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Conventional lecture approaches view the process as a teacher-led method of imparting knowledge ("presentation" lecture), whereas modern theories suggest that the teaching methods employed should aim to inspire the student to learn rather than simply provide them with knowledge ("performance" lecture). The aim of the current research project was to compare the presentation lecture with the performance lecture by assessing student preferences and student learning. Comparisons within and across student cohorts revealed greater retention, understanding, and preference for the material covered in the performance lectures relative to the material covered in the presentation lectures. These findings suggest that Higher Education should aim to employ a greater use of the methods utilised in the performance lecture in order to enhance learning. Future research should focus on further exploring the relative effectiveness of each of these individual performance methods in order to establish the best possible approach to teaching in Higher Education. (Contains 5 figures.)

An uncritical reliance on the phylogenetic species concept has led paleoanthropologists to become increasingly typological in their delimitation of new species in the hominin fossil record. As a practical matter, this approach identifies species as diagnosably distinct groups of fossils that share a unique suite of morphological characters but, ontologically, a species is a metapopulation lineage segment that extends from initial divergence to eventual extinction or subsequent speciation. Working from first principles of species concept theory, it is clear that a reliance on morphological diagnosabilty will systematically overestimate species diversity in the fossil record; because morphology can evolve within a lineage segment, it follows that early and late populations of the same species can be diagnosably distinct from each other. We suggest that a combination of morphology and chronology provides a more robust test of the single‐species null hypothesis than morphology alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classic depictions of human evolutionary ecology cast Homo as predator and other hominins, including Paranthropus robustus, as prey. Such hypotheses rest on a small number of fossils that exhibit evidence of carnivore predation, including the iconic SK 54 cranium from Swartkrans in South Africa. Here we demonstrate that the SK 54 cranium shares its closest affinities with H. erectus sensu lato rather than P. robustus. Demonstrating that Homo was prey for leopards at Swartkrans weakens the historically significant hypothesis that Homo was better able to avoid predation because of being behaviourally and technologically advanced compared to Paranthropus. Subsequent ideas about hominin palaeobiology derived from this hypothesis warrant reconsideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to determine the factors influencing consumer intention to donate blood in an emerging market setting. A quantitative research design was followed that entailed the collection of data from 308 non-donor respondents, using a self-administered online questionnaire. The conceptual model and hypotheses were analysed statistically, using SPSS to conduct reliability analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis. The findings revealed that awareness of consequences, ascription of responsibility, and personal norms had a positive and significant influence on consumers' intention to donate blood. Ascription of responsibility was the largest influencer of personal norms towards blood donation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Intervertebral disc (IVD) disorders (e.g., herniation) directly contribute to back pain, which is a leading cause of global disability. Next‐generation treatments for IVD herniation need advanced preclinical testing to evaluate their ability to repair large defects, prevent reherniation, and limit progressive degeneration. This study tested whether experimental, injectable, and nonbioactive biomaterials could slow IVD degeneration in an ovine discectomy model. Methods: Ten skeletally mature sheep (4–5.5 years) experienced partial discectomy injury with cruciate‐style annulus fibrosus (AF) defects and 0.1 g nucleus pulposus (NP) removal in the L1–L2, L2–L3, and L3–L4 lumbar IVDs. L4–L5 IVDs were Intact controls. IVD injury levels received: (1) no treatment (Injury), (2) poly (ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA), (3) genipin‐crosslinked fibrin (FibGen), (4) carboxymethylcellulose–methylcellulose (C‐MC), or (5) C‐MC and FibGen (FibGen + C‐MC). Animals healed for 12 weeks, then IVDs were assessed using computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, and histopathology. Results: All repaired IVDs retained ~90% of their preoperative disc height and showed minor degenerative changes by Pfirrmann grading. All repairs had similar disc height loss and Pfirrmann grade as Injury IVDs. Adhesive AF sealants (i.e., PEGDA and FibGen) did not herniate, although repair caused local endplate (EP) changes and inflammation. NP repair biomaterials (i.e., C‐MC) and combination repair (i.e., FibGen + C‐MC) exhibited lower levels of degeneration, less EP damage, and less severe inflammation; however, C‐MC showed signs of herniation via biomaterial expulsion. Conclusions: All repair IVDs were noninferior to Injury IVDs by IVD height loss and Pfirrmann grade. C‐MC and FibGen + C‐MC IVDs had the best outcomes, and may be appropriate for enhancement with bioactive factors (e.g., cells, growth factors, and miRNAs). Such bioactive factors appear to be necessary to prevent injury‐induced IVD degeneration. Application of AF sealants alone (i.e., PEGDA and FibGen) resulted in EP damage and inflammation, particularly for PEGDA IVDs, suggesting further material refinements are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When people respond to a target (T1) in a rapid serial visual presentation stream, their perception of a subsequent target (T2) is impaired if the intertarget stimulus onset asynchrony is between about 100 and 500 ms. Three experiments supported the interference model's (K. L. Shapiro, J. E. Raymond, & K. M. Arnell, 1994) claim that this attentional blink reflects competition for retrieval among multiple items in visual short-term memory. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that items appearing during the blink are named as T2 on an above-chance proportion of trials when T2 must be identified. Experiment 3 demonstrated that both the size of the blink and sensitivity to T2 reflected the number of items competing for retrieval as T2; such competition, moreover, occurred at a conceptual or categorical level rather than at a purely visual one. The relationship between the interference and alternative models of the attentional blink is discussed.