Daily Journals Research Articles

Urinary bisphenol A, phthalates, and couple fecundity: the Longitudinal Investigation of Fertility and the Environment (LIFE) Study

To assess the relationship between environmental chemicals and couple fecundity or time to pregnancy (TTP). Prospective cohort. Communities of targeted populations with reported exposure. 501 couples recruited upon discontinuing contraception to become pregnant, 2005-2009. None. Fecundability odds ratios (FORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) estimated for each partner's chemical concentrations adjusted for age, body mass index, cotinine, creatinine, and research site while accounting for time off contraception. Couples completed interviews and anthropometric assessments and provided the urine specimens for quantification of bisphenol A (BPA) and 14 phthalate metabolites, which were measured using high-performance liquid chromatography with electrospray triple-quadrupole mass spectrometer. Women recorded menstruation and pregnancy test results in daily journals. Couples were evaluated until a positive human-chorionic gonadotropin pregnancy test or 12 cycles without pregnancy. Neither female nor male BPA concentration was associated with TTP (FOR 0.98; 95% CI, 0.86, 1.13 and FOR 1.04; 95% CI, 0.91, 1.18, respectively). Men's urinary concentrations of monomethyl, mono-n-butyl, and monobenzyl phthalates were associated with a longer TTP (FOR 0.80; 95% CI, 0.70, 0.93; FOR 0.82, 95% CI, 0.70, 0.97; and FOR 0.77, 95% CI, 0.65 0.92, respectively). Select male but not female phthalate exposures were associated with an approximately 20% reduction in fecundity, underscoring the importance of assessing both partners' exposure to minimize erroneous conclusions.

Development and Evaluation of an International Service Learning Program for Nursing Students

(1) Using Riner's framework, the development of an international service learning program in the Dominican Republic (DR) for Baccalaureate nursing students will be described, and (2) an initial impact of the students' experiences will be examined. A qualitative descriptive research design was used to examine its impact. The international service learning program included (1) didactic (five, 2 hr and one full day educational sessions) prior to (2) immersion (2 weeks in country), and (3) posttrip debriefing session. Ten females, senior nursing students participated in the program. Students' daily journals were examined using thematic analysis. Five major themes that emerged were as follows adapting physically, encountering frustration in their inability to fully meet patients' needs, increasing confidence in speaking Spanish and assessing health problems, and increasing cultural awareness. Students were descriptive regarding their daily activities, and did some, but limited, critical reflection. Models of reflection need to be explored to select the most appropriate technique to facilitate students' critical reflection in meeting the goals and objectives of the experience. Curriculum integration of global learning, social consciousness, and global cultural competence development is needed.

Was the 1899 Menderes Valley Earthquake a double earthquake? Historical and paleosismological constraints

September 20, 1899 Menderes Valley Earthquake is the last destroying event in the Büyük Menderes Graben, Western Turkey, just proceeding the installation of the earliest seismograms in the world. The previous geological studies revealed that this seismic event of estimated Mw=6.5–6.7 caused a surface rupture of 50km between Aydın and Kuyucak in the center of the graben. Based on the extremely different positioning of microseismic epicenter of this event in various historical documents, we re-evaluated the 1899 earthquake with a rather multidisciplinary perspective. Quantitative earthquake data including fatalities, damage and various types of aids were gathered from daily journals and special commission reports of the time. These data are corrected with the population statistics and georeferenced. For exact determination of the position of the surface rupture, we benefited the verbal description in historical documents and witnesses of elder local people. Furthermore, morphological and palaeoseismological investigations were realized in the eastern part of the graben where surface deformations were made mention in historical documents. Different ground shake-related indicators conformably revealed two distinct geographically-separated damage zone, one at Yenipazar and the other at Ortakçı, in the middle and east of the graben respectively. Trench studies in the west of the Ortakçı village indicated evidences of a seismic event, presumably the 1899 earthquake, with 180cm vertical displacement. Bimodal distribution damage unrelated to basement lithology and building types, and the incoherence between the total surface rupture length and the observed vertical offset and earthquake intensity lead us to conclude that the 1899 Menderes Valley Earthquake was an earthquake doublet occurred in two neighboring segments in very close temporal proximity.

