Adapting to changing task demands: variability in children's response to manipulations of resistance and cadence during pedaling

Reduction in performance variability is characteristic of skill acquisition during childhood. Less understood is the role of variability in adaptive skill. The purpose of this study was to determine children's capacity for adapting to changing task requirements. Children ages 4-14 years and adults rode a stationary ergometer at different levels of cadence and resistance. Younger children were less successful in meeting task requirements. When they did succeed, the younger children were more variable. However, no interactions were found. Variability did not change with resistance, and all groups showed increasing variability as cadence increased. It was concluded that in spite of a weaker synergy (more variability), children were adept to changes in task demand within tested limits.     

Application of hands-on simulation games to improve classroom experience

While many construction companies claim substantial productivity and profit gains when applying lean construction principles, it remains a challenge to teach these principles in a classroom. Lean construction emphasises collaborative processes and integrated delivery practices. Consequently, new teaching methods that nurture such values should form the basis of lean construction education. One of the proposed methods is ‘hands-on team simulation games’ which can be employed to replicate various real-life processes, projects, or systems for the purpose of teaching, analysing, and understanding. This study aims at assessing this simulation games and understanding their impact on students’ learning and satisfaction. Surveys and tests are administered to assess changes in student’s perception of their learning styles and their understanding of key lean construction concepts. Results show a positive student reaction to hands-on simulation games, provide pedagogical insights, and highlight suggestions for improvement.     

Solar influences on the cosmic ray intensity at high elevations

Instrument carrying balloon flights using the radio-cosmic-ray technique have been made during the day and the night, to investigate the amount of the diurnal variation at high altitudes. It was found that the effect, if any, is smaller than the experimental error of two per cent., and is estimated to be about 1.5 per cent. of the radiation at these levels. This permits a definite upper limit to be set to any contribution of solar origin to the ionization at levels up to 0.3 meters of water equivalent below the top of the atmosphere, which could be produced by photons in that spectral region to which mass-absorption laws apply, namely X-radiation. The magnitude of the effect is in agreement with the view advanced by Vallarta, that a magnetic field on the sun would produce a small diurnal change in the intensity of the softer portion of the cosmic ray intensity.     

Fear Appeals in Health Communication: Should the Receivers’ Nationality or Cultural Orientation be Taken into Account?

This study investigated the influence of both nationality and cultural orientation on reactions to fear appeal messages including a self-targeted or a family-targeted threat. Participants from Spain (n = 138) and from the Netherlands (n = 127) either read a version of a story that accentuated the misery of a girl suffering from chlamydia, or a version that focused on her parents’ sorrow. Cultural orientation was assessed using a scale for measuring individualism and collectivism, and a scale for measuring familism. Contrary to claims from the earlier studies, neither nationality nor cultural orientation proved to interact with message version on any of the outcome variables.