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The systems thinking approach requires understanding and interpreting complex systems. This review investigated how the systems thinking approach in science education is positioned in peer-reviewed empirical research articles and to identify the trends used in the current literature. A systematic review of open-access, empirical peer-reviewed articles indexed in the Web of Science database from first mention through the end of 2022 was conducted to analyze the studies on systems thinking in science education. This qualitative study used a content analysis approach to identify trends in the research area of systems thinking in science education. The results revealed that research on systems thinking in science education has increased in recent years, mainly from the United States and Germany. Most studies focused on middle and high school students, and ecosystems were the most frequently addressed domain-specific topic. More than half of the reviewed articles used complexity, relationships, components, interactions, interrelationships, and dynamics as characteristics of systems thinking. The results showed that there was uncertainty in the use of the characteristics, skills, and abilities of systems thinking, and that these three terms were used interchangeably. This research can provide evidence-based indications of areas that need further investigation in future research.

There is evidence that spontaneous learning leads to relational understanding and high positive affect. To study spontaneous abstracting, a model was constructed by combining the RBC model of abstraction with Krutetskii's mental activities. Using video-stimulated interviews, the model was then used to analyze the behavior of two Year 8 students who had demonstrated spontaneous abstracting. The analysis highlighted the crucial role of synthetic and evaluative analysis, two processes that seem unlikely to occur under guided construction. (Contains 4 figures.)

Despite the ubiquity of dancing and synchronized movement to music, relatively few studies have examined cognitive representations of musical rhythm and meter among listeners from contrasting cultures. We aimed to disentangle the contributions of culture-general and culture-specific influences by examining American and Turkish listeners' detection of temporal disruptions (varying in size from 50-250 ms in duration) to three types of stimuli: simple rhythms found in both American and Turkish music, complex rhythms found only in Turkish music, and highly complex rhythms that are rare in all cultures. Americans were most accurate when detecting disruptions to the simple rhythm. However, they performed less accurately but comparably in both the complex and highly complex conditions. By contrast, Turkish participants performed accurately and indistinguishably in both simple and complex conditions. However, they performed less accurately in the unfamiliar, highly complex condition. Together, these experiments implicate a crucial role of culture-specific listening experience and acquired musical knowledge in rhythmic pattern perception. (Contains 4 figures and 1 footnote.)

Infants prefer native structures such as familiar faces and languages. Music is a universal human activity containing structures that vary cross-culturally. For example, Western music has temporally regular metric structures, whereas music of the Balkans (e.g., Bulgaria, Macedonia, Turkey) can have both regular and irregular structures. We presented 4- to 8-month-old American and Turkish infants with contrasting melodies to determine whether cultural background would influence their preferences for musical meter. In Experiment 1, American infants preferred Western over Balkan meter, whereas Turkish infants, who were familiar with both Western and Balkan meters, exhibited no preference. Experiments 2 and 3 presented infants with either a Western or Balkan meter paired with an arbitrary rhythm with complex ratios not common to any musical culture. Both Turkish and American infants preferred Western and Balkan meter to an arbitrary meter. Infants' musical preferences appear to be driven by culture-specific experience and a culture-general preference for simplicity. (Contains 2 figures and 1 footnote.)

Since the U.S. recession, restructuring of the economy highlighted the growth of contingent workforces that provide flexibility, adaptability, and cost-effectiveness in organizations. Academe with limited resources increased reliance on contingent faculty (also known as part-time and adjunct faculty) for teaching. Contingent faculties who teach online for colleges and universities have received little attention in terms of their needs and interests. This article focuses on these invisible and voiceless faculties and presents a meta-synthesis of research that addressed contingent online faculty and mentoring strategies and programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the presence of light-to-quality from stocks to bonds as they are the two alternative asset classes predominantly used for hedging in- vestment risk. A negative correlation between stock and bond markets is taken as a prognostication of light-to-quality, while a positive correlation can be taken as a sign of contagion between the markets. We analyze the Turkish and US stock and government bond markets between June 6, 2006 and November 29, 2013, to make a comparison between the diversification benefits in a developed and an emerging market economy. We further divide our sample into two sub-periods to compare the patterns in crisis and tranquil periods. Our results reveal the existence of light-to-quality in Turkey, whereas we find significant positive correlations between stocks and bonds in the US, implying a contagion effect. Additionally, we design portfolios of bonds/stocks and compute optimal weights and hedge ratios of the assets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan has pursued a grand strategy of creating an East Asian maritime order with a special emphasis on situating a U.S.-Japan-China trilateral arrangement, based on cooperative security, at the core of an East Asian maritime regime. The United States and China have slowly adopted some of this Japanese strategy. This article examines the lessons East Asia has learned from several maritime security initiatives-America's Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) and its Regional Maritime Security Initiative (RMSI), Japan's ReCAAP, and Southeast Asia's MALSINDO-that were applied to the anti-piracy operations off the Somali coast and the Gulf of Aden. Despite the influence of Japan's strategy for maritime security, paradoxically it has responded more slowly in its deployment to the Gulf of Aden, contributing to the traditional image of Japan as a reactive state. The institutional design of maritime regimes in the Gulf of Aden and in East Asia is thus incrementally unfolding; maritime cooperation is taking place in an ad hoc, bottom-up manner with very uncertain outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considers the social and health risks facing women in U.S. jails. Characteristics of women in jails; Impact of drug laws on rates of incarceration; Overview on health-related risk reduction programs in jails; Lessons of an intervention program that prevents an alcohol-exposed pregnancy after release from jail.

Explores the ethical dimension of teaching arts in the United States. How images are treated in art classrooms; Discussion on the issues raised by the media; Critical viewing and art education; Examination on the influence of images to children.

The article discusses the diplomatic community's possible involvement in solving the health workforce crisis. Topics covered include the U.S. Ambassador's prompting of Dominican Republic officials to give ghost workers' salaries to the health sector to ensure U.S. partnership and such steps as pushing fellow diplomats to focus on health care services in their countries. Also noted are the pillars of development, diplomacy, and defense in promoting U.S. security interests abroad.