How Do You Say "MOO" in Latin? Assessing Student Learning and Motivation in Beginning Latin

In this article, we assess the value of VRoma for Latin language learning. In particular, we discuss three exercises that we developed which combine Latin language and Roman culture in order to help students reinforce their Latin skills and gain a more in-depth understanding of ancient Roman society. Daily journals and evaluations of the assignments provided an assessment of student motivation and gave us information concerning students' perceptions of the benefits and challenges of working in the VRoma MOO. Transcripts and e-mail responses, both composed in Latin, allowed us to assess both the quality of students' interaction in the target language and their understanding of cultural and linguistic structures. Our studies have shown that by combining visual arts and cultural data with the capacity for real time communication in Latin, VRoma provides a unique opportunity for students to be immersed in language and culture simultaneously. Such an opportunity is not only useful for developing students' language skills but also for giving them a more sophisticated understanding of the ways that language and culture are integrated.

Malaysian TESL Students’ Challenges: Instructional Use of Video Production

Aims: The study aims at identifying the challenges with which Malaysian students of Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) are faced before, during and after stages of video production process. Study Design: Interpretive. Methodology: In this study an interpretive analysis was done on daily journals and observations of 42 Malaysian TESL students producing a video of a scene of a Shakespearean play, Macbeth. Peer assessment was then applied in order to give students a chance to evaluate their peers’ work. Results: The findings revealed that students encountered various difficulties before, during and after production stages which should be taken into account in teacher training programs. Conclusion: The findings are useful for teachers and teacher education institutions involved in teaching the use of digital video to enhance pedagogy. This study suggests that TESL students should perhaps be exposed to basic video production techniques from early stages of their teacher training in order to be prepared to integrate video production in their future classes to enhance student learning.

Helping self-help books: Working towards a new research agenda

Self-help books are one of the most prolific and commercially successful book genres of the past 30 years (Smith 2002). Described as a genre of books that outline a particular problem in the leading title, which is then followed by its remedy in the subtitle, the self-help genre has also undergone substantial product diversification to include inspirational pamphlets, affirmational daily journals, audio books and miniature self-help books (e.g. The Little Book of Hope) to emerge as a very lucrative global cultural industry. While it is estimated that the self-help industry is worth $10 billion in America, this strong consumptive relationship with self-help books is not an exclusive American phenomenon, but can also be found to be on the increase in Britain, as well as Japan, China and India, among other countries. However, despite the sizeable presence of self-help books in contemporary popular culture, the practice of consuming and reading self-help books has yet to receive the scholarly attention that this phenomenon now deserves. In this article I will attempt to rectify this impasse by conducting a critical review of the research already conducted into self-help books and their readers, highlighting the inconsistencies and impediments that hamper a sustained and systematic analysis of self-help books, with a view to signposting new areas for development and a fusion of different perspectives in the years ahead.

Sleep in athletes and the effects of Ramadan

Sleep is now considered as a new frontier in performance enhancement. This article presents background content on sleep function, sleep needs and methods of sleep investigation along with data on the potential effects of Ramadan fasting on sleep in normal individuals and athletes. Accumulated sleep loss has negative impacts on cognitive function, mood, daytime sleepiness and performance. Sleep studies in athletes fasting during Ramadan are very rare. Most of them have demonstrated that during this month, sleep duration decreased and sleep timing shifted. But the direct relation between sleep changes and performance during Ramadan is not yet elucidated. Objective sleep patterns can be investigated using polysomnography, actigraphy, and standardised questionnaires and recorded in daily journals or sleep logs. The available data on sleep indicate that team doctors and coaches should consider planning sleep schedule and napping; implementing educational programmes focusing on the need for healthy sleep; and consider routine screening for sleep loss in athletes of all age groups and genders.

