Äldre texter - didaktik och motivation : Didaktisering av ett 1500-talsepos

Syftet med detta arbete är att undersöka huruvida vissa didaktiska tillvägagångssätt kan öka motivationen hos gymnasieelever inför studier av äldre texter samt i vilken utsträckning valfrihet och medbestämmande är viktigt inför arbetet med dessa. Könsrelaterade jämförelser görs. Tidigare forskning presenteras och en empirisk kvantitativ undersökning med enkäter genomförs, baserad på SCAS (Swedish Core Affect Scale) i reducerad form. Ett 1500-talsepos presenteras medelst olika didaktiska metoder för elever som löpande noterar graden av motivation på en niogradig skala bestående av adjektivpar.Studien visar att vissa didaktiska tillvägagångssätt ökar elevers motivation. Berättande samt rörliga bilder i kombination med tal och musik visar sig vara de mest stimulerande metoderna, gärna anknytning till universella teman och perspektiv. Studien visar även att endast vissa elever upplever valfrihet och medbestämmande i samband med arbetet med texten som något positivt.

Förmågan att känna empati med skönlitterära karaktärer. : Högstadieelevers självrapporterade empatiska känslor för skönlitterära karaktärer

Syftet med studien var att undersöka sambandet mellan de upplevda empatiska känslorna för skönlitterära karaktärer och faktiska skönlitterära vanorna hos elever i två olika årskurs nio. Empiri samlades in med hjälp av enkäter som bygger på Swedish Core Affect Scale, vilket är en beprövad metod för att mäta självrapporterade känslor. Eleverna ombads att rapportera självvärderade känslor vid läsning av en novell, Stig Dagermans Att döda ett barn. Frågorna handlade om hur eleverna tror att några av karaktärerna i novellen känner sig samt hur eleverna själva känner sig när de läser novellen. Eleverna delades sedan in i tre grupper utifrån sina faktiska skönliterära vanor. Grupperna namngavs enligt följande: Läsande, ej läsande och intresserade ej läsande. Elevernas svar på frågorna kopplades samman med forskning inom området. Enligt Theory of minde så finns ett samband mellan att läsa skönlitteratur och förmågan att känna empati. Skönlitteratur tycks kunna bidra både till bildning och ett livslångt lärande som främjar empati och demokrati. Hos eleverna i studien så finns tendenser som visar på ett samband mellan att läsa skönlitteratur och att känna empati för skönliterära karaktärer.

Core affect and subjective wellbeing: a rebuttal to Moum and Land

This paper is a rebuttal to the reviews of Moum and Land. Publication has been facilitated by Journal policy (see Instructions to authors ‘Procedure when the authors and reviewers disagree’ on the Journal website) which details the procedure to be followed in the case of disputed manuscripts. Our reply is in two parts. The first concerns issues of theory and the second issues of methodology. Each point of critique raised by the reviewers has been answered and shown either to be false or irrelevant. We contend that our original conclusion still stands. Subjective wellbeing is dominated by Core Affect.

Body image, strategies to change muscles and weight, and puberty. Do they impact on positive and negative affect among adolescent boys and girls?

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of strategies to both decrease weight and increase muscle tone on negative (depression, anxiety) and positive affect among adolescent males and females. The respondents were 1185 adolescents (587 males, 598 females) who were enrolled in grades 7 and 9 (mean age for MALES=13.22 years; mean age for FEMALES=13.21 years). Respondents completed the Body Image and Body Change Inventory that assessed body image satisfaction, body image importance, body change strategies to decrease weight, body change strategies to increase muscle tone, and food supplements. Respondents also completed the Pubertal Development Scale, the depression and anxiety scales of the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale, and the positive affect items from the Positive and Negative Affect Scale. Structural equation modelling was used to determine how body satisfaction and importance, body change strategies, and puberty impacted on depression, anxiety, and positive affect. The results demonstrated that for both boys and girls, there was a strong association between body change strategies and negative affect. For boys, body dissatisfaction did not predict negative affect, although this was a strong predictor for girls. Body change strategies did not strongly predict positive affect for either boys or girls, although body image satisfaction was a strong predictor for both genders. The implications of these findings for obtaining a better understanding of the role of pubertal development, body image, and body change strategies in predicting positive and negative affect among adolescent males and females are discussed.

Diffusive equilibration of N2, O2 and CO2 mixing ratios in a 1.5-million-years-old ice core

