Curriculum-Integrated Information Literacy (CIIL) in a Community College Nursing Program: A Practical Model

This article describes a strategy to integrate information literacy into the curriculum of a nursing program in a community college. The model is articulated in four explained phases: preparatory, planning, implementation, and evaluation. It describes a collaborative process encouraging librarians to work with nursing faculty, driving students to acquire information literacy competencies, to use information resources as part of their learning process, and to be lifelong learners. The literature reviews the evolution of the concept of informatics in nursing practice and the different blueprints organized to attain information literacy competencies. It also describes studies that have included these competencies into nursing curriculum.     

Refereeing Process in Mathematics and Physics: Meaningful Changes and Models for Improvement

Contemporary scientific publishing in mathematics and physics (as in other exact sciences) is a complex and rapidly changing process. The most important element of this process, namely, the refereeing process is considered. In particular, meaningful changes towards refereeing process in mathematics and physics are identified and predicted. Considering a transition that takes place from the traditional refereeing system to other models and introducing the four basic parameters of the refereeing process, namely, the review stage, the openness for editors, referees and authors, journals and e-journals, feedback and e-feedback, several different models are proposed and described for improving the traditional refereeing system (e.g., 2-stage open and semi-open pre-review models, 1-stage open and blind pre-review models, and 0-stage open post-review models).     

Countering plutocracies: increasing autonomy and accountability through culturally relevant leadership

In urban school districts across the USA there are mandates to implement zero tolerance policies. As this occurs, there is an increasing number of students, specifically students of colour, who are being jettisoned out of the educative process. When school principals have little autonomy regarding how they handle disciplinary infractions within their schools, it becomes relatively easy for them to opt out of making tough decision. The authors assert that Culturally Relevant Leadership is a framework that, if applied correctly, can help school leaders reduce the multiple school suspensions and expulsions that are occurring among students of colour.     

Relations of Children's Effortful Control and Teacher-Child Relationship Quality to School Attitudes in a Low-Income Sample

RESEARCH FINDINGS: The purpose of this study was to examine the relations of children's effortful control and quality of relationships with teachers to school attitudes longitudinally in an ethnically diverse and economically disadvantaged sample. Data were collected as part of a larger intervention project during mid-fall, winter, and late spring (ns = 823, 722, and 758, respectively) for 2 cohorts of 3- to 5-year-olds (collected during 2 different school years). Children's effortful control was assessed in the fall with parents' and teachers' reports and 2 behavioral measures. Teacher-child relationship quality was assessed mid-year with teachers' reports of closeness and conflict. Attitudes toward school were assessed in late spring using teachers' and students' reports of school avoidance and liking. Effortful control, in general, was positively correlated with teacher-child closeness and school liking and negatively correlated with conflict and school avoidance. Using structural equation modeling and controlling for sex and ethnicity, we found that effortful control was positively related to teacher-child relationship quality, which in turn was positively related to school attitudes. Furthermore, the relation of effortful control to school attitudes was mediated by teacher-child relationship quality. PRACTICE OR POLICY: Results provide evidence for the importance of relational processes that take place within the classroom context and have implications for teachers and clinicians working to increase school success in ethnic minority and low-income children.     

Non-centralized control for flow-based distribution networks: A game-theoretical insight

This paper solves a data-driven control problem for a flow-based distribution network with two objectives: a resource allocation and a fair distribution of costs. These objectives represent both cooperation and competition directions. It is proposed a solution that combines either a centralized or distributed cooperative game approach using the Shapley value to determine a proper partitioning of the system and a fair communication cost distribution. On the other hand, a decentralized non-cooperative game approach computing the Nash equilibrium is used to achieve the control objective of the resource allocation under a non-complete information topology. Furthermore, an invariant-set property is presented and the closed-loop system stability is analyzed for the non-cooperative game approach. Another contribution regarding the cooperative game approach is an alternative way to compute the Shapley value for the proposed specific characteristic function. Unlike the classical cooperative-games approach, which has a limited application due to the combinatorial explosion issues, the alternative method allows calculating the Shapley value in polynomial time and hence can be applied to large-scale problems.     