Emotion, voice and agency: Exploring the written discourses of some township women in South Africa

This paper is an analysis of the discourses and attitudes that emerged from a set of daily journals kept by a particular group of township women during a training course for domestic workers in South Africa. The principal aim of the paper is to examine the ways in which the women express emotion, voice, and agency through the act of writing and reflecting on their experiences during the training course. A secondary aim is to uncover those recurrent discourses and attitudes that either empower or disempower these women from becoming effective agents capable of challenging their positions in their families and society. The theoretical and conceptual framework for this study draws on Appraisal Theory and studies on voice, agency and identity.

Pierwsza wojna bałkańska według francuskiego dziennika „Le Temps”, a zachodnioeuropejskie stereotypy dotyczące ludów bałkańskich

“Le Temps” was one of the most important French newspapers of the first half of XXth century. In the first two months of the first Balkan war the progress of this conflict was the most important subject for the editors of “Le Temps”. The information provided by the daily had a binary character. On the one hand the readers might found the descriptions of diplomatic and military operations of the states participating in conflict, and the other political powers interested in the situation in the region. On the other hand the journal systematically published large commentaries made by the political commentators and the Balkan correspondents of the daily. In the articles published in “Le Temps” one can find the images of Balkans which are typical for Western European image of Balkans, which started to emerge in the beginning of XVIIIth century. It is important to underline that this image of Balkans presented in “Le Temps” did not concern only politics and war. The conflict became a pretext for the presentation of wild Balkan nature and the traditional culture of the Balkans. In the articles published in the newspaper it is possible to find also the reflections concerning the backwardness of social structures of Balkan people and their civilizations, as well as the remarks on the process of modernizations of those societies caused by military mobilization. “Le Temps” promoted the Western European stereotypes about Balkans, which up to that time were present mainly in travel journals, not so influential as the daily journals. The representation of Balkans presented by “Le Temps” was the synthesis of the images already known. The example of this journal shows that the image of Balkan people in the time of the Balkan war may be considered as the climax of the process of evolution of the Balkan stereotypes.

A reflective learning taxonomy for an educational tour

This study is to investigate the reflective learning in a group of secondary school students who participated in an educational tour to Liannan, which is located in a rural area in Guangdong Province, Mainland China. The specific aim is to develop a framework to describe the learning in an educational tour. For this purpose, data were collected through students’ reflective writing in daily journals and end-of-trip sharing passages, triangulated with participant observation and interviews. The data analysis involved the use of grounded theory’s constant-comparative technique—an inductive method for generating hypotheses that are grounded in data. During the analysis of the data, the types of student learning which emerged were categorized in a Reflective Learning Taxonomy for an educational tour, comprising seven levels which are developmental in nature. The interpretative framework based on such a taxonomy of reflective learning reveals the rich context of learning in an educational tour and so makes a contribution to research on learning outside the classroom.

Creating Cultural Competence: An Outreach Immersion Experience in Southern Africa

With disasters on the rise, counselors need to increase their cultural awareness, knowledge, and skills to work with affected communities. This study reports outcomes of a four-week immersion experience in southern Africa with six counselor-trainees. Data sources for this qualitative study were: daily journals and demographic forms. Outcomes suggest that sustained contact with community residents and daily supervision experiences served to improve cultural awareness. Recommendations include pushing through students’ resistance using a non-linear dynamic model of transformation.

Designing prospective cohort studies for assessing reproductive and developmental toxicity during sensitive windows of human reproduction and development – the LIFE Study

