1,721,077 research outputs found
A short-medium time point evaluation of active breaks on selective and sustained attention in primary school: a pilot quasi-experimental study
Full text linkBackground: A growing body of evidence demonstrates the positive relationship between physical activity and executive function in children. Aims: This study aimed to examine the time course of the effectiveness of active breaks (ABs) in enhancing attention levels among second-grade primary school children compared to traditional teaching methods over a three-month period. Methods: Parents/guardians and teachers of both the experimental group (EG) and the control group (CG) completed a questionnaire assessing the psychometric characteristics of the sample. The EG participated in daily 10-min active breaks for three months, while the CG followed regular teaching methods. Selective attention (SeA, at 30 s) and sustained attention (SuA, at 120 s) were assessed at baseline and monthly (T0, T1, T2, and T3). Results: The EG consisted of 17 children (8.42 ± 0.39 years, 10 females), while the CG included 18 children (8.37 ± 0.42 years, 11 females). The EG generally exhibited higher psychometric scores, although teacher and parent perceptions varied in both groups. SeA levels improved significantly in both groups overtime, but EG demonstrated greater improvements, particularly three months after the introduction of active breaks (p < 0.001). A similar trend also for SuA (p < 0.001). A huge effect size shows larger increases during the third month for both SeA (ES = 1.97) and SuA (ES = 1.46) in favor of EG. Conclusions: Active breaks positively influenced both SeA and SuA. Their effectiveness increased over time, suggesting that a minimum duration of three months is necessary to achieve significant benefits compared to traditional teaching methods in primary education
Aggression and sport: A cross-sectional study on behavioral tendencies of athletes
Full text linkThis cross-sectional study aimed to measure aggression in a more heterogeneous population of athletes, with the purpose of determining whether some specific conditions are related to aggressive behaviour. Athletes of 18-64 years old were enrolled in the study. The Italian version of Buss Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ) was self-administered. A total of 390 questionnaires were collected. Males showed higher levels of physical aggression (19.58 +/- 6.32) than females (15.69 +/- 6.65), p < 0.001 and a significant reduction in all domains of the questionnaire with advancing age, except for physical aggression. Furthermore, subjects who practiced full contact sports showed higher levels of physical aggression (20.23 +/- 6.68) than those who practiced partial contact (17.89 +/- 5.86) or non-contact sports (17.19 +/- 6.64) p < 0.006. Finally, those who have played competitively in the past showed lower levels of anger (14.95 +/- 5.22) than those who have played amateurishly (16.05 +/- 5.54), p < 0.05. Age and gender appeared to be significant in aggression scores. Martial artists and combat sports players showed significantly higher levels of physical aggression than those who practice partial contact or non-contact sports. The type of sport (individual or team players), the practice time (beginners or experts) and the current level of sport (amateurs or competitive players) did not affect the aggression scores. Instead, the past level of sport participation is correlated with current anger
A cross-sectional analysis between physical activity levels, weight status and empathy-related behaviors in a sample of Tuscany primary school children
No full textBACKGROUND: The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between physical activity (PA) and the development of relational empathy skills in children, taking into account weight status. METHODS: Parents/guardians of primary school children were involved in filling out a questionnaire: the Empathy Questionnaire (EmQue-I13) and children were asked to complete the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Children (PAQ-C) to investigate the self -reported PA levels. The weight status was assessed using a self -reported Body Mass Index (BMI). RESULTS: Three hundred seventy parents or guardians of students who attended primary school (8.53 +/- 1.61 yrs) were recruited. The total score was 2.41 +/- 0.89 for PAQ-C and 41.17 +/- 6.32 for EmQue-I13. The three domains of EmQue-I13 were: contagion (8.16 +/- 2.67), attention to others' feelings (19.40 +/- 2.99) and prosocial actions (13.62 +/- 3.01). Linear regression models showed that a higher PAQ-C score was positively associated with empathy -related total score P<0.000. Weight status, age and gender were not associated with EmQue-I13. CONCLUSIONS: Our results underline the positive association between physical activity and the development of relational empathic skills
Association of regional bioelectrical phase angle with physical performance: a pilot study in elite rowers
Full text linkBackground. This study aimed to examine the association between regional Phase Angle (PhA) and physical performance in athletes where the use of specific body segments is required.Methods. Sixteen elite-level rowers (13 male aged 17.6 +/- 2.1 yr; 3 female aged 21.0 +/- 4.4 yr) participated in this investigation. Raw bioimpedance parameters were obtained with a phase-sensitive 50 kHz bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) device and fat-free mass, percentage of fat mass (FM%), and arms and legs lean soft tissue (ALST and LLST, respectively) were estimated using specific BIA-equation developed for athletes. The time (2000t) and the mean power (MP) expressed during the 2000 m test performed on a rowing ergometer were measured.Results. The major findings of the study were that upper hemisome PhA (UPhA) were more strongly related with 2000t (R2 = 0.35, p = 0.015) and MP (R2 = 0.40, p = 0.009) than whole-body PhA. Additionally, not only UPhA maintained a significant relationship with 2000t (p = 0.001) and MP (p = 0.001), even after adjustment for the co-variables sex, ALST, and FM%, but the explained variance increased to R2 = 0.72 and R2 = 0.78, respectively.Conclusions. These results suggest that the regional PhA might be used as a tool for evaluating performance related parameters in sports where specific body segments are involved, preferring it to the whole-body measured value
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
- …
