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View From Outside the Viewing Sphere
Get PDFThe ‘viewing sphere’, as defined by Euclid and explored by Gibson as the ‘optic array’, is generally thought of as wrapped around the eye. Can an observer step out of it? With currently popular photographic techniques, the spectator is forced to, because the viewing sphere is presented as a pictorial object. Then the question is whether human observers are able to use such pictorial representations in an intuitive manner. Can the spectator ‘mentally step into the interior’ of the pictorial viewing sphere? We explore this issue in a short experiment. Perhaps unsurprisingly, because the eye cannot see itself, the short answer is no
Global Matrix 3.0 Physical Activity Report Card Grades for Children and Youth: Results and Analysis From 49 Countries
Get PDFBackground: Accumulating sufficient moderate to vigorous physical activity is recognized as a key determinant of physical, physiological, developmental, mental, cognitive, and social health among children and youth (aged 5–17 y). The Global Matrix 3.0 of Report Card grades on physical activity was developed to achieve a better understanding of the global variation in child and youth physical activity and associated supports. Methods: Work groups from 49 countries followed harmonized procedures to develop their Report Cards by grading 10 common indicators using the best available data. The participating countries were divided into 3 categories using the United Nations’ human development index (HDI) classification (low or medium, high, and very high HDI). Results: A total of 490 grades, including 369 letter grades and 121 incomplete grades, were assigned by the 49 work groups. Overall, an average grade of “C-,” “D+,” and “C-” was obtained for the low and medium HDI countries, high HDI countries, and very high HDI countries, respectively. Conclusions: The present study provides rich new evidence showing that the situation regarding the physical activity of children and youth is a concern worldwide. Strategic public investments to implement effective interventions to increase physical activity opportunities are needed
How child‐centred education favours some learners more than others
Get PDFDebates on how best to educate young children have been raging over the last 100 years—more often fuelled by ideological preferences rather than empirical evidence. To some extent this is hardly surprising given the difficulty of examining pupil progress in a systematic and comparative way. However, the introduction of a new child‐centred curriculum in Wales provides the opportunity to undertake just such an examination. The Foundation Phase curriculum, introduced in 2008, is designed to provide all 3‐ to 7‐year‐olds with a developmental, experiential, play‐based approach to learning. Evidence from a major 3‐year evaluation of this intervention finds that, overall, pupil progress and well‐being is fostered in those settings where the principles of the Foundation Phase have been most closely followed. However, the evidence also suggests that even within these contexts, progress is uneven and that some kinds of children seem to gain more from this approach than others. The ‘losers’ appear to be boys and those living in poverty. Drawing on the theories of Basil Bernstein, the paper explores why this may be the case and examines the relative significance of teacher dispositions, teacher–learner dynamics and the availability of resources. The paper concludes by arguing that these issues will need to be addressed if the benefits of child‐centred approaches are to benefit all
‘Wellness’ lifts us above the Food Chaos’: a narrative exploration of the experiences and conceptualisations of Orthorexia Nervosa through online social media forums
Get PDFThe increasing prevalence of eating disorders has motivated a burgeoning of research from narrative methods to illuminate the cultural and social aspects of disordered eating habits. A seemingly new eating disorder, Orthorexia Nervosa, has gained visibility through the internet sphere and popular media, though scholarly attention has been scarce. This study develops qualitative understandings of the fixation with ‘clean eating’ through narrative inquiry by employing an internet ethnographic approach. Data were analysed using a thematic narrative analysis, focusing on parallels and divergences across narratives presented online. This article presents 30 male and female voices, illustrating how these individuals understand their eating habits through narratives of pursuit, resistance and recovery, which are largely motivated by the desire for physical, emotional and social change. Crucially, this study illuminates a range of cultural elements enabling eating disorders in response to the transmission of cultural values online set within the broader context and processes of reflexive-modernisation
The Effect of Load Deception on Kinetic Variables during the Second Pull from Blocks of the Power Clean
Get PDFStrength & conditioning practitioners often seek novel and applied methods to enhance athletic performance. The purpose of this current research was to examine whether ‘not knowing the load ‘during a mid-thigh pull (MTP) performance led to enhanced performance characteristics across a randomised selection of loads (75%-95% 1RM). Fifteen male collegiate athletes (age 21.8 ± 2.3, height 171.8 ± 7.5 cm, mass 89.3kg ± 9.8kg, MTP 1RM 135.5kg ± 18kg) were selected for the pre 1RM MTP and the 5 post randomised unknown lifts between 75%-95% of individual 1RM. The research demonstrated that unknown loads at 75% 1RM lead to significant changes in average power (AP) (known1062±251 W, unknown1213 ± 289W; p ≤ 0.05; effect size (ES) = 0.56 small). Unknown loads at 75% 1RM lead to significant changes in average velocity (AV) (known: 0.49±0.1, unknown: 0.66 ± 0.10m/s; p ≤ 0.00; ES = 1.66 large). There was also a significant change in peak velocity (PV) at 75% 1RM (known: 0.74±0.16, unknown: 0.95 ± 0.26m/s; p ≤ 0.05; ES = 0.99 moderate). Unknown loads at 80% 1RM lead to significant changes in AV (known: 0.47±0.10 unknown: 0.60 ± 0.10m/s; p ≤ 0.01; ES = 1.36 large). There was no significant difference in AP, AV, peak power (PP) and PV variables across 85, 90, 95% 1RM (p ≥ 0.05; ES = trivial to small). It appears that these findings especially at unknown loads between 75% and 80% 1RM could be beneficial in enhancing velocity-based performance variables. Therefore, the applications of unknown loads are of meaningful practical use to enhance performance variables during weightlifting pulling derivatives. Therefore, weightlifting pulling derivatives are potentially a useful training modality to improve desirable ballistic actions in particular triple extension
A Multi-factor Authentication Method for Security of Online Examinations
