Effects of changing speed on knee and ankle joint load during walking and running

Joint moments can be used as an indicator of joint loading and have potential application for sports performance and injury prevention. The effects of changing walking and running speeds on joint moments for the different planes of motion still are debatable. Here, we compared knee and ankle moments during walking and running at different speeds. Data were collected from 11 recreational male runners to determine knee and ankle joint moments during different conditions. Conditions include walking at a comfortable speed (self-selected pacing), fast walking (fastest speed possible), slow running (speed corresponding to 30% slower than running) and running (at 4 m · s^?1 ± 10%). A different joint moment pattern was observed between walking and running. We observed a general increase in joint load for sagittal and frontal planes as speed increased, while the effects of speed were not clear in the transverse plane moments. Although differences tend to be more pronounced when gait changed from walking to running, the peak moments, in general, increased when speed increased from comfortable walking to fast walking and from slow running to running mainly in the sagittal and frontal planes. Knee flexion moment was higher in walking than in running due to larger knee extension. Results suggest caution when recommending walking over running in an attempt to reduce knee joint loading. The different effects of speed increments during walking and running should be considered with regard to the prevention of injuries and for rehabilitation purposes.     

Framing Refuge: Media,Framing, and Sanctuary Cities

The refugee sanctuary movement in the United States has shifted to include undocumented immigrants fleeing violence and economic strife. Given the negative tenor of coverage of undocumented immigration, and ties between framing and policy views on immigration, how the media frames sanctuary cities is likely to impact public perceptions of these cities and their policies. To assess media coverage of sanctuary policies, we analyzed articles from five national newspapers from 1980 to 2017 with both human content analysis and dictionary-based computational analysis. We find that framing around religion/morality and conflict has decreased, while stories focusing on crime and partisanship have increased. We discuss implications for public opinion and the likelihood that the American public will take their cues from media framing and elite discourse when it comes to sanctuary policies.     

Do men and women perform academic work differently?

Tertiary Education and Management - Why is the gender gap so large in researchers’ career progression? Do men and women have different priorities in their academic careers? This study...     

Suprasegmental Phonology Development and Reading Acquisition: A Longitudinal Study

Previous studies implicate suprasegmental phonology in reading acquisition. However, little is known about how suprasegmental sensitivity develops or how it contributes to reading. Here, 130 Spanish primary-school children participated in this 2-year longitudinal study. Nonlinguistic rhythm, lexical-stress sensitivity and metrical-stress sensitivity, along with phonological awareness, vocabulary, nonverbal intelligence, and reading aloud, were assessed on five occasions. Results suggest that prosody abilities have different developmental trajectories and that prosody explains unique variance in reading beyond that explained by other factors. There was some evidence that the contribution of each prosody skill occurred at different phases in reading development. Nonlinguistic rhythm, lexical-stress sensitivity, and metrical-stress sensitivity assessed at the end of kindergarten, the start of Grade 1, and the end of Grade 1, respectively, predicted reading performance 6 months later. Nevertheless, sample size and reliability temper the conclusions that can be made. The implications of prosody skills for literacy development are discussed.     

Differential effects of reading trainings on reading processes: a comparison in Grade 2

Phonics, fluency, and reading strategy trainings are evidence-based interventions that foster the reading skills of poor readers in primary school. The purpose of the present study was to compare differential effects of the three types of trainings on the efficiency of component processes on word, sentence, and text level immediately after the training and at a 3-month follow-up. The 235 poor readers were randomly allocated to one of the reading interventions or to a control condition. All interventions consisted of 25 sessions that were scheduled twice a week and lasted 45 min. Results indicated short-term effects of the phonics training and the strategy training on the efficiency of a broad range of word-level and sentence-level processes. None of the treatment effects persisted over the long term, indicating the need for instructional efforts to regularly practice the acquired skills after the actual training.     

The effects of inter-letter spacing in visual-word recognition: Evidence with young normal readers and developmental dyslexics

Recent research has demonstrated that slight increases of inter-letter spacing have a positive impact on skilled readers' recognition of visually presented words. In the present study, we examined whether this effect generalises to young normal readers and readers with developmental dyslexia, and whether increased inter-letter spacing affects the reading times and comprehension of a short text. To that end, we conducted a series of lexical decision and continuous reading experiments in which words were presented with the default settings or with a small increase in inter-letter spacing. Increased spacing produced shorter word identification times not only with adult skilled readers (Experiment 1), but also with young normal readers (Grade 2 and Grade 4 children; Experiment 2) and, even to a larger degree, with readers with dyslexia (Experiments 3 and 4). These experiments suggest that slight increases in inter-letter spacing would improve the readability of texts aimed at children, especially those with dyslexia.