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Topic Review
Peer Assisted Learning and Metacognition
The undergraduate postsecondary experience is a powerful and rich environment for student development academically, socially, and personally. This takes place in the classroom, in co-curricular activities, in work activities, in interpersonal relationships, and through personal reflection. 
  • 284
  • 21 Dec 2023
Topic Review
Peer Effects in Housing Size in Rural China
In recent decades, rural China has witnessed a housing construction boom. In order to control the rapid growth of rural housing, both central and local governments have established quantitative restrictions on the floor numbers and total housing area; however, these have been relatively ineffective. Current research to explain this rapid growth in rural housing tends to consider independent household behavior, while social interactions among villagers are neglected.
  • 573
  • 10 Feb 2022
Topic Review
Peer Pressure
Peer pressure is the direct or indirect influence on people of peers, members of social groups with similar interests, experiences, or social statuses. Members of a peer group are more likely to influence a person's beliefs and behavior. A group or individual may be encouraged and want to follow their peers by changing their attitudes, values or behaviors to conform to those of the influencing group or individual. For the individual affected by peer pressure, this can result in either a positive or negative effect or both. Social groups include both membership groups in which individuals hold "formal" membership (e.g. political parties, trade unions, schools) and cliques in which membership is less clearly defined. However, a person does not need to be a member or be seeking membership of a group to be affected by peer pressure. Research suggests that organizations as well as individuals are susceptible to peer pressure. For example, a large company may be influenced by other firms in their industry or from headquarters. Peer pressure can affect individuals of all ethnicities, genders and ages. Researchers have frequently studied the effects of peer pressure on children and on adolescents, and in popular discourse the term "peer pressure" is used most often with reference to those age-groups. For children, the themes most commonly studied are their abilities for independent decision-making. For adolescents, peer pressure's relationships to sexual intercourse and substance abuse have been significantly researched. Peer pressure can be experienced through both face-to-face interaction and through digital interaction. Social media offers opportunities for adolescents and adults alike to instill and/or experience pressure every day. Studies of social networks examine connections between members of social groups, including their use of social media, to better understand mechanisms such as information sharing and peer sanctioning. Sanctions can range from subtle glances that suggest disapproval, to threats and physical violence. Peer sanctioning may enhance either positive or negative behaviors. Whether peer sanctioning will have an effect depends in part on members' expectations that possible sanctions will actually be applied. It can also depend on a person's position in a social network. Those who are more central in a social network seem more likely to be cooperative, perhaps as a result of how networks form. However, this goes both ways and so they are also more likely to participate in negative behaviors. This may be caused by the repeated social pressures they experience in their networks.
  • 5.4K
  • 07 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Peer Support for Unaccompanied Children
Unaccompanied children refer to those whose parents are still alive but unable to raise them due to various reasons.
  • 276
  • 11 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Peer-to-Patent
The Peer To Patent project is an initiative that seeks to assist patent offices in improving patent quality by gathering public input in a structured, productive manner. Peer To Patent is the first social-software project directly linked to decision-making by the federal government. An initial pilot project in collaboration with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) was completed June 15, 2009. That pilot examined more than 220 patent applications in the fields of software and business methods. The Peer To Patent project has issued two anniversary reports from the initial pilot ( and), and a final report from the initial pilot is pending. Following the conclusion of the initial pilot the USPTO undertook an evaluation of Peer To Patent assisted by students from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. That evaluation concluded that the program had merit and should be continued. On October 19, 2010, the USPTO and New York Law School jointly announced a new pilot program commencing October 25, 2010, and continuing through September 30, 2011 (with the review period extending through December 31, 2011). This new pilot will not only include patent applications covering subject matter included in the initial pilot, it will now include telecommunications, speech recognition, translation, biotechnology, bioinformatics and biopharmaceuticals. Other patent offices involved in pilot programs include IP Australia, the Japan Patent Office, and the Korean Intellectual Property Office. The UK Intellectual Property Office announced on November 4, 2010, that it would commence a pilot in 2011 and the pilot commenced on 1 June 2011.
  • 420
  • 14 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Penal Military Unit
Penal military units, including penal battalions, penal companies, etc., are military formations consisting of convicts mobilized for military service. Such formations may contain soldiers convicted of offenses under military law, persons enrolled in the unit after being convicted in civilian courts or some combination of the two. Service in such units is typically considered a form of punishment or discipline in lieu of imprisonment or capital punishment.