In the framework of the International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences, one of the most important targets is to retrieve an Antarctic ice core that extends over the last 1.5 million years (i.e. an ice core that enters the climate era when glacial–interglacial cycles followed the obliquity cycles of the earth). In such an ice core the annual layers of the oldest ice would be thinned by a factor of about 100 and the climatic information of a 10 000 yr interval would be contained in less than 1 m of ice. The gas record in such an Antarctic ice core can potentially reveal the role of greenhouse gas forcing on these 40 000 yr cycles. However, besides the extreme thinning of the annual layers, also the long residence time of the trapped air in the ice and the relatively high ice temperatures near the bedrock favour diffusive exchanges. To investigate the changes in the O2 / N2 ratio, as well as the trapped CO2 concentrations, we modelled the diffusive exchange of the trapped gases O2, N2 and CO2 along the vertical axis. However, the boundary conditions of a potential drilling site are not yet well constrained and the uncertainties in the permeation coefficients of the air constituents in the ice are large. In our simulations, we have set the drill site ice thickness at 2700 m and the bedrock ice temperature at 5–10 K below the ice pressure melting point. Using these conditions and including all further uncertainties associated with the drill site and the permeation coefficients, the results suggest that in the oldest ice the precessional variations in the O2 / N2 ratio will be damped by 50–100%, whereas CO2 concentration changes associated with glacial–interglacial variations will likely be conserved (simulated damping 5%). If the precessional O2 / N2 signal will have disappeared completely in this future ice core, orbital tuning of the ice-core age scale will be limited.

The Antarctic ice core chronology (AICC2012)

Abstract of Bazin et al. (2013): An accurate and coherent chronological framework is essential for the interpretation of climatic and environmental records obtained from deep polar ice cores. Until now, one common ice core age scale had been developed based on an inverse dating method (Datice), combining glaciological modelling with absolute and stratigraphic markers between 4 ice cores covering the last 50 ka (thousands of years before present) (Lemieux-Dudon et al., 2010). In this paper, together with the companion paper of Veres et al. (2013), we present an extension of this work back to 800 ka for the NGRIP, TALDICE, EDML, Vostok and EDC ice cores using an improved version of the Datice tool. The AICC2012 (Antarctic Ice Core Chronology 2012) chronology includes numerous new gas and ice stratigraphic links as well as improved evaluation of background and associated variance scenarios. This paper concentrates on the long timescales between 120-800 ka. In this framework, new measurements of d18Oatm over Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11-12 on EDC and a complete d18Oatm record of the TALDICE ice cores permit us to derive additional orbital gas age constraints. The coherency of the different orbitally deduced ages (from d18Oatm, dO2/N2 and air content) has been verified before implementation in AICC2012. The new chronology is now independent of other archives and shows only small differences, most of the time within the original uncertainty range calculated by Datice, when compared with the previous ice core reference age scale EDC3, the Dome F chronology, or using a comparison between speleothems and methane. For instance, the largest deviation between AICC2012 and EDC3 (5.4 ka) is obtained around MIS 12. Despite significant modifications of the chronological constraints around MIS 5, now independent of speleothem records in AICC2012, the date of Termination II is very close to the EDC3 one. Abstract of Veres et al. (2013): The deep polar ice cores provide reference records commonly employed in global correlation of past climate events. However, temporal divergences reaching up to several thousand years (ka) exist between ice cores over the last climatic cycle. In this context, we are hereby introducing the Antarctic Ice Core Chronology 2012 (AICC2012), a new and coherent timescale developed for four Antarctic ice cores, namely Vostok, EPICA Dome C (EDC), EPICA Dronning Maud Land (EDML) and Talos Dome (TALDICE), alongside the Greenlandic NGRIP record. The AICC2012 timescale has been constructed using the Bayesian tool Datice (Lemieux-Dudon et al., 2010) that combines glaciological inputs and data constraints, including a wide range of relative and absolute gas and ice stratigraphic markers. We focus here on the last 120 ka, whereas the companion paper by Bazin et al. (2013) focuses on the interval 120-800 ka. Compared to previous timescales, AICC2012 presents an improved timing for the last glacial inception, respecting the glaciological constraints of all analyzed records. Moreover, with the addition of numerous new stratigraphic markers and improved calculation of the lock-in depth (LID) based on d15N data employed as the Datice background scenario, the AICC2012 presents a slightly improved timing for the bipolar sequence of events over Marine Isotope Stage 3 associated with the seesaw mechanism, with maximum differences of about 600 yr with respect to the previous Datice-derived chronology of Lemieux-Dudon et al. (2010), hereafter denoted LD2010. Our improved scenario confirms the regional differences for the millennial scale variability over the last glacial period: while the EDC isotopic record (events of triangular shape) displays peaks roughly at the same time as the NGRIP abrupt isotopic increases, the EDML isotopic record (events characterized by broader peaks or even extended periods of high isotope values) reached the isotopic maximum several centuries before. It is expected that the future contribution of both other long ice core records and other types of chronological constraints to the Datice tool will lead to further refinements in the ice core chronologies beyond the AICC2012 chronology. For the time being however, we recommend that AICC2012 be used as the preferred chronology for the Vostok, EDC, EDML and TALDICE ice core records, both over the last glacial cycle (this study), and beyond (following Bazin et al., 2013). The ages for NGRIP in AICC2012 are virtually identical to those of GICC05 for the last 60.2 ka, whereas the ages beyond are independent of those in GICC05modelext (as in the construction of AICC2012, the GICC05modelext was included only via the background scenarios and not as age markers). As such, where issues of phasing between Antarctic records included in AICC2012 and NGRIP are involved, the NGRIP ages in AICC2012 should therefore be taken to avoid introducing false offsets. However for issues involving only Greenland ice cores, there is not yet a strong basis to recommend superseding GICC05modelext as the recommended age scale for Greenland ice cores.

