Materials Education and Research in Art and Design: A New Role for Libraries - Session 3. RISD Faculty

Faculty from Rhode Island School of Design representing Interior Architecture, Industrial Design, and Textiles detail their thoughtful interactions with materials.

Materials Education and Research in Art and Design: A New Role for Libraries - Session 4. Designers

Designers respond to issues and synthesize ideas from throughout the day as voices from the field who directly encounter the need for recently graduated students to possess the ability to investigate and interrogate materials.

Materials Education and Research in Art and Design: A New Role for Libraries - Session 2. Educators

Educators representing interactions with materials speak to critical approaches, life-cycle concerns, critical thinking of composition/process/properties.

Two essays on education and governament policies

Whether human capital increases or decreases wage uncertainty is an open ques- tion from an empirical standpoint. Yet, most policy prescriptions regarding human capital formation are based on models that impose riskiness on this type of invest- ment. We slightly deviate from the rest of the literature by allowing for non-linear income taxes in a two period model. This enables us to derive prescriptions that are robust to the risk characteristics of human capital: savings should be discouraged, human capital investments encouraged and both types of investment driven to an e¢ cient level from an aggregate perspective. These prescriptions are also robust to what choices are observed, even though the policy instruments used to implement them are not.

The effects of longevity and distortions on education and retirement

This article studies the impact of longevity and taxation on life-cycle decisions and long-run income. Individuals allocate optimally their total lifetime between education, working and retirement. They also decide at each moment how much to save or consume out of their income, and after entering the labor market how to divide their time between labor and leisure. The model incorporates experience-earnings profiles and the return-to-education function that follows evidence from the labor literature. In this setup, increases in longevity raises the investment in education - time in school - and retirement. The model is calibrated to the U.S. and is able to reproduce observed schooling levels and the increase in retirement, as the evidence shows. Simulations show that a country equal to the U.S. but with 20% smaller longevity will be 25% poorer. In this economy, labor taxes have a strong impact on the per capita income, as it decreases labor effort, time at school and retirement age, in addition to the general equilibrium impact on physical capital. We conclude that life-cycle effects are relevant in analyzing the aggregate outcome of taxation.

Income and bargaining effects on education and health

In this paper, we examine the impacts of the reform in the rural pension system in Brazil in 1991 on schooling and health indicators. In addition, we use the reform to investigate the validity of the unitary model of household allocation by testing if there were uneven impacts on those indicators depending on the gender of the recipient. The main conclusion of the paper is that the reform had significantly positive effects on the outcomes of interest, especially on those co-residing with a male pensioner, indicating that the unitary model is not a well-specified framework to understand family allocation decisions. The highest impacts were on school attendance for boys, literacy for girls and illness for middle-age people. We explore a collective model as defined by Chiappori (1992) as one possible alternative representation for the decision-making process of the poor rural Brazilian families. In the cooperative Nash equilibrium, the reform effects can be divided into two pieces: a direct income effect and bargaining power effect. The data support the existence of these two different effects

Public investment in basic education and economic growth

The main objective of this paper was to visualize the relation between government spending on basic education and the human capital accumulation process, observing the impacts of this spending on individual investments in higher education, and on economic growth. It is used an overlapping-generations model where the government tax the adult generation and spent it in basic education of the next generations. It was demonstrated that the magnitude of the marginal effect of government spending in basic education on growth crucially depends on public budget constrains. The paper explains why some countries with a lot of public investment in basic education growth at low rates. In that sense if a country has only a lot of public investment in basic education without investment in higher education it may growth at low rates because the taxation can cause distortions in the agents incentives to invest in higher education.

Human growth, biological maturation, motor performance and contextual factors in Madeira children

The central aims of this study were: (1) to construct age- and gender-specific percentiles for motor coordination (MC), (2) to analyze the change, stability, and prediction of MC, (3) to investigate the relationship between motor performance and body fatness, and (4) to evaluate the relationships between skeletal maturation and fundamental motor skills (FMS) and MC. The data collected was from the ‘Healthy Growth of Madeira Children Study’ and from the ‘Madeira Child Growth Study’. In these studies, MC, FMS, skeletal age, growth characteristics, motor performance, physical activity, socioeconomic status, and geographical area were assessed/measured. Generalized additive models for location, scale and shape, mixed between-within subjects ANOVA, multilevel models, and hierarchical regression (blocks) were some of the statistical procedures used in the analyses. Scores on walking backwards and moving sideways improved with age. It was also found that boys performed better than girls on moving sideways. Normal-weight children outperformed obese peers in almost all gross MC tests. Inter-age correlations were calculated to be between 0.15 and 0.60. Age was associated with a better performance in catching, scramble, speed run, standing long jump, balance, and tennis ball throwing. Body mass index was positively associated with scramble and speed run, and negatively related to the standing long jump. Physical activity was negatively associated with scramble. Semi-urban children displayed better catching skills relative to their urban peers. The standardized residual of skeletal age on chronological age (SAsr) and its interaction with stature and/or body mass accounted for the maximum of 7.0% of variance in FMS and MC over that attributed to body size per se. SAsr alone accounted for a maximum of 9.0% variance in FMS and MC over that attributed to body size per se and interactions between SAsr and body size. This study demonstrates the need to promote FMS, MC, motor performance, and physical activity in children.