Get PDFSecurity of online examinations is the key to success of remote online learning. However, it faces many conventional and non-conventional security threats. Impersonation and abetting are rising non-conventional security threats, when a student invites a third party to impersonate or abet in a remote exam. This work proposed dynamic profile questions authentication to identify that the person taking an online test is the same who completed the course work. This is combined with remote proctoring to prevent students from taking help from a third party during exam. This research simulated impersonation and abetting attacks in remote online course and laboratory based control simulation to analyse the impact of dynamic profile questions and proctoring. The study also evaluated effectiveness of the proposed method. The findings indicate that dynamic profile questions are highly effective. The security analysis shows that impersonation attack was not successful
Stepovers and Signal Detection: Response Sensitivity and Bias in the Differentiation of Genuine and Deceptive Football Actions
Get PDFThe ability to differentiate genuine and deceptive actions was examined using a combination of spatial and temporal occlusion to examine sensitivity to lower body, upper body, and full body sources of visual information. High-skilled and low-skilled association football players judged whether a player genuinely intended to take the ball to the participant’s left or right or intended to step over the ball then take it in the other direction. Signal detection analysis was used to calculate measures of sensitivity (d′) in differentiating genuine and deceptive actions and bias (c) toward judging an action to be genuine or deceptive. Analysis revealed that high-skilled players had higher sensitivity than low-skilled players and this was consistent across all spatial occlusion conditions. Low-skilled players were more biased toward judging actions to be genuine. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves revealed that accuracy on deceptive trials in the lower body and full body conditions most accurately classified participants as high-skilled or low-skilled. The results highlight the value of using signal detection analysis in studies of deceptive actions. They suggest that information from the lower body or upper body was sufficient for differentiating genuine and deceptive actions and that global information concurrently derived from these sources was not necessary to support the expert advantage
Biodurability of Poly Implant Prothèse (PIP) breast implants: A prospective analysis of 1028 prostheses in 514 patients
Get PDFPoly Implant Prothèse (PIP) was a company that manufactured substandard
breast implants using cheaper non-medical grade silicon. Around 40,000 women
in the UK are thought to have PIP implants inserted(1). The advice for Women in
Wales is: seek clinical advice prior to requesting routine removal. If there is
clinical need, the National Health Service (NHS) in Wales funds removal and
replacement of PIP breast implants inserted privately. This is in contrast to NHS
in England where only PIP implants placed on the NHS are replaced.
The Department of Health estimates the rate of implant rupture or significant
silicone bleed for PIP implants could rising to 15-30% after 10 years; whilst
other brands demonstrate rupture rates of 10-14% after 10 years. Therefore,
making this an important issue to address in terms of outcomes, implant
longevity and health economics. We present the largest heterogenous (private
and public health services) experience case series of PIP breast implants to date
Integrated approach to malaria prevention at household level in rural communities in Wakiso district, Uganda: impact evaluation of a pilot project
Get PDFBackground: The integrated approach to malaria prevention, which advocates for the use of several malaria prevention methods at households, is being explored to complement other existing strategies. We implemented a pilot project that promoted the integrated approach to malaria prevention in two rural communities in Wakiso district, Uganda.
Objectives: This paper presents the impact evaluation findings of the project carried out 2 years after implementation with a focus on changes in knowledge and practices on malaria prevention.
Methods: The project evaluation was cross-sectional in design and employed both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. The quantitative survey was conducted among 540 households (household heads being participants) while the qualitative component involved 4 focus group discussions among community health workers (CHWs). Chi-square test was used to compare quantitative results from the evaluation with those of the baseline while thematic analysis was employed for qualitative data.
Results: There was a statistically significant positive change in malaria prevention practices in the evaluation compared with the baseline regarding indoor residual spraying (χ2 = 7.9, p = 0.019), mosquito screening of windows and ventilators (χ2 = 62.3, p = 0.001), and closing windows of houses before 6:00 pm (χ2 = 60.2, p < 0.001). The CHWs trained during the project were found to be highly knowledgeable on the various malaria prevention methods in the integrated approach, and continued to promote their use in the community.
Conclusion: Findings of the impact evaluation give promise that utilisation of integrated malaria prevention can be enhanced if use of multiple methods is promoted in communities
The application of group consensus theory to aid organisational learning and sustainable innovation in manufacturing SMEs
No full textThis paper investigates the exploring of situated knowledge within manufacturing organisations, with employees from a four-tier supply chain utilising a form of Group Consensus Theory (GCT). The implementation of GCT through focus groups as well as individual interviews with participants and observation of group dynamics allowed the authors to characterise the dynamics of learning and application of innovation projects and, identifies the types of innovation strategies in relation to organisational dynamics and knowledge. The aim of the work is to identify the underpinning issues relating to organisational dynamics and organisational learning in relation to innovation. Direct feedback from the SMEs will inform the analysis of how and in what way manufacturers can meet the challenge of increasing the attitudes towards improving innovative activities in companies. This paper extends the theoretical development around organisational learning towards understanding how companies within supply chains learn and innovate. This work therefore focuses upon inter-company learning and innovation which is largely under-developed from a research viewpoint. The method developed is practical, and may be used by organisations for themselves to aid the development of group as well as individual reflection, to stimulate the consideration of change. The results suggest that a clear connection exists between how companies are managed and led and, the resulting organisational learning capabilities of the collaborative team