Synthetic hybrid indicators based on scientific collaboration to quantify and evaluate individual research results

Governmental initiatives around scientific policy have progressively raised collaboration to priority status. In this context, a need has arisen to broaden the traditional approach to the analysis and study of research results by descending to the group or even the individual scale and supplementing the output-, productivity-, visibility- and impact-based focus with new measures that emphasize collaboration from the vantage of structural analysis. To this end, the present paper proposes new hybrid indicators for the analysis and evaluation of individual research results, popularity and prestige, that combine bibliometric and structural aspects. A case study was conducted of the nine most productive departments in Carlos III University of Madrid. The findings showed hybridization to be a tool sensitive to traditional indicators, but also to the new demands of modern science as a self-organized system of interaction among individuals, furnishing information on researchers’ environments and the behaviour and attitudes adopted within those environments.     

Cleaning the slate? School choice and educational outcomes in Spain

Using data from a nation-wide survey on Spanish workers, this paper examines two issues: the determinants of school choice (distinguishing between public and private schools) and the influence of school type on the individual’s educational attainment. For that, bivariate probit models are estimated. The analysis is carried out separately by gender and birth cohort. We find that individuals who have attended a private school come from households with higher socio-cultural level and that having attended a private school does not raise the probability of reaching a higher degree, once potential endogeneity of school choice and educational outcomes are taken into account. However, the latter result depends on the instrumental variable used for observed school type in models of demand for higher education.     

Alternative assessment of knee joint muscle balance of soccer players through total work-based hamstring: quadriceps ratios

Isokinetic hamstring-to-quadriceps (H:Q) ratios are frequently used to assess knee muscle strength imbalances and risk of injuries/re-injuries. The use of peak torque (PT) or total work (TW) to estimate joint stability may lead to different results because of the differences between these two neuromuscular variables. Thus, the current study aimed to compare the conventional and functional H:Q ratios calculated by PT and TW. Ninety-three male professional soccer players from Brazilian first division teams performed isokinetic concentric and eccentric contractions of the quadriceps and the hamstrings at 60°/s. Muscle strength balance was calculated using the conventional torque ratio (CTR) and conventional work ratio (CWR), functional torque ratio (FTR) and functional work ratio (FWR) were highly and moderately correlated between them (r?=?0.83 and r?=?0.73, respectively). The Wilcoxon statistical test revealed significant differences between CTR and CWR, as well as FTR and FWR (p?T-test demonstrated significant differences in mean CTR–CWR and FTR–FWR, whereas Bland–Altman plots showed non-consistent bias. In addition, the chi-square test demonstrated significant differences between players below the conventional reference values and functional reference values (p?相似文献   

Effects of inspiratory muscle training in professional women football players: a randomized sham-controlled trial

This study was conducted to determine the effects of inspiratory muscle training (IMT) on respiratory and peripheral muscles oxygenation during a maximal exercise tolerance test and on repeated-sprint ability (RSA) performance in professional women football players. Eighteen athletes were randomly assigned to one of the following groups: SHAM (n = 8) or IMT (n = 10). After a maximal incremental exercise test, all participants performed (on a different day) a time-to-exhaustion (Tlim) test. Peripheral and respiratory muscles oxygenation by near-infrared spectroscopy, breath-by-breath ventilatory and metabolic variables, and blood lactate concentration were measured. The RSA test was performed on a grass field. After a 6 week intervention, all athletes were reevaluated. Both groups showed increases in inspiratory muscles strength, exercise tolerance and RSA performance, however only the IMT group presented lower deoxyhemoglobin and total hemoglobin blood concentrations on intercostal muscles concomitantly to an increased oxyhemoglobin and total hemoglobin blood concentrations on vastus lateralis muscle during Tlim. In conclusion, these results may indicate the potential role of IMT to attenuate inspiratory muscles metaboreflex and consequently improve oxygen and blood supply to limb muscles during high-intensity exercise, with a potential impact on inspiratory muscle strength, exercise tolerance and sprints performance in professional women football players.     

The use of hypermedia in collaborative learning. An approach to the problem of complex systems in the teaching of urban planning / El uso de hipermedia en el aprendizaje colaborativo. Una aproximación al problema de los sistemas complejos en la docencia del urbanismo

The counterpart to the open access to information facilitated by the Internet is the problem of the over-saturation of data and sources. A collaborative model of hypermedia is proposed as a pedagogical approach to the teaching of urban planning in which students organize and construct information from the possibilities provided by hypertext language. The methodology is structured in three phases: organization when searching for information; presentation of information using hypermedia; and assessment of the work. The results show that organization of information in the form of websites obtained the highest scores, although collaborative assessment should be restricted to subjective aspects of communication, while objective aspects should be assessed by the teacher and by groups of experts.