The relationship between the environment and human fecundity and fertility remains virtually unstudied from a couple-based perspective in which longitudinal exposure data and biospecimens are captured across sensitive windows. In response, we completed the LIFE Study with methodology that intended to empirically evaluate a priori purported methodological challenges: implementation of population-based sampling frameworks suitable for recruiting couples planning pregnancy; obtaining environmental data across sensitive windows of reproduction and development; home-based biospecimen collection; and development of a data management system for hierarchical exposome data. We used two sampling frameworks (i.e., fish/wildlife licence registry and a direct marketing database) for 16 targeted counties with presumed environmental exposures to persistent organochlorine chemicals to recruit 501 couples planning pregnancies for prospective longitudinal follow-up while trying to conceive and throughout pregnancy. Enrolment rates varied from <1% of the targeted population (n = 424,423) to 42% of eligible couples who were successfully screened; 84% of the targeted population could not be reached, while 36% refused screening. Among enrolled couples, ∼ 85% completed daily journals while trying; 82% of pregnant women completed daily early pregnancy journals, and 80% completed monthly pregnancy journals. All couples provided baseline blood/urine samples; 94% of men provided one or more semen samples and 98% of women provided one or more saliva samples. Women successfully used urinary fertility monitors for identifying ovulation and home pregnancy test kits. Couples can be recruited for preconception cohorts and will comply with intensive data collection across sensitive windows. However, appropriately sized sampling frameworks are critical, given the small percentage of couples contacted found eligible and reportedly planning pregnancy at any point in time.

Students' and instructors' attitudes toward the use of CALL in foreign language teaching and learning

This study examines the effects of educational technologies on the attitudes of both the instructors and the students. The results indicate that there is a discrepancy between the students' awareness of the instructors' goals for using new technologies and the importance instructors placed on computer assisted language learning (CALL). The data also indicate a disparity between the students' reported use of CALL and instructors' perceptions of students' use of CALL, as well as between the types of technologies instructors thought were useful for students' success and those that students thought were useful for their own success. A comparison of students' log-in frequencies and the average time they spent on CALL activities per week, with the instructors' daily journals for each class indicated that instructors' behaviour had an effect on students' patterns of CALL use. As very few studies have made a comparison between students' attitudes and instructors' perceptions of the use of educational technologies, this study helps to fill a gap in the literature and leads to a better understanding of the use of CALL in second language teaching.

Death in media

This paper discusses the role of media in a construction of public image speech and presentation of death. The main research questions could be posed as follows: does the media discourse confirm a thesis about modern society as the one which intensely avoids encounter with Death, or does it defy it? Frequent images or hints of death in visual media in films informative and entertainment programs-suggest certain changes related to this issue in the past few decades. This analysis focuses on printed media hence the paper assesses numerous issues of the daily journal Politika from 1963, 1972, 1973, 1979, 1985, 1991, 1995, 1999, 2007 and 2008, as well as some other daily journals after 2000. The analysis confirms a strong connection between the current political systems and ideology and speech about death. In addition, it reveals a political usage of this event but also speaks up about cultural and historical models, underlying all other constructions. During the 1960's and 1970's, the presentations, including the speech about death relied on the traditional understandings about inevitability of death and dying, and alternatively on atheistic beliefs related to the progress and wellbeing of the society. In this particular discourse, death was present to a limited degree, serving primarily to glorify socialist order. The end of the 1970's witnessed an increase in the glorification of the death, correlated with the decrease of the dominant political ideology. On the other hand, the 1990's brought about more presence of the national and religious symbolism and glorification of the dead as heroes. After 2000, mercantilism is evident throughout the media. All of the media broadcast drastic images of death and dead, thus providing an answer to the posed question at the beginning of this paper about the relationship of the modern society towards death but nevertheless, this still leaves out many implicit consequences and possible meanings.

Social stratification of culture and leisure in Turkey

Using three sets of survey data, this article explores the variations and social bases of leisure and cultural consumption patterns during the last decade in Turkey. In particular, this article explores the social basis of reading habits of daily newspapers, magazines and journals, going out to movies and the theatre, as well as spending patterns on these and various other cultural activities. Questions addressed in this study are: how are culture and leisure consumptions stratified in contemporary Turkish society, and what types of changes can be detected between 1994 and 2004? In summary, the data indicate that leisure and cultural consumption tend to be stratified by educational and income level and, to some extent, white-collar occupations. Second, households with female heads tended to engage more in “highbrow” consumption, compared to households with male heads.

