Validation of the Microsoft Kinect® camera system for measurement of lower extremity jump landing and squatting kinematics

Cost effective, quantifiable assessment of lower extremity movement represents potential improvement over standard tools for evaluation of injury risk. Ten healthy participants completed three trials of a drop jump, overhead squat, and single leg squat task. Peak hip and knee kinematics were assessed using an 8 camera BTS Smart 7000DX motion analysis system and the Microsoft Kinect® camera system. The agreement and consistency between both uncorrected and correct Kinect kinematic variables and the BTS camera system were assessed using interclass correlations coefficients. Peak sagittal plane kinematics measured using the Microsoft Kinect® camera system explained a significant amount of variance [Range_hip = 43.5–62.8%; Range_knee = 67.5–89.6%] in peak kinematics measured using the BTS camera system. Across tasks, peak knee flexion angle and peak hip flexion were found to be consistent and in agreement when the Microsoft Kinect® camera system was directly compared to the BTS camera system but these values were improved following application of a corrective factor. The Microsoft Kinect® may not be an appropriate surrogate for traditional motion analysis technology, but it may have potential applications as a real-time feedback tool in pathological or high injury risk populations.     

The correlation between education and earnings - a comment

In this note, Blaug's article in Volume 1, No. 1, is criticised on the grounds that the economic interpretation of the correlation between education and earnings is based on a mistaken view about the nature of capital; and hence human capital theories are logically incoherent.     

The Forces Shaping National Response(s) to Global Educational Regulatory Initiatives: The Case for Germany and Ontario

This article argues that the stance toward global regulatory initiatives is influenced by the extent to which these regulatory initiatives threaten the comparative institutional advantages of the national economy. The cases through which this proposition is examined are the showpieces of Germany and Ontario: their system of vocational education and training. The article draws on the Varieties of Capitalism literature to explore the factors that implicated the most into the educational reforms introduced in Germany in the context of the Bologna Process. In the case of Ontario, the paper used educational reforms in the context of two OECD reports, Learning for Job and A Skills beyond School. The paper concludes that comparative institutional advantage and the institutional complementarity sustaining it explain the different trajectories countries take in their response to global pressures.     

Development of Intra‐ and Intergroup Judgments in the Context of Moral and Social‐Conventional Norms

Children and adolescents evaluated group inclusion and exclusion in the context of generic and group‐specific norms involving morality and social conventions. Participants (N = 381), aged 9.5 and 13.5 years, judged an in‐group member's decision to deviate from the norms of the group, whom to include, and whether their personal preference was the same as what they expected a group should do. Deviating from in‐group moral norms about unequal allocation of resources was viewed more positively than deviating from conventional norms about nontraditional dress codes. With age, participants gave priority to group‐specific norms and differentiated what the group should do from their own preference about the group's decision, revealing a developmental picture about children's complex understanding of group dynamics and group norms.     

Examining environmental learning experiences at an earth education summer camp

Many barriers restrict children’s access to nature resulting in negative consequences, including a lack of opportunities to learn and engage with the natural environment. Fortunately, environmental education programs offer participants an opportunity to counteract these challenges. While the benefits of environmental education as measured by pre-determined outcomes are well documented, research focused on participants’ perceptions and preferences related to their environmental learning experiences continues to be under-represented in the literature. Using a pre-/post-test survey approach, this study aimed to explore how an earth education summer camp, Sunship Earth ^TM, contributed to participants environmental learning experiences. Results suggest that Sunship Earth ^TM provides children with various EL opportunities that help to increase their understanding of some ecological concepts. Results also suggest that this learning experience may have helped to broaden participants’ understanding of environmental issues and actions, as well as enhance feelings of care, interest, and responsibility towards the environment.     

Bundled or unbundled? A multi-text corpus-assisted discourse analysis of the relationship between teaching and research in UK universities

Creating and disseminating knowledge through research and teaching has long been regarded as the hallmark of the modern university. However, new university business models have called into question the ‘bundling’ of teaching and research, and sustained research on the relationship between teaching and research has found little evidence of an insoluble connection between the two activities. In this article, we explore the relationship between teaching and research from the perspective of universities’ institutional discourse. We use corpus-assisted discourse analysis to examine the relationship between research and teaching as presented in two sets of institutional texts currently influential in UK Higher Education: Research Excellence Framework environment statements and Teaching Excellence Framework provider submissions (a total of 2143 documents and 12,492,071 words). Our findings show that, while universities emphasise the value of research to their teaching, they do not always emphasise (or sometimes even decry) the influence of teaching on their research. We empirically evidence that, according to what universities themselves write in institutional texts, teaching and research are not always in a mutually beneficial entanglement, but often rather a one-way relationship in which research expertise and institutional prestige are used to bolster claims of teaching excellence. This has implications for the communication of both the vision and the purpose of a university in regulatory exercises and wider policy, but also speaks to the broader idea and practice of being a university in the twenty-first century.     

Applications of Augmented Reality in Informal Science Learning Sites: a Review

The importance of increasing interest in the STEM disciplines has been noted in a number of recent national reports. While many previous studies have focused on such efforts inside of the formal classroom, comparatively few have looked closely at informal learning environments. We investigate the innovative use of technology in informal learning by reviewing research on the incorporation of augmented reality (AR) at exhibit-based informal science education (ISE) settings in the literature. We report on the common STEM-focused topics that are covered by current AR applications for ISE learning, as well as the different devices used to support these applications. Additionally, we report on the prevalence of positive learning outcomes and engagement factors commonly associated with the use AR applications in informal environments. This review aims to foster continued development and implementation of AR technology in exhibit-based ISE settings by informing the community of recent findings and promoting additional rigorous research for the future.     

What types of functions may be the lower Bohl function of a diagonal discrete linear time-varying systems?

In this paper, we give the necessary and sufficient conditions for a function f to be a lower Bohl function of a diagonal discrete linear time-varying systems.