development of expertise require development and maturation of sophisticated skills in areas of cognitive, psychosocial, and moral behavior.5 At the most basic level, most authors agree that students should exhibit honesty, integrity, and human respect. A number of studies have been conducted to provide some guidance as to the best manner for academic programs to incorporate or foster physical therapist professional behaviors, such as communication, adherence to legal and ethical codes of practice, respect, empathy/sensitive practice, and accountability.3-6 From an academic perspective, there exists the challenge to evaluate how well a graduate student has performed both in the academic course of study as well as successfully demonstrating professional behaviors. For example, should the professional behaviors be incorporated into the course of study and graded as part of the course requirements, or should such behaviors be evaluated apart from the formal course work but included in annual evaluations of progress toward the degree? …

SUMMARY Perhaps the most “naturally occurring” data on school misbehavior and aggression are school discipline data, including office referrals, suspensions, and expulsion data. These data constitute the most common markers of school discipline status available on school campuses. There is, however, very little information available in professional or research literature about the reliability and validity of office referrals. This article examines the sources of error that enter into the collection and use of office referrals. Despite these sources of errors, this article documents the importance of considering how office referral data provide information about how discipline systems are functioning on a school campus. Guidelines are provided for utilizing disciplinary data for school safety and school policy planning.

Highlights of this special issue on bullying are presented. The compendium of research reviewed and data presented set the stage for future research to attend to issues of definition, measurement, ...

We examined the intersection of students' understanding and acceptance of evolution and their epistemological beliefs and cognitive dispositions. Based on previous research, we hypothesized there would be a relation between understanding and acceptance. We also hypothesized that students who viewed knowledge as changing and who have a disposition toward open-minded thinking would be more likely to accept the scientific explanation of human evolution, and that beliefs and dispositions would not be related to acceptance of a topic that is generally perceived as noncontroversial. Ninety-three undergraduate students enrolled in a nonmajors biology class completed measures of their (a) content knowledge of evolution and photosynthesis and respiration; (b) acceptance of theories of animal evolution, human evolution, and photosynthesis; and (c) epistemological beliefs and cognitive dispositions. Although our findings did reveal a significant relation between knowledge and reported acceptance for photosynthesis, there was no relation between knowledge and acceptance of animal or human evolution. Epistemological beliefs were related to acceptance, but only to the acceptance of human evolution. There was no relation between students' epistemological beliefs and their general acceptance of animal evolution or photosynthesis. Three subscales, Ambiguous Information, Actively Open-Minded Thinking, and Belief Identification, were significantly correlated with understanding evolutionary theory. We argue these findings underscore the importance of intentional level constructs, such as epistemological beliefs and cognitive dispositions, in the learning of potentially controversial topics. 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 40: 510-528, 2003

This article presents information about the range and type of violent and associated behaviors that occur on American school campuses. We argue that the prevailing practice of reporting single-item population estimate trends from school violence surveillance surveys provides an incomplete basis upon which to form and evaluate public policy related to school violence. The presentation draws upon information derived from the 1993, 1995, 1997, and 1999 Centers for Disease Control’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance (YRBS) surveys (CDC 1995, 1996, 1998, 2000) and the 1997–1998 California Student Survey (CSS) (Austin et al. 2001). Secondary analyses using the YRBS and the CSS are used to illustrate the importance of considering risk and school adjustment patterns when examining school violence trends to formulate public policy agendas.

This article considers the issue of predicting violence committed by students on school campuses through the use of school discipline indices such as office referrals, suspensions, and expulsions. The existing research on incidents of school discipline markers is reviewed as well as sources of variation due to student characteristics and classroom or school-wide practices. Challenges in making accurate predictions about future behavior at school are outlined. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The effectiveness of after-school programming and parent education and support as a prevention approach for students who are at risk for substance abuse is addressed here. The after-school program played a “protective function” for those students who participated; they showed a maintenance of key resilience variables such as bonding to school, perception of parent supervision, and teacher-rated behavior. In addition, student and parent participation was positively related to changes in school bonding, perceived parental supervision, and teacher ratings of behavior.

