BACKGROUND Although early life education for improved long-term health and the amelioration of socioeconomically generated inequalities in chronic disease is advocated in influential policy statements, the evidence base is very modest. AIMS To address this dearth of evidence using data from a representative UK national birth cohort study. METHODS The analytical sample comprised men and wome...

Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) are widespread in higher education today, typically used to deliver instructional materials and facilitate communication within a course. This study aimed to investigate the tasktechnology fit of VLEs for their two main groups of users: instructors and students, using the VLE WebCT. Tasktechnology fit, user satisfaction, attitude towards use and anticipated ...

The control of Citrus tristeza virus (CTV), the causal agent of tristeza disease, is essential to guarantee a productive citrus industry. The specific features of a nursery block make the control of the natural spread of viruses transmitted by vectors more difficult. Thus, the knowledge of the epidemiology of CTV in nursery blocks is basic to the design control strategies of the disease. Two ex...

Many collaborators and graduate and undergraduate students have been involved in the work summarized below. We also thank the Oregon Blueberry Commission, Oregon Raspberry and Blackberry Commission, Oregon Strawberry Commission, Northwest Center for Small Fruits Research, the Washington Blueberry Commission, NIFA-OREI, Fall Creek Farm & Nursery, Oregon Blueberry Farms, Sakuma Bros. Farms & Nurs...

Training and mentorlng Graduate Student Instructors (GS Instructors) at large institutions presents three challenges to instructional developers: 1) training numerous GSInstructors from multipledepartments. 2) the vastarray ofduties GS Instructors needtrainingin. and3) thecontinualsophistication ofGS Instructors. Here wedescribe howthe College ofEngineering at the University ofMichigan has met ...

Learning student names has been promoted as an inclusive classroom practice, but it is unknown whether students value having their names known by an instructor. We explored this question in the context of a high-enrollment active-learning undergraduate biology course. Using surveys and semistructured interviews, we investigated whether students perceived that instructors know their names, the i...

When facilitating asynchronous discussion forums, should online instructors be encouraged to take a prominent ‘sage on the stage’ role, a more constructivist ‘guide on the side’ role, or an ultra low profile as ‘the ghost in the wings’? There is no shortage of anecdotal advice on how to conduct discussion forums in online education, but there appears to be very little research available so far ...

Efforts by universities in sub-Sahara Africa to promote professional development of instructors in course design and delivery by e-learning technologies have often lacked meaningful impacts. This study investigated the impact of collaborative course design on instructors’ professional learning about design and delivery of e-learning courses at the Open University of Tanzania (OUT). Six Teacher ...

Previous research showed that nursery pigs fed deoxynivalenol (DON) contaminated diets supplemented with spray-dried porcine plasma (SDPP) had similar growth rate and feed intake as those consuming noncontaminated diets. In this study, two blocks of 100 weanling pigs were used to determine the optimal inclusion level of spray-dried bovine plasma(SDBP) required in nursery diets contaminated with...

The placoderm fauna of the upper Famennian tetrapod-bearing locality of Strud, Belgium, includes the antiarch Grossilepis rikiki, the arthrodire groenlandaspidid Turrisaspis strudensis and the phyllolepidid Phyllolepis undulata. Based on morphological and morphometric evidence, the placoderm specimens from Strud are predominantly recognised as immature specimens and this locality as representin...