Correlates of Canadian native children's reading performance: From cognitive styles to cognitive processes

Individual differences in reading and cognitive processing among a sample of generally poor readers were studied in order to answer two major questions: Do they have a specific cognitive style that favors global-simultaneous strategies and a weak sequential strategy? If they do not have a distinct cognitive style or strategy, but are merely poor in using sequential (Successive) strategies, then, would the same processes that influence reading performance in the general population determine their performance as well? A sample of 84 Canadian First Nations (FN) children were assessed in word and pseudoword reading, rapid naming speed, and ability to process information using the Planning, Attention, Successive, and Simultaneous (PASS) theory of intelligence. Results confirmed that this sample of children did not exhibit a specific cognitive style. Rather, there was evidence of a weakness in Successive processing only in the subgroup of poor readers. The importance of understanding the role of Successive processing and rapid naming speed relative to reading is further discussed.     

The Dildo as a Transformative Political Tool: Feminist and Queer Perspectives

Censorship in patriarchal cultures runs deep in pushing dialogues and discussions on sexuality and sexual desires underground. The forbidden nature of these conversations is tighter around women and girls. With the inadequacy of affirmative and safe spaces to talk about sexual desire and pleasure, accessibility and availability of sex toys including dildos becomes significantly difficult, more so for women and other marginalized communities. Discussions about the dildo are further mired in debates between and among feminist and queer ideologies. In this paper, I look at how the dildo could be viewed simultaneously as a tool of oppression as well as of liberation and attempt to address the question: who does the dildo oppress and who does it liberate? I explore the multiple perspectives around the dildo within feminist thought and queer theory with special attention to points of convergence and divergence between them. While some predominant feminist perspectives understand the dildo as a symbol of the phallocentric order, there are others which view it as a tool for transformative politics. Queer theory also views the dildo as a device that can alter and shift traditional hierarchical relationships and be liberating not only for women but also for several marginalized identities including people with disabilities and people living with HIV. Unwrapping some of the ways in which the dildo is perceived, understood and experienced, I suggest that the dildo needs to be interpreted in complex and multi-layered ways.     

The interplay between feelings and beliefs about condoms as predictors of their use

Objective: Negative feelings about condoms are a key barrier to their use. Using the behavioural affective associations model, we examined the joint effects of affective associations and cognitive beliefs about condoms on condom use.

Design: In Study 1 (N = 97), students completed measures of their affective associations and cognitive beliefs about sex and condoms, sexual activity and condom use. In Study 2 (N = 171), a measure of behavioural intentions and condom selection task were added.

Main outcome measures: Condom use measured in Study 1 as (1) current condom use, and (2) willingness to use condoms; in Study 2 as: (1) behavioural intentions, (2) number of condoms selected.

Results: Affective associations with sex and condoms were behaviour-specific, were directly associated with the respective behaviour, and mediated the relations of cognitive beliefs to behaviour, ps < .05. In Study 2, affective associations were associated with behavioural intentions and the number of condoms selected, ps < .05; cognitive beliefs were indirectly associated with these outcomes through affective associations, indirect effects: ps < .05.

Conclusions: Affective associations are a behaviour-specific and proximal predictor of condom use, mediating the effect of cognitive beliefs, suggesting they may be a particularly viable intervention target.     

Mood as a resource in dealing with health recommendations: How mood affects information processing and acceptance of quit-smoking messages

Objective: An experimental study tested the effects of positive and negative mood on the processing and acceptance of health recommendations about smoking in an online experiment. It was hypothesised that positive mood would provide smokers with the resources to systematically process self-relevant health recommendations.

Design: One hundred and twenty-seven participants (smokers and non-smokers) read a message in which a quit smoking programme was recommended. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: positive versus negative mood, and strong versus weak arguments for the recommended action.

Main outcome measures: Systematic message processing was inferred when participants were able to distinguish between high- and low-quality arguments, and by congruence between attitudes and behavioural intentions. Persuasion was measured by participant's attitudes towards smoking and the recommended action, and by their intentions to follow the action recommendation.

Results: As predicted, smokers systematically processed the health message only under positive mood conditions; non-smokers systematically processed the health message only under negative mood conditions. Moreover, smokers’ attitudes towards the health message predicted intentions to quit smoking only under positive mood conditions.

Conclusion: Findings suggest that positive mood may decrease defensive processing of self-relevant health information.     

Evolution of grain-boundary character distribution during iterative processing of an austenitic stainless steel

The present article deals with the analysis of grain-boundary character distribution (GBCD) and microstructural characteristics after iterative processing of austenitic stainless steel, AISI 316L. The steel was subjected to iterative cold reduction and subsequent annealings. After an initial decrease in the fraction of Σ3 boundaries, the number of these increases in subsequent steps. The results relate the importance of iterative processing and the mechanism of obtaining a higher fraction of Σ3 boundaries.     

On the enhancement of wear resistance of tool steels by cryogenic treatment

The present article aims to resolve the debate on the degree of benefit of processing tool or die steels by cryogenic treatment. This has been done by measuring transition loads for quenched and tempered die steel with and without cryogenic treatment. The wide range of reported degrees of improvement of wear resistance by cryotreatment is explained by the operative modes and mechanisms of sliding wear considering the wear rate ratio of conventionally treated to cryotreated steels on a two-dimensional map.     

Connection between deformation-induced dislocation substructures and martensite formation in stainless steel

We report a quantitative connection between the strain amplitude dependencies of the organisation of dislocation cell substructures with the formation of deformation-induced martensite during cyclic plasticity of austenitic stainless steel at ambient temperature.     

The Familial Context of Creativity: Patterns of Nurturance in Families of Creative Children

This article presents the results of a longitudinal research study undertaken to understand the familial context of creative children. The objective was to identify commonalities and specifics in patterns of nurturance present in the home environments of creative children. The participants, identified using intensity sampling, comprised four children in the age group three to 16 years at the time of selection, who had received public recognition for their creative pursuits; their families, and each child’s guru/coach. Qualitative semi-structured interviews and naturalistic observations were used to understand the dynamic nature of the relationships within the family setting that led to the discovery of the child’s creativity and its subsequent nurturance. Detailed case profiles were developed over a three year period. The case profiles reflected commonalities in the basic processes of nurturance. All the families were cohesive, with the members sharing a commonality of purposes. Parents actively fostered their children’s creativity by allocating resources—money, time and effort; introducing the child to the domain and the field; being closely involved in the learning process; and expressing praise. The uniqueness of the cases lay in the specifics – in the quality of cultural capital available to the families, in the parents’ experiences as children which were the motivational source for parenting. The key feature in nurturance was the synchronicity of purpose created by strong parental motivation to nurture their child’s creativity and the strong internal motivation of the child to persevere in the creative domain.