To compare different types of rehabilitation for anterior knee pain.Prospective, randomized, blinded, and controlled study of 64 participants with anterior knee pain.Outpatient rehabilitation clinic and testing laboratory.Participants were assigned in randomized fashion to three rehabilitation groups: traditional home rehabilitation (n = 20); physical therapy (n = 21); and home rehabilitation with a modified vastus medialis obliquis (VMO) specific straight leg raise (Muncie method; n = 23).Clinical data was obtained at 0, 2, 6, and 12 weeks. Cybex testing was performed at 0, 6, and 12 weeks.Clinical outcome for the Muncie method indicated a statistically significant improvement in subjective pain and functional impairment ratings. Cybex testing in patients using the Muncie method demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in pain-free isometric contractions and maximum voluntary contraction. There were no significant differences between traditional home therapy and physical therapy.Findings suggest that the Muncie method results in improved clinical outcome at a lower cost than traditional home and physical therapy and possibly improved VMO/quadriceps muscle balance. Patients with anterior knee pain may benefit from applying the Muncie method in a home therapy program.

As school psychology enters the new millennium, policy makers are demanding that steps be taken to ensure the safety of schools. This article argues that school psychology should provide a primary leadership role in this initiative based on their professional training and expertise. Furthermore, the tensions created by social expectation to implement violence-prevention and intervention programs will provide the incentive and momentum for school psychology to redefine itself in the 21st century. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Laboratory models for breast and endometrial cancer have had an enormous impact on the clinical development of antiestrogens. Results from the DMBA-induced rat mammary cancer model has provided the scientific principles required to evaluate long-term adjuvant tamoxifen therapy. Similarly, the athymic mouse model allowed the identification of clinically relevant mechanisms of drug resistance to tamoxifen and a model system to test new agents for cross resistance. Additionally, the endometrial cancer model has allowed the identification of agents that cause a slight increase in the risk of endometrial cancer long before the data would have be available from clinical studies. However, it should be stressed that this model is really only relevant for agents to be tested as preventives in normal women. The risks of developing endometrial cancer during tamoxifen therapy are slight compared with the survival benefit in controlling breast cancer.Finally the discovery of the carcinogenic potential of tamoxifen in the rat liver, 20 years after it was first introduced into clinical practice, raises an interesting issue. If the studies of liver carcinogenicity had been completed and published in the early 1970's there would be no tamoxifen and tens of thousands of women with breast cancer would have died prematurely. In fact there would have been no incentive to develop new agents as alternatives to tamoxifen or following tamoxifen failure. Most importantly, we would not have any knowledge about the target-site or selective actions of antiestrogens. All the current interest in selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs) is based on the huge clinical data base obtained by studying tamoxifen. The success of tamoxifen as an agent that preserves bone density, lowers cholesterol and prevents contralateral breast cancer(43) has become a classic example of a multimechanistic drug. These concepts have acted as a catalyst to develop new agents for new applications. The laboratory studies of raloxifene(44-46)) provided the scientific rationale for the use of raloxifene as a preventive for osteoporosis(47)) but with the goal of preventing breast cancer in post-menopausal women(48,49)) (Fig 5). It is clear that the close collaboration between laboratory and clinical research has revolutionized the prospects for women's health care in the 21st century.

The new antiestrogen toremifene (TOR) is currently on the market for the treatment of advanced breast cancer in postmenopausal women. TOR is known to exhibit a similar efficacy profile as tamoxifen (TAM) in the treatment of advanced breast cancer and there are studies to suggest that the beneficial side effects of TAM on bone and blood lipids are also achieved with TOR. However, the data concerning the action of TOR on the endometrium is sorely lacking. In light of the estrogenic effect of TAM on the uterus and the 2–3-fold increased incidence in endometrial carcinoma detected in patients receiving TAM therapy, it is imperative to investigate the effect of TOR on endometrial carcinoma. We compared the actions of TAM and TOR on the EnCa101 human endometrial tumor model and find that both antiestrogens have similar growth stimulatory effects. To investigate a potential mechanism of antiestrogen-stimulated endometrial tumor growth, we have examined known activators of the AP-1 signal transduction pathway, the protein kinase C (PKC) family of isozymes, in the EnCa101 human endometrial tumor model. We find that increased PKC isozyme expression correlates with hormone-independent breast cancer as well as antiestrogen-stimulated endometrial cancer.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop and determine the efficacy of a middle digit isokinetic eccentric strength dynamometer (MDD) in two groups of subjects. Methods: The first group was composed of individuals without physician diagnosed lateral epicondylitis (13 males and 14 females), and the second group was composed of individuals who had physician diagnosed lateral epicondylitis (13 males and 14 females). A middle digital extension isokinetic dynamometer measured eccentric isokinetic torque, work, power, and angle at peak torque of the third finger. Results : Test-retest correlation values ranged from 0.83 to 0.45. ANOVA indicated a significant difference in work, power, and angle at peak torque were indicated between the two subject groups. Conclusion: The middle digital extension isokinetic dynamometer appears to provide an acceptable means of evaluating effects of lateral epicondylitis therapy.