  • 2.6K
  • 02 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Penn State Child Sex Abuse Scandal
The Penn State child sex abuse scandal concerned allegations and subsequent convictions of child sexual abuse committed by Jerry Sandusky, an assistant coach for the Penn State Nittany Lions football team, over a period of at least fifteen years. The scandal began to emerge publicly in March 2011 and broke in early November 2011 when Sandusky was indicted on 52 counts of child molestation, stemming from incidents that occurred between 1994 and 2009. Sandusky was ultimately convicted on 45 counts of child sexual abuse on June 22, 2012, and was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years and a maximum of 60 years in prison. Additionally, three Penn State officials – school president Graham Spanier, vice president Gary Schultz and athletic director Tim Curley – were charged with perjury, obstruction of justice, failure to report suspected child abuse, and related charges. The Penn State Board of Trustees commissioned an independent investigation by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, whose report stated that Penn State's longtime head football coach Joe Paterno, along with Spanier, Curley and Schultz, had known about allegations of child abuse by Sandusky as early as 1998, had shown "total and consistent disregard...for the safety and welfare of Sandusky's child victims", and "empowered" Sandusky to continue his acts of abuse by failing to disclose them.:14 Shortly after the scandal broke, Spanier resigned. The Board of Trustees terminated the contracts of Paterno and Curley. As a result of the scandal, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) imposed sanctions on the Penn State football program: a $60 million fine, a four-year postseason ban, scholarship reductions, and a vacation of all victories from 1998 to 2011. These sanctions were considered to be among the most severe ever imposed on an NCAA member school. NCAA President Mark Emmert stated that the sanctions were levied "not to be just punitive, but to make sure the university establishes an athletic culture and daily mindset in which football will never again be placed ahead of educating, nurturing and protecting young people." The Big Ten Conference subsequently imposed an additional $13 million fine. The Paterno family retained former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh to conduct a review of the Freeh report, which concluded that the report constituted a "rush to injustice" that could not be relied upon and that Freeh's evidence fell "far short" of showing that Joe Paterno attempted to conceal the scandal, but rather that "the contrary is true". In January 2013, state senator Jake Corman and state treasurer Rob McCord sued the NCAA, seeking to overturn the Penn State sanctions on the basis that Freeh had been actively collaborating with the organization and that due process had not been followed. In November 2014, Corman released emails showing "regular and substantive" contact between Freeh's investigators and the NCAA, suggesting that Freeh's conclusions were orchestrated. As part of a settlement, the NCAA restored the 111 wins to Paterno's record on January 16, 2015. On March 25, 2017, Curley, Schultz, and Spanier pleaded or were found guilty of misdemeanor charges of child endangerment. All conspiracy charges against Curley and Schultz were dropped, and Spanier was acquitted of conspiracy, the charges central to Louis Freeh's allegation of a cover-up. In June 2017, all three were sentenced to jail terms, fines, and probation for the misdemeanors. Spanier was sentenced to four to twelve months in jail, a $7,500 fine, and two years of probation. Spanier's misdemeanor conviction was subsequently overturned on appeal.
  • 7.6K
  • 25 Oct 2022
Topic Review
People Feel about Robot-Assisted Surgery
The goal of the entry was to establish the factors that influence how people feel about having a medical operation performed on them by a robot. 
  • 455
  • 14 Dec 2021
Topic Review
People with Aphasia
People with Aphasia (PWA) are individuals who experience difficulties in one or more aspects of communication, such as the ability to speak, understand, read and write, due to acquired brain damage (e.g.stroke, dementia, brain tumour, traumatic brain injury).  
  • 841
  • 27 Oct 2020
Topic Review
People with Intellectual Disability in Nigeria
Intellectual disability (ID) is an emerging field of research in Nigeria. According to Maulik et al., the highest prevalence of people with an intellectual disability (ID) are seen in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). In 2018, the World Health Organization estimated that 29 million people in Nigeria were living with a disability. Nigeria signed the United Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and ratified its optional Protocol in 2010—an attempt to protect the rights of disabled people and, in January 2019, passed the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act 2018.
  • 1.3K
  • 06 Sep 2022
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