Male and Female University Students’ Experiences of Indirect Aggression

This study examines the role of sex, gender role orientation, social representations of indirect aggression, and indicators of psychosocial adjustment in indirect aggression and victimization in an emerging adult sample. A total of 42 participants (19 men, 23 women) recruited are required to complete the questionnaires, along with 18 participants out of the total study sample also completing daily journals. No sex differences are found for either indirect aggression or victimization. Indirect victimization is found to be the most significant predictor of indirect aggression. When controlling for indirect aggression, mania is the most significant predictor of indirect victimization. An inductive thematic analysis of the journals is conducted. The results are interpreted in relation to previous research and theory. Limitations, implications, and directions for future research are discussed.

Jan van Riebeeck as Pioneering Explorer and Conservator of Natural Resources at the Cape of Good Hope (1652-62)

Abstract The first decade of Dutch VOC occupation of South Africa's Cape of Good Hope has been ill served by environmental historians. An examination of the daily journals covering the first decade of settlement proves fruitful for historians interested in the origins of European exploration, exploitation and conservation of natural resources at the Cape. This settlement is moreover a unique example of seventeenth-century Dutch settlers establishing a cornucopia of food plants in the absence of indigenous agriculturalists, experimenting with species imported from the VOC's many bases. The difficulty of establishing what they may have learned from the indigenous peoples is addressed.

Initial Impressions: Reflections of Pre-Service Educators

Preservice early childhood educators responded in daily reflection journals on their field experience in local elementary classrooms. These journal entries were categorized according to the frequency of the responses. The focus of the study became the nature of the initial impressions that these preservice educators had of their cooperating teachers. We know that first impressions many times are very important. Much can be learned about how these cooperating teachers handled the first few minutes of interaction with the preservice educators.

Impact of Study Abroad on Latino/a College Students' Ethnic Identity and Cross-Cultural Adaptability

Latino/a youths living on the U.S. - México border encounter both challenges and opportunities, growing up with the values, traditions, and customs of two cultures. Many of these youths have lived all of their lives in a predominantly Mexican American community and have not actively explored what their ethnicity means to them. This study explores the impact of study abroad on Latino college students’ ethnic identity and crosscultural adaptability. Eleven participants wrote in daily journals and completed pre- and post-assessment surveys. At the end of the four week study abroad program, there was no significant change in strength of ethnic identity. However, students reported having a deeper understanding of the meaning of their ethnic identity, and their ethnic/cultural identities were more complex and differentiated. While overall cross-cultural adaptability did not change, study abroad contributed to increasing emotional resilience, which benefits students in everyday cross-cultural exchanges. Suggestions for future research and programs are discussed.

The Dunbar‐Hunter Expedition (1804–1805): Early Analyses of Spring Waters in the Louisiana Purchase

Introduction In the years folowing the Louisiana Purchase Treaty with France in 1803, U.S. President Thomas Jefferson commissioned four expeditions to explore the new territory. Best known of these, of course, was the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804–1806 across the northern margin of the purchase. However, there was also the Pike expedition of 1806–1807 into the Rocky Mountains and the Southwest, and the abbreviated Freeman-Custis expedition up the Red River in 1806, which was blocked by the Spanish just west of what is now the Texas-Arkansas border. Of some interest in the history of hydrogeology is the second expedition Jefferson commissioned, the Dunbar-Hunter expedition of 1804–1805 up the Ouachita (Washita) River in what is now Louisiana and Arkansas to the hot springs of central Arkansas. The daily journals and final reports of William Dunbar and George Hunter provided the first scientific description of the Ouachita River and surrounding area in English. In addition, Hunter made water quality determinations at some salt seeps and hot springs and speculated on the source of heat for the latter. Dunbar, in turn, attempted to determine the total rate of discharge of the hot springs and also wrote down his thoughts on their origin. The purpose of this note is to describe some of the field techniques used by Dunbar and Hunter at the time of their expedition and to analyze their scientific observations and thoughts from a modern perspective. The biographical information on the two explorers contained in this note is based on material in McDermott (1963) and Berry et al. (2006). The interpretations of Dunbar and Hunter’s findings are those of this author.