Scintigraphic validation of AC Biosusceptometry to study the gastric motor activity and the intragastric distribution of food in humans

Abnormal intragastric distribution of food (IDF) and a phasic contractility in the proximal stomach have been related to dyspeptic symptoms. Thus, the behaviour of the stomach and the proximal region, in particular, continues to attract attention and demand for reliable and comfortable techniques. The aims of this study were to employ AC Biosus-ceptometry (ACB) and scintigraphy to evaluate IDF and gastric motor activity in humans. Fifteen healthy volunteers ingested 60 mL of yogurt containing 2 mCi of Tc-99m and 4 g of ferrite. Each volunteer had gastric motility and IDF evaluated twice on separate days; on one occasion by ACB and another by scintigraphy. Digital signal processing was performed in MatLab (Mathworks Inc., Natick, MA, USA). Results were expressed as mean +/- SD. Similar results of distal accumulation time (P < 0.001) were obtained for scintigraphy (6.93 +/- 3.25 min) and for ACB (7.04 +/- 3.65 min). Fast Fourier Transform revealed two dominant frequencies (P > 0.9). Besides the well-know frequency of 3 cpm, our results showed identical frequencies in proximal stomach recordings (P < 0.001) for scintigraphic (1.01 +/- 0.01 cpm) and ACB (0.98 +/- 0.06 cpm). In summary, our data showed that scintigraphy and ACB are promising techniques to evaluate several aspects of gastric motility. Moreover, ACB is non-invasive, radiation-free and deserves the same importance as conventional methods for this kind of analysis.

Effect of oral hygiene education and motivation on removable partial denture wearers: longitudinal study

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of two different preventive oral hygiene education and motivation programmes on the plaque and gingival index, as well as denture hygiene of patients provided with removable partial denture (RPD) during a 12-month follow-up.A total of 53 partially edentulous patients were recruited for this study. The presence or absence of plaque and gingival bleeding by gentle probing was scored on all tooth surfaces at the preliminary visit. The plaque and gingival indexes were measured using the Loe index. Following treatment, the patients were randomly divided into three groups. In Control Group I, subjects were instructed to continue their personal oral hygiene routine. In Group II, participants were given verbal instructions and a self-educational manual on oral hygiene without illustrations. In Group III, oral hygiene guidance was delivered using a combination of verbal instructions and a self-teaching manual. To evaluate the effect of the different modes of instruction, the presence or absence of plaque and gingival bleeding was scored on all tooth surfaces (day zero examination) and re-examined 7, 15 and 30 days, 3, 6 and 12 months following RPD placement. The state of denture hygiene was evaluated 7, 15 and 30 days and 3, 6 and 12 months following rehabilitation. Parametric statistics was applied to dental plaque and gingival indexes. For accumulation of plaque and calculus on the RPD, non-parametric statistic was applied.The frequency of plaque found during the preliminary visit was higher than that found in the other periods. With regard to gingival index, significant difference was found between the preliminary visit examination and other periods. There was a significant difference in the plaque accumulation on the denture surface between groups I and III.The different methods of oral hygiene instruction used in this study indicate that the type of education was not of significant importance.

Environmental education and the health risk question: how do we educate the educators working with this theme?

Our society is presently seeing a trend of continuous increase of risk with severe consequences, especially those linked to environmental aspects. It has obligated us to reflect on this production and its effects, either positive or negative, and, after a long reflection, to think about the adopted model of civilization and the possibilities of changing such a model. The educational institution is among the social departments responsible for this revision process, since it represents one possibility to promote a more critical vision from society, providing it with tools needed for a more responsible action. However, schools are dominated by a traditional work, which does not allow for enough and proper attention to these relevant and current questions, and which involve a critical analysis of the conceptions and values established by our civilization, resulting in the present patterns of science-technology-society relations and their influence on the environment and health. Several research works have indicated a diversity of barriers that obstruct this necessary change. Since formal education plays an important role in the education of society for this theme, in this paper the possibilities and difficulty dealing with this problem are discussed, focusing on the question of teacher education, based on investigations related to teacher education programs for environmental education. The data collected show the urgency for introducing this theme in teacher training programs, taking into account the fact that educators have their own conceptions, values and attitudes that should be considered in these programs.

Effects of prenatal exposure to deltamethrin on forced swimming behavior, motor activity, and striatal dopamine levels in male and female rats

The effects of prenatal exposure of rat pups to 0.08 mg/kg deltamethrin (DTM) on physical, reflex and behavioral developmental parameters, on forced swimming and open-field behaviors, and on striatal monoamine levels at 60 days of age were observed. Maternal and offspring body weight, physical and reflex development were unaffected by the exposure to the pesticide. At 21 days of age, open-field locomotion frequency and immobility duration of male and female offspring were not different between control and exposed animals. However, male rearing frequency was increased in experimental animals. A decreased immobility latency to float and in general activity after the swimming test in male offspring was observed at adult age; no interference was detected in the float duration during the swimming test. In addition, these animals presented higher striatal 3,4-dihydroxyphenylacetic acid (DOPAC) levels without modification in dopamine (DA) levels and an increased DOPAC/DA ratio. These data indicate a higher activity of the dopaminergic system in these animals. Noradrenaline (NA) levels were increased, while MHPG levels were not detectable in the system studied. Serotonin (5-HT) and 5-hydroxyindolacetic acid (5-HIAA) levels, as well as the homovanillic acid (HVA)/DA ratio, were not modified by the exposure to the pesticide. No changes were observed in swimming and open-field behaviors nor were there any changes in striatal monoamines or their metabolites in the female experimental group. In relation to the pesticide formula, the present data showing that prenatal exposure to DTM alters latency to float and the activity of striatal dopaminergic system might reflect a persistent effect of the pesticide on animal motor activity, mainly in males. on the other hand, the decrease in general activity observed in experimental male rats suggests higher levels of emotionality induced by previous exposure to the swimming behavior test in relation to control animals. Data gathered in the present study may be important for the assessment of the safety of pyrethroid insecticides. (C) 2001 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.