Relationship between happiness, stress and musculoskeletal disorders in portuguese dentists

Tese de doutoramento, Medicina Dentária (Dentisteria Conservadora), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Medicina Dentária, 2016

A multicentre randomized controlled trial of an empowerment-inspired intervention for adolescents starting continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion : a study protocol

Background. Continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion (CSII) treatment among children with type 1 diabetes is increasing in Sweden. However, studies evaluating glycaemic control in children using CSII show inconsistent results. Omitting bolus insulin doses using CSII may cause reduced glycaemic control among adolescents. The distribution of responsibility for diabetes self-management between children and parents is often unclear and needs clarification. There is much published support for continued parental involvement and shared diabetes management during adolescence. Guided Self-Determination (GSD) is an empowerment-based, person-centred, reflection and problem solving method intended to guide the patient to become self-sufficient and develop life skills for managing difficulties in diabetes self-management. This method has been adapted for adolescents and parents as Guided Self-Determination-Young (GSD-Y). This study aims to evaluate the effect of an intervention with GSD-Y in groups of adolescents starting on insulin pumps and their parents on diabetes-related family conflicts, perceived health and quality of life (QoL), and metabolic control. Here, we describe the protocol and plans for study enrolment. Methods. This study is designed as a randomized, controlled, prospective, multicentre study. Eighty patients between 12-18 years of age who are planning to start CSII will be included. All adolescents and their parents will receive standard insulin pump training. The education intervention will be conducted when CSII is to be started and at four appointments in the first 4 months after starting CSII. The primary outcome is haemoglobin A1c levels. Secondary outcomes are perceived health and QoL, frequency of blood glucose self-monitoring and bolus doses, and usage of carbohydrate counting. The following instruments will be used to evaluate perceived health and QoL: Disabkids, 'Check your health', the Diabetes Family Conflict Scale and the Swedish Diabetes Empowerment Scale. Outcomes will be evaluated within and between groups by comparing data at baseline, and at 6 and 12 months after starting treatment. Results and discussion. In this study, we will assess the effect of starting an insulin pump together with the model of Guided Self-Determination to determine whether this approach leads to retention of improved glycaemic control, QoL, responsibility distribution and reduced diabetes-related conflicts in the family. Trial registration: Current controlled trials: ISRCTN22444034

Subjective wellbeing as an affective-cognitive construct

The affective content of Subjective Wellbeing (SWB) was investigated in two separate studies. Study 1 involved a representative sample of 478 participants from across Australia aged between 18 and 72 years. This study tested the circumplex model of affect and then determined the minimum set of affects that explain variance in SWB. The model was supported, with most affects congregated around the valence axis. Overall, 64% of the variance in SWB was explained by six Core Affects, indicating that SWB is a highly affective construct. Study 2 tested the relative strength of Core Affect (content, happy and excited), in three separate models of SWB incorporating cognition (seven discrepancies)
and all five factors of personality. Using a sample of 854 participants aged been 18 – 86 years, structural equation modeling was used to compare an affective-cognitive driven model of SWB, with a personality driven model of SWB and a discrepancy driven model of SWB. The results provide support for an affective-cognitive model which explained 90 percent of the variance in SWB. All models confirm that the relationship between SWB, Core Affect and Discrepancies is far stronger than the relationship between personality and SWB. It is proposed that Core Affect and Discrepancies comprise the essence of SWB. Moreover, Core Affect is the driving force behind individual set-point levels in SWB homeostasis.

International well-being index : the Austrian version

The International Well-being Index (IWI) measures both personal and national well-being. It comprises two subscales: the Personal Well-being Index (PWI) and the National Well-being Index (NWI). The aim of this paper is to test the psychometric properties (validity and reliability) of the translated scale in Austria. Convergent validity is assessed using the Scales of Psychological Well-Being, the Satisfaction with Life Scale and the Positive and Negative Affect Scale. In addition, a Visual–Analog Scales capturing “satisfaction with life as a whole” was applied. The participants were 581 students of the Medical University Innsbruck (female: 47.7%; age: 23.2 ± 3.7). Internal consistency (Cronbach’s α) of the IWI was for both scales > .70 (PWI: .85; NWI: .83). The exploratory factor analysis of the IWI identified a 2-factor-structure identical with the two scales of the IWI explaining 54.2% of the variance. The convergent validity hypotheses were confirmed, construct validity was partly confirmed for the PWI being a deconstruction of a first factor called “satisfaction with life” (38.1% explained variance). Happy participants scored higher on the PWI (84.3 ± 7.9 vs. 68.7 ± 13.7; p < .001) and NWI (64.3 ± 15.8 vs. 57.9 ± 15.1; p < .001) scores than unhappy participants. It is concluded that the Austrian version of the IWI is a reliable and valid instrument to assess personal and national well-being. Further studies including a representative sample should be carried out on a recurring basis to use the IWI as an indicator for social science research in Austria.