The effects of changing pace on metabolism and stroke characteristics during high-speed breaststroke swimming

Performances often vary between the heats and finals of breaststroke swimming competitions possibly because the swimmers try to conserve their energy, or for other tactical reasons. Additionally, coaches might advise either a 'positive' or 'even' pace race strategy during the final. The effect of such pacing changes on metabolism (blood lactate, heart rate, ventilation), ratings of perceived exertion, stroke kinematics and turning times have not been investigated. Nine male competitive breaststroke swimmers swam three paced (Aquapacer) 200-m trials, 48 h apart and in random order, at 98%, 100% and at an attempted 102% of their maximal 200-m time-trial speed. Responses in metabolic variables were similar between the 98% and 100% trials, but higher post-exercise blood lactate concentrations and respiratory exchange ratios were observed following the 102% trial. As the pace of trials increased, stroke rate was found to increase proportionately with stroke count. However, during the latter stages of the 100% trial, a disproportionate increase in the stroke count was observed, which led to a significant pacing error. This feature was more obvious in the 102% trial, where participants demonstrated 'positive pacing' and reported higher ratings of perceived exertion than for the 98% trial. During the early stages of the trials, turning times were initially shorter the faster the pace of the trial; however, as the trials progressed, this pattern was found to reverse. We conclude that a slight reduction in pace during near maximal breaststroke swimming altered kinematic but not post-exercise metabolic responses, while an increase in pace led to positive pacing and an increase in both kinematic responses and anaerobic metabolism.     

Cultures of Undergraduate Teaching at Research Universities

Teaching-oriented faculty have received scant attention as a distinctive cultural force. Even among those who would speak on their behalf, undergraduate teachers have been treated as little more than a dependable workforce whose interests are best served by top-down proposals for enhanced recognition and reward. Findings from a five-campus study suggest a more complex reality. Of particular interest is an explicitly oppositional culture that questions both the Scholarship of Teaching model and the ethos of competitive achievement. These views echo the longstanding populist tradition within American higher education and represent a potential counterforce to the recent narrowing of faculty roles.     

Storing and retrieving word phrases

We have developed methods for storing and retrieving large dictionaries of word pairs and other multi-word phrases based on hashed indexing. From analysis of text samples we have derived Zipfian laws for the frequency distributions of word pairs and longer phrases. We show where these Zipfian curves cross and deduce that the number of multi-word phrases which occur frequently in text is surprisingly small, of the same order of magnitude as the number of individual word-types in a text. Dictionaries of phrases are therefore amenable to fast processing with modest computer equipment. Finally, we suggest that in stylistic analysis word phrases might better discriminate between authors than do single words.     

Evaluation of Courses by Whole Student Cohorts: a case study

In a climate of unprecedented change in higher education (HE), accurate and immediate course feedback information is vital to the management of institutions, in assisting the development of course material relevant to present student needs. Student contribution to qualitative course evaluation is commonplace although use of relatively small representative groups of students is usual. However, with class sizes increasing — between 100 and 200 is now common — the ability to acquire accurate qualitative evaluation, representatively, is a major issue. This paper describes a methodology providing opportunity for whole cohort groups of students to be involved simultaneously in the generation of feedback. It considers the effectiveness of student consultation meetings as a collection method, the utility of the results in the course development process, how the issues raised and discussed compare with matters included on a university‐wide questionnaire, and whether participating students feel inhibited in discussing matters so publicly.     

Let's Talk: Parents’ Mental Talk (Not Mind-Mindedness or Mindreading Capacity) Predicts Children's False Belief Understanding

Although one might expect parents’ mind-mindedness (MM; the propensity to view children as mental agents) to relate to everyday mental-state talk (MST) and theory-of-mind capacity, evidence to support this view is lacking. In addition, both the uniqueness and the specificity of relations between parental MM, parental MST, and children's false belief understanding (FBU) are open to question. To address these three gaps, this study tracked 117 preschoolers (60 boys) and their parents across a 13-month period (M_age = 3.94 years, SD = 0.53, at Time 1). Parental MM, MST, and theory-of-mind capacity showed little overlap. Both MM and MST were weakly associated with children's concurrent FBU, but in line with social constructivist accounts, only MST predicted later FBU.     

Gender differences in self-estimates of general, mathematical, spatial and verbal intelligence: Four meta analyses

Four meta-analyses were conducted to examine the magnitude of sex differences in self-estimates of general, mathematical/logical, spatial and verbal abilities. For all but verbal ability males gave significantly higher self-estimates than did females. The weighted mean effect size d for general intelligence was .37, for mathematical .44, for spatial .43 and for verbal .07. As these were significantly heterogeneous, homogeneity analysis was performed to identify moderating factors. These included age, instruction type, country and dominating author's gender. The outcomes were discussed in terms of possible causes of this phenomenon and some concerns about the interpretation of the results were raised.